Guild Wars 2

ThirtyOne.3976:

I think people are blowing this whole potential backstab nerf way out of proportion for what is a pretty gimmicky skill in the first place.

First off, ANet said they were looking to bring down the raw spike DPS potential of some builds while compensating others, so if you really love Thief that much, you should start looking into other builds ( Yes, there really are other skills other than Heart Seeker and Back Stab! ) rather than moaning because a skill half of you apparently don’t use is being slightly lowered.

Second, saying that ANet are pandering to noobs/bads/casuals or whatever your favorite derogatory term is, is just stupid. Remember in the BWE’s when everyone was complaining about the Hundred Blades Warriors, how did ANet react; they didn’t, exactly the same when loads of people were complaining about the Mesmer survivability and utility, they lowered the damage and recharge of Phantasm attacks. Or what about the Guardian and their damage potential? Largely unchanged. ANet assess the situation on skills, abilities or whatnot themselves, if they feel a change is needed, then obviously something has to be done about it because it’s not acting as intended or players are using it in unintended ways.

Finally, Anet are trying to work to increase their longevity of their game, you really think heavily nerfing a class is their priority? If so, you are sadly mistaken, especially when that class is a fundamental part of almost every MMORPG.

Extra: SFtheWolf – I couldn’t agree more about people would rather complain than adapt, and that is exactly whats happening here, on both sides of the fence.

I love thief and I don’t play d/d, currently I play p/p + sb and according to a post on gw2guru sb is running risk of getting nerfed. Since I enjoy ranged burst builds and the thief this will probably be a dealbreaker for me if sb gets a nerf as well. I just feel all the work I put down to get my exotic gear will be wasted and I’ll probably just quit playing until something is done to compensate the changes.

Also thieves are very limited since many skills are relatively useless on some sets, waste of initiative that could be used spamming the same ‘ultimate’ skill over and over. It’s Anets fault for making the class in this way and not the players, so punishing players for a badly designed system is not really fair.

Roll any other class and spec glass cannon than feel the difference.

To make it even more prominenet, roll an elementalist and go full glass cannon!

You will see why thief’s should have some sort of nerf coming.

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind the damage you put out if it wasn’t for the fact that you are perma-stealthed while attacking me. I shouldn’t have to build my character to specifically kill on class. All other classes, I can kill with no problem. Run into a thief? You better hope that thief is terrible because even a decent thief can stomp any player with no problem. And there lies the problem.

sorrow.2364:

SFtheWolf.5179:

Don’t insult other people’s skill level and then make out like Heartseeker spam is somehow difficult to avoid.

Also I still don’t see why thieves having the best single target damage in the game is a problem. I’d call it a problem if they didn’t.

Furthermore; You’re only seeing what you want to if you think this is about “one skill”. For one, backstab is the focal point of a large number of assassination builds (which should be a totally valid option). For another, the whining about thieves has ruined skills that already weren’t fantastic for anything but pubstomping in the past (Pistol Whip). If Backstab gets ruined, it’s logical to predict the whining will move onto something else, and the cycle will just continue until thieves are useless.

You should have at least have read the context of what I said.
I’ve stated that thieves have the highest single-target DPS in the game to answer Rukia who said Thieves are bad in dungeons and will get even more bad, when almost all the action in that part of game is based on single target engagements with bosses, in which thieves excels.

Pistol Whip, right it is now, is still very viable.
Pigiaduroitastini (Seba Z), Italian as I am, is a great thief player and runs PW in tPvP also after the nerf with great results.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaYsl9CxNdA&feature=plcp

Pistol Whip, before the nerf, was just overpowered, now is is well balanced.
You feel it as weak because you compare it to Backstab, which is another op build on the thief. When Backstab will get a nerf too, you’ll realize that all builds are effective the same and they are all viable, unless another op build will stand out and start to monopolize all the thieves again. When you feel that all builds are equally viable, you’ll know that there is balance but till that point, there is no balance.

Other thief’s builds aren’t weak, they are just weaker in comparison with backstab, that’s all. There is no reason to run them over backstab but it isn’t that other builds are all weak, it is just backstab which is stronger than it should.

I’m pretty confused as to why you linked this video. I watched the first four minutes. He lost every encounter (every single 1v1, he lost) and was downed in a fight that his team won. All that video showed was how easy it is to juke by using Shadowstep and Infiltrator’s Strike.

If anything, that video showed how bad Pistol Whip is. If he’s supposed to be a good player, yet he couldn’t beat others 1v1.

DivineBeing.2086:

Roll any other class and spec glass cannon than feel the difference.

To make it even more prominenet, roll an elementalist and go full glass cannon!

You will see why thief’s should have some sort of nerf coming.

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind the damage you put out if it wasn’t for the fact that you are perma-stealthed while attacking me. I shouldn’t have to build my character to specifically kill on class. All other classes, I can kill with no problem. Run into a thief? You better hope that thief is terrible because even a decent thief can stomp any player with no problem. And there lies the problem.

Thieves are made for good burst damage due to the way their defence works; stealth. If I played another class I’d go for their strong sides, but even so there are other classes that does the burst damage very well such as the warrior.

Also what perma stealth? The only stealth you have while attacking is due to a bug Anet haven’t managed to solve yet, the only type of perma stealth a dagger has access to is if you run a defensive build instead of offensive and your damage output is then severely kittened. And you are stating that you can easily kill all other classes except thief, what does that make your class if not OP? “HURR DURR THIS GUY CAN ACTUALLY BEAT ME! NERF!”.

Krathalos.3461:

sorrow.2364:

SFtheWolf.5179:

Don’t insult other people’s skill level and then make out like Heartseeker spam is somehow difficult to avoid.

Also I still don’t see why thieves having the best single target damage in the game is a problem. I’d call it a problem if they didn’t.

Furthermore; You’re only seeing what you want to if you think this is about “one skill”. For one, backstab is the focal point of a large number of assassination builds (which should be a totally valid option). For another, the whining about thieves has ruined skills that already weren’t fantastic for anything but pubstomping in the past (Pistol Whip). If Backstab gets ruined, it’s logical to predict the whining will move onto something else, and the cycle will just continue until thieves are useless.

You should have at least have read the context of what I said.
I’ve stated that thieves have the highest single-target DPS in the game to answer Rukia who said Thieves are bad in dungeons and will get even more bad, when almost all the action in that part of game is based on single target engagements with bosses, in which thieves excels.

Pistol Whip, right it is now, is still very viable.
Pigiaduroitastini (Seba Z), Italian as I am, is a great thief player and runs PW in tPvP also after the nerf with great results.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaYsl9CxNdA&feature=plcp

Pistol Whip, before the nerf, was just overpowered, now is is well balanced.
You feel it as weak because you compare it to Backstab, which is another op build on the thief. When Backstab will get a nerf too, you’ll realize that all builds are effective the same and they are all viable, unless another op build will stand out and start to monopolize all the thieves again. When you feel that all builds are equally viable, you’ll know that there is balance but till that point, there is no balance.

Other thief’s builds aren’t weak, they are just weaker in comparison with backstab, that’s all. There is no reason to run them over backstab but it isn’t that other builds are all weak, it is just backstab which is stronger than it should.

I’m pretty confused as to why you linked this video. I watched the first four minutes. He lost every encounter (every single 1v1, he lost) and was downed in a fight that his team won. All that video showed was how easy it is to juke by using Shadowstep and Infiltrator’s Strike.

If anything, that video showed how bad Pistol Whip is. If he’s supposed to be a good player, yet he couldn’t beat others 1v1.

Yeah couldn’t really figure that part out either, “HEY LOOK GUIZ THIS IS STILL VIABLE” loses every single fight . Also lol @ “Italian as I am”.

What was the point of that?

try a glass cannon ranger before qq’ing about a small nerf to an OP skill.

Letifer, I don’t think Kuroin is fully grasping what we’re saying.

When I stated I could kill any class, that is essentially what I mean. It’s balanced. Does that mean I utterly destroy all classes hands down? No. Yes, I stated I could kill them with no problem and that’s the truth. Can they kill me with no problems at times? Yes. Why? Because my class is pretty balanced too.

Are all classes perfectly balanced? Not saying that at all. Thief just happens to be way out of balance due to this perma stealth ability while still having the skills (actual skill not player skill) to wipe an opponents health of 18-20k within a matter of seconds on a defensively built class.

And before you state, “ kitten Well that person was built glass cannon”. Once again! Build a glass cannon elementalist or any class for that matter, and see how well that turns out for you. No where near the damage and survivability.

Warr,mes,engi do that to me all the time but I dont cry and whine.
However everyone is going to get their wish next patch and thieves are going to be wet limp noodles. Our attacks will be dirty laundry (watch out for underwear). Mobility will be nerfed like wearing unwashed 30 day old jeans. SB is on the list – already hit but not hard enough.BS with an old t shirt 0 dam.Stealth who can stealth in dirty cloths they smell you a mile away. You heard/smelt it here first.
We will never go back to the roaming/utility burst we were designed to be.
I expect the class to be completely useless after this due to all the QQ and how Anet gives in to that.
I hope you have an alt is all I can say.
I will now take off my tin foil hat and have a shower.

Runcore.5107:

Dear Arena, isnt easier remove complete thief class than still nerfing this nice class? You can completely remove it because after all these kids-cry-based nerfes thief will be useless with both: less HP and no damage. No more glass cannon class, only glass class.

I really dont understand why you made this game with thief on begin if you are now only ruining this class. Remove thief class! Its visible that Arena dont like this class and nerf thief when some kids cry on forum: “bueeee bueeee, some thief killed me, thief is OP, nerf please”. Dagger was/will be nerfed and bow and pistols are weak so what thief would use as weapon? All our weapons are or will be weak so why you made this class, Arena??? Is really nice that thief has some 2-3 seconds of stealth but what it is good for if we have (after all nerfes) almost no damage with all weapons?

From start of game is thief only target of nerfes, nerfes, nerfes. You could have said on start of game that you want during next 2-3 months make from thief poor wretch with no hp and damage and many ppl could choose another (now) better class. Its really not fair to present 80. level thieves that you make this class useless after their 2-3 months of hard work of leveling, exploring maps, crafting and collecting money for better gear.

I thought that GW2 is better than other multiplayer games and Arena is serious developer but I see that true is other. Arena is only puppet which dance on child-cry rhythm. Really i though that you are better but you are same like other mp games with crying forums.

Yeah, cause people aren’t going to whine if all their hardwork they put into their thief char gets removed.

Krathalos.3461:

I’m pretty confused as to why you linked this video. I watched the first four minutes. He lost every encounter (every single 1v1, he lost) and was downed in a fight that his team won. All that video showed was how easy it is to juke by using Shadowstep and Infiltrator’s Strike.

If anything, that video showed how bad Pistol Whip is. If he’s supposed to be a good player, yet he couldn’t beat others 1v1.

You watched the first 4 minutes of a 24 minutes video and came to a conclusion which you consider to be valid.
Seems legit.

Your post summarize the typical thief (average pubstomper) forma mentis.
1. Every build should deal heavy damage and kill everyone on its road, otherwise you can’t consider it decent.
2. Knowing a minimum part of something is more than enough to split universal judgments (like “that warrior dealt 20k+ damage in WvWvW! Warriors are op!” without trying the profession).

That’s why I gave up on arguing with those kind of people.
Good thieves know when nerfs are fair, bad FotM players will always rant about nerfs and are always ready to move up to the next FotM profession to abuse till the next nerf. Enough said.

Thank you to have supported my argument.

pfft thief damage is fine. of course, it might be a good idea to do something to lock noobs out of it xD but the damage itself is fine, it’s counterable etc.

rendering is a big issue, however. as a core engineer (in any format), it would help a lot to be able to see what is hitting me immediately instead of a bunch of red numbers from apparently nothing and then a naruto scrub spamming the 2 button 2-3 seconds later lol…

how to nerf bs? if they choose to nerf. it i dont think it need a nerf. but if there was one i either give it a cd time of 3 seconds meaning it cant be casted in chain. or give it -15% dmg reduction to heavy armor, -10% dmg to medium, 0% to light. making it only useful against light class player. becuase honestly if your going to go bs build against a ele they just drop you in 2 seconds. they throw up lighting shield then any aoe the theif dead.

DivineBeing.2086:

Letifer, I don’t think Kuroin is fully grasping what we’re saying.

When I stated I could kill any class, that is essentially what I mean. It’s balanced. Does that mean I utterly destroy all classes hands down? No. Yes, I stated I could kill them with no problem and that’s the truth. Can they kill me with no problems at times? Yes. Why? Because my class is pretty balanced too.

Are all classes perfectly balanced? Not saying that at all. Thief just happens to be way out of balance due to this perma stealth ability while still having the skills (actual skill not player skill) to wipe an opponents health of 18-20k within a matter of seconds on a defensively built class.

And before you state, kitten Well that person was built glass cannon". Once again! Build a glass cannon elementalist or any class for that matter, and see how well that turns out for you. No where near the damage and survivability.

I don’t know why you expect to make as much damage with a class like elementalist which is built completely different, but hey give me aoe spells at 1200 range and you can remove backstab completely for my thief. Oh that is not relevant? Actually it is, every class is built differently and a thief is viable for one thing currently. High single target burst damage. On the other hand other classes are able to do high single target burst damage also like warrior but that is still not the warriors strongest point. The strongest point of a warrior is that it is a kitten train and you should spec it for that. People thing every class should be equally good at everything at this forum and that is not what makes a good game.

Kuroin.1703:

I don’t know why you expect to make as much damage with a class like elementalist which is built completely different, but hey give me aoe spells at 1200 range and you can remove backstab completely for my thief. Oh that is not relevant? Actually it is, every class is built differently and a thief is viable for one thing currently. High single target burst damage. On the other hand other classes are able to do high single target burst damage also like warrior but that is still not the warriors strongest point. The strongest point of a warrior is that it is a kitten train and you should spec it for that. People thing every class should be equally good at everything at this forum and that is not what makes a good game.

You have Cluster Bomb. Now what?
Every profession have AoE, close range and long range weapons.

Clusterbomb is horrible at long range, unless you’re firing from, or up a wall in WvW.

Hardly comparable to Eles AoE.

Rottaran Owain.6789:

Clusterbomb is horrible at long range, unless you’re firing from, or up a wall in WvW.

Hardly comparable to Eles AoE.

It isn’t quite horrible.
It deals massive damage + bleeding at the cost of a slow flying speed and adjustable AoE, but it doesn’t matter that much since you are able to use other skills in the meantime.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t said that thieves don’t need buff in that area, I wanted to say that ANet has stated many times that every profession can match any role with the same effectiveness and that is the philosophy behind profession design. It isn’t a valid argument saying that thieves have massive damage because they have weak AoE and it is fair like it is now.

They just need to get nerfed in the area they are too strong and buffed in the area they are weak.

sorrow.2364:

You watched the first 4 minutes of a 24 minutes video and came to a conclusion which you consider to be valid.
Seems legit.

Your post summarize the typical thief (average pubstomper) forma mentis.
1. Every build should deal heavy damage and kill everyone on its road, otherwise you can’t consider it decent.
2. Knowing a minimum part of something is more than enough to split universal judgments (like “that warrior dealt 20k+ damage in WvWvW! Warriors are op!” without trying the profession).

That’s why I gave up on arguing with those kind of people.
Good thieves know when nerfs are fair, bad FotM players will always rant about nerfs and are always ready to move up to the next FotM profession to abuse till the next nerf. Enough said.

Thank you to have supported my argument.

Yes, I watched the first 4 minutes of a 24 minute video. SPvP in this game doesn’t progress. It’s pretty much the same throughout, with different encounters. I’m not going to watch a 24 minute video of a thief losing encounters in sPvP.

Yes, a roaming class should be able to beat people in 1v1. That’s the entire point of roaming. If you can’t do that, you’d be better off sticking with your team. This is why people claim their class is UP: they try to roam with a build not meant to roam with.

I also find it hilarious that you think I’m the “typical thief” and all these other assumptions of me. I actually agree with a thief burst nerf – but not on Backstab. This is why I also think Pistol Whip was wrongly nerfed. Arenanet nerfed Pistol Whip where it wasn’t needed (not the stun, but rather the damage, when the stun is the real problem), and they will more than likely also nerf D/D where it isn’t needed (Backstab, rather than Mug).

I’m still confused as to how this post proved me wrong that that video was poor to back up your claim that Pistol Whip thieves are still good. He did nothing in that video except lose and run away. All you did was sit on your high horse, as if you’re somehow better than those players who play thief.

Krathalos.3461:

Yes, I watched the first 4 minutes of a 24 minute video. SPvP in this game doesn’t progress. It’s pretty much the same throughout, with different encounters. I’m not going to watch a 24 minute video of a thief losing encounters in sPvP.

Yes, a roaming class should be able to beat people in 1v1. That’s the entire point of roaming. If you can’t do that, you’d be better off sticking with your team. This is why people claim their class is UP: they try to roam with a build not meant to roam with.

I also find it hilarious that you think I’m the “typical thief” and all these other assumptions of me. I actually agree with a thief burst nerf – but not on Backstab. This is why I also think Pistol Whip was wrongly nerfed. Arenanet nerfed Pistol Whip where it wasn’t needed (not the stun, but rather the damage, when the stun is the real problem), and they will more than likely also nerf D/D where it isn’t needed (Backstab, rather than Mug).

I’m still confused as to how this post proved me wrong that that video was poor to back up your claim that Pistol Whip thieves are still good. He did nothing in that video except lose and run away. All you did was sit on your high horse, as if you’re somehow better than those players who play thief.

You have watched 4 minutes of video and claimed that the thief playing lost all the encounters, which actually didn’t happen since I’ve seen him getting downed only 2-3 times in the whole 24 minutes footage. It happens that sometimes you lose an encounter, but if you paid attention not every time he left the battle was because of low hp, but many times was because he wanted to help his teammates to defend another point.

If you don’t want to watch a 24 minutes video, than don’t talk about it, that’s all. If you do, your judgment will be most likely superficial or wrong.

I didn’t said you are the typical thief, I said that your post summarize the typical thief attitude in this forum, which are different things. Maybe you are, who knows?

If you watched the entire video, you’d realize that he succeded to sustain enough damage and being alive for a long time keeping one or more member of the enemy team entertained when his teammates were capping other points and also succeded more than one time to clear a node all by himself going in and out of the battle when he wanted.
He wasn’t running a glass cannon build, but a more defensive spec and S/P helped him with its great mobility and defensive capability while having still sweet damage.

Pistol Whip damage nerf was fair. It has and evade and a stun in it, it can’t have also heavy damage as it had.
You should keep in mind that not every build of the thief must focus on heavy damage and S/P is objectively the CC/Defensive set and right now it is doing his job quite good.

Who said roaming is about killing people in 1vs1? Roaming is about having high mobility in order to move from a point to another to help people when needed or to keep enemy team occupied to defend a point. He did his job fine.

You can’t make those kind of judgments based on the fact you heard the word “nerf”.

You also forget us thiefs are getting buffs to other skills. We’ll be getting around 10-20 changes, based on what we know already (Hints from John Smith from his chat in the Mists can be found on these forums and on Reddit).

I highly doubt all of them are nerfs; I’d say we’d get as much nerfs as buffs, with a few bug fixes. It’ll be more interesting to see what kind of builds people decide to play after the 15th, or if another build can over-take the burst damage of C/D-steal-backstab.

sorrow.2364:

Rottaran Owain.6789:

Clusterbomb is horrible at long range, unless you’re firing from, or up a wall in WvW.

Hardly comparable to Eles AoE.

It isn’t quite horrible.
It deals massive damage + bleeding at the cost of a slow flying speed and adjustable AoE, but it doesn’t matter that much since you are able to use other skills in the meantime.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t said that thieves don’t need buff in that area, I wanted to say that ANet has stated many times that every profession can match any role with the same effectiveness and that is the philosophy behind profession design. It isn’t a valid argument saying that thieves have massive damage because they have weak AoE and it is fair like it is now.

They just need to get nerfed in the area they are too strong and buffed in the area they are weak.

Well currently that would be something like, nerfing burst damage of d/d but letting the others stay as they are and boosting most other weapon sets except sb which is fine as it is. What is most lacking for thief is a 1200 range weapon however I think a thief aren’t meant to do damage from 1200 range really and should therefore have some other strong sides, why make all classes the same? It makes the game boring. Some have to exceed at certain areas just like other classes should have their uses. Watch how warriors can be monsters in terms of tanking ability, 31k hp and some mad armor and hp regen, thats how they should be and I do not think it’s possible for a BS thief to drop such a player unless hes afk for a minute or so.

BS dont need a nerf, stealth and initiative need.