Guild Wars 2

ehtom.5047:

I have played alot of games. I have played several at very high levels of play.

I have NEVER seen something as broken as the Thief before. For PvP, the class is completely anti-fun:

1. Bleed stack builds are pretty much griefing.
2. Almost impossible to kill with the stealth spam.
3. Backstab instagib from stealth – No way this should be in the game imo.
4. Stealth stomp – If this is a bug, then its just plain griefing and repeat offenders should be punished.
5. Downed state – high damage & mobility. Compared to most other classes downed state its just plain ridiculous (all downed states should be like Guardian imo – give you a chance to survive for a while, but not continue to grief the other player).
6. Some of their builds require no skill whatsoever. I rolled a thief, played pistol whip and within 15 mins I was owning people (I didnt even know what half the buttons were for and never weapon swapped)

Now, I am not good enough at the game to say if they are overpowered or not. However this is not my point. My point is that Thieves in their current state are not fun to play against at all and are ruining the fun potential of this game considerably.

Bleed stacks? … Just… keep a condition cleanse with you, or 2, preferably 2.

Stealth Spam: AoE the kitten out of the area, you can still hit us. Hit a surviability button and take the backstab (like an idiot), dont do anything and eat it (like a bigger idiot), or anticipate the backstab and dodge. If you dodge far enough away it’s hard to catch up and backstab without blowing your own dodge, and our stealth only last 2-6 seconds. Shadow Refuge you have to sit in for about 7-8 seconds, before you can step out for the last 3 seconds. So just dont kittening stand in it.

Backstab: See Stealth Spam, and dont get hit by it.

Stealth Stomp: …You’re on the ground, you already loss. Just accept it or delay for your team if you have an AoE KB/daze.

Downed State: Our down state sucks IMO. Teleport only goes so far, and you still have to wait for smoke bomb to come off CD after for a few seconds. Smoke Bomb doesnt teleport us, just keep hitting where we were. Our down state only delays the inevitable in 1vs1(+).

I can own bads by spamming 1 button: Well duh, they’re bads… kitten

I doubt you will actually read all of that, so I probably just wasted my time. You’re bad, and you should feel bad.

Thieves will be nerfed. It’s 100% inevitable at this point. It’s not a question of whether it’s just a question of when.

certainly there will be aspects of the thief class getting nerfed

Killing someone in less than 2 seconds from stealth will be nerfed. It’s inevitable. It just isn’t good game design. Are there counters? Yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good dynamic to have in the game.

You have to love the exaggeration of numbers as usual, in this thread.
So apparently thief can backstab for 5 million damage on demand without cooldowns,
Can perma shadowstep without running out of initiative
Can perma stealth
Can pistol whip your entire group dead in 1 second

and now…:
Can kill you in a few seconds with condition damage

lol… I play a condition damage thief and I use the d/d set, so that means death blossom.
That is 3 stacks of bleeding per hit, we are not getting more then 9-10 stacks on you without stealthing (there are talents that give us initiative doing this), or swapping weapons (talents again, and means we have 2x d/d to be effective) or steal (would require 2 talents to get us 1 more death blossom)

Ofc we have caltrops which is our fastest, hands down bleed applier, a utility skill. So cooldown based, not initiative. Even if you stood still in it with 10k hp, your not going to die in a “couple” seconds.

Oh and get this, every class has at least 1 ability that will remove ALL stacks of bleeding.

Sure some of us thieves wish our weapon sets were more engaging with variety. We also wish the devs were smart enough not to put a SELF ROOT on an ability on a MOBILITY based class and then nerf the ability without removing the self root. For instance, as a condition thief, I def think we should have more condition applications on other attacks in d/d (like burning and/or chill?) or have our own weapon set dedicated to conditions and condition damage even better.

agreed yukishiro, very much so.

however if all they do is nerf backstab base damage, they hurt non glass specs a lot nad force thieves to keep speccing glass, if they nerf the damage stacking effects/traits/skills that cause this build to exist, i think it would be a better route

Ignoring all the posts that don’t understand what the OP is asking, the counter to DB is to simply not attack the thief while he’s using it. DB uses a fair amount of initiative, it’s not easily spammable like HS. You can also evade DB yourself. It’s a fairly obvious animation and sound.

Yeah that is obviously the smart way to go. Quickness and assassin’s signet need to be removed from the game entirely and I think you would see 90% of the thief whines go away.

Kneru.8014:

Bleed stacks? … Just… keep a condition cleanse with you, or 2, preferably 2.

Stealth Spam: AoE the kitten out of the area, you can still hit us. Hit a surviability button and take the backstab (like an idiot), dont do anything and eat it (like a bigger idiot), or anticipate the backstab and dodge. If you dodge far enough away it’s hard to catch up and backstab without blowing your own dodge, and our stealth only last 2-6 seconds. Shadow Refuge you have to sit in for about 7-8 seconds, before you can step out for the last 3 seconds. So just dont kittening stand in it.

Backstab: See Stealth Spam, and dont get hit by it.

Stealth Stomp: …You’re on the ground, you already loss. Just accept it or delay for your team if you have an AoE KB/daze.

Downed State: Our down state sucks IMO. Teleport only goes so far, and you still have to wait for smoke bomb to come off CD after for a few seconds. Smoke Bomb doesnt teleport us, just keep hitting where we were. Our down state only delays the inevitable in 1vs1(+).

I can own bads by spamming 1 button: Well duh, they’re bads kitten

I doubt you will actually read all of that, so I probably just wasted my time. You’re bad, and you should feel bad.

Well I did read your reply. Clearly you did not read my OP. I explicitly stated that I am not good at this game. I explicitly stated that my post is not about high-level balance (though I suspect you are a standard spvp thief just like everyone else, not some tournament pro).

As for your reply…

1. I tried stacking condition cleanses. It didnt really work that well, whatever you cleanse gets instantly re-applied and is back up to 10+ stacks of bleeds in a few seconds. Also you cant do anything about the thief while hes spamming his button, since he evades all attacks.

2. There is hardly any instant-cast instant-spike-damage wide-area aoe in this game (that I know of). This is what would be required to nuke a thief down while in stealth without him just running away then coming back in once the aoe has ended.

3. The game is clearly not designed that way. The downed state is supposed to give you a chance to be revived, stealth stomp makes this impossible.

4. I disagree with your opinion. In your opinion, what class has a good downed state then? Are you saying all other classes have a better downed state? (only Mesmer even comes close imo).

5. Being able to own “bads” while spamming 1 button does not make you good. Those builds require absolutely no skill (I speak from personal experience) and should be changed.

Hilarious thread xD now make one about mesmers warriors and guardians pls. I’m having a blast!

@ehtom, addressing stealth stomp

both blind and stability stomps are more effective then stealth stomps, i hardly think they are out of line as they can be stopped.

but there is a lot of imbalanced with downed state atm

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Spring

I’m not as bothered by the thief’s combat options (there are several broken mechanics there but I hope they will be brought into line eventually). What bothers me about them, and I think this is inherently poor design – I never expect it to change, is their stealth and escape options. The way it tends to play out is.

Thief appears, does his thing. You react incorrectly, you die. You lose.

Thief appears, does his thing. You protect yourself, start to counter attack. He vanishes, will come back in a minute after he has healed and recovered initiative. You “win”.

It’s very unsatisfying.

Steely Phil.3952:

Thief appears, does his thing. You react incorrectly, you die. You lose.

Thief appears, does his thing. You protect yourself, start to counter attack. He vanishes, will come back in a minute after he has healed and recovered initiative. You “win”.

It’s very unsatisfying.

This is exactly why the Thief’s design is inherently flawed. When you combine a mechanic that allows for spamming high damage attacks with the ability to determine when and where combat happens you’re bound to get a scrub class.

@Gilgamesh Ignoring all the posts that don’t understand what the OP is asking, the counter to DB is to simply not attack the thief while he’s using it. DB uses a fair amount of initiative, it’s not easily spammable like HS. You can also evade DB yourself. It’s a fairly obvious animation and sound.

Yes, people are sheeping like there is no tomorrow about sheeps…. This is not a QQ thread and I never stated what is op and not… but ohwell flock mentality is strong.

So I should build more tanky to withstand the 12sec onslaught? Ive tried that but the disengagement is too strong, while I chase the thief he keeps regen initiative and it is hard to catch up until the blossom is up again.

At least im being able to stall the fight forever.

1. I tried stacking condition cleanses. It didnt really work that well, whatever you cleanse gets instantly re-applied and is back up to 10+ stacks of bleeds in a few seconds. Also you cant do anything about the thief while hes spamming his button, since he evades all attacks.

Might want to step out of that Caltrops.

DonRobeez.3560:

Might want to step out of that Caltrops.

He’s talking about death blossom…

I agreed with number 3 as a thief player. I can beat a backstab thief, but it IS broken none the less

Wolfe.3097:

…

I mostly agree with everything you said. There is the issue of countering the thief that i would like to address. Yes, a thief is counterable. I would like people to actually actively work on learning to counter the thief. This does not mean things are balanced though. Right now it takes far more skill to counter a thief than it does for the thief to win the fight.

It also takes less to counter most classes than it does a thief. Finally, many of the ‘thief counters’ are just general counters not addressing the real issue of the thief. ’Don’t stand in AOE,’ dodge big hits, etc. are all general advice.

The problem with the class is that it gets to almost fully dictate the terms of the fight while also putting out some of the highest damage in the game.

I think ANet still has a chance to make it a satisfying class to both play with and against as the longer than average gaps in stealth do add quite a bit to the game. My issue is less with their stealth and more being able to jump on one person and destroy them almsot immediately every 40 seconds.

I run a death blossom build in sPvP on my thief
You should also remember that thieves running this build are also most likely running the traits that heal them when they do damage, and heal them when they use initiative, and using sigils that give them 50% of their endurance when they weapon swap along with a trait that gives initiative on weapon swap, as well as a trait that gives vigor for a good amount of time when they steal. At least I do. I trash most guardians on this build, as all the initiative allows you to keep stacking bleeds, and you have a lot of dodges (did i mention the trait that drops caltrops when you dodge and the one that gives you might when you dodge?? even more bleeds + damage)..necros actually give me more trouble than guardians on this thief.

That being said, the weakness in this build is it doesn’t have much condition removal, and if the thief is using a second set of dual daggers to gain endurance on weapon swap then it doesn’t have range either. Beyond that, the only way you can be safe is to play as a team, because you won’t beat a good thief if you’re alone and roaming.

I can’t use the reply function but:

“I beg to differ.
Backstabbuild: backstab is main source of damage, rest is filler.
Pistolwhip build: Pw is main source of damage, spam with haste
Aoe damage build: clusterbomb spam
Condition build: death blossom spam
Heartseaker build: hs spam, but luckily that build has become less viable.”

All you did was name a build with the skill name included and then say the skill again. That doesn’t clarify anything.

I’m S/P as my main set. 0/30/0/25/15. My utilities are Devourer’s Venom, Haste, and Signet of Shadows.

Tell me what my most damaging skill rotation/mechanic is, please. Tell me the thing my build is based on and built around. Please tell me. Spoiler alert: you’re going to be surprised.

There is a merged thief discussion thread in big red ink on the main forum page you can use to post your issues with the thief class. This will free up space for the rest of us to post about other pending issues.

Most of these points are completely untrue. You just suck.

I’m not even a thief so don’t pull that card.

I thought thieves were OP, then I played with one.
Yes they dish out tons of damage, yes they have stealth. It takes some time but fighting against glass cannon thieves gets easier and easier as you play more spvp, and come into your own build.
In 8v8s it you are a lot more vulnerable to being killed by thieves because there are lots of chaotic fights but having fought some of them 1v1 i can honestly say they arenot terrible, you just need the right build. (1v1 oriented builds work great against thieves)

The most rediculous thing I have ever seen is a Russian guy doing pull-ups from a industrial crane like a 100 meters above ground.

how happy u guys are with bunkers builds holding 3 players off the point and thus ruining balance , instead of whinning about thief , fix the glarring issues with tpvp , one example bunkers builds

Only thing about thieves I see needing a change are:

1) The stealth bug needs fixing. Taking damage for 2-3 seconds without being able to target anything is pretty annoying even when spamming nearest target.

2) The ability to dodge non stop during the whirlwind steal needs to end. If you press dodge, whirlwind should stop. Having the ability to output constant damage whilst takinkittenage is nonsense. Change it on warriors as well (although they can only get 2 dodges in a row max).

3) Dat backstab….wow. Being hit for 10-12 k in an instant, followed by a 5k steal, then a 5k c+d in the space of a few seconds…Crazy stuff, mainly because it’s unavoidable.

4) Stealth stomp. Absolutely everyone does it now. Makes a joke of other peoples downed state abilities (change it for mesmers as well)

Everything else is alright. I don’t even care about the haste+heartseeker/pistol spam thieves as at least i have a few seconds to react.

Cronoclops.5263:

Why does every single game that comes out have to waste months of time and resource balancing the “I wanna be a Ninja and kill with impunity class”?

You’re right, clearly there is a giant conspiracy in the gaming industry to make Rogue classes overpowered in every game they feature in.

It couldn’t possibly be that people naturally complain about archetypes that are designed to do high damage and go invisible. No i’m sure the cries of you forum champions are absolutely valid just as they were in every other MMO, you are obviously arguing from a neutral perspective of experience and superior insight. Let us pray that those in charge of the game listen to your sobs and follow your lead, as you truely know how to design games.

I have loved playing thief since beta, but I see inevitable changes coming for the thief.

My prediction:

Trait
Mug: Damage reduced by 20%

Executioner: Damage reduced to 10%

Skill:
Assassins’ Signet: Now apply 120% damage on next attack instead of 150%. Cooldown reduced to 20 seconds

Heart-seeker: When evaded it cost 150% more initiative. (Or you can always change functionality and give D/X a parry)

TeoH.2098:

Cronoclops.5263:

Why does every single game that comes out have to waste months of time and resource balancing the “I wanna be a Ninja and kill with impunity class”?

You’re right, clearly there is a giant conspiracy in the gaming industry to make Rogue classes overpowered in every game they feature in.

It couldn’t possibly be that people naturally complain about archetypes that are designed to do high damage and go invisible. No i’m sure the cries of you forum champions are absolutely valid just as they were in every other MMO, you are obviously arguing from a neutral perspective of experience and superior insight. Let us pray that those in charge of the game listen to your sobs and follow your lead, as you truely know how to design games.

You’re a sensitive soul, aren’t you? Calma-lama-down.

Regardless of what you read into his post, he makes a valid point. It’s ALWAYS the rogue/thief/assassin. Point is, it’s not the stealth that’s the problem, or the play style, it’s the damage. The irony is this line; “naturally complain about archetypes that are designed to do high damage and go invisible” – that DESIGN is flawed. Fundamentally flawed in pretty much every MMO to date. Which is why many people hoped Anet had the smarts to avoid this.

If you have the opportunity to open the fight on your terms, completely invisible, that’s an advantage and the damage should reflect that.

I don’t want to see Thiefs nerfed in PvE, but the sPvP situation is getting silly now. There are just so many thiefs because, frankly, they’re easy to be effective with and you can jump in at level 1.

Backstab, it’s stupid. Get rid of Heartseeker spam, it’s embarrassingly shallow.

Rename the resource, because the fact that it’s named Initiative is hugely ironic given how little initiative it actually takes to play a thief.

lol maybe they should change the title of this thread to “I whine about thieves”

Did thieves need a nerf? yes probably they did.

HOWEVER! I seriously object against further nerfing of the class since it will end up killing it. Has any of you sissy silly whiners ever tried to PLAY a thief? it is not mindless spamming, if you do mindless spamming you get killed.
Which takes me to stealth, I cried also for a stealth detection utility or something of sorts, however, after I played thief I notice that if i focus on stealth i am garbage in damage, I am only good at escaping fights, that’s about it.
Can I kill as thief? of course, that’s the point of the whole class, pick a weak opponent and finish him. But chances are that if someone has played against thieves, they know how to counter my abilities, I got screwed by some good players (especially necros). And by using the thief I learned how to counter them on my warrior. Now I rarely lose 1v1 vs thieves in SPvP. WvW is a totally different world. And I can’t say I have learned to play vs thieves here. They still mostly own me, basically because my wvw build is way different than my spvp build.
Take care and stop whining, please.

Parthis.2091:

“naturally complain about archetypes that are designed to do high damage and go invisible” – that DESIGN is flawed.

Except it is demonstrably not flawed, because it’s been done perfectly well in game after game for decades, in a variety of competitive settings, with no issues. GW2 being just the latest in a long line of games that presents a perfectly good version of the archetype.

The fact that people enjoy whining about it, isn’t a balance problem. Neither is it a balance problem when people complain about snipers, spies, vehicles, dive kicks, projectiles, wakeup ultras, bunnyhopping, grenades, weapon jumps, tier 1 rushing, tower rushing, air units, or the red kittening turtle shell.

Neither is it a balance problem when people complain about snipers, spies, vehicles, dive kicks, projectiles, wakeup ultras, bunnyhopping, grenades, weapon jumps, tier 1 rushing, tower rushing, air units, or the red kittening turtle shell.

So it isn’t just about stealth-hate then, is it? You should write up a complete list so that all MMOs/FPS know what is eligible for tweaking. Or are you one of those people that thinks nothing should ever be nerfed?

There is a topic dedicated to discussion of thieves, as you can tell, this board is quite full of them already and continued spam of topics, especially ones on speculative changes, hurt the quality of these boards.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Thiefs-Discussion-Thread-Merged/first#post249683

Thank you.

Right now it takes far more skill to counter a thief than it does for the thief to win the fight.

I often see people here claim this is irrelevant. Because, frankly it takes far more skill to simply PLAY an Elementalist or Engineer (and I do mean, play, not even win, just play) than it takes a Thief or Warrior or Guardian or Ranger. I mean, let’s face it, sheer number and variety of abilities used on Ele is way, way, WAY higher than any Thief build.

That, by itself, already means the game is very badly unbalanced. Imagine two cars. One has a standard setup. Another instead of the wheel has 7 levers – turn left 60 degrees, turn left 30 segrees, turn left 15 degrees, go straight, turn right 15 degrees, turn right 30 degrees, turn right 60 degrees. Which car do you think is easier to drive? Which car do you think will win in a race against each-other? That’s the basic difference between playing Thief vs playing Elementalist. How can t his possibly be seen as fair?

The question is – what can be done about this, without completely scrapping some classes and starting at square one, which ANet won’t do? Is there hope for balance at all? Lately I’m feeling very pessimistic about this whole thing. They basically have a choice – dumb down hard classes, or complicate he heck out of the faceroll classes. And neither will be greeted with a lot of happiness by a large group of players.

I play pistol/pistol thief, much much much harder to play than a backstab (and previously pistol whip) is.

UptheIronz.6732:

how happy u guys are with bunkers builds holding 3 players off the point and thus ruining balance , instead of whinning about thief , fix the glarring issues with tpvp , one example bunkers builds

I’ve been facing premades with 3 or more bunker guardians with water elementalists and we completely wasted our time in those match, this must be why fewer people are queuing for tPVP now.

Burrid.4739:

I was surprised by a death blossom thief once. I was more surprised by the amount of condition damage he did. 15k bleed damage in a matter of seconds.
Sure I guess I could have cleaned the conditions, but with no other class is it necessary to do this fast. When a thief has better condition damage than a necromancer, it just isn’t funny anymore.
All of their builds are overpowered, and they are centered around 1 ability.

It would take around 6 seconds if the Thief could somehow give you 25 stacks of bleeds instantly to deal around 15k damage. The only thing the Bleed Thief has going for them is Caltrops, so don’t stand in them. Beyond that, the damage output is actually extremely comparable to Ranger Condi-Dmg, Engineer Condi-Dmg, Warrior Condi-Dmg, and Necro Condi-Dmg. In particular, the Ranger and Warrior both the capability to burst their bleed applications just like a Thief can in this case. Obviously, as well, condition removal is extremely effective when it’s pretty much only a single stack of bleeds dealing the damage.

The way to beat the Thief build is to not stand in the Caltrops and to actually time your attacks so they aren’t thwarted by the Death Blossom evasion. The stereotypical version of this has a lot of healing and evasion on it, but the Thief chassis on it’s own is still extremely squishy if you can hit em’.

TeoH.2098:

Parthis.2091:

“naturally complain about archetypes that are designed to do high damage and go invisible” – that DESIGN is flawed.

Except it is demonstrably not flawed, because it’s been done perfectly well in game after game for decades, in a variety of competitive settings, with no issues. GW2 being just the latest in a long line of games that presents a perfectly good version of the archetype.

The fact that people enjoy whining about it, isn’t a balance problem. Neither is it a balance problem when people complain about snipers, spies, vehicles, dive kicks, projectiles, wakeup ultras, bunnyhopping, grenades, weapon jumps, tier 1 rushing, tower rushing, air units, or the red kittening turtle shell.

If it’s demonstrably not flawed then please logically prove it. It hasn’t been done “perfectly” in other games; many games having the archetype does not prove it isn’t flawed, simply that a number of development teams can make the same tired mistakes.. Also listing other mechanics and play-styles from other gaming genres does not, in any way, prove your point.

A class that cannot be seen, brings some of the biggest nukes in the game, has numerous escapes, no cooldowns is a fundamental design flaw, particularly when it exists in an class ecosystem with very little in the way of stealth-counters.

But hey man, you’re convinced, so there’s no point talking.

P.S. Remember; any person reading this thread can roll a level 1 thief and join you. You’re not protecting what you think you are. Balance the thief and the wannabes will go away.

Anet wants GW2 to be a popular E-Sport. Well being a popular e-sport is dependent on the casuals enjoying the game and watching the high level players. The thief in its current state is a perfect example of why Anet and MMOs in general struggle to be relevant E-Sports.

The thief is currently not considered OP by high level tournament players yet considered highly OP by casuals in spvp play. So what is Anet to do? They want E-sport first so do they leave as is? If they do, say bye bye to your casual player base which in turns lowers viewers/interest in e-sport matches and leaves you only with the high level players which in turn = failure as an e-sport. Or do they nerf thief making casuals happy but thus limiting and pigeonholing thief into a lower amount of viable builds.

The main problem is how easy it is to pull off high damage with a thief. If the skill level to pull off the damage was very high to the point casuals struggled to execute the combo, they would have no issues and only the elite players would be doing it consistently. But thanks to initiative/haste/and spammable abilities, this is not the case.

Kolache.3964:

So it isn’t just about stealth-hate then, is it? You should write up a complete list so that all MMOs/FPS know what is eligible for tweaking. Or are you one of those people that thinks nothing should ever be nerfed?

You seem to be incapable of following a point.There are aspects of all genres which attract undeserved hate from certain segments of their player base (traditionally the vocal but incredibly inept segments) despite those aspects being valid and working perfectly well within the framework of each game.

You shouldn’t need examples, you can visit any forum for any multiplayer game and you will see the same patterns across entire genres. Is it really the case that tactic/class/weapon/race X is broken imbalanced and too strong in every game of an entire genre? No that’s stupid. People have been complaining about the zerg rush for 14 years yet it has never been considered a balance issue, it remains intact to this day because it is an important part of the game that people just have to learn to deal with.

So when you look on these boards and see an abundance of threads crying about the Thief class, does the fact that people are crying about it indicate that there is a problem? No, it indicates that this is an MMO and the forums are progressing as expected.

To answer again the original question. “Why does every single game that comes out have to waste months of time and resource balancing the Thief class”? The answer for the overwhelming majority of games is that they didn’t, it just took months for you to stop crying about it.

How do you know if there is an actual balance issue with the Thief? When competitive teams who are playing to win consistantly pick the class over other alternatives, and when the role of the class in competitive games is so important that it dictates the entire meta game, resulting in a breakdown of gameplay. That honour currently belongs to bunker cap point defenders, which as much as i’m sure you would like to believe, are not simply playing bunker builds to survive backstab.

The forum cries, by comparison, indicate nothing at all other than business as usual. I would be far more concerned about class balance if a game had a Rogue archetype that nobody was calling overpowered.

so now not only is every aspect of thieves both overpowered and balanced, we are also responsible for the possible death of this game

im gonna come to this forum later today and find theives blamed for cancer…i just know it.

moved by mod in relation how thiefs are bad for esports

Perfect example though would be sc2 and LoL.

Terran in it’s current state is the micro intensive class, and there’s a small amount of terrans in comparison to zergs for e.g in grandmasters.

However, there’s a lot more terrans in the lower leagues, and they get smashed to pieces being so micro intensive and not being able to keep up with the standard of play in order to play terran well. However, they don’t leave in droves.

Another example would be LoL (although I haven’t played for a few months) but 1200 elo would moan about Fizz being op, where in reality the “pros” never use the character as he’s pretty bad at the highest level.

This sort of progression is normal in any multi-class computer game and there’s no evidence that it’s detrimental to the game as an e-sport. If it was, then only FPS games would be at the forefront of esport, which they aren’t.

I feel like as a thief in spvp I could play to 90% of the effectiveness level of most other classes just using my nose. I tried the noob heartseeker spam build and tried to consciously play terribly (IE, not using cripple on people who were running outside of my range and just spam heartseeker. Blinded? still spam heartseeker. completely ignoring my own elite, never switching weapon sets, not trying to stay to peoples back and sides, etc). It was absurdly effective for the total lack of skill it takes. I would generally even heartseeker spam to kill people instead of using a finisher (this makes people extra angry)

Cloth classes just died. Elementalists dropped like a sack of bricks. (on a side note, elementalist downed skills work well in team fights but are useless 1v1) Mesmers would die once their bag of tricks was exhausted (as I have a mesmer, most of their tricks don’t phase me much). Necros had a chance, barely, and then only if they used their ultimate. Rangers dropped like a sack of bricks. Engineers were harder. Other thieves either dropped like a sack of bricks or dropped me like a sack of bricks. (There were some thieves out there playing the class properly, not using a noob heartseeker spam build, and they are much more effective) Warriors were quite tough. Guardians didn’t seem to have HP to really stand up to HS spam.

Heartseeker is completely spammable AND is a gap closer AND is a finisher. Oh and it hits quite hard too. When it’s hitting for 2k-4k, most targets are simply not going to outlive your initial burst of initiative.

And if they did? I just stealthed off came back a few seconds later when all their cooldowns were gone. I feel the HS stuff makes an atrociously badly played thief better than most other classes played to average proficiency. Sure skilled players can bust out all their tricks and moves and ‘win’ in the sense that I have to run away – but they are playing about ten times as well as I am. And they get a draw. That doesn’t seem very fair.

The hilarious part was all the cloth classes I mowed down with endless HS spam would say things like “You are bad learnto use another button” as I was finishing them off or “how many HS in a row was that, 7?” and I was all “I AGREE WITH YOU”. Then there was always the guy who mains a thief in the match who would try to defend them and say everything was fine

And that’s just the idiot noob build owning people. Imagine what I could do if I played a thief properly! Next up is the requiring only slightly more skill plan of steal – cnd – signet, backstab and THEN spam heartseeker.

I feel like the thief has a bit of an identity crisis. It’s trying to be a burst damage dump assassin class – which it is. While also being a hit and run class – but if you are going to have a hit and run class that can fade out of a bad fight and come back a few seconds later – it has to not have giant spikes of damage.

Thieves just do way too much damage. They are not the only class that does way too much damage. The crit backstab thief actually kills people much faster than spamming HS, but at least that takes SOME skill to pull off. Games are not fun when people are dying in 2-3s. There are several classes who do to much damage, the thief is simply the most egregious example.

So Teo I see my mistake. I realize now it’s not that these classes are op ezmode spam fap fests. It’s just that EVERYONE who plays one is a pvp god and the rest of us are just whiney troglodytes with keyboards…Funny I seem to have read this type of response somewhere before..not sure where. Don’t worry though once they adjust thief here you can merrily bunnyhop on to the next game and champion your cause there.

How do people saying thieves are not overpowered explain that the majority of teams (at least teams that I face) in tPvP run 2 thieves? Hell, you know wether or not you are up against a PUG or pre-made by checking for 2 thieves and / or 2 guardians, if they have them they are always a pre-made.

Maybe this is not a thief only problem, the problem is specs that are very, very good at one thing are more valuable then specs that are pretty good at 2 or 3 things. When I play tPvP I see a vast over representation of classes that are at the end of the spectrum, either on the burst end (which is where I think this thief hate is coming from) or at the tanking end (which is where I think all the gaurdian hate is coming from).

Whether you like it or not, I think a change is coming (and not just for thieves, some other classes / specs are too good at one thing aswell). Hopefully, and I don’t think it will be, the change will not be a straight up nerf. Perhaps some of the damage on these super high, 1-trick-pony-builds, can be redistrubted to other abilities so the process of choosing what to do becomes more interesting aswell.

On a side note: right now it is the thief, yes I get frustrated by these extreme damage builds aswell, but sooner or later your class is going to be the most powerfull / most popular / best at whatever. The way this game works really plays into FOTM and a lot of the current thief players will abandon their thief for your class. Don’t cry too hard when they do.

This thread is ridiculous
You change the thief in the microcosm that is sPvP and kill it for WvW and PvE.
Ive seen it happen in every MMO i can remember.
Stealth class gets nerfed because of PvP and in PvE the same players who called for the nerf wont entertain a stealth class in their group because ‘they bring nothing to the team’
As some sensible poster stated here, when/if a big enough nerf to thieves happens and people leave the profession to some new golden <insert class here> build discovery the cycle begins over again and it may just be your class next.

The thief will always be hated on because of the mechanics, you’re able to use your best ability until you run out of initiative.
So instead of waiting for skill timers you instead have to learn to judge how much initiative to use and when.
Just because a class uses a “rotation” or uses 5/5 abilities simply because of cool downs does not = better player
Ask your self this, if your class didn’t have cool downs would you use every single skill in a rotation or just the best ones for the given situation?

Good players (and this includes thieves) use abilities when needed and yes sometimes that is a few (A) back to back heartseekers or (B) deathblossoms if your condition damage – why waste initiative on other skills if you need to (A) finish someone off/ catch them/leap to next target or (B) apply bleed stacks as fast as possible.

Also please keep your comments truthful and try not to exagerate too much, yes there are problems with some thief mechanics as there are for most classes in certain builds.
But the guy who did nothing but spam heartseeker 7 times in a row and kept going, nice 21+ point initiative pool you have there.

Fade.5904:

This thread is ridiculous
You change the thief in the microcosm that is sPvP and kill it for WvW and PvE.
Ive seen it happen in every MMO i can remember.
Stealth class gets nerfed because of PvP and in PvE the same players who called for the nerf wont entertain a stealth class in their group because ‘they bring nothing to the team’

This is why MMO’s should just stop having stealth classes. They are always absurdly overpowered for pvp (invisibility + huge spike damage) while generally not having much in the way of pve utility.

At least GW2’s thieves aren’t lacking in the utility department.

I simply don’t have enough time in the day to list every ability I’d love to see nerfed on every class outside of Thief.

Nerf Warrior Adrenaline gain
Nerf Warrior Bunker Builds
Nerf Mesmer Bunker Builds
Nerf Guardian Bunker Builds
Nerf Engineer Bunker Builds
Nerf Rangers some more because they’re not completely useless yet
Nerf Necro’s so they can’t have so many pets in PvP
Nerf Necro conditions
Nerf Mesmer heals
Nerf Guardian heals
Nerf Elemental Bunker Builds
Buff Thief healing

Once that’s done… feel free to nerf Backstab, Mug and Heartseeker.

Sincerely,

- Thieves

Vorpal.4683:

This is why MMO’s should just stop having stealth classes. They are always absurdly overpowered for pvp (invisibility + huge spike damage) while generally not having much in the way of pve utility.

Yes, that 3-4 second window of being invisible yet still taking damage is SOOOOO overpowered. I can see how so many people have trouble with dodging or AoE’ing when they see a thief stealth.

Oh wait…

I forgot the good players that I’m pitted against do exactly that.