Guild Wars 2

& buffed Warriors yet again, what will your reaction be? I’d be VERY angry with ANet lol

It depends how. Mug, for instance, is rather powerful for a 10 point trait.

If they did something like "increased cool-downs for all traps by 15 seconds though, I’d be annoyed.

“If”? ROFLOL Don’t you mean “when”?

I don’t think Anet will nerf thieves anytime soon, but knowing them warriors will probably get a buff, I would however like to see the melee weapons on the ranger buffed.

I really don’t think thieves need a nerf again. They’re pretty balanced as is.

I’d probably acknowledge that the thief is at present a strong class and look forward to trying to get a bit more out of it under the new settings. I have never got the objection to balancing (nerf is an awful word in most contexts) surely part and parcel of pvp is getting the most out of your class and having that made a bit more difficult comes with rewarding challenges.

If anything i think thief dual pistols needs a buff.

BabelFish.7234:

I really don’t think thieves need a nerf again. They’re pretty balanced as is.

What is balanced about thieves right now? Let’s talk about the backstab meta. The risk factor for this build, if you play it right, is extremely slim. Spike didn’t finish him off and you think you’re gonna die? Halfway across the pvp map in 3 seconds. Nevermind the fact that 2 of 3 thief heals remove conditions, multiple utilities remove multiple conditions; you even have a weapon skill on a different weapon set that has condition removal. Add all of that mobility and utility to your shortbow?

Even your quickness is broken. The only thing thieves use dodge for is to spread caltrops repeatedly. They don’t need endurance to get out of a battle.

Oh, I forgot that you can hit 5555555555555555 underwater to free cap ruins as a glass cannon, because there is no window in between attacks for anybody to land anything besides a targeted sink/float skill.

The thief population’s idea of balance is what’s keeping this game broken.

They need to fix everyone’s skills, get rid of or improve the traits that do nothing for class’s like necro jagged horror since most of us would rather just turn it off and another example is mesmer illusion trait to allow illusions do more damage. Illusions do no damage and the trait to make there clones do damage is just pointless to have. Other examples of traits like this need to be fixed before trying to balance class’s any further no matter how much it frustrates me when i fight a thief. Class skills and traits need to be fixed before trying to adjust damage on skills with so many bugged traits in other class’s.

gamefreak.5673:

They need to fix everyone’s skills, get rid of traits that do nothing for class’s like necro jagged horror since most of us would rather just turn it off and another example is mesmer illusion trait to allow illusions do more damage. Illusions do no damage and the trait to make there clones do damage is just pointless to have. Other examples of traits like this need to be fixed before trying to balance class’s any further no matter how much it frustrates when i fight a thief. Class skills and traits need to be fixed.

I agree with you completely gamefreak, future updates should prioritise increasing weapon viability and pointless utility/traits to offer a greater range of playstyles.

elements of the thiefs weapon skills in particular could use some work. Pistols body shot and sword dagger flanking strike spring to mind.

They will FIX this rendering issue and all you exploiters will QQ like little school girls yet it will not be a nerf but a much needed FIX.

I think if they fix that rendering issue Thieves will be fine

Nautika.5376:

They will FIX this rendering issue and all you exploiters will QQ like little school girls yet it will not be a nerf but a much needed FIX.

I think if they fix that rendering issue Thieves will be fine

Thieves also probably have the best set of utilities in the game, so no cigar unless the other professions are brought up the same level.

I do hope they make some serious changes to professions instead of all this tinkering.

Some professions have some pretty fundamental imbalances.

Thieves and their Backstab combo: Stealing while C&D is being cast for example.

Hammer Warriors who can chain-stun you for 10 seconds. 100 Blades is just as stupid as the Backstab combo.

Guardians that are virtually unkillable by single players while still dealing a lot of damage.

Mesmers portals and general raid utility.

Those are just the grossest imbalances. These elements fall out of the typical power spectrum and should be normalized.

Every classes have their ways/skills of removing conditions. The utility skills that remove conditions are fine as is tbh. Thieves aren’t the only classes that have condition removal upon healing. Their healing skills only removes specific conditions which is pretty balanced. A weapon set that can remove conditions is having the sword as your mainhand. If you played a thief with sword as a main, you’d know that they don’t necessarily have the most awesome skills out there.

“Even your quickness is broken” You implied it as though thieves’ quickness is specifically broken. The skill itself is broken. The only thing that makes our quickness unique is because we can spam a certain skill as long as we have the initiative. But our initiave is pretty balance compare to other classes and their short cooldowns.

Lol underwater we basically lose 50% of our survivability. Which can be said to all classses to but it makes us even more vulnerable cuz now it’s fair game especially when thieves are designed to naturally have lower HP.

I’m pretty sure a lot of thieves don’t spec caltrops for dodge and actually use dodge for survivability like myself. I find that caltrop pretty useless compare to other great traits that can be used.

The advantages that thieves carry is the fact that we can teleport and cloak, increasing our mobility and survivability when we’re specced for glass cannon.

pre-cast on CnD before steal should be gone. I’m a thief myself btw.

Warriors are stupid, try running into a single 100b warrior when your stunbreaker is on CD

I would roll warrior! :b though I love thief

Bladie: No profession packs as much utility into their utilities as a thief does. When the skills you are using because of their extremely powerful mobility (without even consuming endurance, you can move around the battle field and outmaneuver anybody 1v1) also remove high numbers of the conditions that most hinder your performance, when you would probably be fine without it, there is something wrong.

Your quickness is not balanced because the side effect puts very little risk factor into your playstyle. A ranger cannot heal; a warrior takes double damage. These are much greater risk factors than losing your endurance when you don’t even need it to escape a battle/evade most damage. If they fixed your damage, that would at least make up for the bulk of it, but the thief population won’t stand for not having insane burst with mobility/survivability at the same time.

Underwater? Nobody is going to attack a thief underwater if they have any common sense. Using targeted sinks eats up time you could spend doing damage, which makes you lose either way. The #5 skill doesn’t consume enough initiative for the thief to use it sparingly. I have watched a full cannon thief avoid all damage for 15+ seconds while attacking things outside of melee range the entire time, just by spamming shadow assault. The difference is when you have somebody assisting you (assuming one of you has multiple sinking skills), or he finally runs out of initiative, but you’ll be pressed to finish him on your own.

The thing about thief dodges is that if you need them, you’re doing it wrong.

Leuca.5732:

What is balanced about thieves right now? Let’s talk about the backstab meta. The risk factor for this build, if you play it right, is extremely slim.

That’s a bug, the game doesn’t render properly otherwise the revealed debuff would have solved this.

Spike didn’t finish him off and you think you’re gonna die? Halfway across the pvp map in 3 seconds.

The counter to this scenario, provided rendering works properly is to AoE. Glass cannon builds die super, super fast if you hit them.

Nevermind the fact that 2 of 3 thief heals remove conditions, multiple utilities remove multiple conditions; you even have a weapon skill on a different weapon set that has condition removal. Add all of that mobility and utility to your shortbow?

This sounds like a l2p issue. The thief is high mobility and damage, low direct survivability.

If you can’t target the thief fast enough to counter the mobility I suggest you discover the tab button.

Even your quickness is broken. The only thing thieves use dodge for is to spread caltrops repeatedly. They don’t need endurance to get out of a battle.

Are you KIDDING me?
I use it to stack might. I also use it to dodge attacks…
The caltrops that are dropped have a super small AoE, a super short duration and the bleed/cripple also have a super short duration.
This makes me think you don’t even know how to play GW2…

Oh, I forgot that you can hit 5555555555555555 underwater to free cap ruins as a glass cannon, because there is no window in between attacks for anybody to land anything besides a targeted sink/float skill.

If you can anticipate a thief doing this you can stop it. Use some tactics.

The thief population’s idea of balance is what’s keeping this game broken.

In the eternal wisdom of Anet all I have to say if kitten.

Leuca.5732:

Bladie: No profession packs as much utility into their utilities as a thief does.

You know… the utility slots are for utility useage and it would be new for me that thiefs have more as 3 so they are able to put more into their slots as others.

Leuca.5732:

When the skills you are using because of their extremely powerful mobility (without even consuming endurance, you can move around the battle field and outmaneuver anybody 1v1) also remove high numbers of the conditions that most hinder your performance, when you would probably be fine without it, there is something wrong.

And when you use your weaponskills with your init to move around the battle field, you wont have any init left for doing dmg. Besides that is the condition remove on the sword mainhand and costs you 5 init for 1 condition, fyi thiefs have unspecced only 12 init.

Leuca.5732:

Your quickness is not balanced because the side effect puts very little risk factor into your playstyle. A ranger cannot heal; a warrior takes double damage. These are much greater risk factors than losing your endurance when you don’t even need it to escape a battle/evade most damage.

Since when do thiefs have a special quickness? As far as I know the quickness of a thief is the very same as for other classes and the downside to lose all your endurance, not regenerating it for 4 secs. Without endurance a thief wont be able to evade anything and with that 50% of their survivability is gone. And dont come me with using my weaponskills for dodging then, since you would have used most of your init already in the haste phase.

You seriously should get your kittentraight. Thiefs cant have everything.
If they want to do lots of burst dmg, they wont have any/much utilityskills left.
If they want a pimped and strong stealth, they will lose alot of dmg again.
If they want to have lots and lots of mobility, they will need to sacrfice damage once again. Either from the specc or for using init for dodges and not for damage.

Babel: Proper rendering does not really help you defend from the thief, it helps you chase him after you beat him down. The spike everybody runs is so fast that thieves will only have to adjust their tactics slightly when on the offensive, assuming rendering is fixed.

AoE does not fix halfway across the map.

In this game, mobility is survivability, unless you are a guardian/bunker ele.

The fact that you said you use it to stack might before you said you use it to dodge doesn’t really help your argument. A thief does not need dodge to exit a battle with relative ease. I can hit a thief with 3 different immobilizes, and he can remove them all while moving great distances at the same time. This is not a L2P issue; I beat most of the thieves I face in S/TPvP; this has only come with practice, especially when my main is quite fragile when caught off guard (non-bunker ele) but it takes an immense amount of effort against the good ones and an unnecessary amount of effort against the bad ones. There are those who I cannot kill simply because they’ve gotten so accustomed to their skills that hardly anybody can touch them unless they are spiked by multiple people. I’ll get some good damage in, but they’ll leave if they know they’re gonna die and I can’t afford to blow all my CD catching them.

I can put up an ice wall to chill a thief, smack him with a float, a stun, a sink, and a cripple, and he will still get to ruins before i can cap it if he’s got the right setup. Heaven forbid I’m trying to backcap it from him, because then I’m definitely screwed. You also can’t “tactics” somebody when the only tactic you have is to keep him from getting to the point to begin with and he’s already there.

Panacea: A thief can launch a super powerful spike while using his utilities for mobility/escape. If you haven’t seen/realized that, then I don’t know why you’re even in a thief forum. As for your second point, see above. It’s just icing on the really big cake when you happen to be running s/p.

One utility for a quickness that barely hinders your ability to escape when that is what its drawback was supposed to limit. You have two utilities left to get out of combat and that is more than enough for a skilled thief.

Thieves don’t have everything; but they’re closer than most professions to it.

Wrong, a thief without might stacking on signet use and maybe even assassin signet wont do that much dmg with a backstabbuild. The backstabs will reach about 5-7k dmg depending on the armor and the combo itself leaves enough room open to use a stunbreaker/block/blindfield to nullify the whole burst and with that the whole class.

S/P haste was and still is a joke. Of course you can haste and try to burst someone down, but if you have half of a brain you use a stunbreak and get the kitten out of there. Hell without haste Pistolwhip isnt even viable in PvP at all, the stun at the start basicly screams to the target “oh, lets dodge after this stun”.

Most burst thiefs are very easy to conter and after one conter you basicly have won the fight.
Immobilize the thief when he wants to use hide in shadows to escape and hit the place where he used that skill.
Use conditions when he uses another source of stealth and you will see a downed thief around the next corner as he couldnt handle the conditions.

The instagib full glass cannon thief build is the most useless crap ever and besides stomping baddies you cant really do anything with it as a good player will just nullify your whole build/class with one key.

Leuca.5732:

Babel: Proper rendering does not really help you defend from the thief, it helps you chase him after you beat him down. The spike everybody runs is so fast that thieves will only have to adjust their tactics slightly when on the offensive, assuming rendering is fixed.

It allows you to punish the Thief for being reckless. Until thiefs start 1 shotting you this is a valid point.

AoE does not fix halfway across the map.

This links into point 1.

In this game, mobility is survivability, unless you are a guardian/bunker ele.

No kittenherlock. So you want thiefs with the least amount of standard survivability to sit there and let you land multiple, powerful attacks? This reeks of l2p…

The fact that you said you use it to stack might before you said you use it to dodge doesn’t really help your argument. A thief does not need dodge to exit a battle with relative ease. I can hit a thief with 3 different immobilizes, and he can remove them all while moving great distances at the same time. This is not a L2P issue; I beat most of the thieves I face in S/TPvP; this has only come with practice, especially when my main is quite fragile when caught off guard (non-bunker ele) but it takes an immense amount of effort against the good ones and an unnecessary amount of effort against the bad ones. There are those who I cannot kill simply because they’ve gotten so accustomed to their skills that hardly anybody can touch them unless they are spiked by multiple people. I’ll get some good damage in, but they’ll leave if they know they’re gonna die and I can’t afford to blow all my CD catching them.

I use it to stack might AND to get out of combat. A thief without dodge is a dead thief. If you’re facing thiefs who don’t even use dodge to get out of those big attacks then I’d hate to see how butthurt you’d be after facing a real thief.

I can put up an ice wall to chill a thief, smack him with a float, a stun, a sink, and a cripple, and he will still get to ruins before i can cap it if he’s got the right setup. Heaven forbid I’m trying to backcap it from him, because then I’m definitely screwed. You also can’t “tactics” somebody when the only tactic you have is to keep him from getting to the point to begin with and he’s already there.

So you’re complaining that a Thief has condition removal. Can I complain that when I stack vulnerability, bleed and poison you can remove those? Don’t run condition-heavy builds in PvP…yeeeeesh.

So when the thief gets to their destination you go “okay plan A didn’t work…so lets keep going with plan A?” yeah…because beating your head against a brick wall always solves the problem.

Less QQ more pew pew dood.I think your major issues are 1) you’re playing a glass spec, 2) you’re relying on conditions to take down a thief and 3) you have no idea on how to actually stop one but instead of asking for advice you’ve decided to cry on the forums about it.

The thief is balanced outside of that dumb rendering issue (for the moment. I’m sure someone will find a new way to make people squirm that requires addressing).

Panacea: A thief can launch a super powerful spike while using his utilities for mobility/escape. If you haven’t seen/realized that, then I don’t know why you’re even in a thief forum. As for your second point, see above. It’s just icing on the really big cake when you happen to be running s/p.

You can’t use you initiative to do damage and then right after escape if you’re doing a burst…If you’re getting owned by S/P that’s definitely a l2p issue. Try getting out of the way when they spam Pistol Whip…

One utility for a quickness that barely hinders your ability to escape when that is what its drawback was supposed to limit. You have two utilities left to get out of combat and that is more than enough for a skilled thief.

We have our heal and if we tech it we can use Shadow Refuge.

Thieves don’t have everything; but they’re closer than most professions to it.

Thieves can do a little bit of everything. Heck, I can out tank a warrior with my build HOWEVER this comes at the cost of the insanely high dps of a 8k backstab.

Thieves can do something at the cost of something else.

We can have our cake but we can’t eat it…

Thieves are a hit and run class. Not many out there are built to stand toe to toe with a warrior or guardian or any class for that matter and take punishment. We use our stealth abilities to help avoid damage not soak it up. Not sure how you used 3 immobilizes and couldn’t stop one. The only logical thing I can understand is he was Sword/whatever, used Infiltrator’s Strike (double tap) to break free of your first and shadowstep in same location to break free of the second but the last one is interesting because we don’t have anything else that breaks immobilize that doesn’t shoot us backwards towards you. All that’s left is his heal (Withdraw, which rolls you backwards) and Roll of Initiative (rolls backwards). So… yeah. I’m sure he had shortbow for Infiltrator’s Arrow for more shadowstep abilities but those don’t cure conditions…

For quickness, I agree, give me my dodges back and the rangers their healing abilities. I’ll take the 50% dmg increase like warriors anyday.

I can’t agree with your last statement “Thieves don’t have everything; but they’re closer than most professions to it.” Can I ask for an example how thieves are so spoiled that we have everything even though venoms and traps are pretty much useless to us?

Buff warriors?

Go look at every patch. Please, tell me anything that has to do with warriors in them.

Even with the signets the build doesn’t have quite enough damage to instantly kill anybody, but the removal of signets doesn’t sacrifice enough damage to warrant taking them if you really know what you’re doing; the base damage is already high enough; you are already plenty of a threat, in fact probably more so because you keep your mobility, allowing you to get out of melee range where you are weakest defensively. Not to mention that you can get 2-3+stacks of might without the signet/signet trait while you are spiking through other traits.

You make it sound like one stunbreaker=win game. The initial spike is the strongest, yes, but this does not remove the capability of the profession, and your stunbreaker won’t make much of a difference if it does not involve movement or you are not immediately following with burst/disabling of your own in the following half-second.

I will agree that most burst thieves are very easy to counter, but the ones who aren’t take advantage of the class’ insane movement. I can follow them only so much, and immobilize is not always on hand. The ability to do that much damage and then be gone if your goal is not met is very strong, and if the thief comes in while you are fighting somebody else, or he pops into a brawl for 2 seconds to backstab then pops out, he’s done a lot while not exposing himself to a lot of danger.

I don’t want the thief spike to stop being viable, but it needs to take more effort to do it than hitting 3-4 keys. I’ve tried thief enough to see the lack of a huge difference when utilities are consumed by venoms, etc.

I never said I was getting owned by anybody Babel. I’ve gotten fairly proficient with my favored professions and do not die very easily. I do not expect thieves to stand still while I hit them, and I do not want them nerfed into oblivion, but a thief getting through 5 CCs in a row and then spamming 5 til I leave the point because all my CC is on CD when fighting at ruins is not a L2P issue. I don’t have this problem always, but when you can have that much damage without sacrificing your utility and mobility, I see a slight problem. I don’t mind having to get creative or improvise; there’s something satisfying about landing a magnetic grasp on a thief in a shadow refuge, since I know he’s probably going to be stuck there for me to blow up, but there are a few specs/abilities that just put a big middle finger up to every profession in the game.

One of my biggest problems with the thief is that there are a few weapon sets that aren’t even viable because the d/d shortbow is just superior in damage/mobility and utility.

I really don’t think we need to remove their ability to escape combat when they are cannons, but their utility slots do not really punish them at all for speccing this way. Other professions cannot say the same thing by a long shot. I suppose this might be the hallmark of a thief.

Artemis: Actually, the thief had shadow step active when he was hit with immobilize; he returned to location, breaking it; and swapped to shortbow to turn to face me and the warrior I was teamed with. I shot magnetic grasp, hit him just after he used disabling shot, which immobilized him again. He used what I think was roll for initiative because it did not have any blue animation. I then activated signet of earth, which he did not remove persay but proceeded to shoot up to a ledge. Immobilize wore off and he was gone with another shot. So he removed two immobilizes and rendered the third wasted. Is the ability to remove that much snaring uncommon? Not necessarily, but compressing that much utility into a certain skill/set seems unnecessary at times. If other professions were brought up to par with thief, and the thief had its less useful weapons brought up as well, I would have less problem; but buffing everything that isn’t as comparatively good just leads to power creep, which was a huge problem in GW1 that I’d rather not see repeated.

You’re right, it is the hallmark of the Thief. The thing is the Thief can’t do it all. They can do 1-2 things with that initiative.

For a backstab thief that’s stealth and dish out those 8k backstabs
For my tank-thief that’s spam 3-5k crits while healing

So pick on where they are vulnerable. backstab thiefs are squishy. Tank-thiefs lack reliable stealth capabilities and dedicate initiative into things like spaming HS or Pistol Whip.

Warriors got buffed once insignificantly. Thieves need a nerf, a nerf to damage, stealth and maneuverability would be nice for the health of PvP. Then A-net can focus on nerfing bunkers and Mesmers.

^ resident warrior troll, keep on flailing your GS about and QQing about everyone else

I expect backstab to get a nerf yet, perhaps the damage on steal as well. The problem I see is how do you nerf abilities being exploited by heavy glass canon stat stacking vs builds that do not stack offensive stats. Steal by a non glass cannon spec does mediocre damage.

Same for abilities we steal, whirling axe nerf for example. As a non glass cannon spec, I now just ditch axe. It does so little damage for my build, that I take more damage using it then I dish out. Pre-nerf that was fine because I didnt take a lot of damage using it.

I have an 80 Thief, and an 80 Warrior, you are DELUSIONAL if you dont think Thiefs are getting nerfed soon.

Fitz.7169:

I have an 80 Thief, and an 80 Warrior, you are DELUSIONAL if you dont think Thiefs are getting nerfed soon.

I think that bar CnD there’s nothing that deserves a nerf but we can’t even be sure if CnD is actually worth addressing because we have a render issue making the matter convoluted.

BabelFish.7234:

Fitz.7169:

I have an 80 Thief, and an 80 Warrior, you are DELUSIONAL if you dont think Thiefs are getting nerfed soon.

I think that bar CnD there’s nothing that deserves a nerf but we can’t even be sure if CnD is actually worth addressing because we have a render issue making the matter convoluted.

The fact that you can do a 5k mug, 5k CnD, 8k Backstab, 6k HS in the span of 2 seconds is what needs to get nerfed. No class should be able to instagib anyone like that. It’s been shown that no amount of toughness really matters against stuff like this.

I would be happy to trade a bit of damage for a bit of survivalbility!

Yet warriors do need a buff.

…somebody pls kill the guy using the nerfbat mindlessly. (he should fix the kitten skills of our and other professions first)
HOW ABOUT ONLY 1 CLASS PVP ? no more diversity- but no more complaints about OP class/skills. (QQ the x class is owning me hard because i suck so much at pvp, that class should be nerfed: anet- wish granted, what else your heart desires?)

@Fitz I am not sure how frenzy → bull charge →100b is that much different? I think it is certainly easier to avoid 100b, but it is also easier to land without a positional requirement. In all my solo wvw fights I have died more to 100b then backstab. Neither happens often, but sometimes you just get caught in an unavoidable situation or with your pants down.

I think changing Steal so you cannot front load cloak and dagger would increase the ability to avoid the backstab chain. Not by a lot and only if your cc break was up, assuming venom is being used.

I agree, 100B should not insta gib either, no ability should, but why do you think there are way more people complaining about Thiefs backstab than there are people complaining about 100B? 100B is extremely easy to dodge/counter if you can see it coming, even if you see the thief they can still pull off their 2 second insta gib.

The problem with thieves that get killed by HB is that they’re more often than not an instagib build with no stunbreaker and no way of clearing conditions (immobilize). Lots of bad players trolling warrior forums with ‘L2P’ posts about getting more toughness and bringing stunbreakers and then crying about HB. Take your own advice.

If you’re in a zerg battle and a warrior is doing HB, you’re likely going to be rolled by the incoming zerg or the warrior will die. Either one will happen before the HB finishes without Frenzy up. Besides that fact, HB only hits 3 targets.

Fitz.7169:

BabelFish.7234:

Fitz.7169:

I have an 80 Thief, and an 80 Warrior, you are DELUSIONAL if you dont think Thiefs are getting nerfed soon.

I think that bar CnD there’s nothing that deserves a nerf but we can’t even be sure if CnD is actually worth addressing because we have a render issue making the matter convoluted.

The fact that you can do a 5k mug, 5k CnD, 8k Backstab, 6k HS in the span of 2 seconds is what needs to get nerfed. No class should be able to instagib anyone like that. It’s been shown that no amount of toughness really matters against stuff like this.

Would applying a global cool down(0.5-1 second) between action #2-10 be a viable way to help slow thieve’s burst damage down without having to really nerf anything?

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

Fitz.7169:

BabelFish.7234:

Fitz.7169:

I have an 80 Thief, and an 80 Warrior, you are DELUSIONAL if you dont think Thiefs are getting nerfed soon.

I think that bar CnD there’s nothing that deserves a nerf but we can’t even be sure if CnD is actually worth addressing because we have a render issue making the matter convoluted.

The fact that you can do a 5k mug, 5k CnD, 8k Backstab, 6k HS in the span of 2 seconds is what needs to get nerfed. No class should be able to instagib anyone like that. It’s been shown that no amount of toughness really matters against stuff like this.

Would applying a global cool down(0.5-1 second) between action #2-10 be a viable way to help slow thieve’s burst damage down without having to really nerf anything?

That is a pretty huge nerf and would result in a lot of auto attack spam.

1) Steal was intended to be used in middle of other attacks. It is really something special. And thanks a-net for that.
2) Ill trade my thief’s quickness endurance drawback to both frenzy and ranger one at same time. Just give me my endurance and I won’t care if I take double damage and can’t heal.
3) In arenas I am still yet to see superiority of thief. And that is where balances come from. As for wvw – strength or weakness of a single zergling unit is something noone cares about.

Ichishi.9613:

As for wvw – strength or weakness of a single zergling unit is something noone cares about.

This is absolutely untrue. Solo play can absolutely have an effect on the battlefield depending on situation and positioning. Are most things that can be done with a single person more time-efficient with a duo or trio? Yes, but few things are more force-efficient than a single player disrupting supplies, reinforcements, or a jumping puzzle.

Nautika.5376:

They will FIX this rendering issue and all you exploiters will QQ like little school girls yet it will not be a nerf but a much needed FIX.

I think if they fix that rendering issue Thieves will be fine

That’s been the corner-stone of it imo. The rendering issues really pervert what a thief is capable of.

They’ve stated warriors are a very balanced class already, so no buffs for warrior.

They don’t find thief to be OP as you saw from the last big update we had, with a rework hitting it where it was needed.

They’ve stated they think balance is in a pretty good state right now. I assume, however, that they’ll be working to fix how insanely easy it is to win tPvP with a 4 or 5 man bunker team.

you try to kill a bunker team. IMPOSSIBLE !

DanH, the only reason you into so many players now running bunker builds beside players who like to is because of such high burst damage warriors and thieves.

i have over 750 hours(500 hours of pvp time) on my theif i think the class is fine if you die to a glass cannon it your fault(apply to any class) only changes i think should really be changed to a theif is cloak skills should be able to fail such as backstab, tatical strike, suprize shot, and sneak attack not be spammed well in hide putting a cd on it like 3 seconds. and extra second to hide cd time of hiding should be added so it imposible to purma hide yourself sololy threw cloak and dagger. beond that the class itself is fine.

Nautika.5376:

They will FIX this rendering issue and all you exploiters will QQ like little school girls yet it will not be a nerf but a much needed FIX.

I think if they fix that rendering issue Thieves will be fine

I do fine on my thief and I don’t even use stealth.

Leuca.5732:

Bladie: No profession packs as much utility into their utilities as a thief does. When the skills you are using because of their extremely powerful mobility (without even consuming endurance, you can move around the battle field and outmaneuver anybody 1v1) also remove high numbers of the conditions that most hinder your performance, when you would probably be fine without it, there is something wrong.

Your quickness is not balanced because the side effect puts very little risk factor into your playstyle. A ranger cannot heal; a warrior takes double damage. These are much greater risk factors than losing your endurance when you don’t even need it to escape a battle/evade most damage. If they fixed your damage, that would at least make up for the bulk of it, but the thief population won’t stand for not having insane burst with mobility/survivability at the same time.

Underwater? Nobody is going to attack a thief underwater if they have any common sense. Using targeted sinks eats up time you could spend doing damage, which makes you lose either way. The #5 skill doesn’t consume enough initiative for the thief to use it sparingly. I have watched a full cannon thief avoid all damage for 15+ seconds while attacking things outside of melee range the entire time, just by spamming shadow assault. The difference is when you have somebody assisting you (assuming one of you has multiple sinking skills), or he finally runs out of initiative, but you’ll be pressed to finish him on your own.

The thing about thief dodges is that if you need them, you’re doing it wrong.

Thieves are given the same amount of utilities as any classes. There are different sets of utilities that only fit the gamestyle of different types of thieves. This runs in all professions as well.

Quickness is balance. A ranger cannot heal but he’s in a safe distance with his skills ready to go and his pet with him. A warrior takes double the damage but he naturally has more HP and wears heavy armor. This never ending argument of why thieves will forever be OP always connects to the fact that thieves can teleport and stealth.

Regarding underwater battles, thieves are okay. Not underpowered but certainly not overpowered. #5 skills will always use up 5 initiatives (which is A lot). The playing field becomes even and they lose a lot of mobility along with their Burst damage. If you wanna bash underwater fighting, i recommend the mesmer section.

And you’re wrong, a dodge thief is much better and gets my respect any day. I would know because I’m one of them. Every thief has their own preference of survivability. Stealth is an introduction to thieves and is considered ez mode in my book (in terms of survivability). Teleportation and dodge gameplay is much more rewarding and displays more skills, knowledge, and quick thinking.

bladie.5084:

Thieves are given the same amount of utilities as any classes. There are different sets of utilities that only fit the gamestyle of different types of thieves. This runs in all professions as well.

Quickness is balance. A ranger cannot heal but he’s in a safe distance with his skills ready to go and his pet with him. A warrior takes double the damage but he naturally has more HP and wears heavy armor. This never ending argument of why thieves will forever be OP always connects to the fact that thieves can teleport and stealth.

Regarding underwater battles, thieves are okay. Not underpowered but certainly not overpowered. #5 skills will always use up 5 initiatives (which is A lot). The playing field becomes even and they lose a lot of mobility along with their Burst damage. If you wanna bash underwater fighting, i recommend the mesmer section.

And you’re wrong, a dodge thief is much better and gets my respect any day. I would know because I’m one of them. Every thief has their own preference of survivability. Stealth is an introduction to thieves and is considered ez mode in my book (in terms of survivability). Teleportation and dodge gameplay is much more rewarding and displays more skills, knowledge, and quick thinking.

I’m not talking about the number of individual utilities. In GW1, we had a commonly used term among PvPers called bar compression. This referred to how many different functions you could pack into a single 8-skill bar. Can you succeed at two things with one skill instead of taking two individual ones for the same purpose? There are some thief utilities that are absolute garbage, but their good ones are so good that it puts the other professions to shame.

Let’s break it down (I will be considering heal skills utilities in this case):
Hide in Shadows- Heals, places regen, removes all degen conditions, stealths (allowing you to backstab again off of your heal if you move correctly), can be traited to give initiative from two traits.
Withdraw- Evades (a very considerable distance) without using endurance, removes all snaring conditions (without a trait) which ensures full evade distance, heals, can be traited to restore initiative.
Roll for Initiative- Stunbreaks, evades like Withdraw, restores initiative, removes all snaring conditions (without a trait) which ensures that your evade will give its full distance.
Shadow Step: Has all the offensive/defensive properties of a single use teleport, but has a return function with a very long timer in between compared to other chained movement skills, stunbreaks on both parts of the chain, removes 3 unspecified conditions, superior range to other teleports without being traited.
Haste: Removes endurance and stops it from regenerating, but you don’t need that in the slightest if you are using the rest of your utilities properly and need to exit the fight. Chances are you’ve done so much damage that your target (assuming you can play properly) is not as concerned with spiking you down as they are with staying alive for the next few seconds. I almost forgot this also stunbreaks. A warrior’s quickness also stunbreaks, but engineers and rangers do not on their quickness skills. I do however think that they need to fix the endurance bug that exists right now; putting any profession into negative endurance is not ok. However, this really doesn’t seem to hurt the good thieves when they want to get out of a fight, and it’s not something I hear people complaining about a lot anyway. A person who uses their dodges well is clearly a superior player, but this doesn’t detract from the aforementioned point; a thief needs their dodges less than any other profession if he wants to escape combat/avoid damage.
Caltrops- I say FU if you are standing on my cap point and do not have a plethora of condition removal or regeneration on your build. I also spam Death Blossom to annoy the crap out of you. (I honestly think a 10-12 second duration would be fine)
Assassin’s Signet- Do I keep it passive for power… or activate it for more power? Decisions.. decisions…
Signet of Shadows- wat is swifness (swap this in in-between battles to say FU to even needing a particular boon)

I don’t want thieves to not have movement, or to not be able to get away, or hide, or heal, or remove conditions, or do damage. But why compacting all these functions into a few superior skills makes sense is beyond me. I have a problem with the fact that these utilities are just so good that they leave the others in the dust. I have a problem with the fact that they leave other professions’ utilities in the dust. I have a problem with the fact that these same utilities are pretty much going to be superior no matter what build you are using; you are probably going to use a utility set that is composed mostly of these.

Hide in Shadows – Regen is only beneficial if the thief is traited in deadly arts or has healing gears. You can only pull off another BS if the target is in a 4 second range, or ur gonna have to pop another stealth skill to stack your stealth. Stealthing grants initiative/regains faster only if you trait in shadow arts. When you regain initiatives while stealth you see a difference but it’s not a big difference where everyone would spec for it. When using Hide in Shadows, it feels like the animation takes forever when using it. Hide in shadows is only a very good healing skill when you specc into shadow.

Withdraw – Evades a good amount of distance, but you have to realize that it’s not like hide in shadows where you go to stealth mode and is entirely safe. Most thieves that use Withdraw (such like myself) are not fond of stealthing. Withdraw is a 15 seconds cool down that cures snaring conditions but has very little healing. Poison just kills any thieves using withdraw. When you withdraw you dont have control to evade any directions you desire so when you need to get from point a to point b using withdraw, you have to have your back turn against the direction you want to go to. Simple, yes but when you’re in tough situations sometimes things dont go your way. gaining initiatives when healing is a very good trait and tbh its perfectly balanced. Considering you have to get 30 trickery for this.

You’re right, when using haste, a smart thief sets himself a good escape route so if he fails or miss or is receiving too much damage, he can shadow return. So what’s the ideal skill to use haste with? Pistol Whip. A knowledgable thief can pull off 3 pistol whips within haste. But who’s to say that All three is going to hit? First pistol whip expected to hit, 2nd one if im still hittin you then that’s understandable. But if someone sits through all 3 PWs then there’s something wrong there. PW has been nerfed 15%, doing a recognizable amount of damage only applies if you’re specced in glass cannon . Our damage only shines when we get someone down to 50% and have fury activated from steal.
Roll for Initiative is a very underpowered skill and a lot of thieves take it for granted by not using it. I use it but not as often. Only when I can for see open battle fields and expect a good fight to come along. It’s not going to get changed anytime soon i can tell you that. Because there just aren’t that many utility slots to go around. It’s like Withdraw like you stated, you have to control the distance you’re evading to. I don’t use it half the time because i ask myself, “Why have this on one of my precious slots when withdraw does the same but it heals 4x a min, producing me 16 initiatives?” It’s a situational utility for big battles.
Shadow step – not sure about the breaking stun upon teleporting but yes return breaks stun and cures three conditions. The three conditions most of the time doesn’t really matter because a thief already has differenet methods of curing their own conditions. It’s only used to get from point a to point b most of the time and shadow return when in danger. It’s one of those very good utilities but it’s an optional utility. Some will use it, some wont. Can live without it.
Caltrops is again another optional utility. glass cannon prioritizes their utilities. It’s a fun utility for conditioner. But again, you have to prioritize your utilities. Why use a utility to condition when your weapon skills can do that. What if you used your caltrop and then the enemy instantly removes them? Well, kitten that’s a waste of utility right there. But for weapon skills, as long as you have the initiative, you can re apply.
Assassin’s signet gives a decent amount of power for passive to keep in your utility. If it was above 100 power then there would be a problem. next 5 attacks have an additional 15% is pretty even. i see it as giving the next 5 attacks some might stacks. At least it’s not next five attacks are guaranteed critical.
Signet of shadows is very nice for thieves considering the only time we can have any self-swift buff is upon stealing (and that’s if you glyphed your trait). Dodging to gain 2 seconds swiftness is not acknowledgable. signet of shadows is completely useless and a waste of space in battle. when you’re in combat your speed reduces right? What’s faster, the signet giving you that small increase or an enemies’ aoe/projectiles?

I admit, we do get some luxurious utilities. But like stated before, it doesn’t mean we can use them all or fit them all into our hotkey. You’re very informative and obviously know your research. But you just have to play a thief as a main to get the big picture. I heard a guardian’s utilities can save a whole zerg. ya know? There’s always gonna be other utilities within other classes that will always be better. I’d trade some of my utilities for retailiation, protection and more healing skills anyday.