Guild Wars 2

Not so much forced but-

“Thank you, Karl.”

For not submitting to the power creep allure and thereby saving thief from what might be a tsunami of nerfs to the new meta.

Quite frankly, notwitstanding the issues with Acrobatics and a number of other traits and skills that need fine turning, I think the Thief well designed and in particular the DD line. It a very active gameplay type style that requires constant ongoing decisions by the player rather than just relying on passive procs stacked on top of another and singular overpowered skills.

I am in full agreement with you.

Power creep is badly needed in PvE though. Focusing in PvP meta should not dictate what happens in other game modes…that’s very shortsighted.

Gaile said that all game modes are part of their iteration process and I really want to believe that to be true, but the experience can speak for itself when Thieves aren’t even welcome in raids.

Thieves can barely survive dynamic events. Just looking at the Legendary Wyvern fight, when the whole area is covered in flames, Thief can’t even DPS since they have no long range weapon. Stealing to get in melee range is suicide and neither pistol nor shortbow can reach the target. If the Thief touch the flame, they melt in seconds. When I take my Thief that that encounter, I’m basically dodging the whole fight trying to stay alive rather than contributing by DPSing. With the Thief’s kind of defense mechanism, they should be the highest damaging profession.

So while it is perceived that the Thief is OK, that they don’t need to subject to power creep, their PvE performance is lackluster at best. So what exactly are you thankful for?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Power creep is badly needed in PvE though. Focusing in PvP meta should not dictate what happens in other game modes…that’s very shortsighted.

Gaile said that all game modes are part of their iteration process and I really want to believe that to be true, but the experience can speak for itself when Thieves aren’t even welcome in raids.

Thieves can barely survive dynamic events. Just looking at the Legendary Wyvern fight, when the whole area is covered in flames, Thief can’t even DPS since they have no long range weapon. Stealing to get in melee range is suicide and neither pistol nor shortbow can reach the target. If the Thief touch the flame, they melt in seconds. When I take my Thief that that encounter, I’m basically dodging the whole fight trying to stay alive rather than contributing by DPSing. With the Thief’s kind of defense mechanism, they should be the highest damaging profession.

So while it is perceived that the Thief is OK, that they don’t need to subject to power creep, their PvE performance is lackluster at best. So what exactly are you thankful for?

What’s “PVE?”

beat

Jokes aside I am thankful for knowing we aren’t on the chopping block this iteration.

I know that there’s full-fledged thief shunning in PVE, and while that can be worked on (and should be), I’m happy that balancing is (and I cannot believe I am saying this) for the most part tentative, seeing as how wide power leaps just make the game as a whole unpleasant to experience.

Maybe this is a learning experience for the devs, I dont know; but I prefer being underwhelming to rubberbanding between metas through sweeping buffs and nerfs.

Thief does need sustain though. I am in no way saying I am satisfied with thief as it stands.

Begrudgingly grateful that we didnt get sweeping changes that would end up destroying more builds in the end than it created. That being said, the inverse is partially true for PVE, where content is cooperative and the AI does not have a perception of OP.

… I pretty much said the same thing with about 100 extra words.

What is PVE? Make thieves viable there and worry about PVP seperately ofc.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Power creep is badly needed in PvE though. Focusing in PvP meta should not dictate what happens in other game modes…that’s very shortsighted.

Gaile said that all game modes are part of their iteration process and I really want to believe that to be true, but the experience can speak for itself when Thieves aren’t even welcome in raids.

Thieves can barely survive dynamic events. Just looking at the Legendary Wyvern fight, when the whole area is covered in flames, Thief can’t even DPS since they have no long range weapon. Stealing to get in melee range is suicide and neither pistol nor shortbow can reach the target. If the Thief touch the flame, they melt in seconds. When I take my Thief that that encounter, I’m basically dodging the whole fight trying to stay alive rather than contributing by DPSing. With the Thief’s kind of defense mechanism, they should be the highest damaging profession.

So while it is perceived that the Thief is OK, that they don’t need to subject to power creep, their PvE performance is lackluster at best. So what exactly are you thankful for?

What’s PVE?

My point exactly.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Power creep is badly needed in PvE though. Focusing in PvP meta should not dictate what happens in other game modes…that’s very shortsighted.

Gaile said that all game modes are part of their iteration process and I really want to believe that to be true, but the experience can speak for itself when Thieves aren’t even welcome in raids.

Thieves can barely survive dynamic events. Just looking at the Legendary Wyvern fight, when the whole area is covered in flames, Thief can’t even DPS since they have no long range weapon. Stealing to get in melee range is suicide and neither pistol nor shortbow can reach the target. If the Thief touch the flame, they melt in seconds. When I take my Thief that that encounter, I’m basically dodging the whole fight trying to stay alive rather than contributing by DPSing. With the Thief’s kind of defense mechanism, they should be the highest damaging profession.

So while it is perceived that the Thief is OK, that they don’t need to subject to power creep, their PvE performance is lackluster at best. So what exactly are you thankful for?

What’s PVE?

My point exactly.

I didn’t mean it though, explanation above.

I ended up coming full circle and still meaning it

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Power creep is badly needed in PvE though. Focusing in PvP meta should not dictate what happens in other game modes…that’s very shortsighted.

Gaile said that all game modes are part of their iteration process and I really want to believe that to be true, but the experience can speak for itself when Thieves aren’t even welcome in raids.

Thieves can barely survive dynamic events. Just looking at the Legendary Wyvern fight, when the whole area is covered in flames, Thief can’t even DPS since they have no long range weapon. Stealing to get in melee range is suicide and neither pistol nor shortbow can reach the target. If the Thief touch the flame, they melt in seconds. When I take my Thief that that encounter, I’m basically dodging the whole fight trying to stay alive rather than contributing by DPSing. With the Thief’s kind of defense mechanism, they should be the highest damaging profession.

So while it is perceived that the Thief is OK, that they don’t need to subject to power creep, their PvE performance is lackluster at best. So what exactly are you thankful for?

Well this due to a lack of range on the thiefs ranged weaponsets which I agree with. It not due to power being lacking. In That meta in TD I bring my PP thief and pound out 10k damage per unload on the boss. Granted I get boons from others in the area but this is substantial damage.

Legendary Wyvern can be a pain for the reasons you mentioned but I manage to dodge around enough to find spots I can get within range but again this not an issue with power being lacking.

We probably have to determine first what is meant by “power creep”. I see it more as the amount of damage one is able to inflict rather then ones own ability to survive. It in that survival the thief lacking. What has happened is other professions maintain that high survival while being able to dish out just as much damage. The damage they dish out has to be brought back down to Earth.

babazhook.6805:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Power creep is badly needed in PvE though. Focusing in PvP meta should not dictate what happens in other game modes…that’s very shortsighted.

Gaile said that all game modes are part of their iteration process and I really want to believe that to be true, but the experience can speak for itself when Thieves aren’t even welcome in raids.

Thieves can barely survive dynamic events. Just looking at the Legendary Wyvern fight, when the whole area is covered in flames, Thief can’t even DPS since they have no long range weapon. Stealing to get in melee range is suicide and neither pistol nor shortbow can reach the target. If the Thief touch the flame, they melt in seconds. When I take my Thief that that encounter, I’m basically dodging the whole fight trying to stay alive rather than contributing by DPSing. With the Thief’s kind of defense mechanism, they should be the highest damaging profession.

So while it is perceived that the Thief is OK, that they don’t need to subject to power creep, their PvE performance is lackluster at best. So what exactly are you thankful for?

Well this due to a lack of range on the thiefs ranged weaponsets which I agree with. It not due to power being lacking. In That meta in TD I bring my PP thief and pound out 10k damage per unload on the boss. Granted I get boons from others in the area but this is substantial damage.

Legendary Wyvern can be a pain for the reasons you mentioned but I manage to dodge around enough to find spots I can get within range but again this not an issue with power being lacking.

My point is, if the Thief is required to dodge around as their defense mechanism instead of tank-n-spank, their DPS drops as a result. So in order to compensate for that drop, the Thief should get a damage boost as a supplement. Dodging shouldn’t be a punishing feature. Now Bound has the +10% damage boost, but even that is not enough, plus it pigeon hole the builds into taking Bound if the Thief didn’t want their DPS to suffer.

We probably have to determine first what is meant by “power creep”. I see it more as the amount of damage one is able to inflict rather then ones own ability to survive. It in that survival the thief lacking. What has happened is other professions maintain that high survival while being able to dish out just as much damage. The damage they dish out has to be brought back down to Earth.

Somewhat in-line of what I’m talking about since survival is a major factor. Yes, the Thief might be in the right place in terms of damage, that is if the target is a dummy golem. But as soon as the Thief needs to survive, which is by dodging or stealthing, or better yet getting out of range — DPS drops — while other professions can stay where they are and continue their DPS uninterrupted.

So you brought up an actually good question;

Should the Thief maintain their current power level but suffer when they attempt to survive or should the Thief’s power be brought up so attempting to survive won’t be detrimental to their damage output?

If they increase the Thief’s survivability by not relying on dodging/stealthing too much, then there won’t be any need for power up — which I agree.

However, if they maintain dodging/stealthing as the Thief’s base survival skills, which is more than likely to happen, then IMO the Thief needs a lot of power ups.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

babazhook.6805:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Power creep is badly needed in PvE though. Focusing in PvP meta should not dictate what happens in other game modes…that’s very shortsighted.

Gaile said that all game modes are part of their iteration process and I really want to believe that to be true, but the experience can speak for itself when Thieves aren’t even welcome in raids.

Thieves can barely survive dynamic events. Just looking at the Legendary Wyvern fight, when the whole area is covered in flames, Thief can’t even DPS since they have no long range weapon. Stealing to get in melee range is suicide and neither pistol nor shortbow can reach the target. If the Thief touch the flame, they melt in seconds. When I take my Thief that that encounter, I’m basically dodging the whole fight trying to stay alive rather than contributing by DPSing. With the Thief’s kind of defense mechanism, they should be the highest damaging profession.

So while it is perceived that the Thief is OK, that they don’t need to subject to power creep, their PvE performance is lackluster at best. So what exactly are you thankful for?

Well this due to a lack of range on the thiefs ranged weaponsets which I agree with. It not due to power being lacking. In That meta in TD I bring my PP thief and pound out 10k damage per unload on the boss. Granted I get boons from others in the area but this is substantial damage.

Legendary Wyvern can be a pain for the reasons you mentioned but I manage to dodge around enough to find spots I can get within range but again this not an issue with power being lacking.

My point is, if the Thief is required to dodge around as their defense mechanism instead of tank-n-spank, their DPS drops as a result. So in order to compensate for that drop, the Thief should get a damage boost as a supplement. Dodging shouldn’t be a punishing feature. Now Bound has the +10% damage boost, but even that is not enough, plus it pigeon hole the builds into taking Bound if the Thief didn’t want their DPS to suffer.

We probably have to determine first what is meant by “power creep”. I see it more as the amount of damage one is able to inflict rather then ones own ability to survive. It in that survival the thief lacking. What has happened is other professions maintain that high survival while being able to dish out just as much damage. The damage they dish out has to be brought back down to Earth.

Somewhat in-line of what I’m talking about since survival is a major factor. Yes, the Thief might be in the right place in terms of damage, that is if the target is a dummy golem. But as soon as the Thief needs to survive, which is by dodging or stealthing, or better yet getting out of range — DPS drops — while other professions can stay where they are and continue their DPS uninterrupted.

So you brought up an actually good question;

Should the Thief maintain their current power level but suffer when they attempt to survive or should the Thief’s power be brought up so attempting to survive won’t be detrimental to their damage output?

If they increase the Thief’s survivability by not relying on dodging/stealthing too much, then there won’t be any need for power up — which I agree.

However, if they maintain dodging/stealthing as the Thief’s base survival skills, which is more than likely to happen, then IMO the Thief needs a lot of power ups.

Well one thing I do NOT want to do is break the class. There no doubt a Revenant very powerful and even my limited time on it rather “easy to play” when it comes to surviving or inflicting damage, but I find it boring relative to thief.

A part of what makes thief so fun for many of us to play might well be that “I make a mistake or two I am dead” thing that goes on. At the same time there has to be a reasonable chance we can prevail in fights when the enemy makes mistakes or we outplay them.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Not so much forced but-

“Thank you, Karl.”

For not submitting to the power creep allure and thereby saving thief from what might be a tsunami of nerfs to the new meta.

Gotta agree with this. Yeah, we’re not as strong as everyone else right now, but that’s because of the power creep more than anything. Aside from tweaks needed to individual traits and skills, SA could use a small reorganization and acro needs an overhaul/retheming. That’s pretty much it. Others just need to be brought back down to their base class levels as their specializations outclass their own other lines. Acro could use the same focus that Daredevil was given to bring it back up. I still think FG could just be rolled into Enforcer Training or Escapist’s Absolution to round out the line so acro can be built from the ground up again; maybe it can be made into a shadowstep/boonhate line (Infiltration Arts?).

Anyway, agree with the sentiment.

True but also a bit sad… Thief (and warrior, I guess) are actually balanced very well, the other classes however… Urgh.
Guess we got to wait for the other classes to get toned down…

Yeah, thanks Karl. Thief was always my favorite profession design-wise along with mesmer, and I love what Karl has done with daredevil. Now, let’s just wait till pvp is playable again and we’ll be having a blast.

There’s a grand old Jesus & Mary Chain tune called ’Everything’s Alright When You’re Down’.

Yeah, I know what you mean; my experience with all MMOs is that whatever I love about the game will eventually get destroyed, which means that I try not to invest much emotionally into the game.

But here, the only class that I really enjoy playing can’t get much worse, so I can (hopefully, but we’ll see…) invest a bit more. I made a couple of Revs (one totally not a Jedi, little green Asura with Plasma swords, just for laughs), but just wasn’t feeling it.

Part of that was the feeling that once the class has done its job by shifting x amount of (HoT) units, it’s really going to feel the heavy end of the nerf hammer – so I didn’t want to invest too much.

As usual, I agree with the good Sir Vincent III: We should probably keep something like our survivability model, which means that we should have increased damage. But at least Rogue has a thematic additional way to balance that damage, to stop it being too OP (plz nerf!).

Rather than overall boosted damage, all the time, we should have a very spiky damage curve, with high peaks and low troughs; the mean average being about what it is now. That would fit our survivability model just right.

babazhook.6805:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

babazhook.6805:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Power creep is badly needed in PvE though. Focusing in PvP meta should not dictate what happens in other game modes…that’s very shortsighted.

Gaile said that all game modes are part of their iteration process and I really want to believe that to be true, but the experience can speak for itself when Thieves aren’t even welcome in raids.

Thieves can barely survive dynamic events. Just looking at the Legendary Wyvern fight, when the whole area is covered in flames, Thief can’t even DPS since they have no long range weapon. Stealing to get in melee range is suicide and neither pistol nor shortbow can reach the target. If the Thief touch the flame, they melt in seconds. When I take my Thief that that encounter, I’m basically dodging the whole fight trying to stay alive rather than contributing by DPSing. With the Thief’s kind of defense mechanism, they should be the highest damaging profession.

So while it is perceived that the Thief is OK, that they don’t need to subject to power creep, their PvE performance is lackluster at best. So what exactly are you thankful for?

Well this due to a lack of range on the thiefs ranged weaponsets which I agree with. It not due to power being lacking. In That meta in TD I bring my PP thief and pound out 10k damage per unload on the boss. Granted I get boons from others in the area but this is substantial damage.

Legendary Wyvern can be a pain for the reasons you mentioned but I manage to dodge around enough to find spots I can get within range but again this not an issue with power being lacking.

My point is, if the Thief is required to dodge around as their defense mechanism instead of tank-n-spank, their DPS drops as a result. So in order to compensate for that drop, the Thief should get a damage boost as a supplement. Dodging shouldn’t be a punishing feature. Now Bound has the +10% damage boost, but even that is not enough, plus it pigeon hole the builds into taking Bound if the Thief didn’t want their DPS to suffer.

We probably have to determine first what is meant by “power creep”. I see it more as the amount of damage one is able to inflict rather then ones own ability to survive. It in that survival the thief lacking. What has happened is other professions maintain that high survival while being able to dish out just as much damage. The damage they dish out has to be brought back down to Earth.

Somewhat in-line of what I’m talking about since survival is a major factor. Yes, the Thief might be in the right place in terms of damage, that is if the target is a dummy golem. But as soon as the Thief needs to survive, which is by dodging or stealthing, or better yet getting out of range — DPS drops — while other professions can stay where they are and continue their DPS uninterrupted.

So you brought up an actually good question;

Should the Thief maintain their current power level but suffer when they attempt to survive or should the Thief’s power be brought up so attempting to survive won’t be detrimental to their damage output?

If they increase the Thief’s survivability by not relying on dodging/stealthing too much, then there won’t be any need for power up — which I agree.

However, if they maintain dodging/stealthing as the Thief’s base survival skills, which is more than likely to happen, then IMO the Thief needs a lot of power ups.

Well one thing I do NOT want to do is break the class. There no doubt a Revenant very powerful and even my limited time on it rather “easy to play” when it comes to surviving or inflicting damage, but I find it boring relative to thief.

This is why the original design to separate PvE and PvP skills was great that it allows the Dev to give PvE Thieves the power they need. They can even make pistol and shortbow range 1200 again in PvE. At the current state of the Thief, the changes only benefit the PvP while PvE Thieves remains way below average.

A part of what makes thief so fun for many of us to play might well be that “I make a mistake or two I am dead” thing that goes on. At the same time there has to be a reasonable chance we can prevail in fights when the enemy makes mistakes or we outplay them.

The major appeal of the Thief is that it is a high risk, high reward profession. Shaving off the reward and minimizing the risk only hurts the profession — and that’s where we are now. They need to give the Thief back their high reward playstyle starting with Backstab.

They can reprogram Revealed to do the following;
- non-Thief profession gets 3s Revealed after attacking from Stealth
- Thief do not get Revealed by attacking from stealth unless the skill specified it (edit: instead, they simply lose stealth)
- All stealth attacks applies a 10s Revealed

Then they can make stealth attacks more rewarding, for instance, making Backstab deal more damage than Vault since it is a single target skill. In addition, give all stealth attack an armor-ignoring ability ignoring 15%-25% of the target’s armor, whichever is balanced.

There’s a lot of work that needs to be done on the Thief, that’s why it’s too soon for a thank you.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

There’s a lot of work that needs to be done on the Thief, that’s why it’s too soon for a thank you.

I’d like to agree with you but I’m probably happily suffering a delusion and equating not-nightmarish with good.

Again, in no way is thief in a good place . Ive just had enough of the chopping block.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Thieves can barely survive dynamic events. Just looking at the Legendary Wyvern fight, when the whole area is covered in flames, Thief can’t even DPS since they have no long range weapon.

I sit under the wyvern in that fight. It doesn’t make flames underneath its body
(though I’m usually using my zerker d/f ele rather than my thief. similar class/build though. melee with no armor or heath pool)

reikken.4961:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Thieves can barely survive dynamic events. Just looking at the Legendary Wyvern fight, when the whole area is covered in flames, Thief can’t even DPS since they have no long range weapon.

I sit under the wyvern in that fight. It doesn’t make flames underneath its body
(though I’m usually using my zerker d/f ele rather than my thief. similar class/build though. melee with no armor or heath pool)

I’ve done the event many times and I’m aware of spots that you can use. However, it’s not always the case since it’s part of the fight mechanic for the Wyvern to move around, which most of the time on top of the flame, especially after the flyby it has a tendency to land on the flames — thus, standing under the body is suicide.

Oh but the real balance patch hasn’t hit yet…

CnD damage nerf, SE nerf, CiS in grandmaster, revealed.

Someone knew nothing about thieves…

There’s not many thieves around anymore. If they were people would run with pitchforks to complain about evades.

Well the meta is solid right now, no need to move off point… xD

Hence no QQ’s about thieves.