Guild Wars 2

I believe the time has come for another huge discussion regarding the way thief currently sits. Not a flame fest on how frustrated we are, not a shame fest for what we may feel is a lack of good decisions, simply a constructive discussion between the members of [Teef] and the developer in charge of thief balance.

Objective of said discussion:
-Dissect each skill, trait, etc. on thief and figure out how functions could be changed, numbers could be tweaked, or effects added in order to create a fully useable thief class that is balanced with or without the elite spec.
-Become clear on what anet’s vision is for thief and how we as a player base can help/influence that outcome
-Maybe get some insight on upcoming changes that aren’t supposed to be a huge surprise so we can give early feedback that could be tested (still have the whole rest of the season to make changes before patches come)

If a dev in the balance team or someone willing to sit in with a group of [Teef] members in guild chat is able to do an event like this please let us know it’d be a great experience and would hopefully help us set a new benchmark for communication between the two parties as well as further progress in balancing profs.

Again, if this does happen it will be a mature discussion full of constructive feedback, flamers will be removed from said discussion to ensure a productive environment. Please upvote this so we can see something like this happen, I know I am not the only one who would like to see this.

Just a post to tell that [Teef] members are out there, But I don’t know where to start ^^
I have to think about it and come back with a constructed answer.

I can only talk about the post june 23 patch introducing the new specialization, since this is the period I know the most. If you only look at the thief without looking at the other classes, Anet have tried to open a path to more build diversity. A condi build with D/D, a +1 aggressive support build with D/P and maybe a high burst build with P/P. Unfortunatly, the state of the game doesn’t allow a diversity of builds to be effective giving us only few competitive choices.

Regarding balance, I think that Anet hits a wall. Elite spec are supposed to give the best of an area of expertise. Daredevil is the master of evades. In a world with multiples elite specializations ( Daredevil, Smuggler, Pirate, Sneakster, and so on ) you get to do the balance between elite specializations. With one elite spec, you have a problem because a trait line offers the best of an already existing line, so you are forced into the other areas trait lines. The balance then becomes awkward. I think that the thief class needs more accessible elite specialisations ( not bound to expansions ) to unlock more diversity. In the system designed as it is, no core build can stand a chance. If you can’t find a balance in 1 elite spec, then do 10 elite spec and that is a form of balance.

I won’t extend on traits and all, since there are better people out there to talk about that ^^

PS: this sort of thread is hard because we talked about all those subject so much already. Only a Dev opinion on the matter could move us a bit.

If you want to give useful feedback, identify key issues with the class and targeted buffs that would address those issues. A wall of 30 changes to every trait makes eyes glaze over and it’ll never get read. Full reworks aren’t happening. Cries to ‘revert this change’ aren’t going to happen.

Targeted, specific buffs to address clear issues with the class on the other hand are useful. It’s not that they don’t know the thief is underperforming, it’s that it’s not at all clear how you adjust that without making it even more toxic against weaker players (one shot kills are not ok) or making it just another generic bruiser like everything else in the game.

Ensign.2189:

If you want to give useful feedback, identify key issues with the class and targeted buffs that would address those issues.

This is so true. The problem is it becomes a fight of fighting fire with fire. For example I feel our key issues are:

• We lack survivability to deal with aoe cleave. When we are in a big fight we resort to haphazardly dodging to avoid aoe cleave because if we don’t we melt to sheer amount of it

• We lack the ability to indefinitely pressure targets that have an abundance of passive defenses or immunities. Stealth attack? block. Unload spam? invuln, Stack bleed & confusion? resistance.

• We lack reliability on the entire stealth attack mechanic. we only have one chance to land these key skills that fail to apply pressure because of passive defenses or invulns, or dodges despite spending enormous amount of resources to stealth, position and then land the attack from the back.

• Because of the three above, we are reduced to spaming both our defensive and offensive mechanics. Be it aimless dodges in hope to avoid cleave, or unloads chained together because its our only good option, or stacking stealth endlessly until we have an opportunity to land a stealth attack.

• Trickery & DrD feel mandatory Because were reduced to spaming, both lines pretty much be required or we run out of resources.

As far as the asking for fixes for these issues, I feel they would be pure power creep. I know this is the traditional blame the other classes route, but I think it would be much better if other classes were toned down, we could even use a shave is some aspects as well. If I were to ask for buffs/changes, I’d ask for:

• A trait that makes us immune to aoe damage that is not intended for you(ie unless your targeted or the sole person in the aoe you evade it). Preferably in acrobatics. Something like dodge all aoes that do not land on you first while vigor is up. It could be a rework of lightning reflexes that is a grandmaster trait.

• A augment of steal that rips invuln status from the target.Again a grandmaster trait. Probably deadly arts would be a good place for this.

• Make stealth attacks unblockable via trait. Hidden killer trait in critical strikes would be a good candidate for this additional effect.

• Punish repeated skill use with diminish returns. Each time you use a skill in succession its stats are 75% of the last time. After casting a skill there is a 2 second window where using the same skill costs 50% more initiative.

• Make preparedness baseline.

• Lastly, change rending shade remove the 10% damage reduction, and allow thief to see(but not target-able) all stealth opponents.

People will say this is madness and frankly it is. Thing is that’s what balance has come to, madness of power creep. Which is why I am not really for buffs.

thing with thief is, we have nothing good tbh.
yes if ur lucky u can smash some people super fast, but if unlucky some1 dodge u backstab blocks ur backstab or u get random blind from something etc.

now no matter how much thief is nerfed i play it but sometimes i dont know what my role truly is in WvW, if i go with the zerg.
am i suppose to sneak around and kill the back line from enemy? <- i cant even stomp people cus once i got spotted by 1/2 necro/ele im kittened.

but i wont go to deep into this, basically i feel like guy above.
trick/daredevil is a must and then u have 1 trait line left which is crap.
not to mention how limited we are with weapons when one combo is dominating every other weapon combo.

would i love to run with s/d and d/p yes but then i lack short bow thus i lose ALOT.
would i love to see d/p less superior towards other weapon sets, yes but that most likely means d/p get nerfed and then whole Thief is a forgotten class.

tho, no dev will read/check this and do anything with this info.

Eval.2371:

• Punish repeated skill use with diminish returns. Each time you use a skill in succession its stats are 75% of the last time.

Most of that sounds good to me but I wouldn’t want to be punished for using what I need to at the moment otherwise why have initiative rather than cooldowns?

I agree with Eval, on the majority of his ideas.

kash.9213:

Eval.2371:

• Punish repeated skill use with diminish returns. Each time you use a skill in succession its stats are 75% of the last time.

Most of that sounds good to me but I wouldn’t want to be punished for using what I need to at the moment otherwise why have initiative rather than cooldowns?

The problem is some of thief tools are always the best skill to use.

Take shadow shot for example, its a blind, gap close, unblockable, high damage all in one bundle. There is very few instances where shadow shot is not your best use for init. Which leads to senseless spamming with results. I am purely using shadow shot as an example, there are numerous other offenders: such as death blossom, vault, unload, & pistol whip.

I feel its a core issue with thief, that rewards bad gameplay. That change is just an example, I feel there needs to a diminishing return/an increase in cost for successive casts or sheer nerfs to bring some skills inline to make us fair with some of the tools mentioned above. I’d rather the former then the latter.

They need to remove reveal on demand from engi and revs – this is what keeps vanilla thieves from pvp in higher divisions.

Also, just gives thieves high access to retal so people get punished for dumping everything on thief.

I would write long post with key things but…. i have done it some many times in past years, i simply have no motivation nor strength anymore. It is pointless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwpMEbgC7DA

Eval.2371:

The problem is some of thief tools are always the best skill to use.

Take shadow shot for example, its a blind, gap close, unblockable, high damage all in one bundle. There is very few instances where shadow shot is not your best use for init. Which leads to senseless spamming with results. I am purely using shadow shot as an example, there are numerous other offenders: such as death blossom, vault, unload, & pistol whip.

I feel its a core issue with thief, that rewards bad gameplay. That change is just an example, I feel there needs to a diminishing return/an increase in cost for successive casts or sheer nerfs to bring some skills inline to make us fair with some of the tools mentioned above. I’d rather the former then the latter.

I’m not saying you’re wrong, you’re likely right in theory, but I think if a thief want’s to spend their initiative spamming one skill then so be it, that’s the signature mechanic of our class, boil that down to cooldown rotations and you’d have to ask yourself what else you’re playing thief for. I’m cool with all the other points you made but that one is unsettling just thinking about what it would do to the way my thief feels. But I suppose if there’s arbitrary mechanics in place to stifle a core mechanic to play like other classes that would give me a chance to polish up on my mouse clicking.

C’mon, Ario, you and I know well there’s no chance in hell a developer in profession balance is going to care about what players have to say, particularly in respects to the thief.

I’d love to be proven wrong, and I’d join up for any such discussion, but I wouldn’t try too hard to make anything happen. They just don’t care.

Maybe an interesting question:

If you were a beginner: would you roll a thief?

Jana.6831:

Maybe an interesting question:

If you were a beginner: would you roll a thief?

No I wouldn’t, and if someone asked me should I roll thief? I’d tell them go make rev. They have much more reliable tools and are better for groups.

Not really what I was getting at. I didn’t care about group utilities back in the day because back then this game was still “everybody is equal in what they’re doing” (of course guards were better as they had aegis but every other class was self sufficient)

I have to think myself because I’m playing thief for nearly 3 years now and a lot has changed since I started. But I think it’s pretty impossible to really learn thief and the ICD would’ve been something that would’ve alienated me because it just feels wrong and it’s dangerous even in PvE.

This is not a simple one-sided process. In many of my post, I try my best to consider other professions that will be affected by any changes in Thief in hope that this is also the same process that ArenaNet is taking. In any typical balance discussion, each profession needs to be represented and there are things that certain change to Thief will not be acceptable to other players of other profession. In this case, a discussion of compromise is made.

Now, with this in mind, as a Thief player, I know that the Thief always have received the short-end of the stick. While the Devs are compromising the design of the Thief, other professions get what they want. Therefore, any changes that are proposed to improve the Thief have always faced scrutiny from other professions.

All the perceived “negative impact” in improving the Thief are mostly unfounded. Take the fear that the Thief has too many evade, for instance, that lead to the decimation of the Acrobatics line to only later on introduced an Elite Spec with 3 dodges and high endurance refill capability. This change is driven by compromises from other professions and the addition of the Elite Spec simply brought the Thief back from its unnerfed version — there were no overall impact change to the Thief profession.

- Impact change to consider, for example, is adding another weapon without requiring a specific spec (e.g. Staff needs DD)— there were many weapon ideas that have been suggested already.

- Another example is unbind stealth attack from stealth, meaning those skill requires positioning instead of stealth -OR- add a new Elite Skill that allows the Thief the benefit of being in stealth without going invisible (triggering on stealth procs and flipping the Dagger #1 to Backstab) for a duration -OR- simply get rid of Revealed.

- Lastly, for now, reduce the total cost of weapon skills and increase the base initiative pool to 15.

To me, all those will improve my enjoyment in playing my Thieves (I have 4).

I think that playing around with the revealed effect might create some interesting new gameplay.

For example: what if the Shadow Arts trait line reduced the effectiveness of applied revealed effects by 33%. This means that instead of three seconds of revealed on the thief attacking they would only have two. Or an applied reveal from engi/ranger would also be shorter in duration.

I think also that, given how it has made thief combat feel clunky, I’m not sure keeping the cooldown on stealth attack is the way to go. Before I thought reducing it to 0.5 seconds would be ideal…but now I think a better solution is to make a failed attack unstealth the thief with a 0-1 second reveal instead of the usual amount. It could be paired with the suggestion above to help reduce that “failed reveal.”

I would make 15 initiative baseline and at the same time and I would also consider moving some additional condition clear into the Deadly Arts line—such as making Mug also clear a few conditions. I would then nerf the condition clearing ability of Escapist’s Absolution.

But again all of these changes are imagined together and individually might be a nerf or buff depending on the player.

[EDIT] My State of the Thief—Conditions and Traitline Relevance

Thief today is all about Daredevil. The reasons for this are particular to the other classes and the evolving meta that came out of HoT and the subsequent balancing patches. Thief is a low HP class and therefore requires high condition clear uptime in order to not die to stray condition inducing field effects and targeted abilities. Daredevil with Escapist’s Absolution both answered the call and obliterated any other option. Only a few other builds can match the condition clear that is offered in the Daredevil line—a condition clear which is painfully overpowered at times. Between dodging and using evade weapon skills and utilities thief can become basically immune to all but the most heavy condition applications (Mesmer). We need more condition clears in lines that don’t have any condition clears and a nerf to the condition clear in the Daredevil line to give us a fighting shot at other builds.

DeceiverX.8361:

C’mon, Ario, you and I know well there’s no chance in hell a developer in profession balance is going to care about what players have to say, particularly in respects to the thief.

I’d love to be proven wrong, and I’d join up for any such discussion, but I wouldn’t try too hard to make anything happen. They just don’t care.

The sad thing is that was my thought process going into this but I had to try for pity’s sake. If I were proven wrong then I’d be very happy and I’m willing to put in the work to schedule this if a dev said it’d be a good thing to have happen but until then I’ll just go on with life and occasionally check back here.

There are some cool suggestions here and believe me, I have pages upon pages of changes I’d propose to not only thief but the entire game but normally what I say is ignored so I have kept it to myself, if things change and people start listening to me or a dev partakes in this event then I’ll start putting out more things but for now I’ll save the work.

kash.9213:

Eval.2371:

• Punish repeated skill use with diminish returns. Each time you use a skill in succession its stats are 75% of the last time.

Most of that sounds good to me but I wouldn’t want to be punished for using what I need to at the moment otherwise why have initiative rather than cooldowns?

Agreed. Personally, I would prefer some other incentive. Perhaps lowering the next skill’s initiative cost if it is a different skill. Or maybe a 5% damage instead.

They could go the old fashioned fighting/hack-n-slash route and give inter-skill combinations… basically skill-chains. It could give the Thief an edge outside of normal auto-attack chains or combination fields and finishers. Just random example on successful hits…

Headshot → Heartseeker = Additional 1/2 sec Daze

Or have such combinations change the #1 skill similar to how Stealth does…

Headshot → Heatseeker = #1 skill becomes a 1-sec knockdown

For some reason, I’m thinking of grapples now, haha! Imagine if Withdraw and Roll for Initiative would actually “grapple” an enemy within a range of 100… and the Thief would take that target backwards on the roll, then throw them even further back. Think of an extreme version of this…

Kageseigi.2150:

Agreed. Personally, I would prefer some other incentive. Perhaps lowering the next skill’s initiative cost if it is a different skill. Or maybe a 5% damage instead.

They could go the old fashioned fighting/hack-n-slash route and give inter-skill combinations… basically skill-chains. It could give the Thief an edge outside of normal auto-attack chains or combination fields and finishers. Just random example on successful hits…

Headshot -> Heartseeker = Additional 1/2 sec Daze

Or have such combinations change the #1 skill similar to how Stealth does…

Headshot -> Heatseeker = #1 skill becomes a 1-sec knockdown

For some reason, I’m thinking of grapples now, haha! Imagine if Withdraw and Roll for Initiative would actually “grapple” an enemy within a range of 100… and the Thief would take that target backwards on the roll, then throw them even further back. Think of an extreme version of this…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ26XGRWqw0

I would definitely spread out more on my sword/dagger if I could chain into some field or combo use maybe, or if I could load up dagger off hand with something to help chew through enemy procs.

I think I’m going full Azukas: Don’t give them ideas. The initative system is a problem, yes but any change into the direction you guys suggest would be another gigantic nerf – and it would again hurt any other set than D/P the most.

Short Poison on Dancing Dagger and a Blind on CnD alone would already go miles for build diversity by applying only a small buff to S/D, D/D and P/D.

Got plenty of ideas for fair nerfs and buffs but I simply can’t be bothered anymore.

-From what I’ve experienced, the damage to sustain ratio among the classes are imbalanced by persistent damage negation and minigation abilities.

-As stability and might was remove from the shadow art trait, the synergy of the stealth mechanic was crippled.

-Stealth is a good defence mechanic defence but it can be easily negated due Revs, Scrappers, and Dragonhunters all having reveal aoe.

-Some things I thought of is bringing in the gw1 shadow reffuge and shroud in distress to aid in survival. Invert executioner and buff lead attacks to 20 stacks for consistent damage mod. Increasing the sword speed might help smooth out the mechanic.

I don’t do a lot of PvP, so I’ll talk about the PvE aspect of the thief.

Right now every profession has at least one build dedicated to provide support or has a mechanic that interacts well with the raid comp. Right now, thief’s main selling point is how stupidly easy it is to have high DPS output. Thieves offer zero support when they come into a raid, just pure DPS.

Now don’t get me wrong, that DPs is quite high, it can even be higher than eles under the right circumstances. However, I think that it would add a lot of flavor to thieves if they had a proper support/DPS build that wasn’t completely useless.

Thieves do provide break at support and I know my guild requires a Thief on certain fights. Yes we could do with more group support but we do have some that is viable.