Guild Wars 2

dd ele stronker

s/d is not the strongest spec right now. there are far stronger specs.

warrior, believe it or not, is still the strongest class in pvp.
ele is strong too but imo still balanced.
AI builds are annoying and strong, sadly they dont require much skill.

the problem with s/d thieves is that they are gamebreaking for other dps/roam classes. thief has good burst, good mobility, with all the evades fairly good survivability and they are the fastest class in the game (nobody plays usain bolt warrior in pvp).

its less effective to take a different roamer than a thief. and of all the thief specs s/d is currently the most effective one.

Jekkt.6045:

s/d is not the strongest spec right now. there are far stronger specs.

warrior, believe it or not, is still the strongest class in pvp.
ele is strong too but imo still balanced.
AI builds are annoying and strong, sadly they dont require much skill.

the problem with s/d thieves is that they are gamebreaking for other dps/roam classes. thief has good burst, good mobility, with all the evades fairly good survivability and they are the fastest class in the game (nobody plays usain bolt warrior in pvp).

its less effective to take a different roamer than a thief. and of all the thief specs s/d is currently the most effective one.

By that logic guards are gamebreaking too.
its less effective to take a different roamer bunker than a thief guardian. and of all the thief guardian specs s/d bunker is currently the most effective one (not counting medi, which, btw, eat thieves for breakfast)

I prefer playing against s/d over d/p because stealth, while useless in conquest, is just cheap and annoying. I’d rather fight something i can actually see, even when it’s highly evasive.

being able to evade 8 times in a row is balanced what are you talking about

Crovax.7854:

Jekkt.6045:

s/d is not the strongest spec right now. there are far stronger specs.

warrior, believe it or not, is still the strongest class in pvp.
ele is strong too but imo still balanced.
AI builds are annoying and strong, sadly they dont require much skill.

the problem with s/d thieves is that they are gamebreaking for other dps/roam classes. thief has good burst, good mobility, with all the evades fairly good survivability and they are the fastest class in the game (nobody plays usain bolt warrior in pvp).

its less effective to take a different roamer than a thief. and of all the thief specs s/d is currently the most effective one.

By that logic guards are gamebreaking too.
its less effective to take a different roamer bunker than a thief guardian. and of all the thief guardian specs s/d bunker is currently the most effective one (not counting medi, which, btw, eat thieves for breakfast)

you are totally right.
although medi doesnt eat s/d. its a difficult matchup for both of them.

Jekkt.6045:

Crovax.7854:

Jekkt.6045:

s/d is not the strongest spec right now. there are far stronger specs.

warrior, believe it or not, is still the strongest class in pvp.
ele is strong too but imo still balanced.
AI builds are annoying and strong, sadly they dont require much skill.

the problem with s/d thieves is that they are gamebreaking for other dps/roam classes. thief has good burst, good mobility, with all the evades fairly good survivability and they are the fastest class in the game (nobody plays usain bolt warrior in pvp).

its less effective to take a different roamer than a thief. and of all the thief specs s/d is currently the most effective one.

By that logic guards are gamebreaking too.
its less effective to take a different roamer bunker than a thief guardian. and of all the thief guardian specs s/d bunker is currently the most effective one (not counting medi, which, btw, eat thieves for breakfast)

you are totally right.
although medi doesnt eat s/d. its a difficult matchup for both of them.

my bad; should’ve added: ‘when they get the jump on them’

Jekkt.6045:

s/d is not the strongest spec right now. there are far stronger specs.

warrior, believe it or not, is still the strongest class in pvp.
ele is strong too but imo still balanced.
AI builds are annoying and strong, sadly they dont require much skill.

the problem with s/d thieves is that they are gamebreaking for other dps/roam classes. thief has good burst, good mobility, with all the evades fairly good survivability and they are the fastest class in the game (nobody plays usain bolt warrior in pvp).

its less effective to take a different roamer than a thief. and of all the thief specs s/d is currently the most effective one.

Do you even play this game bro?

i totally do. you dont have to agree with me you know.

Hello guys,

I’m Maggy schultz, I main S/P build, but that was before xD

Yeah actually S/D is a bit broken on a thief versus thief, I think double sigils procs is really random and unfair, the S/D just spike, dodge 5 sec and spike again. Thanks to the sigils, there is a huge spike, without it, it would be a sensless build cause it has not a high dps by itself instead of dagger pistol or Pistol Wipe I mean.

The Misha’s Ideas to nerf it are good, but Idk if the game administrators care about the feeling of the top players and make stuff on their own…

I hope i’m wrong but it’s my feeling, I know you fixed a lot S/D in previous patches, but you changed a lot the game in the last one, and it was hardly against PW thief.
I can get it but when you get a gamestyle down, thinking about the others is nice too

Mäggy

Hello,

I totally agree with you, guys: I still don’t understand why people got so mad about s/p and don’t realize the real broken spec, i. e. s/d. People got crazy about great burst of s/p without understanding how to actually counter it and leave s/d in peace cause it’s all about little/average burst (big if double sigil procs, it’s true). To justify the perma dodge, I even heard once that perma dodge is less op than stealth of d/p for instance, but we don’t need Einstein to understand that dodge is basically invulnerability while stealth is clearly not. I think sometimes this game relies too much on the “vox populi, vox dei” position to actually see this huge inequity because lots of people still think s/d is totally fair and even skilled and complicated to handle in team fight. The logical problem is, all the people who claim that are playing s/d now and of course they don’t want to see further nerfs coming. This late new build is, moreover, just a freak of nature: everybody understands the power of daze on f1 but wants to stay as bunker as old s/d. Decide: everybody would be glad to have lots of sustain and deal dps at the same time but there is a reason why this shouldn’t be permitted.

I am glad that you, Shad and Misha, finally underlined all that: I hope that the experience of both of you, guys, will make things change.

ShakeItOut.6781:

To justify the perma dodge, I even heard once that perma dodge is less op than stealth of d/p for instance, but we don’t need Einstein to understand that dodge is basically invulnerability while stealth is clearly not.

this one is kinda tricky: its psychological.
while stealth is clearly not invulnerable it is easier for a less experienced player to accept that a thief dodged his attack. even if he hits the stealthed thief he doesn’t feel rewarded at all because there isn’t even a “miss” popping up. maybe if arenanet added damage numbers (not condition ticks) to stealthed players it would help getting rid of that “wrong thinking”. but im sure if they did that there would be riots everywhere. i as a thief wouldn’t mind.

Even if you miss some attacks in stealth, which happens quite often against good thieves because they are used to dodge for instance in shadow refuge, you know that against s/p and d/p they don’t have much endurance left so you can attack again, quite sure they’ll receive the next hits. All of that doesn’t include, of course, s/d. Just only that should make people think.

I hope Anet listen this time. (soon)

I totally agree. I’m definitely not the most proficient GW2 player but I feel there is no intelligent way to beat a s/d Thief. No matter how I approach the fight it always ends in a spam fast. The one who gets luckier spamming wins. Even facing the most notorious hambow involves some kind of tactic or at least offers a minimum of counter play (although in this context the term is far stretched since abandoning your point trying to avoid a long lasting AoE fire field, a low CD hammer chain and a complete immunity to soft CC is definitely not a winning strategy for your team).

So you’re telling me that S/D thieves are broken because, except for their evades, they also have “burst” that comes from Sigil of Air and Sigil of Fire?

Aren’t you telling them to nerf the two sigils, then?
From MY experience with S/D thief, they certainly have a lot of evades, which are difficult to pull off with good timing, but they lack in damage. Most of the time, I end up being out of evades while the enemy has already healed off the damage I dealt to him and is ready to burst me down.

But, seriously, it sounds like from everyone’s experience, all you need to do as an S/D thief is spam all your evades and win. Maybe I’m doing something wrong.

S/D thief doesn’t require trickery at all, its just too good to not take, and ever since the sigil update it simply doesn’t make sense to use CS, when you can deal roughly the same damage with trickery and have a reliable interrupt/boon strap.

I still don’t agree with it being skilless though, thats just sounds like shad’s usual whine about the build.

I fully agree, thiefs can carry games way to hard. And they counter a lot of classes while nothing hard counters them.

I would like to see the OP carrying his team using a thief
I would like to see him trying to contest a node vs a turret engi or hambow war
Thieves are masters of roaming, freecap and support teammates in 2 vs 1 situations, nothing more and that is their role.

Though I completely agree that Sizer’s S/D thief build is a cancer to PvP, I don’t believe the weapon set is the problem.

The problems with Sizer’s 20066 S/D thief build:

My main problem with this S/D build is the damage it can put out when it has 0 points in critical strikes. This is ALL due to “Sigil of Air” and “Sigil of Fire” as well as a 20s cooldown on “Steal” allowing the thief to never run out of initiative (Stealing Grants 2 initiative). The build is obviously meant to be a bunker thief so i have no problem with its sustain.

My ideal fix for the situation:
1) Don’t let “Sigil of Air” and “Sigil of Fire” stack or increase the proc cooldown to 8 seconds for both Sigils. Currently these two Sigils ruin nearly every Zerker vs Zerker fight with RNG and carry builds with little damage and high sustain, to suddenly have high damage and high sustain.
2) Increase the cooldown of “Steal” from 20s to 30s ATLEAST. There will be problems with this, I will address them below. or add some counter play so “Steal” can be dodged.
3) Huge damage reduction in “Flanking strike”, as this is an evade not a offensive skill. I suggest a base damage of around 200 rather than the 500 as it is currently. “Larcenous strike” already deals enough damage, it doesn’t need the extra damage of “Flanking strike”. “Larcenous strike” also has telegraphed animations so can be dodged.

Problems with increasing “Steal” cooldown:
This will hurt every thief build a lot more than S/D so the other thief builds must be given some sustain changes in order to keep them viable as D/P and S/P thieves need the steal to help with sustaining themselves, however these sustain changes must not be able to be used by S/D thieves as they already have enough sustain.

FYI: Any S/D thief that considers these changes to be too harsh, Sizer actually gave me most of the input on them. The main one being the Steal cooldown increase.

Gl with you post Misha, I hope the developers will take it seriously.

Frae

Fix fire + air + might, not thief. S/d is no where near as strong without trickery and these random damage procs. With trickery and random procs, we can burst you down and interrupt any heal because of how OP steal is when fully traited and still be tanky through evades (ie this meta of tanky damage). Without fire + air there’d be no damage.

Metrix.5867:

Hello kind community,

Today we will talk about s/d thief, the most op and skill less build in this game.
Perma dodge, 8k insta bursts (with air/fire procs) and barely anything that can kill it in a teamfight.
Is this balanced? No it’s not, thief is supposed to be a class with the highest mobility/single target dmg in the game but with low survivability except for stealth, right now it is the class with the highest single target dmg, the highest moblity BUT a very high survivability that is gamebreaking.
Dear anet, I ask you to nerf s/d thief survivability or thief survivability in general. How about rebalance the 2nd minor trait in acrobatics, maybe give it a 5 second cooldown? Maybe nerf initiative, everyone knows initiative is insanely broken since the increase and you now almost always have the initiative that you need. Maybe nerf trickery a bit? It’s not normal that every build requires this trait line, but how will this affect other builds? I don’t want thief to become unviable nor certain builds to get unplayable but s/d thief is atm by far the strongest build in the game and it needs a nerf.

Also I don’t enjoy getting destroyed by them as a mesmer.

- Misha and Shad.

When I first started playing, I had the same reaction. I thought they were overpowered and that it took no skill to play one. With playing more and more games, going up against a handful of different thieves, I’ve come to enjoy dueling with them. I don’t play one at all, but they’ve fragile. It does take some skill to play them, at least from what I see. Timing is everything, too. I have a lot of respect for those who play the Thief class.

Fraelin.7409:

Though I completely agree that Sizer’s S/D thief build is a cancer to PvP, I don’t believe the weapon set is the problem.

The problems with Sizer’s 20066 S/D thief build:

My main problem with this S/D build is the damage it can put out when it has 0 points in critical strikes. This is ALL due to “Sigil of Air” and “Sigil of Fire” as well as a 20s cooldown on “Steal” allowing the thief to never run out of initiative (Stealing Grants 2 initiative). The build is obviously meant to be a bunker thief so i have no problem with its sustain.

My ideal fix for the situation:
1) Don’t let “Sigil of Air” and “Sigil of Fire” stack or increase the proc cooldown to 8 seconds for both Sigils. Currently these two Sigils ruin nearly every Zerker vs Zerker fight with RNG and carry builds with little damage and high sustain, to suddenly have high damage and high sustain.
2) Increase the cooldown of “Steal” from 20s to 30s ATLEAST. There will be problems with this, I will address them below. or add some counter play so “Steal” can be dodged.
3) Huge damage reduction in “Flanking strike”, as this is an evade not a offensive skill. I suggest a base damage of around 200 rather than the 500 as it is currently. “Larcenous strike” already deals enough damage, it doesn’t need the extra damage of “Flanking strike”. “Larcenous strike” also has telegraphed animations so can be dodged.

Problems with increasing “Steal” cooldown:
This will hurt every thief build a lot more than S/D so the other thief builds must be given some sustain changes in order to keep them viable as D/P and S/P thieves need the steal to help with sustaining themselves, however these sustain changes must not be able to be used by S/D thieves as they already have enough sustain.

FYI: Any S/D thief that considers these changes to be too harsh, Sizer actually gave me most of the input on them. The main one being the Steal cooldown increase.

Gl with you post Misha, I hope the developers will take it seriously.

Frae

I’ve said this for the past year Frae., but no one has listened to me. Trickery is what’s kept thief on top of zerkers for so long. Sleight of Hand needs to be split into two different grandmasters. One for the stun and one for the 20% reduction. Possibly even change bountiful theft to not prioritize stability, it completely negates a lot of builds (think rock solid + ether renewal).

FeelsAlright.5860:

Without fire + air there’d be no damage.

without damage there’d be no thief

A topic that starts with “S\D thieves require no skill” doesn’t need to be taken seriously
Only people that don’t know how to play a thief can think that there is no skill\timing in playing this class.
And Sizer, surely a good player, doesn’t seem OP at all when playing S\D. He just knows when and when not engage a duel cos he knows well what he can do and other classes can do as well, and the synergy with his team is quite perfect.
But a lot of people keep thinking they are to good at this game and when they lose is never their fault.
It has been this way since the start of the game and will always be like this.

Kolly.9872:

FeelsAlright.5860:

Without fire + air there’d be no damage.

without damage there’d be no thief

wut?

We’d have to invest back into our damage tree (Critical strikes).

What needs a nerf is pistol 5, it should only blind people around them once, not a blind field.

Pistol 5 is too op because they can spam it and you cant hurt them, pretty much like instant dodge.

For the record, if you’re going to call me a random no name or whatsoever, I main thief with 4.5k tournament games on it and yeah I’m playing competitively. I honestly don’t care about what the nerfs will be as long as they’re nerfs, I just put some obvious suggestions there and yea s/d thief is op because of the survivability BUT with only this it wouldnt be op, right? obv insanely high dmg+insanely high survivability together are op. So I’m suggesting to nerf only one of these aspects (preferably survivability since thief shouldn’t have this). And yeah you can’t really nerf trickery because all of the other thief builds will become unviable.

MrJackk.2417:

I fully agree, thiefs can carry games way to hard. And they counter a lot of classes while nothing hard counters them.

I completely agree with this^

Kolly.9872:

I would like to see the OP carrying his team using a thief
I would like to see him trying to contest a node vs a turret engi or hambow war
Thieves are masters of roaming, freecap and support teammates in 2 vs 1 situations, nothing more and that is their role.

You took the wrong people to lay this example to…

On the topic:

Yes, this build is broken, as in, it shuts down other thief builds because of the fact that is has almost everything – damage, survivability, and mobility… Other thief builds have to give some of these aspects in several builds to achieve any of the three…

There is just no room for debate on what to run as a thief…
(Though granted, there are a lot of people better with D/P and S/P instead of S/D)

As a since beta thief I’m obviously a little biased. However as a few have pointed out, I’d like to see you fight equally skilled players from the other meta builds using s/d. I admit its strong, that’s why I run it, but the no skill comment is simply ignorance. I admit I can catch a lot of people off guard with a burst but its relatively easy to take me once I’ve exhausted all my init. Now when it comes to dealing with Decap engi’s, turret engi’s, meta guards, d/d hybrid ele’s, skilled mesmer’s of several varieties, any other skilled thief, warriors who are smart enough not to run glass cannon and hundred blades a person for 10 minutes during a team fight, etc…the point is SKILLED players don’t have issues dealing with S/D and while I can win some fights I lose plenty too. So before you start crying OP OP OP NERF PLS OMG 2 FAST 2 STRONK, try playing one at a high lvl, not just terrorizing rabbits in hotjoins.

Aurihu.6789:

As a since beta thief I’m obviously a little biased. However as a few have pointed out, I’d like to see you fight equally skilled players from the other meta builds using s/d. I admit its strong, that’s why I run it, but the no skill comment is simply ignorance. I admit I can catch a lot of people off guard with a burst but its relatively easy to take me once I’ve exhausted all my init. Now when it comes to dealing with Decap engi’s, turret engi’s, meta guards, d/d hybrid ele’s, skilled mesmer’s of several varieties, any other skilled thief, warriors who are smart enough not to run glass cannon and hundred blades a person for 10 minutes during a team fight, etc…the point is SKILLED players don’t have issues dealing with S/D and while I can win some fights I lose plenty too. So before you start crying OP OP OP NERF PLS OMG 2 FAST 2 STRONK, try playing one at a high lvl, not just terrorizing rabbits in hotjoins.

I do not think that the issue lies in “no skill” personally…

I know I did not say it as well so yea…

What I feel is that it peforms too well compared to other thief builds – they all have a gimmick to work around with to survive, something S/D misses… It gets carried hard by the sigils and it has been known for a while – even by some, if not most, thieves…
I know I am not the best guy to go around saying this since my experiences on thief have been rather low and I mostly played D/P and S/P, but it seems the sentiment is shared…

I think, since everyone moans and groans so often here about needing to nerf this and nerf that and because Anet is so swilling to break things and make the game suck, we should all play the same class and all have the same skills that way no one can cry and say “op” all the time because they cant adjust. I suck everyone who knows me will tell you that but that doesn’t mean we nerf the whole game to make it easier for me.

Thief is strongest class in this game. It can determine the outcome of matches simply by being in a game and forcing players to watch points all game just for fear of decap as without a thief yourself you’re unable to match their mobility.

This problem is then worsened by the fact of thief being able to 1v1 effectively and any kind of risk is completely removed when playing sword/dagger. At least specs like dagger pistol are closer to the high risk high reward model which is appropriate for the class.

Simply remove the current concept of feline grace and make their shadowsteps require line of sight. Simple changes that would go a long way.

GoogleBrandon.5073:

Aurihu.6789:

As a since beta thief I’m obviously a little biased. However as a few have pointed out, I’d like to see you fight equally skilled players from the other meta builds using s/d. I admit its strong, that’s why I run it, but the no skill comment is simply ignorance. I admit I can catch a lot of people off guard with a burst but its relatively easy to take me once I’ve exhausted all my init. Now when it comes to dealing with Decap engi’s, turret engi’s, meta guards, d/d hybrid ele’s, skilled mesmer’s of several varieties, any other skilled thief, warriors who are smart enough not to run glass cannon and hundred blades a person for 10 minutes during a team fight, etc…the point is SKILLED players don’t have issues dealing with S/D and while I can win some fights I lose plenty too. So before you start crying OP OP OP NERF PLS OMG 2 FAST 2 STRONK, try playing one at a high lvl, not just terrorizing rabbits in hotjoins.

I do not think that the issue lies in “no skill” personally…

I know I did not say it as well so yea…

What I feel is that it peforms too well compared to other thief builds – they all have a gimmick to work around with to survive, something S/D misses… It gets carried hard by the sigils and it has been known for a while – even by some, if not most, thieves…
I know I am not the best guy to go around saying this since my experiences on thief have been rather low and I mostly played D/P and S/P, but it seems the sentiment is shared…

There are plenty of gaps in S/D’s perma evade. Although I run crit strikes instead of sizer’s Acrobatics. Even so I admit the build is built around not getting hit, but so is D/P and P/D and S/P and D/D and especially dual shortbows of energy…thats how the thief do, they just don’t get hit. The problem is that like someone else in thread mentioned that when people hit or don’t hit a thief in stealth they don’t realize it. people just get frustrated seeing the EVADES, but just like when people say HEARTSEEKER SPAMMER NOOB, only the worst S/D thieves camp their 3 button.

Also, skilled saying that S/D is definitively stronger than D/P is pure silliness, a good D/P thief would know how to wait out S/D’s evades and get stuns and blinds and stabs in. I enjoy S/D as well as D/P…..thing is…I’ve got Bolt and not Incin ;3

thechamp.3092:

For the record, if you’re going to call me a random no name or whatsoever, I main thief with 4.5k tournament games on it and yeah I’m playing competitively. I honestly don’t care about what the nerfs will be as long as they’re nerfs, I just put some obvious suggestions there and yea s/d thief is op because of the survivability BUT with only this it wouldnt be op, right? obv insanely high dmg+insanely high survivability together are op. So I’m suggesting to nerf only one of these aspects (preferably survivability since thief shouldn’t have this). And yeah you can’t really nerf trickery because all of the other thief builds will become unviable.

Shad I respect you as a player and consider you as one of the best thief around nowadays..
But what you’re asking by saying “nerf something but don’t nerf trickery please”, for an S\D thief would be “nerf mobility, aka nerf acrobatic line”, and guess what? I think you are asking in a smart way to not touch in any way your S\P build

On the topic I think that the core design of the thief, in every thief build, is to deal damage and try to avoid damage, every thief weapon has some sort of evade\blind for avoiding damage, just because if the thief fails once, he’s dead.

And no, not everyone is running S\D 2 0 0 6 6 build, you are an exemple of what an S\P thief can do if played correctly

Metrix.5867:

Hello kind community,

Today we will talk about s/d thief, the most op and skill less build in this game.
Perma dodge, 8k insta bursts (with air/fire procs) and barely anything that can kill it in a teamfight.
Is this balanced? No it’s not, thief is supposed to be a class with the highest mobility/single target dmg in the game but with low survivability except for stealth, right now it is the class with the highest single target dmg, the highest moblity BUT a very high survivability that is gamebreaking.
Dear anet, I ask you to nerf s/d thief survivability or thief survivability in general. How about rebalance the 2nd minor trait in acrobatics, maybe give it a 5 second cooldown? Maybe nerf initiative, everyone knows initiative is insanely broken since the increase and you now almost always have the initiative that you need. Maybe nerf trickery a bit? It’s not normal that every build requires this trait line, but how will this affect other builds? I don’t want thief to become unviable nor certain builds to get unplayable but s/d thief is atm by far the strongest build in the game and it needs a nerf.

Also I don’t enjoy getting destroyed by them as a mesmer.

- Misha and Shad.

So we have Terret Engis,Condi spam aoe Engis,PU Mesmer’s,HamBow War ,All sort of bunkers………….Thief’s ……GOD this game is no skill!

So we have Terret Engis,Condi spam aoe Engis,PU Mesmer’s,HamBow War ,All sort of bunkers………….Thief’s ……GOD this game is no skill!

I can understand your position, but I think there is a huge difference between the classes and builds played for instance in soloq and the ones played in teamq: there is no pu mesmer at the moment in any team top 50 or less, as well turret engi or celestial engi with rifle has some survivability issues and this is why right now only one team ([asdf]) in top 50 is using this class with this specific new build.

I’d rather fight a s/d than a d/p any day. Unblockable blinds are no fun.

Fraelin.7409:

Though I completely agree that Sizer’s S/D thief build is a cancer to PvP, I don’t believe the weapon set is the problem.

The problems with Sizer’s 20066 S/D thief build:

My main problem with this S/D build is the damage it can put out when it has 0 points in critical strikes. This is ALL due to “Sigil of Air” and “Sigil of Fire” as well as a 20s cooldown on “Steal” allowing the thief to never run out of initiative (Stealing Grants 2 initiative). The build is obviously meant to be a bunker thief so i have no problem with its sustain.

My ideal fix for the situation:
1) Don’t let “Sigil of Air” and “Sigil of Fire” stack or increase the proc cooldown to 8 seconds for both Sigils. Currently these two Sigils ruin nearly every Zerker vs Zerker fight with RNG and carry builds with little damage and high sustain, to suddenly have high damage and high sustain.
2) Increase the cooldown of “Steal” from 20s to 30s ATLEAST. There will be problems with this, I will address them below. or add some counter play so “Steal” can be dodged.
3) Huge damage reduction in “Flanking strike”, as this is an evade not a offensive skill. I suggest a base damage of around 200 rather than the 500 as it is currently. “Larcenous strike” already deals enough damage, it doesn’t need the extra damage of “Flanking strike”. “Larcenous strike” also has telegraphed animations so can be dodged.

Problems with increasing “Steal” cooldown:
This will hurt every thief build a lot more than S/D so the other thief builds must be given some sustain changes in order to keep them viable as D/P and S/P thieves need the steal to help with sustaining themselves, however these sustain changes must not be able to be used by S/D thieves as they already have enough sustain.

FYI: Any S/D thief that considers these changes to be too harsh, Sizer actually gave me most of the input on them. The main one being the Steal cooldown increase.

Gl with you post Misha, I hope the developers will take it seriously.

Frae

I totally agree with you, they need to do something about s/d thiefs asap, or they will ruin tol/all stars.

Kolly.9872:

thechamp.3092:

For the record, if you’re going to call me a random no name or whatsoever, I main thief with 4.5k tournament games on it and yeah I’m playing competitively. I honestly don’t care about what the nerfs will be as long as they’re nerfs, I just put some obvious suggestions there and yea s/d thief is op because of the survivability BUT with only this it wouldnt be op, right? obv insanely high dmg+insanely high survivability together are op. So I’m suggesting to nerf only one of these aspects (preferably survivability since thief shouldn’t have this). And yeah you can’t really nerf trickery because all of the other thief builds will become unviable.

Shad I respect you as a player and consider you as one of the best thief around nowadays..
But what you’re asking by saying “nerf something but don’t nerf trickery please”, for an S\D thief would be “nerf mobility, aka nerf acrobatic line”, and guess what? I think you are asking in a smart way to not touch in any way your S\P build

On the topic I think that the core design of the thief, in every thief build, is to deal damage and try to avoid damage, every thief weapon has some sort of evade\blind for avoiding damage, just because if the thief fails once, he’s dead.

And no, not everyone is running S\D 2 0 0 6 6 build, you are an exemple of what an S\P thief can do if played correctly

I’m not playing s/p anymore, what I’m trying to suggest is nerf s/d survivability without nerfing too much of other builds. The other thief builds might have some aspects that they’re too strong in but are by no means overpowered. But s/d thief is overpowered, s/p used to be overpowered but it wasn’t even near the level that s/d now is, atleast it was easilly killable and you could notice the difference between experienced/inexperienced players. However with s/d I honestly can’t notice the difference between experienced/inexperienced players and the reason of this is the amount of evasion it has. Yes I do want the acro trait line to get nerfed, it’s the reason of this evasion. No matter how you look at it s/d is still the most broken build right now and needs a nerf.

Fraelin.7409:

Though I completely agree that Sizer’s S/D thief build is a cancer to PvP, I don’t believe the weapon set is the problem.

The problems with Sizer’s 20066 S/D thief build:

My main problem with this S/D build is the damage it can put out when it has 0 points in critical strikes. This is ALL due to “Sigil of Air” and “Sigil of Fire” as well as a 20s cooldown on “Steal” allowing the thief to never run out of initiative (Stealing Grants 2 initiative). The build is obviously meant to be a bunker thief so i have no problem with its sustain.

My ideal fix for the situation:
1) Don’t let “Sigil of Air” and “Sigil of Fire” stack or increase the proc cooldown to 8 seconds for both Sigils. Currently these two Sigils ruin nearly every Zerker vs Zerker fight with RNG and carry builds with little damage and high sustain, to suddenly have high damage and high sustain.
2) Increase the cooldown of “Steal” from 20s to 30s ATLEAST. There will be problems with this, I will address them below. or add some counter play so “Steal” can be dodged.
3) Huge damage reduction in “Flanking strike”, as this is an evade not a offensive skill. I suggest a base damage of around 200 rather than the 500 as it is currently. “Larcenous strike” already deals enough damage, it doesn’t need the extra damage of “Flanking strike”. “Larcenous strike” also has telegraphed animations so can be dodged.

Problems with increasing “Steal” cooldown:
This will hurt every thief build a lot more than S/D so the other thief builds must be given some sustain changes in order to keep them viable as D/P and S/P thieves need the steal to help with sustaining themselves, however these sustain changes must not be able to be used by S/D thieves as they already have enough sustain.

FYI: Any S/D thief that considers these changes to be too harsh, Sizer actually gave me most of the input on them. The main one being the Steal cooldown increase.

Gl with you post Misha, I hope the developers will take it seriously.

Frae

All suggestions seems good to me, except the f1 increase cooldown: as you said, it would hurt d/p and s/p more than s/d itself and I think right now s/p and d/p are quite weak in this bunker meta.
Moreover, I can understand the right for thief to become a bit more bunker, but it’s the combination of bunkering and dps at the same time which is simply ridiculous and the perma dodge phase must be seriously reduced: lots of times I saw several thieves moving badly and doing mistakes and no punishment was possible just because of this miraculous phase. Thief should be the most risky and rewarding class in terms of dps and danger, but s/d breaks every balance.

Kolly.9872:

I would like to see the OP carrying his team using a thief
I would like to see him trying to contest a node vs a turret engi or hambow war
Thieves are masters of roaming, freecap and support teammates in 2 vs 1 situations, nothing more and that is their role.

Misha and Shad were in the second place TOL EU team. I think their views on balance are likely more in depth than others. Does that mean that non-top players have garbo views on balance? No. It does mean that at a high level of play they have a better understanding of mechanics and team work. Also I agree S/D accro is one of the most broken specs in the game that abuses dodging way too much. I say instead of nerfing the evasion… Nerf the damage on FS/LS combo. Right now it does too much

1. Evade+high Damage
2. Boon Strip + High Damage
3. Only costs 5 initiative total.

Where as the other sword combo

1. Stuns
2. Evades+High Damage
3. Costs 6 initiative and has absolutely no stealth access.

SunnyLane.9386:

Fraelin.7409:

Though I completely agree that Sizer’s S/D thief build is a cancer to PvP, I don’t believe the weapon set is the problem.

The problems with Sizer’s 20066 S/D thief build:

My main problem with this S/D build is the damage it can put out when it has 0 points in critical strikes. This is ALL due to “Sigil of Air” and “Sigil of Fire” as well as a 20s cooldown on “Steal” allowing the thief to never run out of initiative (Stealing Grants 2 initiative). The build is obviously meant to be a bunker thief so i have no problem with its sustain.

My ideal fix for the situation:
1) Don’t let “Sigil of Air” and “Sigil of Fire” stack or increase the proc cooldown to 8 seconds for both Sigils. Currently these two Sigils ruin nearly every Zerker vs Zerker fight with RNG and carry builds with little damage and high sustain, to suddenly have high damage and high sustain.
2) Increase the cooldown of “Steal” from 20s to 30s ATLEAST. There will be problems with this, I will address them below. or add some counter play so “Steal” can be dodged.
3) Huge damage reduction in “Flanking strike”, as this is an evade not a offensive skill. I suggest a base damage of around 200 rather than the 500 as it is currently. “Larcenous strike” already deals enough damage, it doesn’t need the extra damage of “Flanking strike”. “Larcenous strike” also has telegraphed animations so can be dodged.

Problems with increasing “Steal” cooldown:
This will hurt every thief build a lot more than S/D so the other thief builds must be given some sustain changes in order to keep them viable as D/P and S/P thieves need the steal to help with sustaining themselves, however these sustain changes must not be able to be used by S/D thieves as they already have enough sustain.

FYI: Any S/D thief that considers these changes to be too harsh, Sizer actually gave me most of the input on them. The main one being the Steal cooldown increase.

Gl with you post Misha, I hope the developers will take it seriously.

Frae

I totally agree with you, they need to do something about s/d thiefs asap, or they will ruin tol/all stars.

And what about Elementalist?

Guys, s/d is not the only broken thing in the game but this thread is about s/d, so please don’t discuss about other classes!

What about all bunker builds using strength runes and here you go you have survivability and dps? So what is the main problem here?

thechamp.3092:

Guys, s/d is not the only broken thing in the game but this thread is about s/d, so please don’t discuss about other classes!

:D i see you play Ele!

I could understand this post if you wrote about all “broken things” and post it on every profession forum but this way is so hypocritical!

Sd thieves r not the problem , it is trickery steal !!

Ways to fix steal would be to remove the short amount of period a character moves extremely slow after being dazed / steal.

Increase it’s cd or

Make it that when your specced on dazing your steal in return does 50% less dmg or no dmg at all

I would love to see a nerf to steal , to increase the gap between good and bad thiefs

Saying and repeating that s/d is not the problem without justifying with arguments why perma dodge shouldn’t be nerfed doesn’t help this thread. Besides, we are talking about s/d nerf, not all thief’s spec nerf: the increase in steal cd wouldn’t help at all, imho. Let’s talk, on the other hand, about nerfing the acrobatics line which is, according to lots of people here, the main problem and, second, doing something about double sigil proc.

Sizer.2654:

Sd thieves r not the problem , it is trickery steal !!

Ways to fix steal would be to remove the short amount of period a character moves extremely slow after being dazed / steal.

Increase it’s cd or

Make it that when your specced on dazing your steal in return does 50% less dmg or no dmg at all

I would love to see a nerf to steal , to increase the gap between good and bad thiefs

why do you even defend this? LOL