Guild Wars 2

Warning, wall of text incoming.

Hey guys, a little info about me before I start.

I’ve been lurking the forums for a while. I’m a SPvP player. I bought this game before launch with 5-6 friends of mine, but left a couple of months after it because the PVP state was pretty awful. I decided to come back around a month and a half ago. I created every class and tried them out in SPvP with multiple builds. It seems most classes have several viable builds (by viable I mean perhaps not just meta or amazing, but also builds that are good if you’re a good player yourself) and this is something I loved right away.

With that being said, I eventually tried out Necros and finally the Thief. I didn’t play Necros that much as the class just didn’t appeal to me so I can’t talk much about them.
However, when I tried the Thief I loved the feel of the the class right away. I got horribly rekt during my first 3-4 arenas but started doing a lot better. Tried different builds, all of them with SB as secondary weapon because mobility is a must in SPvP and overall I have fun playing the the class. After a month of playing the class I feel I’m a decent/above average Thief.

Now, after playing the class for a while, there are some things that I dislike.

First, I feel that us Thieves are an extremely high risk low reward class if we’re playing against semi competent players. I’ve read tons of people in the forums claiming we can “burst down players in a split second”, but I sincerely think that’s only the case if you’re against new players or downright bad players who don’t run stunbreakers or have an atrocious build. Moreover, other classes also have insanely high burst, with a TON more survival (Mesmer/Warrior).

When I compare our trait lines to those of other classes I always feel I’m giving up two or three things in order to get one (except for Shadow Arts which has everything we need … in Stealth anyway… and is currently impossible to ignore and I doubt that can be a very good thing). Some other classes traitlines like Elementalist Arcane for example, have so much more utlity and better passives that when I’m fighting one of them it makes me feel like they have 6 traitlines instead of the three you have to choose from.

After almost 600 games I concluded that Thieves are nothing but cap/decap kitten who roam between points. We can surprise an enemy player who is dueling one of our teammates and quickly take him down and that’s about it. That’s our only role in SPvP.

I’m perfectly okay with that being our role, but then why can other classes do that pretty well too? I also play a D/D Elementalist and their mobility is insane, they can also have some pretty nasty burst and I honestly hardly ever lose a 1 v 1 (I think once I learned rotations properly + might stacking I died a couple of times only to trap rangers iirc). I’m perfectly aware that D/D eles are horribly broken, but the fact remains that a lot of classes have also high mobility, high burst and a ton more potential for 1 v 1ing. All that while having a ton more defensive options. Even Mesmers provide a ton of Stealth for the whole team, too.

I’m a little confused. What IS exactly that we excell at?

We can’t brawl. We aren’t exactly useful to our team besides providing a couple of blinds and Stealth with Shadow Refuge. Our defensive mechanism (Stealth) seems completely lackluster when a ton of classes can still bring 60% of my HP down when I’m stealthed. Even if we manage to spike a target down within a second, if there’s another enemy near we can’t ever stomp that target because of our squishy nature. Our defensive utlility cooldowns are freaking massive. Everyone and their mother (literally) focuses us down once we’re out of stealth so I usually directly avoid team fights unless I can burst a target quickly and just run and decap. It feels like I’m trapped in this role where unless I do THAT, I’m completely useless. There’s a ton of classes that I can’t even attempt to take on unless the other player is braindead. Overall, the class feels pretty underwhelming.

Another thing I noticed, is that we don’t exactly have many build/weapon options. Pistol/Pistol is atrocious. I don’t understand the concept of this dual weapon. The auto attack deals condition damage with mediocre damage, yet #3 is a burst skill that doesn’t really deal that much damage (say, compared to Ranger’s Rapid Fire) yet eats our initiative super fast.

I was kinda hoping Daredevil would bring new things to the table and some passives would be moved around in order to give us a bit more options but after seeing Daredevil I don’t think anyone is going to run Staff in SPvP. I can see many people running Daredevil only to improve the existing builds, though.

Is my perception of the class wrong? I’d love to hear some feedback from experienced Thief players. Does ANet do some balance tweaks here and there between game updates? Or will Thieves remain like this for another year?

Excuse me if I messed up somewhere, English isn’t my first language and I’m currently sick (at home, not working, so I had the time to type this)

You’re not wrong.

Thief is bad, it cannot stand up to the current meta, and people are either defending the mindset that “Thief only being able to +1 and decap empty circles is fair” or asking to nerf thief more.

You are right OP.
Uneducated non-thief players claiming that +1 is a role and thus class shouldn’t be able to have any chance in 1v1 vs any other class – is a normal thing.

Problem is devs also support this whole “+1 =OP” mentality (you can see them advertising that propaganda on POI stream). I get the impression that untill this class is completely destroyed for the sake of mythical +1 role they won’t stop.

Oddly enough mesmers are not affected even though they fill exactly same “role”. I am wondering why are they even allowed to discriminate one class ( and by that, part of the player base) so much, i thought they weren’t allowed :/ But then again, even if we go and write a complain letter about devs work to customer support, they wouldn’t do anything (or just throw a bann since we are not allowed to discuss company internal work).

Cynz.9437:

Oddly enough mesmers are not affected even though they fill exactly same “role”.

This is the part I don’t understand. Most classes can fill different roles. We can’t. So at least if we’re stuck in a single role, we should excell at it, but Mesmers can do the same thing without risking as much. Or at least that’s how it seems from my perspective, which apparently isn’t very wrong even though I’m a relatively new player.

I also can’t understand this logic that if we’re able to +1 that means we shouldn’t be as good 1 v 1 as other classes. Losing to certain players purely because of class or balance shouldn’t happen (I’m a very competitive person so it’s extremely frustrating to me).

Is there any chance ANet changes the current traits for HoTs or is the only change that we can expect is the introduction to the Daredevil?

Like every other rogue class with invisibility powers, it’s fate is always to get nerfed into the ground at some point in its existence. Stealth by it’s very nature separates the wary and sharp from the dullminded because it forces the player to predict rather than react.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Like every other rogue class with invisibility powers, it’s fate is always to get nerfed into the ground at some point in its existence. Stealth by it’s very nature separates the wary and sharp from the dullminded because it forces the player to predict rather than react.

I actually remember that one comical moment when rogue representation in wow fell to/under 1% due to constant nerfs and absurd power creep and blizz devs actually admitted that they can’t figure out why the class was so unpopular xD

Not sure what to hope for in gw2, i am experiencing déjà-vu atm <_<

Wow I do not think I have ever seen threads like this with complaints and no defense where everyone agrees there must be something really wrong with thief why are they left so far behind I wonder? Maybe they where over popular in the past?

Thief is a bit of a tank role. They soak up all the nerf hits so other classes can be safe.

bwillb.2165:

Thief is a bit of a tank role. They soak up all the nerf hits so other classes can be safe.

^ This.

Seriously though:

1. +1’ing fights. (Being the team’s female dog, basically – Other classes can +1 as well and better too, just they’re busy doing other things).
2. Back-capping. (Doing something that other class can, but don’t really want to when you’re around).

Both being because we’re very mobile. Everything else, leave it to other classes.

Cynz.9437:

I actually remember that one comical moment when rogue representation in wow fell to/under 1% due to constant nerfs and absurd power creep and blizz devs actually admitted that they can’t figure out why the class was so unpopular xD

Not sure what to hope for in gw2, i am experiencing déjà-vu atm <_<

Doubt that that will happen because one of my buddies and his guild think thieves are good. Well, they roleplay and PvE… So yeah, doubt it will drop below 1%. Plus, there’s a fresh wave of blood from the game going f2p and they hype around the expansion and whatnot… And even if we leave, the newbies will stick around and suffer for another 3 years.

Thieves are just fine population-wise, but let’s see how many stick through this. There better be a balance patch with HoT.

I just don’t get all those post about how Thief is so far behind. Maybe it’s me that live in a bubble or I only play against bad players, but I just understand why the +1 isn’t valid. My teamates are able to hold their one long enough for me to come help them and we keep the points. D/D Ele have as much mobility, but don’t burst as much. I prefer the D/D holding a point than roaming between them. Especially since they can’t always have their Fiery GS up. True Mesmer can do a better job, but don’t have as much mobility except portal. Not saying that Thief is OP and it could take some love, but it’s far from behing push out of Meta.

Last time I checked, most team in WTS and ELS still have 1 thief.

Thaddeus.4891:

I just don’t get all those post about how Thief is so far behind. Maybe it’s me that live in a bubble or I only play against bad players, but I just understand why the +1 isn’t valid. My teamates are able to hold their one long enough for me to come help them and we keep the points. D/D Ele have as much mobility, but don’t burst as much. I prefer the D/D holding a point than roaming between them. Especially since they can’t always have their Fiery GS up. True Mesmer can do a better job, but don’t have as much mobility except portal. Not saying that Thief is OP and it could take some love, but it’s far from behing push out of Meta.

Last time I checked, most team in WTS and ELS still have 1 thief.

“Most teams always have 1 thief” is a poor argument. You add more thieves to a team and more often than not that team suffers unless the thieves are more competent than the team. So explain to me how thief is OP again?

yolo swaggins.2570:

Thaddeus.4891:

I just don’t get all those post about how Thief is so far behind. Maybe it’s me that live in a bubble or I only play against bad players, but I just understand why the +1 isn’t valid. My teamates are able to hold their one long enough for me to come help them and we keep the points. D/D Ele have as much mobility, but don’t burst as much. I prefer the D/D holding a point than roaming between them. Especially since they can’t always have their Fiery GS up. True Mesmer can do a better job, but don’t have as much mobility except portal. Not saying that Thief is OP and it could take some love, but it’s far from behing push out of Meta.

Last time I checked, most team in WTS and ELS still have 1 thief.

“Most teams always have 1 thief” is a poor argument. You add more thieves to a team and more often than not that team suffers unless the thieves are more competent than the team. So explain to me how thief is OP again?

But but… Pro teams have at least 1 thief on their yolo swaggins… Clearly that’s a sign of OP-ness.

At least we can all agree Thief resides at the bottom of the food chain right now.
That’s something because it means SOMEDAY we will get buffed a little (just as Rangers did a while ago). Sad thing is we may just switch places for worst class with Rangers again lol.

Thaddeus.4891:

I just don’t get all those post about how Thief is so far behind. Maybe it’s me that live in a bubble or I only play against bad players, but I just understand why the +1 isn’t valid.

Basically thief has low combat power right now – while every other class has good and bad match-ups, thief has 50/50 match-ups against meta builds at best and is at a disadvantage against a majority of opponents. This is frustrating for a lot of players, as I would argue a vast majority of players play sPvP in order to fight other players, not to run a track meet around the arena.

Thief is still very relevant because it is so good at running that track meet though. Between stealth and shortbow, you can decap any uncontested point and pick which fights to +1 faster than any other class – so your job, basically, is to make someone on the other team chase you around all match, nullifying their effectiveness while you occasionally score decaps or press on a few extra seconds of +1 before whoever is chasing you catches up.

If you actually stop to fight in an even number match you’re putting your team at a pretty big disadvantage though – Thief lags way behind every other class at teamfighting. So you just gotta keep run run running.

It’s necessary, but it isn’t a whole lot of fun for most people, especially players desiring the assassin role of bursting targets down. Outside of yolo builds in hotjoin that doesn’t really exist anymore.

I don’ think thief is really bad, it is just other classes got overbuffed/are too strong. You would say: but doesn’t it make thief weak? No, not really. If devs did buff thieves like mesmers for example powercreep would be insane. Thief is actually relative close to balanced risk/reward/opportunity costs correlation (example, i can use head shot for interrupts, but at the same time i lose capability to do high dmg or get defensives (see BP+HS), i can use shadowstep as gap closer but i lose ability to clear condis and stun break). Other classes should be actually toned down to thief level imo. Right now playing almost all classes is very forgiving and you can have many things in one build (moblity, CCs, heals, high dmg) w/o actually sacrificing anything/much. It is really bad balance but then again devs probably don’t care about balance, they care about selling HoT.

MakubeC.3026:

At least we can all agree Thief resides at the bottom of the food chain right now.
That’s something because it means SOMEDAY we will get buffed a little (just as Rangers did a while ago). Sad thing is we may just switch places for worst class with Rangers again lol.

Depends on which forums you post this in…

Zero Day.2594:

MakubeC.3026:

At least we can all agree Thief resides at the bottom of the food chain right now.
That’s something because it means SOMEDAY we will get buffed a little (just as Rangers did a while ago). Sad thing is we may just switch places for worst class with Rangers again lol.

Depends on which forums you post this in…

Funnily enough, it seems like that’s not even being disputed really, but rather should the thief stay at the bottom because of their mobility. I mean looking through the state of thief in pvp thread, there’s very, very few people saying that the thief isn’t weak in a 1v1, most of the discussion and differences of opinion occur with some saying it should remain weak.

Maugetarr.6823:

Zero Day.2594:

MakubeC.3026:

At least we can all agree Thief resides at the bottom of the food chain right now.
That’s something because it means SOMEDAY we will get buffed a little (just as Rangers did a while ago). Sad thing is we may just switch places for worst class with Rangers again lol.

Depends on which forums you post this in…

Funnily enough, it seems like that’s not even being disputed really, but rather should the thief stay at the bottom because of their mobility. I mean looking through the state of thief in pvp thread, there’s very, very few people saying that the thief isn’t weak in a 1v1, most of the discussion and differences of opinion occur with some saying it should remain weak.

Really, we’ve reached that point already…

Guess I should read the PvP forums more… they just post in giant blocks of text most of the time…

At the same time, I have a feeling that HoT hype going on and all the “promised” shinny toys draws most of people’s attention atm.