Guild Wars 2

Hello all, devs included.

I play a level 80 thief with maxed out condition damage gear most of the time, though I also have a full exotic support set, I am experienced in my class and have spent alot of time theorycrafting. So I hope you can take these basic issues seriously without just laughing them off

1. Thoughts on nerfing some Thief Damage abilities.
First, dual wield pistol Overload damage was nerfed primarily because of whiners. I take issue with this because Overload did nowhere near the damage of what a Warrior could do and yet it was nerfed.

Secondly, Pistol Whip for sword/pistol was nerfed by 15%. I find this hard to stomach because again the ability did nowhere near what a warrior can do, and in PvP it was only really useful with Haste against Glass Cannon players who had no way to break stun. So i basically find these two nerfs totally unwarranted.

People just cant seem to wrap their heads around the fact that if you go for a Glass Cannon pvp build, you will get eaten alive by Thieves. There is no need to nerf Pistol Whip or Overload because of whiners who cannot accept the fact that in PvP each build has its counter, glass cannons are countered by damage thieves.

2. Dungeon PvE Melee Builds are not viable.
This is a major issue in my eyes, I did alot of theorycrafting of mixing power/toughness/vitality gear with power/precision/toughness and power/precision/crit damage, took the time to gather the full exotic set and yet rolling full melee in dungeons is basically not viable, Thief is so squishy for a medium armor wearer, it is more squishy than most light armor class builds. So as a Thief in PvE you are basically a semi-ranged class no matter what. Thats a problem.

3. Sword/Dagger weapon combination is almost useless.
Nuff said.

4. Underwater Combat.
This is another major issue, underwater Thieves are basically underpowered, they struggle alot and furthermore have only one elite skill that is usable underwater which is absolutely useless, Basilisk Venom.

5. Basilisk Venom Nerf.
So, Basilisk Venom was nerfed from a 1second unbreakable stun to a 1.5 second breakable stun. An already useless skill just got even more useless. It was only valuable if you are deep shadow arts build, but going 30 points in shadow arts is easily outweighed by dropping 5 points elsewhere. Mesmer gets a 10second Moa stun, yet Thief gets an absurd skill like Basilisk Venom.

I disagree on points 2 and 4. I run almost exclusively melee in dungeons and normal PvE with S/P, speccing in serious survivability in traits (mostly stealths and condition removal) while using gear for damage and conditions. The balance is perfect. I’ve had multiple compliments in terms of how useful I am to a 5-man team, not even necessarily in terms of damage. Support comes second nature, and damage is still commendable (I am able to maintain 10-20 stacks of might just by fighting normally, pretty much negating the need for any offensive trait speccing).

As for point 4, have you ever used the spear skills 3 and 5? Infinite blocks, dodges and huge AoE damage. You’re a total machine underwater. There could be more variation in skill usage and capabilities, but they’re definitely not useless. They DESTROY.

If you want to know what my build is, just say the word.

For pt #3, I am using Sword/dagger. It is a beast for AoE (Auto-attack + Dancing Dagger). The only problem of this set is the skill #3, aka Flanking Strike. It is kind of buggy that half of the time, it sends you to far right of your current position instead of the target’s back even if the target is not moving, and if the target is moving…well, you will miss the target, obviously.