Guild Wars 2

I think it is funny that people actually think thief is OP in some way. Speaking from a PvP standpoint, I wish there was an option so that I’d never get a thief on my pug team. Let people who think thief is OP have them on their team.

Can someone tell me what trait is causing Thieves to be so strong? Just made one and I have no idea what I’m doing or looking at.

Orion.3812:

In the meantime, thieves could try exploring a way of approaching PvP that doesn’t involve a dependency on instantly killing the enemy-

Note.

these options exist.

However, I’m still against what is apparently looking like a request for a direct nerf without an apparent fix to what the core problem was, which was survivability against classes in general, whether or not they specced tanky.

If they want to run the “Thief survives by being scary” angle, that’s okay I guess.

I’d rather what I quoted, but also would dislike a rollback if the problem isnt addressed.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Orion.3812:

In the meantime, thieves could try exploring a way of approaching PvP that doesn’t involve a dependency on instantly killing the enemy-

Note.

these options exist.

However, I’m still against what is apparently looking like a request for a direct nerf without an apparent fix to what the core problem was, which was survivability against classes in general, whether or not they specced tanky.

If they want to run the “Thief survives by being scary” angle, that’s okay I guess.

I’d rather what I quoted, but also would dislike a rollback if the problem isnt addressed.

The damage buff was intended as a PvE buff. Instead of the base damage buff, a proper PvE buff would allow the thief to bring a small damage boost for their whole party instead of a base personal damage boost to themselves, as previously suggested in this thread.

The basis of this thread is that berserker thief’s ability to gank people was fine as-is and that the excessive damage output post-patch negatively affects gameplay in WvW/sPvP by encouraging thieves to be as squishy as possible in order to make everyone else as squishy to them as possible and end fights in fractions of a second regardless of outcome.

Fights should not be decided from full health in less than one second, no matter who is fighting who. This is not a first person shooter.

Balancing thief in sPvP, indepedent of the damage buff and/or its reversal in future patches, is a separate topic that is absolutely worth investigating but falls outside the original scope of this thread.

Orion.3812:

The basis of this thread is that berserker thief’s ability to gank people was fine as-is and that the excessive damage output post-patch negatively affects gameplay in WvW/sPvP by encouraging thieves to be as squishy as possible in order to make everyone else as squishy to them as possible and end fights in fractions of a second regardless of outcome.

Show us how the change to the AA chain, gaining 1k over 2.4s(?) is excessive. You talk about burst in a fraction of a second. But that does not come from AA. So please, give us a detailed description of damage done in a fraction of a second where this AA buff made such a big difference?

Orion.3812:

Fights should not be decided from full health in less than one second, no matter who is fighting who. This is not a first person shooter.

This is a personal standpoint, not one that arenanet has stated is their ultimate goal. And if it was, they should tone down a ton of other abilities over a wide range of classes before even looking at the thief. Also, if a thief can do a kill in a fraction of a second, then the other player should reconsider their berserker gear..

To conclude, we have weak damage on a character that has weak options to survive. Yet people still complain..

As a quick example, a burst mesmer does more damage, does it AoE compared to single target and has more tools, including automatic traits to survive. Perhaps it is time to consider that the fight you created here isn’t actually what you are aiming for? I’d say, open a new thread where you ask how the thief class can be fixed for pve and pvp by giving it group utility, since to me it seems that is what you want to see.

Just stop answering to OP and bumping this thread please. OP is obviously bad on his druid.

Atm druid is absolutely superior in 1vs1 PvP and counters thief 100:0. If OP is somehow (I don’t really know how it is possible anyway) losing to thief that just shows his skill lvl and nothing more.

fumcheg.1936:

Just stop answering to OP and bumping this thread please. OP is obviously bad on his druid.

Atm druid is absolutely superior in 1vs1 PvP and counters thief 100:0. If OP is somehow (I don’t really know how it is possible anyway) losing to thief that just shows his skill lvl and nothing more.

You make so many assumptions, like every other player who comes into this thread to trash-talk me without reading anything.

I play every class, and I spent a good portion of yesterday crushing people in pvp with the meta druid build. Including thieves. Is that because thieves are bad? Is it because I am good if you assume I’m bragging here? It’s neither. It’s because that specific druid build is ridiculously powerful and only Reapers can easily counter it. You, like all other toxic kittens, assume that the thread is about my inability to kill thieves. You are completely wrong, and shamefully shortsighted.

Thief in PvP settings doesn’t feel OP from the perspective of the average thief because while they may have the capability to one-shot people, they die even faster than they can kill. Naturally, the average thief is going to get a bit upset with me when they assume that I’m suggesting thief should be nerfed when they are having so much trouble killing people. Outstanding thieves can still wipe the floor with any of the new meta builds if they aren’t forced to fight over a point, simply because of the class’s ability to reset a fight indefinitely… but let’s not get into the what-if combat scenarios in great detail here.

I am not trying to suggest that your precious thieves be nerfed. I don’t want my thief nerfed either. I’m suggesting that thief’s AA damage buff be undone, and that thief gain other more interesting tools to help them perform better in PvE and PvP settings without sacrificing intelligent gameplay mechanics to mindless, no-cooldown autoattack damage.

So let’s talk about mechanics that can replace the flat damage buff… again, because not enough people will look back to other pages of this thread to read about it.

PvE: Cause vulnerability applied by the thief to also apply a 5% increased damage taken debuff to the target that is unique to the thief class, refreshing (not stacking) duration with vulnerability application and removed with vulnerability when conditions are cleared.

PvP: Ideally, reduce the amount of immunity other builds—including Daredevil Acrobat thieves—have toward power-based thief builds. That means less blocks, less invulnerability, less evades for everyone to allow thieves (and other builds that have similar difficulties) the chance to actually land a hit.

As a band-aid fix before the other classes get reworked, giving thief some counters to the block spam would help. Anet already did this, actually, by making Basilisk Venom unblockable. Continuing in this direction risks overbuffing thieves against builds that do not abuse block but still depend on at least one block skill.

Lastly, the #1 complaint of thieves everywhere is the inability to kill bunker type classes, which is a problem not unique to thieves. We can’t just buff damage until the bunkers die though, because that leads to problems like the cause of this thread: thieves would kill everyone else too easily.

So… everyone calling for a damage buff to backstab… why do you want damage versus everyone? Why not, say, backstab ignores armor as a mechanic available through a trait? With just one mechanics change, suddenly thief would be extremely effective against bunkers without gaining anything against the glass builds that they already murder so well.

Lest you misunderstand, I’m not saying that a mechanics change to backstab will solve everyone’s problems… I’m just using it as an example to show that there are plenty of options other than buffing autoattack damage that could give thief even more potential while also making it even more fun and skillful to play.

Unless, of course, the only thing fun to you is bigger numbers.

Puz.8529:

Show us how the change to the AA chain, gaining 1k over 2.4s(?) is excessive. You talk about burst in a fraction of a second. But that does not come from AA. So please, give us a detailed description of damage done in a fraction of a second where this AA buff made such a big difference?

If you want a specific example, look no further than a trickery build that procs quickness automatically when striking an enemy from behind. Against a defenseless target (easily obtainable through basilisk venom and good timing), quite a few autoattacks occur immediately after an opening backstab and the numbers quickly add up. I have seen individual autos crit for well over 6k damage on targets in WvW with my thief.

The other more common and obvious application of autoattack damage is with shadow shot. The majority of fighting with the d/p weapon set outside of stealth is shadow shot for mobility and straight up autoattack for damage during the blind. Since the buff to autoattack, it’s much easier for a thief to kill someone by repeatedly pressing button 3 because of the extra damage that autoattack does between shots.

Puz.8529:

Also, if a thief can do a kill in a fraction of a second, then the other player should reconsider their berserker gear..

If thief can wear berserker gear and get away with it, then why shouldn’t other professions?

Yes, they squish, but a berserker thief can completely avoid damage when played at a high level. Either other classes need that kind of active defense/stealth, or stats need to be toned down a bit on both ends (both berserker and tanky stats) to help balance. There’s too much active defense in the game already.

Puz.8529:

As a quick example, a burst mesmer does more damage, does it AoE compared to single target and has more tools, including automatic traits to survive.

Burst mesmer has been a problem for a long, long time. To everyone. The only reason burst mesmer isn’t quite as irritating as a thief to play against is that thief can easily bring permanent stealth to the table with all of their burst, and mesmer only gets a little stealth in a burst build. On the mesmer side of things, I will say that mesmer burst takes a lot more work to set up properly in terms of button presses… and the game really needs to be balanced around the maximum potential of the classes and not the faceroll potential. I agree here with your point and think it could be expanded to include other builds beyond mesmer in the argument… just, preferably outside of this thread.

Puz.8529:

Perhaps it is time to consider that the fight you created here isn’t actually what you are aiming for? I’d say, open a new thread where you ask how the thief class can be fixed for pve and pvp by giving it group utility, since to me it seems that is what you want to see.

I’m glad you see the point I’m trying to make. My concern with creating a “how to make thief better” thread is that thief will keep their damage buff and have better utility to boot as a result of Anet seeing that kind of thread without this kind of thread. Unfortunately, the mere mention of reverting the damage buff as part of the suggestion has all the rabble out with their pitchforks. I don’t see a new thread going any better.

Derigar.7810:

Can someone tell me what trait is causing Thieves to be so strong? Just made one and I have no idea what I’m doing or looking at.

I love how I re-ignited a discussion completely irrelevant to what I was asking.

Derigar.7810:

Derigar.7810:

Can someone tell me what trait is causing Thieves to be so strong? Just made one and I have no idea what I’m doing or looking at.

I love how I re-ignited a discussion completely irrelevant to what I was asking.

I’m not sure what you expected with your question other than bumping the thread. The thief traits right now seem fairly well thought out in general. It’s stat balance and damage scaling that’s causing problems, not some specific trait that someone’s going to be able to point out to you as the sole cause of good thieves being good.

In terms of trait lines, if you want to max damage then try either Deadly/Critical/Trickery or Deadly/Critical/Daredevil. If you want to max survivability then try Acrobatics/Shadow/Daredevil. Deadly/Trickery/Shadow or Deadly/Trickery/Daredevil are the main setups used in PvP that everyone cries about being overpowered as the thiefed, or underpowered as the thief. Trickery/Shadow/Daredevil is a solid choice for a more balanced PvP thief that can win duels consistently through excellent sustain and permanent stealth in one package.

Hopefully that helps? You should probably check out some more build theorycrafting threads so that you will have a better context in mind for discussion of mechanics such as the autoattack buff.

This is getting somewhat pathetic, I can see your point that it is selfish to buff thieves AA instead of giving him a group dmg buff for PvE sake, BUT that would be a Rev now would it?
thief is a rouge, assassin type class, means SELFISH, if you want group support, even if thief would get a bit more, other classes provide better support, so why even bother??
secondly the AA buff makes little difference in the WvW and especially in PvP enviroment, since the only really hart hitting attacks are the last 2 in the chain, the chances you can just stand there and autoattack are close to 0. Why? because even playing marauder you die in about 1-2 hits of random aoe that wasn’t even meant for you..
and even if the autoattack was pushed sooo high that it would do lets say 10k on each hit, you still couldn’t instakill 90% of the other classes! Why? because EVERY class has 1 or 2 Invuln skills, most of them as autoproc! so how the hell do you instakill someone, no matter the dmg if they just say, nope, no more dmg for 3-7 sec thank you
Furthermore thiefs burst is somewhat pathetic if you look at it in comparison to other classes, playing a burst D/D build you usually burst with CnD, Steal, Backstab, in pvp you can max hit for 8k with the whole combo, considering not running with might stacks/vuln or enemy below 50% hp
now with that petty Burst you used up at least 6 ini, have steal on CD and are revealed, all that just to have done meh dmg and max procing one of the invuln skills of the enemy, at which point you need to run away..
Now that sounds really kittenn op doesn’kitten
let’s look at other classes, Guard, or DH, LB2 hits for up to 10k, 4s cd, 1200 range, pierces…
Rev, hammer 2, basically the some skill, just aoe
Ranger LB 2, 1500 range, same dmg, causes vuln, low cd
Rev S3, gain might stacks, invuln during attack, port to enemy even if he e.g. blinks, same dmg
i can go on for days
and of course you could play thief instead of dmg as condi, which is cheap in many ppls eyes since condi is imho one of the most op things in the game, but that’s a different topic
then yeah you could build into sustain and fight over a longer period of time, but why the hell would you want to do that as thief, when almost EVERY other class can do that too, just better…
and I’m not sure, but you were saying with the autoattack buff every thief skill is now sutsaining, dmg etc, that you get everything for doing 1 think, which is bull anyway
but lets look at scrappers hammer, just one little comparison, autoattack can provide massive sustained dmg, hammer 2 is a block, whirl and does dmg, hammer 3 is 3 leaps, 3 evades and hard hitting, hammer for another block ( i think even reflect or so)while doing dmg, and hammer 5 a relativly big lightning field, most skills are on really really low cd, are both defense and offense, better than any other class in that perspective plus traits that make him tankier the more you fight, plus higher hp pool, plus the strong heal on low cd

this whole thread is pathetic considering you saying thief is op in any way possible
there are a few things that need tuning down, that is staff 5 mostly,
i can see how ppl feel that the new high mobility spec and “perma dodge” (which it ain’t unless playing 3333333 condi bob) is a bit op, but that is the best defensive utility we have since they made our invis kinda the worst of all classes that have it ^^

now to sum it all up, my last point, if a whole thread disaggrees with your point of it being op in wvw/pvp, ppl that have been maining thief since get go, that have been present in this forum since forever, don’t you think you should rethink your somewhat silly argumentation?
no offense btw, just yeah, it’s kinda silly

DHawk.2687:

now to sum it all up, my last point, if a whole thread disaggrees with your point of it being op in wvw/pvp, ppl that have been maining thief since get go, that have been present in this forum since forever, don’t you think you should rethink your somewhat silly argumentation?

No, I shouldn’t, because there have been several in the thread that seemed to agree that the autoattack buff was not the change that thieves needed or liked the idea of more interesting mechanics instead. I have even received a private message from a person who agreed with me but didn’t want to deal with the toxicity they knew that they would get in response for publicly agreeing with me on the subject.

You’ve made comparisons in your post to abilities that are nothing like backstab, with completely different damage models, cast times and counters, as a way of trying to argue that the autoattack buff was merited. This thread isn’t about backstab being overpowered. It’s about autoattack, which contributes a large portion of thief personal damage even in PvP. Talking about every mechanic or ability that other classes have that is good is only deflecting the argument without addressing it.

I completely agree on one point, that you can’t just follow someone around autoattacking them and expect to live. However, in the course of one fight with the d/p weapon set you’ll frequently find yourself with a blinded target. What should you do while your target is blind? Autoattack. After every shadow shot, after every smoke field, and at least once after every backstab until they turn to face you, you’re autoattacking. Like it or not, thief autoattack is a significant portion of thief damage in a realistic scenario.

Did you know that staff thieves reflect missiles during their autoattack chain? That’s right, one of the best autoattacks in the game for DPS provides missile reflection for a full second, every two seconds. That’s 50% uptime on missile reflect, plus 4 stacks vulnerability, for every autoattack chain. Does Dragonhunter’s longbow 2 seem a bit ridiculous, compared to backstab because of its similar damage and 1200 range? At first glance, sure… but then you have to consider that backstab can only be dodged or blocked and that Dragonhunters can end up eating their own True Shot… because the thief used autoattack.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I’m running 3750 armor and 21k health, mussels gnashblade for the 10% damage reduction and several sources of Protection and now instead of being able to beat thieves 1v1 and at least escape 2v1, I am down within seconds. It is exactly as described above; Basi, Steal, BS, AA a couple of times.

Utterly absurd damage increase.

I don’t know what you’re smoking, but I want some. Mostly Valk with Zerker and I open on a tank like you and get them down 1/3 of their HP. They just block/invuln/dodge/heal and back to full then look at me and bap me on the head and I’m down. #rektm8

Orion.3812:

DHawk.2687:

now to sum it all up, my last point, if a whole thread disaggrees with your point of it being op in wvw/pvp, ppl that have been maining thief since get go, that have been present in this forum since forever, don’t you think you should rethink your somewhat silly argumentation?

No, I shouldn’t, because there have been several in the thread that seemed to agree that the autoattack buff was not the change that thieves needed or liked the idea of more interesting mechanics instead. I have even received a private message from a person who agreed with me but didn’t want to deal with the toxicity they knew that they would get in response for publicly agreeing with me on the subject.

You’ve made comparisons in your post to abilities that are nothing like backstab, with completely different damage models, cast times and counters, as a way of trying to argue that the autoattack buff was merited. This thread isn’t about backstab being overpowered. It’s about autoattack, which contributes a large portion of thief personal damage even in PvP. Talking about every mechanic or ability that other classes have that is good is only deflecting the argument without addressing it.

I completely agree on one point, that you can’t just follow someone around autoattacking them and expect to live. However, in the course of one fight with the d/p weapon set you’ll frequently find yourself with a blinded target. What should you do while your target is blind? Autoattack. After every shadow shot, after every smoke field, and at least once after every backstab until they turn to face you, you’re autoattacking. Like it or not, thief autoattack is a significant portion of thief damage in a realistic scenario.

Did you know that staff thieves reflect missiles during their autoattack chain? That’s right, one of the best autoattacks in the game for DPS provides missile reflection for a full second, every two seconds. That’s 50% uptime on missile reflect, plus 4 stacks vulnerability, for every autoattack chain. Does Dragonhunter’s longbow 2 seem a bit ridiculous, compared to backstab because of its similar damage and 1200 range? At first glance, sure… but then you have to consider that backstab can only be dodged or blocked and that Dragonhunters can end up eating their own True Shot… because the thief used autoattack.

I agree. Skill based combat isn’t based on auto attacks. This game favors auto attacks and condi’s for sustained damage all too often. Move damage out of AA’s and into skills, and get rid of all this auto proccing nonsense. The power creep is real and needs to be toned down on all accounts. The tankier the game gets, the more power people want. Roll back the tankiness and power and we’ll have a better situation.

Orion.3812:

DHawk.2687:

now to sum it all up, my last point, if a whole thread disaggrees with your point of it being op in wvw/pvp, ppl that have been maining thief since get go, that have been present in this forum since forever, don’t you think you should rethink your somewhat silly argumentation?

No, I shouldn’t, because there have been several in the thread that seemed to agree that the autoattack buff was not the change that thieves needed or liked the idea of more interesting mechanics instead. I have even received a private message from a person who agreed with me but didn’t want to deal with the toxicity they knew that they would get in response for publicly agreeing with me on the subject.

You’ve made comparisons in your post to abilities that are nothing like backstab, with completely different damage models, cast times and counters, as a way of trying to argue that the autoattack buff was merited. This thread isn’t about backstab being overpowered. It’s about autoattack, which contributes a large portion of thief personal damage even in PvP. Talking about every mechanic or ability that other classes have that is good is only deflecting the argument without addressing it.

I completely agree on one point, that you can’t just follow someone around autoattacking them and expect to live. However, in the course of one fight with the d/p weapon set you’ll frequently find yourself with a blinded target. What should you do while your target is blind? Autoattack. After every shadow shot, after every smoke field, and at least once after every backstab until they turn to face you, you’re autoattacking. Like it or not, thief autoattack is a significant portion of thief damage in a realistic scenario.

Did you know that staff thieves reflect missiles during their autoattack chain? That’s right, one of the best autoattacks in the game for DPS provides missile reflection for a full second, every two seconds. That’s 50% uptime on missile reflect, plus 4 stacks vulnerability, for every autoattack chain. Does Dragonhunter’s longbow 2 seem a bit ridiculous, compared to backstab because of its similar damage and 1200 range? At first glance, sure… but then you have to consider that backstab can only be dodged or blocked and that Dragonhunters can end up eating their own True Shot… because the thief used autoattack.

of course AAing is a part of dmg, but that counts for every class, and as I said thief doesn’t just stand there autoattacking for several seconds, meaning the buff to the dmg isn’t that noticable if only 1-max 3 autoattacks even hit (especially since it’s only the last 2 autohits that actually do something)
and yes they could have done a lot to improve thief differently, yet improving AA dmg was the best situation in the smallest time period, since real balance would mean a total rehaul of every class and mechanic of every class and that we actually need a dev that plays thief, as our dev mains engi…….
Furthermore considering that a backstab NEEDS to be performed out of invis, meaning small time period (or if you want to waste all your CD for one attack ok), it HAS to be performed from behind, it HAS to be melee and it HAS to crit to actually do dmg, and how much dmg do we do about 4-7k, which is pathetic, afterwards being revealed meaning we have depending on gamemode 3-4 sec where our supposedly hardest hitting attack cannot be performed
a LB Guard (which is in general not op in my opinion) presses one button and does 9k dmg at 1200 range every 4 sec
and you can counter backstab by block, blind, dodge, invuln, cc, reveal, cleaveing the thief so he doesn’t get too close, moving unpredictably etc! BS is a pathetic attack and the main reason for that is that if they buff it they would be onehitting thieves left and right, meaning thieves fighting each other will even more rely on luck and/or ping/first hit
if they toned done every other classes dmg BS would be fine in comparison, but having a really high risk and wind up to just do bs dmg is not worth it, hell playing D/P you could just #3 twice and do the dmg a backstab provides, woop di doo da
Now staff is a different story, ALL my arguments are based on Dagger Main hand
staff is defenetly worth nerfing when it comes to overall dmg, but so does every elite and/or elite weapon, the reason for them being so strong is that ppl feel that getting the xpack is mandatory to have a fighting chance (and in some cases it is)

but no, autoattack dmg buff for thief buff for pve is a good thing, it gives us at least some justification to participate since we can now dish out good dmg (btw about the same dmg rev used to do on it’s swords auto, but i guess it was fine since it was rev and not thief right?)

for pvp and wvw the changes hardly effect anything since a thief can’t just sit there and spam autoattacks or he’ll die in a split second
the actual increase in dps when fighting an equally skilled player is very small

Just like the DH traps the autoattack is only op against really bad players that don’t do anything and let ppl kill them

I also would have rather seen a nerf to the power creep in general, but this is anet, as if they’ll balance a game to what would be best for the playerbase

why do you think so many players are leaving gw2? especially thieves

The damage from DH LB 2 needs toned down. If it can hit for 9K and is on a short CD, that’s just too much. Tone down the damage or increase the CD, it can’t just have both.

A Thief friend of mine is leaving due to balance issues as well. I too have begun looking around at other games while I wait for some proper nerfs to the power creep and OP things in general. (Engi in general, Necros, condi’s in general, Rev damage/sustain).

Classes should either have sustain or damage. Not both. That is the primary cause for all of this. It’s like all the classes that already had good sustain through invulns and blocks just had their damage tuned up to a Thief while Thief only got one more dodge, lel.

Same, a lot of good thieves I know quit because we got tired of having to be either way better than anyone else to have an qual chance 1v1 or to be punished by death for doing one little mistake, something no other class has
I am playing ESO now since the Rouge class there can actually be played as a rouge with deception, ports and SKILL!! while not being op!
This balance, if you can call it that, just annoyes me and I’m tired of it..
every fight plays out the same no matter what you do or play, attack a bit, invuln
attack more… invuln proc
wtf anet?? it might just be me but that is how you kittened warri up too,
i think the ONLY class that deserves an invuln like endure pain is warri, and only the skill and not the trait
all the autoprocs need to go
guards elite is also fine since you cannot do dmg or anything while invuln
but almost every other invuln just needs to go