Guild Wars 2

Shay.7534:

Mrbig.8019:

It’s always the same: people having no idea about how the class works throwing crap at it.

It’s always the same: thieves having no idea about how their class works throwing crap at other people.
In the Thief Macro thread there is a guy telling Eristina, one of the most knowledgeable players on the EU scene saying there is no macro out there and nothing is wrong with 4 hits thrown from stealth because of haste bypassing culling.
In this thread, you are telling Xeph again one of the most knowledgeable players that he doesn’t know how thief actually works.
I show you S/P thief with 400 QPs ( rank 20 before he quit ) and you tell me i’m talking bs and thief is useless without oneshot.
Shadow refuge, steal with boon stealing and vigor sharing , the best mobility in game, caltrops ( not the trait, the utility ) , blinding powder , venom share, crowd control are just useless stuff that only noobs take. But no, no and no – we NEED to feel like gods with our big big numbers while yelling in voice chat : “LOL what a noob, i just oneshotted that guy.”

There are only 2 cases I feel my team is at disadvantage using a Pistol/Dagger thief:
1) When their team has one more ele then we do ( but that’s another story)
2) When their team has a very good backstab thief ( ex: Kirei, Lowell, Jexster and a few others )

The only thing making other specs for thieves feel useless is the kitten backstab build.

This game would feel so much better if bunkering and burst was toned down but people wouldn’t feel as good when they oneshot a guy and the opponent team crumbles due to number advantage, wouldn’t we?

Dude, you really can’t read.

I AM IN FAVOR OF REDUCING THE BURST, not only for thieves, but for other classes overall.

I’m just pointing out weaknesses of other thief builds, and the reason why they’re suboptimal to other classes builds.

1. S/P burst deals less damage than a backstab build, and is more easily countered by retaliation, protection and armor in general.

Moreover PW damage was nerfed by 15 % ( with 2x crit multiplier, it’s a 30% overall damage reduction if every attack crits), explaining one of the reason why your “friend” quit the game ( S/P builds became heavily subpar after the nerf).

This is a fact, stop arguing against it.

2. P/D and thief condition builds are 1vsX builds, more suited for WvWvW than tPvP, due to lack of condition spreadt anddue to being countered more easily by condition removal.

Even more since you can’t contest points while stealthed, and those builds require heavy stealth uptime in order to sustain their damage.

Basically, if you want a condi build, you would be ten times better off with a trap ranger or a condi necro, classes that also have more AoE capabilities than a thief would ever dream of in the current state of balance.

This is a fact, stop arguing against it.

3. Boon sharing is very weak for a thief, basically something like vigor-fury-swiftness every 35-40 SECS AT BEST. Any ele would be capable to do it better than a thief, without losing anything in the damage department.

4. Control thieves ( S/D) seriously lack in the damage department, have no burst and were nerfed into oblivion.
Nothing than a mesmer wouldn’t do ten times better, while having more mobility, more burst and more support ( illusion of life, portal, time warp).

Same for an ele.

Lol even engies are better at control than a S/D thief currently, and engies are nearly useless and not wanted in tPvP.

This is a fact, stop arguing against it .

And lol, what is the fuss for a rank 20 ? i’m rank 36, i’ve been playing this game from its beta testing. Does it make me better for a judgement ?

Of course not, so if you want to discuss, discuss following reason.

Do you want another opinion ?

Here it is Narcarsis opinion, a guy telling exactly the same things i’m telling you ( altough with a more narrow mind focused on glass cannon playstyle), playing for team paradigm in NA and being considered one of the most skilled thieves in NA.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/How-to-fix-my-class-for-PvP/page/2#post1121648

And, ofc, i’m saying that thieves , unless built for burst, are heavily sub.par in every aspect FOR CURRENT STATE OF BALANCE.

If they nerf across all boards burst and bunkering, maybe other options ( surely not P/D or D/D condi, builds needing serious buff in order to become viable in tPvP, altough frustrating to play against) will become more viable, but i can’t really say anything about it, because i’m no foreteller.

Fact is that any other thief build, aside MH dagger burst, is no good for competitive gameplay.

Stop this nonsense.

@Mrbig: I read that post/thread … and I can’t see you two agreeing. Even in the thread you say you agree, but he said you misread him …. so. But whatever: I think he makes sense.
And I don’t get this: You are afraid of being pigeonholed … and then you turn to ele???
I really wish the best for thieves: That they are balanced and fun … and balanced … so we can have a fun game for all. It shouldn’t be hard to spot, what the current burst do to both the pvp-activity of casuals and the game in general.

If thiefs are so overpowered, how come the top players in paids tend to stack eles,mesmers and guardians, and thiefs are less common?

Thiefs are middle of the pack in terms of balance, certainly not weak, but hardly to write home about.

Mrbig.8019:

cottage.3274:

Med.6150:

The solution is to nerf the damage modifiers that you can pick up through traits, nothing else. It’s obvious to anybody who has actually put some thought into it and actually played it.

Why do scholar runes add such a huge amount of damage? Why can you pick up 4 traits with damage multipliers of 10, 10 , 20 and 5% respectively that are additive? That’s the root of the issue.

Obviously this needs to happen at the same time as bunkers are nerfed.

what you say is very true
but
1)fix to this will hurt every build not the problematic bs .
2) anet will not likely do this massive revamp in the near future.
3) true and true again to nerf bunkers but this need to happen in the same time as burst nerf.

Mrbig i don’t see it the way you are,thieves can go venom share and they have good group utilities they can share boons & so on & so on
but i do agree thats not as viable as just going burst romer in the current state of the meta.

anet sure needs to give some buff to group support to the profession maybe then we wont see so many cheesy builds.
this role realy need to viable for a thief.

Nope, thieves can’t go venom share.

Condition thieves are useless in a team environment, venom share are the "less"useless among them but they don’t give consistent advantage to your team, neither they give your team decent sustain, and drop like flies to burst.

They can spread a very little amount of conditions, easily AoE removed by a single ele dodging in water attunment.

Currently burst is the only way to play as a thief, and that’s why we only play burst: because we have no other choice.

without burst, the thief is the worst class in the game, yet people is too dedicated to QQs instead of thinking about a way to balance this game.

You’re making the same argument as most eles who swear by the 0/10/0/30/30 build while there are eles out there who run a burst build or full glass cannon build, an ele with no EA and water remove condition is far from being useless ..on the contrary.

Thieves got traps-deception and of course venoms, a support thief is completely viable in my opinion..

Arheundel.6451:

Mrbig.8019:

cottage.3274:

Med.6150:

The solution is to nerf the damage modifiers that you can pick up through traits, nothing else. It’s obvious to anybody who has actually put some thought into it and actually played it.

Why do scholar runes add such a huge amount of damage? Why can you pick up 4 traits with damage multipliers of 10, 10 , 20 and 5% respectively that are additive? That’s the root of the issue.

Obviously this needs to happen at the same time as bunkers are nerfed.

what you say is very true
but
1)fix to this will hurt every build not the problematic bs .
2) anet will not likely do this massive revamp in the near future.
3) true and true again to nerf bunkers but this need to happen in the same time as burst nerf.

Mrbig i don’t see it the way you are,thieves can go venom share and they have good group utilities they can share boons & so on & so on
but i do agree thats not as viable as just going burst romer in the current state of the meta.

anet sure needs to give some buff to group support to the profession maybe then we wont see so many cheesy builds.
this role realy need to viable for a thief.

Nope, thieves can’t go venom share.

Condition thieves are useless in a team environment, venom share are the "less"useless among them but they don’t give consistent advantage to your team, neither they give your team decent sustain, and drop like flies to burst.

They can spread a very little amount of conditions, easily AoE removed by a single ele dodging in water attunment.

Currently burst is the only way to play as a thief, and that’s why we only play burst: because we have no other choice.

without burst, the thief is the worst class in the game, yet people is too dedicated to QQs instead of thinking about a way to balance this game.

You’re making the same argument as most eles who swear by the 0/10/0/30/30 build while there are eles out there who run a burst build or full glass cannon build, an ele with no EA and water remove condition is far from being useless ..on the contrary.

Thieves got traps-deception and of course venoms, a support thief is completely viable in my opinion..

Name one top team using one?
Viability is a claim that needs to be proved by winning matchs against the top competition, its not something one just asserts.

daydream.2938:

Arheundel.6451:

Mrbig.8019:

cottage.3274:

Med.6150:

The solution is to nerf the damage modifiers that you can pick up through traits, nothing else. It’s obvious to anybody who has actually put some thought into it and actually played it.

Why do scholar runes add such a huge amount of damage? Why can you pick up 4 traits with damage multipliers of 10, 10 , 20 and 5% respectively that are additive? That’s the root of the issue.

Obviously this needs to happen at the same time as bunkers are nerfed.

what you say is very true
but
1)fix to this will hurt every build not the problematic bs .
2) anet will not likely do this massive revamp in the near future.
3) true and true again to nerf bunkers but this need to happen in the same time as burst nerf.

Mrbig i don’t see it the way you are,thieves can go venom share and they have good group utilities they can share boons & so on & so on
but i do agree thats not as viable as just going burst romer in the current state of the meta.

anet sure needs to give some buff to group support to the profession maybe then we wont see so many cheesy builds.
this role realy need to viable for a thief.

Nope, thieves can’t go venom share.

Condition thieves are useless in a team environment, venom share are the "less"useless among them but they don’t give consistent advantage to your team, neither they give your team decent sustain, and drop like flies to burst.

They can spread a very little amount of conditions, easily AoE removed by a single ele dodging in water attunment.

Currently burst is the only way to play as a thief, and that’s why we only play burst: because we have no other choice.

without burst, the thief is the worst class in the game, yet people is too dedicated to QQs instead of thinking about a way to balance this game.

You’re making the same argument as most eles who swear by the 0/10/0/30/30 build while there are eles out there who run a burst build or full glass cannon build, an ele with no EA and water remove condition is far from being useless ..on the contrary.

Thieves got traps-deception and of course venoms, a support thief is completely viable in my opinion..

Name one top team using one?
Viability is a claim that needs to be proved by winning matchs against the top competition, its not something one just asserts.

So as long as the top teams don’t run it..it’s not viable, likewise a burst ele is not viable compared to thief/mesmer if so why people still complain if ele play tanky? isn’t that a pigenholed set up as well?

No, if a top team cant use it against other top teams and win their fair share, its not viable. Not all specs are equal dude, in any game.
And when you claim a spec is viable, yet no top players are using it.
That says its probably not that good.

So we are to base the viability of class specs on whether or not the smallest percentage of players in the game use them? I am so glad that they can make decisions on class mechanics and viability for us.

daydream.2938:

If thiefs are so overpowered, how come the top players in paids tend to stack eles,mesmers and guardians, and thiefs are less common?

Thiefs are middle of the pack in terms of balance, certainly not weak, but hardly to write home about.

You have said this before, and let me answer it: Stop turning the thread into 1 dimension and get a broader view. Let me elaborate, if you don’t understand what I am saying. Ele’s in particular bring a lot to the group, not to mention their own capability to survive … trust me, ele’s are gonna get their turn as well. I am not sure if the bugs with guardians persists, but if they do, some of them are really unfun for other players as well … I believe they should be addressed as well. Mesmers … especially TW & Portal have been under heavy fire since forever – if you take these things away and compare their talents to fx the thief I doubt you would trade.
Now … that some classes have some imbalances doesn’t in any way validate, that other classes should have imbalances as well. On the contrary. That is really the culprit, and it should be blatantly obvious why is it so.

I think burst is a good thing … insta-gibbing someone from 50-0 or even 75-0 is not a good thing. It happens on anything from 3.3k armor and downwards. Do you in all seriousness think it is healthy for a game to be promoted by a class than can do this? And do you thinnk the numbers of active players will rise because of this or decline? Will it promote more ppl playing thieves or being the lambs that get slaughtered? And is the development healthy?

No one in their right mind wants thieves to be unplayable. A new balance will occur, once classes are balanced. Maybe other aspects of thieves will be promoted, and thieves will contribute more along with being more durable … who knows. Maybe they will have more builds (hopefully) that are viable and fun … for all.

daydream.2938:

Arheundel.6451:

Mrbig.8019:

cottage.3274:

Med.6150:

The solution is to nerf the damage modifiers that you can pick up through traits, nothing else. It’s obvious to anybody who has actually put some thought into it and actually played it.

Why do scholar runes add such a huge amount of damage? Why can you pick up 4 traits with damage multipliers of 10, 10 , 20 and 5% respectively that are additive? That’s the root of the issue.

Obviously this needs to happen at the same time as bunkers are nerfed.

what you say is very true
but
1)fix to this will hurt every build not the problematic bs .
2) anet will not likely do this massive revamp in the near future.
3) true and true again to nerf bunkers but this need to happen in the same time as burst nerf.

Mrbig i don’t see it the way you are,thieves can go venom share and they have good group utilities they can share boons & so on & so on
but i do agree thats not as viable as just going burst romer in the current state of the meta.

anet sure needs to give some buff to group support to the profession maybe then we wont see so many cheesy builds.
this role realy need to viable for a thief.

Nope, thieves can’t go venom share.

Condition thieves are useless in a team environment, venom share are the "less"useless among them but they don’t give consistent advantage to your team, neither they give your team decent sustain, and drop like flies to burst.

They can spread a very little amount of conditions, easily AoE removed by a single ele dodging in water attunment.

Currently burst is the only way to play as a thief, and that’s why we only play burst: because we have no other choice.

without burst, the thief is the worst class in the game, yet people is too dedicated to QQs instead of thinking about a way to balance this game.

You’re making the same argument as most eles who swear by the 0/10/0/30/30 build while there are eles out there who run a burst build or full glass cannon build, an ele with no EA and water remove condition is far from being useless ..on the contrary.

Thieves got traps-deception and of course venoms, a support thief is completely viable in my opinion..

Name one top team using one?
Viability is a claim that needs to be proved by winning matchs against the top competition, its not something one just asserts.

I believe most EU teams run with a “TEEF”

Poxxia.1547:

daydream.2938:

If thiefs are so overpowered, how come the top players in paids tend to stack eles,mesmers and guardians, and thiefs are less common?

Thiefs are middle of the pack in terms of balance, certainly not weak, but hardly to write home about.

You have said this before, and let me answer it: Stop turning the thread into 1 dimension and get a broader view. Let me elaborate, if you don’t understand what I am saying. Ele’s in particular bring a lot to the group, not to mention their own capability to survive … trust me, ele’s are gonna get their turn as well. I am not sure if the bugs with guardians persists, but if they do, some of them are really unfun for other players as well … I believe they should be addressed as well. Mesmers … especially TW & Portal have been under heavy fire since forever – if you take these things away and compare their talents to fx the thief I doubt you would trade.
Now … that some classes have some imbalances doesn’t in any way validate, that other classes should have imbalances as well. On the contrary. That is really the culprit, and it should be blatantly obvious why is it so.

I think burst is a good thing … insta-gibbing someone from 50-0 or even 75-0 is not a good thing. It happens on anything from 3.3k armor and downwards. Do you in all seriousness think it is healthy for a game to be promoted by a class than can do this? And do you thinnk the numbers of active players will rise because of this or decline? Will it promote more ppl playing thieves or being the lambs that get slaughtered? And is the development healthy?

No one in their right mind wants thieves to be unplayable. A new balance will occur, once classes are balanced. Maybe other aspects of thieves will be promoted, and thieves will contribute more along with being more durable … who knows. Maybe they will have more builds (hopefully) that are viable and fun … for all.

This post, and the one by MR.Big above are the best two I’ve ever seen on the subject, very objective and fair. Props to you both. I agree that burst to the level that is possible right now should not be possible. I don’t know if certain professions or abilities need to be nerfed, attack scaling needs to be nerfed, or the value of toughness needs to be raised, but there does need to be some toning down. On the opposite end of the spectrum, bunkers need to be toned down as well, as this bunker/burst dichotomy is easily the worst aspect of GW2 pvp; pushing everyone more towards the middle of the spectrum would do WONDERS for variance in builds. In regards to Thieves, I’d love to fight something other than Backstabbers and Heartseeker spammers. I can count on one hand how many P/P or P/D Thieves I’ve seen, and there are even less S/D and S/P Thieves; there is something wrong there. Both in terms of the burst build being too faceroll, and all other Thief builds needing small buffs or quality of life changes. You always see this sort of gravitation in EVERY mmo, anything that has an extremely fubar ratio of ease to play/ power will be flocked to by every Tom, Dick and Harry; and currently that is D/D Thieves. If D/D is toned down, I would love for other Thief builds to get a little love. I can recall one fight in BFK against a P/D and Shortbow Thief, and all he did was evade and teleport all over the place, and I had NEVER seen anything like it before, so I didn’t know what to do and slowly got owned. That was a good experience to learn, and I want more of it.

I think they could just remove the possibility of Mug crit. 5~6k of instant damage is a way too powerful adept trait.

Give warriors Stealth. Then the game is balanced.

Or something.

Defektive.7283:

Give warriors Stealth. Then the game is balanced.

Or something.

Give everyone stealth

give then tons of stuns to thief to balance both

Pyrial.2917:

Defektive.7283:

Give warriors Stealth. Then the game is balanced.

Or something.

Give everyone stealth

Except for guardians, because that just wouldn’t make sense. Right? Just seems impractical.

daydream.2938:

If thiefs are so overpowered, how come the top players in paids tend to stack eles,mesmers and guardians, and thiefs are less common?

Thiefs are middle of the pack in terms of balance, certainly not weak, but hardly to write home about.

stop making sense…wth

daydream.2938:

Arheundel.6451:

Mrbig.8019:

cottage.3274:

Med.6150:

The solution is to nerf the damage modifiers that you can pick up through traits, nothing else. It’s obvious to anybody who has actually put some thought into it and actually played it.

Why do scholar runes add such a huge amount of damage? Why can you pick up 4 traits with damage multipliers of 10, 10 , 20 and 5% respectively that are additive? That’s the root of the issue.

Obviously this needs to happen at the same time as bunkers are nerfed.

what you say is very true
but
1)fix to this will hurt every build not the problematic bs .
2) anet will not likely do this massive revamp in the near future.
3) true and true again to nerf bunkers but this need to happen in the same time as burst nerf.

Mrbig i don’t see it the way you are,thieves can go venom share and they have good group utilities they can share boons & so on & so on
but i do agree thats not as viable as just going burst romer in the current state of the meta.

anet sure needs to give some buff to group support to the profession maybe then we wont see so many cheesy builds.
this role realy need to viable for a thief.

Nope, thieves can’t go venom share.

Condition thieves are useless in a team environment, venom share are the "less"useless among them but they don’t give consistent advantage to your team, neither they give your team decent sustain, and drop like flies to burst.

They can spread a very little amount of conditions, easily AoE removed by a single ele dodging in water attunment.

Currently burst is the only way to play as a thief, and that’s why we only play burst: because we have no other choice.

without burst, the thief is the worst class in the game, yet people is too dedicated to QQs instead of thinking about a way to balance this game.

You’re making the same argument as most eles who swear by the 0/10/0/30/30 build while there are eles out there who run a burst build or full glass cannon build, an ele with no EA and water remove condition is far from being useless ..on the contrary.

Thieves got traps-deception and of course venoms, a support thief is completely viable in my opinion..

Name one top team using one?
Viability is a claim that needs to be proved by winning matchs against the top competition, its not something one just asserts.

there you go making sense again… jeez.. STOP IT

Defektive.7283:

Pyrial.2917:

Defektive.7283:

Give warriors Stealth. Then the game is balanced.

Or something.

Give everyone stealth

Except for guardians, because that just wouldn’t make sense. Right? Just seems impractical.

I hear ya

If you nerf burst, my point is it hurts the burst classes the most. And Curse is in EU. The NA meta is different, but your point is taken.

Im not saying thiefs dont need any adjustments, im saying if you dont make broader adjustments across the board, all you’ll do is phase this class out.

daydream.2938:

If you nerf burst, my point is it hurts the burst classes the most. And Curse is in EU. The NA meta is different, but your point is taken.

Im not saying thiefs dont need any adjustments, im saying if you dont make broader adjustments across the board, all you’ll do is phase this class out.

till people keep on saying that venom share thieves are viable and such, it’s rather difficult to understand how balancing should be addressed.

A nerf to burst, without HUGE compensations of any sort to the thief ( and to warriors, to a certain extent) class, will simply break out the thief from meta, and every team will start running with 100 nades enges ( at least i hope so, even if it’s higly unprobable) , shatter mesmers with OH focus and D/D eles.

Wars and thieves will be comlpetely thrown out from the meta, because currently, the only decent thing they can do is burst ( and the thief is better than wars in doing so, but some comps can still run a war).

Mrbig.8019:

daydream.2938:

If you nerf burst, my point is it hurts the burst classes the most. And Curse is in EU. The NA meta is different, but your point is taken.

Im not saying thiefs dont need any adjustments, im saying if you dont make broader adjustments across the board, all you’ll do is phase this class out.

till people keep on saying that venom share thieves are viable and such, it’s rather difficult to understand how balancing should be addressed.

A nerf to burst, without HUGE compensations of any sort to the thief ( and to warriors, to a certain extent) class, will simply break out the thief from meta, and every team will start running with 100 nades enges ( at least i hope so, even if it’s higly unprobable) , shatter mesmers with OH focus and D/D eles.

Wars and thieves will be comlpetely thrown out from the meta, because currently, the only decent thing they can do is burst ( and the thief is better than wars in doing so, but some comps can still run a war).

^ This.

Its not that thief is OP. mesmer, ele, and gaurdian are all stronger classes. Necro is about on par with theif, maybe a lil stronger in the meta also.

Its that thiefs do burst, and this frustrates newer players, which is why despite how much more ACTUALLY powerful eles are, thiefs get complained about more. Though you’ll see few players who are highly ranked complain about them because they know, thiefs aren’t OP at all.

I really don’t get it – I am an average player (slightly above average at best) and I often see the BS combo coming and can avoid it, usually by simply dodging. Once the thief misses the combo they are vulnerable and if you can cc them to prevent them from using their mobility to escape they go down extremely quickly because they sacrifice all survivability for that burst. I don’t really see this is a big problem – they stated they designed the thief to be good and getting in doing a bunch of burst and getting out – I’m fine with it. I think there are other setups that are a lot more troublesome than BS thief (including P/D thief). Just my “casual” opinion

daydream.2938:

Mrbig.8019:

daydream.2938:

If you nerf burst, my point is it hurts the burst classes the most. And Curse is in EU. The NA meta is different, but your point is taken.

Im not saying thiefs dont need any adjustments, im saying if you dont make broader adjustments across the board, all you’ll do is phase this class out.

till people keep on saying that venom share thieves are viable and such, it’s rather difficult to understand how balancing should be addressed.

A nerf to burst, without HUGE compensations of any sort to the thief ( and to warriors, to a certain extent) class, will simply break out the thief from meta, and every team will start running with 100 nades enges ( at least i hope so, even if it’s higly unprobable) , shatter mesmers with OH focus and D/D eles.

Wars and thieves will be comlpetely thrown out from the meta, because currently, the only decent thing they can do is burst ( and the thief is better than wars in doing so, but some comps can still run a war).

^ This.

Its not that thief is OP. mesmer, ele, and gaurdian are all stronger classes. Necro is about on par with theif, maybe a lil stronger in the meta also.

Its that thiefs do burst, and this frustrates newer players, which is why despite how much more ACTUALLY powerful eles are, thiefs get complained about more. Though you’ll see few players who are highly ranked complain about them because they know, thiefs aren’t OP at all.

Well, it’s not that thief burst is not out of balance.

But with burst toned down, i simply don’t see teams picking a thief over a sustained fighter like the ele or the mesmer, or even engies and warriors ( last ones would still be inferior to mesmers and eles).

Toning down numbers would simply hurt those classes whose are badly designed from the core, while better designed classes will arise ( eles, guards and mesmers, followed by engies and rangers, the last one in fact is already rising).

They need to do serious balance work instead of simply tweaking numbers.

Right mr.big, im not saying burst couldnt use a second look, i’m just saying it needs a comprehensive look, because some classes, most notably thief, bring pretty much nothing to the table BUT burst, so if you nerf that, the more rounded classes like Ele become even more dominant ( and they are considered stronger than thiefs right now, even despite the burst thiefs have).
So, holding everything equal, any nerfs to thiefs will make them useless in high end play. I dont oppose burst being looked at, i oppose a specific isolated nerf to thief burst, that would essentially cripple the class and take them out of the end game.

daydream.2938:

Right mr.big, im not saying burst couldnt use a second look, i’m just saying it needs a comprehensive look, because some classes, most notably thief, bring pretty much nothing to the table BUT burst, so if you nerf that, the more rounded classes like Ele become even more dominant ( and they are considered stronger than thiefs right now, even despite the burst thiefs have).
So, holding everything equal, any nerfs to thiefs will make them useless in high end play. I dont oppose burst being looked at, i oppose a specific isolated nerf to thief burst, that would essentially cripple the class and take them out of the end game.

Burst should be useless in high end play. Burst mechanics are for r1 – 10 so those players feel like they contribute even though they know nothing about the mechanics. At top competitive levels burst should come as the result of focus targeting and synergy. A thief running burst and no team utilities is a detriment to a top level synergy dependent team.

So nerfing the easy mode burst would only serve to help Thief become more competitive by forcing them into a synergy roll instead of being Rambo the Roaming Bowtard.

XiL.4318:

daydream.2938:

Right mr.big, im not saying burst couldnt use a second look, i’m just saying it needs a comprehensive look, because some classes, most notably thief, bring pretty much nothing to the table BUT burst, so if you nerf that, the more rounded classes like Ele become even more dominant ( and they are considered stronger than thiefs right now, even despite the burst thiefs have).
So, holding everything equal, any nerfs to thiefs will make them useless in high end play. I dont oppose burst being looked at, i oppose a specific isolated nerf to thief burst, that would essentially cripple the class and take them out of the end game.

Burst should be useless in high end play. Burst mechanics are for r1 – 10 so those players feel like they contribute even though they know nothing about the mechanics. At top competitive levels burst should come as the result of focus targeting and synergy. A thief running burst and no team utilities is a detriment to a top level synergy dependent team.

So nerfing the easy mode burst would only serve to help Thief become more competitive by forcing them into a synergy roll instead of being Rambo the Roaming Bowtard.

The question is can they thrive in that role at top level play.

Dual.8953:

XiL.4318:

daydream.2938:

Right mr.big, im not saying burst couldnt use a second look, i’m just saying it needs a comprehensive look, because some classes, most notably thief, bring pretty much nothing to the table BUT burst, so if you nerf that, the more rounded classes like Ele become even more dominant ( and they are considered stronger than thiefs right now, even despite the burst thiefs have).
So, holding everything equal, any nerfs to thiefs will make them useless in high end play. I dont oppose burst being looked at, i oppose a specific isolated nerf to thief burst, that would essentially cripple the class and take them out of the end game.

Burst should be useless in high end play. Burst mechanics are for r1 – 10 so those players feel like they contribute even though they know nothing about the mechanics. At top competitive levels burst should come as the result of focus targeting and synergy. A thief running burst and no team utilities is a detriment to a top level synergy dependent team.

So nerfing the easy mode burst would only serve to help Thief become more competitive by forcing them into a synergy roll instead of being Rambo the Roaming Bowtard.

The question is can they thrive in that role at top level play.

Probably not, other classes, in particular eles, do these other roles better. The reason thief burst is dominant in how thiefs play in succesfully in paids, is they can do this better than other classes.
IF u wanted a hybrid dps/roamer, youd just get eles, or mesmers bc of portal.

Thiefs are pigeonholded into dps burst, bc its the only thing they can do well enough to warrant bringing a thief, in any other capacity you should replace them with another class.

Yeah eles are the strongest class….

1) 30 Arcana to play effectively- check
2) Cantrips as they’re the only useful utilities – check
3) Water/arcana trait as the rest is almost garbage – check

How can a class be the strongest if they use 1/4 of their utilities, a single weapon set and 2/4 of their traits..it’s above me

Arheundel.6451:

Yeah eles are the strongest class….

1) 30 Arcana to play effectively- check
2) Cantrips as they’re the only useful utilities – check
3) Water/arcana trait as the rest is almost garbage – check

How can a class be the strongest if they use 1/4 of their utilities, a single weapon set and 2/4 of their traits..it’s above me

because he can tank even better than guardians.

Mrbig.8019:

Shay.7534:

Mrbig.8019:

It’s always the same: people having no idea about how the class works throwing crap at it.

JsomeIt’s always the same: thieves having no idea about how their class works throwing crap at other people.
In the Thief Macro thread there is a guy telling Eristina, one of the most knowledgeable players on the EU scene saying there is no macro out there and nothing is wrong with 4 hits thrown from stealth because of haste bypassing culling.
In this thread, you are telling Xeph again one of the most knowledgeable players that he doesn’t know how thief actually works.
I show you S/P thief with 400 QPs ( rank 20 before he quit ) and you tell me i’m talking bs and thief is useless without oneshot.
Shadow refuge, steal with boon stealing and vigor sharing , the best mobility in game, caltrops ( not the trait, the utility ) , blinding powder , venom share, crowd control are just useless stuff that only noobs take. But no, no and no – we NEED to feel like gods with our big big numbers while yelling in voice chat : “LOL what a noob, i just oneshotted that guy.”

There are only 2 cases I feel my team is at disadvantage using a Pistol/Dagger thief:
1) When their team has one more ele then we do ( but that’s another story)
2) When their team has a very good backstab thief ( ex: Kirei, Lowell, Jexster and a few others )

The only thing making other specs for thieves feel useless is the kitten backstab build.

This game would feel so much better if bunkering and burst was toned down but people wouldn’t feel as good when they oneshot a guy and the opponent team crumbles due to number advantage, wouldn’t we?

Dude, you really can’t read.

I AM IN FAVOR OF REDUCING THE BURST, not only for thieves, but for other classes overall.

I’m just pointing out weaknesses of other thief builds, and the reason why they’re suboptimal to other classes builds.

1. S/P burst deals less damage than a backstab build, and is more easily countered by retaliation, protection and armor in general.

Moreover PW damage was nerfed by 15 % ( with 2x crit multiplier, it’s a 30% overall damage reduction if every attack crits), explaining one of the reason why your “friend” quit the game ( S/P builds became heavily subpar after the nerf).

This is a fact, stop arguing against it.

2. P/D and thief condition builds are 1vsX builds, more suited for WvWvW than tPvP, due to lack of condition spreadt anddue to being countered more easily by condition removal.

Even more since you can’t contest points while stealthed, and those builds require heavy stealth uptime in order to sustain their damage.

Basically, if you want a condi build, you would be ten times better off with a trap ranger or a condi necro, classes that also have more AoE capabilities than a thief would ever dream of in the current state of balance.

This is a fact, stop arguing against it.

3. Boon sharing is very weak for a thief, basically something like vigor-fury-swiftness every 35-40 SECS AT BEST. Any ele would be capable to do it better than a thief, without losing anything in the damage department.

4. Control thieves ( S/D) seriously lack in the damage department, have no burst and were nerfed into oblivion.
Nothing than a mesmer wouldn’t do ten times better, while having more mobility, more burst and more support ( illusion of life, portal, time warp).

Same for an ele.

Lol even engies are better at control than a S/D thief currently, and engies are nearly useless and not wanted in tPvP.

This is a fact, stop arguing against it .

And lol, what is the fuss for a rank 20 ? i’m rank 36, i’ve been playing this game from its beta testing. Does it make me better for a judgement ?

Of course not, so if you want to discuss, discuss following reason.

Do you want another opinion ?

Here it is Narcarsis opinion, a guy telling exactly the same things i’m telling you ( altough with a more narrow mind focused on glass cannon playstyle), playing for team paradigm in NA and being considered one of the most skilled thieves in NA.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/How-to-fix-my-class-for-PvP/page/2#post1121648

And, ofc, i’m saying that thieves , unless built for burst, are heavily sub.par in every aspect FOR CURRENT STATE OF BALANCE.

If they nerf across all boards burst and bunkering, maybe other options ( surely not P/D or D/D condi, builds needing serious buff in order to become viable in tPvP, altough frustrating to play against) will become more viable, but i can’t really say anything about it, because i’m no foreteller.

Fact is that any other thief build, aside MH dagger burst, is no good for competitive gameplay.

Stop this nonsense.

I found another thief that knows what he is talking about.. Well said bro

some of you are missing the major point. a properly executed BS combo cannot be seen coming, and cannot be dodged, unless youre spamming your evasion moves blindly. the burst itself can be spammed. thieves have the largest and most reliable single target burst in the game.

perhaps culling is the main culprit, perhaps not. but the reason well-played BS thieves are dreaded by most players (experienced or otherwise) is that their burst cant be avoided on demand, like it can be for shatter mesmers and d/d eles. while the latter are the superior specs, the player always has the opportunity to react and fight back. mesmer and ele burst is always telegraphed, which is key in a skill-based game. non-telegraphed burst just doesnt belong in this game.

Shukran.4851:

Arheundel.6451:

Yeah eles are the strongest class….

1) 30 Arcana to play effectively- check
2) Cantrips as they’re the only useful utilities – check
3) Water/arcana trait as the rest is almost garbage – check

How can a class be the strongest if they use 1/4 of their utilities, a single weapon set and 2/4 of their traits..it’s above me

because he can tank even better than guardians.

If a class is considered powerful because they can build for survival then the thief is a powerful profession also because they can burst you down in 2s, I see no difference outside the opposing analogy itself.
Basically using the QP board in a team based game as mean of balance comparison..is quite useless

nerva.7940:

some of you are missing the major point. a properly executed BS combo cannot be seen coming, and cannot be dodged, unless youre spamming your evasion moves blindly. the burst itself can be spammed. thieves have the largest and most reliable single target burst in the game.

perhaps culling is the main culprit, perhaps not. but the reason well-played BS thieves are dreaded by most players (experienced or otherwise) is that their burst cant be avoided on demand, like it can be for shatter mesmers and d/d eles. while the latter are the superior specs, the player always has the opportunity to react and fight back. mesmer and ele burst is always telegraphed, which is key in a skill-based game. non-telegraphed burst just doesnt belong in this game.

But i agree OMG ( this is getting really annoying).

I soon as i learnt about Stealth skills implementation ( in its first iteration ,the thief didn’t have Backstab, Sneak attack and all those attacks from stealth), because as soon as i learnt about tactical strike and BS, i IMMEDIATELY thought " o crap, here we go again".

I knew thieves would become complained and imba like first WoW rogue ( one shot ambushes, stunlocking to death etc).

The point i’m trying to make is:

CURRENT THIEF DESIGN DOESN’T ALLOW ANY OTHER CHOICE

altough the backstab build is out of balance and frustrating, the thief is so poorly designed that in order to allow its burst to me more telegraphed, while allowing the proff to have a place in tPvP, they would need to totally overhaul the profession from its scratches.

And altough i partially agree to almost rebuild the thief profession from th start, i know it’s not going to happen any soon, at least not before the new expansion ( just like they did with the dervish in GW1).

So, i’m ready to be the bottom of the chain after the next patch.

At least i’ll have some proffs with me, so i won’t be alone.

Gross overexaggeration.

Thief burst really does need to be significantly reduced. I’d be fine with an increase to their sustained damage to compensate, but there’s just no reason to have a class able to virtually insta kill almost everything in the game. Very high dps is fine, instantly killing people with literally just a few buttons isn’t.

It’s not even a matter of balance, it’s a matter of fun. You thieves can try to say it’s just bad players who get frustrated by it, but that’s not true. It doesn’t matter how good you are and how aware you are of your surrounding, sometimes you’re just going to fall over dead because a thief walked around a corner and comboed before you ever saw them. No chance for counter play, no skill checks, just you laying on the ground dead because someone, not necessarily even a skill player, pressed a few buttons and you died before you could do anything about it.

Dual.8953:

XiL.4318:

daydream.2938:

Right mr.big, im not saying burst couldnt use a second look, i’m just saying it needs a comprehensive look, because some classes, most notably thief, bring pretty much nothing to the table BUT burst, so if you nerf that, the more rounded classes like Ele become even more dominant ( and they are considered stronger than thiefs right now, even despite the burst thiefs have).
So, holding everything equal, any nerfs to thiefs will make them useless in high end play. I dont oppose burst being looked at, i oppose a specific isolated nerf to thief burst, that would essentially cripple the class and take them out of the end game.

Burst should be useless in high end play. Burst mechanics are for r1 – 10 so those players feel like they contribute even though they know nothing about the mechanics. At top competitive levels burst should come as the result of focus targeting and synergy. A thief running burst and no team utilities is a detriment to a top level synergy dependent team.

So nerfing the easy mode burst would only serve to help Thief become more competitive by forcing them into a synergy roll instead of being Rambo the Roaming Bowtard.

The question is can they thrive in that role at top level play.

Absolutely. The issue is Thief burst builds are kitten easy so players focus all their skill development on those easy burst mechanics. Hot matches are probably responsible for that. Awarding the most points to the burst builds 100% of the time curves mastery toward nonsense farming.

They move to competitive PvP and get rolled because they don’t have any experience with 90% of their traits and skills. However, Thief has some significant point control and support that you can’t slot when yer running maximum BS or Heartseeker machine gun builds.

Nerfing the top end burst would help thief more than harm it competitively just by virtue of making burst less enticing.

The real reason burst builds seem like an issue to so many players is because they dominate the scoreboards in every hotmatch giving new players a false representation of skill progression.

Every class needs to have the same maximum burst potential or none should have it at all. Forcing thief into a maximum burst role with kitten poor PvP grinding mechanics is counter productive. Nerf thief down to an acceptable and “equal” level to all other glass cannons and watch this halftard fake forum meta explode.

Seems like the big thing to complain about is the SR^Backstab^Mug^HS with haste maybe thrown in. What if they (similar to how sigil of int works) made it so the first backstab that is thrown from stealth is full on but a miss would make the subsequent ones do 25% less damage when they hit.

It is sort of lame that if you do happen to time a good evade right when someone tries to BS you they get no punishment other than a loss of ~1 second of stealth time. This punishes spammers but lets people who BS precisely keep the current burst.

nerva.7940:

Xeph.4513:

A lot of people in this post don’t seem to realise that the issue isn’t only the damage, but the fact that thieves can come in at any point in the fight and insta gib / stomp someone before the rest of the team can react and that is really bad game design and not really enjoyable for players on the receiving end.

xeph, i really appreciate your post. this happens to me all the time on my ranger bunker. ranger bunker is a high skill cap bunker that’s very rewarding to play when mastered. i could be handling 1 or 2 guys on point, barely surviving, hovering between 6-12k health lets say. and some thief roamer, who i cant see coming, will come in and instagib me for 13k burst on 2k toughness, instantly.

the problem is – WHERE IS THE SKILL? how am i to react to the most reliable single target burst in the game when i cant see it coming? it’s like getting smitten by lightning from the sky. basically, i just have to “deal” and take it. there’s no other explanation.

i fully support the thief getting some additional buffs to make it more appealing, but this ridiculous one-trick pony approach is just a bandaid for a class thats pretty underwhelming.

come on devs, i thought u said prior to release that you wanted fights to be strategic, without “headshot” type abilities in the game. the BS/mug/quickness or whatever combo is basically a sniper’s headshot from CoD or BF3.

You can handle 2 guys on a point? The burst thief can’t – you need a nerf my friend.

So silly comments aside. Your example is not a great one – I’d kill you on any class very quickly if you were already fighting 2 other guys and I’d make sure it was from range and behind you so you don’t see it and can’t do anything about it.

I don’t like being smashed by a thief when I am having a good fight. I don’t like being smashed by any class when I am having a good fight. Right now though… the role is not bunker, ranged or support. Which leaves…. damage. In fact… damage on a skinny red-headed kid who will die if he catches a cold.

Sure there are a few folks who can make an endless dodger with conditions work (which switches off 3 trait lines) but I don’t think that was the class intention. Folks need to be careful what they wish for… the damage nerfs come each patch for thieves and when it gets to the stage where they cannot effectively kill (which it will)… the class ends.

Disclaimer: I play Thief, Ranger, Mesmer, Warrior most of the time in sPvP.