Guild Wars 2

Arganthium.5638:

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.

What garbage.

Mesmer is by no means countered by thief. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that they have a theoretical disadvantage against thieves (i.e. they have 5k more health in exchange for thief’s 7% damage reduction, Mes has a little less burst than thief but a little more sustain, Mes has tons of AoE while Thief has great single-target damage, etc)- in fact, if anything, mesmers should have an advantage against thieves, simply on the basis of their wider range of flexibility (see my mesmer build in my signature) along with very, very slight pluses in a wide number of other areas.

AoE isn’t that relevant for a roamer. And even then thief does have some aoe through short bow #2 spam.

Arganthium.5638:

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.

….(see my mesmer build in my signature) …
…. since there are virtually no players using S/D any more (Sizer was asked by his team to change weapon sets).
…

your signature tells different stories

Shortbow and Withdraw effectively pressure a mesmer. They can evade any shatter or phantasmal berserker with these evades.

Edit: I used full berserker in duels.

Master of Timespace.2548:

Arganthium.5638:

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.

What garbage.

Mesmer is by no means countered by thief. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that they have a theoretical disadvantage against thieves (i.e. they have 5k more health in exchange for thief’s 7% damage reduction, Mes has a little less burst than thief but a little more sustain, Mes has tons of AoE while Thief has great single-target damage, etc)- in fact, if anything, mesmers should have an advantage against thieves, simply on the basis of their wider range of flexibility (see my mesmer build in my signature) along with very, very slight pluses in a wide number of other areas.

AoE isn’t that relevant for a roamer. And even then thief does have some aoe through short bow #2 spam.

It’s extremely relevant for a roamer, since you’re supposed to be helping out your allies in team fights.

CBomb spam is generally ineffective and makes you a large (and extremely vulnerable) target.

Arganthium.5638:

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.

What garbage.

Mesmer is by no means countered by thief. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that they have a theoretical disadvantage against thieves (i.e. they have 5k more health in exchange for thief’s 7% damage reduction, Mes has a little less burst than thief but a little more sustain, Mes has tons of AoE while Thief has great single-target damage, etc)- in fact, if anything, mesmers should have an advantage against thieves, simply on the basis of their wider range of flexibility (see my mesmer build in my signature) along with very, very slight pluses in a wide number of other areas.

Elementalist, on the other hand, is just a generally bad class at the moment. I have no problem crushing eles with any profession. Their base stats are the weakest of all classes (lowest base health and light armor), their heals are downright awful, their supposed “flexibility” is actually very limited, their damage skills are unreliable at best, their traits are extremely limited, their condition removal is weak, and so on. This has absolutely nothing to do with thieves being “overpowered” or some kind of stupid idea like that. Heck, you can’t even use the (already pathetic) excuse that S/D thieves are a strong counter to eles since there are virtually no players using S/D any more (Sizer was asked by his team to change weapon sets).

You might be a good player, Phantaram, but your comments are so off-target that I feel that you’re shooting way out of your league here. There’s absolutely nothing to support your comments; what little evidence has been provided by a large number of players supporting your ideas is either easily refutable with objective analysis (i.e. just because Sizer was “hunting” Helseth didn’t mean he was being particularly helpful to his team; in fact, looking at his gameplay, he wasn’t really doing as much for his team as Helseth was doing for his) or by determining the actual root of the problem, as I did with the elementalist.

I checked your signature. Your theorycrafting is a bit off. Perhaps you would benefit from spending more time playing. If you did, you’d know what a disadvantage mesmers and elementalists have against thieves.

You say thieves do ‘a little more’ damage and mesmers have ‘a ton’ of AoE. That is simply not the case. Thieves can beserker thieves can crit continuously for 4-5k, which is about what the maximum a shatter would do for a Mesmer.What makes the argument absolutely laughable is you conveniently left out that, when facing Mesmers, thieves have:

far greater mobility
far greater access to stealth, and longer duration stealth
far more access to evades and vigor
shorter ability recharge times
more access to Lyssa 6-piece proc
access to Consume Plasma
better auto-attack damage
long-range teleports on shorter cooldowns

Your argument is faulty. If Mesmers had an advantage against thieves, then surely Sizor hunting down Helseth would have resulted in Sizor losing the fight most of the time. Instead it resulted in Helseth being run off point or killed. That’s just a single example.

Thedenofsin.7340:

I checked your signature. Your theorycrafting is a bit off.

Yeah, it probably isn’t. You’re going to have to prove that – I’ve seen a mountain of Arg’s theory-crafting explanations on the boards, I’ve never seen a single one from you. Doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but you’re going to have to back up your claims.

You say thieves do ‘a little more’ damage and mesmers have ‘a ton’ of AoE. That is simply not the case. Thieves can beserker thieves can crit continuously for 4-5k,

This is called Misinformation. There’s no thief spec that Continuously crits for 4-5k. If you’d like to refute me, by all means link me a spec capably of critting that high continuously.

far greater mobility

It’s kind of what thieves do, so that’s not much of a surprise.

far greater access to stealth, and longer duration stealth

Pretty sure base stealth duration is the same or very similar (not much room for variation on 3s stealth)- PU matches meld with shadows (higher tier slotted trait, more powerful), the only “longer duration stealth” a thief gets is SR. It’s also worth noting that while a thief has greater access to stealth, a Mesmer has greater range of a motion. A stealthed Dagger thief is trying to get behind you. A stealthed Mesmer…well, he’s probably somewhere withing 900 range of you – good luck guessing exactly where though.

far more access to evades and vigor

Mesmer has an Immunity skill, access to protection, trait that reduces damage based on number of clones/phantasms in play, clones/phantasms to do damage for you while evading/in stealth

shorter ability recharge times

Subjective based on utilities, as far as common utilities I don’t believe this is true.

more access to Lyssa 6-piece proc

Mesmer’s have strong boon stripping

access to Consume Plasma

Mesmer has access to shatter, if we’re going to bring class mechanics into the discussion.

better auto-attack damage

Mesmer has higher base HP

long-range teleports on shorter cooldowns

You already covered this with “greater mobility” – if you have to rename your own points to have a convincing enough list, you don’t have a strong argument.

I do not understand why PU is constantly mentioned in this discussion.
It is about the tournament compositions and the specs used there is it not?
PU is not the Mesmer tournament spec.

I saw the top sPvP thief play yesterday. He plays P/P – SB.

So nerf that after you nerfed that other thing that was the second choice of build after you got them to nerf that first thing?

This is everyone’s plan it seams. People don’t know much about balance, that’s one thing for sure.

Coming into this game where build there is supposed to be “build diversity” it’s hard to play a spec that gets utterly out competed by single skills. That is why I brought up power rangers getting demolished by pistol whip. Understandably, the counterargument that condition ranger is better than condi thief is clear. However, condi thief can kill a ranger relatively easy (you drop caltrops and keep the ranger and the pet inside of it, unless the ranger is good) by killing his pet with condi overload on both the ranger and the pet with bleeds. The only thing condi thief is lacking imo is access to burning. On the flip side, you have power ranger that gets completely countered by things like, shadow shot (unblockable blind = useless GS), pistol whip = evades frames = useless GS, mobility = useless GS (you can actually trigger the counterattack and strafe around the ranger preventing the attack from hitting you). Sure, you don’t NEED to use a great sword to play a power ranger but if you don’t then you’re stuck with longbow s/x and the DPS loss when swapping to sword is massive making you a worthless DPS for 10 seconds. The issue is not that things are stronger than other things, it is that there is poor mechanistic design to all classes and how they deal/sustain damage. No one, should do damage while doing evade frames. Condi ranger included.

Eurantien.4632:

Coming into this game where build there is supposed to be “build diversity” it’s hard to play a spec that gets utterly out competed by single skills. That is why I brought up power rangers getting demolished by pistol whip. Understandably, the counterargument that condition ranger is better than condi thief is clear. However, condi thief can kill a ranger relatively easy (you drop caltrops and keep the ranger and the pet inside of it, unless the ranger is good) by killing his pet with condi overload on both the ranger and the pet with bleeds. The only thing condi thief is lacking imo is access to burning. On the flip side, you have power ranger that gets completely countered by things like, shadow shot (unblockable blind = useless GS), pistol whip = evades frames = useless GS, mobility = useless GS (you can actually trigger the counterattack and strafe around the ranger preventing the attack from hitting you). Sure, you don’t NEED to use a great sword to play a power ranger but if you don’t then you’re stuck with longbow s/x and the DPS loss when swapping to sword is massive making you a worthless DPS for 10 seconds. The issue is not that things are stronger than other things, it is that there is poor mechanistic design to all classes and how they deal/sustain damage. No one, should do damage while doing evade frames. Condi ranger included.

You’re pointing out known issues with Power Rangers – I don’t disagree, but I think ranger needs some buffs/fixes before we can use it as a comparison point for anything. I’m also not saying thief is in a perfect state. I personally dislike pistol whip; why the developers decided to design the skills to root the thief (which necessitated the evasion, or else it’d be a self-kill) is beyond me. When they split the skill, perhaps it’ll be in a better place.

I’m all for adjustments and more importantly, build diversity. I just think the attitudes and suggestions of most of the posters in this particular thread (and in most “Thief is gamebreakingly OP” threads) are misinformed and exaggerated. Every class needs some work, thief included.

It’s true, any other class running a glassy build will auto-lose to a glassy thief. It’s extremely hard to kill something that is stunning/blinding you and stealthing away the moment you have a chance to retaliate.

Thief is the only class that can get away using a glassy build in PvP and still have plenty of survivability.

People need to stop with the braindead reply of “stealth can’t capture points”, it’s not about capturing points, it’s about roaming and causing unbalanced fights. Also having a guaranteed stomp on 5 out of 8 classes with blind field adds further to their effectiveness.

Normal d/p crits for 4k easy by spamming shadow shots. Backstab is just icing vs mesmers for when they go invis/invuln, they have no hope when you are stuck to them like glue.

The commonly used teleports for a d/p thief are steal (21s cd, used for opener, daze) and signet (24s cd) both instant. Nearly every thief is going to run shadowstep which can also be used offensively if you work up an advantage and are sure the fight will end before return expires. Then there is shadow shot which is unfortunately not instant cast but at least blinds and follows with a large hit (or backstab if you are invis) and can be used any time you have LoS.

S/d usually has 35s cd steal but still has signet, shadowstep, and weapon teleport, plus flanking strike is a better homing attack than heartseeker. You generally use swiftness and dodges/evades to stay close and need to hit teleport only for large gaps like blink or if you are hit by knock back. I have destroyed many mesmers when I snap back instantly from being knocked away it is quite satisfying

edit: fixed kitten

@ens
im pretty sure u meaned d/p

Reesha.7901:

I do not understand why PU is constantly mentioned in this discussion.
It is about the tournament compositions and the specs used there is it not?
PU is not the Mesmer tournament spec.

me neither.. maybe we all arent pro enough to face pu mesmer in top10 play and evilapprentice.6379 and Arganthium.5638 do. or its just complete the opposite. both are at the bottom of the foodchain in leaderboard and facing that every time they play tourney and we dont.. or the both just play on duellservers and think thats exactly what gets played in tournament.

@wintel
right

Wintel.4873:

It’s true, any other class running a glassy build will auto-lose to a glassy thief. It’s extremely hard to kill something that is stunning/blinding you and stealthing away the moment you have a chance to retaliate.

Thief is the only class that can get away using a glassy build in PvP and still have plenty of survivability.

People need to stop with the braindead reply of “stealth can’t capture points”, it’s not about capturing points, it’s about roaming and causing unbalanced fights. Also having a guaranteed stomp on 5 out of 8 classes with blind field adds further to their effectiveness.

You are absolutely correct.
Not forgetting how useless our down-skills are to them as well; once they go into stealth.

It make me question, wonder.. who is directing the Class Balance team at Arena.net??.

Seriously!!

i do really want to know?

Evaluating the class would be easier if your Thief experience didn’t wildly vary depending on your own class. Warrs, Guards, and Engis probably don’t pay Thieves that much heed (although they do need to watch out for surprise non consensual relations), meanwhile, Elementalists of any build are just glorified Thief food – as per Phantaram’s stream. You could be running Clerics or Soldiers as an Ele and Thieves just lol. Bountiful Theft + Sleight of Hand is hilarious vs a class who’s best gimmick is boon stacking.

TainoFuerte.8136:

Evaluating the class would be easier if your Thief experience didn’t wildly vary depending on your own class. Warrs, Guards, and Engis probably don’t pay Thieves that much heed (although they do need to watch out for surprise non consensual relations), meanwhile, Elementalists of any build are just glorified Thief food – as per Phantaram’s stream. You could be running Clerics or Soldiers as an Ele and Thieves just lol. Bountiful Theft + Sleight of Hand is hilarious vs a class who’s best gimmick is boon stacking.

I would love it if every single matchup was a 50/50 with the sole determinant being skill instead of the rock-paper-scissors gameplay we have right now. As Engineer I put Thieves in the dumpster in any build incorporating Grenades or Bombs; yet as Elementalist I can be instantly deleted without extreme outplay on my part. The Thief matchups are way too binary right now but as a non-Thief I have no idea how to make every matchup a skill matchup.

Wintel.4873:

It’s true, any other class running a glassy build will auto-lose to a glassy thief. It’s extremely hard to kill something that is stunning/blinding you and stealthing away the moment you have a chance to retaliate.

Thief is the only class that can get away using a glassy build in PvP and still have plenty of survivability.

People need to stop with the braindead reply of “stealth can’t capture points”, it’s not about capturing points, it’s about roaming and causing unbalanced fights. Also having a guaranteed stomp on 5 out of 8 classes with blind field adds further to their effectiveness.

This. The basic roles of Elementalists, Thieves, and Mesmers in tPVP are damage dealers. You spike people, you down them, you either stomp them yourself or leave it to your bunker. You also usually leave capping points to your bunkers so “stealth can’t cap points” is not really a good excuse.

I played 6 straight hours of team queue tPVP earlier as an elementalist. In that 6 hours we’ve only encountered a total of 4 elementalists (1 team ran 1 staff and 1 scepter elementalist). There were a lot less shatter mesmers than there used to be. The most classes played were Warrior, Necro, Engineer and Thief.

As a scepter elementalist, I’d usually get eaten by thieves in seconds if I fail to chain my bursts in my first try. A decent thief will usually disengage with shadowstep right after hitting his initial burst to avoid point blank AoEs. Either way if he fail to initiate, he’ll just lie in stealth as long as possible and wait for another opening.

ens.9854:

Normal d/p crits for 4k easy by spamming shadow shots. Backstab is just icing vs mesmers for when they go invis/invuln, they have no hope when you are stuck to them like glue.

The commonly used teleports for a d/p thief are steal (21s cd, used for opener, daze) and signet (24s cd) both instant. Nearly every thief is going to run shadowstep which can also be used offensively if you work up an advantage and are sure the fight will end before return expires. Then there is shadow shot which is unfortunately not instant cast but at least blinds and follows with a large hit (or backstab if you are invis) and can be used any time you have LoS.

S/d usually has 35s cd steal but still has signet, shadowstep, and weapon teleport, plus flanking strike is a better homing attack than heartseeker. You generally use swiftness and dodges/evades to stay close and need to hit teleport only for large gaps like blink or if you are hit by knock back. I have destroyed many mesmers when I snap back instantly from being knocked away it is quite satisfying

edit: fixed kitten

This is very correct.

They have too many gap closers on very small CD (no CD actually), backstabs is probably the single most unfair spell in the game(notice I said unfair, not Op, maybe the skill is balance although I dont beleive so, but the skill feels very unfair and toxic)

caveman.5840:

lol i have seen elements kill thieves with one ride the lightning in wvw

lolwhat

So 2 of the best mesmer players rerolled? Forum trolls response, L2P? Seems about right for these forums, carry on!

i play to much wvw and have bad english get off my kitten .
the only thing i was trying to get across is that they should rewarded u for team play
“buff team play "
would create a more interesting game
i was not trying to say it is JUST a l2p issue . i have a guard and other classes … so don’t think i am just defending the thief
and yes a ride the lightning can seal your fate if u r a thief .
not take your hp from 100% to 0% it is a good move to knock them off there feet and really mess u up

y am i defending a post from a month ago that the trolls attacked and still going after

trolls r like pit bulls . they attack because there is an opening
just to take the conversation off topic.
and never add constrictive ideas

“buff team play” to create a deeper game between different classes .
reward players for skillful play and organized groups.

(axial bloom) edit
i am not clamming it as a awesome anti thief move… just a useful skill
and i am not saying take the knock back away ???
i like mesmer element and stuff i am not asking for a nerf or anything like that?.?.?
and that is not what i was trying to talk about .
stop taking it off subject !
that was not my point at all….

my point was to buff team play creating a deeper game between classes .
so stop talking about lame old ride the lightning.and stop changing the subject .

reward players for skilled team play .
give people more reasons to build teams with a variety of classes
“buff team play” give people more reason to bring lacking classes

Ride the Lightning is movement skill with no knockback, knockdown or stun attached to it. It is also incredibly buggy and most often on a 40 second cooldown. To claim it is some awesome anti-thief move just puts your grasp of basic gameplay into question.

Wintel.4873:

It’s true, any other class running a glassy build will auto-lose to a glassy thief. It’s extremely hard to kill something that is stunning/blinding you and stealthing away the moment you have a chance to retaliate.

Thief is the only class that can get away using a glassy build in PvP and still have plenty of survivability.

People need to stop with the braindead reply of “stealth can’t capture points”, it’s not about capturing points, it’s about roaming and causing unbalanced fights. Also having a guaranteed stomp on 5 out of 8 classes with blind field adds further to their effectiveness.

Hi, show me a bunker thief that can hold points as long as a hambow warrior or condi engineer or bunker guardian.

People need to stop insinuating thieves can play something else other than a glassy thief. SHOCKKK.

It’s true, any thieves running a bunker build will auto-lose to any other professions bunker build. It’s extremely easy to beat bunker thieves that have no access to stability and decapping when you enter stealth.

LoneWolfie.1852:

Wintel.4873:

It’s true, any other class running a glassy build will auto-lose to a glassy thief. It’s extremely hard to kill something that is stunning/blinding you and stealthing away the moment you have a chance to retaliate.

Thief is the only class that can get away using a glassy build in PvP and still have plenty of survivability.

People need to stop with the braindead reply of “stealth can’t capture points”, it’s not about capturing points, it’s about roaming and causing unbalanced fights. Also having a guaranteed stomp on 5 out of 8 classes with blind field adds further to their effectiveness.

Hi, show me a bunker thief that can hold points as long as a hambow warrior or condi engineer or bunker guardian.

People need to stop insinuating thieves can play something else other than a glassy thief. SHOCKKK.

It’s true, any thieves running a bunker build will auto-lose to any other professions bunker build. It’s extremely easy to beat bunker thieves that have no access to stability and decapping when you enter stealth.

How did bunker thieves get into this discussion?

Mainly because some guy stated “thieves glassy builds are the best in glass builds”, which is just as silly as saying “Bunker guardians are the best in bunking, better than other professions.”.

Thieves have good survivability only if the player is very skilled. The profession probably has one of the highest skill cap, and most players aren’t able to react properly to thieves burst damage + counter that skill cap, that is why you have so much complaints and gnashing of teeth.

At the highest competitive level, thieves aren’t really OP.

/end

LoneWolfie.1852:

Mainly because some guy stated “thieves glassy builds are the best in glass builds”, which is just as silly as saying “Bunker guardians are the best in bunking, better than other professions.”.

Thieves have good survivability only if the player is very skilled. The profession probably has one of the highest skill cap, and most players aren’t able to react properly to thieves burst damage + counter that skill cap, that is why you have so much complaints and gnashing of teeth.

At the highest competitive level, thieves aren’t really OP.

/end

He gave an example regarding glass thieves which is completely on topic. Giving an example about bunkers is different and kind of irrelevant.

So what are the top glass damage dealer classes in competitive PvP? Thieves, Shatter Mesmers, and Scepter Eles. Rifle Power Engineers have somewhat died out already. I wouldn’t call zerker HamBow warriors glass because they still have around 2.6k armor along with 21k HP because they will always put at least 20 in Defense trait line. Out of all 4 classes, thief is the most survivable simply because of its stealth mechanic. You don’t need skill to press 5 then 2 (D/P weapon set) then disengage if the fight is not going to your liking.

LoneWolfie.1852:

Mainly because some guy stated “thieves glassy builds are the best in glass builds”, which is just as silly as saying “Bunker guardians are the best in bunking, better than other professions.”.

Thieves have good survivability only if the player is very skilled. The profession probably has one of the highest skill cap, and most players aren’t able to react properly to thieves burst damage + counter that skill cap, that is why you have so much complaints and gnashing of teeth.

At the highest competitive level, thieves aren’t really OP.

/end

PW is such a skillful build to play.

Kyon.9735:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Mainly because some guy stated “thieves glassy builds are the best in glass builds”, which is just as silly as saying “Bunker guardians are the best in bunking, better than other professions.”.

Thieves have good survivability only if the player is very skilled. The profession probably has one of the highest skill cap, and most players aren’t able to react properly to thieves burst damage + counter that skill cap, that is why you have so much complaints and gnashing of teeth.

At the highest competitive level, thieves aren’t really OP.

/end

He gave an example regarding glass thieves which is completely on topic. Giving an example about bunkers is different and kind of irrelevant.

So what are the top glass damage dealer classes in competitive PvP? Thieves, Shatter Mesmers, and Scepter Eles. Rifle Power Engineers have somewhat died out already. I wouldn’t call zerker HamBow warriors glass because they still have around 2.6k armor along with 21k HP because they will always put at least 20 in Defense trait line. Out of all 4 classes, thief is the most survivable simply because of its stealth mechanic. You don’t need skill to press 5 then 2 (D/P weapon set) then disengage if the fight is not going to your liking.

http://youtu.be/ZboUAtJSIt8?t=4m46s

Hambow needs SO MUCH SKILL to press ` and press 3 to drop a thief.

Learn at the gameplay itself seems that you need
Two warriors or more, and maybe a mixture of other
Play-ers to beat thieves.

http://youtu.be/ZboUAtJSIt8?t=10m12s

PS: The commentators don’t know what they are talking about on the 2nd link. That was not retaliation, but pure damage from the guardian/warrior. Maybe someone wants to claim whirling axe is OP now.

haviz.1340:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Mainly because some guy stated “thieves glassy builds are the best in glass builds”, which is just as silly as saying “Bunker guardians are the best in bunking, better than other professions.”.

Thieves have good survivability only if the player is very skilled. The profession probably has one of the highest skill cap, and most players aren’t able to react properly to thieves burst damage + counter that skill cap, that is why you have so much complaints and gnashing of teeth.

At the highest competitive level, thieves aren’t really OP.

/end

PW is such a skillful build to play.

Apparently pressing ` and ‘3’ is so difficult. Much balance required for make thieves a loot bag.

Pistol Whip CAN be played skilfully. It doesn’t mean that all thiefs are effective. It doesn’t mean that its OP. And it certainly doesn’t mean that it can’t be outplayed.

LoneWolfie.1852:

Kyon.9735:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Mainly because some guy stated “thieves glassy builds are the best in glass builds”, which is just as silly as saying “Bunker guardians are the best in bunking, better than other professions.”.

Thieves have good survivability only if the player is very skilled. The profession probably has one of the highest skill cap, and most players aren’t able to react properly to thieves burst damage + counter that skill cap, that is why you have so much complaints and gnashing of teeth.

At the highest competitive level, thieves aren’t really OP.

/end

He gave an example regarding glass thieves which is completely on topic. Giving an example about bunkers is different and kind of irrelevant.

So what are the top glass damage dealer classes in competitive PvP? Thieves, Shatter Mesmers, and Scepter Eles. Rifle Power Engineers have somewhat died out already. I wouldn’t call zerker HamBow warriors glass because they still have around 2.6k armor along with 21k HP because they will always put at least 20 in Defense trait line. Out of all 4 classes, thief is the most survivable simply because of its stealth mechanic. You don’t need skill to press 5 then 2 (D/P weapon set) then disengage if the fight is not going to your liking.

http://youtu.be/ZboUAtJSIt8?t=4m46s

Hambow needs SO MUCH SKILL to press ` and press 3 to drop a thief.

Learn at the gameplay itself seems that you need
Two warriors or more, and maybe a mixture of other
Play-ers to beat thieves.

http://youtu.be/ZboUAtJSIt8?t=10m12s

PS: The commentators don’t know what they are talking about on the 2nd link. That was not retaliation, but pure damage from the guardian/warrior. Maybe someone wants to claim whirling axe is OP now.

haviz.1340:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Mainly because some guy stated “thieves glassy builds are the best in glass builds”, which is just as silly as saying “Bunker guardians are the best in bunking, better than other professions.”.

Thieves have good survivability only if the player is very skilled. The profession probably has one of the highest skill cap, and most players aren’t able to react properly to thieves burst damage + counter that skill cap, that is why you have so much complaints and gnashing of teeth.

At the highest competitive level, thieves aren’t really OP.

/end

PW is such a skillful build to play.

Apparently pressing ` and ‘3’ is so difficult. Much balance required for make thieves a loot bag.

Going off topic again. This is about Thieves and other Glass Classes (Warriors are too tanky to be counted as a glass as long as they have 20 points in Defense). Everybody knows how OP HamBow is (though there are lot of Warriors who are still in denial), there’s no need to put them in discussion. One class being OP doesn’t justify another class being too-strong-but-not-as-strong.

Kyon.9735:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Kyon.9735:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Mainly because some guy stated “thieves glassy builds are the best in glass builds”, which is just as silly as saying “Bunker guardians are the best in bunking, better than other professions.”.

Thieves have good survivability only if the player is very skilled. The profession probably has one of the highest skill cap, and most players aren’t able to react properly to thieves burst damage + counter that skill cap, that is why you have so much complaints and gnashing of teeth.

At the highest competitive level, thieves aren’t really OP.

/end

He gave an example regarding glass thieves which is completely on topic. Giving an example about bunkers is different and kind of irrelevant.

So what are the top glass damage dealer classes in competitive PvP? Thieves, Shatter Mesmers, and Scepter Eles. Rifle Power Engineers have somewhat died out already. I wouldn’t call zerker HamBow warriors glass because they still have around 2.6k armor along with 21k HP because they will always put at least 20 in Defense trait line. Out of all 4 classes, thief is the most survivable simply because of its stealth mechanic. You don’t need skill to press 5 then 2 (D/P weapon set) then disengage if the fight is not going to your liking.

http://youtu.be/ZboUAtJSIt8?t=4m46s

Hambow needs SO MUCH SKILL to press ` and press 3 to drop a thief.

Learn at the gameplay itself seems that you need
Two warriors or more, and maybe a mixture of other
Play-ers to beat thieves.

http://youtu.be/ZboUAtJSIt8?t=10m12s

PS: The commentators don’t know what they are talking about on the 2nd link. That was not retaliation, but pure damage from the guardian/warrior. Maybe someone wants to claim whirling axe is OP now.

haviz.1340:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Mainly because some guy stated “thieves glassy builds are the best in glass builds”, which is just as silly as saying “Bunker guardians are the best in bunking, better than other professions.”.

Thieves have good survivability only if the player is very skilled. The profession probably has one of the highest skill cap, and most players aren’t able to react properly to thieves burst damage + counter that skill cap, that is why you have so much complaints and gnashing of teeth.

At the highest competitive level, thieves aren’t really OP.

/end

PW is such a skillful build to play.

Apparently pressing ` and ‘3’ is so difficult. Much balance required for make thieves a loot bag.

Going off topic again. This is about Thieves and other Glass Classes (Warriors are too tanky to be counted as a glass as long as they have 20 points in Defense). Everybody knows how OP HamBow is (though there are lot of Warriors who are still in denial), there’s no need to put them in discussion. One class being OP doesn’t justify another class being too-strong-but-not-as-strong.

Let me get this straight. You think that a glass thief which does relatively okay in spvp and wvw to be the best kind of DPS? So condition necro, hambow warrior, engineer beating a DPS thief is not okay, but HEY LET’S NERF THIEF anyway!

Either you buff thief to be as OP as hambow, condition armored necro, or removing engineer’s abcdefghijkl conditions/dps, or you nerf the meta.

IF you find eles/mesmers to be not as good as thieves, you buff it up. Whining because the thief can burst you down in 2 seconds because you’re a light is not an excuse. It merely means the builds for the professions aren’t diverse enough.

Finally, the devs are “balancing” eles by giving some buffs to them. Considering how they made warriors to be numbingly OP, I won’t cross fingers to how the game is balanced.

Nerf thief? HAH. You don’t even understand the meta, and heck you don’t even understand what you’re talking about. Thief =/= OP in SPVP. Other professions continue to do better, and thief is somewhere in between.

/END.

Pvp is not about duels. Check pvp forums to see common opinions on thieves.

haviz.1340:

Pvp is not about duels. Check pvp forums to see common opinions on thieves.

And empirical evidence from “common opinions” isn’t any better. Unless someone pulls numerical facts about how the thief has an overall mathematical advantage, I can only write L2P statements, because tourneys right now are not thief meta, but warriors winning tPvP.

LoneWolfie.1852:

haviz.1340:

Pvp is not about duels. Check pvp forums to see common opinions on thieves.

And empirical evidence from “common opinions” isn’t any better. Unless someone pulls numerical facts about how the thief has an overall mathematical advantage, I can only write L2P statements, because tourneys right now are not thief meta, but warriors winning tPvP.

Metas now all run thief as roamer. Not ele, not mesmer, not engineer. That’s because the thief is the alpha predator for that role.

The top 3 Mesmers all quit and rerolled thief. That should tell you something.

/END

LoneWolfie.1852:

Kyon.9735:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Kyon.9735:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Mainly because some guy stated “thieves glassy builds are the best in glass builds”, which is just as silly as saying “Bunker guardians are the best in bunking, better than other professions.”.

Thieves have good survivability only if the player is very skilled. The profession probably has one of the highest skill cap, and most players aren’t able to react properly to thieves burst damage + counter that skill cap, that is why you have so much complaints and gnashing of teeth.

At the highest competitive level, thieves aren’t really OP.

/end

He gave an example regarding glass thieves which is completely on topic. Giving an example about bunkers is different and kind of irrelevant.

So what are the top glass damage dealer classes in competitive PvP? Thieves, Shatter Mesmers, and Scepter Eles. Rifle Power Engineers have somewhat died out already. I wouldn’t call zerker HamBow warriors glass because they still have around 2.6k armor along with 21k HP because they will always put at least 20 in Defense trait line. Out of all 4 classes, thief is the most survivable simply because of its stealth mechanic. You don’t need skill to press 5 then 2 (D/P weapon set) then disengage if the fight is not going to your liking.

http://youtu.be/ZboUAtJSIt8?t=4m46s

Hambow needs SO MUCH SKILL to press ` and press 3 to drop a thief.

Learn at the gameplay itself seems that you need
Two warriors or more, and maybe a mixture of other
Play-ers to beat thieves.

http://youtu.be/ZboUAtJSIt8?t=10m12s

PS: The commentators don’t know what they are talking about on the 2nd link. That was not retaliation, but pure damage from the guardian/warrior. Maybe someone wants to claim whirling axe is OP now.

haviz.1340:

LoneWolfie.1852:

Mainly because some guy stated “thieves glassy builds are the best in glass builds”, which is just as silly as saying “Bunker guardians are the best in bunking, better than other professions.”.

Thieves have good survivability only if the player is very skilled. The profession probably has one of the highest skill cap, and most players aren’t able to react properly to thieves burst damage + counter that skill cap, that is why you have so much complaints and gnashing of teeth.

At the highest competitive level, thieves aren’t really OP.

/end

PW is such a skillful build to play.

Apparently pressing ` and ‘3’ is so difficult. Much balance required for make thieves a loot bag.

Going off topic again. This is about Thieves and other Glass Classes (Warriors are too tanky to be counted as a glass as long as they have 20 points in Defense). Everybody knows how OP HamBow is (though there are lot of Warriors who are still in denial), there’s no need to put them in discussion. One class being OP doesn’t justify another class being too-strong-but-not-as-strong.

Nerf thief? HAH. You don’t even understand the meta, and heck you don’t even understand what you’re talking about. Thief =/= OP in SPVP. Other professions continue to do better, and thief is somewhere in between.

/END.

Thief is “relatively ok” in PvP?

Is it me who doesn’t understand the meta or you? This thread won’t even exist if they are just “relatively ok”. The damage isn’t the problem, the stealth mechanic is. From what I see, your stand is “My thief gets eaten by HamBow Warriors and Condi Bunkers so it means we’re only relatively ok even though we drive out all other zerker builds”. What class doesn’t get owned by HamBow Warriors when fighting for a cap point? I think only a bunker or decap Engi or maybe bunker Ranger (with all those evades, they can easily dodge hammer attacks) can draw a stalemate without giving up the point if they are of equal skill level.

And FYI any glass build will have problems against bunker condi classes, not just thieves. You’re underestimating thieves too much. So what class and build does better offensively AND defensively than thief aside from HamBow warrior? TBH I don’t really think HamBow warriors can take over the DPS roaming role from a thieves completely. Yes, they’re tanky but they lack the instant burst damage thieves, scepter eles, and shatter mesmers can provide.

You should really check out the lineup of the top competitive teams. There’s a reason why you rarely see classes other than thief take the DPS role.

LoneWolfie.1852:

And empirical evidence from “common opinions” isn’t any better. Unless someone pulls numerical facts about how the thief has an overall mathematical advantage, I can only write L2P statements, because tourneys right now are not thief meta, but warriors winning tPvP.

I could say the same thing but I will indulge you. Bringing up tourneys is pointless in this game because it’s casual and anet balance dev said once that they had to balance the whole game based on all tiers of skill level.

Also, people complaining about thieves are better than you and me and they actually play those tourneys.

Thieves skills are insanely powerful. They should never be spamable.

I pray to the mmo game gods the thief will not end like the perfect world international where the assassin (close to thief) its placed as the class favoritism OP and all the the players are assassins and there is no classes diversity

haviz.1340:

LoneWolfie.1852:

And empirical evidence from “common opinions” isn’t any better. Unless someone pulls numerical facts about how the thief has an overall mathematical advantage, I can only write L2P statements, because tourneys right now are not thief meta, but warriors winning tPvP.

I could say the same thing but I will indulge you. Bringing up tourneys is pointless in this game because it’s casual and anet balance dev said once that they had to balance the whole game based on all tiers of skill level.

Also, people complaining about thieves are better than you and me and they actually play those tourneys.

Strangely it goes back to the part where you don’t nerf thieves, and buff other professions up to a certain level where it meets the level where it breaks hambow warriors (stun, switch weapon, press 3).

I can’t explain it any better to you. S/D thief has been nerfed to the point where it is not effective anymore for winning competitions. Any other builds that thieves have are basically trash and yet the only thing that other professions want to see are more nerfs.

Ask for your professions buffs. Make the 2nd “warrior” meta, because this game is so stale with thieves being FORCED to use zerk stats. I want more options but the only thing you know how to do is ask for nerfs, and you don’t even understand where the problem is.

Mesmers used to have protection applied when they cast chaos storm, I personally thought that was a great answer to burst damage, but instead of asking for that change, you went to state it was thieves burst that is at fault.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Metas now all run thief as roamer. Not ele, not mesmer, not engineer. That’s because the thief is the alpha predator for that role.

The top 3 Mesmers all quit and rerolled thief. That should tell you something.

/END

So, for a month or two, the thief has taken the sole role as roamer in sPvP, and this is a problem? Do you know that it has been more than a year that the main bunker role is completely dominated by the guardians and somehow nobody is saying we should nerf them in that role?

Actually Ele’s were a bunker build in pvp and they got nerfed the hell out of them

How everyone cried that they couldn’t kill eles (note – couldn’t kill, not that eles were killing anyone, just very hard to clear off points), Then they completely gutted healing numbers,SoR and RTL with no compensation in terms of other forms of survivability or damage and suddenly you’re left with the same class with none of the killing power and now none of the survivability….

How did they expect that to play out I wonder. Unfortunately as an Ele you can’t spec zerker and expect to survive more than a few seconds due to the awful disparity in starting stats.

All around bad planning and bad balancing.

Just saying ,
“Thieves are diving away damage dealer” doesn’t mean they are OP, It means they are toxic in term of build/class diversity that’s all.
Now how do you change this ? Nerf ? Rework ?

when a class is labeled highest dps by the developers is it not meant to do just that !

there may be a lack of build diversity so u see way to many of the same build running around

u don’t keep nerfing a almost broken class when it has ben hit with so many nerfs.
or there will just be more of the same old junk running around

as for rework buff lacking classes . buff team play.
give reasons to bring lacking classes.

ty dahkeus. pvp does need more game modes . point capture forces u to play defensive

Thieves are strong against a lot of power builds…

But the real reason you see so few high damage dealers is because sPvP only has conquest mode. This puts a high value on bunker and high defense classes that can tank damage while keeping a point contested.

phaeris.7604:

Actually Ele’s were a bunker build in pvp and they got nerfed the hell out of them

How everyone cried that they couldn’t kill eles (note – couldn’t kill, not that eles were killing anyone, just very hard to clear off points), Then they completely gutted healing numbers,SoR and RTL with no compensation in terms of other forms of survivability or damage and suddenly you’re left with the same class with none of the killing power and now none of the survivability….

How did they expect that to play out I wonder. Unfortunately as an Ele you can’t spec zerker and expect to survive more than a few seconds due to the awful disparity in starting stats.

All around bad planning and bad balancing.

It’s all thanks to posters like OP whining about balance when they don’t even know the meaning of it. That said, the dev teams aren’t exactly the sharpest tools to balance things. We know something is up when they don’t even know what some of the thieves abilities do (Devs reasoning: Infiltrator’s return = free stomping, so we nerf it, what a joke, it’s the utility skill called shadow step that allows us to stomp.)

Yea thief does counter basically everything that has a berzerker amulet in a way but that’s what they’re there for. if you’re talking about winning a mid fight who do you take? A complete glass staff ele who can sit up high and meteor storm for 4k each meteor which obliterates a team or a thief that cant get in the fight without dieing? It’s the trade-off team’s need to decide on, sadly alot of teams have been taking thieves lately and they exterminate everything glass that isn’t other thieves.

No class changes should EVER occur based upon spvp. Maybe, and I mean maybe, 5% of the gamers play this. 95% of the player base should not be penalized to make that 5% happy.

Inverted.7439:

Yea thief does counter basically everything that has a berzerker amulet in a way but that’s what they’re there for. if you’re talking about winning a mid fight who do you take? A complete glass staff ele who can sit up high and meteor storm for 4k each meteor which obliterates a team or a thief that cant get in the fight without dieing? It’s the trade-off team’s need to decide on, sadly alot of teams have been taking thieves lately and they exterminate everything glass that isn’t other thieves.

I always swap to my glass staff ele (has conjure frost bow too) whenever I see the enemy team has no thieves. Kappa

danbuter.2314:

No class changes should EVER occur based upon spvp. Maybe, and I mean maybe, 5% of the gamers play this. 95% of the player base should not be penalized to make that 5% happy.

oh is that so? Well then, 40 secs 1200 range RtL would have to like a word with you, healing regen vigor duration for eles would also like to have a word with you. Face it, class balance should be dictated mostly for an enviroment where all classes are on equal footing. But of course, each part should have their own balance, which is why there should be more splits between PvP and PvE.

Besides, any decent game developers knows better than in order to keep a game healthy they must make the changes needed, not the changes that might make a few people happy. In this case your numbers are totally made up and I wont do the same, but I can guarantee you that the VAST najority of the players in gw2 would gladly have balance classes over toxic, unbalanced, annoying classes such as thieves currently.

Fortus.6175:

danbuter.2314:

No class changes should EVER occur based upon spvp. Maybe, and I mean maybe, 5% of the gamers play this. 95% of the player base should not be penalized to make that 5% happy.

oh is that so? Well then, 40 secs 1200 range RtL would have to like a word with you, healing regen vigor duration for eles would also like to have a word with you. Face it, class balance should be dictated mostly for an enviroment where all classes are on equal footing. But of course, each part should have their own balance, which is why there should be more splits between PvP and PvE.

Besides, any decent game developers knows better than in order to keep a game healthy they must make the changes needed, not the changes that might make a few people happy. In this case your numbers are totally made up and I wont do the same, but I can guarantee you that the VAST najority of the players in gw2 would gladly have balance classes over toxic, unbalanced, annoying classes such as thieves currently.

That statement is equal bias as you should only speak for yourself not the vast “najorities”

Would it make you feel better if the thief whispered “surprise” first?

Fortus.6175:

danbuter.2314:

No class changes should EVER occur based upon spvp. Maybe, and I mean maybe, 5% of the gamers play this. 95% of the player base should not be penalized to make that 5% happy.

oh is that so? Well then, 40 secs 1200 range RtL would have to like a word with you, healing regen vigor duration for eles would also like to have a word with you. Face it, class balance should be dictated mostly for an enviroment where all classes are on equal footing. But of course, each part should have their own balance, which is why there should be more splits between PvP and PvE.

Besides, any decent game developers knows better than in order to keep a game healthy they must make the changes needed, not the changes that might make a few people happy. In this case your numbers are totally made up and I wont do the same, but I can guarantee you that the VAST najority of the players in gw2 would gladly have balance classes over toxic, unbalanced, annoying classes such as thieves currently.

majority of players dont spvp, and in WvW thief is far from apex predator due to the crazy stuff a bunch of classes can do/become.
Pve wise thief is average.
and even in spvp, thief is not as universally hated as you claim, mostly people who want the thief spot as super 1 v 1 roamer have beef, which is a niche role to begin with. Not only that, but the fact that thief is good with 1v1 roaming makes a lot of sense. It has crappy support, cant cap/defend, and doesnt do that well in a multi man fight. You want more adaptable classes like ele, who can provide large buffs, great area denial, hold points etc, to be better than thief at the one thing it doesnt suck at?

do you also want to be better than guardians at holding points?