Guild Wars 2

yeah, i want the other builds to be viable in pvp too !
vennoms/traps/bleeds etc.

@sorrow you crash down thief’s damage, reducing mobility, making even harder the already tricky initiative mechanic but I don’t see anywhere defensive suggestions.

Also you don’t suggest what to play when combo ends and I am vulnerable.

Shredicus.8706:

Oh this is glorious. I am loving these thief replies. You are actually trying to defend this type of gameplay.

JonathanSharp:
We try to be patient.

3 days later

ReginaBuenaobra:
Thief
Pistol Whip: Reduced damage by 15%.

Any more questions?

Since when searching for alternatives is considered defence? if you want to reduce damage give me in exchange other toys to play! It’s a trade off. Don’t look it from one side only because you sound like you want to save yourself from extra thinking when countering a thief ;-)

Believe me, I know all about countering a thief. You guys are sure to spout the same thing any time someone tries to criticize your facerolling. The response is always:

-Bring 2 stunbreaks
-Bring condition removal
-Be a bunker guardian
-Dodge every single attack
-Cluster bomb has a high arc so hitting for 5k AoE is fine
-backstab is super hard to land and we are sittign ducks if it misses, seriously we ahve no other abilities!
-Stealth is fine, we have low health\our burst is fine we have low health\we shouldnt have to sacrifice anything by being a glass cannon because we have stealth and its intended

And so on ^__^

“backstab is fine” <—— only a thief would say this.
backstab has the least cooldown of any skill i know in the game with the largest single dmg output ability at the same time.
yeah backstab is great……
put a cool down on it and/or make it deal less dmg

and also stealth is not fine. there is an extra second of “fake stealth” where the characters body doesn’t appear even though they are out of stealth. this needs to be addressed. once stealth ends the characters body should pop out like it does from the stealth person’s perspective.

Ashanor.5319:

Want some suggestions?

- Backstab should get a maximum of 6k damage critical on a squishy glass cannon build.
- Heartseeker should have the leap removed.
- Stealth debuff should last longer.
- Stealth should last way longer if traited, less if untraited.
- There should be given some clue of where the thief is if you succed to hit him while stealthed (like a sparkle or a sound).
- Mug should have reduced damage.
- Hide in Shadows should have less stealth duration compared to other skills
- Basilisk Venom should have 2 seconds stone duration
- Cloak and Dagger should cost 2 more initiative.
- Death Blossom should have removed (or reduced to 3-4 seconds) bleeding effect and increased damage
- Fear from Necromancer Steal should last 1 and 1/2 seconds and cast faster.
- Unload should inflict bleeding
- The dagger autoattack damage should be decreased

Sounds more like you just want to destroy the class. lol

I don’t want to destroy the class, I just want thieves be funny and challenging to play as they should be. Right now, they are the easiest to play profession which also the worse player out of this game could have nice results at playing it.

Posibabis.5932:

@sorrow you crash down thief’s damage, reducing mobility, making even harder the already tricky initiative mechanic but I don’t see anywhere defensive suggestions.

Also you don’t suggest what to play when combo ends and I am vulnerable.

Dude, I’ve suggested to increase stealth duration to 5-6 seconds… What do you want more to be defensive? Unlimited invulnerability till your next burst?

When you have landed your combo, vanish in stealth and try to avoid enemy attacks. He won’t have any clue of where you are if you are good at it, BUT, if you are bad, you will probably get spotted really fast and dead.
Right now any bad player can vanish in stealth and being really hard to spot to most the players.

Hit three times and just vanish sounds like no fun. I would prefer higher mobility so the gameplay would be more interesting! I also wouldn’t mind a parry skill in exchange to burst!

Let’s admit at least one thing. Big part of the fun comes from high damage output. I thinkIit would be good to buff counter measures rather than decreasing damage.

Tribune.3782:

sorrow.2364:

Also if ANet cut off thieves’ damage by 50% you still have pretty good damage.

Obvious troll is obvious.

lonewolf.2601

Also, people that complain seem to want to be able to do the same the thief does with their class, for example they want to down enemies in few seconds as guardians or necros, or engineers.

I agree with your post and want to add that engineers can have the same/higher burst

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJkTMqJOWvU

(even ranged and 16k+ base hp and escape on weapon swap)

Thanks for a perfect example. People actually have time to dodge these attacks unlike the thief, if you could have a chance to dodge the attacks in WvWvW, I would be fine with it, but you don’t.

As a side note, every one he killed was an up leveled character and this was right after release before all the adjustments to engineer.

The issue I have with all this complaining is that 99% of the people complaining are doing it because they ran into a thief while running alone or with a single buddy in WvW and a 2/3orb buffed thief that is fully glass cannon speced killed them.

The problem with this argument is that the thief was designed to win 1 v 1 fights against players with low to mid survival and that its impossible to balance around a 10-15% difference in stats.

The simplest way to stop getting ganked by thieves is stop running around WvW alone. You running around alone is not helping your server, just like that 12 year old thief that killed you is not helping his server, he jsut wants lots and lots of kills to feel epic. In the end a single person can accomplish very little in WvW.

Some of the ridiculous nerfs people are suggesting would hurt the 2-3 second builds yes, but they would decimate any other thief build and force anyone who wants to play the thief to roll glass cannon max burst builds.

Everyone wants to be an invincible death dealing ganker in 1 v 1 fights but that is how the thief was designed (for better or worse).

Please go level a thief and try running with the zerg in WvW or do any PvE content and you will see that a glass cannon thief is a 1 tricky pony, they will kill you if you have low to mid defense and they see you first.

TLDR: Find a group and stop running around WvW alone if you don’t wish to be ganked.

-A Main Thief who now runs a Hammer Warrior in WvW because it is 1000 times more useful to my server because I play a pivotal role i taking objectives and breaking enemy zergs.

Posibabis.5932:

Hit three times and just vanish sounds like no fun. I would prefer higher mobility so the gameplay would be more interesting! I also wouldn’t mind a parry skill in exchange to burst!

Let’s admit at least one thing. Big part of the fun comes from high damage output. I thinkIit would be good to buff counter measures rather than decreasing damage.

What do you want to have more mobility? You have a shortbow skill which teleports you when you want in a 900 radius, you have a shadowstep available to all builds (steal) plus other available as utility and other as weapon skills, you are the only profession with a signet which grants you 25% increased movement speed as passive bonus, you have a trait which grants you 33% movement speed when in stealth and another which grants you swiftness on dodge… Do you want a skill which teleports you when you want on the map to have enough mobility?

High damage of thief is mostly related to its opness and probably you think it is fun because you have easy kill and you feel invincible.
Less damage and more durable less effective stealth will for sure make the thief way funnier.

sorrow.2364:

Less damage and more durable less effective stealth will for sure make the thief way funnier.

You are basically admitting you want the thief to play like a crappy version of the warrior…

@gaspara

Actually this is wrong, the good thieves stay with the zerg and use the zerg to the exploitative advantage, they are able to jump in kill and jump out without ever rendering.

The great thieves roam alone near supply camps with 1 or 2 other thieves and keep a zerg or small 10-15 group from capping supply camps due to WvWvW near infinite stealthing.

If they get in trouble they just stealth, which removes all conditions and run away. Honestly stealth should only remove 1 condition, not all.

I don’t want to destroy the class, I just want thieves be funny and challenging to play as they should be. Right now, they are the easiest to play profession which also the worse player out of this game could have nice results at playing it.

Really? I have played pretty much all classes in this game and I would say that Warrior (hammer/axe/mace) and Guardian (burn or triple med) were just as easy as Thief, and all Ranger does is auto attack and burst with quickness.

SKuDDer.1860:

@gaspara

Actually this is wrong, the good thieves stay with the zerg and use the zerg to the exploitative advantage, they are able to jump in kill and jump out without ever rendering.

The great thieves roam alone near supply camps with 1 or 2 other thieves and keep a zerg or small 10-15 group from capping supply camps due to WvWvW near infinite stealthing.

If they get in trouble they just stealth, which removes all conditions and run away. Honestly stealth should only remove 1 condition, not all.

Stealth doesn’t remove conditions at all, Hide in Shadows the healing skill does but that is the skill not stealth.

Also the good thieves do this yes, but good players of their class can do a lot of things. They aren’t the ones people are complaining about though because the good players should win. They all seem to be complaining about the lone thieves who just follow the step by step to gank other loners.

Ashanor.5319:

I don’t want to destroy the class, I just want thieves be funny and challenging to play as they should be. Right now, they are the easiest to play profession which also the worse player out of this game could have nice results at playing it.

Really? I have played pretty much all classes in this game and I would say that Warrior (hammer/axe/mace) and Guardian (burn or triple med) were just as easy as Thief, and all Ranger does is auto attack and burst with quickness.

Triple med, so you are talking sPvP, because that build is not viable in WvWvW at all, unless you just want to sit in the zerg and do nothing, because that’s fun.

Ashanor.5319:

I don’t want to destroy the class, I just want thieves be funny and challenging to play as they should be. Right now, they are the easiest to play profession which also the worse player out of this game could have nice results at playing it.

Really? I have played pretty much all classes in this game and I would say that Warrior (hammer/axe/mace) and Guardian (burn or triple med) were just as easy as Thief, and all Ranger does is auto attack and burst with quickness.

The point is that Warrior, Guardian and Rangers do not have the damage output the thief has at the same cheap cost. Probably you haven’t played them enough.
I can faceroll people with just a chain of skills, you can’t do this with Guardians, Warriors or Ranger. Of course there are some builds that needs to be toned down, but it is another topic.

gaspara.4079:

Stealth doesn’t remove conditions at all, Hide in Shadows the healing skill does but that is the skill not stealth.

Also the good thieves do this yes, but good players of their class can do a lot of things. They aren’t the ones people are complaining about though because the good players should win. They all seem to be complaining about the lone thieves who just follow the step by step to gank other loners.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow%27s_Embrace

Combine this trait with Hide in Shadows and you have almost all conditions removed plus huge amount of healing in just one skill.

@ashanor, how so? every thief that uses this build shadow steps back which cures 3 conditions, usually at this point they are stealth ed by one of many abilities.

SKuDDer.1860:

@ashanor, how so? every thief that uses this build shadow steps back which cures 3 conditions, usually at this point they are stealth ed by one of many abilities.

Shadow step is a good thief skill, the formula insta-gib gank build doesn’t use it because adding another signet means 5% more damage and damage is everything.

sorrow.2364:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow%27s_Embrace

Combine this trait with Hide in Shadows and you have almost all conditions removed plus huge amount of healing in just one skill.

An insta-gib Backstab build is not going to put 10 points into shadow arts to get this. They will be 25/30/0/0/15 to get the damage they need.

gaspara.4079:

SKuDDer.1860:

@gaspara

Actually this is wrong, the good thieves stay with the zerg and use the zerg to the exploitative advantage, they are able to jump in kill and jump out without ever rendering.

The great thieves roam alone near supply camps with 1 or 2 other thieves and keep a zerg or small 10-15 group from capping supply camps due to WvWvW near infinite stealthing.

If they get in trouble they just stealth, which removes all conditions and run away. Honestly stealth should only remove 1 condition, not all.

Stealth doesn’t remove conditions at all, Hide in Shadows the healing skill does but that is the skill not stealth.

Also the good thieves do this yes, but good players of their class can do a lot of things. They aren’t the ones people are complaining about though because the good players should win. They all seem to be complaining about the lone thieves who just follow the step by step to gank other loners.

Stealth removes conditions if traited for it.

most thieves use shadow step, 3 conditions cured every time, or they heal/stealth and conditions cured, they are probably up there on the best condition removal along with guardians.

Remember: Any thief that ever killed you somehow has twice as many Skill Points as you so they can buy EVERY possible skill combo available, and is able to run using every utility at once (Signet, Trick, etc.)

SKuDDer.1860:

most thieves use shadow step, 3 conditions cured every time, or they heal/stealth and conditions cured, they are probably up there on the best condition removal along with guardians.

You are quite wrong on this. They are about average as far as condition removal and they are the most effected by it in the game due to their low health pool. A single decent bleed can down a thief if he is using healing signet and shadow step is on cooldown. I can’t count the number of times I won the fight against a random PvE mob but was downed because a single bleed stack I couldn’t cleanse did 50% of my life.

Eh if your heal and shadowstep are on cd, you are being too bold with your thief and that has to do with player skill level. Every 50 seconds you can remove basically all conditions twice, that is more then average in my book.

@sorrow I was talking more about offensive mobility like flanking strike

I don’t get people. People who are unhappy with this class are the people who don’t look and see the thief running at them. You know what they are going to do. So, how do you get hit by it? I never died to a thief under the conditions people complain about. The reason for this is I look to see who is around me. When playing my warrior I get crit for maybe 4k on a Backstab . That is the highest I have seen. The problem is people run glass cannon specs and think they should not die. The devs need to understand you can’t balance any toon on end game gear. The thief needs to be FULL glass cannon in order to kill people in the way people are complaining about. They are just as easy to kill as how fast they can kill.

The real question is, the mesmer is stronger than the thief why do people not complain about it too?

glass cannon builds (except thief) should have +50% more HP, and +50% more armor imo

Posibabis.5932:

@sorrow I was talking more about offensive mobility like flanking strike

Hearseeker, Death Blossom, Flanking Strike, Disabling Shot, Shadow Shot, Shadow Strike, Ink Shot, Shadow Assault, Infiltrator’s Strike
You mean skill like those?

sorrow.2364:

Posibabis.5932:

@sorrow I was talking more about offensive mobility like flanking strike

Hearseeker, Death Blossom, Flanking Strike, Disabling Shot, Shadow Shot, Shadow Strike, Ink Shot, Shadow Assault, Infiltrator’s Strike
You mean skill like those?

No, he means offensive as in closes the gap or puts you in a position to deal more damage. Only Heartseeker and Flanking strike really accomplish this. Mug traited steal also would count. You could maybe consider Death Blossom.

The rest you listed would be defensive because while they do damage they are designed to get you out of harms way rather than closer to it. Or they do no damage at all and they way they work seems more defensive.

gaspara.4079:

sorrow.2364:

Posibabis.5932:

@sorrow I was talking more about offensive mobility like flanking strike

Hearseeker, Death Blossom, Flanking Strike, Disabling Shot, Shadow Shot, Shadow Strike, Ink Shot, Shadow Assault, Infiltrator’s Strike
You mean skill like those?

No, he means offensive as in closes the gap or puts you in a position to deal more damage. Only Heartseeker and Flanking strike really accomplish this. Mug traited steal also would count. You could maybe consider Death Blossom.

The rest you listed would be defensive because while they do damage they are designed to get you out of harms way rather than closer to it. Or they do no damage at all and they way they work seems more defensive.

I don’t get what do you mean. You have bunch of mobility skills and you are saying you need more.. I can’t get the point.

Each weapon set you have has at least one gap closer plus you have one gap closer which doesn’t depends on weapon set (Steal).

@sogeou, I am hardly glass cannon build, for one there is no such thing in guardian. my build has 3000 armor and -33% dmg reduction. Glass cannon infers you do not put any toughness or spec toughness in your build, I have both, full line of toughness and toughness in all my gear. But I guess its reasonable that I can still be downed in 2-4 seconds by a thief that I cannot see even with that much armor and damage mitigation.

I have no idea what his point was and honestly I am happy with the class exactly the way it is. I was just trying to clarify what he was trying to say.

@SkuDDer:

I don´t think so, buddy :-) Not in equally geared situation (aka tPvP/sPvP) and against one, single Thief.
Maybe in those 4 seconds, if you have base HP pool and you try to facetank the guy attacking….. (and the Thief is very crit-lucky, too…)

Or maybe a 30k damage combo still does 15k damage against stacked Toughness within 0.3 seconds with 8 Initiative left over.

Ok, if you want to persuade Thief players, show an actual video-proof of someone doing that in sPvP/tPvP environment (not some outdated Jinzu´s burst build video please…)
I will believe it then

Edit: missing letter.

SKuDDer.1860:

@sogeou, I am hardly glass cannon build, for one there is no such thing in guardian. my build has 3000 armor and -33% dmg reduction. Glass cannon infers you do not put any toughness or spec toughness in your build, I have both, full line of toughness and toughness in all my gear. But I guess its reasonable that I can still be downed in 2-4 seconds by a thief that I cannot see even with that much armor and damage mitigation.

You know he probably has that trait that rips 2 of your boons when he steals so that 33% is gone when he backstabs you right? Also if he sees you first and you do nothing but stand there in that 4 seconds he should kill you, yes you should not be able to face tank anyone for more than a few seconds. All you have to do is slap him and he will basically be downed and probably run away leaving you untouched. Carry a stun and you can have him on the ground almost every time he doesn’t see you first.

@SKuDDer I have done all the test and have all my info on an excel file. You only have 1700 toughness which is good but, not that much. You are running in gear which gives you way too much attack power and have high crit damage. You wonder why you die. You can’t do high dps and stay alive. I understand warriors have a higher base HP pool. Your gear is still not helping you. Thief has a base of almost 1k without having any toughness. The problem is not backstab. The problem is the way people spec and crit damage. Bottom line. You will get nerfed on your damage too if they fix things the right way. I like how you are stacking crit damage the same thing in which the thief builds high damage, you are using.

Again, PvP is vastly different then WvW, stop using that as a comparison. In PvP sure you can see people, because there is limited distance, limited routes that you can travel. Try the same in WvW, you have more paths, more elevation, more obstacles. Not to mention stats in PvP don’t reflect stats in WvW, they are greatly different, then you toss in the effects of orbs, if a thief has 3 orbs game over.

Don’t worry, I will be making some videos tonight. From both the thief doing the damage, and the guardian taking it. To prove the point my build is not glass cannon or squishy, I will show you how I jump into zergs and push their line and have time to retreat.

STRanger.5120:

Ok, if you want to persuade Thief players, show an actual video-proof of someone doing that in sPvP/tPvP environment (not some outdated Jinzu´s burst build video please…)
I will believe it then

Edit: missing letter.

We already have screenshots demonstrating the kittendation of the mechanics + build + gear.

Do me a favor and go back and actually read the thread, particularly my posts, where I already documented the key reasons why the capability is currently overpowered and the ways to fix it.

It’s hilarious that thieves think they should automatically kill players just by looking in their direction.

@EasymodeX.4062:

Screenshots are hardly a proof, especially WvW ones. Everybody can screenshot a combat log without actually showing the fight itself, you know?

What fight?

It starts and ends within 0.3 seconds.

You know? (That’s a rhetorical question, because if you actually played the build, you would know)

STRanger don’t mind easymode x. He is a troll in all games. The damage he is talking about is fake. Real damage that a thief will do vs a toon with the same lvl and buffs and gear will be around a max 12k with all crits without orb buffs and a pot and bloodlust.

SKuDDer.1860:

Don’t worry, I will be making some videos tonight. From both the thief doing the damage, and the guardian taking it. To prove the point my build is not glass cannon or squishy, I will show you how I jump into zergs and push their line and have time to retreat.

This is the attitude I´m looking for.
For explanation to everyone arguing here, I´m not telling that Thief is Balanced or OP or UP, I just want ppl to deliver proofs if they are telling something.
And the solution to such situation, that´s entirely different case, cause any change to skills/mechanics affects much more than only one build, ppl should understand those too…

Oh man, soge calling me a troll. I should have recorded Vent.

For explanation to everyone arguing here, I´m not telling that Thief is Balanced or OP or UP, I just want ppl to deliver proofs if they are telling something.

Proof’s already in the thread. You’re sticking your head in the sand and/or are ignorant of your own class.

It’s pretty absurdly easy to set up the gear to do this — it’s the same setup to get >25k Kill Shots on Warriors or other absurd damage numbers on almost any class. The difference is that Thieves have the toolkit to do it instantly, with no telegraph, and from range. All while having categorically superior “GTFO” mechanisms.

@sogeou.7845:

Don´t worry, I´m pretty much aware of that But thanks fo support

once again, i am here to remind that the only thing this kind of thief can do is to kill a single person if not countered properly. This is not something anyone should ever care about in game with mass pvp and near instant no-downside ress.

SKuDDer.1860:

most thieves use shadow step, 3 conditions cured every time, or they heal/stealth and conditions cured, they are probably up there on the best condition removal along with guardians.

This guy below pretty much summed it up…

You clearly don’t have a realistic concept of what typical real world thieves run. You should make a thief and go do a bunch of sPvP for a couple weeks or something and see how you can’t actually make these builds that specialize in everything at the same time.

Most thief players have terrible condition removal because they normally don’t feel they can afford to take the few options available, so they just roll the dice.

The most common thing you find in reality is a thief has Hide in Shadows that provides dot removal only on 30s CD, and that’s it. And then we have folks like you previously telling us we’re supposed to be using HiS offensively to get extra backstabs…and also telling us we’re supposed to use it as an escape. It’s pretty difficult to backstab while running away while also timing it with dot removal.

Shadowstep is fairly popular, but not even half of thieves run with it. Its primary function is gap-closer and a lot of folks feel like they can make do with other mobility tools so they fill the utility slot with a more urgent need. Many who do run it mostly do so purposing it as a stun-breaker to keep from dying to several burst classes/builds that disable->burst. So, again even if a person does take it this one button is supposed to magically be use offensively for crazy backstab combos while also stun-breaking while also being a primary condition removal all at the same time with a 50s cooldown.

Another potential source is Signet of Agility, although pretty much the only ones who would be using it is a Signet build – in which case they would likely not have Hide in Shadows (Signet of Malice instead) and not have Shadowstep (Infiltrator’s Signet instead).

The only thing that really gives a thief solid condition removal is Shadow’s Embrace combined with a stealth build. Although, again – most thieves don’t have this. Because Infusion of Shadow is essentially a must-have requirement for this type of build to be able to afford using stealth, it’s 20 points minimum into Shadow Arts. This might come as a surprise, but a lot of players like putting points in other trees (or different traits in SA tree) to abuse guardians with.

So, sure…a thief could make a pretty strong condition removal build if they wanted to, but there’s a lot of important things they would have to leave out in order to do so.

When I was running a P/D venom-share condition damage build, thieves were generally some of my easiest targets to kill because the vast majority of them had no way to cope with my non-stop bleeds and had a relatively delicate health pool. Their only chance was to try to just kill me faster – and that didn’t happen often as long as I just moved around and evaded adequately and threw in a few cripples.

Dominae.3146:

Remember: Any thief that ever killed you somehow has twice as many Skill Points as you so they can buy EVERY possible skill combo available, and is able to run using every utility at once (Signet, Trick, etc.)

STRanger.5120:

@sogeou.7845:

Don´t worry, I´m pretty much aware of that But thanks fo support

I don’t think you’ve ever had the opportunity to listen to soge talk about himself for 15 minutes straight.

This thread started off funny with the backstab discussion, but this is even more hilarious.

Also you can’t look a some SS. There was a glitch which one rune set was giving 50% extra damage. I saw lots of people including some thieves using this bug. Button line is a thief won’t kill someone in .03 second. If all things are equal it will take a few.