Guild Wars 2

Can we get a boost to power on thieves? I ask this because anymore even a blade of grass or just air seems to be strong enough to obstruct all our attacks . Maybe we need more power to actually be able to get our daggers, swords and pistols to go through the grass and air and reach the person in front of us.

If you’re referring to our damage, it’s fine. Honestly we don’t need any more buffs to it.

If you’re referring to range, it’s the same melee range as any other class.

Lol you missed the post but it is ok. Must have had your vision obstructed by Guild Wars op stems of grass and massively tough air that cant be cut through.

Thorin.9624:

Can we get a boost to power on thieves? I ask this because anymore even a blade of grass or just air seems to be strong enough to obstruct all our attacks . Maybe we need more power to actually be able to get our daggers, swords and pistols to go through the grass and air and reach the person in front of us.

I lol’d nice post OP ^^

Obviously I did miss the post, because I have no idea what you’re talking about. Could you please be more specific on what it is you’re asking?

Edit: Ah, you’re talking about obstructed. Which I don’t know why you’re having a huge problem with, although there are some instances where it is bs, its usually fine for me. Doesn’t happen on flat surfaces. And melee weapons can’t get obstructed…

Although, there are instances where steal gets obstructed.

alchemyst.2165:

If you’re referring to our damage, it’s fine. Honestly we don’t need any more buffs to it.

If you’re referring to range, it’s the same melee range as any other class.

Totally depends on the context. Most of our damage is from % modifiers

WvW: thief damage is fine.
PvE: thief has some of the best single target dps.
PvP: theif hits well below average.

Why do we hit low in pvp? because a lot of our damage modifiers are % based, and with lower stat pools overall we suffer.

What OP should be asking for is flat damage modifiers.

Thorin.9624:

Can we get a boost to power on thieves? I ask this because anymore even a blade of grass or just air seems to be strong enough to obstruct all our attacks . Maybe we need more power to actually be able to get our daggers, swords and pistols to go through the grass and air and reach the person in front of us.

Maybe we need to start learning how to do more trick shots, throwing out copper and ricocheting bullets and arrows off them.

i think he wanted to know how game works with hit box detection. very few skills that override it. mostly mesmer clone i cant think of any other off the top of my head

Gosh guys, he’s just commenting about the logic of GW2, in which air and grass seems to be stronger than the steel of blades, shots of gun, etc. Have you noticed the skins? Or some abilities? They don’t look strong enough to hold such things.

Eval.2371:

alchemyst.2165:

If you’re referring to our damage, it’s fine. Honestly we don’t need any more buffs to it.

If you’re referring to range, it’s the same melee range as any other class.

Totally depends on the context. Most of our damage is from % modifiers

WvW: thief damage is fine.
PvE: thief has some of the best single target dps.
PvP: theif hits well below average.

Why do we hit low in pvp? because a lot of our damage modifiers are % based, and with lower stat pools overall we suffer.

What OP should be asking for is flat damage modifiers.

Thief WvW damage is far from fine lol. A single vault/backstab still does half a revenant’s health in a mug combo with a revenant having 3.6k armor and marauder’s armor with cavalier trinkets.

And thanks to shadowstep you are never dying against anyone in WvW unless it’s another thief.

Zenith.7301:

Eval.2371:

alchemyst.2165:

If you’re referring to our damage, it’s fine. Honestly we don’t need any more buffs to it.

If you’re referring to range, it’s the same melee range as any other class.

Totally depends on the context. Most of our damage is from % modifiers

WvW: thief damage is fine.
PvE: thief has some of the best single target dps.
PvP: theif hits well below average.

Why do we hit low in pvp? because a lot of our damage modifiers are % based, and with lower stat pools overall we suffer.

What OP should be asking for is flat damage modifiers.

Thief WvW damage is far from fine lol. A single vault/backstab still does half a revenant’s health in a mug combo with a revenant having 3.6k armor and marauder’s armor with cavalier trinkets.

And thanks to shadowstep you are never dying against anyone in WvW unless it’s another thief.

If you have 3600 armor and the associated boons and are losing half your health, I can tell you that you’re running no HP. In which case, a full combo coming from a build investing in two (maybe three) damage traitlines should only be dealing half health.

Shadowstep has a 50s base cooldown and is used as a condition cleanse in most cases.

You have to be actually bad and have no mobility or range to let that control a fight. As a rev, a few AA’s from hammer will down a thief, and you have the mobility in shiro to keep up with it.

Aside from dire condition builds or ghost thief, you beat a thief in WvW by out-playing it, and once you know the nuances of the class, it’s not tremendously difficult to do in most cases (obviously there are always going to be some players who massively out-perform you/me/anyone).

There are definitely balance tweaks that should be made in both directions, such as cutting down Shadow Shot’s effectiveness per initiative/cast, however the problems with the class are pretty inconsistent between formats as Eval said above due to the scaling-based nature the class offers (Backstab has a lower skill damage coefficient than many new skills introduced with HoT). On the converse, there are some things within the thief that are strictly terrible and need substantial changes, such as OH dagger’s pitiful state, and the relative uselessness of the CS trait line due to the huge power-creep from offensive boosts to the thief baseline in other mixed/utility trait lines as well as huge defensive power creep to most professions since HoT, including the thief.

Zenith.7301:

Eval.2371:

alchemyst.2165:

If you’re referring to our damage, it’s fine. Honestly we don’t need any more buffs to it.

If you’re referring to range, it’s the same melee range as any other class.

Totally depends on the context. Most of our damage is from % modifiers

WvW: thief damage is fine.
PvE: thief has some of the best single target dps.
PvP: theif hits well below average.

Why do we hit low in pvp? because a lot of our damage modifiers are % based, and with lower stat pools overall we suffer.

What OP should be asking for is flat damage modifiers.

Thief WvW damage is far from fine lol. A single vault/backstab still does half a revenant’s health in a mug combo with a revenant having 3.6k armor and marauder’s armor with cavalier trinkets.

And thanks to shadowstep you are never dying against anyone in WvW unless it’s another thief.

If you’re getting half your HP gone with 3.6k armor you have other problems lol.

That, or they’re LITERALLY full zerk scholar rune PVE build.

And by the logic that thief damage is far from fine, then in turn, FA ele is far from fine, rifle warrior is far from fine, REVENANT damage is far from fine, etc.

DeceiverX.8361:

Zenith.7301:

Eval.2371:

alchemyst.2165:

If you’re referring to our damage, it’s fine. Honestly we don’t need any more buffs to it.

If you’re referring to range, it’s the same melee range as any other class.

Totally depends on the context. Most of our damage is from % modifiers

WvW: thief damage is fine.
PvE: thief has some of the best single target dps.
PvP: theif hits well below average.

Why do we hit low in pvp? because a lot of our damage modifiers are % based, and with lower stat pools overall we suffer.

What OP should be asking for is flat damage modifiers.

Thief WvW damage is far from fine lol. A single vault/backstab still does half a revenant’s health in a mug combo with a revenant having 3.6k armor and marauder’s armor with cavalier trinkets.

And thanks to shadowstep you are never dying against anyone in WvW unless it’s another thief.

If you have 3600 armor and the associated boons and are losing half your health, I can tell you that you’re running no HP. In which case, a full combo coming from a build investing in two (maybe three) damage traitlines should only be dealing half health.

Shadowstep has a 50s base cooldown and is used as a condition cleanse in most cases.

You have to be actually bad and have no mobility or range to let that control a fight. As a rev, a few AA’s from hammer will down a thief, and you have the mobility in shiro to keep up with it.

Aside from dire condition builds or ghost thief, you beat a thief in WvW by out-playing it, and once you know the nuances of the class, it’s not tremendously difficult to do in most cases (obviously there are always going to be some players who massively out-perform you/me/anyone).

There are definitely balance tweaks that should be made in both directions, such as cutting down Shadow Shot’s effectiveness per initiative/cast, however the problems with the class are pretty inconsistent between formats as Eval said above due to the scaling-based nature the class offers (Backstab has a lower skill damage coefficient than many new skills introduced with HoT). On the converse, there are some things within the thief that are strictly terrible and need substantial changes, such as OH dagger’s pitiful state, and the relative uselessness of the CS trait line due to the huge power-creep from offensive boosts to the thief baseline in other mixed/utility trait lines as well as huge defensive power creep to most professions since HoT, including the thief.

This has nothing to do about a match up. I used a medium HP plate class as an example of an HP sack to demonstrate how thief damage is not just “fine”.

Thief damage in WvW on a single target is simply the best by a mile, so let’s not pretend like thief is some mediocre profession for WvW roaming.

WvW is virtually flooded with daredevils, I’m not allowing you this pity party.

P.S. If you are getting hit by rev hammer autos, it’s you who has problems. It;s virtually the slowest ranged weapon in the game, and the moment a rev switches to hammer is the moment you can all in him as hammer has no defensive skills whatsoever and he’s stuck in it for 10 seconds.

Rev vs. thief match up is stupid easy for thief after all the phase traversal/UA nerfs. Kite with shortbow evade spam when he tries to melee, the moment he tries to hammer you burst him down.

Phase traversal pretty much drains their entire energy bar on shiro swap so all they can do for the next several seconds is autoattack you, and your autoattacks>theirs.

alchemyst.2165:

Zenith.7301:

Eval.2371:

alchemyst.2165:

If you’re referring to our damage, it’s fine. Honestly we don’t need any more buffs to it.

If you’re referring to range, it’s the same melee range as any other class.

Totally depends on the context. Most of our damage is from % modifiers

WvW: thief damage is fine.
PvE: thief has some of the best single target dps.
PvP: theif hits well below average.

Why do we hit low in pvp? because a lot of our damage modifiers are % based, and with lower stat pools overall we suffer.

What OP should be asking for is flat damage modifiers.

Thief WvW damage is far from fine lol. A single vault/backstab still does half a revenant’s health in a mug combo with a revenant having 3.6k armor and marauder’s armor with cavalier trinkets.

And thanks to shadowstep you are never dying against anyone in WvW unless it’s another thief.

If you’re getting half your HP gone with 3.6k armor you have other problems lol.

That, or they’re LITERALLY full zerk scholar rune PVE build.

And by the logic that thief damage is far from fine, then in turn, FA ele is far from fine, rifle warrior is far from fine, REVENANT damage is far from fine, etc.

Anything other than zergling zerker staff ele is not remotely viable in spvp or WvW, so cut the BS. A thief or mesmer can run mostly zerk; an ele cannot as he does not have the amount of defenses/mobility baseline if he abandons his bunker build.

Moreover, scepter FA ele requires the landing of scepter 2, 2 bounces of phoenix behind a moving target and a fire grab to do his burst, all highly telegraphed and with large cast times and cd’s besides scepter 2.

Rifle warrior is similarly telegraphed with long casts, stationary while doing his burst. Steal is instant, ports you to a target, and if you somehow mess that one up there’s always infiltrator signet for another quick port to target for a burst.

And people don’t bring rev to WvW for damage (which is mediocre after nerfs), they bring them for boons.

Revs are also terrible roamers. They have virtually no escapes after the nerf to phase traversal. You might as well go roam on a necro, or guardian, it will be the same as a rev.

The roaming classes are daredevil, scrapper, and mesmer for a reason.

My goodness lol the sad state of forums when people cant get sarcasm. And yes melee attacks can get obstructed.

Zenith.7301:

DeceiverX.8361:

If you have 3600 armor and the associated boons and are losing half your health, I can tell you that you’re running no HP. In which case, a full combo coming from a build investing in two (maybe three) damage traitlines should only be dealing half health.

Shadowstep has a 50s base cooldown and is used as a condition cleanse in most cases.

You have to be actually bad and have no mobility or range to let that control a fight. As a rev, a few AA’s from hammer will down a thief, and you have the mobility in shiro to keep up with it.

Aside from dire condition builds or ghost thief, you beat a thief in WvW by out-playing it, and once you know the nuances of the class, it’s not tremendously difficult to do in most cases (obviously there are always going to be some players who massively out-perform you/me/anyone).

There are definitely balance tweaks that should be made in both directions, such as cutting down Shadow Shot’s effectiveness per initiative/cast, however the problems with the class are pretty inconsistent between formats as Eval said above due to the scaling-based nature the class offers (Backstab has a lower skill damage coefficient than many new skills introduced with HoT). On the converse, there are some things within the thief that are strictly terrible and need substantial changes, such as OH dagger’s pitiful state, and the relative uselessness of the CS trait line due to the huge power-creep from offensive boosts to the thief baseline in other mixed/utility trait lines as well as huge defensive power creep to most professions since HoT, including the thief.

This has nothing to do about a match up. I used a medium HP plate class as an example of an HP sack to demonstrate how thief damage is not just “fine”.

Thief damage in WvW on a single target is simply the best by a mile, so let’s not pretend like thief is some mediocre profession for WvW roaming.

WvW is virtually flooded with daredevils, I’m not allowing you this pity party.

P.S. If you are getting hit by rev hammer autos, it’s you who has problems. It;s virtually the slowest ranged weapon in the game, and the moment a rev switches to hammer is the moment you can all in him as hammer has no defensive skills whatsoever and he’s stuck in it for 10 seconds.

Rev vs. thief match up is stupid easy for thief after all the phase traversal/UA nerfs. Kite with shortbow evade spam when he tries to melee, the moment he tries to hammer you burst him down.

Phase traversal pretty much drains their entire energy bar on shiro swap so all they can do for the next several seconds is autoattack you, and your autoattacks>theirs.

Are you kidding me? It has everything to do with the matchup and the builds being played. Are you running around alone like an idiot stacking 15 might for a signet thief running BT to steal your boons and hit you with 4k power? Signet stab is gonna hit you hard. Meta thief won’t unless you give them your boons and can’t dodge from a stealthed target (dodging stealthed players is a L2P issue unless they remain in stealth for a long period of time, in which case they don’t have your stolen boons anymore to hit you with, and aren’t damaging you). Signet stab doesn’t have any escapes or cleanses. On the converse, meta thief does. Period. I’ll gladly show you the difference between what builds mean on the thief in respects to how much the damage differs. If you’re taking an 8k backstab at 3600 armor with what should be near-permanent protection uptime, you’re getting hit by full signet glass Meta thief doesn’t hit that hard against full glass medium armors in most cases, so either you’re being massively outplayed and can’t deal with thieves, are lying outright, or are against a build devoted in its entirety – burning all utilities, movement, no DrD, etc. on engage – just to one-shot you, and it can’t do so. Not to mention SoH from steal against a glass thief should auto-taunt passively and let such a build die instantly with no escape mechanism. Revenant has a passive, built-in anti-thief mechanism in a commonly-selected traitline.

Gunflame war hits harder. That’s also a fact. Shatter mesmer hits harder, which is also a fact. Murellow longbow ranger or interupt Maul ranger hits harder, which is also a fact. Offensive GS reaper on a GD crit hits harder, also a fact. This isn’t even up for debate: Backstab is in most cases in PvP environments actually a sub-par damage tool and only gains such potency when invested entirely in it. That’s not even up for debate, despite he “but it hits so hard so it’s OP!” claim you’re making. What you’re arguing right now is the same as saying shortbow condi ranger is OP because it can stack a ton of bleeds/DoT and you happened to die by one because you didn’t use your tools to beat one, despite how easy it is to do. Every other profession right now has an objectively better standard for damage, and you’re making a fuss about balance on an edge case in a scenario in which you deliberately got out-played. Frankly, it’s more logical to complain about thief damage as a sustained DPS in the organized PvE context than in WvW.

“Damage” as a descriptor as you have said lacks context. DPS? Burst? Because the thief only has top-tier DPS, not burst, unless playing signets, which as I mentioned, you should not lose to, considering other professions have objectively better burst capacity unless the thief runs an entire build devoted to one attack per combat, runs no defenses at all, no stunbreaks, and no cleanses (and lacks Shadowstep despite you complaining about that, too), while also running what is regarded as one of the most under-performing weapon sets in the game (D/D power), and full-combos you while having to be not in stealth on engage – again, a failure on your behalf for lack of general awareness or response. I play and main D/D signet stab. I’ve been playing it for close to four years straight, and it is literally not possible to make a thief hit harder than mine by a margin of less than 4% if I were to sacrifice a heal for SoM on engage. As such, I can also tell you that the number of WvW-based, active signet D/D players remaining in the game is probably under 50. I beat thieves all the time despite having worse mobility than a revenant and similar DPH. In fact, I find power thief to be one of the easiest matchups in the game when playing any profession, including reaper. It’s not inherently a L2P issue so much as it is a L2Thief issue; you can be an amazing player and get destroyed by a mediocre thief every fight if you’re not understanding of the profession and how it plays. Dire/TB/Ghost condi is another story, but that’s because conditions are OP. You need to learn the profession. The damage is very easy to control if you’re both a good player and know how to play against it.

PT and all subsequent rev attacks have lower cooldowns than Shadowstep. Your problem is getting kited if you’re not running hammer or are too slow to swap into it, especially given a projectile deflection built into the weapon to prevent most of being kited. We’re talking 50 seconds. If you faceroll your keyboard and burn your energy spamming skills before the thief burns SS and can’t PT while generating energy from combat, you’re being outplayed. DTH when it swaps and comes in for the engage, as either then it has no damage or gets hit by a CC.

Frankly, the shortbow discussion means nothing. A thief can only get four casts of evasion and then has zero resources to make any devastating attacks or engages. If the thief is sustaining against you with evasion, the problem lies in Daredevil being designed poorly (which I have said many, many times, and is the basis for my next ES proposal because I’m so put off by it); the problems aren’t the damage output, then, which defeats the entire complaint you’re making, considering thief used to have even more relative damage before HoT.

It’s not about the damage. Core thief has more damage than DrD, and other professions got boosts to their damage and defenses with HoT.

Thieves roam because they synergize with themselves nicely. A gank group is going to run lots of group stealth to prevent spikes and high burst to focus enemies down before they die. The class has a history of being a roaming/solo style, and DrD and recent changes to Acro made the class tremendously easier to play than core because of so many extremely forgiving abilities which let bad players not die as quickly as they used to. That’s why you see so many people playing it; it’s not that’s inherently good (condi mesmer is way stronger, especially in small groups), but people are flocking to a class that got very forgiving abilities added to it since the learning curve is basically gone from playing reasonably well. It’s not the damage that makes DrD so common and difficult for many to beat. It’s the freebies the class has access to in terms of staying alive. That’s why I (and many others) don’t struggle much against them, either; I know the kit, I know how to beat it, and I know that in most cases, the person behind the other thief is typically inexperienced and gets carried by Daredevil’s forgiving nature.

It’s one thing to say the thief is too strong because of its evasion on DrD – I’d actually agree with you – but it’s just truthfully and objectively incorrect to make claims the damage is overbearing and that Shadowstep is responsible for the thief being impossible to kill/easy, especially when considering what other professions are capable of.

I think OP was referring to the stuff that happens like, standing in a camp shooting at camp guards, then suddenly have your attacks not hit and getting the ’’Obstructed’" message – while there are no obstacles between you and your target.

Happens to me on Borderland’s South Camp sometimes, etc. etc.

mfw my steal teleports me to the target and gives “obstructed”

I also see this more and more… sadly with every profession… Is it a curse that mordremoth put on the land of our beautiful tyria? Blade of grass, snow, even thin air seem to be able to totally negate all of our attack.

Lexander.4579:

mfw my steal teleports me to the target and gives “obstructed”

Remember back when steal never got obstructed?

godmoney.6025:

I think OP was referring to the stuff that happens like, standing in a camp shooting at camp guards, then suddenly have your attacks not hit and getting the ’’Obstructed’" message – while there are no obstacles between you and your target.

Happens to me on Borderland’s South Camp sometimes, etc. etc.

infiltrator arrow can be consumed if it hit a target such as a IR supervior because anet logic. same thing for choking gas if you target it in to a player with aegis an the bullet hit player it will consume the shot but not create a field However if you target the ground it consume the aegis and create field again anet logic !. LOL<— these are the type of thing that amuse me in guild war 2 dont judge me Q_Q

Zenith.7301:

A single vault/backstab still does half a revenant’s health in a mug combo with a revenant having 3.6k armor and marauder’s armor with cavalier trinkets.

Not possible outside of a seriously specific scenario such as 25 stacks of might and 25 stacks of vuln. Lets say the thief has 3.2k power and lands a crit with a lot of Ferocity:

Vault: ((1166 * 3200 * 2.25 ) * 1.65) / 3600 = 3.9k
Mug: (1166 * 3200 * 1.5 ) / 3600 = 1.6k

So a mug and a big hit from a glassy thief using Vault on a heavily armored opponent is about 5.5k which is at best a 1/3 assuming they aren’t running any Vit. We can add on Sigil of Fire/Air for a bit more:

Fire: (1166 * 3200 * 0.565) / 3600 = 600-ish
Air: (1166 * 3200 * 1.1) / 3600 = 1.1k

Again this is a glass thief against a heavy armor opponent. We can almost get half a non-vit Revs health with those sigils but the scenario is mostly improbable.

Zenith.7301:

Eval.2371:

alchemyst.2165:

If you’re referring to our damage, it’s fine. Honestly we don’t need any more buffs to it.

If you’re referring to range, it’s the same melee range as any other class.

Totally depends on the context. Most of our damage is from % modifiers

WvW: thief damage is fine.
PvE: thief has some of the best single target dps.
PvP: theif hits well below average.

Why do we hit low in pvp? because a lot of our damage modifiers are % based, and with lower stat pools overall we suffer.

What OP should be asking for is flat damage modifiers.

Thief WvW damage is far from fine lol. A single vault/backstab still does half a revenant’s health in a mug combo with a revenant having 3.6k armor and marauder’s armor with cavalier trinkets.

And thanks to shadowstep you are never dying against anyone in WvW unless it’s another thief.

Yea, and a single rev sword auto does about a third of my health(or my rev hits for 5.5k on most thief’s); what’s your point? (I could even add that staff 5 is an instant kill for many glass builds too) I don’t mean to start a kittening contest. Damage is over the top in pretty much all cases in wvw because stats are inflated by food and infusions. Thiefs damage is inline with many other burst classes in wvw.

Still the consistency issue of how much damage we have is caused by the gap between stats in pvp vs wvw/pve. Flat modifers over percent ones would bring thief more in line on both ends of the spectrum. It wouldn’t solve the issue but it would make it a softer gap in pvp and reduce abuse cases in wvw.

Fear not Thorin for Arena Net has listened to your plea! At least i think they tried to listen. They must of misheard you cause they put another ‘blade of grass’ to ‘obstruct’ your attack. Here it is:

“Stealth Attacks: All stealth attack skills will now have a 1-second recharge between uses.”

This must be a mistake. I trust Arena Net and not those ‘conspiracy theorist’ that say that thief’s been getting nerfed in every patch since launch. There is NO WAY they have a biased against thief’s.