Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone. I am a thief main, dedicated roamer, GvGer and pvper. In season 5 my top rating was high 1800s and I ended up with 1700 after greedily pushing for top 250 while tilted. I created this thread to state my opinions on the thief in general aswell as every weapon set for both condi and power.

Let’s start of with the most popular weapon set of them all. D/P for power is in a very good state at the moment. The cd on backstab created a more skillbased stealth play and made the thief 1v1 more about skill than random blind backstabs. The reason why I think this weapon set is the pi which I will get back to later.

D/P for condi is only really used for one build. Perma stealth ghost thief. Personally I enjoy the build for one reason and that’s to mess with my friends in wvw. It is a very surprising build but if you pay attention a single stealth trap wins the fight. This build gets so much hate but it’s just a git gud issue imo.

D/D power is very weak at the moment. It’s a bursty build that requires landing c&d to do good dmg. It’s a personal favorite but at the moment it’s a bit lack luster. Sadly I think this will have to stay the way it is since any buffs would make the class in general way too strong.

D/D condi is a horror in its current state. It approves a very poor playstyle and it’s very hard to deal with for the players at the same level were this build is the most common. A rework on the D/D would be the only way I see this build dying out and creating a more healthy state for the game. (I am not saying it’s broken as in higher levels of play the build is completely useless).

S/D power is very awkward at the moment as the dmg is too low to be effective with staff providing more dmg with no real setback. However we have seen in the past what happens when this weapon becomes too strong which is why I think it is fine in its current state.

S/D and S/P condi are builds I’ve never seen and therefore won’t comment on.

S/P power is a very gimmicky weapon set which is flawed in its design however I think it’s still enjoyable and therefore do not wish for a change in this part of thief.

P/P power and condi have seen more and more play and are completely fine in this state and therefore should not be changed.

P/D condi is a build I simply wish would get the pvp changes implemented in general. The build is good but since the self displacement doesn’t have a place in pvp it’s not really seen there even with the changes.

P/D power is a very unusual build which is good in its current state. Against melee builds like a warriors you can use the 3 skill to never get caught which creates very hilarious salt.

Sb is completely fine. PLEASE DON’T CHANGE IT.

Staff condi is a build I haven’t personally tried so I won’t comment on it.

Staff power recently got changed. It removed a lot of the effectiveness of the staff 5. Personally I tried to play without spamming it so I don’t see a change in the weapon which is still very strong if played correctly with high dmg, dodges, weakness and blinds.

Next let’s go into traits. Deadly arts is a very well balanced were I believe all choices have a good use somewhere in some build. It can change a build completely or simply allow you to use the stolen skill mechanic more. Improvisation is in my opinion one of the most game changing traits as it’s such a huge difference between the burst executioner trait to this rng based life saver. Generally no complaints here but I do advise more people to try improv as I still see a lot of thief running the (in my eyes) inferior executioner.

Critical strikes: There’s really no reason to go into this traits line in its current state as a core thief tends to need SA instead to survive and a daredevil will choose the superior option you have in DA. I’d like to see Anet make some improvements to this trait line but at the moment I don’t know what to replace and what should take its place which is why I’ll not comment on this at got moment.

Shadow arts only has one major issue. I’d like to see the extra stealth in the passive trait removed. This would remove the possibility to perma stealth as a ghost thief which means there would be gaps. Instead we could see the initative regen from shadows rejuvenation go here as I think shadows rejuvenation is too much of a must have if you do go for SA.

Acrobatics was just nerfed. This fixed most of the issue with this trait line which makes it a very viable nonstealth survival line without being broken.

Trickery, the bread and butter of thief. There’s no way to balance this. It is simply too key for thief and moving the key parts of the line to be standard thief stuff would make the class way too overloaded.

Daredevil has one key issue. Pulmonary impact. The rest is “balanced” aka it’s balanced compared to the other broken elite specs. If everything is broken everything is balanced is the only way to look at it.

However pulmonary impact has too much dmg per interrupt. To kill somebody without using your main hand and only use offhand pistol shouldn’t be possible unless your enemy is completely trash. However I’ve been successfully winning 1v1s using this strategy against some of the mediocre players in the 1v1 arenas in pvp. In my opinion it should be a 2 part trait. If you interrupt someone once they get pulmonary preparation that does nothing and lasts 3 seconds. If you do not interrupt the target during this time it disappears. However if you do hit a second interrupt during this time it procs and the debuff goes away. The dmg from this proc would have to be looked at but a baseline could be equal to one and a half pi proc in its current state. This way the dmg would be lowered and could be avoided thru counterplay such as insta cast abilities, stability, simply kiting or blocks.

Now let’s go into the most broken and op skill in the game. Steal. Steal is the main reason why thief is so incredibly strong in my opinion. The second a thief stops underestimating steal they will drastically improve. Sind not only shows you a lot of tricks on how to use it correctly and why it’s good when he uses it. Now don’t get me wrong. Even though I think it’s incredibly op I do not believe it should be nerfed. I could’ve left steal out of this but I’m mentioning it to get into the steal skills. The only request I have is lowering the cd to 20 seconds as base and remove the cdr on slight of hand.

Warrior: The wirling axes from warrior provides good dmg whilst in combo with a smoke field making you pretty much immune to dmg unless the enemy has resistance. Nothing wrong here.

Guardian: Perfectly balanced imo. Not very frustrating to play against and very good dmg, cc and easy to land if used correctly.

Revenant: This skill has incredible dmg aswell as a slow which is a hard counter to Revenants. I would like to see a projectile speed decrease or a slight dmg nerf as its too fast and hits really hard.

Engineer: In its current state it’s very good if your enemy stands in it. However creating that scenario is borderline impossible. The other way to effectively use it is using it for chaos armor and tanking hits. Tanking hits is a horrible idea for a theif which makes the skill very weak. I would like the skill to either have a bigger aoe circle in exchange for a lower amount of condis it applies or see it treated more like the Revenant steal skill projectile.

Ranger: Good design, no complaints.

Thief: Same as Ranger.

Necromancer: I would prefer for there to be a slight cast time as the double fear can create a very frustrating burst if the thief isn’t fighting him alone. Other than that the skill is very well balanced with a few nice tricks.

Elementalist: This skill is highly underrated and I’ve seen multiple complaints about it. The chill does however make it easier to land hs which in turn procs pi which is the key to beating support ele in its current state.

Mesmer: This skill is a godsend and without it the matchup would be even more difficult than it is today. The longish cast time makes the skill not as broken as it would be if it was instant.

Let’s go into utility skills. There are very few options in the current state of thiefs for your utilities without handicapping yourself.

Let’s start with deception. The heal skill hide in shadows hasn’t seen much use in ages as there are far better ways to stealth, and the cast time isn’t worth the healing as it takes too long and heals too little.

Blinding powder however is incredible. The amount of flexibility this skill brings to the table is insane but it’s not in an overpowered way. Very good in its current state.

Shadowstep and the get out of jail card. Please for the love of God increase the cd on this thing. The fact that I can get out for free when I screw up is really stupid considering I have this up every 50 seconds. A good fix would be the cd not starting until after the 10 seconds of shadow return. That way you can get it back faster by going into the fray or run away and enjoy the longer cd.

Shadow refuge. Not much to say here. The skill is nice for long stealth ooc but in combat people have learned to counter it.

Smoke screen is just a pistol 5 on a cd that takes up a utility slot. A major rework is the only way I could see this skill becoming relevant again for pvp scenarios.

Thieves guild is just a fun and gimmicky skill which I see no issues with.

I agree with your assessment of Pulmonary Impact. It turns Headshot from a low damage utility skill to one of the highest damage range skills we have. I don’t like the idea of changing Pulmonary Impact to have two parts. It seems like this change could prevent other weapon sets from triggering it. Maybe they just need to add a cool-down to Impacting Disruption so it can’t be spammed. This will level the playing field since other weapon sets don’t have as much access to stuns, and the cool-down may allow them to buff its damage without making Pulmonary Impact over powered.

Dagger.2035:

I agree with your assessment of Pulmonary Impact. It turns Headshot from a low damage utility skill to one of the highest damage range skills we have. I don’t like the idea of changing Pulmonary Impact to have two parts. It seems like this change could prevent other weapon sets from triggering it. Maybe they just need to add a cool-down to Impacting Disruption so it can’t be spammed. This will level the playing field since other weapon sets don’t have as much access to stuns, and the cool-down may allow them to buff its damage without making Pulmonary Impact over powered.

The reason why I do not believe in the internal cd path is that it prevents the satisfying mass interupt streaks you can get to absolutely melt your opponent. If internal cd is the option I’d rather have a massive dmg nerf on it as it would allow you to use the skill the same way but not deal as much dmg. The reason why I made my suggestion the way I did is because of the counterplay it presents. I for one don’t tend to complain about “broken” skills as long as there are ways to counter play them. In it’s current state there is very little counterplay to pi as steal rips away stab which is pretty much your only shot at surviving.

Physical skills that came with the daredevil elite spec are a very welcome adition to the thiefs wide range of abilities as the flavor of it is something I personally think fits the class.

Channeled vigor is my heal skill of choice. The different ways to use this skill is very interesting. Such as using the synergy of signet of agility to heal yourself to full or using it to simply use it to fill your endurance. With the recent nerfs to this I think it is very balanced for pvp.

Bandit’s defense is one of the strongest stunbreaks in the game. The low cd block and stunbreak and the follow up reflexive strike is a very good cc. I believe the cd needs to go up to 25 seconds as the current state allows for 1 skill to completely nulify mistakes which is not a healthy state.

Distracting strikes is not a skill I have any experience with and can therefore not really state a proper opinion on. I do however believe that if a pi nerf was to come then this skill would be in need of a buff.

Fist flurry. A very cool and gimmicky skill which I don’t see any issues with. The oneshots builds using this skill are very easy to spot and avoid.

Impaiting daggers are a very cool skill. Balanced in general and no issues here.

Impact strike. God, this skill is a monster. I don’t really see a need to nerf this. However the insta kill from the last cast on people who are going down from the dmg of that skill is a bit weird. I would really like to see this cleared up in the skill description or simply have it removed as the skill is still good without it.

Oh boi oh boi here comes the signets.

Signet of malice and signet of shadows really have no place in pvp scenarios as far as I’m conserned. The only proper build I’ve seen use either of them is signet of malice on perma dodge D/D condi thief. A build which really doesn’t show good game balance in the first place.

Assassin’s signet, aka the oneshot signet. If you wanna oneshot people this skill is for you. A cdr to 35 seconds would make it see slightly more play but its still not good for the more serious builds as the passive is negligable and the active is bursty.

Signet of agility. The bread and butter for daredevils. With the reason change to it the skill became a lot more healthy and I’d like to see this change come into the rest of the game and not just pvp.

Infiltrators signet. Personally the only reason why I can see that this skill fell off the map for daredevils is because there’s simply no room for it. It is still an incredible skill and not changes needed here.

The traps are traps. There is not much more to say. They are generally awkward and weird to use. Ghost thief uses them very well but even then I don’t believe any changes need to be made here as I’ve already stated the way I would like to see that build nerfed.

Next we have tricks. I personally believe that the entire skill type is underrated.

Withdraw is a must have if you decide not to use dash as the immobs will be your doom without either (unless you use staff). Evading as you heal and reposition is a very nice skill and was a hard time getting rid off in favor for the superior option for dash thiefs.

Caltrops is generally good for point control for a condi thief without being overpowered and completly fine imo.

Haste is just the same as the other quickness skills that are only used for that purpose. It’s not worth losing an entire utility slot for 1 buff, the reason why I look past the fury is because it’s negligable when using pack runes or thrill of the crime.

Roll for iniative is another interesting skill. If you wanna see why I like it just take it instead of bandits defense against a warrior and play very agressively until you have to use it. 99% of the time the warrior will panic and will be out of defensive cds by the time he catches you and you have to roll. The iniative recharge will then allow you to finish off this easy pray.

Scorpion wire… I want to use this skill but I’ve only seen it used for eotm dueling and curveballing people with S/P in 1v1s in pvp. I do however believe it shouldn’t be more as the dh pull has shown how strong pulls can truly be.

Dagger storm. The noob wvw thiefs best friend for blobing. I honestly don’t know how to make this skill viable without being op. The only possible way would be to make it a 1 seconds duration spin that fires daggers out that deal decent dmg, bleeds and cripples on a low cd (25 seconds or so). Where the thief can use this after a dodge before dodging again to keep up pressure as they’re kiting. This would be pretty cool and give the skill a place on the thiefs skillbar again.

Venoms. The last part of this “little rant” and they come in 2 parts, basilisk venom and the rest.

Basilisk in it’s current shape and form is just godly. The unblockable actually gives you a chance against condi mesmers and in general is just perfect. It does however have an issue which all venoms have.

The rest have the issue with venomsharing. Along the venoms aren’t that bad but when a full pvp team rush mid with a venomshare thiefs buffs on them the results are ridicolous. This is however the only way the thief can access a “support” role in pvp as medic thief isn’t a thing here. I do not personally like the thought of a build that presses all it’s utilities and let’s the team carry while they just afk and wait for their cds. I believe there needs to be a change to the way venomsharing works or remove the system completly. (I do not however have a fix for this and therefore won’t tell Anet to “FIX BROKEN GAME PLIZ” as a lot of players are currently doing on the forums.)

So this has been the state of thief from the eyes of a platinum thief main. If any top ranked player with another class as their main could do something similar followed by a mature discussion in the thread I would really be interested at looking at it. The frustration of seeing people complaining about the game without informing the devs what they think is simply frustrating and rather ridicolous imo. I will try to answer any questions you have about what I’ve said and/or thief in general as long as it’s not troll questions etc. Thanks for reading ^^//Lunatics Lambent aka Luna

Actually, as someone who shares venoms in spvp the results aren’t nearly as powerful as you expect. The best results are sharing with two others when you come in to +1 and all of you focus down a target.

I’ve sent a full 4 people with venoms into mid and it didn’t have a huge impact. Partly because people don’t focus their fire, partly because people waste their attacks on a blocking target or on projectiles where there is something preventing those from hitting.

It was hardly a “let the team carry” use of the cooldowns because you, as a thief, have other things to do besides sit on mid and throw out a few easily negated damage buffs to your allies. When you do add damage that way it makes a condi +1 thief more viable, but usually just on a single target, if the target is being properly focused. At best, on smaller maps, a thief may be able to get all the team covered with venomshare on the initial move to mid. But that won’t happen for the entire rest of the match because people will be spread out and again the thief will need to be doing what thief does best (rather than sitting around at mid getting shot at).

saerni.2584:

Actually, as someone who shares venoms in spvp the results aren’t nearly as powerful as you expect. The best results are sharing with two others when you come in to +1 and all of you focus down a target.

I’ve sent a full 4 people with venoms into mid and it didn’t have a huge impact. Partly because people don’t focus their fire, partly because people waste their attacks on a blocking target or on projectiles where there is something preventing those from hitting.

It was hardly a “let the team carry” use of the cooldowns because you, as a thief, have other things to do besides sit on mid and throw out a few easily negated damage buffs to your allies. When you do add damage that way it makes a condi +1 thief more viable, but usually just on a single target, if the target is being properly focused. At best, on smaller maps, a thief may be able to get all the team covered with venomshare on the initial move to mid. But that won’t happen for the entire rest of the match because people will be spread out and again the thief will need to be doing what thief does best (rather than sitting around at mid getting shot at).

I was obviously overblowing it when i said “let the team carry” but it’s pretty close to what you do. The thing is that if your team has 1 ranger or even better a necro with rise then the 5 target cap is hit pretty easily. The build is however even more stupid in wvw scenarios were you get it every tiem for well bomb necros. When playing the standard D/P I can consistently leave 4 people with basi in mid when rotating thru it. As for people not focusing that happens in lower ranks but it’s less of an issue at the higher levels of play. That’s a l2p issue away from this build being stupidly good at low ranks were people suicide mid all game. The reason why it doesn’t blow up in higher ranks is because people play around it in ways that don’t happen at lower ranks.

It’s already pretty one sided if your whole team is standing at mid and you are the only one rotating.

Pets attack slower and differently from people so even with a lot of venom stacks the result won’t always be so good.

I don’t want to downplay that I think venoms are effective—they are and I use them in spvp. What I want to challenge is the notion that venomsharing somehow obliterates the opposing team without much effort. In most situations venom sharing provides a nice boost in dps and cover conditions.

The one situation you describe where one person waddles into mid against 4 players with venoms shared to them, is hit by all the damaging venoms (24 stacks of poison, 16 stacks of torment, 16 stacks of vuln) and dies to them along with the damage of the people who applied them is working as intended. It also isn’t unbalanced, because it took getting hit a lot of times from a lot of sources to add up to the full condition potential of the venom.

saerni.2584:

It’s already pretty one sided if your whole team is standing at mid and you are the only one rotating.

Pets attack slower and differently from people so even with a lot of venom stacks the result won’t always be so good.

I don’t want to downplay that I think venoms are effective—they are and I use them in spvp. What I want to challenge is the notion that venomsharing somehow obliterates the opposing team without much effort. In most situations venom sharing provides a nice boost in dps and cover conditions.

The one situation you describe where one person waddles into mid against 4 players with venoms shared to them, is hit by all the damaging venoms (24 stacks of poison, 16 stacks of torment, 16 stacks of vuln) and dies to them along with the damage of the people who applied them is working as intended. It also isn’t unbalanced, because it took getting hit a lot of times from a lot of sources to add up to the full condition potential of the venom.

The games were they’re all 4 at mid is right after a teamfight which is pretty common even at higher ranks. Theres a small gap after a won fight were these venom applications are applicable. As for pets attacking you have smokescale and bristleback which are fast and both are meta. The minions attacking slow are a fair point however. The situation I’m describing is proper play (especially in opening mid fight), this is made even worse by the odd necro running epi. That completly destroys the enemy team and you might aswell leave mid for good against those comps. (I had around 20 games like this during the 400 I played in total.

I’d love to see a proper team pairing venoms and epidemic with maybe a condi mesmer…but I don’t think I’ve seen that so far. I have seen plenty of condi necros, but none that used venomshare to any great effect.

I would totally be interested if someone wants to put that comp together.

I am playing s/d and its awesome! Wars are strong now, but its okey just take more time to kill them) . Moreover, teefs get nerf this is our favourite signet with endurance, but d/p feels these nerfs more seriously (healing gets less endurance) and playing on s/d I see it very clearly

Patches are goin in the wrong direction for thief. It should increase build diversity, not making dp only choice. They nerfed staff hard even tho it was second best weapon. I rly hope they add ricochet for pistol autos.

Urejt.5648:

Patches are goin in the wrong direction for thief. It should increase build diversity, not making dp only choice. They nerfed staff hard even tho it was second best weapon. I rly hope they add ricochet for pistol autos.

I’m gonna have to disagree with you there. I believe the old staff was in need of a nerf simply because it removed skill requirements from the class and also was too good at too much. If you try to use the other skills of the staff other than 5 you’ll notice just how viable of a choice it still is. Use the staff 5 as a gap closer instead of an all around dmg tool and you’ll see a big change.

Dagger.2035:

I agree with your assessment of Pulmonary Impact. It turns Headshot from a low damage utility skill to one of the highest damage range skills we have.

PI doesn’t crit, is single target, and requires a Sigil to do modest damage. It also requires timing and a target without stab to work otherwise a player just blew through a bunch of init for no damage. The attack can do upwards of 5k with Sigil of Draining in the mix for 4 init or a thief can dump an Unload for 2x the damage and one more init. Even better smack with Shadow Shot on a crit, do the same damage, get a teleport and Blind the target. Don’t even get me started on how Staff/Vault compares in a multi-target setting.

Besides the biggest damager on the thief right now is the auto-attack. One full cycle is nearly max Backstab damage and it costs no init.

This covers things nicely. Although Ghost Thief has got to go because it’s basically just clone death Mesmer again, only it can gap close and has actual burst. It’s not good for the game and fundamentally breaks a rule for stealth. But it’s only an issue for WvW so it will likely remain….until someone at Anet gets ruined by it and then they will nuke Ghost Thief (and ruin condi thief in general probably).

I agree with you on PI. In a world without Headshot, PI would be absolutely fine. But it’s just an obscene amount of extra damage for D/P. It feels wrong when I use it because my dagger auto-attack chain already does around the same damage as a crit backstab (actually more sometimes) and then I get easy interrupt damage on top of that and it just obliterates people…especially in WvW with all kinds of ridiculous added stuff.

Although to be fair I can press Unload once to do 10-12K from ranged or Vault once to get 9-13K so it’s probably in keeping with what Thief has become.

I think a simple change to help both power D/D and S/D would be to buff Dancing Dagger. Right now this skill doesn’t serve any purpose. It doesn’t provide any damage and cripple isn’t worth the initiative cost. I use it mostly for laughs when some one only has a sliver of health.

I also feel like condition D/D is fine. As you said it is not a problem in high level PvP and I’ve never had any issues fighting it in WvW. You just have to time your attacks and you can walk away to buy yourself some time if you take too much condition pressure.

I also think Dagger Storm is fine as is. It’s a good PvE skill when you don’t have access to Black Powder. It allows you to agro all enemies in an upgraded camp so you can clear it before white swords pop. It hasn’t been good in zerg vs zerg for quite a while. I miss the good old days when you could Infiltrator’s Strike at a zerg, push through the zerg with Dagger Storm, and teleport back an infinite distance back to safety. I think they nerfed the number of projectiles so you can’t self sustain with it any more using Signet of Malice. I mainly equip the skill out of nostalgia, but it is still useful against power rangers and condition mesmers.

so basically what i can read from this post is, that one build should be nerfed and all others are basically kitten^^

nothing wrong with bringing back pistol ricochet if they just placed it for the main hand abilities.