Guild Wars 2

Been watching the EU TOL and I didn’t notice any team using a thief. I could be wrong. It was mostly warriors/ele/engi/necro. So, are we officially the worst class?

I think most of the thieves out there were really bad players who didn’t know how to play this class and just played thief due to Sizer’s popularity and easy build he was using.
Now that it’s a tad harder to be effective as a thief, most of these players have rerolled to other professions.

hihey.1075:

I think most of the thieves out there were really bad players who didn’t know how to play this class and just played thief due to Sizer’s popularity and easy build he was using.
Now that it’s a tad harder to be effective as a thief, most of these players have rerolled to other professions.

We’re talking about a $50K tournament. I don’t think a team will bring a “really bad players who didn’t know how to play this class.”

Sifu.6527:

hihey.1075:

I think most of the thieves out there were really bad players who didn’t know how to play this class and just played thief due to Sizer’s popularity and easy build he was using.
Now that it’s a tad harder to be effective as a thief, most of these players have rerolled to other professions.

We’re talking about a $50K tournament. I don’t think a team will bring a “really bad players who didn’t know how to play this class.”

…and exactly because it’s a 50k tournament, a lot of people would sign up for it “just for trying, you never know”.
;)

Most of the hype thieves moved to power rangers since they just roll to whatever is easiest to play.

Most of the dedicated thieves are sort of annoyed at the constant nerfs and bugs, specifically the steal nerf is impacting a lot of top tier thieves. The reveal from smoke screen and BP nerf for anyone who uses d/p is pretty annoying as well (on top of the many other nerfs of the past).

That being said, say all you want about NA not having good players but in the last NA qualifier there was a d/p thief in Evil Villains and Seraphs for their semifinals match to Qualify.

hihey.1075:

I think most of the thieves out there were really bad players who didn’t know how to play this class and just played thief due to Sizer’s popularity and easy build he was using.
Now that it’s a tad harder to be effective as a thief, most of these players have rerolled to other professions.

Nonsense.

You clearly don’t play thief, or at least didn’t play it prior to the patch.
They played the build because it was good at what is it was doing. Now the S/D has been nerfed into oblivion and is HUGELY more difficult. It’s not a tad harder to be as effective as before….. It’s impossible to be as effective as before. It’s not because thief attracted noobs (certainly not more than any other class, there are TONNES of easier classes and builds to play effectively than S/D for goodness sake..any warrior, d/d ele, turret engi, MM Necro, Bunker Guard, Spirit Ranger etc etc are all much easier builds to play and are more popular than S/D ever was)

I think the fact that the top players in the world are not using Thief anymore just shows the class is kittened beyond recognition these days.

hihey.1075:

Sifu.6527:

hihey.1075:

I think most of the thieves out there were really bad players who didn’t know how to play this class and just played thief due to Sizer’s popularity and easy build he was using.
Now that it’s a tad harder to be effective as a thief, most of these players have rerolled to other professions.

We’re talking about a $50K tournament. I don’t think a team will bring a “really bad players who didn’t know how to play this class.”

…and exactly because it’s a 50k tournament, a lot of people would sign up for it “just for trying, you never know”.
;)

…and exactly, thief isn’t even viable anymore or you would see thieves in the tournament. thanks for proving my point.

Sifu.6527:

hihey.1075:

Sifu.6527:

hihey.1075:

I think most of the thieves out there were really bad players who didn’t know how to play this class and just played thief due to Sizer’s popularity and easy build he was using.
Now that it’s a tad harder to be effective as a thief, most of these players have rerolled to other professions.

We’re talking about a $50K tournament. I don’t think a team will bring a “really bad players who didn’t know how to play this class.”

…and exactly because it’s a 50k tournament, a lot of people would sign up for it “just for trying, you never know”.
;)

…and exactly, thief isn’t even viable anymore or you would see thieves in the tournament. thanks for proving my point.

I think you misunderstood me. My previous reply was to show you that BECAUSE this tournament rewards players with money, a lot of players signed up for it.
This “a lot of players” includes also those players who PREVIOUSLY were playing thief (Sizer’s build) because it was a build extremely effective AND easy to play.
After the patch, this “a lot of players” have rerolled to other professions because thief has become too hard for them.

Before this patch, ANYONE who was mechanically ok could take up Sizer’s build and do well in a PvP match. After this patch, this is not true anymore. Hence, the reroll to other professions.

Not saying that thief is not viable anymore, it’s just that it’s not “FOTM” anymore. Also, Cheese Mode’s recent win of the ToL2 further emphasised this matter.
People already forgot that CM won despite TCG not playing in the finals. They only remember that CM won “without a thief”.
Good players are always viable. I’ll always welcome a good thief in my soloq team.

TrOtskY.5927:

hihey.1075:

I think most of the thieves out there were really bad players who didn’t know how to play this class and just played thief due to Sizer’s popularity and easy build he was using.
Now that it’s a tad harder to be effective as a thief, most of these players have rerolled to other professions.

Nonsense.

You clearly don’t play thief, or at least didn’t play it prior to the patch.
They played the build because it was good at what is it was doing. Now the S/D has been nerfed into oblivion and is HUGELY more difficult. It’s not a tad harder to be as effective as before….. It’s impossible to be as effective as before. It’s not because thief attracted noobs (certainly not more than any other class, there are TONNES of easier classes and builds to play effectively than S/D for goodness sake..any warrior, d/d ele, turret engi, MM Necro, Bunker Guard, Spirit Ranger etc etc are all much easier builds to play and are more popular than S/D ever was)

I think the fact that the top players in the world are not using Thief anymore just shows the class is kittened beyond recognition these days.

No. S/D is a “tad” harder. Your inability to precast LS before a fight is the reason why players like you are complaining all over the place about their “supposedly” broken build. I often play with only one weapon just to show how easy it is to play an Acro+Trickery build.
You say that “heh, I don’t do enough damage to kill people fast1111111”. I say: then stop playing Acro+Trickery and go back to Critical Strikes+Trickery or Critical Strikes+Acro.
You just cannot do insane amount of damage with ONE skill anymore. I’d say that current S/D is one of the most BALANCED sets in the game: you still do damage, but your burst is lower than before – however, your survivability is great, and your mobility is the best in the game.

I see thieves who miss steal on Guardian using Shelter. I see thieves using Steal when Blinded. I see thieves who dodge when the enemy engi is using Gear Shield.
ALL these players are bandwagoners who jump from class to class, depending on what’s “fotm” and what’s not.

Of course I don’t put “old” S/D thieves on the same plane as D/D Eles or Turret Engis or Ham/Axe Bows, as AT LEAST it required some brain power to do something with it. However, this doesn’t change the fact that the set was WAY too powerful and that the nerfs it got, even though they weren’t what I personally had changed, were done rightfully.

If YOU cannot play a spec it does not mean that the spec itself is unplayable.

IN ANY CASE, the Steal bug was a major issue that I have been fighting against since the July patch.

60206 still works beautifully, even buffed IMO. The super-long duration wasn’t even the main reason it worked well, it was the fact that you got immobilised for any decent duration at all, especially when you have a Thief bearing down on you with a Dagger at low health. It’s still a nice duration and has a much lower CD now.

26006 is still very good but I can see 60206 being more popular for people sticking to Thief in tourneys. S/D is still also very good.

We also still have all that Shortbow goodness with the mobility, corpse coverage and AoE Poison.

We haven’t been pushed out of the meta. We just aren’t absolutely mandatory for a comp anymore, which is a good thing and introduces a little variety to comp matchups. If you do take one, they still work very well for what they’re supposed to do.

Besides re-rolling…
They also might have gotten tired with the “balance” changes all together and either have quit the game entirely, or log in once in a while to do some small activity (say flipping on the TP)/play the current LS chapter.

The weird definition that people seem to draw is “bad” people left/re-rolled while the “good” guys stayed…. Slightly wrong… More like:
People lost interest (various reasons, being bad, tired of “balances”, …) and left… while the persistent (not necessarily good either) people stayed.

main thing what ruins it for me is port bug (involves steal, signet, shs etc.)

i died countless times just because of the bugs, pretty unplayable vs any decent enemy

when steal, inf. signet, shs are not reliable and bug out like this, obviously thief as whole is just not as good anymore… why play high risk very buggy class when there are better alternatives

people play to win after all

i think if bugs were fixed and celestial/might stacking were nerfed, there would be more thieves in tournaments

LOL for the people saying thieves are left behind due to nerfs are correct. Rangers took their place. I am glad rangers got what they needed but anet needs to bring back the original Dev team that made GW1 so good and the team that deals with GW2 go to Wildstar or work on another project please…

Thief is still used in the meta. But the list of bugs tied to the thief is terrible.

Thieves are still in the meta of top tier teams, we just didn’t see that many yesterday in the ToG. I think we will see more today and on the next weekend ToG matches.

Grumpy.6027:

LOL for the people saying thieves are left behind due to nerfs are correct. Rangers took their place. I am glad rangers got what they needed but anet needs to bring back the original Dev team that made GW1 so good and the team that deals with GW2 go to Wildstar or work on another project please…

Except GW1 is nothing like GW2. What made GW1 good wasn’t the balance, because GW1 was arguably even less balanced than GW2.

What made GW1 good was the core game concepts, which GW2 ditched for….well, I don’t really know what.

I think it all depends on which team composition the thief is on..
there are some teams that realy don’t know what to do with a thief, those are full bunker teams where celestial ele, hambow (or 2 ele, 2 hambow) engi can win by attrition and good rotation, where fights last longer, the thief’s burst is not enough. I’d say Cheese Mode play this kind of meta.
But let’s see TCG, those guys play a different kind of meta, of course they are the best ones at playing this way, they focus on mobility and spike, and that is where the thief still shines.

Some of you need to relax. The black powder nerf really doesnt affect d/p thieves in the slightest. NOBODY stands in the black powder longer than 1/2 a second, unless immobilized. The nerf mostly affects PvE, even then its really not that bad. The only substantial nerf is the initiative increase for FS, so it isnt as spammable, even that isn’t nearly as class breaking as some people think it is.

The only major problem with the thief class is most people’s dependence on s/d and flanking strike spams

Ragion.2831:

Some of you need to relax. The black powder nerf really doesnt affect d/p thieves in the slightest. NOBODY stands in the black powder longer than 1/2 a second, unless immobilized. The nerf mostly affects PvE, even then its really not that bad. The only substantial nerf is the initiative increase for FS, so it isnt as spammable, even that isn’t nearly as class breaking as some people think it is.

The only major problem with the thief class is most people’s dependence on s/d and flanking strike spams

Agreed.

hihey.1075:

TrOtskY.5927:

hihey.1075:

I think most of the thieves out there were really bad players who didn’t know how to play this class and just played thief due to Sizer’s popularity and easy build he was using.
Now that it’s a tad harder to be effective as a thief, most of these players have rerolled to other professions.

….

No. S/D is a “tad” harder. Your inability to precast LS before a fight is the reason why players like you are complaining all over the place about their “supposedly” broken build. I often play with only one weapon just to show how easy it is to play an Acro+Trickery build.
You say that “heh, I don’t do enough damage to kill people fast1111111”. I say: then stop playing Acro+Trickery and go back to Critical Strikes+Trickery or Critical Strikes+Acro.
You just cannot do insane amount of damage with ONE skill anymore. I’d say that current S/D is one of the most BALANCED sets in the game: you still do damage, but your burst is lower than before – however, your survivability is great, and your mobility is the best in the game.

I see thieves who miss steal on Guardian using Shelter. I see thieves using Steal when Blinded. I see thieves who dodge when the enemy engi is using Gear Shield.
ALL these players are bandwagoners who jump from class to class, depending on what’s “fotm” and what’s not.

Of course I don’t put “old” S/D thieves on the same plane as D/D Eles or Turret Engis or Ham/Axe Bows, as AT LEAST it required some brain power to do something with it. However, this doesn’t change the fact that the set was WAY too powerful and that the nerfs it got, even though they weren’t what I personally had changed, were done rightfully.

If YOU cannot play a spec it does not mean that the spec itself is unplayable.

IN ANY CASE, the Steal bug was a major issue that I have been fighting against since the July patch.

I’m still calling nonsense, there are now just too many builds that a S/D thief could deal with before that it cannot now, regardless of whether it runs critical strikes, etc. In fact, running critical strikes with S/D is just bad anyway, you really ought to reroll. You lose out on so many important boons from losing trickery and losing out on the daze is the biggy.

You say drop Acro. Dropping Acro is not good for a S/D, we NEED feline grace. We NEED vigorous healing.
Dropping trickery is more possible, but you lose out on SO much good stuff (including practically the only team support a thief can bring for goodness sake) and don’t really gain any DoT, and infact lose the ability to apply pressure for longer periods of time due to the loss of vigor and perma swiftness. I would argue that the DoT for critical strikes thief over trickery thief is actually significantly less in practical circumstances against decent (not even good) players.

I say this because I play medi guard as my other main. I can now handle 2-3 thieves AT ONCE when before a single S/D was always an exciting fight.

Thief is a joke class now, no doubt. But if you say you are able to run around with just a sword and still do stuff, then I really don’t believe you whatsoever. If you are going to draw on your experience from low level hotjoin and WvW then I am really not interested in what you have to say…
It’s not a tad harder, its a LOT harder and that’s just a fact because this patch was a major nerf to thief whilst many other classes and builds got some form of buff, and very few got nerfs that directly affected their ability to deal with S/D itself.

Medi Guard > Renewed focus buff, more effective HP to break through. Can’t break through preloaded aegis anymore without having to either waste initiative or start off in SB which is just asking to get destroyed if he has any ports off cooldown.

Engi > Don’t think I need to mention this

Ranger > Same

Warrior > Adrenaline nerf definitely helped thief, but there was no real nerf to the warriors ability to mititage thief damage. The loss of on-demand combustive shot is the real loss to the warrior. Warrior is probably the only class that fares worse than before, but Axe/Shield builds are still almost just as effective as before.

Necro > Doesn’t matter, any good necro will wtfpwn a thief no matter what.

Mesmer > More condis. PU got a nerf but that’s irrelevant really. Mesmer was always favourable to the thief, so I don’t mind the changes here

Elementalist > no real change, I guess buffed signets help a little for whoever likes to run those (nobody???). Otherwise a thief should not be taking on an d/d ele.

When you play a build that suddenly finds itself weaker 1v1 against almost every other class in the game, it has a cumulative effect that makes team fights an absolute nightmare.

So I am sorry I have to disagree that the thief nerf just made it a “tad” harder.

hihey.1075:

Ragion.2831:

Some of you need to relax. The black powder nerf really doesnt affect d/p thieves in the slightest. NOBODY stands in the black powder longer than 1/2 a second, unless immobilized. The nerf mostly affects PvE, even then its really not that bad. The only substantial nerf is the initiative increase for FS, so it isnt as spammable, even that isn’t nearly as class breaking as some people think it is.

The only major problem with the thief class is most people’s dependence on s/d and flanking strike spams

Agreed.

Again, more rubbish. Nobody used flanking strike spam. I don’t actually believe some of what I am reading in this thread. If it was up to any good S/D thief they would drop FS completely and go straight for LS if it was possible.

hihey.1075:

TrOtskY.5927:

hihey.1075:

I think most of the thieves out there were really bad players who didn’t know how to play this class and just played thief due to Sizer’s popularity and easy build he was using.
Now that it’s a tad harder to be effective as a thief, most of these players have rerolled to other professions.

Nonsense.

You clearly don’t play thief, or at least didn’t play it prior to the patch.
They played the build because it was good at what is it was doing. Now the S/D has been nerfed into oblivion and is HUGELY more difficult. It’s not a tad harder to be as effective as before….. It’s impossible to be as effective as before. It’s not because thief attracted noobs (certainly not more than any other class, there are TONNES of easier classes and builds to play effectively than S/D for goodness sake..any warrior, d/d ele, turret engi, MM Necro, Bunker Guard, Spirit Ranger etc etc are all much easier builds to play and are more popular than S/D ever was)

I think the fact that the top players in the world are not using Thief anymore just shows the class is kittened beyond recognition these days.

No. S/D is a “tad” harder. Your inability to precast LS before a fight is the reason why players like you are complaining all over the place about their “supposedly” broken build. I often play with only one weapon just to show how easy it is to play an Acro+Trickery build.
You say that “heh, I don’t do enough damage to kill people fast1111111”. I say: then stop playing Acro+Trickery and go back to Critical Strikes+Trickery or Critical Strikes+Acro.
You just cannot do insane amount of damage with ONE skill anymore. I’d say that current S/D is one of the most BALANCED sets in the game: you still do damage, but your burst is lower than before – however, your survivability is great, and your mobility is the best in the game.

I see thieves who miss steal on Guardian using Shelter. I see thieves using Steal when Blinded. I see thieves who dodge when the enemy engi is using Gear Shield.
ALL these players are bandwagoners who jump from class to class, depending on what’s “fotm” and what’s not.

Of course I don’t put “old” S/D thieves on the same plane as D/D Eles or Turret Engis or Ham/Axe Bows, as AT LEAST it required some brain power to do something with it. However, this doesn’t change the fact that the set was WAY too powerful and that the nerfs it got, even though they weren’t what I personally had changed, were done rightfully.

If YOU cannot play a spec it does not mean that the spec itself is unplayable.

IN ANY CASE, the Steal bug was a major issue that I have been fighting against since the July patch.

“You just cannot do insane amount of damage with ONE skill anymore”

Yea a whole 4k damage is just too insane! The set is more than just a tad harder to use now. Larcenous strike, which is undeniably the main reason to use S/D in the first place, is now exponentially harder to access. S/D is now sucks in PvP.

D/P is completely fine though, may be the only viable pvp set for thief.

also trotsky, I agree with most of your points, but with he current state of steal and the fact that we can’t LS into steal like we use to, I think dropping trickery for CS traits is the move. No matter what you do though, set will still be sub-par and vastly inferior to D/P. also, steal BT no longer prioritizes aegis/stability, both of which will make your 30 poit SoH useless. aegis feels more common than ever too. a big part of why I went 30 in trickery, besides the kittenedly good traits was the steal cool-down (34 to 21 seconds!). but now that steal is nowhere near as good I’ll opt for raw damage and take infiltrators signet to make up for longer cd on steal

Ragion.2831:

Some of you need to relax. The black powder nerf really doesnt affect d/p thieves in the slightest. NOBODY stands in the black powder longer than 1/2 a second, unless immobilized. The nerf mostly affects PvE, even then its really not that bad. The only substantial nerf is the initiative increase for FS, so it isnt as spammable, even that isn’t nearly as class breaking as some people think it is.

The only major problem with the thief class is most people’s dependence on s/d and flanking strike spams

The BP nerf doesn’t even affect PvE. No enemy in the game attacks faster than 2 seconds anyways.

As far as I can tell, the nerf was solely to stop this one gimmicky stomping tactic. I kind of think Anet has lost the plot on what to do these days and we need some open communication on what they actually want to achieve with these patches.

I wrote a long post but the forums got dizzy and lost it.
Won’t type again, but Trotsky, just know this: S/D is now a BALANCED set. Before, it was not.
You want damage? Go CS. You want survivability and sustain? Go Acro. You want utility? Go Trickery.
Your choice. You can’t have all 3 together anymore.

Also, I won’t brag about my experience but trust me that I have plenty, and most top players agree with me (such as all 55hp monks).

hihey.1075:

I wrote a long post but the forums got dizzy and lost it.
Won’t type again, but Trotsky, just know this: S/D is now a BALANCED set. Before, it was not.
You want damage? Go CS. You want survivability and sustain? Go Acro. You want utility? Go Trickery.
Your choice. You can’t have all 3 together anymore.

You couldn’t have all 3 of those lines together to begin with, since we only have 14 trait points.

In my opinion, S/D was fine until the strength rune meta was introduced. Strength runes synchronized too well with Power of Inertia and Feline Grace, and with sigil procs the set could provide too much damage with little to no commitment into the damage trait lines.

ArenaNet’s response to this was to leave strength runes as they are, nerf the damage of the set, and make evade spam easier. I agree that the set needed a change, but I disagree that this is balanced now.

Personally, I think there should have been changes to the concurrent passive benefits.

Rusc.4978:

hihey.1075:

I wrote a long post but the forums got dizzy and lost it.
Won’t type again, but Trotsky, just know this: S/D is now a BALANCED set. Before, it was not.
You want damage? Go CS. You want survivability and sustain? Go Acro. You want utility? Go Trickery.
Your choice. You can’t have all 3 together anymore.

You couldn’t have all 3 of those lines together to begin with, since we only have 14 trait points.

Yes, but your initial burst with Steal+Larcenous Strike+1-2 auto+Double sigil procs could easily oneshot an enemy zerker player (4-5k LS, 3k double sigils, 4k autos, 2k steal).
Without LS, the only way you can get those numbers again is if you go into CS

Not saying it’s necessarily bad or UP now, but for the effort that you have to put into keeping your thief alive now, you could be much more effective on another class while dealing your damage in an AoE fashion instead of single target.

I.E. the reward stayed about the same while the risk was increased (not even including shadowstep bugs) because other classes were buffed around them.

hihey.1075:

Rusc.4978:

hihey.1075:

I wrote a long post but the forums got dizzy and lost it.
Won’t type again, but Trotsky, just know this: S/D is now a BALANCED set. Before, it was not.
You want damage? Go CS. You want survivability and sustain? Go Acro. You want utility? Go Trickery.
Your choice. You can’t have all 3 together anymore.

You couldn’t have all 3 of those lines together to begin with, since we only have 14 trait points.

Yes, but your initial burst with Steal+Larcenous Strike+1-2 auto+Double sigil procs could easily oneshot an enemy zerker player (4-5k LS, 3k double sigils, 4k autos, 2k steal).
Without LS, the only way you can get those numbers again is if you go into CS

Those must be silly WvW numbers (Where you will never find balance, because the game is balanced around 5v5 capture point), because they’re absolutely impossible in SPvP with a 2/0/0/6/6 setup. Even if your numbers were accurate (let me reiterate, they are not), you’re talking all crits, where your typical 2/0/0/6/6 builds has 35-48% crit (depending on utilities and runes); even with fury that’s nowhere near 100% crit. And just one final thing, LS + 2 auto swings (because if you’re claiming 1 autoattack hit for 4k you’re out of your mind) is far from a “One shot”, and you’d need to be fairly lucky to get both sigils to proc on 3 swings.

I don’t WvW, but I don’t really believe S/D was considered “OP” in WvW, especially considering how powerful SA and stealth are there.

S/D is a laughably UP set at this point, and the changes were unwarranted. Thieves are currently low man on the totem pole because Anet has no idea what it is they want thieves to do. They keep pushing out ridiculous nerfs while simultaneously ignoring Under performing weapon sets (P/P, D/D), tweaking awfully designed and implemented traits (AE, CI), and downright ignoring their past abortions (Hard to catch).

evilapprentice.6379:

hihey.1075:

Rusc.4978:

hihey.1075:

I wrote a long post but the forums got dizzy and lost it.
Won’t type again, but Trotsky, just know this: S/D is now a BALANCED set. Before, it was not.
You want damage? Go CS. You want survivability and sustain? Go Acro. You want utility? Go Trickery.
Your choice. You can’t have all 3 together anymore.

You couldn’t have all 3 of those lines together to begin with, since we only have 14 trait points.

Yes, but your initial burst with Steal+Larcenous Strike+1-2 auto+Double sigil procs could easily oneshot an enemy zerker player (4-5k LS, 3k double sigils, 4k autos, 2k steal).
Without LS, the only way you can get those numbers again is if you go into CS

Those must be silly WvW numbers (Where you will never find balance, because the game is balanced around 5v5 capture point), because they’re absolutely impossible in SPvP with a 2/0/0/6/6 setup. Even if your numbers were accurate (let me reiterate, they are not), you’re talking all crits, where your typical 2/0/0/6/6 builds has 35-48% crit (depending on utilities and runes); even with fury that’s nowhere near 100% crit. And just one final thing, LS + 2 auto swings (because if you’re claiming 1 autoattack hit for 4k you’re out of your mind) is far from a “One shot”, and you’d need to be fairly lucky to get both sigils to proc on 3 swings.

I don’t WvW, but I don’t really believe S/D was considered “OP” in WvW, especially considering how powerful SA and stealth are there.

S/D is a laughably UP set at this point, and the changes were unwarranted. Thieves are currently low man on the totem pole because Anet has no idea what it is they want thieves to do. They keep pushing out ridiculous nerfs while simultaneously ignoring Under performing weapon sets (P/P, D/D), tweaking awfully designed and implemented traits (AE, CI), and downright ignoring their past abortions (Hard to catch).

he forgot to add that the enemy must be sleeping in the while. Even then he will survive for a fair amount of time. If the enemy react with block\invulnerability, stun\daze\knockback, cond spam, the thief is forced to retreat or die.

It’s ok, I’m a bad thief, I clearly don’t know how sword works, I clearly am talking about WvW against uplvlds, and I clearly am clueless as to the sword issue.

hihey.1075:

I wrote a long post but the forums got dizzy and lost it.
Won’t type again, but Trotsky, just know this: S/D is now a BALANCED set. Before, it was not.
You want damage? Go CS. You want survivability and sustain? Go Acro. You want utility? Go Trickery.
Your choice. You can’t have all 3 together anymore.

Also, I won’t brag about my experience but trust me that I have plenty, and most top players agree with me (such as all 55hp monks).

Lollllll, you must think D/P thief is crazy OP if you think S/D is now “balanced”…. Or are you going to make the argument that S/D is as good as D/P…..

Cam Ron.4170:

hihey.1075:

I wrote a long post but the forums got dizzy and lost it.
Won’t type again, but Trotsky, just know this: S/D is now a BALANCED set. Before, it was not.
You want damage? Go CS. You want survivability and sustain? Go Acro. You want utility? Go Trickery.
Your choice. You can’t have all 3 together anymore.

Also, I won’t brag about my experience but trust me that I have plenty, and most top players agree with me (such as all 55hp monks).

Lollllll, you must think D/P thief is crazy OP if you think S/D is now “balanced”…. Or are you going to make the argument that S/D is as good as D/P…..

S/D was op and did not require much skill.
not saying anything, but it was really common sense amount good players. even sizer himself said S/D was op.
nothing really much to debate here.

As someone who originally played a ranger, I have been playing on my ranger instead of my thief because for once, it’s viable with something other than a cheese spirit build. =P

Cam Ron.4170:

hihey.1075:

I wrote a long post but the forums got dizzy and lost it.
Won’t type again, but Trotsky, just know this: S/D is now a BALANCED set. Before, it was not.
You want damage? Go CS. You want survivability and sustain? Go Acro. You want utility? Go Trickery.
Your choice. You can’t have all 3 together anymore.

Also, I won’t brag about my experience but trust me that I have plenty, and most top players agree with me (such as all 55hp monks).

Lollllll, you must think D/P thief is crazy OP if you think S/D is now “balanced”…. Or are you going to make the argument that S/D is as good as D/P…..

D/P (regardless of the spec used) has always been inferior to S/x specs, especially in 1v1s.
If you lose to a D/P when playing Acro+Trickery S/x, you got outplayed hard.

hihey.1075:

D/P (regardless of the spec used) has always been inferior to S/x specs, especially in 1v1s.
If you lose to a D/P when playing Acro+Trickery S/x, you got outplayed hard.

That opinion must be exclusive to you. If anything, D/P has an advantage over S/D in a 1v1 Situation. Even Sizer is having a hard time vs a good D/P.

hihey.1075:

Cam Ron.4170:

hihey.1075:

I wrote a long post but the forums got dizzy and lost it.
Won’t type again, but Trotsky, just know this: S/D is now a BALANCED set. Before, it was not.
You want damage? Go CS. You want survivability and sustain? Go Acro. You want utility? Go Trickery.
Your choice. You can’t have all 3 together anymore.

Also, I won’t brag about my experience but trust me that I have plenty, and most top players agree with me (such as all 55hp monks).

Lollllll, you must think D/P thief is crazy OP if you think S/D is now “balanced”…. Or are you going to make the argument that S/D is as good as D/P…..

D/P (regardless of the spec used) has always been inferior to S/x specs, especially in 1v1s.
If you lose to a D/P when playing Acro+Trickery S/x, you got outplayed hard.

So do you think D/P is OP now, or that S/D is as good as D/P ? By your logic it has to be one or the other, and either way you’re high.

hihey.1075:

Cam Ron.4170:

hihey.1075:

I wrote a long post but the forums got dizzy and lost it.
Won’t type again, but Trotsky, just know this: S/D is now a BALANCED set. Before, it was not.
You want damage? Go CS. You want survivability and sustain? Go Acro. You want utility? Go Trickery.
Your choice. You can’t have all 3 together anymore.

Also, I won’t brag about my experience but trust me that I have plenty, and most top players agree with me (such as all 55hp monks).

Lollllll, you must think D/P thief is crazy OP if you think S/D is now “balanced”…. Or are you going to make the argument that S/D is as good as D/P…..

D/P (regardless of the spec used) has always been inferior to S/x specs, especially in 1v1s.
If you lose to a D/P when playing Acro+Trickery S/x, you got outplayed hard.

if I can beat your D\P and S\D thief using an S\P thief do you will state that S\P is more OP than the other 2 sets?
Do you will state that all of these 3 sets are viable in PvP and not subpar compared to the majority of builds around nowadays?

Grumpy.6027:

…but anet needs to bring back the original Dev team that made GW1 so good and the team that deals with GW2 go to Wildstar or work on another project please…

You really believe that? The balance in GW1 is horrible also and the same person who ruined the game is the same person who is ruining this game.

One philosophy that this person had, if a skill is too hard to balance, get rid of it by giving it a ridiculously low duration and ridiculously high cooldown. That way, the skill is not gone, just unplayable (see Smiter’s Boon )

That kind of mentality is the one governing this game right now. They don’t want Thieves in the tournament, so they lower the duration of our survivability skill (i.e. BP) and increase the cooldown (i.e. initative cost of FS) of many key skills that made Thieves effective.

GW1 is a horrible model to use as a template on how to balance GW2.

Kolly.9872:

hihey.1075:

Cam Ron.4170:

hihey.1075:

I wrote a long post but the forums got dizzy and lost it.
Won’t type again, but Trotsky, just know this: S/D is now a BALANCED set. Before, it was not.
You want damage? Go CS. You want survivability and sustain? Go Acro. You want utility? Go Trickery.
Your choice. You can’t have all 3 together anymore.

Also, I won’t brag about my experience but trust me that I have plenty, and most top players agree with me (such as all 55hp monks).

Lollllll, you must think D/P thief is crazy OP if you think S/D is now “balanced”…. Or are you going to make the argument that S/D is as good as D/P…..

D/P (regardless of the spec used) has always been inferior to S/x specs, especially in 1v1s.
If you lose to a D/P when playing Acro+Trickery S/x, you got outplayed hard.

if I can beat your D\P and S\D thief using an S\P thief do you will state that S\P is more OP than the other 2 sets?
Do you will state that all of these 3 sets are viable in PvP and not subpar compared to the majority of builds around nowadays?

The only advantage that a DP thief has over a S/x Thief is IF the DP gets the jump on him. Which CAN happen in a pvp match, mind me, but is the S/x’s job to be alert all the time and be ready to react or avoid that burst.
In an actual 1v1, a DP will NEVER land a clean backstab on the S/x (assuming good players), and the amount of evades and dodges available to the S/x are enough to make most of the DP bursts to miss. Also, landing a steal on a S/x is extremely difficult, while landing one on a DP is easy as pie.

Of course everything can happen in a 1v1, and getting outplayed can ensure the win of the DP side.

I believe if you beat him kitten while he plays SD it only means that either you are a better thief than him, or that you outplayed him for that round.

Also, all these sets are viable in PvP, but the best one IMHO is DP, because it suits the role of a thief better (one shotting enemy zerkers or weakened foes). SD is still viable because you can actually hold a point with it for a while, and SP, well… It’s a mix of both the previous sets, but I don’t like it really much and haven’t played it a lot so cannot say anything

Zord.6130:

Kolly.9872:

hihey.1075:

Cam Ron.4170:

hihey.1075:

I wrote a long post but the forums got dizzy and lost it.
Won’t type again, but Trotsky, just know this: S/D is now a BALANCED set. Before, it was not.
You want damage? Go CS. You want survivability and sustain? Go Acro. You want utility? Go Trickery.
Your choice. You can’t have all 3 together anymore.

Also, I won’t brag about my experience but trust me that I have plenty, and most top players agree with me (such as all 55hp monks).

Lollllll, you must think D/P thief is crazy OP if you think S/D is now “balanced”…. Or are you going to make the argument that S/D is as good as D/P…..

D/P (regardless of the spec used) has always been inferior to S/x specs, especially in 1v1s.
If you lose to a D/P when playing Acro+Trickery S/x, you got outplayed hard.

if I can beat your D\P and S\D thief using an S\P thief do you will state that S\P is more OP than the other 2 sets?
Do you will state that all of these 3 sets are viable in PvP and not subpar compared to the majority of builds around nowadays?

The only advantage that a DP thief has over a S/x Thief is IF the DP gets the jump on him. Which CAN happen in a pvp match, mind me, but is the S/x’s job to be alert all the time and be ready to react or avoid that burst.
In an actual 1v1, a DP will NEVER land a clean backstab on the S/x (assuming good players), and the amount of evades and dodges available to the S/x are enough to make most of the DP bursts to miss. Also, landing a steal on a S/x is extremely difficult, while landing one on a DP is easy as pie.

Of course everything can happen in a 1v1, and getting outplayed can ensure the win of the DP side.

I believe if you beat him kitten while he plays SD it only means that either you are a better thief than him, or that you outplayed him for that round.

Also, all these sets are viable in PvP, but the best one IMHO is DP, because it suits the role of a thief better (one shotting enemy zerkers or weakened foes). SD is still viable because you can actually hold a point with it for a while, and SP, well… It’s a mix of both the previous sets, but I don’t like it really much and haven’t played it a lot so cannot say anything

If by “viable” you mean: only in hot join and never to be seen in another high level tournament in its current state ever again, then yes, S/D is viable.

anyone got footage of successful S/D play? I’m trying to figure out how to access my larcenous strike before blowing about 35 initiative., or should I just use 1 and 2 now and 3 for dodges?. any videos will help

Cam Ron.4170:

anyone got footage of successful S/D play? I’m trying to figure out how to access my larcenous strike before blowing about 35 initiative., or should I just use 1 and 2 now and 3 for dodges?. any videos will help

The pathing on FS is so buggy that you’ll be really lucky to land that hit even against a standing target. Missing on a standing target really kittenes me off because a pebble in in the way and they never fixed this even before they split this into two skills.

You still get catapulted with speed boost and spin in place when slowed. So much bullkitten.

Zord.6130:

Kolly.9872:

hihey.1075:

Cam Ron.4170:

hihey.1075:

I wrote a long post but the forums got dizzy and lost it.
Won’t type again, but Trotsky, just know this: S/D is now a BALANCED set. Before, it was not.
You want damage? Go CS. You want survivability and sustain? Go Acro. You want utility? Go Trickery.
Your choice. You can’t have all 3 together anymore.

Also, I won’t brag about my experience but trust me that I have plenty, and most top players agree with me (such as all 55hp monks).

Lollllll, you must think D/P thief is crazy OP if you think S/D is now “balanced”…. Or are you going to make the argument that S/D is as good as D/P…..

D/P (regardless of the spec used) has always been inferior to S/x specs, especially in 1v1s.
If you lose to a D/P when playing Acro+Trickery S/x, you got outplayed hard.

if I can beat your D\P and S\D thief using an S\P thief do you will state that S\P is more OP than the other 2 sets?
Do you will state that all of these 3 sets are viable in PvP and not subpar compared to the majority of builds around nowadays?

The only advantage that a DP thief has over a S/x Thief is IF the DP gets the jump on him. Which CAN happen in a pvp match, mind me, but is the S/x’s job to be alert all the time and be ready to react or avoid that burst.
In an actual 1v1, a DP will NEVER land a clean backstab on the S/x (assuming good players), and the amount of evades and dodges available to the S/x are enough to make most of the DP bursts to miss. Also, landing a steal on a S/x is extremely difficult, while landing one on a DP is easy as pie.

Of course everything can happen in a 1v1, and getting outplayed can ensure the win of the DP side.

I believe if you beat him kitten while he plays SD it only means that either you are a better thief than him, or that you outplayed him for that round.

Also, all these sets are viable in PvP, but the best one IMHO is DP, because it suits the role of a thief better (one shotting enemy zerkers or weakened foes). SD is still viable because you can actually hold a point with it for a while, and SP, well… It’s a mix of both the previous sets, but I don’t like it really much and haven’t played it a lot so cannot say anything

Well listen, for me all the 3 sets D\P S\D and S\P are perfectly balanced, that means that after the patch no one of the above sets can truly shines over the others.
That means that they are all good for tPvP? no, because there are too many builds right now that can outdamage, outheal and still damage a thief right now if played correctly. And for correctly I mean only as a top 50 player can play.
Now if we start from the point that tPvP is not a place for 1v1 fights but more for good teamplay and rotation, a thief can still do well and win, but surely he cannot carry his team to victory anymore and still it’s the only class that will take a too high risk vs a very low reward trying to fight any other class 1vs1 when needed, eccept maybe for power mesmer and other thieves, where the chances actually are 50\50.
I realy don’t mind the nerfs but the fact that so many other bunker builds were not nerfed at the same time or even buffed (turret engies?).
The problem of the thief right now is not the thief himself but that there are not anymore glass builds with everyone and his mother running survivable specs that can kill anyone by attrition. Thief is the oly class that cannot realy spec bunker, kitten even ranger with the new fotm power spec can play safe from 1500 range and still have an huge burst for killing a bunker on point, or otherwise can spec bunker and still feel usefull to the team. We are left with the only roaming and free point decap (if the enemy team is clueless), andour team support in team fight is down to using shortbow (huge support indeed).
In conclusion regarding D\P fighting an S\x build, I don’t think that hitting a target with steal (instant attack) is something realy hard to do, even on a target that is dodging all over the map, dodging and not doing damage I would like to add. Btw I agree that on the same skill level, thief vs thief is down to pure lack and crit proc.

Thief has never been used in the tpvp gametype ad a 1v1 spec.
A thief should NEVER engage in a 1v1, unless against another thief or a mesmer or a very, very bad player. The utility a thief provides to a team is what makes it really shine. Having the enemy team constantly alerted as to where the thief is, having the home point defender NEVER leave home because of the fear of a decap, having innate survivability thanks to “spammable” ports. Plus, the utility to help with downed targets (poison+interrupt on rezzers) and allied downed (stealth + interrupt stomper). All these are really valuable tools that, in the hands of a good thief, can really carry a team.
I’ve had matches that I won after not downing a single person by myself because they were all tank specs, but through good map awareness, quick decappings, and help on downed, pur team always had the upper hand on the enemy.

As I said, most thieves in pvp were horrible players that were carried by an insanely easy spec to play for a thief, especially in a meta were zerkers were still around. By having more thieves around, if you managed to get the jump on the enemy thief, you would have a great advantage over the enemy comp in a team fight. Now that there are less zerker specs because everyone rerolled to kitten engi or kitten Ele, you have to play a lot smarter than before to be effective. The lack of thieves only means that players like to play braindead specs.

What, I would NEVER engage a mesmer 1v1. I can never seem to out spam or clusterbomb all the kitten illusions they make. That passive damage is stupid. But I’m a bad thief.

Speaking of which, are there videos of good D/P thieves? It’s my favorite weaponset but I can’t seem to do anything good for the life of me. I either get hit w/ 2349839482 conditions, have a hard time dealing with turrets, getting outhealed by guards / wars, killed at 1500 range because rangers RF LULZ, or have a hard time dealing with illusions. And I’ve been playing thief for a long time :\