Guild Wars 2

I don’t see how players are so adamant to prove thief is a God-Tier profession. It might force a player to commit to a fight or (god forbid) think about their opponent’s next move. But everything (and I mean from both sides) considered thief is by no means God-Tier.

Strangely enough, I’ve seen most of the complaints come from the top end of the viability spectrum for the past month now and I can only assume that this is because those players have become complacent within their profession on top of other things i’ll explain in a bit.

This game’s combat is based off of number spam like every other MMO combat. More, higher numbers beats out everything which is why Zerker is the meta for PvE. Given equal skill, if a player can cover their opponents in more conditions than the other player can clear them, they win. If a player spams more CC than the other player can break, they win. If a player can deal out more DPS than the other player can heal/mitigate/avoid, they win.

The only thing that offsets this it the player’s own skill and knowledge of other professions and, in cases of players of equal skill level, the professions themselves.

That is why I can assume that those players I specified earlier are complacent with their professions. They are so used to their professions’ capabilities that when a unique profession comes along and tears them a new one, they come here and and either complain about or go to war with the profession.

And it is easy to spot them, especially for a player with real thief experience. It all boils down to the base of their arguments. Those base arguments basically stating that thief is overpowered because of a single skill and all of their defensive mechanics.

Now if that doesn’t scream terribad then I don’t know what does.

But then again, stealth in of itself is powerful. It adds unpredictability to combat which makes it more difficult to those who can’t improvise information to develop their tactics. BUT THEN AGAIN, there are only so many things you can do while in stealth. And with such a small window to decide what to do next, it essentially turns into drunk chess.

But that’s just it. Instead of improving themselves, they come here and complain because it is easy and does less harm to their reputation. And it is even easier since the community knows that getting thief nerfed further is more likely to happen than nothing at all.

TL;DR Part 1 WARNING: Tough love ahead!

These players will most likely not admit they got killed, but a good majority of the time its the case and they usually have no knowledge, other than dying to backstab.

The truth is, they played PvP. While they played, they let their brain downcore and their situational awareness slip. They got killed by a thief’s backstab while they were rolling their face on the keyboard to pump out rotation after rotation.

After getting reminded that they are not as great as they thought they were, they come to the forums to argue that they, a “player of average or greater skill level”, got 3-shotted by a thief that bypassed their magic proximity alarm, duct taped themselves to their back and hit them for a 5-digit number using a skill that looks so easy to use.

Once someone opposes their claims its time to bring out the ad Populum, white knight accusation, denial and Claiming Experience cards.

It really is immature what these players do as understandable as it may be. I brought up this issue in a previous topic that also addresses this behavior in a way and how to fix it.

However, with this thread being more specific to the hate against thief, its solution is going to be wholly different. First to address misunderstandings (yay point of the thread \o/).

• Thief is overpowered because of its ability to spam stealth, spike for 10k+ damage and reset at will.

That’s only a couple builds m8. You can’t call an entire profession broken or OP because of a couple of builds. D/x which is the only thing capable of doing all 3 at once. There are 5 other weapon combinations and only 2 are able to stealth without the aid of utilities but all of them do not have the spike damage of d/x. So this blanket generalization of an argument is cherry picking and doesn’t support the original claim at all.

If I were to apply that sort of logic/stupidity to other professions: Warrior, Ele and Engi are OP because they can mightstack and hit for massive damage. Necro is OP because they have a 2nd HP bar in conjunction with the top tier Health Pool and cover players in conditions like cheap icing on a walmart cake. Mesmers are OP because your always outnumbered and the confusion spam makes doing anything about it punishing. Rangers are OP because they can snipe you dead better than anyone else (okay they are not THAT OP. lol reflects). Guards are OP because alot of them won’t die and other times their DPS matches warrior.

• All of this evasion spam, stealth spam and resetting needs to be removed or toned down.

Aaaaaand what is going to replace it? These are the defensive options available to thief. Nerfing them makes them more susceptible to damage since thief does not have access to defensive boons other than regen. Condition clearing is restricted to stealth, shadow return and sword #2 and none of them provide that much condition clear for their costs.

Contrary to popular belief, the thief does not have the defensive options to validate more nerfs to it’s design. It is detrimental to the health of the profession as a whole and goes against its lore and design philosophy to outright remove it all because players want revenge and a free kill.

Sorry, but if someone want to kill them, they need to git gud instead of cri evrytiem. Backstab, stealth spam, evasion spam and it’s ability to reset is here to stay and unless they have a suggestion to change how thieves defends themselves, it is best to just not post at all.

• Thief is cheese mode. (the whole thing)

Every profession has their bit of “cheese” to it, Thief included. However, just because a majority (or all, depending on your skill level) of the players you face are using “cheese” doesn’t mean it is actually “cheese” or they are using “cheese”. It could be that you just aren’t that great. :I

Never leave out possibilities because it threatens your credibility or ego. That’s just petty.

It is better to use that “cheese” instead of trying to get it destroyed. And this is always a good thing because it shows if the problem stems from the build or the player who is using it. Usually, if a person jumps on the build and it performs better than the previous one either the build is confirmed more powerful or the player was on the wrong profession the whole time. If the player still dies on the supposed “cheese”, it means they suck.

And that my friends is the real reason why scrubs don’t play “cheese”.

• Thief is best profession in all game modes.

Not even close. This is an overexaggerated lie. If this claim was true, whole teams comprised of thieves would be commonplace. The meta would be thief. The only thing players would want to play is thief.

But that doesn’t happen. Professional teams will only have a max of 1 thief since more drops the team’s effectiveness. Most PUGs will kick thieves. Thieves have no use in WvW except for small scale stealth bot and roaming (and rallybait). Even then, they still get outshined from time to time. The only time this doesn’t count is when the thief is very skilled and knowledgable of fight mechanics. Even then, they still die.

That is the standard bad players hold thief players up to regardless if that vision is unrealistic. The truth is ~10% of the playerbase is at that skill level. Statistically, 90% of thieves are not tournament material just like 90% of the playerbases from other professions. And therefore, they are not going to be the Gods that smited the players who decided to AFK outside their keep.

Judge popularity and effectiveness by results, not by preference.

• Thief is great/best support.

This is relative. If by support you mean offensive support, then yes. The thief being built for single target damage can take out the backline and they can stealth small havoc groups to take out w/e through a little bit of coordination. However, if you consider venoms as a means of support, thieves all over will point and laugh at you.

Venoms are only worth it if you take full venoms and venomshare. But then that support requires good coordination from your group to get the best results. The thief will also have to make up for the lack of stun breaks and condition clears with positioning and better timing. Not worth risking yourself for support that can easily be negated by blocks.

And that’s basically it. Great support, eh?

• There are tanky thief builds.

But have they killed anything? The reason why you never see a thief take anything other than DPS stats is because there is nothing to compliment the defensive stats. Vitality goes with healing and condition clear since more HP requires better healing to maintain it and keep conditions in check. Things like Protection and retaliation compliment toughness because it further reduces physical damage.

But as stated, thieves do not have enough access to defensive boons and decent healing and defensive traits to warrant stacking vitality and toughness instead of Condition Damage or Power. Not only that, most of the healing traits and abilities suck due to low healing coefficients, Assassin’s Reward for example with a coefficient of .05.

Thief is about evasion, not tanking damage.

• Thief is a melee class and should not have long range capabilities.

There is no such thing as a “melee class” just like there is no such thing as a “ranged class”. Each profession is capable of both in their own way, even if they are not that great at it. It is highly arrogant to assume that because thief is meant to be the quintessential rouge of GW2 that they are supposed to park their kitten on dual daggers and deal with it (like how ranger is a supposed “ranged class”).

Sure. In the meantime:
- Warrior can park their kitten on GS and axes. (because melee)
- Ele can park their kitten on staff. (because caster)
- Mesmer can park their kitten on dual swords. (because duelist lol)
- Necro stuff staff aswell. (because magic lel)
- Engi with their…. whatever they have kits.
- Guardian with their sword and shield. (because tank)
- And ranger can stay on their bearbows. (ohwait)

Let’s just cut down a profession’s options because stereotypes. That’s a great way to keep diversity to a minimum. But this isn’t WoW and this isn’t GW1. Ranger is already broken, braindead class to play because people kept pushing for better ranged combat. Keep that in mind when you decide to classify professions.

TL;DR Part 2

Well that’s all I can pull off the top of my head for now. Before I finish I just want to give you something to ponder.

Imagine the forums as a mode of PvP.
Your stance is your profession.
Your knowledge is your build.
As you go about this mode of PvP, understand that you get more points the more valid, informational and constructive your posts are.
Your k/d ratio is your win/loss ratio when engaging in arguments.
And upon losing an argument where all you did was make excuses and use fallacies up the wazoo, imagine the player who rekt you whispers you and say,
“Git gud or gtho skrubcake. lel”

Just get your facts straight before you post anything okay?

Nub logic:
Top players are God Tier.
Top players use Thief.
Therefore Thief is God Tier.

Swarm nub logic:
If many complain about a profession it means it’s broken/OP.
Many complain about thief.
Therefore thief is broken/OP.

Oh and my favorite:
Teef OP because STEALTHZORS.
When they mention stealth, they automatically win. Everything they say will boil down to how stealth is OP. And it’s OP because it’s stealth. And stealth is OP because it’s stealth. Like how can’t people get that?

What are you trying to accomplish yolo? :/
You know kitten well that they won’t change their minds. And even if they do, a day or a week later someone else will come along and call teef OP or cheese. Such is the way of things… Those that come around a second or third time, are probably just waiting for a “fix”/patch. Those that don’t come back after they vented their anger, are more than likely getting better and in a month or two they won’t even remember what they vented about – or they’re suffering silently while playing.

I figured that if I inform people I could add some more counterbalance in regards to this issue.

Nice post.
I don’t think thieves are anywhere close to being OP.

Haven’t seen much thief hate lately. I guess it still exists because players can always find something to complain about.

Compared to other mmo’s stealthing classes, Thieves ‘stealth’ sucks. Shadowbane stealth, better. DAOC’s stealthers had better stealth. WoW’s Rogues had better stealth and more consistent ways to get back into stealth.

Now, Gw2 Thieves mobility is unreal, but their stealth being op? Naw.

Even with a build that uses stealth to its limits, the condi aids build p/d— it still requires skill and timing to continuously get back into stealth and even then, that build has some serious drawbacks.

This is a great post. I’ll be making a similar one soon for people who complain about stealth where I’ll hopefully shut down any arguments people make about it. Seems we are thinking alike Mr. Yolo

This is very true, most ppl just make nerf requests for thief out of rage/frustration (more so from the wvw side i think), without thinking how the profession works.

Another rally BIG qq generator is thief’s mobility that allows for easy escapes or kills fleeing enemies (again wvw more than anything). Shadow step in combination with infiltrator’s signet, infiltrator’s strike, and steal can instantly get you ooc in the right circumstances.

Anyhow this is a great post, but expect incoming qq from ppl claiming teef is op cos you can spam 2222 or something.

Glad to see things haven’t changed on both the giving and receiving end in that matter since eh… 2012?

I’m merely 1/4 of what my Thief will ever be compared to my Engi but you need to know this: A majority of people is ready to spit out total nonsense to feel better at the end of the day and this is not restricted to Thief only. I’ve been sprayed by insults such as “kittening Perplexity exploiting piece of kitten” and then blocked me when I’ve showed my Celestial gear, Might sigils and Traveler runes. The fact that I’ve used my Pry Bar was enough for targets to spit said nonsense.

There’s no reasoning with these people no matter how nice you are, it’s up to them alone to find out.

I never got any QQ on my alts, yeah I got 90% of my wvw time on thief but on engi I run the pure cheese with perp, my ele’s crits so high she can 1 shot light/medium and my medi guard can evaporate light/medium just as fast.

One time I didn’t play my thief for like 1.5month (lvling ele and guard) then when I logged on my thief, 30mins later I got 2 pages of QQ from someone I didn’t even kill.

People would talk kitten about thieves even if our skills would be disabled.

ive gotten qq on about half my alts. when healsig was buffed into awesomeness id get qq for that (even tho at the time i was still using healing surge) gotten it on my stealth spamming theif, running s/d :\ (if anything im spamming dazes left and right.) got in on my terrormancer necro whos running the friggin meta zerg build with no dmg on fears, vs. enemies too stupid to stay out my wells. and lastly got it on my RF spamming ranger after mauling someone with gs… idiots are idiots and thats why they lose.

You sir, have my respect and have without a doubt, won the interwebz. All of it.

One of the most well written and thought out things I have read on this forum.

Hating on Thieves has become a social trend that I for one cannot wait to see go away. Like the stupid “ice bucket challenge” or re-tweeting what ever dumb cause or social justice issue you are protesting. The dumbies don’t realize that stuff doesn’t actually achieve anything, and just like bichin on the forums about Thieves, in the long run, it is going to cause FAR MORE harm than good.

Do I run into issues with zippity eles on meth, packs of rapid fire rangers, nike warriors? Yes. Do I come to the forum and moan, bich, and throw tantrums demanding their nerfing? No. People are always going to use the best build out there to make up for any skill deficiencies. Just gotta smile at the sheeple

i see it this way: if i get called names or complained about then i did my job as thief <3

hi I am a backstab victim.

I have read this thread and I refute it with a lack of adaptation, logic, or even trying.

Thank you,
-scrubs everywhere.

Selver.1307:

hi I am a backstab victim.

I have read this thread and I refute it with a lack of adaptation, logic, or even trying.

Thank you,
-scrubs everywhere.

Lies, scrubs won’t even bother reading this well written wall of text.

I prefer the TL:DR of the TL:DR
“You suck. l2p”

SoulSin.5682:

Selver.1307:

hi I am a backstab victim.

I have read this thread and I refute it with a lack of adaptation, logic, or even trying.

Thank you,
-scrubs everywhere.

Lies, scrubs won’t even bother reading this well written wall of text.

I prefer the TL:DR of the TL:DR
“You suck. l2p”

That’s true…
But the TL:DR of the TL:DR the way you put it, it’s too harsh for some people… gives them a bum rash, and makes them cry.

A great post, but if they’re not willing to learn how to beat thieves, they’re not willing to learn they’re wrong.

I’d also like to add something along with my previous post. While I despise scrubs everywhere, it would be unwise to grow hateful toward those and go down to their level.

The OP felt is was necessary to give as many details as possible so the said scrub doesn’t have ANY sort of excuse should he engage in an argument. It’s all fine, however you don’t want to become a kitten yourself when retaliating to another kitten and you certainly don’t want to beat, stab, cut, slice and shoot the horse the OP just killed in here. Such a phenomenon has tainted the behavior of many people, and you lot are far better than that, beyond that, even.

MrForz.1953:

I’d also like to add something along with my previous post. While I despise scrubs everywhere, it would be unwise to grow hateful toward those and go down to their level.

The OP felt is was necessary to give as many details as possible so the said scrub doesn’t have ANY sort of excuse should he engage in an argument. It’s all fine, however you don’t want to become a kitten yourself when retaliating to another kitten and you certainly don’t want to beat, stab, cut, slice and shoot the horse the OP just killed in here. Such a phenomenon has tainted the behavior of many people, and you lot are far better than that, beyond that, even.

Yeah, but assuming an intellectual, unopinionated tone – simply “laying out the facts”, as it were – can still be seen as being arrogant, condescending, etc. The spectrum ranges from “tantrum child” to “smug kitten”, so the best tone is probably somewhere in the middle.

Thieves arent OP these days, but backstab is still a braindead skill. You shouldn’t be able spam a high damage skill over and over until it lands.

You should have to spend a little initiative (maybe 2) for each attempt at backstab. That would force the thief to think about using it instead if mashing 1 until it lands.

So basically then when a guard’s passive aegis pops during CnD and then he pops it again during stab, the thief should be left with 0 initiative and out of stealth after two tries. So no skill use and no damage left. Do that and I’d demand for all other classes to see their cooldowns to not tick down while auto-attacking or using other skills. That’s basically what you’ve asked to happen.

No, that’s not at all a good idea. Maybe the guard should be less braindead and dodge when the aegis gets popped a second time, or any other class not be stupid and dodge roll to make all of the stab attempts fail to begin with.

That is, unless you want to put skills like CnD on a 4 initiative cost, but then D/P would still be overpowered and Shadow Arts/stealth builds would be even stronger than they currently are.

So no.

People don’t like Thieves because people don’t like not having control. Thieves have the most control over fights because of mobility and the element of surprise. People dislike feeling like they’re being played with, that they’re being taken advantage of (by being attacked when their back is turned) and that they can’t outrun the Thief but the Thief can outrun them.

Thief just embodies everything people hate in terms of combat. Unpredictability, total control and high damage. They are not OP but people resort to calling them OP because they don’t understand what makes them tick. People who have played one however know that they’re not faceroll easy to play, take a bit of discipline and that most of them are very predictable.

People like myself however just add to the hate factor because I get kicks out of being annoying by doing things like mining a node while in the middle of a fight or /sit emoting until stealth wears off. Oh well, some people like it and message me telling me it made them chuckle others want to strangle me and curse my unborn children, whaddayagonnado.

DeceiverX.8361:

So basically then when a guard’s passive aegis pops during CnD and then he pops it again during stab, the thief should be left with 0 initiative and out of stealth after two tries. So no skill use and no damage left. Do that and I’d demand for all other classes to see their cooldowns to not tick down while auto-attacking or using other skills. That’s basically what you’ve asked to happen.

No, that’s not at all a good idea. Maybe the guard should be less braindead and dodge when the aegis gets popped a second time, or any other class not be stupid and dodge roll to make all of the stab attempts fail to begin with.

That is, unless you want to put skills like CnD on a 4 initiative cost, but then D/P would still be overpowered and Shadow Arts/stealth builds would be even stronger than they currently are.

So no.

Heard that one before. The solution is to move backstab off of the 1 slot (up to f2) and give thieves a stealth auto-attack to clear aegis/blinds. I agree that it’s a peculiar situation, though.

Watch this video:

I’m forced to spend a 12s CD and two dodge rolls just to prevent all 4 backstab attempts. It’s really broken that a thief can bait that many high-value CDs without spending a single point of initiative.

People are just funny…
Been roaming on S/D 20066 in WvW and got complains about
- Stealth Spamming… yeah because thats the whole point of s/d evade, you all play it wrong!
- Evades… because it’s not like i don’t have any other defense but evades (and it also takes no skill at all to only be able to beat people by needing the skill to dodge almost EVERY important attack of theirs due to the lack of real burst) [mostly coming from people who didn’t manage to dodge one of my number 2s or 3s… but teef op]
- running from a 1v2 (oh i’m sorry that i rather dont wanna try it against a terrormancer and a guardian?)
- resetting a foght against a terrormancer (true, sorry i shouldnt have done that, my condi remove is op enough for that)

And then roaming on D/P 60206 doesn’t get any better…
- People still complain about me resetting a fight against a condition necromancer (who i did later beat 2 times but pssst)
- and people still complain about D/P and stealth being op (hint: maybe its not D/P and stealth thats op, but rather SA? why do S/D 20066 thieves rarely use C&D? sometimes they do but usually they dont and guess why…)

Stealth is really really lackluster if not traited for… and at the same time Stealth is really strong when traited for

If you want to protect yourself from backstab…you better reskin your backpiece to a cute quaggan. I myself cannot possibly stab those.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

If you want to protect yourself from backstab…you better reskin your backpiece to a cute quaggan. I myself cannot possibly stab those.

Breaking news:

Anet made over $80 million in gem sales in the past 3 hours.

Easy on the gem sales promotion there Vince.

cyyrix.6105:

DeceiverX.8361:

So basically then when a guard’s passive aegis pops during CnD and then he pops it again during stab, the thief should be left with 0 initiative and out of stealth after two tries. So no skill use and no damage left. Do that and I’d demand for all other classes to see their cooldowns to not tick down while auto-attacking or using other skills. That’s basically what you’ve asked to happen.

No, that’s not at all a good idea. Maybe the guard should be less braindead and dodge when the aegis gets popped a second time, or any other class not be stupid and dodge roll to make all of the stab attempts fail to begin with.

That is, unless you want to put skills like CnD on a 4 initiative cost, but then D/P would still be overpowered and Shadow Arts/stealth builds would be even stronger than they currently are.

So no.

Heard that one before. The solution is to move backstab off of the 1 slot (up to f2) and give thieves a stealth auto-attack to clear aegis/blinds. I agree that it’s a peculiar situation, though.

Watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8miLGjlQEUo

I’m forced to spend a 12s CD and two dodge rolls just to prevent all 4 backstab attempts. It’s really broken that a thief can bait that many high-value CDs without spending a single point of initiative.

Considering he used a 30 second CD, the tradeoff seems fair. Actually if you hadn’t used your sword skill and dodged instead after the sigil gave you the endurance back, you would have revealed the thief when the backstab hit your clone and been able to burst him down using IL, swap, blurred frenzy, and mind wrack.

Maugetarr.6823:

Considering he used a 30 second CD, the tradeoff seems fair. Actually if you hadn’t used your sword skill and dodged instead after the sigil gave you the endurance back, you would have revealed the thief when the backstab hit your clone and been able to burst him down using IL, swap, blurred frenzy, and mind wrack.

Waste more CDs trying to burst down a thief that just used consume plasma? Good joke.

The thief’s 30s CD heal isn’t what baited my CDs. It was the threat of a high damage skill being spammed four consecutive times. The thief can spam four backstabs way more than every 30s. Calling that a fair tradeoff is absurd.

Backstab’s spammy mechanic encourages unskillful play. Making it cost initiative (and then maybe increase the damage to compensate) would be a major improvement.

if you wish sympathy, please go here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Lets-talk-about-Stealth

Zero Day.2594:

if you wish sympathy, please go here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Lets-talk-about-Stealth

Not looking for sympathy. Just advocating for a rework that would make skilled thieves more potent and unskilled thieves less so.

cyyrix.6105:

Zero Day.2594:

if you wish sympathy, please go here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Lets-talk-about-Stealth

Not looking for sympathy. Just advocating for a rework that would make skilled thieves more potent and unskilled thieves less so.

It would be better if there was more diversity to the thief before anything else happens. The amount of situational traits and utilities make it hard to keep thieves from equipping anything else. If some of those traits were more generalized, for example Fleet of Foot clearing 1 condition instead of two specific ones and reduce the cooldown to 5s, that would open up builds in itself.

Big time thief hater here….and I mean really big.

Ok, now that I’ve said that, what do thieves need to not be SOOOO reliant on stealth and running away. Really, if I could start fighting thieves that didn’t turn tail and run the moment they lost a tiny bit of health, that’d be great, really flippin great. I learn mainly from fighting other professions, learning their mechanics, signs, and telegraphs, but thief is the one I have yet to friggin crack. (and yes, I have lost…a lot….to every profession)

I mainly play WvW and roam, did some PvP but…that community…ugh, felt like I needed to take a bath when I got outta there each time I played. And the fact most thieves I encountered in there weren’t actually trying to win, but instead screw over people didn’t help either in my outlook on the thief community. -_-

Also, necromancer player. LET US DISCUSS!

The issue people seem to have is that they come from MMOs where you can do anything to avoid certain death (pot, run away, safe zone, etc), whereas it’s simply part of the experience in GW2. People don’t seem to actually read their death breakdowns in PvP to learn what mistakes were made, and when they do they find that very rarely is backstab or heartseeker the primary cause of death.

TheLastNobody.8319:

Big time thief hater here….and I mean really big.

Ok, now that I’ve said that, what do thieves need to not be SOOOO reliant on stealth and running away. Really, if I could start fighting thieves that didn’t turn tail and run the moment they lost a tiny bit of health, that’d be great, really flippin great. I learn mainly from fighting other professions, learning their mechanics, signs, and telegraphs, but thief is the one I have yet to friggin crack. (and yes, I have lost…a lot….to every profession)

I mainly play WvW and roam, did some PvP but…that community…ugh, felt like I needed to take a bath when I got outta there each time I played. And the fact most thieves I encountered in there weren’t actually trying to win, but instead screw over people didn’t help either in my outlook on the thief community. -_-

Also, necromancer player. LET US DISCUSS!

Have you tried playing those thief builds?

Another thing… in regards to what I think is a question (bolded) there are a few things that need to happen before thieves veer away from strictly using stealth and resets:

(in order)

• Remove Venomous Aura so that Venoms can be redesigned to not be so lackluster in both activation and application.

• Have more traits available for traps. Giving them charges or reducing their CD some more wouldn’t hurt either. Right now they are gimmicky and don’t really help much except as a placeholder. Another thing that can happen is to put them on F2-F4. But the main thing is that thief traps are just standing there looking pretty.

• Make traits less situational and more generalized. Most of the traits are never used because they only work on specific conditions or they do nothing to mitigate any incoming damage. For example, Slowed Pulse. You gain regen after 2 stacks stacks of bleeding on a 20 second CD. As easy as bleeds are applied this game, that regen will be pointless once a third bleed hits. Not that the 20s CD makes it kinda pointless already. But thief traits are riddled with this kind of design. Make those more useful in a general sense by increasing access to condition clear, stun breaks, defensive boons, resistances and increase the more lackluster heal scaling traits and players will use them instead of everything in SA. Doing this will also make different armor types more available as an option for thieves.

• Take the “th” out of stealth. Redesign traits more towards stealing instead of stealthing. For example, one skill could steal armor by inflicting them with a few stacks of vuln while simultaniously applying protection to the thief or maybe a little Endurance.

• And after all that is done, nerfing stealth, resetting and evasion would be less severe.

Steal already has too many traits designed around it, though. Fact of the matter is the class needs huge changes in regards to how it deals damage and deals with incoming damage.

The problem lies in that the thief finds itself in almost every build dependent on stealth in one way or another, and building into stealth is never really a sacrifice.

What is tied to stealth and only accessible through the use of stealth primarily?

- Damage
- Control
- Condition Cleansing
- Mitigation

So what’s left when you aren’t using stealth at all? Not much. The thief’s dependence on stealth comes from a few factors:

- Nerfed or sub-par skill coefficients on most non-stealth abilities

- Low-tier base health

- The worst condition cleansing in the game while not using stealth

- Little/No access to defensive options outside of evasion or stealth (I.E., no stability, protection, aegis, toughness, armor effects, etc.

- Poorly-designed traits which do not reward any other kinds of play

- Overly-effective traits mandatory for what may be regarded as basic class functionality by negating the above within the Shadow Arts line and on-stealth effects.

- From-stealth attacks being the primary way to deal damage to one’s target overall.

And what is rewarded for playing without stealth?

- Pistol Whip and Unload builds. Usually underwhelming and sub-optimal.

- Revealed training, but even that requires stealth to begin with, and it doesn’t really do anything.

These phenomenon occur due to the initiative system. Stealth and revealed create a pseudo-cooldown on skills like backstab and Sneak Attack, but consequently these skills are what define builds as these are really the only high damage skills available on the bar. Of course, if you then remove the stealth dependency, then you just have OP non-stealth skills and people using stealth more to hide and recover from attacks. Sadly, even the smallest amount of damage dealt to the thief can be fatal. I recall fighting a S/S war today in WvW, and had to ditch the scene due to the fact my heal was blown and I was on three stacks of bleeds. Moral of the story is that I went down to 20% hp just from three bleeds and had no way to deal with it as I don’t use Shadow Arts. Even Shadowstep’s condition cleansing would put me on a position where I would get the war on lower hp but would still lose the fight if I stayed in the fray from a lack of cleanses. Don’t even get me started on torment and confusion which cannot be removed remotely reliably by this class without either use of Shadowstep, spamming 2 on S/D (possibly killing you from confusion), or Shadow Arts + stealth.

How to fix this problem? I’d start by taking a look at under-performing weapon skills and do some reworks there to allow for some cleansing, and nerf that of Shadow Arts such that it’s a cleanse on losing stealth and not per 3 seconds while in stealth. Death blossom could use a condition shed by removing say, three conditions, and re-directing them in random directions as projectiles like throw gunk to nearby attackers (with a potential nerf to the bleed duration/stacks applied by DB). Body Shot could afford to be totally re-designed as a power-based skill with some potential cleansing for P/P users, S/x already has one, and D/P would just need to use the SA trait as it does now and play more aggressively instead of just spamming HS through BP.

The lack of staying power and damage from other skills is what forces people into playing stealth builds.

Though P/D dire perplexity is just overpowered from a diverse pool of high stacks of the best conditions in the game. Kind of like PU condi mesmer, though.

Actually, the Backstab costing initative is a very good balance idea, comparing it to the consistency of other Thief skills. A missed Cloak and Dagger still cost initiative, a missed Flanking Strike would cost initiative and not proc Larcenous Strike. Why would a missed Backstab not have any downside consequence? It’s a safety net till you get it right.

It might be unfair comparing Thief to other professions but all the other skills go into cooldown if it gets evaded/obstructed/outranged and still consuming the usage cost, eg Warrior’s Adrenaline or Mesmer’s clones.

cyyrix.6105:

Maugetarr.6823:

Considering he used a 30 second CD, the tradeoff seems fair. Actually if you hadn’t used your sword skill and dodged instead after the sigil gave you the endurance back, you would have revealed the thief when the backstab hit your clone and been able to burst him down using IL, swap, blurred frenzy, and mind wrack.

Waste more CDs trying to burst down a thief that just used consume plasma? Good joke.

The thief’s 30s CD heal isn’t what baited my CDs. It was the threat of a high damage skill being spammed four consecutive times. The thief can spam four backstabs way more than every 30s. Calling that a fair tradeoff is absurd.

Backstab’s spammy mechanic encourages unskillful play. Making it cost initiative (and then maybe increase the damage to compensate) would be a major improvement.

Well, in the current meta, a fair number of mesmers take shattered concentration, so most of the boons remaining would have been ripped (if you had that as well). You also had mantra of distraction, so whether he was D/P or D/D, you had the skills on your bar to stop him from stealthing. Even if he had dropped shadow refuge, you had illusionary wave off cooldown. You had means available to counter all of his stealthing attempts, save blinding powder.

cyyrix.6105:

Thieves arent OP these days, but backstab is still a braindead skill. You shouldn’t be able spam a high damage skill over and over until it lands.

You should have to spend a little initiative (maybe 2) for each attempt at backstab. That would force the thief to think about using it instead if mashing 1 until it lands.

I think you mean heart seeker. And thieves who spam heart seeker are terrible and playing the class very inefficiently. You should not be complaining.

Your second sentence makes me think you actually are talking about backstab. But, you can not spam backstab. Once it hits you become revealed.

gg

Excellent post, Yolo!

my problem is this…. a stupid thief that doesnt leave room for a retreat is a free kill…

depending on how much you traited steal and what class you are fighting it can be a bit over the top.. you fight me as a necro you get a free 5-6 second fear for you to merrily run behind me stabbing me in the back as an example

black power is still a very strong and annoying skill “oh just walk out of the ring is not hard” you can use it more then once if you need to, the indication ring is smaller then the actual aoe of the blind, by the time we have moved out of the ring you have done plenty of damage and then we need to deal with the blind still on us,

at this time while we are unable to defend ourselves you have probably pressed f1 and are waiting to use it against us now im dealing with that granted its not the same depending on class. after all this you have probably not used much initiative and you can just pop it again voila

your full burst for all your skills is 15 seconds when traited my defences take 20 seconds + to recharge traited. not the mention your 15 second heal that also acts as a dodge..

you can abuse your bow to move around rediculously fast imo this needs to be addressed for the fact i can enter a 2v1 get lucky and down the thief 15-or so seconds later you are back…….if that, is bull

this all said.. the aim of the game is to take and hold the points a 1v1 with a thief if you know what you are doing will take time for the thief to decap. a good thief will win because of their mechanics but they will most likely need to stealth hide and recharge initiative after baiting out your defences for the final kill, so its still a win for your team.

when it comes to 2v2 its another story.. your damage is a bit much in this situation against some classes/ builds…….

cyyrix.6105:

DeceiverX.8361:

So basically then when a guard’s passive aegis pops during CnD and then he pops it again during stab, the thief should be left with 0 initiative and out of stealth after two tries. So no skill use and no damage left. Do that and I’d demand for all other classes to see their cooldowns to not tick down while auto-attacking or using other skills. That’s basically what you’ve asked to happen.

No, that’s not at all a good idea. Maybe the guard should be less braindead and dodge when the aegis gets popped a second time, or any other class not be stupid and dodge roll to make all of the stab attempts fail to begin with.

That is, unless you want to put skills like CnD on a 4 initiative cost, but then D/P would still be overpowered and Shadow Arts/stealth builds would be even stronger than they currently are.

So no.

Heard that one before. The solution is to move backstab off of the 1 slot (up to f2) and give thieves a stealth auto-attack to clear aegis/blinds. I agree that it’s a peculiar situation, though.

Watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8miLGjlQEUo

I’m forced to spend a 12s CD and two dodge rolls just to prevent all 4 backstab attempts. It’s really broken that a thief can bait that many high-value CDs without spending a single point of initiative.

You realize you are a Mesmer when literally no defensive skills at all right?

You argument could hold true to any other class that was trying to burst you…

Mesmer defense are shatters, dodge rolls, stealth, and sword #2. If you were good you would have turned around and bursted that thief.

Not sure why you post of video of you simply avoiding a burst and say thief op lol

swinsk.6410:

Mesmer defense are shatters, dodge rolls, stealth, and sword #2. If you were good you would have turned around and bursted that thief.

If he had done that the thief would’ve been able to just heal up and kill him since he had everything on cooldown and had no endurance left.

Another note: If you’re running around with a legendary weapon, you’re more than likely to get picked on in WvW especially if you’re using Dusk. The special effect on Dusk is too similar to Thief’s stealth and shadowstep that, funny enough, confuses the heck out of people. Easy kill.

I like the idea of having BS cost 1 ini – 2 seems really high for a stealth skill (especially considerung you’d have to giv the 1ini cost to every single stealth skill – and s/d evade uses stealth sometimes but not often and that’d hurt them a bit as well which you probably wouldnt want as that’d be hurting skillful play)
thing is though, if you make it cost 1ini, d/p or d/d initiative will be UNDERWHELMING
because its really easy to miss one bs
making bs hit harder… well i can already see the qq’s coming (mostly from bad players i guess):
- bs hits too hard
- got 1shotted by new bs, ANET nerf teef op
- bs most op skill ingame
- thanks, more burst on teefs, Anet you are a walnut
- teefs dont need skill
- new bs breaks game
- how can it be that me, full berserker ranger without knowledge of pvp or wvw and no reaction time at all, usually spamming RF on tower walls or in the backline of zergs (and afterwards be the one to jump most skillfully on the poor corpse of the thief who had the pleasure to be surprised in a 1v1 by a blob), unable to use any of my skills apart from 1,2 and 4 (thats why i only use signet lolz) get 3-shotted by teef? ANET NERF OP QQ WHINE

ok no real ranger hate intended here haha but it’s funny how so many scouts in wvw after that patch were rangers, who just press 1 and 2 at any opponent who comes by.
trying to get a kill because they’re too bad to manage that without a wall seperating them from any kind of roamer

Maugetarr.6823:

cyyrix.6105:

Maugetarr.6823:

Considering he used a 30 second CD, the tradeoff seems fair. Actually if you hadn’t used your sword skill and dodged instead after the sigil gave you the endurance back, you would have revealed the thief when the backstab hit your clone and been able to burst him down using IL, swap, blurred frenzy, and mind wrack.

Waste more CDs trying to burst down a thief that just used consume plasma? Good joke.

The thief’s 30s CD heal isn’t what baited my CDs. It was the threat of a high damage skill being spammed four consecutive times. The thief can spam four backstabs way more than every 30s. Calling that a fair tradeoff is absurd.

Backstab’s spammy mechanic encourages unskillful play. Making it cost initiative (and then maybe increase the damage to compensate) would be a major improvement.

Well, in the current meta, a fair number of mesmers take shattered concentration, so most of the boons remaining would have been ripped (if you had that as well). You also had mantra of distraction, so whether he was D/P or D/D, you had the skills on your bar to stop him from stealthing. Even if he had dropped shadow refuge, you had illusionary wave off cooldown. You had means available to counter all of his stealthing attempts, save blinding powder.

You’re really missing the point here. I’m not complaining about killing thieves. I’m not asking for a nerf. I’m certainly not looking for advice on how to play mesmer.

I’m suggesting a rework that would make good thieves better (higher damage from backstab) in exchange for making bad thieves worse (wasted initiative spamming backstab on blinds/aegis/evades). It would encourage skillful play for everyone.

I figured that if I inform people I could add some more counterbalance in regards to this issue.

Might help to actually talk to the masses rather than preach to the kittening choir.

Sariel V.7024:

I figured that if I inform people I could add some more counterbalance in regards to this issue.

Might help to actually talk to the masses rather than preach to the kittening choir.

It would be nice to do that sept the moment mods in General see that this is mainly about people kittening about thief, they’ll dump it into the thief forum. Profession Balance is gone.

If anything his thread should be kept afloat, or forumgoers should request this be a sticky. TBH, I think it should be stickied because most of the players who kitten about the class are mainly backstab victims.

cyyrix.6105:

Maugetarr.6823:

cyyrix.6105:

Maugetarr.6823:

Considering he used a 30 second CD, the tradeoff seems fair. Actually if you hadn’t used your sword skill and dodged instead after the sigil gave you the endurance back, you would have revealed the thief when the backstab hit your clone and been able to burst him down using IL, swap, blurred frenzy, and mind wrack.

Waste more CDs trying to burst down a thief that just used consume plasma? Good joke.

The thief’s 30s CD heal isn’t what baited my CDs. It was the threat of a high damage skill being spammed four consecutive times. The thief can spam four backstabs way more than every 30s. Calling that a fair tradeoff is absurd.

Backstab’s spammy mechanic encourages unskillful play. Making it cost initiative (and then maybe increase the damage to compensate) would be a major improvement.

Well, in the current meta, a fair number of mesmers take shattered concentration, so most of the boons remaining would have been ripped (if you had that as well). You also had mantra of distraction, so whether he was D/P or D/D, you had the skills on your bar to stop him from stealthing. Even if he had dropped shadow refuge, you had illusionary wave off cooldown. You had means available to counter all of his stealthing attempts, save blinding powder.

You’re really missing the point here. I’m not complaining about killing thieves. I’m not asking for a nerf. I’m certainly not looking for advice on how to play mesmer.

I’m suggesting a rework that would make good thieves better (higher damage from backstab) in exchange for making bad thieves worse (wasted initiative spamming backstab on blinds/aegis/evades). It would encourage skillful play for everyone.

I think you’re missing my point. There is already a lot of counterplay to prevent the thief from getting into stealth. Once he’s in stealth, you have to survive 3(4) seconds due to your failure to counterplay. You are asking for a nerf.

Here’s a little more talk about your idea though. Adding more damage to it as compensation would make it a more overwhelming skill than most people except those who are used to PvP can handle. BS is already a 6.5-8k hit in sPvP and 8-11k in WvW depending on your (or rather both players’) build(s). They nerfed mug’s damage because people couldn’t handle that output (subjectively). Right now, BS is a 2.4 multiplier from the back, and 1.2 from the front. Upping it to 2.6 or 2.7 would cause more complaints, regardless of the fact that it would cost initiative.

Maugetarr.6823:

cyyrix.6105:

Maugetarr.6823:

cyyrix.6105:

Maugetarr.6823:

Considering he used a 30 second CD, the tradeoff seems fair. Actually if you hadn’t used your sword skill and dodged instead after the sigil gave you the endurance back, you would have revealed the thief when the backstab hit your clone and been able to burst him down using IL, swap, blurred frenzy, and mind wrack.

Waste more CDs trying to burst down a thief that just used consume plasma? Good joke.

The thief’s 30s CD heal isn’t what baited my CDs. It was the threat of a high damage skill being spammed four consecutive times. The thief can spam four backstabs way more than every 30s. Calling that a fair tradeoff is absurd.

Backstab’s spammy mechanic encourages unskillful play. Making it cost initiative (and then maybe increase the damage to compensate) would be a major improvement.

Well, in the current meta, a fair number of mesmers take shattered concentration, so most of the boons remaining would have been ripped (if you had that as well). You also had mantra of distraction, so whether he was D/P or D/D, you had the skills on your bar to stop him from stealthing. Even if he had dropped shadow refuge, you had illusionary wave off cooldown. You had means available to counter all of his stealthing attempts, save blinding powder.

You’re really missing the point here. I’m not complaining about killing thieves. I’m not asking for a nerf. I’m certainly not looking for advice on how to play mesmer.

I’m suggesting a rework that would make good thieves better (higher damage from backstab) in exchange for making bad thieves worse (wasted initiative spamming backstab on blinds/aegis/evades). It would encourage skillful play for everyone.

I think you’re missing my point. There is already a lot of counterplay to prevent the thief from getting into stealth. Once he’s in stealth, you have to survive 3(4) seconds due to your failure to counterplay. You are asking for a nerf.

Here’s a little more talk about your idea though. Adding more damage to it as compensation would make it a more overwhelming skill than most people except those who are used to PvP can handle. BS is already a 6.5-8k hit in sPvP and 8-11k in WvW depending on your (or rather both players’) build(s). They nerfed mug’s damage because people couldn’t handle that output (subjectively). Right now, BS is a 2.4 multiplier from the back, and 1.2 from the front. Upping it to 2.6 or 2.7 would cause more complaints, regardless of the fact that it would cost initiative.

Yes. Failure to prevent stealth should be punishing. That doesn’t mean you should support unskilled, spammy mechanics like backstab. You can always compensate for the change. For example, if each backstab attempt costs 2 initiative:

1) Increased backstab damage (you don’t like this one)
2) Gain some combination of boons when you land backstab
3) Gain 4 initiative when you land backstab
4) Strip boons when you land backstab

All of these things would be a nice buff for the talented thief that lands backstab, while punishing untalented thieves that spam backstab on blinds/aegis/evades. This is a nerf to bad thieves and a buff to good ones. It’s unfortunate that you can’t grasp that.

cyyrix.6105:

Maugetarr.6823:

cyyrix.6105:

Maugetarr.6823:

cyyrix.6105:

Maugetarr.6823:

Considering he used a 30 second CD, the tradeoff seems fair. Actually if you hadn’t used your sword skill and dodged instead after the sigil gave you the endurance back, you would have revealed the thief when the backstab hit your clone and been able to burst him down using IL, swap, blurred frenzy, and mind wrack.

Waste more CDs trying to burst down a thief that just used consume plasma? Good joke.

The thief’s 30s CD heal isn’t what baited my CDs. It was the threat of a high damage skill being spammed four consecutive times. The thief can spam four backstabs way more than every 30s. Calling that a fair tradeoff is absurd.

Backstab’s spammy mechanic encourages unskillful play. Making it cost initiative (and then maybe increase the damage to compensate) would be a major improvement.

Well, in the current meta, a fair number of mesmers take shattered concentration, so most of the boons remaining would have been ripped (if you had that as well). You also had mantra of distraction, so whether he was D/P or D/D, you had the skills on your bar to stop him from stealthing. Even if he had dropped shadow refuge, you had illusionary wave off cooldown. You had means available to counter all of his stealthing attempts, save blinding powder.

You’re really missing the point here. I’m not complaining about killing thieves. I’m not asking for a nerf. I’m certainly not looking for advice on how to play mesmer.

I’m suggesting a rework that would make good thieves better (higher damage from backstab) in exchange for making bad thieves worse (wasted initiative spamming backstab on blinds/aegis/evades). It would encourage skillful play for everyone.

I think you’re missing my point. There is already a lot of counterplay to prevent the thief from getting into stealth. Once he’s in stealth, you have to survive 3(4) seconds due to your failure to counterplay. You are asking for a nerf.

Here’s a little more talk about your idea though. Adding more damage to it as compensation would make it a more overwhelming skill than most people except those who are used to PvP can handle. BS is already a 6.5-8k hit in sPvP and 8-11k in WvW depending on your (or rather both players’) build(s). They nerfed mug’s damage because people couldn’t handle that output (subjectively). Right now, BS is a 2.4 multiplier from the back, and 1.2 from the front. Upping it to 2.6 or 2.7 would cause more complaints, regardless of the fact that it would cost initiative.

Yes. Failure to prevent stealth should be punishing. That doesn’t mean you should support unskilled, spammy mechanics like backstab. You can always compensate for the change. For example, if each backstab attempt costs 2 initiative:

1) Increased backstab damage (you don’t like this one)
2) Gain some combination of boons when you land backstab
3) Gain 4 initiative when you land backstab
4) Strip boons when you land backstab

All of these things would be a nice buff for the talented thief that lands backstab, while punishing untalented thieves that spam backstab on blinds/aegis/evades. This is a nerf to bad thieves and a buff to good ones. It’s unfortunate that you can’t grasp that.

1) people would cry more, resulting in a net power loss over a 2 year period.
2) unless it’s 5s stab, 5s prot, or something overpowered, it wouldn’t be a decent trade off, in my opinion. adding the buffs we lack (any but fleeting regen, but I am looking at you stability and protection) (not including daggerstorm or the crappy grandmaster trait they added no one ever used ever except once.) doesn’t seem to be anything that’s going to happen without a rework to our class altogether.
3)this is just overpowered in my opinion and would make initiative when fighting a good thief almost useless to them because they will never be down more than 1-4 ini other than immediately after a skill use.
4)we already strip the second most boons in the game, iirc. in fact we had our boon stripping nerfed on sword already.

Overall in my opinion everything you are suggesting is a waste of everyone’s time. You need to learn how to deal with thieves. Good ones are good ones. Some people play better than others. I die a lot, and I am a thief. Don’t make me use the words.