Guild Wars 2

i would like to talk about the thief class, particularly with the change in crit damage to ferocity. I’ve played thief for a long time now, i’ve pushed the barriers on the class for a very long time, back in wvw and spvp.

I’ve agreed with alot of the nerfs so far to thief over the years. We were like gods for the first year; i had a motto as thief, be able to kill anyone, anywhere, in any sized zerg. With the old haste, it was doable, down and stake an opponent in 2 seconds, even in the midst of a pack of 50, and shadow return out to safety. Like a ghost, a good thief could murder a victim in a blink of an eye and disappear, in WvW. When cooldowns were down from doing such assassination, it was hide in the back, doing massive aoe damage with the shortbow. Then rinse and repeat.

That was how i played thief for over a year, in response to the overwhelming numbers in WvW. I grew up on a server that was frequently outnumbered. You had to kill something fast, or see your victim ressed almost immediately.

Many measures have been taken to nerf the thief since then, and the latest has been the decrease in critical damage cap. Now thieves have a problem: they are unable to dish out the assassinations like before, and still cannot hang in the fray of a large battle. So there’s little use for a thief, especially melee, in a large scale battle.

The battle doesn’t even have to be very large. It only takes a few heavily armored meleers to make a thief obsolete in melee. They don’t even have to pay attention to the thief, the cleaving alone will wreck the thief.

So much about a thief’s offense, and defense, (nerf of permastealth, and now nerfs to evades on weapon skills), have been changed. I think it’s time to re-evaluate how a thief can keep up in battles now that the pace has changed. I DO believe in these changes, all of them: haste nerf, shortbow nerf, evade nerf, permastealth nerf, but now it’s time to give something back.

Consider raising the thief’s base health. Since a thief can no longer force quick fights, or escape as easily anymore, then its base survivability should be normalized with other classes.

Consider giving more class skills. The thief has the least amount of class skills, (one!). The guardian gets 3 active and 3 passives, one of the reasons why it’s so hard to kill, and the mesmer gets 4. Perhaps the thief should get another class skill that could help with survivability, like evasion for 3 seconds or something.

Give more ways to remove conditions. The thief is heavily dependent on rune of lyssa, all the way till now. The addition of torment a few months ago was deadly to thieves, as hide in shadows does not remove it. There are few skills for thieves that remove a considerable amount of conditions, and with the small health pool, they’re almost pigeonholed into taking rune of lyssa for the condi wipe.

Give more ways to deal with spammed crowd control. One of the greatest fears for me as thief, is dealing with getting crowd controlled multiple times. In a smal skirmish, it’s not as big a deal. However if there is a fight with hammer warriors, guardians, the thief can not go in for even a second. Theives have few ways of getting stability, and in melee they have to fight classes WITH stability. It’s simply not on even terms.

So to re-emphasize, many of the things i used to get away with, as thief, are gone. Being an ultimate assassin, or ultimate scout, those days are history, and i totally agree with them, as they caused great frustration for the victims of the thieves. However, now, the thief isn’t left with much,. Hopefully, we can make the thief a class that CAN engage in melee in group battles, and be more ‘balanced,’ rather than skewed like the past, or rather outclassed in every role, as i feel as of now.

most of thieves builds are like spamming mostly 1 ability to kill because that ability is really strong or op but the rest are kitten (except pistol offhand 5). As a d/d – spam heartseeker after backstab combo, d/p spam heartseeker and sword builds spam 3. They should decrease dmg from main abilities and buff others to make thieves use more than 1-2 keys

@OP
Yes, Mesmer has 4 F-skills, while thief only has1.
But guess, which class is more viable in PvP.
In addition, most Mesmers only condi remove also is Lyssa. But MI has at least twice the CD of Basilisk Venom.
Mesmers access to stability is almost as poor as the thieves.

I don’t play mutch WvW, but maybe an “Assassin” Build is just not appropriate for larger group fights?

a t s e.9614:

The problem is that thief has 1 viable build

This is silly pants. S/D is still viable. S/P is still viable. D/P SA is still viable (mostly in WvW). P/D condi is still viable (in WvW). Shortbow is still the best weapon a thief can have. The removal of LoS on steal is borderline broken – it makes it a lot easier to jump a person, zoning them out, on a node without blowing both your ports now. The only weaponset that blows (and always have sucked) is P/P.

Pay no mind to the man-babies who cry over the lyssa changes – especially when these same players are probably using the uninterruptible withdraw. Ogre runes have always been where it’s at; Rock dog is op.

The only real big changes that need to happen are the 9 second fear chains and the +45% burning duration on balth runes.

With regards to any changes to the Thief class, the only real big change that needs to be done is making all weapon skills on all weaponsets have a purpose. This introduces more initiative management and more critical thinking skills. D/P is really the only example of a weaponset that has all skills used purposefully – which is sad.

And, in my opinion (I believe jumper was the first person to mention this), SA needs to be re-worked to mostly provide bonuses when exiting stealth.

I’m still seeing good thieves.

Forget about base health increase. Elementalists players have been asking for this for ages and Anet said NO WAY.

tl;dr
Just saying though you won’t find much sympathy here for thieves.

Chicago Jack.5647:

a t s e.9614:

The problem is that thief has 1 viable build

This is silly pants. S/D is still viable. S/P is still viable. D/P SA is still viable (mostly in WvW). P/D condi is still viable (in WvW). Shortbow is still the best weapon a thief can have. The removal of LoS on steal is borderline broken – it makes it a lot easier to jump a person, zoning them out, on a node without blowing both your ports now. The only weaponset that blows (and always have sucked) is P/P.

Pay no mind to the man-babies who cry over the lyssa changes – especially when these same players are probably using the uninterruptible withdraw. Ogre runes have always been where it’s at; Rock dog is op.

The only real big changes that need to happen are the 9 second fear chains and the +45% burning duration on balth runes.

With regards to any changes to the Thief class, the only real big change that needs to be done is making all weapon skills on all weaponsets have a purpose. This introduces more initiative management and more critical thinking skills. D/P is really the only example of a weaponset that has all skills used purposefully – which is sad.

And, in my opinion (I believe jumper was the first person to mention this), SA needs to be re-worked to mostly provide bonuses when exiting stealth.

Lol condi thief is viable. I hope you’re kidding. A condi thief is complete leech for the team. Single target bleed much wow. Trickery is the only viable build, massive burst to take out people quickly.

A single necro worth 3x condi thieves, just saying.