Guild Wars 2

To start out this constructive post in order to help the balance of this game, there should be an overall understanding: The player who plays better should win.
Now, this sounds very obvious, almost as if you wouldn’t have to think about it, however, within this game (thieves specifically), this is almost never the case. The main culprit for this imbalance? Steal.
Just moving ones mouse over a standard trickery thief’s steal skill, one can see that it:

• Does decent damage
• Steals two boons (Prioritizing stability)
• Heals self (around 2k)
• Poisons for 11s
• Dazes for 1s
• Grants 10s of fury, might, swiftness, AND vigor
• Gives 2 initiative
• Is instant cast an unavoidable
• Only a 21.5s cooldown

However, even after that unnaturally long list of an instant unavoidable un-counter-playable skill, that isnt the part that ruins matchups and balance in the game, its the profession skills that come afterwards.

Warrior: To start off, stealing from a warrior gives a whirling blades skill, which does around 10k damage to most targets, and can reflect projectiles, while still being able to blind spam the warrior, who honestly cant do much, no matter how good of a player they are. In the end, warrior loses. If this matchup isn’t fixed by the blind field spin combo, then perhaps reducing the damage of the skill would help.

Ranger: Another example is the ranger steal, a healing pod that lasts for 8 seconds, and clears conditions. This is extremely strong versus rangers since they have very few conditions, and all of their damage will get instantly removed with a 21.5s cooldown. However, if this wasnt enough, they can spam cluster bombs into the field and heal themselves to full, meanwhile the ranger can’t do anything, as their damage, in the form of conditions, gets removed instantly, and they take aoe damage from the clusters, which also kill their pets and spirits. Now, spam is a funny word, as it implies no skill or thought occurring, i dont feel as if thats something wanted in the game. Overall, in this matchup, the ranger cannot counterplay the thief spam, no matter how skilled they are, or how unskilled the thief is. An easy fix? Nerf the duration of the healing tree to 4s.

Mesmer: To add on to this, perhaps the most famous of unbalanced matchups, thief versus mesmer. This matchup can’t be fixed as easily, as there are many things that need to be fixed, which will hopefully resolve themselves with mesmer buffs, and thief nerfs.

Overall, theres a reason many pvpers see thieves push far almost every game. They can 1v1 most classes because the other person cannot counterplay, regardless of skill level. And as stated in the beginning of this post, the player who plays better should win.

Sorry for not covering the other matchups, such as necros, who can only hit a lucky fear when the thief has no ports to win, or ele, who just gets 1shot.

Tl;dr: Thief steal abilities need to be reduced in effectiveness. It will help with the matchups

PS: Referring to the generally played builds to represent the classes in this post, warrior being hambow, ranger being spirit ranger, mesmer being shatter, thief being zerker with trickery traits. Please refrain from telling me how your cleric banner warrior does not get decapped from a thief.

Would generally agree with this. The stolen ability from Warriors is being changed with patch but the rest are untouched. I have made suggestions about these abilities in the past;

-Reduce the application rate of Whirling Axe whirl finisher or reduce the duration but up the damage to retain the same overall dps while diminishing the effect of the blind finisher. Either of these will allow more counter play through timing attacks with the Warrior Longbow fire field or through kiting.

-Reduce the duration of the Healing Seed stolen ability from Rangers by 50%. Currently the tree causes the match up to be completely one sided. It should be used during precise moments to attempt to clear certain conditions as well as allow a limited amount of finishers.

-The Thief stolen ability is fine, it gives a short stealth that is usually used for a Surprise Shot, maybe an occasional Backstab or to cover a heal ability.

-The Engineer stolen skill is currently fine as well, it’s duration and radius cause it to be easily avoided and are only useful when utilized properly with CC.

-The Elementalist stolen ability is arguably okay, it has a short range and a decent tell/cast time causing it to be easily avoided – however when it lands it could be considered too powerful.

-The Guardian stolen ability could be nerfed by 1-1.5 seconds. While it has a large tell and cast time it is far too long of a CC. If saved and used at the right times you can chain 8 second dazes on guardians.

I’m not sure what to what to do about Mesmer’s steal, as I find their stolen ability to be fairly balanced. The issues with the match up lie elsewhere.

Honestly, the problem lies in Trickery, it needs to be rebalanced. The consistent ranged teleport bursts makes it way too strong and it offers way too much (D/P trickery thief has as much endurance regen as an acrobatics thief) Most of the professions stolen skills are balanced apart from Ranger (and ele because chill effects attunements). The warrior one is a bug.

Personally I’d like to see maybe sleight of hand split into 2 traits, one for the cooldown one for the daze (and reduce the daze to 1/4 so its used as an actual interrupt) and a reduction on the vigor uptime.

Great post

You’re right, the current thief steal does too much. One skill should not be doing all of that. As for the mesmer steal, i have to disagree with caed, and this is a big problem when fighting thieves. The stability gives the thief immunity to cc from the mesmer for 5 seconds . Lyssa runes and the mes steal create a lot of problems because they have a short cool down and you can’t counter play the thief with cc. That +cluster bombs spam, which do a lot of dmg and kills all the clones. And the thief ability to reset the fight makes it extremely hard for a mes to do well against a thief.

Josh Davis.6015:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Looks like a player skill issue.

I could not agree more.

I have beaten xii xi before and he is a 10/10 and caed is only an 8/10 so I agree.

Sounds like trouble in paradise

hehk.8705:

Josh Davis.6015:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Looks like a player skill issue.

I could not agree more.

I have beaten xii xi before and he is a 10/10 and caed is only an 8/10 so I agree.

Tron Jeremy must be 11/10 then.

+1

Excellent post, anet plz.

The one skill that makes Thief a Thief needs to be nerfed? Game isn’t balanced around one on ones.

glaphen.5230:

The one skill that makes Thief a Thief needs to be nerfed? Game isn’t balanced around one on ones.

best double shortbow condi bunker teef na. respect.

hehk.8705:

glaphen.5230:

The one skill that makes Thief a Thief needs to be nerfed? Game isn’t balanced around one on ones.

best double shortbow condi bunker teef na.

0 condition damage OP.

FeelsAlright.5860:

Honestly, the problem lies in Trickery, it needs to be rebalanced. The consistent ranged teleport bursts makes it way too strong and it offers way too much (D/P trickery thief has as much endurance regen as an acrobatics thief) Most of the professions stolen skills are balanced apart from Ranger (and ele because chill effects attunements). The warrior one is a bug.

Personally I’d like to see maybe sleight of hand split into 2 traits, one for the cooldown one for the daze (and reduce the daze to 1/4 so its used as an actual interrupt) and a reduction on the vigor uptime.

Vigor on Bountiful theft has already been nerfed. The problem lies with the stolen abilities you get in a lot of match ups. You’re suggesting to split up steal into even more traits when I already take 6 for steal alone:

-Serpent’s Touch
-Mug
-Kleptomaniac
-Thrill of the Crime
-Bountiful Theft
-Sleight of Hand

D/P thief doesn’t have anywhere close to the endurance of an acrobatics thief.
The stolen skills are what causes thief to be so strong in a lot of 1v1 match ups. I’ve played the class since beta and each stolen skill is imperative to winning a 1v1.

-Warrior whirl is a necessary defensive ability, and I agree with the change to the mechanic of the whirl finisher.
-Guardian daze is required to even kill a good bunker guardian in the first place, or to mitigate pressure from a DPS guardian.
-Wasting the Engineer throw makes the 1v1 ten times harder, as it provides zone control, a very good combo field, and a large amount of damage over time – as well as condition application.
-Ranger tree is required to increase sustain and reduce pressure from ranger conditions.
-Thief steal is extremely helpful in both the blind application and the extended stealth duration, letting you out stealth the other thief if used properly. This can be used offensively or defensively.
-The Ele ice pick greatly increases the pressure onto the Ele, while reducing the pressure onto you (counter pressure). Wasting this skill will cause you to lose in most situations.
-The Mesmer steal grants stability at a lower duration than the other boons. You use this to cover a cast (Hide in Shadows), protect a refuge (stability/aegis), or to mitigate burst (protection/vigor). The boons have a different duration (compared to Lyssa runes which provide 10s of every boon in the game). Stability on this only lasts 3 seconds.
-Missing the Necro fear pretty much means you will die. You need the counter pressure and damage or to burn the Necromancer’s cooldown in order to shift the fight into your favor. Missing this means the Necro has free reign to pressure you in the four seconds you’d have otherwise.

Each stolen ability is necessary to win their respective 1v1 and is extremely good against those classes. However some are over the top (I’ve already laid those out) and should be adjusted to help even up the skill match up.

Oh gawd, not another “thieves are OP” thread. -.-

Why do you think have steal a cd of 35 secs?
Nevertheless steal is weak, also with the items.
Every other class have a lower cd on their classskills, than thieves and the most classes have more than one and much better traits for it.

BTW: Why do you write that steal is “unbalanced”, if you talk about a 10/xx/xx/xx/30
thief?

Shall we now discuss about steal or about a thief with 30 Points in Trickery + Sleight of Hand? We cant both, at the same time.

Eli.4653:

Overall, theres a reason many pvpers see thieves push far almost every game. They can 1v1 most classes because the other person cannot counterplay, regardless of skill level. And as stated in the beginning of this post, the player who plays better should win.

I’m happy, that you wrote this.
Yes, the better player should win and in the most cases happen this.

If you have problems to counter these items, than should you look on yourself and find the mistakes, which you do.

I play, beside my thief, five other classes (all except Ele and Engi) and the most thieves or more, the most players are freekills for me, because they cant play and dont know what they must do or how to counter other classes or their skills.
But that doesn’t wonder me, as long the most people run, with metabuilds, in zergs and use always the same tactic.(=spam one skill after another)

As I read your text, I saw exactly that what I wrote before.

1 vs 1

Whirling Axe -> Dodge, or just walk away from it.

Healing Spring -> Add only 8 secs of reg. and the thief must stay in to remove conditions, which means the thief is a big target for your bows and cannot attack you.

Ectoplasma -> Who cares, 5 secs are nothing and Mesmer have so many skills against boons.

Throw Gunk-> Good dmg/effect, in a very small area, but only if the thief can hold you in, on the other hand a very good way to break their stealth.

Mace Head Crack-> A very dangerous skill, but guardians have enough skills to dodge, block or break this.

Ice Shard Stab-> For me, the only good items beside WA, which thieves have and very dangerous, if you have nothing that remove conditions.
But with your 20 weapon- + utilityskills, it shouldn’t have big influence.

Skull Fear-> Strong, but only against near enemiey. That mean, the long execution time, give you enough time, for a CC and make them very invulnerable for directdmg.

Blinding Tuft-> Helpful for stealthbuilds, lesser for Non-stealth builds.

EDIT: Thx Narcarsis, I see now I forget one Point in Whirling Axe.
EDIT2 in Healing Spring: Do you understand it now?

Black Teagan.9215:

Whirling Axe -> Dodge.

Dodging counters skills, who knew?

don’t forget the steals from pets/minions!

Maybe steal should steal gold instead, but only if target dies =]

kirito.4138:

don’t forget the steals from pets/minions!

Maybe steal should steal gold instead, but only if target dies =]

No way, then would they criticize, that the thief is a thief. :P

PS: I dont forget the steals from the pets/minions, but I wont talk about them, because not every class can use them and their items are very rare in use.

But I would like it, if ANet add more items to every class, that can be stolen.

Black Teagan.9215:

1 vs 1

Whirling Axe -> Dodge

Healing Spring -> Decoy them out, or use your bow and blow them away, if they dont wont to go out.

Ectoplasma -> Who cares, 5 secs are nothing and Mesmer have so many skills against boons.

Throw Gunk-> Good dmg/effect, in a very small area, but only if the thief can hold you in, on the other hand a very good way to break their stealth.

Mace Head Crack-> A very dangerous skill, but guardians have enough skills to dodge, block or break this.

Ice Shard Stab-> For me, the only good items beside WA, which thieves have and very dangerous, if you have nothing that remove conditions.
But with your 20 weapon- + utilityskills, it shouldn’t have big influence.

Skull Fear-> Strong, but only against near enemy. That mean, the long execution time, give you enough time, for a CC and make them very invulnerable for directdmg.

Blinding Tuft-> Helpful for stealthbuilds, lesser for Non-stealth builds.

Whirling Axe – Lasts longer than one dodge, which you should have already forced before using. You also have teleports if necessary to prevent kiting.

Healing Spring – Please speak English.

Ectoplasm – I won’t say who cares, but I feel this one is fine.

Throw Gunk – You can, and should, hold them in Throw Gunk. But this is another that I feel is fine due to the small area.

Mace Crack – Good players will count dodges, force stab, and count cooldowns. If you land both successively you land an 8+ second daze. If you miss you messed up, not so much the Guardian. Good Guardians will capitalize on your mistakes and stay alive forever – the only Guardian I’ve seen do that is Tage. Everyone else is rather easy (or moderately easy) to kill quickly.

Ice Shard – Lasts far too long. Again it’s very easy to force and count dodges. You use this after they leave Water Attunement and cover it with poison. If you do it correctly you will ensure that they can’t clear it by saving another Steal to interrupt their Ether Renewal if they have it.

Skull Fear – This one is okay. Very long cast time, easy to see. It has counter play regardless of if the Thief can teleport to you due to the visible animation. However it can be used in stealth very effectively. I still don’t see an issue with this ability.

Blinding Tuft – Helpful always. However this is also fine.

Narcarsis.5739:

Black Teagan.9215:

1 vs 1

Whirling Axe -> Dodge

Healing Spring -> Decoy them out, or use your bow and blow them away, if they dont wont to go out.

Ectoplasma -> Who cares, 5 secs are nothing and Mesmer have so many skills against boons.

Throw Gunk-> Good dmg/effect, in a very small area, but only if the thief can hold you in, on the other hand a very good way to break their stealth.

Mace Head Crack-> A very dangerous skill, but guardians have enough skills to dodge, block or break this.

Ice Shard Stab-> For me, the only good items beside WA, which thieves have and very dangerous, if you have nothing that remove conditions.
But with your 20 weapon- + utilityskills, it shouldn’t have big influence.

Skull Fear-> Strong, but only against near enemy. That mean, the long execution time, give you enough time, for a CC and make them very invulnerable for directdmg.

Blinding Tuft-> Helpful for stealthbuilds, lesser for Non-stealth builds.

Whirling Axe – Lasts longer than one dodge, which you should have already forced before using. You also have teleports if necessary to prevent kiting. – Learn to use CC(Old Whirling Axe block all melee attack and 90% CC ablities exept ranged CC – Head Shot etc, new Whirling Axe block only ranged attack and CC

Healing Spring – Please speak English.

Ectoplasm – I won’t say who cares, but I feel this one is fine.

Throw Gunk – You can, and should, hold them in Throw Gunk. But this is another that I feel is fine due to the small area. —- useless in PvP(small aoe)

Mace Crack – Good players will count dodges, force stab, and count cooldowns. If you land both successively you land an 8+ second daze. If you miss you messed up, not so much the Guardian. Good Guardians will capitalize on your mistakes and stay alive forever – the only Guardian I’ve seen do that is Tage. Everyone else is rather easy (or moderately easy) to kill quickly. —-Long cast time,Head shot or PW is better

Ice Shard – Lasts far too long. Again it’s very easy to force and count dodges. You use this after they leave Water Attunement and cover it with poison. If you do it correctly you will ensure that they can’t clear it by saving another Steal to interrupt their Ether Renewal if they have it.

Skull Fear – This one is okay. Very long cast time, easy to see. It has counter play regardless of if the Thief can teleport to you due to the visible animation. However it can be used in stealth very effectively. I still don’t see an issue with this ability.

Blinding Tuft – Helpful always. However this is also fine.

I want to spend a couple of words about Ice Shard Stab.
That is a 10s Chill which completely mess up with the Elementalists attunement swapping, which means in most cases, unless you have Cleansing Fire slotted and ready to use, sure death of the elementalist after it lands.

Elementalists already have an extremely hard time against Thieves (which I think it is the main reason they are out of the meta right now), but that skill… That skill is their nail in the coffin.

Narcarsis.5739:

FeelsAlright.5860:

Vigor on Bountiful theft has already been nerfed. The problem lies with the stolen abilities you get in a lot of match ups. You’re suggesting to split up steal into even more traits when I already take 6 for steal alone:

-Serpent’s Touch
-Mug
-Kleptomaniac
-Thrill of the Crime
-Bountiful Theft
-Sleight of Hand

D/P thief doesn’t have anywhere close to the endurance of an acrobatics thief.
The stolen skills are what causes thief to be so strong in a lot of 1v1 match ups. I’ve played the class since beta and each stolen skill is imperative to winning a 1v1.

Thrill of the crime, bountiful theft, and sleight of hand are like having 6 traits not 3. Sleight of hand is 2 grandmasters together.

D/P DOES have as much endurance regen as a acrobatics thief.

Acrobatics Vigor uptime: 6.5/15 = 43.3% PLUS 15 returned on feline grace.
D/P Trickery Vigor uptime: 10/21.5 = 46.5% PLUS 10 returned on the extremely fast autoattack.

The traitline needs to be rebalanced so you actually have to make choices. Do I want to be able to stun on steal? Or do I want an extremely low cooldown? Do I want to be offensive and steal boons so I stun? Or do I want to be defensive and survive longer?

I know Trickery is your baby but it’s for the betterment of the game.

Thieves aren’t op but they have some bullkitten mindless skills.
Heart seeker for example…you don’t have to even be facing your target an you jump halfway across the map to your target when used and does a ton of damage. This skill should be aimed like ele burning speed. There are to many skills for thiees that being them directly to their target and then back away which leaves no room for counters. That’s why people think they are op. I don’t think they are, but they do need more skill shots rather than the mindless 2 spam they can perform now.

DanzelOPP.5068:

Thieves aren’t op but they have some bullkitten mindless skills.
Heart seeker for example…

What do you mean with “some”?
Nearly the half of all traits and skills are terrible and in the most cases weak or useless and the rest is half broken, half fine.

HS:
I think, they should take out 30% of the dmg from the “Life >50%” part and put 25% into the “Life < 25%” part.

Eli.4653:

The main culprit for this imbalance? Steal.
Just moving ones mouse over a standard trickery thief’s steal skill, one can see that it:

• Does decent damage
• Steals two boons (Prioritizing stability)
• Heals self (around 2k)
• Poisons for 11s
• Dazes for 1s
• Grants 10s of fury, might, swiftness, AND vigor
• Gives 2 initiative
• Is instant cast an unavoidable
• Only a 21.5s cooldown
  …+Profession skill stolen

This list, even when one trait-line is used for it, is clearly WAY too much for an instant-cast, ranged skill that ignores LOS (and thus most positioning), and can be used after pre-casting a skill to land a big hit when otherwise ill-positioned to do so.

The only time steal should miss is when the thief plays poorly, meaning hits F1 when his target is dodging. Being able to interrupt any heal with a cast time is unreasonable, especially for heals like ether renewal.

Thieves also talk about how having easy-access to stealth is important for survival to cover important casts like heals, yet think its ok that non-stealth professions can have their defensive skill that covers their heal is completely negatable with this setup.

Thieves live in their own world where they can’t understand just how unreasonably strong the kit of skills they have been given is.

BlackBeard.2873:

ranged skill that ignores LOS (and thus most positioning),

Lets clear this up now before you continue to make a fool of yourself speaking about a class that you clearly don’t play.

Things that happen when you are out of LoS or blinded and steal:
-You are teleported to your target
-Thrill of the Crime procs giving you fury, swiftness and a stack of might

Things that don’t happen when you are out of LoS or blinded and steal:
- Gain vigor
- Get healed from mug
- Gain 2 initiative
- Poison
- Daze
- Deals damage
- Gain the steal ability

^Steal requires LOS…

Ozie.4176:

BlackBeard.2873:

ranged skill that ignores LOS (and thus most positioning),

Lets clear this up now before you continue to make a fool of yourself speaking about a class that you clearly don’t play.

Things that happen when you are out of LoS or blinded and steal:
-You are teleported to your target
-Thrill of the Crime procs giving you fury, swiftness and a stack of might

Things that don’t happen when you are out of LoS or blinded and steal:
- Gain vigor
- Get healed from mug
- Gain 2 initiative
- Poison
- Daze
- Deals damage
- Gain the steal ability

I only knew about some of these, thanks for the complete list. It’s unfortunate that there’s so many hidden behaviors to mechanics.

From the next patch:
“Fixed a bug where Steal would be obstructed after shadowstepping to the target if the thief started behind an obstacle”

I.e. its meant to an will completely negate LOS. Very few people have realized how big of a buff this will be.

Sorry if my communication wasn’t clear, and also adding clarifications.

Good to see people complaining about D/P already. The nerfs to S/P haven’t even hit yet. The reality is that a thief will always have complaints. That’s the just nature of the class.

@OP: A good mesmer can beat a good thief. You are judging too much from playing with caed or magic toker. They are not indicative of the class.

FeelsAlright.5860:

Narcarsis.5739:

FeelsAlright.5860:

Vigor on Bountiful theft has already been nerfed. The problem lies with the stolen abilities you get in a lot of match ups. You’re suggesting to split up steal into even more traits when I already take 6 for steal alone:

-Serpent’s Touch
-Mug
-Kleptomaniac
-Thrill of the Crime
-Bountiful Theft
-Sleight of Hand

D/P thief doesn’t have anywhere close to the endurance of an acrobatics thief.
The stolen skills are what causes thief to be so strong in a lot of 1v1 match ups. I’ve played the class since beta and each stolen skill is imperative to winning a 1v1.

Thrill of the crime, bountiful theft, and sleight of hand are like having 6 traits not 3. Sleight of hand is 2 grandmasters together.

D/P DOES have as much endurance regen as a acrobatics thief.

Acrobatics Vigor uptime: 6.5/15 = 43.3% PLUS 15 returned on feline grace.
D/P Trickery Vigor uptime: 10/21.5 = 46.5% PLUS 10 returned on the extremely fast autoattack.

The traitline needs to be rebalanced so you actually have to make choices. Do I want to be able to stun on steal? Or do I want an extremely low cooldown? Do I want to be offensive and steal boons so I stun? Or do I want to be defensive and survive longer?

I know Trickery is your baby but it’s for the betterment of the game.

The choices are made between damage and Improvisation (Deadly Arts) or Sleight of Hand. When the Sleight of Hand patch came out I chose to drop the damage for the consistent utility of Sleight of Hand versus the RNG of Improvisation. The reason for that lies with how the meta shifted. Conditions and bunkers moved into the meta in place of burst. If this weren’t the case I would still be playing 25/30/0/0/15. The weakness and extra damage would mitigate the damage/evades from the other team and help with coordinated burst spikes. However as a thief you are generally the only burst on the team, and there isn’t much burst on the other team. The new steal is required to survive in team fights and to bring any use to your team without falling over in two seconds.

The problem that lies with it is how broken the stolen abilities are. An 8 second water field every 21.5 seconds. A blind spam/reflect for 3.5 seconds every steal cooldown. A 10 second chill every steal cooldown, which can be saved for the next steal and stacked up to 20 seconds of chill. A 4 second daze that can be chained again up to 8 seconds.

These things are problems in 1v1 scenarios, however in a team fights they are easily covered by proper team play and without Steal how it is thief wouldn’t survive past the initial burst in a team fight. Tone down the stolen skills and you will balance the game.

Thief with the stolen boons is VERY dangerous to a mesmer, them being able to gain stab when they use refuge and just for high defense when they play on the attack. Don’t rubbish the power of them – the only way I’ve found myself in decent positions to kill a thief is from them missing Steal.

But the warrior whirl does seem most broken (but then it kills condi warrior so I’m kinda morally torn)

Narcarsis.5739:

I’m not sure what to what to do about Mesmer’s steal, as I find their stolen ability to be fairly balanced. The issues with the match up lie elsewhere.

A lyssa proc with twice the boon duration on half the CD. Such balance.

Still, I agree — there are other issues with the mesmer/thief match-up that are more important than consume plasma.

cyyrix.6105:

Narcarsis.5739:

I’m not sure what to what to do about Mesmer’s steal, as I find their stolen ability to be fairly balanced. The issues with the match up lie elsewhere.

A lyssa proc with twice the boon duration on half the CD. Such balance.

Still, I agree — there are other issues with the mesmer/thief match-up that are more important than consume plasma.

Consume Plasma isn’t a lyssa proc, no conditions are removed. If you build a mesmer for 1v1, then you probably aren’t going to care to deal with the boons unless you’re up against guardians or ele’s, but you have the option to use arcane thievery or null field.

Shockwave.1230:

cyyrix.6105:

Narcarsis.5739:

I’m not sure what to what to do about Mesmer’s steal, as I find their stolen ability to be fairly balanced. The issues with the match up lie elsewhere.

A lyssa proc with twice the boon duration on half the CD. Such balance.

Still, I agree — there are other issues with the mesmer/thief match-up that are more important than consume plasma.

Consume Plasma isn’t a lyssa proc, no conditions are removed. If you build a mesmer for 1v1, then you probably aren’t going to care to deal with the boons unless you’re up against guardians or ele’s, but you have the option to use arcane thievery or null field.

You don’t really have the options of Nullfield or Thievery in tPvP though, without Decoy/Blink/Portal you are super vulnerable or less useful than other options.

Shockwave.1230:

cyyrix.6105:

Narcarsis.5739:

I’m not sure what to what to do about Mesmer’s steal, as I find their stolen ability to be fairly balanced. The issues with the match up lie elsewhere.

A lyssa proc with twice the boon duration on half the CD. Such balance.

Still, I agree — there are other issues with the mesmer/thief match-up that are more important than consume plasma.

Consume Plasma isn’t a lyssa proc, no conditions are removed.

Excellent point — we all know thieves slot lyssa runes for condi clear, not burst setup.

cyyrix.6105:

Shockwave.1230:

cyyrix.6105:

Narcarsis.5739:

I’m not sure what to what to do about Mesmer’s steal, as I find their stolen ability to be fairly balanced. The issues with the match up lie elsewhere.

A lyssa proc with twice the boon duration on half the CD. Such balance.

Still, I agree — there are other issues with the mesmer/thief match-up that are more important than consume plasma.

Consume Plasma isn’t a lyssa proc, no conditions are removed.

Excellent point — we all know thieves slot lyssa runes for condi clear, not burst setup.

It all depends on the situation. Condi cleanse vs some builds, boons for other builds. There’s also the option to precast venom ahead of a fight in order for it to be off cd a second time during a fight.

December.3946:

Sounds like trouble in paradise

+1

Amitabh Bachan.4385:

^Steal requires LOS…

Wrong, you can still click steal and get the might, fury and swiftness even out of LoS.

warrior moves out of whirling axe and blind field. problem solved
healing seed its garbage imo. why would i waste initiative while still getting bursted down then be left with nothing when I’m done. the condi clear is the only good thing about it.
and mesmers are just another petting zoo like necros. i can usually kill one with my sb alone and thats after a pretty decent long fight.
the only statement i agree with you here is the better player should win. if all these “op stolen skills” get nerfed id like to see 5 skill for warrior axe necro fear rangers healing spring nerfed with it. makes sense right? its a stolen ability the stolen ability is op then the original is also?

A moderator edited out the other part of my previous post where I explained that the only way to simulate the same endurance regeneration as an Acrobatics thief would be to sit and auto attack a target golem constantly. In no way is that realistic to actual game play as you would be focused and killed. An Acrobatics thief also takes Signet of Agility, which has too much synergy with Feline Grace, amounting to a series of extra dodges. This can be further abused with Sigil of Energy. By no means does a Trickery thief have the same amount of endurance regeneration as an Acrobatics thief in any competitive environment.

cyyrix.6105:

A lyssa proc with twice the boon duration on half the CD. Such balance.

Still, I agree — there are other issues with the mesmer/thief match-up that are more important than consume plasma.

I would say if it’s considered that Consume Plasma is too strong even compared to Lyssa (due to the lack of the condition clear) drop the duration of the boons that are already 10 seconds to 5 seconds and it could still be used intelligently. The main use for it is stability which is inherently 3 seconds anyway. The protection and regeneration are also nice but 5 seconds is more than enough time to use to either eat or stall a Mesmer’s burst (depending on how smart they are).

After the bug fix to black powder + whirling axe combo, I don’t see this being nearly as OP as it is now. In its current state though it’s totally broken haha

Edit: I also wanna say that, if the duration of the stolen abilities are reduced by half I think that would be a good start for evening things out between classes as caed mentioned. Four sec daze , 12 second chill, 10 sec of all boons, 10 second water field is just too much for a 20 second cooldown on steal.
edit2: meant to say black powder not blinding :p

I think we need to see how the meta evolves before suggesting new changes to any of the classes. Tuesday will be exciting.

My “standard trickery thief’s steal skill” does not do all those things. If I wanted to dump my entire trait line (and more, trickery does not give damage, that would be mug) into one skill with a 22.5 second cooldown, I would be one dumb thief, and I would have no counters to any opponents move. I think a requirement for all thief OP threads is a video demonstrating its full effectiveness in said field (here sPVP) and if your video isn’t you going against a motionless rank 1 player, than I (and I’m sure other players) will pay attention as to how no other class seems to have the ability to hit the thief.

magicmanh.1597:

My “standard trickery thief’s steal skill” does not do all those things. If I wanted to dump my entire trait line (and more, trickery does not give damage, that would be mug) into one skill with a 22.5 second cooldown, I would be one dumb thief, and I would have no counters to any opponents move. I think a requirement for all thief OP threads is a video demonstrating its full effectiveness in said field (here sPVP) and if your video isn’t you going against a motionless rank 1 player, than I (and I’m sure other players) will pay attention as to how no other class seems to have the ability to hit the thief.

facepalm Watch Caed (Narcarsis) play PvP then, bro

magicmanh.1597:

My “standard trickery thief’s steal skill” does not do all those things. If I wanted to dump my entire trait line (and more, trickery does not give damage, that would be mug) into one skill with a 22.5 second cooldown, I would be one dumb thief, and I would have no counters to any opponents move. I think a requirement for all thief OP threads is a video demonstrating its full effectiveness in said field (here sPVP) and if your video isn’t you going against a motionless rank 1 player, than I (and I’m sure other players) will pay attention as to how no other class seems to have the ability to hit the thief.

You can “cover” your steal to make sure it lands.
Vid or it didn’t happen? http://www.twitch.tv/narcarsis
Watch that before you comment further.

Just wanted to say that I agree with the OP. Whirling Axe and Healing Seed steal abilities are without a doubt ridiculous and need a toning down. Not sure about the others, but I’d assume Caed’s suggestions are pretty close to the mark.

Regarding the shots fired towards Guardians, let’s keep in mind that Tage plays AH build with about 200 more Toughness, more Mace Healing Power (or +150 Toughness as Tage runs it), Focus, AH, and maybe even Writ of the Merciful for dueling, all of which improve the Thief 1v1 matchup (Boon Duration vs Trickery thief… yay). Even so, it’s pretty rare that a Virtues Guard with all CDs will die 1v1 to a Thief in less than 30 seconds, unless they mess up and get dazed out of using Sanct or something. Another thing is that Thief 1v1ing a Guard shouldn’t come up super often in matches if the Guard is doing proper rotations.

That being said, the daze is pretty long tho. Bringing it down to 3s would make sense.

Eli.4653:

• Does decent damage
• Steals two boons (Prioritizing stability)
• Heals self (around 2k)
• Poisons for 11s
• Dazes for 1s
• Grants 10s of fury, might, swiftness, AND vigor
• Gives 2 initiative
• Is instant cast an unavoidable
• Only a 21.5s cooldown

Who, I ask you who could have possibly foreseen that a skill would be powerful when 50% of the spec’s traits are directly dedicated to buffing it and only it? It’s madness I tell you, madness!

Oh, let’s also note you can evade/block/be immune to steal, and of course a blinded thief misses said steal, so “unavoidable” is false.

The guardian steal is only strong because it has a 1/4 second cast and a 4 second daze. I would prefer the cast be toned down so that it reward good play but shorting the daze would be good enough.

The daze if landed on a guard can usually turn a fight. If a thief never gets the daze a guard should win handily every time but if they can land it, the fight is much harder.

Narcarsis.5739:

Good Guardians will capitalize on your mistakes and stay alive forever – the only Guardian I’ve seen do that is Tage. Everyone else is rather easy (or moderately easy) to kill quickly.

Fighting a thief is easy on AH guard. I have killed you before or at least made you run away with your tail between your legs before on AH guard. The reason for your easy time with most guard in NA, including myself sometime, is the virtue guard build and favoring of shield. That build makes fighting thieves much harder, due to the lack of extra toughness and lack of a second stun break in the form of save yourselves.

And if you do not want to listen to me, listen to a guard who is a lot better then me.

Regarding the shots fired towards Guardians, let’s keep in mind that Tage plays AH build with about 200 more Toughness, more Mace Healing Power (or +150 Toughness as Tage runs it), Focus, AH, and maybe even Writ of the Merciful for dueling, all of which improve the Thief 1v1 matchup (Boon Duration vs Trickery thief… yay).

evilapprentice.6379:

Oh, let’s also note you can evade/block/be immune to steal, and of course a blinded thief misses said steal, so “unavoidable” is false.

If you’re good enough to have a decent opinion on what is and isn’t OP then you wouldn’t be missing steals, just sayin’

cymerdown.4103:

let’s keep in mind that Tage plays AH build…

Yeah this is true. There are significant differences in bunkering capabilities when comparing an AH build with a Virtues build (shoutout to all thieves smart enough to interrupt a guard when he uses empowering might), but Caed doesn’t play guardian so I’m sure he isn’t familiar with the subtle differences.

That being said, to be more on topic: Steal is probably going to be broken after patch because they are removing the LoS on it. It’s LoS drawback is one of the main reasons why thieves bring infiltrator signet – beyond the fact that infiltrator signet synergies so well with the steal abilities.

Also, the only thing a thief needs to land a whirling axe with is bassi venom. Even then, though, I’d still say that the 1v1 matchup between a thief and a warrior is still in the warrior’s favor but not by much – certainly not so much after the patch with the pindown change.

The hardest match-up for a thief by far, in my opinion, is the engie matchup. They usually bring protection injection. Also, since it’s so dangerous to go melee against an engie, you have to sit in shortbow virtually the entire time. Even then it isn’t a guaranteed win because it’s so easy to proc burning on a thief since you can’t dodge the incendiary powder.

Finally, a D/P thief by no means has the same amount of dodges as an S/D thief. That’s just a silly pants statement by a person who probably doesn’t play the class.

It’s been said before, but D/P trickery thief is one of those specs that seem ridiculously op, but usually you win as a D/P trickery thief by knowing what you are doing and not just blindly using skills on cooldowns (or blindly using initiative whenever you can – trickery thieves do die to poor initiative management, it’s just hard for a typical player to see how the thief is managing his initiative). There are definitely things to look for playing D/P trickery that you need to look for in matchups. In other words, it’s a spec that you play and say to yourself if you lose, “I know where I screwed up, and I know I can play better.” Fundamentally, they have all the tools necessary to deal with virtually any situation, but it’s not a spec where you can faceroll your way to victory by pressing your 3 skill – you have to look for certain things.

I know the build differences, I stand by what I said. It’s not necessarily a shot towards anyone but more of a compliment to Tage.