Guild Wars 2

Oooookey so this is probably another typical post of a discouraged person.

Do you guys really honestly think that thief doesnt need a revamp/buff? yet i want to stress out that mostly im talking about spvp. in wvw/pve everything is quite okey. anyone who tells me that thief doesnt need a revamp is either : A – a pro pro thief that is genius and playing for 3years. B – just a regular person who thinks everything ties into “l2p” issues. C – a potato.

I’ve been playing thief as a main for like 3 to 4months. tested many many builds. s/d d/d d/p (hell even pp and pd), meta, not meta, evasive, boon ripper, condi, troll pp etc etc etc… practiced ALOT. learned all the combos and techniques. studied it like some kind of college discipline. so i rly dont think i need to l2p. (making it easier for B and C type of people. dont bother to reply.) and yet… you just get literally REKT in pvp arenas. with just faceplant style of course u get rekt. with engage / disengage style u get rekt. you get warrior down. he gets up. u get rekt. he wins a 2nd life. so you need to put enormous amount of effort to really be very useful/good to your team (cuz mostly u r just a burden to them). maybe the only thing that you are good for is waiting in stealth until ur enemy is 50%hp or less and just then you go for the kill. but even that kind of gameplay says alot of how squishy we are. well and of course not to mention rangers/warriors/turret engis that plays like with half of their brain and yet are rockin hard. why playing a fun but terribly squishy class when you can roll ranger and let your cat press #2 while you go afk? you understand the main point i guess. why does Thief/Mesmer has to suffer so much while Warr/Rang/Engi can do alot better without putting any effort? (ill repeat myself – mostly in pvp) in WvW its bit better cuz u can just stalk and B.stab for 8k-10k.

Okie enuff of negativity. now im seriously calling out some huuuuge pros to explain it to me how is this supposed to work? tried all builds. many techniques. played for 3-4months. watched tons of videos. practiced alot in 1v1s. and never achieved a point when i could say “yes now that was awesome”. always just a death in 2-3 seconds (unless u just run away with shadowstep and leave a point to your enemy). is the key in dodges? is it in engage/disengage timing? in backstab? or isit really just sit in stealth and wait til ur target is 50%? or maybe the key is in rippin the boons off? waitin for some serious answers. (though i already deleted my thief and created ranger named somethin similar to “Braindeadpeewpeww”) yet im still curious where did i go wrong that i even had to delete my Thief and roll no-brain class? ty for serious respones.

I’d like to see the ‘Revealed’ get a simple timer, either 3 seconds or 4 seconds for both PvP and WvW. Also ‘Shadows Rejuvenation’ is a terrible crutch for newbies to seem competent and what I fear, along with Stealth and the incapability of the majority of players to understand that Invisible does not equal Invincible the reason for many of the hits our class took… I’d happily make a trade where some of the previous nerfs get undone (like the sword #2 return instant, dancing dagger damage etc.) and that trait is nerfed down so that we can’t just keep resetting fights.
It’s just bound to WvW as noone in their right mind would run that deep into SA in PvP, but still.

Anyhow…
Just learning thief won’t cut it I fear. You’ll have to learn about every profession really. What are their strengths ad weaknesses, what attacks hurt the most, how do the animations for those look etc.
The sad fact is, is that as a thief, you’ll really have to outplay the majority of your opponents, both through the use of skills and the way you fight. Other classes have an easier time to get the same effect, atleast most of them do.

The reason why Thief and Mesmer are both is such a relatively bad spot, is because the average player doesn’t understand squat about them. They can blink in and out of sight, they’re all over the place and they can really mess with your head if you don’t know how to fight them.
As the average player is the vast majority of players, the classes they struggle with will be hit the hardest.
That, along with the fact that even despite the continous nerfs, really good players are still pretty much in godmode on those classes, makes it seem as if any nerf to those classes is completely acceptable.

Vornollo.5182:

That, along with the fact that even despite the continous nerfs, really good players are still pretty much in godmode on those classes, makes it seem as if any nerf to those classes is completely acceptable.

What? Look at Sizer. He might win most 1 vs 1’s but takes so long and has to retreat so often that he would lose every point and can’t capture one either.

Vornollo.5182:

I’d like to see the ‘Revealed’ get a simple timer, either 3 seconds or 4 seconds for both PvP and WvW. Also ‘Shadows Rejuvenation’ is a terrible crutch for newbies to seem competent and what I fear, along with Stealth and the incapability of the majority of players to understand that Invisible does not equal Invincible the reason for many of the hits our class took… I’d happily make a trade where some of the previous nerfs get undone (like the sword #2 return instant, dancing dagger damage etc.) and that trait is nerfed down so that we can’t just keep resetting fights.
It’s just bound to WvW as noone in their right mind would run that deep into SA in PvP, but still.

Anyhow…
Just learning thief won’t cut it I fear. You’ll have to learn about every profession really. What are their strengths ad weaknesses, what attacks hurt the most, how do the animations for those look etc.
The sad fact is, is that as a thief, you’ll really have to outplay the majority of your opponents, both through the use of skills and the way you fight. Other classes have an easier time to get the same effect, atleast most of them do.

The reason why Thief and Mesmer are both is such a relatively bad spot, is because the average player doesn’t understand squat about them. They can blink in and out of sight, they’re all over the place and they can really mess with your head if you don’t know how to fight them.
As the average player is the vast majority of players, the classes they struggle with will be hit the hardest.
That, along with the fact that even despite the continous nerfs, really good players are still pretty much in godmode on those classes, makes it seem as if any nerf to those classes is completely acceptable.

I kinda disagree about the god mode statement. I’ve seen my fair share of great thieves getting their kitten handled by other well played class. Those people you see on YouTube & streamers on Twitch have all went through what Dave and other dedicated thieves have. The amount of time you have to spent to get all your timing right is just absurd. I’ve even seen famous streamers get cleaned out by other classes without any afford. Not gonna say who though. Let’s just keep in mind that he’s a really good player who’s been in gw for about close to 2years.

i feel better now that im not alone in this. cuz im sure i dont suck that bad yet i have my kitten handed to me like on a 50/50 scale. (ofcz i can always disengage tho. thats an option.. i guess) but ya. disengaging wont grant you points. and in WvW roaming yes its cool to disengage. especially if u r going for SA full points. u can play around with ur opponent as much as you want and just wait for the right moment.

also its abit unfair to say we need buffs. gotta admit. it might make us from being “on the edge” to godmode. so maybe other classes nerf. or i dont even know actually. some toughness for thiefs might help. some revealed duration maybe? hell knows. all i know that Thief is always on the edge. wouldnt be even surprised if a “pro” player would get killed easily just by making 1 very very small mistake while some ranger is just shootin him from 1500 range while playin with 1 finger.

The godmode was/is ment in the sarcastic view of the average player on Thieves, I’m well aware of it being quite overexaggerated :P

wouldnt be even surprised if a “pro” player would get killed easily just by making 1 very very small mistake while some ranger is just shootin him from 1500 range while playin with 1 finger.

This happens all the time in WvW. Thieves get actual one-shot by kill shot warriors and die to like 4-5 crit auto-attacks from a Ranger. Thieves are in that classic broken MMO class state where we all realize our best chance of getting a kill is to target each other.

I recently came back to GW2 and my Thief. The sPvP in this game basically feels just like WoW Arena – where the world revolves around the healers who are mathematically outmatching the DPS. Here, we revolve around the cele bunker builds who can’t die and kill DPSers 1 on 1 while they are stacking might.

As a Thief, you die as collateral damage when you try to +1 onto fights while the celestial builds brawl it out. If this game did PvP like WoW Arena (no respawn, on capture points) instead of like Call of Duty, Thieves would actually never be played in any capacity.

Thieves continue to be nerfed and people are still complaining about stealth like it’s beta. The Thief specialization will likely have some sort of replacement for stealth and ANet will focus on the stealth-less spec in hopes of driving everyone away from playing a Thief. This class is dead to them.

morbidillusion.2759:

wouldnt be even surprised if a “pro” player would get killed easily just by making 1 very very small mistake while some ranger is just shootin him from 1500 range while playin with 1 finger.

This happens all the time in WvW. Thieves get actual one-shot by kill shot warriors and die to like 4-5 crit auto-attacks from a Ranger. Thieves are in that classic broken MMO class state where we all realize our best chance of getting a kill is to target each other.

I recently came back to GW2 and my Thief. The sPvP in this game basically feels just like WoW Arena – where the world revolves around the healers who are mathematically outmatching the DPS. Here, we revolve around the cele bunker builds who can’t die and kill DPSers 1 on 1 while they are stacking might.

As a Thief, you die as collateral damage when you try to +1 onto fights while the celestial builds brawl it out. If this game did PvP like WoW Arena (no respawn, on capture points) instead of like Call of Duty, Thieves would actually never be played in any capacity.

Thieves continue to be nerfed and people are still complaining about stealth like it’s beta. The Thief specialization will likely have some sort of replacement for stealth and ANet will focus on the stealth-less spec in hopes of driving everyone away from playing a Thief. This class is dead to them.

Well simply as it is then this game is not for me. you should get fun from playing instead of rage. no wonder why sPvp area is so toxic. unbalanced chars makes people go crazy. and i cannot play any other class. tried em all and all of em are really boring and braindead for me. i could play ranger/necro and just yawn all day how boring and simple it is. which i wont do. liked only mesmer/thief. and both are quite… underpowered. so adios and gj anet. in future try to balance your stuff out before pullin peoples money.

Dave.6819:

Oooookey so this is probably another typical post of a discouraged person.

Do you guys really honestly think that thief doesnt need a revamp/buff? yet i want to stress out that mostly im talking about spvp. in wvw/pve everything is quite okey. anyone who tells me that thief doesnt need a revamp is either : A – a pro pro thief that is genius and playing for 3years. B – just a regular person who thinks everything ties into “l2p” issues. C – a potato.

I’ve been playing thief as a main for like 3 to 4months. tested many many builds. s/d d/d d/p (hell even pp and pd), meta, not meta, evasive, boon ripper, condi, troll pp etc etc etc… practiced ALOT. learned all the combos and techniques. studied it like some kind of college discipline. so i rly dont think i need to l2p. (making it easier for B and C type of people. dont bother to reply.) and yet… you just get literally REKT in pvp arenas. with just faceplant style of course u get rekt. with engage / disengage style u get rekt. you get warrior down. he gets up. u get rekt. he wins a 2nd life. so you need to put enormous amount of effort to really be very useful/good to your team (cuz mostly u r just a burden to them). maybe the only thing that you are good for is waiting in stealth until ur enemy is 50%hp or less and just then you go for the kill. but even that kind of gameplay says alot of how squishy we are. well and of course not to mention rangers/warriors/turret engis that plays like with half of their brain and yet are rockin hard. why playing a fun but terribly squishy class when you can roll ranger and let your cat press #2 while you go afk? you understand the main point i guess. why does Thief/Mesmer has to suffer so much while Warr/Rang/Engi can do alot better without putting any effort? (ill repeat myself – mostly in pvp) in WvW its bit better cuz u can just stalk and B.stab for 8k-10k.

Okie enuff of negativity. now im seriously calling out some huuuuge pros to explain it to me how is this supposed to work? tried all builds. many techniques. played for 3-4months. watched tons of videos. practiced alot in 1v1s. and never achieved a point when i could say “yes now that was awesome”. always just a death in 2-3 seconds (unless u just run away with shadowstep and leave a point to your enemy). is the key in dodges? is it in engage/disengage timing? in backstab? or isit really just sit in stealth and wait til ur target is 50%? or maybe the key is in rippin the boons off? waitin for some serious answers. (though i already deleted my thief and created ranger named somethin similar to “Braindeadpeewpeww”) yet im still curious where did i go wrong that i even had to delete my Thief and roll no-brain class? ty for serious respones.

theif is the worst 1v1 class in spvp. Do not 1v1 unless its another theif or a shatter mesmer. Perhaps even ranger if hes bad.

job is to disengage once your team as the advantage at a point to either decap or help another node +1.

Thats it.
We are not a fighting class. We are a mobile class. We have one true role, that is only slightly better than what other classes can do.

Dude,
Thief is awesome class and very close to being OP.
The fact is (music ppl will understand) you need 10k hours of learning to master it.
Not hotjoin crunching, not Qing as random, but 10k of hours learning thief’s mechanics, skill timings etc.

When playing any build with 30 in trickery (daze on steal) your key ability is… steal!
But most of thieves forget that during fight they should be mainly on SB, switching to d/p for bursts and melee cleave. (65% SB – 35% d/p)
Example (I’m playing executioneer 26006):
-When should I burst ele? Once ele popped protection or protection+stability, you can steal it and go face-to-face with him, his melting under autoattacks, drop some random blinds with #3 and #5 at d/p, try not to stick to point, because that way you’ll die very fast. Your key is draining him with SB, forcing to rotate attunements, while you just pew-pew from distance. You outmove ele quite easily with #5 on SB. Ofc we are talking about that d/d guy. Because other eles die pretty easily to bursts and backstabs.
-When should I burst engie? Bursting engie is a no good idea for you, but still, there are different match-ups and kitten happens, so, FIRST OF ALL, check automated response+protection injection (#3-4 with SB, #3-4 with d/p) if protection popped – steal it and go face-to-face. Engis are quite tricky and bound to their heal. When you jump on him, he’d often dodge away and pop heal. So you know what to do, you have that 1/2 second cast to interrupt (try to spam #4 few times while waiting for his heal). Out of heal in rotation for few secs, engi gonna use #4 shield on tool kit, and try to survive, thats where you should try to control his heal again. In other words, there are no reliable method to take engi off, but, you can time your steal+dazes to make him confused. Keep distance with SB and try not to eat a lot of condis, otherwise you have to use shadowstep for cleanse.
Warriors are pretty easy when they don’t have berserker stance, when they do, just kite it and pick him out later. Main damage combo that you land to warrior is a smoke-field+whirling axe. So basically, you steal in any given moment, when you want, then rolling around for 15-16 seconds avoiding stuff and landing pressure (try not to waste a lot of ini this time), then start to whirl (your steal is already off cd, you can steal him again while whirling). Don’t feel warriors are giving problem.
Mesmers?? Ok , face-to-face him and outstealth his stealth. you have it on demand and stolen ability make it for you.
Rangers – power rangers are one-trick-pony, they live primarily cuz of signet, so #3 with d/p over him. Wait for signet pop – stealth – pick him off. Condi rangers are easy due to stolen item, that cleanse you and give water field, that you required to blast.
Guardian – kite the burst, guardian have shelter and elite meditation. These abilities give him chance to make few mistakes against thief and not to die. Try not face-to-face the hammer, and deal damage in portions, that way he can’t stay on par with mobility. Once he used teleport, he’s out of one stunbreak – so you can hit steal twice to land 4 sec daze on him, or daze him with mace head crack+inf signet. That way he’ll eat some damages and start to panic.

Common advices:
Most of the advice i could give to a thief is to learn movement patterns of different classes to avoid wasting steal into blocks/invuln’s and so on.
Master your SB usage, tp spots, cluster bombing.
Be comfortable with losing point to anyone else. Dying is much worse then running away.
Do not jump on clusterkitten, aoe will melt you.
Pick targets in right order – basically, the ones who are dangerous the most for you should die first (thief/ranger/mesmer).
Usually I do not fight 1v1, but when I do, i’m playing until I miss the steal, or until I win, or until I have to disengage. Dying is for nubs.
Use withdraw as a heal.

Thief is awesome and only thief decides when he should enter or leave fight, thats how you dictate your rules to everyone you’re fighting.

Well said dduff! You made me cry T.T
Joking aside, thief is a great class but there should be other viable builds, executioneer and panic strike are too close to be considered different builds, and s/d should have much more love, condi thief too. That’s the problem

Compared to other classes that go serker (say necro, mesmer, ranger) thief is way harder to play well in spvp. It’s not always a l2p issue imo. Serker ranger for instance can indeed kill you before you even get close to them. High risk high reward doesn’t always apply; there is no risk for a serker ranger. Same with serker mesmer and necro. They can simply range and kite and kill you while doing so.

What we have is mobility and stealth and they need to be used all of the time, no slacking off or you’re dead. I still believe thief is the bottom of the barrel, pretty much everything else is easier to play. But I’ve also seen awesome thieves that are super hard to kill on your own. Practise and reflexes I guess but a buff to the class is needed imo too.

they probably think this (based on patches):
- too many ppl play it because of AC roleplay
- we need to force players to play condi build to improve statiscs
- gotta find more ways to nerf the class while claim it is a buff so less people play it and we get better statistics~

Cynz.9437:

they probably think this (based on patches):
- too many ppl play it because of AC roleplay
- we need to force players to play condi build to improve statiscs
- gotta find more ways to nerf the class while claim it is a buff so less people play it and we get better statistics~

Yeah this is what I was thinking as well.

Not sure what they think of the thief.
It doesn’t seem they mind stealth all that much, considering how much QQ it receives.
They always had some sort of attraction to traps and venoms, though never managed to get it to the point of being useful or where one would design a whole build around traps or venoms (well… venom share).

Pretty sure a revamp has always been welcomed. Just a lot of QQ’ers suggest very poor revamps that are more of a “let’s make it easier for me” revamps.

I’ve re-rolled too (well kept the thief…), to a guardian and a warrior. Leveling them in EotM was decent/fun, but once I hit 80 for some reason couldn’t really care to play them. Never took them into sPvP. They did feel a lot more tankier/robust even when they were up-leveled in kittenty gear and going full glass-cannon, and damage wise they did feel a bit less or about the same. But that’s just my experience in EotM while leveling – not even normal WvW. So yeah, quit shortly after getting both of them to 80.

I’m a bit interested in what they will do with the specs though. They did say that there will be more after the release, so kind of wondering how often will they release specs (probably 8 months to 1 year apart). Specs might be their way of adding diversity and hopefully balance to classes

I doubt they think anything of it. Aside from (maybe) testing patches there is no evidence that suggests anyone at anet plays one outside of that.

Thief is just there so the game looks like it has a rouge.

Supposedly they all play all the classes… We’ve even seen some footage of that thief gameplay from one of the devs…

Zero Day.2594:

Supposedly they all play all the classes… We’ve even seen some footage of that thief gameplay from one of the devs…

All I could remember was seeing one of them on a condition build. sigh I really wish the power and condition would switch places on our trait line lol

Zero Day.2594:

Supposedly they all play all the classes… We’ve even seen some footage of that thief gameplay from one of the devs…

Once

Dave.6819:

Do you guys really honestly think that thief doesnt need a revamp/buff? yet i want to stress out that mostly im talking about spvp. in wvw/pve everything is quite okey. anyone who tells me that thief doesnt need a revamp is either : A – a pro pro thief that is genius and playing for 3years. B – just a regular person who thinks everything ties into “l2p” issues. C – a potato.

I’ve been playing thief as a main for like 3 to 4months. tested many many builds. s/d d/d d/p (hell even pp and pd), meta, not meta, evasive, boon ripper, condi, troll pp etc etc etc… practiced ALOT. learned all the combos and techniques. studied it like some kind of college discipline. so i rly dont think i need to l2p. (making it easier for B and C type of people. dont bother to reply.) and yet… you just get literally REKT in pvp arenas. with just faceplant style of course u get rekt. with engage / disengage style u get rekt. you get warrior down. he gets up. u get rekt. he wins a 2nd life. so you need to put enormous amount of effort to really be very useful/good to your team (cuz mostly u r just a burden to them). maybe the only thing that you are good for is waiting in stealth until ur enemy is 50%hp or less and just then you go for the kill. but even that kind of gameplay says alot of how squishy we are. well and of course not to mention rangers/warriors/turret engis that plays like with half of their brain and yet are rockin hard. why playing a fun but terribly squishy class when you can roll ranger and let your cat press #2 while you go afk? you understand the main point i guess. why does Thief/Mesmer has to suffer so much while Warr/Rang/Engi can do alot better without putting any effort? (ill repeat myself – mostly in pvp) in WvW its bit better cuz u can just stalk and B.stab for 8k-10k.

Of the categories you listed, I suppose I’m closest to group A. Thief was my very first character and I’ve been playing it since early access as my main. More than half of my total play time is on my thief, and most of that time has been in sPvP.

There are 2 forms of defense in GW2; there is passive defense and there is active defense. Passive defense is using skills, abilities, stats, or traits that are designed to mitigate the amount of damage you receive. Protection, regeneration, stability, toughness, vitality, and passive condition removal are all examples of passive defense. Active defense is using skills, abilities, and movement to avoid damage altogether. Dodge rolls, blocks, evades, blinds, shadowsteps, stealth, and line-of-sight/kiting are all examples of active defense.

Most classes have access to both forms of defense in varying degrees, but thief is the exception holding nearly no form of passive defense and must survive almost entirely on active defense. And because active defense requires skill and timing to use effectively, most players who are new to thief tend to die very quickly. And this is also why players who are experts at the class seemingly never die. Thus, it is my opinion the most important thing to learn on thief is how to survive.

You need to learn how to use your shadowsteps, stealth, dodgerolls, blinds, and evades to their fullest to do well as a thief. After, you can then focus on how to deal significant pressure and winning 1v1s.

It is my opinion that thief is the strongest 1v1 class in the game. It has the most mobility out of every class and deals the most single target dps. Thus, it has the potential to kill anything, no matter how much of a bunker it is. And because of its mobility, it can both escape whenever it needs to and catch up to anything that tries to escape from it. Given time, a thief can kill anything.

Now, as for if I think needs some tweaks or revamps, that’s a hard question. When they game came out, thieves were way too strong. They could kill people by just spamming heartseeker. They could 1 shot heavies with mug->c&d -> backstab. They could shut down people by spamming haste and pistol whip. When thieves had access to large bursts, they were unstoppable.

If we increase the damage thieves do now, we’re going to see a repeat of thieves destroying everything that isn’t a complete bunker. And because of all the forms of active defense thieves have, giving them passive defenses will make them unkillable. The only thing I can say I want to see is conditions have more of a presence on thief, but being able to apply a myriad of conditions and hold superior mobility and stealth also seems too powerful.

So, I’d say, for now, thief is in a decent place. New players have trouble surviving because they aren’t used to active defense, but once you become used to it the class becomes both more effective and funner to player. While you insist that it isn’t a l2p issue, it really is.

Are there actually any calculations on class dps in pvp/wvw? Having highest single target dps in fully buffed pve party doesn’t translate same to pvp.

One of the reasons I keep playing other classes more and more is that I like to see crits, I am fine going zerker with the risk of dying really fast if I screw up, and I simply get the dmg I like with other classes.

Ofc I can’t stealth sneak on someone or get away as easily as with thief but honestly, I go into a fight for the fight, not chicken around and run when I am in trouble. After 2yrs of playing thief, I am bored of that and I want to stay in fights.

I doubt anyone is asking for thief dmg to double or to get vit/toughness a warrior has. Small buff here and there would be enough, or simple things like removing CnD dmg reduction in pvp.

wat? anet knows this class still exists?

i know dey know cele and perplex exists.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Zero Day.2594:

Supposedly they all play all the classes… We’ve even seen some footage of that thief gameplay from one of the devs…

Once

I remember seeing one playing a P/P build in a new dungeon and dying a lot.

Doggie.3184:

yolo swaggins.2570:

Zero Day.2594:

Supposedly they all play all the classes… We’ve even seen some footage of that thief gameplay from one of the devs…

Once

I remember seeing one playing a P/P build in a new dungeon and dying a lot.

No wonder.

There are two possibilities how someone can play the thief:

1) You spam and abuse stealth (with D/X) or evades (with S/D) and give your enemy no chance to hit or kill you.
Then is the thief strong enough for PvE and too strong in PvP.

or

2) You don’t spam stealth or evades.
Then are you nearly useless in PvE and an easy target for your enemies in PvP, but you play fair.

these days re-rolled it again. cuz i cant seem to have fun on other chars.. and well i gotta say S/D is pretty good when it comes to evading / outplaying your enemy.

recently tho i wanted somethin new so made a D/D kinda WvWish build (06620). and its quite fun i gotta say. of course alot less mobility but condi removal/heals/backstabs are great. so if goin back to a revamp question for sPvP on D/D the only thing i noticed is revealed state. a huge revamp would really make Thief a god mode. so making revealed state like 2 or even 3seconds would make a huge difference. well but those are my impressions of D/D.

on S/D? hmm. i gotta say tankish as hell and you can evade/disengage forever but damage is the downside. for me personally making #1 skill animations x2 times quicker would do the job. i love S/D build the most but it just feels bit slow.

well anyway.. a huge revamp would make us really gods but then again dont we deserve it? atleast a revealed 2sec buff. or somethin quite minor would make it lot better for all of us. or especially to those that are coming fresh and new to the game. imagine thief from their perspective. they probably go into an arena and get rekt. then delete thief and roll somethin new. look at other classes. they can do sick stuff without puttin much of an effort. while thieves gotta be really quick and always a step forward to outplay some1. its fun to play though, thats true. i guess thats the only reason why i still play thief and i just cannot get into other classes.

and getting again to the point yea – i think atleast a minor buff is needed. even for the sake of new players not giving up on this amazing (yet hard) class. cheers:)

I’m quite new to the game and theif is the only class I play atm. It works in pve (mostly), in pvp though I have a LOT of trouble. I survive if i spam evades, but then it’s hard to deal damage. I think we need some sort of buff that allows you to land at least 2 hits before you have to teleport/dodge out of combat.

I think a buff to haste would be good, as it allows you to attack extremely fast but the cool down is too long and it should remove only half of your endurance

Thief needs a similar revamp in the way every other profession needs one, and that is their monstrous list of useless utility/healing skills and traits. The same builds get used and abused and they all have their well known weaknesses since people play against them soo much to find out. There really isn’t a need imo to revamp the stealth system as much as revamp the traits that alter them so things like hiding in stealth aren’t encouraged in a “fight” (atleast not for a very long time). At the end of it all they need more options to go about doing what thieves love doing, a special revamp of their own.

Outside of that it’s just add more weapons and actual rouge skins. I enjoy my thief and no matter if the HoT adds a character slot or not, I’m not deleting either of my 2 thieves to make room for it.

Dave.6819:

Snip

Thief requires a lot of practice, muscle memory, class mechanic knowledge, rotational strategy (sPvP).

1v1 is heavily based around not only what the class you’re playing can do and the class you’re playing against can do, but who the player you’re fighting is. You learn their habits, how they play, and nit pick until you pick up on how to fight them. Eventually after fighting a lot of different people you begin to get some overlap on playstyles, scenarios, and mindset of each matchup and the cumulation of your experience will let you to adapt to whoever you face. Thief is a class that it is possible to win every 1v1 vs any other class/build if you play properly, and the only other class that I believe can do that is D/D ele – and even then you may stalemate, not necessarily win.

sPvP comes down to how good your team is. If you’re team is not that great you will never be able to accomplish much of anything, as entering a losing fight generally results in your team dying, and you following shortly after. If you attempt to backcap your team will die and you’ll be quickly outnumbered. The flip side is that if your team can’t kill anything then you will feel useless. As you enter a team fight you’ll be the first target since you’re the only threat to the enemy team. As such you will die quickly to multiple players and the only peels that are very efficient in this game are offensive peels.
However once you start going down the path of having a competent team and a good base pool of knowledge in rotational strat (when to rotate, where to go based on enemy #s, friendly #s, your team’s health/condition bar, status of the fight [if you have comms], and map objectives), class mechanics (of every class), and you have developed the muscle memory for quick reactions then you will become a lot more potent than the majority of other classes.

There are things a thief can do that cannot be copied by other classes, and they are (to be honest) extremely broken in comparison. Blind spams are extremely efficient against every other zerker class, headshot is extremely powerful when used correctly and can completely lock down someone in combination with steal (incase they have stability), stealth spam allows thieves to reset regardless of how poorly they play (and in the case of panic strike this is exponentially increased by improv), withdraw is one of the few instant cast heals and removes immobilize (while HiS is the only heal in the game that grants stealth – a very good disengage, and also removed poison, burning, and bleeding), Steal is an extremely low CD for how much it does – despite being traited into. The list goes on, this one is mostly for D/P since that is what I play and believe to be more powerful if used to its potential, however S/D is also a powerful set and has a lot of the same things (instant teleport gap closes, return that removes a condition, a reliable evade frame, stealth access). All of these things + Shortbow (repeatable blast finishers, unblockable poison, evade frames, heavy AoE pressure on downed bodies, and huge mobility) allow thief to constantly out preform the majority of other classes because it has more at it’s disposal and initiative can be a forgiving system.

I still play Critical Strikes D/P (2/6/0/0/6) because I think it is a more well rounded and efficient build that be more potent than Panic Strike (6/0/2/0/6) when played properly. The problem with that is Panic Strike is probably the single most forgiving build that has been in the game. You can play the build asleep and still attribute something and kill other zerker classes with ease (excluding DPS guard, but only on the ‘ease’ – still possible to do). Steal’s 21.5s CD in tandem with Improvisation give you an extreme “I kittened up” button, that has a chance (a good chance) of resetting major CDs. Withdraw lets you ignore occasional positioning errors in which you would get immobilized or burst, not only with the immob clear but the evade frames. And whenever you mess up past the point of salvageability you can stealth and leave. With a competent team Panic Strike is extremely easy to play. Crit Strikes however doesn’t rely on your team as much, puts out a lot more pressure allowing you to kill more than just other zerker classes, and has the same disengage potential. However it is less forgiving and requires you to think more about when to burst, who to burst, which skills to use, your positioning, your teammates’ positioning, and your enemy’s positioning.

I’ve played the class for a long time, and I can honestly say D/P Panic Strike is the easiest build I’ve played in the game – not just for thief. It’s unenjoyable to play because it requires little to no thought process for how effective it can be. So when asking for a rework I don’t think a lot of top players will look at the rework in the way you want. Nerfing thief in the wrong way will result in pushing them out of the meta – but buffing them would, in my opinion, be extremely unnecessary. The class is extremely strong once you learn it and can outpreform all (most in certain comps) alternatives.

My suggestion is to keep practicing and try to find a consistent group of people to play with. This will let you see where you go wrong a lot more easily than if you were solo queuing.

Good luck,
Caed

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Black Teagan.9215:

Doggie.3184:

yolo swaggins.2570:

Zero Day.2594:

Supposedly they all play all the classes… We’ve even seen some footage of that thief gameplay from one of the devs…

Once

I remember seeing one playing a P/P build in a new dungeon and dying a lot.

No wonder.

There are two possibilities how someone can play the thief:

1) You spam and abuse stealth (with D/X) or evades (with S/D) and give your enemy no chance to hit or kill you.
Then is the thief strong enough for PvE and too strong in PvP.

or

2) You don’t spam stealth or evades.
Then are you nearly useless in PvE and an easy target for your enemies in PvP, but you play fair.

The problem is they want us to spam stealth~ and they keep nerfing anything that doesn’t and make everything revolve around stealth. It was so insulting that they made the new GMaster trait in ACROBATICS require stealth.

Narcarsis.5739:

I’ve played the class for a long time, and I can honestly say D/P Panic Strike is the easiest build I’ve played in the game – not just for thief. It’s unenjoyable to play because it requires little to no thought process for how effective it can be. So when asking for a rework I don’t think a lot of top players will look at the rework in the way you want. Nerfing thief in the wrong way will result in pushing them out of the meta – but buffing them would, in my opinion, be extremely unnecessary. The class is extremely strong once you learn it and can outpreform all (most in certain comps) alternatives.

My suggestion is to keep practicing and try to find a consistent group of people to play with. This will let you see where you go wrong a lot more easily than if you were solo queuing.

Good luck,
Caed

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Very good post sir.

Caed, saying that panic strike thief is easy to play makes no sense when builds like shoutbow, D/D ele turret engi, power ranger/necro exist. Even S/D acro thief is easier than panic strike.

I don’t see why you’re saying its so faceroll when its exactly the same as crit D/P but instead you have an insta cast heal and more condi remov.

Let’s get real the dmg of 60206 PS isint that great either so it kinda balances out the fact that its easier to play than Crit.

To put it simply I don’t agree with you on any of that. You have automated condi clear which requires no thought, you have a passive immobilize which you only have to touch someone to proc, you can ignore positioning with the 1 point in shadow arts + withdraw. The only thing you have to actively think about is landing steal, and if you proc inprov you can do whatever you want for another 21.5s. The only downside to panic is what you mentioned and the reason I don’t play it – less damage. Everything else the build does for you with little effort to be effective. The only build you listed that takes less skill is turret engi. You don’t have to agree with me – couldn’t care less of you did.

Also sorry for grammatical errors in any posts – typing on my phone

i actually want now atleast one thing for Thieves.. (since im already bored of S/D evasive build). to buff up just a tad bit D/D thief. just a minor thingie like..hmm.. faster CnD animation? that would make me alot less squishier. or just like +100 range on CnD. 06620 build on DD is so awesome. but i noticed these are 2 things that put me to the grave (1 – quite slow CnD animation or a lack of range and its hard to land it. 2 – 4sec revealed state .. painful).

about D/P i dunno.. i kinda never liked it. just for the fact that it costs so much initiative and then you have to put 6points in trickery. but when u roll D/D there’s no need of trickery. hence 6 in shadow arts are so awesome. but yea like i said… landing CnD and 4sec revealed is quite painful.

You just have to get into the rhythm of landing CnD either using the enemy AI against them with LoS (they will run to the corner and you can pre-cast CnD as they get there) or using steal→ CnD combo, or any other method where you are not stumbling towards them trying to land it.

I think the only thing d/d needs a rework on is #3 and #4 to be a bit more useful either on its own or from the thief kit in general. Otherwise it’s a very strong build either on the side for condi or as power.

D/P is the better set compared to D/D, obviously, because of the access to blinds and shadow shot being a gap closer, both synergizes well with SA/Trickery and S/D simply has much more mobility compared to S/P, because Pistol whip roots you on the spot.

P/D can be ‘OP’ in WvW, geared properly together with Shadow Arts, so pretty much if you’re casual or starting out with a Thief I’d stick with D/P and S/D, but even veterans aren’t given much incentive to try out anything else.

Init management can be a problem at first, but as mentioned it’s by far more forgiving than having cds on attacks.