This puts Anet into a sticky wicket. Thief players want to be stronger, but thieves have to be the weakest.
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The same can be said for mesmers, they are stronger in a small fight/solo since their illusions do not get cleaved down. But do mesmers have a issue in team fights? Yes, unless they run a bunker spec, but are they otherwise totally useless? Not by a long shot, on any build. Thief is just a flawed class by design, nerf its mobility and buff something else (not damage).
It really can’t. Two classes can’t be the weakest. Only one class can be the weakest. Likewise, mesmers don’t have as much mobility and easy access to stealth. The mesmer doesn’t always have first move advantage.
Likewise, I wouldn’t call thieves useless, either. Regardless, there’s a bit of history here. For awhile, there was a gigantic “mesmers are useless” campaign going around. It was so pervasive that Helseth made a video about quitting mesmers because “thief was just so much better”. While no one can deny that mesmer has unique utilities and group support, it didn’t matter because in a straight up fight, thief would beat mesmer. Mesmers were walking bait for thieves: unable to escape, unable to defend themselves.
One of the issues with the Thief is that the whole idea behind the class has a pretty big limitation. Much like how Reapers have to be the most formidable in a straight up brawl, thieves have to be the weakest. Let me explain:
The Thief is a class that has countless escapes and the ability to approach in stealth, so they always have the first strike advantage and they have high burst. This makes them both evasive and aggressive, and changes much of the fight to be not about necessarily killing a thief, but fighting one off. Considering that, if there were a class that was overall weaker in a straight up fight (basically you both whipped out melee weapons and went right up into each others’ face), then that class could never be played. It would auto-lose to the thief, who would approach from stealth and kill the class on the Thief’s own terms.
The Thief class inherently “unfair”, in that sense. While it is fun to play Thieves, it is not fun to be killed by Thieves. So, to balance the theme of a “invisible high burst” class, they have to make everybody stronger. Strong enough that they can fight off a Thief even with their first move advantage. The ability for the Thief to pick and choose their fights mandates this kind of balance.
This puts Anet into a sticky wicket. Thief players want to be stronger, but thieves have to be the weakest. If you increase Thief damage or durability, you run the very real risk of making another class obsolete.
I wouldn’t mind more group buffs, myself. I don’t PVP anymore, so I wouldn’t be able to say what group buffs are needed, but as it stands thieves have to trait pretty heavily to get any sort of team support. An idea I heard once was to make the AoE effect of venoms baseline, and roll the recharge reduction into Leeching Venoms. Restoring some of the lost boon stealing and adding a few more methods of boon stealing is another.
I strongly disagree because every class has something it can bring to the table: Ele has lots of mobility and AoE with great burning, Guardian while lacking mobility gives lots of support as well as DPS and burning, Necro lots of conditions and boon steals, engineers lots of great utility and conditions, ranger healing and outrageous single target ranged damage, and thief…just really has mobility and stealth. Since reveal is around thief needs a buff to make up for stealth’s lost utility. The problem with reveal is if I didn’t want to stealth I wouldn’t and six seconds is more than enough time to kill a thief, thus fake casting with cloak and dagger or black powder isn’t an option and even if it were someone else could just reveal after shadow refuge or some other skill gets casted. This makes stealth unviable and something needs to be given to thief to make up for that.
“Strong enough that they can fight off a Thief even with their first move advantage. "
But it should have to be an uphill battle for whoever the thief hit while it should be the thief’s job to keep that advantage then disengage if he somehow loses it. The problem with thief being weak is its only viable source of damage is melee with big damage or daze being available from stealth and from behind, which means if you try fighting with shortbow someone could type /laugh and still have enough time to kill you the damage is so weak so shortbow is only viable for its 5 ability which doesn’t even damage and cost initiative. Thus, due to the situational and positional nature of the damage it needs to be high to compensate for the skill required. You don’t have the range or healing of a ranger, utility, AoE, or versaility of an elementalist (who always has something off cooldown), etc., so where does one make up the difference? Thief is simply underpowered and was even before reveal came about.
You have completely missed the point. I ended my post saying I wouldn’t mind more group buffs for thieves, then you say you disagree and your whole point is that you want more group buffs for thieves.
Allow me to elaborate: a “straight up fight” means that two players engage each other without any gimmicks or tricks. Basically, it is the product of a character’s DPS and their effective HP, with a few class mechanics thrown in. Whomever is highest will win a “straight up fight”. The Reaper, being the slowest class, must be the most formidable, or else the Reaper could never see play, because everyone would beat the class that happens to be faster and also stronger than the Reaper. This can be extrapolated a bit: If one class is more mobile and evasive than another class, then it also has to be less formidable than the less mobile class. Or else you’ve got a big paper-rock-scissors problem, wherein one class just beats another.
Thus Thieves, being the most mobile and the most evasive, must be the least formidable. The important thing to note here is that this has nothing to do with group utility. Sure, group utility can alleviate some of the pressure, but group utility doesn’t mean squat of class X pummels you every time it walks by, and you can neither fight it off or get away. The dead provide no utility.
The second important thing to note is that this does not mean the thief should never beat another class. What it does mean is that the victory of the thief must be due to trickery and exploiting weaknesses particular to the class they are fighting. If the thief can win just by following you around auto attacking, then we’ve got a big problem.
And this is the dilemma: how do you buff the thief, without making it more formidable than another class in a straight up fight? If you cross that line, then suddenly elementalists or mesmers end up being horrible. As it happens, better group buffs is one such way to do that.
The thief is good for more than mobility and stealth. It is just that this is how everyone plays them. Thieves are potent debuffers, capable of inflicting plenty of poison, weakness, and blind (which cuts healing, cuts damage, cuts endurance regen, and outright avoids attacks). Thieves are also good at control, having multiple sources for immobilize and stun/knockdown. I would like to see these strengths, along with boon stealing, more emphasized, as well a few reworks to traits/skills to give them more group utility.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.