Guild Wars 2

ronpierce.2760:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

ronpierce.2760:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Nutshel.7264:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

The devs in charge of core balance said themselves on Ready Up that “if you believe thief is OP, you do not play one.”

Funny coming from them. It is hilarious how clueless they are about issues of some classes almost as if they didn’t play them at all – not to say that they don’t but sometimes it sure does feel that way

It’s not funny at all. That’s the main reason they keep nerfing the Thief, they don’t play the profession thus they think it is OP.

Some of us are less concerned with strictly “op” and gameplay. Don’t forget how Turret engineers felt. Design can be a real turn off. Feeling lien your enemy can dip whenever doesn’t feel great, especially as a slow profession like Necromancer. And in some cases, yes, Thief design currently is OP, it does push many zerkers out of use.

Are you sure that the problem is the Thief and not the zerker items?

Would you still feel that way if zerker does not exist?

Really hard to tell. But in a game where objectives are HIGHLY important, mobility to the point of getting from place to place in a third of the time really causes a design block for certain classes that can’t really be overcome (Necro/Mesmer) which hurts their usefulness as a roaming role. Maybe not full mobility balance, but that gap needs closed in many ways.

Secondly, I feel shadow arts of way too toxic by design. I offered a (very rough) alternative to some of the more problematic traits in Shadow arts that I feel would benefit both sides of the debate but it was completely ignored. Thief need better staying power and/or alternative role options and players just want thieves to stop camping stealth and resetting fights until they get the jump they need (which goes beyond just conquest as we move into SH and even wvw roaming).

Some suggestions were:
Change Shadow Rejuvination to “Gain shadow Rejuvination when you land a successful stealth attack which heals and gains initiative every 2 seconds over 6 seconds. (Slightly reduced base healing, increased scaling from HP).”
- This reduces the need for stealth camping and even gives thieves a unique way to combat “tank” using stealth as an active form of defense.

Change Shadow Resilience (50% reduced damage in stealth trait) to "Shadow Cloak: Gain protection for 3(4?) seconds upon leaving stealth. This effect had a 5 second cooldown.

And Shadow’s Embrace to: Successful stealth attacks transfer two conditions to your enemy.

Obviously, it’s a very rough list of ideas, but the idea is to discourage camping and reward effective use of stealth while giving thieves a bit of staying power. I feel this is more proactive design would be much better received.

Those are some nice ideas however here is an issue I see with them. They would actually make the thief more powerful than it already is just to get rid of stealth camping.

In Conquest stealth camping means you’re doing nothing for your team points wise. Fighting 1v1 on a point as soon as the thief goes in stealth the opponent starts capping that point. Even thought it’s needed for the bursty backstab it is actually helping the other team by going into stealth. Instead what you are suggesting is instead of the thief having to stay in stealth and not help with point capture is to make them want to come out of stealth more often and faster to be more effective killing machines.

Sure, further balance and number evaluation would need to be taken into consideration, Hence the rough part. But these types of changes at least make the build more active and allows them to take a more balanced approach across the board (while also possibly opening up more diverse builds). I’d much rather fight a thief that has some proactive defenses and is required to land their stealth attacks than one that can smoke field combo forever until they feel like re-engaging and resetting fights until they win. The concept of that play style will always be ill received because by definition it is cheap. People hate cheap. So in turn for cheap and boring, if gladly offer a proactive shadow defense style gameplay.

So I don’t particularly care what happens with thieves either way. Since people think they are so OP, I’d like an option that allows me to have no thieves on my team when I solo queue. This way everyone who thinks the class is OP can be queued on a team with thieves!

Personally, I think thief is the profession where there aren’t very many good players. They lose way more games for my team than they win.

I so agree, I hate the QQ threads as well, if anything thiefs should get a buff, currently they are way too easy to kill.

zinkz.7045:

Thief is still imbalanced, which is why it has had a slot in nearly every team for the entirety of the game, and still does, despite the nerfs, thief can not be balanced by nerfs, its core design is too strong, giving a class best mobility, best engage, best disengage, high burst that is less telegraphed than anything except silly fresh air burst, a lot of low cast time skills, spammable skills, huge access to maybe the most powerful mechanic in the game (stealth), etc is just a broken design that they will never be able to balance by nerfs, it will either be OP so a must have on a team or nerfed into the ground to the point of uselessness.

I don’t agree with this since if Thief is really that imbalance, then why aren’t the teams consists of 5 Thieves then?

Surely the Thief has some use, but by no means it is imbalance.

Some of the core design of thief is mindblowingly bad, for instance skilled play like interrupts should be rewarded, yet we have a class that interrupts are borderline useless against, it is pathetic.

Why do you think a Thief is the best counter to another Thief? It is because one of the reason is because Thief can interrupt the enemy Thief.

So I don’t agree with you on this either.

So when people say thief should not be nerfed anymore, I agree, it should have certain mechanics / core aspects reworked, when there are 8 classes (soon to be 9) and 5 slots in a team, and one class has pretty much had a guaranteed slot for 3 years regardless of the meta, objectively that is very imbalanced.

Are you talking about the Warrior or the Guardian? Perhaps Engineer?

==============
@ronpierce.2760:

Really hard to tell. But in a game where objectives are HIGHLY important, mobility to the point of getting from place to place in a third of the time really causes a design block for certain classes that can’t really be overcome (Necro/Mesmer) which hurts their usefulness as a roaming role. Maybe not full mobility balance, but that gap needs closed in many ways.

Perhaps the problem lies in the map design then?

I don’t really see that this is a problem caused by Thief.

Secondly, I feel shadow arts of way too toxic by design.

I’m not a big fan of Shadow Arts either, so I’m for whatever change is necessary as long as it is compensated some other ways.

Some suggestions were:
Change Shadow Rejuvination to “Gain shadow Rejuvination when you land a successful stealth attack which heals and gains initiative every 2 seconds over 6 seconds. (Slightly reduced base healing, increased scaling from HP).”
- This reduces the need for stealth camping and even gives thieves a unique way to combat “tank” using stealth as an active form of defense.

You do realized that this suggestion is going to make stealth to last 6s instead of 3s right?

Change Shadow Resilience (50% reduced damage in stealth trait) to "Shadow Cloak: Gain protection for 3(4?) seconds upon leaving stealth. This effect had a 5 second cooldown.

This will cause problem since you’re basically rewarding reckless backstabbing. Think about it. I cast CnD, then backstab you — instead of creating a gap, I can now stay and auto-attack without any problem, not to mention how OP this will be when traited with Revealed Training. +200 Power and Protection after a Backstab = OP.

And Shadow’s Embrace to: Successful stealth attacks transfer two conditions to your enemy.

I’m sorry but this is a bad idea. Imagine if you applied Immobilized on me and I CnD->Steal at you? You’re now immobilized while I escaped in stealth.

Obviously, it’s a very rough list of ideas, but the idea is to discourage camping and reward effective use of stealth while giving thieves a bit of staying power. I feel this is more proactive design would be much better received.

As a Thief, I have expressed my opinion based om my personal experience why these suggestions will never work. This is just my opinion — feel free to disagree.

You know a thread is going no where when warriors are demanding nerfs

How many teams ran 2 thieves vs 2 warriors

Honestly speaking warriors should be gutted.

T raw.4658:

You know a thread is going no where when warriors are demanding nerfs

How many teams ran 2 thieves vs 2 warriors

Honestly speaking warriors should be gutted.

To be fair; Thief is “Over powered” (and yes, it is) at a specific role, which is roaming burst and mobility capper.

Warrior is OP at team fighting and support roles. It should be fairly obvious why one is more likely to be stacked than the other. Just because a thief is terrible when stacked because they are just too squishy to fight on point doesn’t mean they aren’t a bit over the top for the role they take up. 5 zerker warriors, 5 shatter Mesmers, 5 power rangers and 5 zerker necros would also likely be pretty bad outside of some trolly moments.

Common mistake to use the “thief stacking is bad so thief is bad” logic, but it is just that, a mistake. Different builds fill entirely different roles, but that doesn’t mean within its classification it can’t also be too strong. Apples and oranges.

ronpierce.2760:

T raw.4658:

You know a thread is going no where when warriors are demanding nerfs

How many teams ran 2 thieves vs 2 warriors

Honestly speaking warriors should be gutted.

To be fair; Thief is “Over powered” (and yes, it is) at a specific role, which is roaming burst and mobility capper.

Warrior is OP at team fighting and support roles. It should be fairly obvious why one is more likely to be stacked than the other. Just because a thief is terrible when stacked because they are just too squishy to fight on point doesn’t mean they aren’t a bit over the top for the role they take up. 5 zerker warriors, 5 shatter Mesmers, 5 power rangers and 5 zerker necros would also likely be pretty bad outside of some trolly moments.

Common mistake to use the “thief stacking is bad so thief is bad” logic, but it is just that, a mistake. Different builds fill entirely different roles, but that doesn’t mean within its classification it can’t also be too strong. Apples and oranges.

Uncontestable Logic !

ronpierce.2760:

T raw.4658:

You know a thread is going no where when warriors are demanding nerfs

How many teams ran 2 thieves vs 2 warriors

Honestly speaking warriors should be gutted.

To be fair; Thief is “Over powered” (and yes, it is) at a specific role, which is roaming burst and mobility capper.

Warrior is OP at team fighting and support roles. It should be fairly obvious why one is more likely to be stacked than the other. Just because a thief is terrible when stacked because they are just too squishy to fight on point doesn’t mean they aren’t a bit over the top for the role they take up. 5 zerker warriors, 5 shatter Mesmers, 5 power rangers and 5 zerker necros would also likely be pretty bad outside of some trolly moments.

Common mistake to use the “thief stacking is bad so thief is bad” logic, but it is just that, a mistake. Different builds fill entirely different roles, but that doesn’t mean within its classification it can’t also be too strong. Apples and oranges.

But i think warrior should be gutted since my support thief cant compete with support warrior. I mean warrior is pushing my support thief out of support role since its so crazy broken.

Time to flood the forum with some warrior nerf threads, its non sense that my support thief is not viable because warrior is so much better…

T raw.4658:

You know a thread is going no where when warriors are demanding nerfs

How many teams ran 2 thieves vs 2 warriors

Honestly speaking warriors should be gutted.

So warriors should be gutted on what basis? Because they can bunker?

Why gut warriors when you can kill off thief to have 2 shout bows + 1 Nike

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I don’t agree with this since if Thief is really that imbalance, then why aren’t the teams consists of 5 Thieves then?

There are 8 classes 5 slots, when 1 class nearly permanently gets a slot that is imbalanced.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Why do you think a Thief is the best counter to another Thief? It is because one of the reason is because Thief can interrupt the enemy Thief.

LOL, so the answer to counter broken is counter with the same broken class, nor is just the low cast time skills, it is the “punishment” other classes skills go on a cooldown, in fact I seem to remember, though it has been a long time since I checked that you didn’t even lose the initiative cost, depending on the skill and where in the animation you were interrupted or have they fixed it now. (talking weapon skills obviously, though BS like withdraw is also silly)

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Are you talking about the Warrior or the Guardian? Perhaps Engineer?

Erm no, neither warrior nor engy have been permanent must have picks for 3 years, warrior was not on many teams for a long time, engy was ok for a long time, but it is only since cele it has been on nearly every team like a thief has for three years. Bunker guard was on nearly every team for a very long time, and now you have lots of medi guards, but really it isn’t the same thing.

Now things like cele engy, shoutbow, medi guard, etc may be OP, however these are balanceable, thief is not.

Thief has had plenty of nerfs and it has not solved the real issues, even after all these nerfs there is still a thief on nearly every team, it is still far too good as a roamer and plus 1, to the point no other class can compete, most can’t even compete simply as a glass cannon, even without taking the roaming/+1 ability of thief into account, the basic design of thief is broken OP, and the only way to balance it is to rework some core aspects, it is as simple as that.

Though feel free to explain why it is balanced that one class should almost have a guaranteed spot regardless of meta, regardless of balance changes, when there are 5 slots to share between 8 classes.

we just need wards – an aoe spell that reveals all stealthed units. stealth has zero counterplay in this game. with mesmers it’s balanced because it doesn’t last very long.

also, range on shadowstep needs to get nerfed. it’s pretty stupid right now as it also has no counterplay.

zinkz.7045:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I don’t agree with this since if Thief is really that imbalance, then why aren’t the teams consists of 5 Thieves then?

There are 8 classes 5 slots, when 1 class permanently gets a slot that is imbalanced.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Why do you think a Thief is the best counter to another Thief? It is because one of the reason is because Thief can interrupt the enemy Thief.

LOL, so the answer to counter broken is counter with the same broken class, nor is just the low cast time skills, it is the “punishment” other classes skills go on a cooldown, in fact I seem to remember, though it has been a long time since I checked that you didn’t even lose the initiative cost, depending on the skill and where in the animation you were interrupted. (talking weapon skills obviously, though BS like withdraw is also silly)

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Are you talking about the Warrior or the Guardian? Perhaps Engineer?

Erm no, neither warrior nor engy have been permanent must have picks for 3 years, warrior was not on many teams for a long time, engy was ok for a long time, but it is only since cele it has been on nearly every team like a thief has for three years. Bunker guard was on nearly every team for a very long time, and now you have lots of medi guards, but really it isn’t the same thing.

Now things like cele engy, shoutbow, medi guard, etc may be OP, however these are balanceable, thief is not.

Thief has had plenty of nerfs and it has not solved the real issues, even after all these nerfs there is still a thief on nearly every team, it is still far too good as a roamer and plus 1, to the point no other class can compete, most can’t even compete simply as a glass cannon, even without taking the roaming/+1 ability of thief into account, the basic design of thief is broken OP, and the only way to balance it is to rework some core aspects, it is as simple as that.

Though feel free to explain why it is balanced that one class should permanently have a guaranteed spot regardless of meta, regardless of balance changes, when there are 5 slots to share between 8 classes.

Abjured won the last ESL monthly without a thief… against a team that used a thief. But here you are saying that thief is a must have in every team comp… hmm…

mistsim.2748:

we just need wards – an aoe spell that reveals all stealthed units. stealth has zero counterplay in this game. with mesmers it’s balanced because it doesn’t last very long.

also, range on shadowstep needs to get nerfed. it’s pretty stupid right now as it also has no counterplay.

I will admit, my biggest hate for stealth is that they have it on a non-contact weapon set (dp) which gives too much freedom. I’d be fine with lower utility CDs with stealth or longer lasting stealth, or at least Dagger 5 which requires hitting, p5 really annoys me. I understand thieves think it’s skillful but, really. No game should have a spammable combat stealth, I’m sorry. It’s just not fun to play against whatsoever. Unfortunately it’s way too late in the game to change this, but I personally disagree with the idea of it. If it was like Mesmer where it was cooldown management (ie utilities only) I wouldn’t care so much.

Sizzle Hint.1820:

zinkz.7045:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I don’t agree with this since if Thief is really that imbalance, then why aren’t the teams consists of 5 Thieves then?

There are 8 classes 5 slots, when 1 class permanently gets a slot that is imbalanced.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Why do you think a Thief is the best counter to another Thief? It is because one of the reason is because Thief can interrupt the enemy Thief.

LOL, so the answer to counter broken is counter with the same broken class, nor is just the low cast time skills, it is the “punishment” other classes skills go on a cooldown, in fact I seem to remember, though it has been a long time since I checked that you didn’t even lose the initiative cost, depending on the skill and where in the animation you were interrupted. (talking weapon skills obviously, though BS like withdraw is also silly)

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Are you talking about the Warrior or the Guardian? Perhaps Engineer?

Erm no, neither warrior nor engy have been permanent must have picks for 3 years, warrior was not on many teams for a long time, engy was ok for a long time, but it is only since cele it has been on nearly every team like a thief has for three years. Bunker guard was on nearly every team for a very long time, and now you have lots of medi guards, but really it isn’t the same thing.

Now things like cele engy, shoutbow, medi guard, etc may be OP, however these are balanceable, thief is not.

Thief has had plenty of nerfs and it has not solved the real issues, even after all these nerfs there is still a thief on nearly every team, it is still far too good as a roamer and plus 1, to the point no other class can compete, most can’t even compete simply as a glass cannon, even without taking the roaming/+1 ability of thief into account, the basic design of thief is broken OP, and the only way to balance it is to rework some core aspects, it is as simple as that.

Though feel free to explain why it is balanced that one class should permanently have a guaranteed spot regardless of meta, regardless of balance changes, when there are 5 slots to share between 8 classes.

Abjured won the last ESL monthly without a thief… against a team that used a thief. But here you are saying that thief is a must have in every team comp… hmm…

We are talking about the abjured here. Lol. How long have they been on top? Also, FYI they used cele stacking thats why they won. It has nothing to do with anything, cele is broken too. so… wheres your point again?

If a team used that abjured comp and the abjured ran a thief, who do you think who would win?

These comparisons are…..In order to defend thief..

Sizzle Hint.1820:

Abjured won the last ESL monthly without a thief… against a team that used a thief. But here you are saying that thief is a must have in every team comp… hmm…

For three years, there has been a thief on nearly every team, with the odd rare exception like TP, until eventually even they switched to thief, Pax final, WTS finals, etc, thief on each team, EU qualifiers TCG – thief, Orange Logo- thief, MC – thief, etc, that the odd team runs no thief occasionally, changes nothing, the class is and has been vastly overrepresentated for the entire game, for a very simple reason it is too strong at what it does.

P.S – I am pretty sure Abjured could win NA with all sorts of comps, given the general lack of competition.

Lol overrepresented… If that is the case, ask anet to make other professions good at thief’s job. You’ll make the profession suck as much as if you directly nerfed it.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Lol overrepresented… If that is the case, ask anet to make other professions good at thief’s job. You’ll make the profession suck as much as if you directly nerfed it.

Another incoherent argument, seriously?

Its a lot better than pointless flaming, buddy.

Xom.9264:

yolo swaggins.2570:

the guy who killed you on his thief is now using the same profession you use and keeps killing you? I think the proper term here is poetic justice.

The average thief player doing well on a real class? lol no I think not. They would mostly roll pewpew ranger and that’s fine because it has counters.

I feel like butting in here. I started as thief on every game mode and had to endure alot of playful ridicule from my guildies for dropping dead more often than others (though thief was really really good at pvp back then). After thief I tried other professions and suddenly I was (almost) always the last man standing. Why? I was forced to learn to dodge and read all the different situations sooner than my guildies whom didn’t play a thief. Incidentally, most of my guildies who did try a thief sooner or later didn’t play it for very long.

Imo once you’ve played thief long enough, all the other professions will be easy afterwards. That’s how it was for me.

zinkz.7045:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I don’t agree with this since if Thief is really that imbalance, then why aren’t the teams consists of 5 Thieves then?

There are 8 classes 5 slots, when 1 class nearly permanently gets a slot that is imbalanced.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Why do you think a Thief is the best counter to another Thief? It is because one of the reason is because Thief can interrupt the enemy Thief.

LOL, so the answer to counter broken is counter with the same broken class, nor is just the low cast time skills, it is the “punishment” other classes skills go on a cooldown, in fact I seem to remember, though it has been a long time since I checked that you didn’t even lose the initiative cost, depending on the skill and where in the animation you were interrupted or have they fixed it now. (talking weapon skills obviously, though BS like withdraw is also silly)

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Are you talking about the Warrior or the Guardian? Perhaps Engineer?

Erm no, neither warrior nor engy have been permanent must have picks for 3 years, warrior was not on many teams for a long time, engy was ok for a long time, but it is only since cele it has been on nearly every team like a thief has for three years. Bunker guard was on nearly every team for a very long time, and now you have lots of medi guards, but really it isn’t the same thing.

Now things like cele engy, shoutbow, medi guard, etc may be OP, however these are balanceable, thief is not.

Thief has had plenty of nerfs and it has not solved the real issues, even after all these nerfs there is still a thief on nearly every team, it is still far too good as a roamer and plus 1, to the point no other class can compete, most can’t even compete simply as a glass cannon, even without taking the roaming/+1 ability of thief into account, the basic design of thief is broken OP, and the only way to balance it is to rework some core aspects, it is as simple as that.

Though feel free to explain why it is balanced that one class should almost have a guaranteed spot regardless of meta, regardless of balance changes, when there are 5 slots to share between 8 classes.

This post right here show’s how ignorant people are in this thread.

Engi guard and warrior can be balanced but thieves cannot…..lol

zinkz.7045:

Sizzle Hint.1820:

Abjured won the last ESL monthly without a thief… against a team that used a thief. But here you are saying that thief is a must have in every team comp… hmm…

For three years, there has been a thief on nearly every team, with the odd rare exception like TP, until eventually even they switched to thief, Pax final, WTS finals, etc, thief on each team, EU qualifiers TCG – thief, Orange Logo- thief, MC – thief, etc, that the odd team runs no thief occasionally, changes nothing, the class is and has been vastly overrepresentated for the entire game, for a very simple reason it is too strong at what it does.

P.S – I am pretty sure Abjured could win NA with all sorts of comps, given the general lack of competition.

People are saying thief is mandatory for every single team composition. The abjured ran a team composition without a thief. Won a cash tournament with it. If thief would be as broken and overpowered, why would they decide against running a thief in a cash tournament? Maybe they decided to cripple their team composition on purpose? Or they thought that a thief doesnt bring as much to their team comp as another class which means thief wasnt mandatory in their eyes?

Hold on with judgements till the balance patch.

The balance may as well throw itself out of the window for couple professions, including Thief.

One thing I always wanted to see is more amulets working with Thief, not just Zerker or Condi one.

Rym.1469:

Hold on with judgements till the balance patch.

The balance may as well throw itself out of the window for couple professions, including Thief.

One thing I always wanted to see is more amulets working with Thief, not just Zerker or Condi one.

Hopefully these changes make stealth more of an option rather than a requirement.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Rym.1469:

Hold on with judgements till the balance patch.

The balance may as well throw itself out of the window for couple professions, including Thief.

One thing I always wanted to see is more amulets working with Thief, not just Zerker or Condi one.

Hopefully these changes make stealth more of an option rather than a requirement.

Yeah and hopefully opens up to more viable build options.