Guild Wars 2

Just an observation:

Thieves are undoubtedly the most hated profession in the game currently receiving hate from numerous sources.

Yet the only source not complaining about Thieves are people who actually play PvP competitively (aka. tPvPers). Now you might say it’s because they’re busy complaining about Guardians.

But maybe there’s more to this observation. Maybe Thieves are only the bane of bad players or maybe they’re ability to pray on the unsuspecting is what makes them seem OP.

Just a thought.

competitive tpvpers = minority.

If you don’t fix something that is causing disdain with the majority of your playerbase you end up with a dead game.

just a thought.

p.s. they have already stated they are adjusting thief burst.

Sprawl.3891:

p.s. they have already stated they are adjusting thief burst.

well if they will adjust thief burst less than expectations everyone will continue with QQ….

like I said in a post a while ago. The top 5% of the pvpers play a different game than the rest. The problem is that the devs are balancing the games for top tire pvper only which leaves the rest of the player base scratching their heads wondering why don’t they nerf thieves. You can say it’s a l2p issue , maybe it is but the fact is you need a large player base if you want a esport. There must be ways to nerf the burst without nerfing thieves in tpvp.

that’s because people in tpvp don’t have to put up with stuff like this.

Maybe the fact that tpvp is a completely different game mode from every other form of pvp in this game has something to do with it.

I do pray all the QQers (not accusing anyone in this thread) are prepared to get what they’ve been clamoring for since launch.

When the dev’s tune down thief burst, they’re going to balance it out with something – most likely a survivability boost which isn’t centered around stealth. Thieves are (hopefully) going to be able to choose an effective spec outside BS Glass cannon burst or a conditions spec.

I’m only thoerycrafting here, but I’m going to echo some of the sentinment i’ve seen here and on the thief boards – get ready for everyone to QQ about S/D Dazelock thieves in about 2 weeks (assuming the patch is on schedule)

Dee Jay.2460:

Just an observation:

Thieves are undoubtedly the most hated profession in the game currently receiving hate from numerous sources.

Yet the only source not complaining about Thieves are people who actually play PvP competitively (aka. tPvPers). Now you might say it’s because they’re busy complaining about Guardians.

But maybe there’s more to this observation. Maybe Thieves are only the bane of bad players or maybe they’re ability to pray on the unsuspecting is what makes them seem OP.

Just a thought.

Not really, 5v5 is the format least affected by the issues the design of the thief class brings up, for example you don’t get the lag/rendering issues that you get in WvW which turns stealth into semi-perma stealth at times, nor do you face the same problem of hot join, where the idiotic descision of putting 8v8 on a 5v5 map totally unbalances the game toward attack (burst damage / zerging) and which obviously plays to the strengths of the thief class.

Also as someone who sometimes watches the streams of some of the top tPvP teams (not so much anymore as there are very few streams left), I’ve witnesssed plenty of complaining about how much burst thieves can do, but then there is also plenty of complaints about mesmers & guardians (probably more about guards than anything else), especially people abusing the guardian block bug.

i fear a lot more a team with 2 guardians than a team with 2 thiefs (maybe in kylo) , a thief in tpvp is weak in most scenarios i give you 4 common scenarios:

1v1 on a base: Completely up to you, i generally beat them without problems, better if they un condition build though.

2v1 on a base: They kitten you in seconds, which is an expected outcome against skilled players which is the deal of tpvp , a good holder can manage to kill the glasscanon thief and then start an endless 1v1 that benefits the holder due to the stupid nature of holders in this game.

2v2,3v3 large team fight in middle: Their dancing daggers skill is powerful but they do very few, as soon as they are spotted using the bow they are killed swiftly and if they are at melee range… well they probably die from unintended damage…….

Downed state: They would lose almost every simultaneous down state since his downed state is weak if they are alone.

What i find op from thieves is the stealth build where they can go stealth whenever they want even when taking damage, use cloak & sword , backstab , regenerate initiative, come again and you struggling to see them, Because stealth is kittening bugged and by the time you can target them you still can’t see them which is kittening odd.

This added to many stealth issues that surely shouldn’t work like this……

Well Anet should consider that if 90% of the people are running a certain build they should fix it because it smells kitten.

Shukran.4851:

Sprawl.3891:

p.s. they have already stated they are adjusting thief burst.

well if they will adjust thief burst less than expectations everyone will continue with QQ….

indeed

Shukran.4851:

Sprawl.3891:

p.s. they have already stated they are adjusting thief burst.

well if they will adjust thief burst less than expectations everyone will continue with QQ….

well that’s up to ANet to find the balance between casuals and elite. But if you choose to balance around pros instead of casuals the game will die very fast. No casuals = no viewers = no e-sport.

Yes they do, even in the few streams I watch it’s talked about openly. And I for one play free tournaments and paids as much as I can and I don’t find glass certain thief builds to be balanced. Manageable, yes, but its not balanced compared to other classes.

Why bother with dragontooth on ele or whirlwind on warrior or anything else when I can spam clusterbomb more often, more easily, for more damage, and more safely than I can on any other class?

Clusterbomb, trickshot, dancing dagger, and the steal combos just do way too much damage for how easy they are to use.

I think the main reason you don’t hear too much about thieves from players that primary play paids is this: there aren’t any TPvPers.

I say that tongue-in-cheek, but seriously, they are a tiny lot. The PvP community is pretty small at this point, but TPvPers make up a minority of the minority. So, it’s not that TPvPers don’t complain (they certainly do in the streams I watch) but it’s because there are so few of them, you often don’t see their complaints.

People don’t complain about Thieves in tPvP because it’s a totally different game. A lot of the prevalent tactics in tPvP right now are marginalizing the role that Thief excels at, which is roaming.

Roamers aren’t very good when a Mesmer using Portal can prevent back caps much more efficiently, and where bunkers and AoE define the meta. Thief has difficulty finding a niche in this environment, and so people don’t complain.

In sPvP, Thieves have ridiculously high damage and require very little skill to pull it off. ANet has acknowledged this, and it’s safe to expect nerfs to high damage builds in the near future.

oflow.2157:

so the OP plays thief and doesnt want to be nerfed. Got it.

He’s pointing out that organized and skilled players have no problems with Thieves.

People who think they are pro at WvW can go to tPvP and get their ego handed to them thru their cornhole. Yet the vast majority of WvW players probably think they are in the top 5%. There is a massive gap in playerskill in this game, same as Counter Strike or any other good PvP game.

Thieves are the best pubstompers in this game, simple as that.

oflow.2157:

so the OP plays thief and doesnt want to be nerfed. Got it.

He’s pointing out that organized and skilled players have no problems with Thieves.

People who think they are pro at WvW can go to tPvP and get their ego handed to them thru their cornhole. Yet the vast majority of WvW players probably think they are in the top 5%. There is a massive gap in playerskill in this game, same as Counter Strike or any other good PvP game.

Thieves are the best pubstompers in this game, simple as that.

+1 to this and OP

I rarely have a problem with thieves. Only the best players or the lucky ones that catch me off guard will bring me down. During Free and Paid Tourneys Thieves are always the first targets for our team because they are by far the easiest to kill.

Guardian Block Bug is the worst offender at the moment and the fact that the Mesmer portal is a requirement, not option.

I would like to add that I hate that they’re are no elite differentials. Any noob can farm glory and get Paid Tourney gear even by LOSING….. Whoever decided that this was a good idea must have received plenty of “participation trophies” in their day.

You should not be able to gain glory or ranks in 8v8 Hotjoin and you shouldn’t get anything for losing in the first round in both free and paid torunaments.

They’re just as bad in TPvP, but since its a controlled environment, the chances if you getting gibbed is much slimmer, since there are

a. less thieves or even people on the map
b. higher chance of your defensive cds being up

I just want them to “Balance” thiefs in a way that they are not completely necessary in a tPvP group. Just like a guardian shouldn’t be. But at the moment every single team has the holy trinity thief-guardian-mesmer.

Uh. this is a myth. You probably don’t notice TPvP specific complaints about the thief because there’s nothing really tournament specific about the problems. Thieves still gib people constantly in paid tournaments though.

I think the main difference is that in paid tourney’s people tend to think in terms of “did we win the fight” not “did I win”, and teams res much more reliably. In the mind of a solo pub player getting downed means “I lost”, but in a tourney team people go down and get resed up instantly all the time. A fight isn’t lost until your team gets stomped out and loses the point.

That doesn’t change the fact that thieves are probably the best glass cannon right now. Not only are thieves competitive with warriors for single target spike damage, they can also sit back with shortbow, stay safely out of range if anyone tries to get on them, and put out some of the highest ranged aoe pressure in the game PLUS perma aoe poison. Being able to do both safe ranged aoe pressure and amazing single target spike with a single build is what really makes thieves amazing in high level tourney PvP.

nurt.5401:

I think the main difference is that in paid tourney’s people tend to think in terms of “did we win the fight” not “did I win”

Strange…because actually everyone MUST think that way…you are in a team so play for the team, this way of thinking only leads to noob zergs in hot join fighting around for kills not caring about capping or team’s points…and those are the worst, even worse than HS spammers but playing for the team… Idk how people can’t get it…

THIS IS NOT A 1vs1 GAME
THIS IS NOT A DEATHMATCH
THIS IS A COOPERATIVE GAME WHERE EVERYONE MUST PLAY FOR A TEAM NOT FOR HIMSELF

Do you want to go 1vs1 all the time? …go play street fighter, we will be really grateful

I believe I have seen players of all levels complain about thief-burst, but the same can be said about the confidence in it being adjusted.

OP is just making a false dichotomy … oldest trick in the world of manipulation.

TPvP with well coordinated players is imo/experience a totally different game than tpvp with pugs, 8vs8 or WvWvW. You may ask yourself in which environment thieves are the most annoying … and why.

Dee Jay.2460:

Yet the only source not complaining about Thieves are people who actually play PvP competitively (aka. tPvPers).

Not true.

THIS IS NOT A 1vs1 GAME
THIS IS NOT A DEATHMATCH
THIS IS A COOPERATIVE GAME WHERE EVERYONE MUST PLAY FOR A TEAM NOT FOR HIMSELF

Do you want to go 1vs1 all the time? …go play street fighter, we will be really grateful
When everyone moves on to some other game who will you play with dimwit?

nurt.5401:

Uh. this is a myth. You probably don’t notice TPvP specific complaints about the thief because there’s nothing really tournament specific about the problems.

I don’t think you’ll find a single top level player who will agree with you. Thieves are actually getting edged out of the metagame in tPvP right now. Sure, they can gib people once in awhile, but that’s not translating to games being won, at least at top levels of play.

mouse.1689:

nurt.5401:

Uh. this is a myth. You probably don’t notice TPvP specific complaints about the thief because there’s nothing really tournament specific about the problems.

I don’t think you’ll find a single top level player who will agree with you. Thieves are actually getting edged out of the metagame in tPvP right now. Sure, they can gib people once in awhile, but that’s not translating to games being won, at least at top levels of play.

And this is only happening because teams are going super bunker builds. Which is also something that should be addressed. But i do agree that the main point in all these bunkers builds we see around is due the silly king-of-the-hill type of game.

When balancing a game… I support a position of balancing for high end play and making only occasional small concessions to low/mid end play.

The thief is one of those that greatly impacts the learnign curve of the game at low/mid end play.

At high end play, and especially with team dynamics, it’s less of an issue. (well less of an issue for the reasons it’s an issue in low end play.)

I think this is a case severe enough that a small balancing change can be thrown to the low/mid players.

I agree with the OP… Thief burst is a little too high, but Thieves in tPvP become middle tier at best by most standards from mid to high range. The reason is, I think, people finally stop running those terrible Berzerker amulet/gem Divinity rune specs, and suddenly Thieves can’t one-shot anymore. And with 5v5, they have a harder time sneaking up on you in the middle of a packed fight.

mouse.1689:

nurt.5401:

Uh. this is a myth. You probably don’t notice TPvP specific complaints about the thief because there’s nothing really tournament specific about the problems.

I don’t think you’ll find a single top level player who will agree with you. Thieves are actually getting edged out of the metagame in tPvP right now. Sure, they can gib people once in awhile, but that’s not translating to games being won, at least at top levels of play.

hi. meet Cyrkle >

Cyrkle.5814:

Dee Jay.2460:

Yet the only source not complaining about Thieves are people who actually play PvP competitively (aka. tPvPers).

Not true.

dunno where you guys are getting this “thieves don’t win games” thing. like every top team has a thief. if anything the few holdout teams who weren’t running thieves are finally getting around to adding one to their comp. i mean a week ago the top QP team in the US switched to running a thief full time on every map…

Thief is definitely the strongest class right now, basically if the thief is doing good in you’re team, you will be winning. The mobility, the insane ranged and melee damage, the ability to solo lord on map 2, the thief just provides so much for the team.

Those are the reasons you will see thieves getting nerfed on Nov 15, atm its just too strong.

Some people seem to think that playing tPVP automatically makes you good. There are as many badies in tPVP as there are in hot join pvp; tPVP players are not in a ‘superior level’ just because they queue with 3 or 4 buddies.

This game is new and no one knows who is good and who’s not. Stop using tPVP players as a reference to anything.

Tourney players most definitely do complain about thieves.

Powerr complains about them constantly on stream, though usually more about dancing dagger than backstab. Xeph and Phantaram also tend to make negative comments on stream after getting instaowned.

Pretty easy to figure this out and it has nothing to do with players being bad or good.

Thieves thrive on surprise and it is difficult to keep track of them in the 8v8 revolving door that is hot join PvP.

In 5v5 Guardians are extremely difficult to kill thanks to the limited damage fewer players can do. It’s easier, however, to keep accountability of Thieveswith fewer players and with your team in voice comms.

I have no idea why Anet did 8v8 for sPvP and 5v5 for tourneys. When you balance a game, it seems like you’d want to strongly weigh the number of players per team. By making them different Anet might have been asking for trouble. Anyone care to postulate?

Oneway.1453:

I have no idea why Anet did 8v8 for sPvP and 5v5 for tourneys. When you balance a game, it seems like you’d want to strongly weigh the number of players per team. By making them different Anet might have been asking for trouble. Anyone care to postulate?

there’s that and there’s also pve. i have a feeling there will be a lot more changes to abilities similar to how they changed “Save Yourselves!” for guardian. duration is halved in anything connected to heart of the mists, but in pve the skill stays unchanged.

and while i do enjoy hotjoin – its a nice way to goof around and not have to worry about anything while you kill things – i don’t think it can really be balanced in 8v8s…. 75% of the time people die its because they get downed by 2 – 3 people, or just get chased down by a zerg on the way to the next point.

A lot of players want to test builds in hot join, too, but it is difficult to know whether the results will translate to 5v5. Builds that work or don’t work in 8v8 might have different results in 5v5. Again, no idea why Anet did this. Would an Anet rep care to speak to this in this thread?

Yes they do complain about thieves, its just drowned out by complaints of Mesmer and Guardian (rightly so)

Its not normal for the min/maxers to complain much about balance they tend to just roll the OP combos and are the one discovering them in the first place.

Sprawl.3891:

competitive tpvpers = minority.

If you don’t fix something that is causing disdain with the majority of your playerbase you end up with a dead game.

just a thought.

p.s. they have already stated they are adjusting thief burst.

I think the 8v8 format should be brought to 5v5 in sPvP. Also, by your logic thieves should get whatever they want because they are the majority of sPvP….

I originally thought thieves were overpowered, then I learned to play.

I wish more people would do the same.

Dee Jay.2460:

But maybe there’s more to this observation. Maybe Thieves are only the bane of bad players or maybe they’re ability to pray on the unsuspecting is what makes them seem OP.

Just a thought.

Thieves are the bane of bad players? I wish i had a nickle for everytime i heard this argument.

Then i could buy a monkey to type ‘but its the bad players that play Thiefs because its the easiest, most straightforward class around’ every time it appears.

This thread is silly. Not actively ranting and raving on the forums =/= not "complaining" about thieves. The class in its current state is broken on so many levels (most of which should be getting fixed in the next patch *fingers crossed*) but there isn’t any point in posting on these boards only for inbred kids who are missing a chromosome to tell you to "l2p".

Xom.9264:

Yes they do complain about thieves, its just drowned out by complaints of Mesmer and Guardian (rightly so)

Its not normal for the min/maxers to complain much about balance they tend to just roll the OP combos and are the one discovering them in the first place.

True. Admitting being OP also discredits their own achievements.

Oh and wtf i hear tourny thief crying all the time as well. Why are some people acting like nobody plays thief in tournaments? Thats utter BS.

Prince.3682:

Yes they do, even in the few streams I watch it’s talked about openly. And I for one play free tournaments and paids as much as I can and I don’t find glass certain thief builds to be balanced. Manageable, yes, but its not balanced compared to other classes.

This is exactly how I feel. Thieves are managable but hardly balanced. Particularly in Spvp and WvW.

Spuckuk.7083:

I originally thought thieves were overpowered, then I learned to play.

I wish more people would do the same.

too hard

WRONG.

tPvPers don’t complain as much about thieves, because “hahaha!I-Win-button you” does not work as well in tPvP because the goal actually is to hold points.

While in sPvP players are HARSHLY punished for playing defensivly by getting zero points.

Your observation might be right, but your conclusions are terrible.
DIVA

The reason I don’t complain about Thiefs, or didn’t until this Post (^^), is because I’m very happy with the State of the Game so far and some “minor” imbalances aren’t that bad… for a certain amount of time.

I do think though, that Thiefs are severly OP as DD’s, for several Reasons:

1) Very hard to kill: A Thief has numerous ways of getting out of harms way and has a lot of sustainability, even though he can go for a total glasscannon build. He has a good Teleport-stunbreaker, can turn himself invisible and receive almost no DMG and has all-around great mobility, thanks to shadowsteps.

2) Backstab- and Dancing Dagger-DPS is surreal and the Thief requires little to no Utilities or specific traits or Teamsupport to get to that amont of DPS. What I want to say with that is, that other Builds, even certain ones on the Thief, require Utilities like Quickness or Immobilizes to really burst sth. down. With backstab or Dancing Dagger, you need nothing like that. You can even go full DPS and kill sth. with a few hits or completely turn around a teamfight and it works in almost every Build. You don’t have to give up survivability, teamfight, capabilities, mobility or anything else to deal these ridiculous amounts of DPS.

3) Mobility: With all his Shadowsteps and the Signet for additional Speed, the Thief has very high mobility. Again, this mobility doesn’t come with any negative effects on DPS, Teamfight potential or survivability – it’s just there.

4) Cooldowns: The Cooldowns or rather Initiative-Requirements for the Thiefs skills are so low, that even if you miss a Combo that can easily kill several other classes, you just w8 a few seconds and it’s back up again and the enemy has lost defensive cooldowns with a much higher recast just to not die.

Let’s wrap this up with a comparison between the Thief and an Elementalist in the Role of an offensive Roamer:

1) If the Ele wants to be hard to kill, you have to run Valk-Amu and/or Cantrips with long Cooldowns and get quite a bit of Healing Power. This cuts into the potential DPS a lot.

2) If you want to get even near the burst-potential of a Thief, you need to go full glass-cannon and use utilities for Arcane-Spells, which give you little or no defensive capabilities. This is a huge sacrifice, because you’ll die instantly to almost anything. You will also have much less teamfight-capabilities, because of lack of Healing-power and no sustainability. These things all come natural to the Thief and u even get extremely powerful teamfight-skills like Trickshot, Dancing Dagger, Shadow Refuge, Choking gas etc.

3) Mobility: As an Ele or pretty much any other class, if you want to use a shadow-step (which gives you lots of mobility on certain maps), you need to burn a spell with a long cooldown and if you want to get near the 25% increased movement speed, you often need a specific trait for it (like speedy kits on the Engi). In this Aspect, the Ele is very good as well, because he doesn’t have to sacrifice anything to get the high mobility.

4) This is probably the most crucial difference between various other burst-classes and the Thief. Using a Combo on an Ele, Warrior or any other burst-glass, most of the time uses up a lot of cooldowns (Flam Grab, Arcane-Spells, Frenzy or other Quickness-Skills) and are often easy to evade with spells with similar CD’s. If the Combo doesn’t hit, not only is the class without a lot of DMG, but because he had to sacrifice defensive capabilities, he’s often quite vulnerable to turn-around-kills. The best example are the quickness-skills, which all have quite big drawbacks or an Ele that sacrifices most Utilities to deal more DPS and stands vulnerable with maybe 1 Mistform every 60+ Seconds.

The Problem of the Thief is, that he is so strong in various situations and roles, without any drawbacks at all and with the possibilities of even going for very defensive node-defender-Thiefs, Roamers, Condition-DMG-Thiefs etc. I really wonder why not every team plays 3+ Thiefs, if they just want to win…

Khyras.8021:

When everyone moves on to some other game who will you play with dimwit?

Do you mean the 5% of forum’s users? I think i would find someone to play with anyway

Spuckuk.7083:

I originally thought thieves were overpowered, then I learned to play.

I wish more people would do the same.

Go cry on forum is way more easy

I have played pvp mmo for the last 10 years. It’s kinda funny to see the same posts get repeated . You can pretty much cut and paste all the posts from DAoC rangers , Wow paladin. War Bright Wiz . in the first few month of those games and they read the SAME as the thieves post here right now… lol indeed.

This thread actually has a number of tpvpers posting in here saying thieves are definitely too strong. The effect of thieves is definitely buffered in tpvp due to the amount of bunkers used and the ability to res easily if only a single target is being pressured. However they still have a very noticeable impact even at the highest levels of play, probably in the ball park of 90% of tournament teams are running a thief.

You guys do understand that Dee Jay.2460 probably plays a thief right ?

High end meta tPvP teams don’t complain because they turn to the OP builds them selfs, which is fine. But does not – in any way – means that its “ok” or “balanced”. And in order to have a decent esport game (if it ever becomes one) you need to have a balanced environment.

The following people who have posted in this thread (up to https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/tPvPer-don-t-complain-about-Thieves/713846 ) are on the QP leaderboards as of 11/12/12 10:30AM PST:

Prince.3682: 11 QPs
nurt.5401: 5 QPs
Cyrkle.5814: 19 QPs
Vayyy.5420: 76 QPs
Fourth.1567: 5 QPs

In other words, the tPvPers in this thread have all said that thieves are too strong.

I don’t personally know if they’re too strong at high levels of play. Certainly at low levels of play (i.e. free tourneys), they are, especially considering the effort involved in playing them. Shortbow is really strong, and the burst from either the cnd/steal/bs combo or just spamming dancing dagger a few times is a bit much. Their mobility is also ridiculously good on Foefire and Kyhlo.