Guild Wars 2

I’ve seen a lot of threads advocating that thieves should be toned down. There may be perfectly legitimate reasons to do this (and Anet has already taken action by reducing the effectiveness of heartseeker). But it is not valid to demand a nerf solely because a thief was able to beat you in 1 versus 1 combat.

Why? That’s the thief’s defined role. They are intended to be glass cannons capable of beating even ‘tank’ classes when they are able to surprise them in an alley or corner them 1 on 1. Thieves have no viable crowd control, are very squishy, severely lack AoE abilities, and are fairly worthless in large fights.

So when posters are recommending that classes be nerfed (and this goes beyond just thieves), keep in mind that the class still needs to have a viable role/niche… just because a class is good at what it is meant to excel at does not mean you should start clamoring for the nerf bat.

None of this is remotely true, sorry.

Anet’s stated design goal is that they DON’T want professions stuck in roles.

That doesn’t entail that classes don’t have strengths and that all classes shouldn’t be viable =)

So if sPvP is mostly 1v1 / 2v2, why not balance around that? If they want this to be an esport, they probably shouldn’t have 1 class that is all around better at doing things than another class.

My point was simply that: a) thieves skills are currently suited for 1 v 1 fights. b) other classes also possess skills suited for large fights, c) if you want to limit thieves’ strength at 1v1, they need to be compensated with skills that allow them to fulfill a broader role.

Anet’s stated design goal is that they want to do away with the typical MMO trifecta of tank/healer/dps. That doesn’t mean that particular classes can’t have niches based on their playstyle. If they didn’t, classes would be incredibly homogenous and uninteresting to play.

Thieves do excel at 1v1, and due to their high mobility make excellent roamers.

Warriors, on the other hand, are much worse in 1v1, but do much better in large scale skirmishes when supported by teammates.

Guardians are phenomenal point defenders.

These are all niches that these particular classes are good at. That’s not against the stated design intent.

That said, it’s entirely possible to nerf abilities that are relatively too strong without taking away a class’ niche. For example, Thieves are amazing at 1v1. Their Heartseeker ability was nerfed today. They’re still going to be amazing at 1v1.

The key will be for the devs to make balance changes without over-buffing or over-nerfing anything to the point where a class simply has no viable niche at all.

Hopefully people will just adapt to changes. I’m sure there are many other viable builds. I hear Pistol Whip is quite good as well.