Guild Wars 2

Fortus.6175:

[…]rerolled to thieves due to the amount of unbalances and apparent favoritisim towards certain classes such as warriors and thieves. They are now rolling thieves themselves.

[…]

HECK, even devs themselves admitted in a stream that thieves were driving away mesmers and elementalists from this meta.

First, don’t take everyting helseth says to heart. Expecially when he says stuff like, “blah blah blah class isn’t viable, I am.” He has some great points most of the time, but you shouldn’t treat whatever he says as a testament from god. The guy thought full blown PU messes would be a “thing” in Tpvp for example.

Lol, regardless, he said nothing of the sort. Absolutely nothing. So many people here making things up just to fit their supposed “beliefs”, nevermind the fact that most people in this thread has probably played only 5 games in soloque max. The entire stream he was talking about comparative advantage. He believes thieves have better survivability, damage, and mobility (I would agree with two of those points). Mesmers have more utility primarily because of portal and boon rip (which I would also agree with).

I would also agree with him that the mesmer has had a harder time in this meta, overall, than thief.

Xaylin.1860:

evilapprentice.6379:

Still doesn’t mess with the stealth/revealed timers, which is the big deal.

Again: I did not ask for changes to stealth or revealed timers. I literally said I did not want revealed to be changed. I just voiced my agreement for a suggestion regarding D/P. That’s totally unrelated to general stealth mechanics but an issue caused by a specific weapon set.

evilapprentice.6379:

The compensating changes would have to be big damage boosts, which is the opposite direction of Mon’s suggestions. His version keeps the pace of stealth/stealth attacks the same, upping sustained DPS and dropping burst. Your suggestion would have to up burst, because you’re imposing a second artificial limit on BS (since we already have revealed), and isn’t necessary.

I really don’t get how you can misread what I wrote in this way.

Yet again, I never said anything about changing revealed. The pace remains the same. While I didn’t name any compensations for the cooldown, I also never said that there should not be any. You just assumed I didn’t see the need for any.That doesn’t make it true.

The compensation in no way has to be done by increasing the Backstab damage. Again, that’s an assumpion you brought to the table. It’s quite easy to slightly increase the base damage of the other skills instead.

I dislike the idea of taking away all the burst a Thief can have and that is what would happen when his idea was established. Putting a cooldown on Backstab can make it a true opener while maintaining the ability to burst. Revealed would stay the same. The pace would stay the same. But going back into stealth will be less favourable. That’s it!

If you don’t like the idea, that’s fine. But please stop assuming stuff I just didn’t say.

evilapprentice.6379:

Ambush and thieves guild is the “Solo” version of this, and you won’t be running it in tPvP. As far as hotjoin…who cares? It’s hotjoin, a specs effectiveness in hotjoin means basically nothing.

If you don’t care for hotjoins, that’s fine. However, as I said earlier, discussing support builds for sPvP and tPvP has no purpose anyway. There are no true support builds in sPvP and tPvP for any class. Therefore, a Thief hardly has any disadvantage there.

As I mentioned in my original post, I did not state that I had the intention of taking away Thief burst, merely to take it away from Backstab.

I strongly believe that the coefficients for Backstab (1.2 for front, 2.4 for back/side) should be moved to other skills. Backstab is holding the mainhand dagger weapon set back and limits the damage for D/P and/or D/D in all other aspects. In no way do I intend to limit Thief Burst; merely to move it out of Backstab and into other areas.

Keeping Backstab as it is limits the window for counter-engagement for other Glass cannons because a successful Backstab can leave them at 50% HP or even less. On the other hand, tanky DPS like Warrior or Meditations Guardian have other mechanisms like Protection Aegis or simply a huge HP pool to absorb that damage and provide them with more windows, making any engagement that a Thief cannot win within the first few seconds or 10 initiative a lost one.

The whole process is self-reinforcing – frontloaded damage limits backloaded damage output which therefore pushes Thieves to be one-shot wonders. They are extremely time-starved in their burst output, yet cannot stay in the fight to contribute against tanky DPS.

The end result is a playstyle that is quite binary – either the Thief lands the Burst and kills the target, or fails and dies for it. (Or in more cases than not, disengages to try again with Shadow steps).

The op is right. Thieves are driving other dps roamers out of the meta. Thieves may not be overpowered vs condi bunker or bunkers in gerneral. A good thief will rip an ele a new kitten whether it is bunker or burst.

The problem is insta teleports and lyssa runes. Ele rely on landing cc to stay alive and when someone can port to and away every 5 seconds or evade every attack and pop free lyssa boons every engagement. This is not balanced. There was a time when I could win most fights vs thieves as a D/D bunker but that was nerfed hard. Now I can sometimes beat them as D/F but good ones will run and make me blow my long kitten cooldowns.

S/X or D/P thief is just too good vs other classes that are competing for roamer. They have everything to counter Ele or mesmer or other burst classes.

Thieves are not OP. S/D has been nerfed almost into the ground, I am surprised anyone still plays it. D/P has very weak condition removal and if you don’t blind your target you die in a few crits.

Yes they deal great burst, that is called a trade off, risk vs reward.

I would recommend lobbying for Mesmer/Ele buffs, not thief nerfs. Please think about it first though, PU mesmers are already unbearable.

I dont think the Initiative, the missing cd on the weaponskills or the shadowsteps are a problem, its more the massive use of stealth and evades, what we need to survive.

Stealth can use too much and runs too short, to be counterable, while Vigor is generally too strong and give us in a way dodges for free.
And I agree that this is a big problem for both sides, Thieves and Non-Thieves.

But after all the nerfs, since the release, the thief to have reached the point when where it is impossible to nerf this things, without to make us to free kills.
What mean that a nerf in these things would destroy the complete class, while nerfs in another parts of these class, as a result that we use only more stealth and dogdes.
But how should we fix this problem, without to complete rework these class?

Not sure why you think Thieves are so strong. Compare Berserker PU Mesmer to Thief:

• Stealth access through utilities and torch; and plenty with low cool-down.
• Permanent vigor due to minor trait giving 7s vigor every 5s.
• Regeneration, Protection and Aegis obtained through PU in stealth.
• Allow attacking from stealth, both summoning and Illusion attacks.
• Rapid building of Might with Greatsword #2 (bounces for Might).
• Defensive attacks and utilities that make the Mesmer invulnerable.
• Rapid application of Bleed and Vulnerability through Illusions with 95% crit chance.
• Higher base health pool and higher consistent damage in comparison with thief.
• Incredible burst potential through chaining immobilize, berserker and shattering.
• Easy access to cripple, knockback, and daze.
• Easy access to the incredibly powerful Burning condition.
• Powerful ranged attack.
• Incredible team utilities.

I seriously don’t get why people think Mesmers are weak, and thieves are strong.

warrior is just OP, thief is badly designed!!! Having said that:

-stealth is natural countered in PvP by not allowing capping
-in WvW there is really no risk for the thief player and the whole fight depends on him. No counterplay to stealth and all that

I like the idea of making Stealth a boon. Few things, though.

1. Will Revealed become a Condition? That could be dangerous with cleansing in mind.
2. How will boon corrupting effects like Well of Corruption and Corrupt Boon affect it? Will it flip into Revealed or something else?
3. Might need to change Meld with Shadows to something not stealth-related and move Boon Duration up to the Shadow Arts line to compensate.

It’d be a big change and I doubt I’ve covered all the potential issues but I think the idea has real merit.

Deathspike.1870:

Permanent vigor due to minor trait giving 7s vigor every 5s.

You’re quoting an old version of the build. Been nerfed. :P

Carighan.6758:

You’re quoting an old version of the build. Been nerfed. :P

I don’t consider it ‘old’. It is current, but will be changed. Even then, it remains 3/4 up.

Deathspike.1870:

Not sure why you think Thieves are so strong. Compare Berserker PU Mesmer to Thief.

Just… wow. Didn’t know that PU Mesmer was s/tPvP meta.

Deathspike.1870:

• Stealth access through utilities and torch; and plenty with low cool-down.

Not sure how you can speak of low cooldown on stealth when comparing Mesmers to Thieves. Torch cooldowns are extremly high. So are the cooldowns on the other stealth utilities. Picking up too many stealth utilities will also cripple your other capabilities.

Deathspike.1870:

• Permanent vigor due to minor trait giving 7s vigor every 5s.

The only real permanent Vigor was on Engineer and got nerfed. While it exists in theory it rarely happens in practice. I run with 47% crit chance, 30% boon duration and Bountiful Interruption and permanent Vigor is still unlikely to happen. Conclusively, maintaining 75% uptime after the nerf is pretty unlikely. Also: No chance to trigger Vigor in stealth. The more stealth, the less Vigor.

Deathspike.1870:

• Regeneration, Protection and Aegis obtained through PU in stealth.

So you want to sit inside of stealth to stack some Protection while your enemy decaps a point? Not sure if that is such a great idea. PU shines when you got time on your hands and when you can kite freely. Both is limited in s/tPvP.

Deathspike.1870:

• Allow attacking from stealth, both summoning and Illusion attacks.

Just kill the Phantasm and the Mesmer is done. Mesmer stealth is defensive, not offensive. While Mesmers can summon Phantasms from stealth the benefit in doing so is rather minimal.

Deathspike.1870:

• Rapid building of Might with Greatsword #2 (bounces for Might).

Wow… is this seriously a concern?

Deathspike.1870:

• Defensive attacks and utilities that make the Mesmer invulnerable.

Blurred Frenzy is indeed nice although countered by Retaliation. But where should your Zerker PU Mesmer get any free utilities from? Those are occupied by stealth. Remember? High stealth, low cooldown?

Deathspike.1870:

• Rapid application of Bleed and Vulnerability through Illusions with 95% crit chance.

Wonder where you want to get that crit chance from. They might reach 70% at best (Phantasm only). iDuellist and iWarden are best at stacking but you didn’t bring them since your Mesmer obviously runs GS / Sword + Torch. The only Illusions which can ‘stack’ Vulnerability are Sword or Staff clones and it doesn’t come from critting.

Deathspike.1870:

• Higher base health pool and higher consistent damage in comparison with thief.

Health pool is true. Consistent damage, too, when talking about Phantasms.
Higher damage than Thieves in general? Probably not.

Deathspike.1870:

• Incredible burst potential through chaining immobilize, berserker and shattering.

Whoaa… what happened? Did the PU Mesmer just evolve into a Shatter Mesmer?
Yes, there is some burst. But ‘incredible’ is highly exaggerated for a PU build.

Deathspike.1870:

• Easy access to cripple, knockback, and daze.

• Cripple: Sw2 (1s), GS4 (4×1s). Count: 2
• Knockback: GS5. Count: 1
• Daze: None. Oh, wait. F3! Count: 1

That’s a rather average package of CC.

Deathspike.1870:

• Easy access to the incredibly powerful Burning condition.

Ah. Beware! The Mesmer will bring destruction. Fear the 3s 24/30s cooldown burn!

Deathspike.1870:

• Powerful ranged attack.

GS is indeed the most powerful ranged weapon of Mesmers. But you won’t be able to kill anyone with your AA alone. Besides that, the ranged capabilities of a Mesmer are rather weak in general.

Deathspike.1870:

• Incredible team utilities.

Nope. You brought stealth. Lots of it. No utility slots left.

Deathspike.1870:

I seriously don’t get why people think Mesmers are weak, and thieves are strong.

After being a bit sarcastic, let’s be serious. Mesmers aren’t weak. But they are not good enough at the roles they could take in tPvP when compared to Thieves. And that understandibly is something people complain about.

Fortus.6175:

two of the most ‘famous’ pro players (highly regarded as civilized, open minded and reasonable man) quit their mesmer class in a rather ‘ragey’ way over their channels and rerolled to thieves due to the amount of unbalances and apparent favoritisim towards certain classes such as warriors and thieves. They are now rolling thieves themselves.

If they think that there is favoritism towards thieves, the one class that has been nerfed by community request nearly every single patch, which has had nearly no buffs to offset these nerfs… They are clearly not pro or reasonable. The pros are the ones who continue rocking thief despite hundreds of nerfs.

Fortus.6175:

HECK, even devs themselves admitted in a stream that thieves were driving away mesmers and elementalists from this meta.

Was this the same stream where the dev tried to play a spammy thief build and died horribly because they’ve never tried a thief before and had no idea how fragile they are?

bwillb.2165:

If they think that there is favoritism towards thieves, the one class that has been nerfed by community request nearly every single patch, which has had nearly no buffs to offset these nerfs… They are clearly not pro or reasonable. The pros are the ones who continue rocking thief despite hundreds of nerfs.

If you re-read what you wrote again, you might just end up agreeing with more Thief nerfs. :P

I’m not sure how thieves drive the mesmers from the meta, but it’s very easy to see how they drive elementalists out of it.

Boon stealing.

Seriously, thieves can not only outpace elementalists in damage, but they can also strip most of their defenses AND get them for themselves. So thieves are evading, teleporting or stealthing like crazy while being bathed by countless boons.

The current thief’s setup makes them pretty much the anti-elementalist class. While Guardians also rely a lot on boons, they still have plenty of blocks and other active defenses, but eles have little to compensate for boon removal.

It wouldn’t be that bad of a problem if it came at a higher cost. Mesmers can also strip a lot of boons, but it’s easier to counterplay shatters as an elementalist.

Thieves’ boon stealing, however, should come at a higher cost. Be it an initiative cost, or less damage, or less survival elsewhere. Or, even, made much easier to counterplay it. Which wouldn’t be a big problem, either, if those strong attacks weren’t already covered by near-impossible-to-counterplay mechanics like evasion, stealth and really low casting times.

bwillb.2165:

Fortus.6175:

two of the most ‘famous’ pro players (highly regarded as civilized, open minded and reasonable man) quit their mesmer class in a rather ‘ragey’ way over their channels and rerolled to thieves due to the amount of unbalances and apparent favoritisim towards certain classes such as warriors and thieves. They are now rolling thieves themselves.

If they think that there is favoritism towards thieves, the one class that has been nerfed by community request nearly every single patch, which has had nearly no buffs to offset these nerfs… They are clearly not pro or reasonable. The pros are the ones who continue rocking thief despite hundreds of nerfs.

Fortus.6175:

HECK, even devs themselves admitted in a stream that thieves were driving away mesmers and elementalists from this meta.

Was this the same stream where the dev tried to play a spammy thief build and died horribly because they’ve never tried a thief before and had no idea how fragile they are?

I play a thief, and those so called nerfs were just facades. Perma stealth is still possible, as is massive burst and continual high burst while stealthed.

Chicago Jack.5647:

Fortus.6175:

[…]rerolled to thieves due to the amount of unbalances and apparent favoritisim towards certain classes such as warriors and thieves. They are now rolling thieves themselves.

[…]

HECK, even devs themselves admitted in a stream that thieves were driving away mesmers and elementalists from this meta.

First, don’t take everyting helseth says to heart. Expecially when he says stuff like, “blah blah blah class isn’t viable, I am.” He has some great points most of the time, but you shouldn’t treat whatever he says as a testament from god. The guy thought full blown PU messes would be a “thing” in Tpvp for example.

Lol, regardless, he said nothing of the sort. Absolutely nothing. So many people here making things up just to fit their supposed “beliefs”, nevermind the fact that most people in this thread has probably played only 5 games in soloque max. The entire stream he was talking about comparative advantage. He believes thieves have better survivability, damage, and mobility (I would agree with two of those points). Mesmers have more utility primarily because of portal and boon rip (which I would also agree with).

I would also agree with him that the mesmer has had a harder time in this meta, overall, than thief.

sure. u are the only one played more than 5 games and we all are “noobs” that know nothing.

mesmer have less utility, cause they cant afford to bring portal or time warp in this times.

in times where most thiefs have 30 in trickery, they provide aoe vigor, might, fury and swiftness and 2 enemy boons. so thief have also boonrip. dont forget shadow refuge.. so no, thief beats all other roamer atm. dmg, surv., mobility, util and support is on thiefside.

Sanduskel.1850:

bwillb.2165:

Fortus.6175:

two of the most ‘famous’ pro players (highly regarded as civilized, open minded and reasonable man) quit their mesmer class in a rather ‘ragey’ way over their channels and rerolled to thieves due to the amount of unbalances and apparent favoritisim towards certain classes such as warriors and thieves. They are now rolling thieves themselves.

If they think that there is favoritism towards thieves, the one class that has been nerfed by community request nearly every single patch, which has had nearly no buffs to offset these nerfs… They are clearly not pro or reasonable. The pros are the ones who continue rocking thief despite hundreds of nerfs.

Fortus.6175:

HECK, even devs themselves admitted in a stream that thieves were driving away mesmers and elementalists from this meta.

Was this the same stream where the dev tried to play a spammy thief build and died horribly because they’ve never tried a thief before and had no idea how fragile they are?

I play a thief, and those so called nerfs were just facades. Perma stealth is still possible, as is massive burst and continual high burst while stealthed.

Prove it.

You’re constantly expressing your (incorrect) opinion as fact; you’ve been asked to prove it repeatedly, and fail to do so every time.

Either prove it or stop lying, please.

bwillb.2165:

If they think that there is favoritism towards thieves, the one class that has been nerfed by community request nearly every single patch, which has had nearly no buffs to offset these nerfs… They are clearly not pro or reasonable. The pros are the ones who continue rocking thief despite hundreds of nerfs.

“Increased the base rate of initiative gain from .75 per second to 1 per second.”

For reference, this would be like saying “All elementalist skill cooldowns are reduced by 33%” and is a MASSIVE buff for a lot of builds. Yes, that is 33% more initiative, meaning you get to use your skills that much more frequently.

You can’t just look at nerfs and whine that thief skills/traits have received a large number of nerfs while at the same time ignoring major buffs that are given to the class. If you look at the net effect, these “nerfs” clearly haven’t been net-negative as the thief class has remained near-mandatory and the best (and currently only allowed) zerker class there is.

From another perspective, if thief has only received “hundreds of nerfs” and is still one of the top classes, wouldn’t logic dictate that they were just OUT OF CONTROL previously?

BlackBeard.2873:

bwillb.2165:

If they think that there is favoritism towards thieves, the one class that has been nerfed by community request nearly every single patch, which has had nearly no buffs to offset these nerfs… They are clearly not pro or reasonable. The pros are the ones who continue rocking thief despite hundreds of nerfs.

“Increased the base rate of initiative gain from .75 per second to 1 per second.”

For reference, this would be like saying “All elementalist skill cooldowns are reduced by 33%” and is a MASSIVE buff for a lot of builds. Yes, that is 33% more initiative, meaning you get to use your skills that much more frequently.

You can’t just look at nerfs and whine that thief skills/traits have received a large number of nerfs while at the same time ignoring major buffs that are given to the class. If you look at the net effect, these “nerfs” clearly haven’t been net-negative as the thief class has remained near-mandatory and the best (and currently only allowed) zerker class there is.

From another perspective, if thief has only received “hundreds of nerfs” and is still one of the top classes, wouldn’t logic dictate that they were just OUT OF CONTROL previously?

esp since that buff opened up a lot of build diversity cause thiefs could now ignore initiative regeneration traits and skills.

hooma.9642:

mesmer have less utility, cause they cant afford to bring portal

I stopped reading when you said this. Apparently you don’t even play mesmer.

I’m really tired of people whaling and whining on this toilet of a subforum, and really in general. I remember when thieves thought S/D was going to be dead with Sword 2 change, on top of the initiative adjustments – it got to the point where people were “threatening” on leaving. In reality, just so you know, the initiative change actually hurt perma evade thieves but they’re still viable to play. I don’t like them, but that’s just the situation. In any case, so many people blow things WAYYY out of proportion all over this forum.

Like all warrior teams being viable? C’mon guys.

About the whole “stealth is a boon” idea, I think it would be a good change. They would have to reduce base duration slightly to compensate for the potential huge increase in uptime through boon duration, but only slightly because there would then be direct counters.
In addition, I think that it would be a good opportunity to boost thief capabilites that don’t rely on stealth, like venoms, to make possible specs that feel more like a highly mobile “duelist” if you get my meaning.

BlackBeard.2873:

bwillb.2165:

If they think that there is favoritism towards thieves, the one class that has been nerfed by community request nearly every single patch, which has had nearly no buffs to offset these nerfs… They are clearly not pro or reasonable. The pros are the ones who continue rocking thief despite hundreds of nerfs.

“Increased the base rate of initiative gain from .75 per second to 1 per second.”

For reference, this would be like saying “All elementalist skill cooldowns are reduced by 33%” and is a MASSIVE buff for a lot of builds. Yes, that is 33% more initiative, meaning you get to use your skills that much more frequently.

You can’t just look at nerfs and whine that thief skills/traits have received a large number of nerfs while at the same time ignoring major buffs that are given to the class. If you look at the net effect, these “nerfs” clearly haven’t been net-negative as the thief class has remained near-mandatory and the best (and currently only allowed) zerker class there is.

From another perspective, if thief has only received “hundreds of nerfs” and is still one of the top classes, wouldn’t logic dictate that they were just OUT OF CONTROL previously?

It doesn’t quantify like that. They lowered the max init gain and increased the base inti gain. Thus it’s commonly regarded as a nerf among those who invested heavily into it, because it did lower their peak potential.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I’m not sure how thieves drive the mesmers from the meta, but it’s very easy to see how they drive elementalists out of it.

Boon stealing.

Seriously, thieves can not only outpace elementalists in damage, but they can also strip most of their defenses AND get them for themselves. So thieves are evading, teleporting or stealthing like crazy while being bathed by countless boons.

The current thief’s setup makes them pretty much the anti-elementalist class. While Guardians also rely a lot on boons, they still have plenty of blocks and other active defenses, but eles have little to compensate for boon removal.

It wouldn’t be that bad of a problem if it came at a higher cost. Mesmers can also strip a lot of boons, but it’s easier to counterplay shatters as an elementalist.

Thieves’ boon stealing, however, should come at a higher cost. Be it an initiative cost, or less damage, or less survival elsewhere. Or, even, made much easier to counterplay it. Which wouldn’t be a big problem, either, if those strong attacks weren’t already covered by near-impossible-to-counterplay mechanics like evasion, stealth and really low casting times.

Thieves have 2 sources of boon stealing. The first one is Bountiful Theft. This steals 2 boons, but you do not get the remaining duration or the full stacks of the boon you steal. This is at a minimum of about 21 seconds as well since it’s tied to steal.

The second is larcenous strike. This originally was part of flanking strike which cost 4 initiative, but was eventually split into 2 skills and buffed due to pathing issues and the domination of boon bunkers in the meta. At first it still cost 4 initiative (for the total skill use) and stole 2 boons (rather than just destroying one as it previously had). This has been nerfed twice in that the cost has been increased to 5 initiative and the steal reduced to 1 boon. Aside from fixing the pathing issue (which was still workable before), the entire skill has been nerfed to a less effective state for dealing with boon heavy classes than the release of the game. It also has a marker on the boon/condition bar indicating it is about to be used telegraphing that it should be dodged.

It’s not in fact thieves that have pushed out eles, but rather the nerfs to eles as they were still pretty viable even when thieves’ boon ripping ability was arguably more effective. As for easier to counterplay, I don’t see how it could be made more obvious than the current iteration unless the cast time was increased to sluggish speed.

As for counterplaying shatters, yes that might be easier, but you still have to worry about the boon stripping ability of sword mainhand from both the mesmer and his clones’ autoattack chain. They could also put out much more anti-boon pressure than a thief could.

Carighan.6758:

bwillb.2165:

If they think that there is favoritism towards thieves, the one class that has been nerfed by community request nearly every single patch, which has had nearly no buffs to offset these nerfs… They are clearly not pro or reasonable. The pros are the ones who continue rocking thief despite hundreds of nerfs.

If you re-read what you wrote again, you might just end up agreeing with more Thief nerfs. :P

So you think, what, that the class should be nerfed until not even the best players in the world can succeed with it? That’s pretty pathetic.

Was a post made about how backstab should be nerfed and the rest of d/d d/p skills buffed. As a D/D stab player, going to have to disagree with this notion on the basis that I play the build for the sole purpose of burst via stab damage.

I love the rest of the utility this set provides, notably the evades on 3, 4 for a cripple/AoE, 5 for CnD/stealth, and heartseeker is just a good engage skill.

Some people like to play burst builds, so forcing people out of this position is just kind of insulting to demand for without consent of players who do. I’d love to see more build variety, but the problem lies in that the other builds simply do not perform in the sPvP meta not because a given build works better, but because the meta is shaped a certain way which asks for qualities which are done well via a stab/burst thief.

A combination of the metagame due to desired play strategy and simply meta-role builds of other classes put the other thief builds in less desirable positions. This also contributes to why mesmers are not as desireable in the scheme of things. I think those other classes are what need to be examined first before we can simply ask for nerfs or changes to given playstyles.

I think most people are missing the point of this thread.

Yes the meta is super tanky and within it thieves are just average. Take away the super tanky meta and it will be about thieves. Mesmer and ele, the other mobile power squishy roamers, won’t see the light of day because thieves are so far ahead of them and actually counter the mesmer and ele themselves.

There are layers of broken things in this game. The first one that needs peeled back is the tanky meta, after that there are other things that need peeled back. Thief is one of them.

Fortus.6175:

I think we can all agreed that currently thieves are stealing (no pun intended) all the attention when it comes to damage dealer/roamer/squishy.

Their OP superb damage coupled with spammable blinds, teleports, dodges, stealth, backstabs is driving to extinction the few eles and mesmers that remain (today we lost 2 top mesmer players due to this, on top of the countless nameless elementalists which plead for fixes long time ago after getting the boot up their …..feet)

Backstabs, without any kind of interaction on the taker other than bending over and taking it regardless of skillfully blocking it, blinding or evading the attack.

Blinds, which reapply on literally every second and then there is the fact that every ranged skill on thieves (except autoattack) applies a blind through this field.

Teleports that cure conditions and break stuns, rendering any form of CC, soft or hard, useless. On top of not only having one, or 2, or 3, or 4 , or 5……. just as many as initiative permit, on top of 2 freebies on low CD.

---

You cant give one class all the best tools for survival regardless of stats, give it the best single target damage and then allow it to take anybody else’s role and call it a day.

Suggestions; blind fields, same treatment the earth storm ele got; once every 4 seconds.
Teleports, increase initiative cost, give it 1/2 or 3/4 seconds precast, 1/2 activation.
Damage and boon stealing; needs an ICD and the damage needs some shaving down, specially spamable skills, something not along the lines of 8%, but rather 15-25%.

Thoughts?

When one must stick with age old meta with ele or mesmer, one must die in the end.

Phantaram.1265:

I think most people are missing the point of this thread.

Yes the meta is super tanky and within it thieves are just average. Take away the super tanky meta and it will be about thieves. Mesmer and ele, the other mobile power squishy roamers, won’t see the light of day because thieves are so far ahead of them and actually counter the mesmer and ele themselves.

There are layers of broken things in this game. The first one that needs peeled back is the tanky meta, after that there are other things that need peeled back. Thief is one of them.

Very well put, Phantaram. The damage/survivability ratio for a lot of classes need to be changed for a lot of classes, and thief is one of them. It is disgusting watching Sizer spam out evades chained together like the class is supposed to get complete immunity that lasts that long while building Zerker. The problem is that all thief defense is based on damage avoidance, so there is NO REASON to build anything but full-dps. Yes, a lot does need to be fixed about the thief class in terms of better survivability, but their highest-dps build simply has too much mobility/survivability for the damage it does.

BlackBeard.2873:

Phantaram.1265:

I think most people are missing the point of this thread.

Yes the meta is super tanky and within it thieves are just average. Take away the super tanky meta and it will be about thieves. Mesmer and ele, the other mobile power squishy roamers, won’t see the light of day because thieves are so far ahead of them and actually counter the mesmer and ele themselves.

There are layers of broken things in this game. The first one that needs peeled back is the tanky meta, after that there are other things that need peeled back. Thief is one of them.

Very well put, Phantaram. The damage/survivability ratio for a lot of classes need to be changed for a lot of classes, and thief is one of them. It is disgusting watching Sizer spam out evades chained together like the class is supposed to get complete immunity that lasts that long while building Zerker. The problem is that all thief defense is based on damage avoidance, so there is NO REASON to build anything but full-dps. Yes, a lot does need to be fixed about the thief class in terms of better survivability, but their highest-dps build simply has too much mobility/survivability for the damage it does.

If you dull the burst to the point that other glass cannon’s can survive it, you haven’t solved the main problem. You’ve just given Mesmer Thief’s position and possibly knocked Thieves down below Elementalist. The one of the reasons Thief players have developed in a way that they give up practically all their survivablity for damage isn’t just because they can. It’s also because they have to, if they want any hope of taking on a serious bunker. They’re low end damage is quite low, and as with their high end defenses. I can say, if you want to learn about the value of active defense in this game, role a Thief. Anyways back on topic: if they nerf Thief’s damage, they have the tone down bunkers substantially at the same time.

Dual.8953:

BlackBeard.2873:

Phantaram.1265:

I think most people are missing the point of this thread.

Yes the meta is super tanky and within it thieves are just average. Take away the super tanky meta and it will be about thieves. Mesmer and ele, the other mobile power squishy roamers, won’t see the light of day because thieves are so far ahead of them and actually counter the mesmer and ele themselves.

There are layers of broken things in this game. The first one that needs peeled back is the tanky meta, after that there are other things that need peeled back. Thief is one of them.

Very well put, Phantaram. The damage/survivability ratio for a lot of classes need to be changed for a lot of classes, and thief is one of them. It is disgusting watching Sizer spam out evades chained together like the class is supposed to get complete immunity that lasts that long while building Zerker. The problem is that all thief defense is based on damage avoidance, so there is NO REASON to build anything but full-dps. Yes, a lot does need to be fixed about the thief class in terms of better survivability, but their highest-dps build simply has too much mobility/survivability for the damage it does.

If you dull the burst to the point that other glass cannon’s can survive it, you haven’t solved the main problem. You’ve just given Mesmer Thief’s position and possibly knocked Thieves down below Elementalist. The one of the reasons Thief players have developed in a way that they give up practically all their survivablity for damage isn’t just because they can. It’s also because they have to, if they want any hope of taking on a serious bunker. They’re low end damage is quite low, and as with their high end defenses. I can say, if you want to learn about the value of active defense in this game, role a Thief. Anyways back on topic: if they nerf Thief’s damage, they have the tone down bunkers substantially at the same time.

Which is why they should have halved (or more) the damage of LS and left the 2 boon steal, so you could strip boons or do damage, but if you just used LS over and over, you probably couldn’t have taken down anyone. It should have been made a utility skill since they were talking about how it was too effective. Now guard boon bunkers can sit relatively unphased by putting up retal and covering the important boons; we’re back in the same boat we were when they started talking about boon hate (+ higher initiative cost). Thieves would have had to complete the AA chain to CS for the decent (emphasis on decent/balanced ) damage or the utility of dodging/stealing boons. They went in the wrong direction.

Maugetarr.6823:

Dual.8953:

BlackBeard.2873:

Phantaram.1265:

I think most people are missing the point of this thread.

Yes the meta is super tanky and within it thieves are just average. Take away the super tanky meta and it will be about thieves. Mesmer and ele, the other mobile power squishy roamers, won’t see the light of day because thieves are so far ahead of them and actually counter the mesmer and ele themselves.

There are layers of broken things in this game. The first one that needs peeled back is the tanky meta, after that there are other things that need peeled back. Thief is one of them.

Very well put, Phantaram. The damage/survivability ratio for a lot of classes need to be changed for a lot of classes, and thief is one of them. It is disgusting watching Sizer spam out evades chained together like the class is supposed to get complete immunity that lasts that long while building Zerker. The problem is that all thief defense is based on damage avoidance, so there is NO REASON to build anything but full-dps. Yes, a lot does need to be fixed about the thief class in terms of better survivability, but their highest-dps build simply has too much mobility/survivability for the damage it does.

If you dull the burst to the point that other glass cannon’s can survive it, you haven’t solved the main problem. You’ve just given Mesmer Thief’s position and possibly knocked Thieves down below Elementalist. The one of the reasons Thief players have developed in a way that they give up practically all their survivablity for damage isn’t just because they can. It’s also because they have to, if they want any hope of taking on a serious bunker. They’re low end damage is quite low, and as with their high end defenses. I can say, if you want to learn about the value of active defense in this game, role a Thief. Anyways back on topic: if they nerf Thief’s damage, they have the tone down bunkers substantially at the same time.

Which is why they should have halved (or more) the damage of LS and left the 2 boon steal, so you could strip boons or do damage, but if you just used LS over and over, you probably couldn’t have taken down anyone. It should have been made a utility skill since they were talking about how it was too effective. Now guard boon bunkers can sit relatively unphased by putting up retal and covering the important boons; we’re back in the same boat we were when they started talking about boon hate (+ higher initiative cost). Thieves would have had to complete the AA chain to CS for the decent (emphasis on decent/balanced ) damage or the utility of dodging/stealing boons. They went in the wrong direction.

True facts. I was wanting this nerf too. Sadly Anet’s record for nerfing Thief is very poor. They nerf what stand out but in the wrong way. The 4 second revealed was another one. Could have gone with Revealed on all destealth, and made this bandaid fix instead that screwed up Thief’s rotations so much that the reverted the nerf in PvE/WvW. And with the cast time on Infiltrator’s Return, they shadow step near the end of the cast instead of the beginning.

Kyon.9735:

style.6173:

Fortus.6175:

(today we lost 2 top mesmer players due to this, on top of the countless nameless elementalists which plead for fixes long time ago after getting the boot up their …..feet)

If a mesmer loses to a thief, then the mesmer is just plain bad. Mesmer is by far the best 1v1 class.

Let’s see what the 2 top NA pvp mesmers has to say about this. They recently re-rolled to Thieves.

tPvP != to 1v1

Fortus.6175:

Cynz.9437:

30/30/30/30/30 build is so OP

I wont call you ignorant, but you sir need to know about the S/D and D/P that plagues sPvP. They have access to all of the afore mentioned stuff without having to fall in your uncivilized and near sighted fail of a joke.

plagues…. really? if anything pvp is plagued by hambow wars, mm necros, decap engis and any other condi tank

style.6173:

Kyon.9735:

style.6173:

Fortus.6175:

(today we lost 2 top mesmer players due to this, on top of the countless nameless elementalists which plead for fixes long time ago after getting the boot up their …..feet)

If a mesmer loses to a thief, then the mesmer is just plain bad. Mesmer is by far the best 1v1 class.

Let’s see what the 2 top NA pvp mesmers has to say about this. They recently re-rolled to Thieves.

tPvP != to 1v1

I said pvp as in general. BTW you also just gave an opinion without anything to back it up which doesn’t make it a fact.

Phantaram.1265:

I think most people are missing the point of this thread.

Yes the meta is super tanky and within it thieves are just average. Take away the super tanky meta and it will be about thieves. Mesmer and ele, the other mobile power squishy roamers, won’t see the light of day because thieves are so far ahead of them and actually counter the mesmer and ele themselves.

There are layers of broken things in this game. The first one that needs peeled back is the tanky meta, after that there are other things that need peeled back. Thief is one of them.

thief is an evasive class, it has to be. If you nerf their DPS you will then place them super low, because thief is just average in dps in actuality. If you nerf thier survivability, you guarantee them death.

A better solution would be to increase mesmers ability to counter/make people pat for mistakes. (this is defense an offense)
And for ele, well i dont know ele too well.

I dont think nerfing thief really improves the game, its just switching positions of 1 specific pvp role. problem is there is 1 spot available and 3 jobs competing for it, one will always be considered the best, and the other two sub optimal.

also this whole discussion is too focused on the spvp meta. In WvW theives surviability with evasive builds is not OP, in PVE thieves are marginal.

Except my necro it drive away them the secret to beat them as necro is weakness.

Only reason why mesmers see some light compared to ele is cause portal and boon removal really(which is kind unreliable in a bigger scale fight) :/

Zero Day.2594:

Aza.2105:

…
doesn’t have any warning signs to counter play.
…

Warning Sign: Thief is in stealth. (and has a melee weapon set, dem back stabs)
Meaning: Possible burst of damage will happen, more likely if the thief is higher health than you.
Proposed Reaction: Run forward, sparsely dodge rolling to gain distance and stall till stealth runs out, possibly dodge a backstab as well.
People’s Reaction: Stand in place. Or, run around in circles (not creating distance). Or slowly walk backwards…

I love to spend all my endurance dodge rolling every time a thief enters stealth. I do it because I have 1000 dodges to spend. I also love how thief doesn’t lose stealth and backstab opportunity or any initiative for spamming skills 2,3,4,5 if they hit me while I’m dodging.

Dual.8953:

It’s also because they have to, if they want any hope of taking on a serious bunker.

Why should a glasscannon theif be a bunker killer? Are other glasscannons bunker killers? No. Glasscannon engineer can’t do kitten to anyone and has no survivability, glasscannon necro has no survivability and doesn’t do nearly enough damage, same with glasscannon ranger etc… the only thing coming close to glasscannon thieves is glasscannon mesmer, but mesmer lacks poison, which is a big downside vs bunkers.

runeblade.7514:

ManCaptain.3154:

MonMalthias.4763:

• Making Stealth a Boon; thus giving skills with Boon Hate additional utility against Stealth. Mesmers in particular would have their matchups improved markedly by this one change.
  • Most importantly removing Stealth as a Boon should not inflict Revealed. With counterplay must come counter-counterplay – the Thief should be able to re-stealth after hitting Boon Hate. Obviously things like hitting people while Stealthed should still inflict Revealed.

This would completely screw up engineers who have no boon hate to speak of. And if cover boons are utilized by the thief (easy to do) it becomes impossible for classes with boon hate which removes only 1 boon. Also because stealth makes you untargettable, any boon hate that requires a target cannot do kitten (arcane thievery for instance).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Throw_Mine

What is it with this forum and lack of reading comprehension? Is that a viable boon removal? 1 single boon removal utility on a profession which loses at least 1 utility slot to kits, at least 1 to stunbreakers. This is not viable!
Jesus christ. Just like in that other thread where I said engineer has no decent condition removal outside the 30 alchemy + elixirs build and some moron started listing all the weak and unviable condition removal engineer has. What’s next? I’m gonna say engineer has no viable stability and some idiot will point out the 2 extremely crappy and unviable stability sources on the class?

Not to mention other classes with less than viable boon removal.

ManCaptain.3154:

runeblade.7514:

ManCaptain.3154:

MonMalthias.4763:

• Making Stealth a Boon; thus giving skills with Boon Hate additional utility against Stealth. Mesmers in particular would have their matchups improved markedly by this one change.
  • Most importantly removing Stealth as a Boon should not inflict Revealed. With counterplay must come counter-counterplay – the Thief should be able to re-stealth after hitting Boon Hate. Obviously things like hitting people while Stealthed should still inflict Revealed.

This would completely screw up engineers who have no boon hate to speak of. And if cover boons are utilized by the thief (easy to do) it becomes impossible for classes with boon hate which removes only 1 boon. Also because stealth makes you untargettable, any boon hate that requires a target cannot do kitten (arcane thievery for instance).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Throw_Mine

What is it with this forum and lack of reading comprehension? Is that a viable boon removal? 1 single boon removal utility on a profession which loses at least 1 utility slot to kits, at least 1 to stunbreakers. This is not viable!
Jesus christ. Just like in that other thread where I said engineer has no decent condition removal outside the 30 alchemy + elixirs build and some moron started listing all the weak and unviable condition removal engineer has. What’s next? I’m gonna say engineer has no viable stability and some idiot will point out the 2 extremely crappy and unviable stability sources on the class?

Not to mention other classes with less than viable boon removal.

Reserve Mines (the 15 point Explosives trait) seem like they would remove boons as well, and that’s not exactly a difficult expenditure to justify. Might be nice if the HP threshold were pushed up a bit, but still.

ManCaptain.3154:

runeblade.7514:

ManCaptain.3154:

MonMalthias.4763:

• Making Stealth a Boon; thus giving skills with Boon Hate additional utility against Stealth. Mesmers in particular would have their matchups improved markedly by this one change.
  • Most importantly removing Stealth as a Boon should not inflict Revealed. With counterplay must come counter-counterplay – the Thief should be able to re-stealth after hitting Boon Hate. Obviously things like hitting people while Stealthed should still inflict Revealed.

snip

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Throw_Mine

What is it with this forum and lack of reading comprehension? Is that a viable boon removal?
snip
Not to mention other classes with less than viable boon removal.

As an Engineer, I sympathise with you, but let’s keep this on topic. Yes, Throw Mine and Acidic Elixirs suck but hey, at least we’re not Elementalist with no Boon Hate to speak of. Moving on; I am interested to hear your thoughts on why making Stealth interact with more skills as a Boon would screw up Engineers – with no viable Boon hate to speak of, this would leave the Engineer vs Thief matchup virtually unchanged.

Previous posters have mentioned that Arenanet’s record for balancing Thief is very poor:

Dual.8953:

True facts. I was wanting this nerf too. Sadly Anet’s record for nerfing Thief is very poor. They nerf what stand out but in the wrong way. The 4 second revealed was another one. Could have gone with Revealed on all destealth, and made this bandaid fix instead that screwed up Thief’s rotations so much that the reverted the nerf in PvE/WvW. And with the cast time on Infiltrator’s Return, they shadow step near the end of the cast instead of the beginning.

I want to touch on this topic a bit because despite the OP Fortus calling for nerfs to Thief, the way Thieves have been typically build has been almost universally Glass Cannon, which is a worrying sign, because it signifies that the overall design direction for Thief is to keep it being a time-starved profession. For Stealth oriented builds, you have a limited window to kill or be killed once you come out of stealth. For Evasion oriented builds, you can burn your evade frames until you judge the opponent suitably overextended. Both builds utilise Berserker’s stats for maximum damage output in minimum time.

The arguments cut both ways, but the conclusion is circular: Thief needs to do damage to be viable. Thief needs its Stealths and Evades to be safe enough to do damage.

I will make it clear now that I do not play Thief.

Therefore I call upon Thief players to offer their opinions on how Thief’s duration of engagement can be extended against other Glass Cannons while bringing down tanky build survivability against Thief. There are many posts worrying about nerfs for Thief in the future and lashing out in response instead of offering a better solution. As an Elementalist and Engineer main, I will tell you now that negativity does nothing at all and losing several keystone traits to nerfs is all too common (RIP Cleansing Water, Kit Refinement). On the other hand, long constructive threads like the Ranger Thread have brought attention.

So as a Thief player seeing Elementalist and Mesmer being driven out of the PvP meta due to being outcompeted, how would you bring Thief down in such a way to let other Glass cannons have a place? How would you bring Thief up to let it stay in the fight longer and pose a threat to tanky DPS or Bunkers?

ManCaptain.3154:

I also love how thief doesn’t lose stealth and backstab opportunity or any initiative for spamming skills 2,3,4,5 if they hit me while I’m dodging.

Yeah right, no initiative used on missed skills! Maybe you should try playing a thief one of those days.

They even got C&D that with the correct trait costs more initiative when it misses than when it lands, 6 instead of 4.

MonMalthias.4763:

how would you bring Thief down in such a way to let other Glass cannons have a place? How would you bring Thief up to let it stay in the fight longer and pose a threat to tanky DPS or Bunkers?

You don’t need to bring them down. Beating thieves comes down to knowledge of both your class and the thief class, and a bit of practice. To really be a threat to bunkers, LS needs to steal 2 boons, but have its damage halved or more so you choose between the evasion/boonsteal and damage, and using LS restarts the damage from the AA chain encouraging the use of endurance dodges rather than weapon skill dodges.

Here is what I mean by knowledge of both your class and the thief:

If you skip to about 3 minutes he starts fighting against several thieves in a row as a glassy build. Keeping calm and knowing what to do and when goes a long way against thieves

(Thanks to Joe for posting this in the mesmer forum. He’s a good player)
As for making eles viable again, they need to just revert some of the nerfs they’ve done, not bring the thief down.

Maugetarr.6823:

You don’t need to bring them down. Beating thieves comes down to knowledge of both your class and the thief class, and a bit of practice. To really be a threat to bunkers, LS needs to steal 2 boons, but have its damage halved or more so you choose between the evasion/boonsteal and damage, and using LS restarts the damage from the AA chain encouraging the use of endurance dodges rather than weapon skill dodges.

Thief already has bountiful theft, so stealing two boons is definitely too much. It would be different if LS had a static cooldown but it doesn’t. Unlike other classes affected by weapon cooldowns, thief can chain LS as long as they have the initiative to do so.

Because of initiative, LS chaining would make boon oriented classes obsolete. Since there is no way to outpace a thief chaining LS due to boons being tied to skills with static cooldowns.

Maugetarr.6823:

MonMalthias.4763:

how would you bring Thief down in such a way to let other Glass cannons have a place? How would you bring Thief up to let it stay in the fight longer and pose a threat to tanky DPS or Bunkers?

You don’t need to bring them down. Beating thieves comes down to knowledge of both your class and the thief class, and a bit of practice. To really be a threat to bunkers, LS needs to steal 2 boons, but have its damage halved or more so you choose between the evasion/boonsteal and damage, and using LS restarts the damage from the AA chain encouraging the use of endurance dodges rather than weapon skill dodges.

Here is what I mean by knowledge of both your class and the thief:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74Ad1CnN1vI

If you skip to about 3 minutes he starts fighting against several thieves in a row as a glassy build. Keeping calm and knowing what to do and when goes a long way against thieves

(Thanks to Joe for posting this in the mesmer forum. He’s a good player)
As for making eles viable again, they need to just revert some of the nerfs they’ve done, not bring the thief down.

Maugetarr,

First of all, not every class have access to clones and stealth.

You do realize if that mesmer did not use clones, he/she would’ve long been dead correct?

In other word,

your suggestion and advice only belong to the Mesmer class.

Remove clones and stealth from a Mesmer and and redo that same video and see how long t the mesmer will last against the thief.

My Suggestion; give all class access to stealth and clones, than we all can give suggestions and advices to fighting thieves.

but the only time a thief will ever spam LS is if u have a insane amount of boons … cutting the thieves damage and leaving them open for an attack !
it is not smart to spam LS . and if u move in odd angles the time it takes for LS to be used can be dodged with out a roll . "mouse control "

and the majority of this thread . has ended up talking about elements and mesmer vs thief

Aza.2105:

Maugetarr.6823:

You don’t need to bring them down. Beating thieves comes down to knowledge of both your class and the thief class, and a bit of practice. To really be a threat to bunkers, LS needs to steal 2 boons, but have its damage halved or more so you choose between the evasion/boonsteal and damage, and using LS restarts the damage from the AA chain encouraging the use of endurance dodges rather than weapon skill dodges.

Thief already has bountiful theft, so stealing two boons is definitely too much. It would be different if LS had a static cooldown but it doesn’t. Unlike other classes affected by weapon cooldowns, thief can chain LS as long as they have the initiative to do so.

Because of initiative, LS chaining would make boon oriented classes obsolete. Since there is no way to outpace a thief chaining LS due to boons being tied to skills with static cooldowns.

2 boons on a minimum 21 second cooldown where you do not get the stack or duration (rather you destroy 2 boons and then gain those for a short time) is not too much.

This change would force the thief to either steal boons or deal damage. As it is right now, it is very easy for boon bunkers to throw up cover boons so that you never get to the bunkering ones. That was wy they tried to institue boon hate in the first place. They problem was that they nerfed eles after they instituted that, nerfed FS/LS to being less useful than it had been pre buff, and left guards to still be able to produce boons easily leading to the current disparity between those that can bunker with boons and those who can’t remove them in a fashion to kill them or push them off point.

Burnfall.9573:

Maugetarr.6823:

MonMalthias.4763:

how would you bring Thief down in such a way to let other Glass cannons have a place? How would you bring Thief up to let it stay in the fight longer and pose a threat to tanky DPS or Bunkers?

You don’t need to bring them down. Beating thieves comes down to knowledge of both your class and the thief class, and a bit of practice. To really be a threat to bunkers, LS needs to steal 2 boons, but have its damage halved or more so you choose between the evasion/boonsteal and damage, and using LS restarts the damage from the AA chain encouraging the use of endurance dodges rather than weapon skill dodges.

Here is what I mean by knowledge of both your class and the thief:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74Ad1CnN1vI

If you skip to about 3 minutes he starts fighting against several thieves in a row as a glassy build. Keeping calm and knowing what to do and when goes a long way against thieves

(Thanks to Joe for posting this in the mesmer forum. He’s a good player)
As for making eles viable again, they need to just revert some of the nerfs they’ve done, not bring the thief down.

Maugetarr,

First of all, not every class have access to clones and stealth.

You do realize if that mesmer did not use clones, he/she would’ve long been dead correct?

In other word,

your suggestion and advice only belong to the Mesmer class.

Remove clones and stealth from a Mesmer and and redo that same video and see how long t the mesmer will last against the thief.

My Suggestion; give all class access to stealth and clones, than we all can give suggestions and advices to fighting thieves.

The linked video was an example of how knowledge of thieves and your own class can help you counter them with relative ease. Your specific response based on your class and equipment may vary. Since this thread was about thieves pushing out damage dealers, I thought an example of a shatter mesmer (i.e. damage dealer) would be an appropriate example to show. It is very possible for other classes besides mesmers to kill thieves.

Maugetarr.6823:

The linked video was an example of how knowledge of thieves and your own class can help you counter them with relative ease. Your specific response based on your class and equipment may vary. Since this thread was about thieves pushing out damage dealers, I thought an example of a shatter mesmer (i.e. damage dealer) would be an appropriate example to show. It is very possible for other classes besides mesmers to kill thieves.

I think you are having a slight misunderstanding here. He wasn’t talking about bringing Thieves down in the sense of beating them but in sense of tuning them down in a reasonable manner so they don’t universally replace other classes in PvP.