Guild Wars 2

Like the title says, I now have an immense respect for thieves.

Why? I finally got around to making a Thief and in PvE it is not a cake walk, especially at lower levels. I also didn’t think that the +1 second on reveal was that big of a deal, but it means a ton when you’re trying to mitigate damage or deal damage in PvE. WvW-wise I think it made sense.

Utility wise I am a little baffled as to why ANET want’s this profession to be a bursty, but many abilities are applied the exact opposite way. Venoms for example do Poison, Weakness, Chill? Those are abilities to prolong a fight in my opinion. Poison it’s slowly, but it’s strength is the -33% healing effectiveness. Chill slows the target’s recharge on skills by -66%, but what’s the point if you’re dead from a class using all their abilities and then swapping and not needing to wait for the recharge? Weakness is meant to reduce the amount of damage if you get hit by critical hits, but in reality if you’re getting hit your toast to begin with, let alone getting hit with conditions. Thief would really seem much more viable with a skill that does burning damage or confusion. Don’t get me wrong they would need to dial back bleed stacking, but at least the enemy couldn’t remove the heavy damage that a condi thief works for with 1 condition removal.

I really hope ANET gives this professions something much better than it has now. :-)

P.S. after rolling a Thief I can say even more emphasis that Heat Seeker needs a nerf. There is absolutely no reason that any profession can have this heavy hitting skill with this small of cost. Spam, Spam, Spam is not skillful.
My suggestions:
-Make it cost more (5 initiative) or
-Shorten it’s range (or remove the leap)
-Reduce it’s effectiveness if used consecutively.

Other than that I have immense respect for the people that play this profession!

meh heartseekers pretty terrible for all but a finisher, your better off auto attacking than spamming it if they are above 50% hp and of course comes with a fair bit of downsides in any given real situation.

Any of the changes to it you stated would totally destroy it for many many builds to solve a non-existant issue.

Heartseeker is terrible. If you’re just spamming 2 you are doing things very wrong. But sure, you know what, go ahead. Double the init cost, remove the leap, and make it less effective the more you use it. Give it the greatest nerf in the history of Guild Wars. Make it so there is absolutely no reason to ever press 2 under any circumstances. In fact, make the skill damage the thief and give you 2 minutes of revealed. Then I can completely ignore it like I do Death Blossom. It’s already approaching that point.

Don’t reduce Heartseeker range. It’s the only mobility tool we have in D/x except for D/P and this one cannot be used without an hostile target so it’s not as good.

Goloith.6349:

Poison it’s slowly, but it’s strength is the -33% healing effectiveness.

The poison is there mostly for the -33% healing, meaning that if a target get’s hit by some burst, they’re less likely to be able to recover before another round of burst occurs.

Chill slows the target’s recharge on skills by -66%, but what’s the point if you’re dead from a class using all their abilities and then swapping and not needing to wait for the recharge?

With the duration it comes it, the Chill is more for keeping the target locked down with the -66% movement speed (Also affects Leaps that most classes utilise to escape battles they are losing) it ensures the advantage stays with the thief to be hard to hit with (Now) superior mobility.

Weakness is meant to reduce the amount of damage if you get hit by critical hits, but in reality if you’re getting hit your toast to begin with, let alone getting hit with conditions.

The main point of Weakness for a thief isn’t the -50% damage on non-crits, but rather the -50% endurance regeneration, which prevents the enemies ability to avoid your burst while you continue to evade their damage and keep chipping at them with bursts.

Thief would really seem much more viable with a skill that does burning damage or confusion. Don’t get me wrong they would need to dial back bleed stacking, but at least the enemy couldn’t remove the heavy damage that a condi thief works for with 1 condition removal.

A-net have acknowledged this, and they’re looking for a way to introduce Burning into the thief that fits in (They’ve already started nerfing Bleed stacking in the form of the Caltrops nerf)

P.S. after rolling a Thief I can say even more emphasis that Heat Seeker needs a nerf. There is absolutely no reason that any profession can have this heavy hitting skill with this small of cost. Spam, Spam, Spam is not skillful.
My suggestions:
-Make it cost more (5 initiative) or
-Shorten it’s range (or remove the leap)
-Reduce it’s effectiveness if used consecutively.

Other than that I have immense respect for the people that play this profession!

Heartseeker is fine as it is, at lower levels when targets have small amounts of health a HS at full health will bring a lot of things to below 50% health so the next HS’s do increased damage.

At higher levels the damage HS does to a target above 50% health is not much more than auto-attacking and has the down side of depleting your valuable Initiative supplies.

Heartseeker comes into it’s own to bring down injured targets (50% and below, ideally 25% and below) which coincides with A-nets plan of Thieves being Hit and Run class that deals burst damage to counter Bunker builds and finish off low health targets.

Why do I see more and more self-nerfing thieves in here? Why are we asking for suicide buttons? Every other thread is a thief suggesting a nerf to itself. I think they are all secretly mesmers stacking confusion on me IRL.

Taril.8619:

At higher levels the damage HS does to a target above 50% health is not much more than auto-attacking and has the down side of depleting your valuable Initiative supplies.

Without any init regen at the base 12 max initiative you actually do slightly less damage than auto attacking above 50% if you do 5 HS’ers very slightly less I admit but if auto-attacking deals even 1 more point AND doesn’t burn ALL your weapon skills then its still way better.

Also if thieves got burn or confuse you wouldn’t have to nerf bleed stacking, if its on a weapon skill you already nerf bleed stacking by utilizing another skill, if its on a utility you still either nerf bleed stacking or loose out on yet another utility slot that is otherwise used to keep your face from the carpet.

Taril.8619:

Goloith.6349:

Poison it’s slowly, but it’s strength is the -33% healing effectiveness.

The poison is there mostly for the -33% healing, meaning that if a target get’s hit by some burst, they’re less likely to be able to recover before another round of burst occurs.

Chill slows the target’s recharge on skills by -66%, but what’s the point if you’re dead from a class using all their abilities and then swapping and not needing to wait for the recharge?

With the duration it comes it, the Chill is more for keeping the target locked down with the -66% movement speed (Also affects Leaps that most classes utilise to escape battles they are losing) it ensures the advantage stays with the thief to be hard to hit with (Now) superior mobility.

Weakness is meant to reduce the amount of damage if you get hit by critical hits, but in reality if you’re getting hit your toast to begin with, let alone getting hit with conditions.

The main point of Weakness for a thief isn’t the -50% damage on non-crits, but rather the -50% endurance regeneration, which prevents the enemies ability to avoid your burst while you continue to evade their damage and keep chipping at them with bursts.

Thief would really seem much more viable with a skill that does burning damage or confusion. Don’t get me wrong they would need to dial back bleed stacking, but at least the enemy couldn’t remove the heavy damage that a condi thief works for with 1 condition removal.

A-net have acknowledged this, and they’re looking for a way to introduce Burning into the thief that fits in (They’ve already started nerfing Bleed stacking in the form of the Caltrops nerf)

P.S. after rolling a Thief I can say even more emphasis that Heat Seeker needs a nerf. There is absolutely no reason that any profession can have this heavy hitting skill with this small of cost. Spam, Spam, Spam is not skillful.
My suggestions:
-Make it cost more (5 initiative) or
-Shorten it’s range (or remove the leap)
-Reduce it’s effectiveness if used consecutively.

Other than that I have immense respect for the people that play this profession!

Heartseeker is fine as it is, at lower levels when targets have small amounts of health a HS at full health will bring a lot of things to below 50% health so the next HS’s do increased damage.

At higher levels the damage HS does to a target above 50% health is not much more than auto-attacking and has the down side of depleting your valuable Initiative supplies.

Heartseeker comes into it’s own to bring down injured targets (50% and below, ideally 25% and below) which coincides with A-nets plan of Thieves being Hit and Run class that deals burst damage to counter Bunker builds and finish off low health targets.

I understand what the conditions and their application are for, but the point I’m making is that they are not “bursty”. You’re just repeating what I said. ANET has said multiple times they want Theif to be bursty, and the Engineer to not be bursty, yet the Engineer has more bursty condition builds than what a Thief could ever dream of having. That’s why I’d like to see more viability for other builds/abilities.

As far as HS goes this probably is the #1 reason stealth got nerfed (misguilded in my opinion) because it wasn’t necessarily that people got hit with HS right off the bat, but it was the repeated use after the intial burst. Then people would stealth again, hit with #1, then HS, HS, HS.

Goloith.6349:

As far as HS goes this probably is the #1 reason stealth got nerfed (misguilded in my opinion) because it wasn’t necessarily that people got hit with HS right off the bat, but it was the repeated use after the intial burst. Then people would stealth again, hit with #1, then HS, HS, HS.

To acheive that would require more initiative then possibly obtainable. Throw in the fact that other people can also hit 3-4 moves in a row after someones been burst down… what makes HS so special? Its damage? Its fairly low except in specific situations and even then its lower than others already to balance out with the reuse system.

Its homing leap? Again others get this, its easily countered and is used for more than just spammers.

Spamming heartseeker is one of the worst things a thief can do outside its intended purpose which is a reusable high damage move against something thats already basically dead. And if something being reasonably good at what it was designed for is something that should be nerfed then when exactly are they going to get around to nerfing everything to the point where theres no game anymore.

Goloith.6349:

I understand what the conditions and their application are for, but the point I’m making is that they are not “bursty”. You’re just repeating what I said. ANET has said multiple times they want Theif to be bursty, and the Engineer to not be bursty, yet the Engineer has more bursty condition builds than what a Thief could ever dream of having. That’s why I’d like to see more viability for other builds/abilities.

So you’re wanting “Bursty” condition build for a thief? Isn’t a Bursty Condition build kind of an Oxymoron? (Engies can have burst-like condi builds due to the way Confusion works, especially vs skill spamming)

Venoms are designed for use by builds that want to prolong a fight or Direct Damage builds that want the advantage given by these non-damaging conditions (Or at least in theory, in practice their CD’s are too long and their applications make it so the entire utility is instantly cleansed)

Thief’s “Bursty” condition builds come from Caltrops + Death Blossom allowing them to get 25 stacks of bleed quickly (Also restack up a good portion relatively quickly) or they come from P/D’s periods of Sneak Attacks giving 5 stacks of bleed every few seconds.

Ideally the builds will have more leeway of becoming “Bursty” if they get access to Burning or Confusion.

As far as HS goes this probably is the #1 reason stealth got nerfed (misguilded in my opinion) because it wasn’t necessarily that people got hit with HS right off the bat, but it was the repeated use after the intial burst. Then people would stealth again, hit with #1, then HS, HS, HS.

Stealth got nerfed because back when culling wasn’t fixed, lots of people complained that the thief was hitting them through “Perma-invisibility” and that they couldn’t see thieves and only had 1 second to see them (2 seconds of Culling with 3 seconds of revealed meant that for only 1 second thieves where visible) so they did a double whammy of removing culling and adding a second onto revealed.

Goloith.6349:

P.S. after rolling a Thief I can say even more emphasis that Heat Seeker needs a nerf. There is absolutely no reason that any profession can have this heavy hitting skill with this small of cost. Spam, Spam, Spam is not skillful.
My suggestions:
-Make it cost more (5 initiative) or
-Shorten it’s range (or remove the leap)
-Reduce it’s effectiveness if used consecutively.

Other than that I have immense respect for the people that play this profession!

The side effect of removing the mobility from dagger is :
against mesmer : he blink 1200 range away with weapon skill (staff -8 seconds cooldown)
against elementalist – he run 1200 range away with weapon skill (air 4)
against warrior – he run 2000 +range away with weapon skill – rush +whirlwind -savage leap
against ranger : greatsword 1100 range leap
guardian -greatsword leap + knockbacks /knockdowns.
*Thief : 4 x leaps at 450 range -1800 range(Cast time 3/4 seconds x 4) = 3 seconds.
With your Ideea thief 2 x 450 range leaps = 900 range.
Taking mobility or stealth away from thief is like taking clones from mesmer , or50% hp from warrior .
Yes thieves got also utility’s for mobility but so do other classes got : bull charge / mist form /blink /judge intervention … etc
I totaly disgree with nerfing thieves move speed.
P.S. : Damage from heartseeker was already nerfed twice, and does horible damage on targets with > 50% hp

So, yeah, Heartseeker ain’t as mighty as ya think, but other than that I appreciate the intention behind the post – ya came in, saw that Thieves aren’t holding a secret “win” card in their pocket the way alotta people try to pretend, and shared your appreciation for that.

Thank you.

We don’t get nearly enough good press and I think that’s why everyone has been so defensive in this thread. Thief is a lot of fun to play in PvE, but it is also really underpowered there – even more now that they nerfed some of the builds by ruining Stealth. (aside from the +1 second, it also used to drop aggro and ya wouldn’t often be hit by monsters while casting it – none of those good things are true any more)

Still, I hope ya stick to the character and play it some more – there are alotta people in here to give you good advice on staying alive and making builds you’ll enjoy playing.

Lets make the worst SPVP class even worse with nerfs

Taril.8619:

Goloith.6349:

I understand what the conditions and their application are for, but the point I’m making is that they are not “bursty”. You’re just repeating what I said. ANET has said multiple times they want Theif to be bursty, and the Engineer to not be bursty, yet the Engineer has more bursty condition builds than what a Thief could ever dream of having. That’s why I’d like to see more viability for other builds/abilities.

So you’re wanting “Bursty” condition build for a thief? Isn’t a Bursty Condition build kind of an Oxymoron? (Engies can have burst-like condi builds due to the way Confusion works, especially vs skill spamming)

Venoms are designed for use by builds that want to prolong a fight or Direct Damage builds that want the advantage given by these non-damaging conditions (Or at least in theory, in practice their CD’s are too long and their applications make it so the entire utility is instantly cleansed)

Thief’s “Bursty” condition builds come from Caltrops + Death Blossom allowing them to get 25 stacks of bleed quickly (Also restack up a good portion relatively quickly) or they come from P/D’s periods of Sneak Attacks giving 5 stacks of bleed every few seconds.

Ideally the builds will have more leeway of becoming “Bursty” if they get access to Burning or Confusion.

As far as HS goes this probably is the #1 reason stealth got nerfed (misguilded in my opinion) because it wasn’t necessarily that people got hit with HS right off the bat, but it was the repeated use after the intial burst. Then people would stealth again, hit with #1, then HS, HS, HS.

Stealth got nerfed because back when culling wasn’t fixed, lots of people complained that the thief was hitting them through “Perma-invisibility” and that they couldn’t see thieves and only had 1 second to see them (2 seconds of Culling with 3 seconds of revealed meant that for only 1 second thieves where visible) so they did a double whammy of removing culling and adding a second onto revealed.

Not exactly. Condition damage is not effected by armor so it is ideal for breaking those heavy toughness enemies. That’s why bleeds stack intensity instead of duration. The point is I’d really like to see the Thief to have it’s stealth back, have more viable condition damage alternatives other than bleed & poison and see HS nerfed in some facet. For example Poison on the Engineer does serve as reducing peoples ability to heal, but it also serves as cannon fodder for single condition removal abilities so burn and bleed can stay on.

Also I oops’ed by forgetting “or” after the bullet points. The point is Thieves need more reasons to not spam HS and use other abilities. They are still spamming HS repeatedly at too much success. As somone posted above, maybe the mobility is a terrible, idea, but what about a drawback on the skill that reduces it’s effectiveness if used consecutively? I’m level 10 and killing level 80s by cloak, #1, spamming HS over and over and farming people. I just think things should be more complicated than this.

I don’t think the conditions are meant to be used as attrition but more to secure the kill if they get away/keep them from getting away, and to apply pressure in other ways besides direct damage, that way there isn’t one single solid defense against it.

Wait, somebody who is coming to the thief from another profession, not telling us “LOL THIEF IS OP EASYMODE”? 0_o

Look here brothers and sisters, this strange phenomenon may never happen again.

If someone who plays a different class and then plays a thief suddenly says, “Thief is OP easy mode, where is the nerf bat anet LOL” s/he is probably practicing how to blatantly lie in order becoming a politician and run for congress.

I play an Engineer, that’s probably why. That profession is like playing the piano half the time and lacks a starter’s build. I suggested a lot more good then bad in the OP. I know there are skilled thieves out there that don’t spam HS, HS, HS, but I want HS to be good, but not something that is used consecutively. Maybe make it so it hit’s a little harder, but it costs more initiative. Just something so that it isn’t spammed. Spamming one key over and over is not skill, it’s cheese.

You could also just… not… spam HS…

As was mentioned above, as u get to higher difficulties spamming HS will do you no good and is a very good way to die. And also boring as hell. Why HS when you have more fun BSing mobs and feeling like a boss when giant red letters say 9k damage (which makes me wanna do it again and see if I can top it)

Only time I saw thieves spam HS is either when they are trying to move faster through the map or when in WvW or PvP a guy is really low health and its time for the kill.

lol at people who still think HS is OP, especially people who have just started playing a thief and act like they know what they’re talking about. HS is absolutely fine where it is… I rarely use it as is even now.

You act like you can just spam it non stop with out any consequences. That ini you just wasted spamming 2 like a noob could of been used to set up a CnD backstab combo. HS is basically a gap closer, if you’re using it for damage on anyone over 25% health your doing it wrong in most cases.

You might take down the odd glass cannon idiot who just stands there without dodging or using any abilities to counter it, but that hardly justifies nerfing it.

Goloith.6349:

I play an Engineer, that’s probably why. That profession is like playing the piano half the time and lacks a starter’s build. I suggested a lot more good then bad in the OP. I know there are skilled thieves out there that don’t spam HS, HS, HS, but I want HS to be good, but not something that is used consecutively. Maybe make it so it hit’s a little harder, but it costs more initiative. Just something so that it isn’t spammed. Spamming one key over and over is not skill, it’s cheese.

and from all the classes, thieves is the only1 who cannot spam skills.
warrior spam 1 -5 , swap weapon spam 1-5 , swap weapon again (5 seconds weapon swap ?
elementalist- spam f1-3 -4-5 f2 4-5 f3 -3-4 f4 – 3-4-5 -result 7 boons toons of dps and heals
Engi – grenade barage -1-2-3-4-5 , drop grenade kit, leap away with rifle use knockback, use grenade -1-2-3-4-5 , drop grnate kit, etc

mesmer – staf 2-3-4-5 /swapweapon Enemy got 5 conditions , he got 5 boons and burst ready to use

guardian -scepter /focus – drop aoe in area , grant regeneration and shield, swap weapon got 5 skills ready to spam
Thief – use 2, 2 , 2 , 2 – enemy 75% hp , thief cannot use only 1, thief swap weapon he can still use only 1.
I am sorry but how exactly thief spam more skills then other classes ?
IF we make an skill spam top would be :
1. eleme
2. engin
3. guardian
4. mesmer
5. warrior
Or is more hard to use 1.2.3.4.5 ~1.2.3.4.5 then 2-2-2-2 -1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 ?

Thanks for the balanced outside view of the thief, but as people have pointed out, HS spam is terrible and super counterable.

Where are you farming people with it? Low-tier WvW or sPvP hotjoins where people don’t bring CC or dodge ever? I’m not usually one to play burst builds, but when I do, HS is more often used for mobility or its intended purpose of finishing off a 25% bar. I learned very early on that against people HS spam is just plain ineffective. The first time a guy dies to HS spam he learns to spaz out after the second full health HS, blow CC and dodges, and then destroys you because you wasted a full initiative bar whacking air.

I appreciate you’re new to thief, and on low mobs and new players it can be effective, but stick with the character a bit more and I think you’ll find that HS doesn’t much need a second nerf, the first one was enough to balance it. Now, talking about release era HS… well that was a whole other can of hilarious worms.

What is BSing…..

You could also just… not… spam HS…

As was mentioned above, as u get to higher difficulties spamming HS will do you no good and is a very good way to die. And also boring as hell. Why HS when you have more fun BSing mobs and feeling like a boss when giant red letters say 9k damage (which makes me wanna do it again and see if I can top it)

Only time I saw thieves spam HS is either when they are trying to move faster through the map or when in WvW or PvP a guy is really low health and its time for the kill.

Only THREE people have actually taken the time to thank this man (or woman) for their insight. THIS WONT HAPPEN AGAIN GUYS. To OP: thank you for understanding

Yes just like no class should ever have a skill like flurry or or 100blades or any form of channeled sustained damage.

HS is meant to be used in place of those skills, only instead of waiting on those skills to expire naturally, you decide how many strikes it needs.

Good for you Goloith, even as a thief who never used HS I used to think it was a bit much. I now run D/P because S/P got nerfed into the ground and I wouldn’t spam HS at all its only good when target is under the 50% health – other than that it is a gap (although shadowshot is better) closer and used with a combo field induces stealth. Its quite a flexible skill but only when used at the right time. PW from S/P on the other hand is like slapping yourself in the face.

You should ALWAYS spam HS on a trakittenalker who has been badly damaged by someone else. It makes the veins on their head stick way out. This was the intended purpose of the skill.

Arganthium.5638:

Wait, somebody who is coming to the thief from another profession, not telling us “LOL THIEF IS OP EASYMODE”? 0_o

Look here brothers and sisters, this strange phenomenon may never happen again.

Maybe it doesn’t happen on the forums that often (I haven’t been visiting this place long enough to know), but in game, when I started a thief about a month ago, I ran into the “I got aggro, now I’m dead” wall ..of.. death. Having spoken with some other thieves, they all tell me that leveling is really a pain with thief, and that the squishiness is just unbelievable.

I don’t want to be a freakin warrior, but playing Thief (at least in <40 pve, which is what I’ve done), you’re really punished for any mistake you make. Let one enemy at your level hit you? Say goodbye to a 1/4 of your hp.

I’ve been using blindness as my main defensive tool, with a d/p or s/p, but that doesn’t work well on spread out groups of ranged enemies. The shortbow and d/d dodge abilities are a joke in my view. They always seem to have a delay before activation, so I can’t seem to use it properly even when I see enemy telegraphing its attacks.

Anyway, small rant that this was, my point is, I don’t know anyone who claims thieves to be ‘op easymode’.

Edit: As for spamming HS – seems like another delayed skill that’s a waste of initiative in a lot of cases. The auto-attack is less dmg for <50% hp, but its faster and doesn’t waste initiative. On most enemies I ran into one of two situations – either they would end up dying faster if i use auto-attack, or they wouldn’t die quickly enough with HS spam, which means I just wasted valuable initiative that I need to stay alive for the remaining of the fight.
The only time I found HS valuable is in chasing enemies… and even then given that I use D/P, the #3 is an insta-teleport to enemy. I’m not sure what ANet intended that skill for to be honest.

Goloith.6349:

[SNIP]
I really hope ANET gives this professions something much better than it has now. :-)

P.S. after rolling a Thief I can say even more emphasis that Heat Seeker needs a nerf. There is absolutely no reason that any profession can have this heavy hitting skill with this small of cost. Spam, Spam, Spam is not skillful.
My suggestions:
-Make it cost more (5 initiative) or
-Shorten it’s range (or remove the leap)
-Reduce it’s effectiveness if used consecutively.

Other than that I have immense respect for the people that play this profession!

It’s good when other players try out another class, and realize the grass isnt always greener on the otherside. I will stick to thief as my main because it’s a playstyle I enjoy. If only there were more people like you (in MMOs in general, not just here) I wouldnt be worried that one day Thief will be nerfed into the ground.

That said, I cant agree with the HS costing 5 init, or removing the leap.

1. Black Powder has an Init. cost of 6, so our Black Powder > Heartseeker > Backstab combo already cost 9 Init. Making it cost 11, I feel would really hurt the build.

2. If the opponent is kind of close, low health, running away, Heartseeker. For everything else, there’s MasterCa… Err, Shadowshot. Or if they’re close enough, might as well just use the #1 chain and conserve init. Cause there’s always a chance that someones gonna interrupt the fight, and you’re gonna need the init to fight/run away. Removing the leap would make HS about as worthless as Dancing Dagger, or DB in the middle of a DPS set. >.>

I do however agree that it’s effectiveness when used consecutively, or even just it’s damage when the target is above 25%+, should just be nerfed into the ground, and leave >25% where it is. I’m for the use of Heartseeker at times, but it’s annoying when you break a stun, and they spam HS x3 back to back.

Then again, I’ve had times where I was immobilized and someone was spamming HS at me. I just switched to Shortbow and used Disabling Shot timed perfectly with the HS hit to evade, so there wouldnt be as many moments like that.

I’m going to continue leveling the Thief and you guys are probably right on the HS, I think I may have had an advantage spamming HS because the enemy was double teaming my server and the enemy was using speed skills (instead of the right ones) just so they could get in on the cap of my servers keep/towers lol. Thanks for the input!