Guild Wars 2

Hi all, I’m a new player (returning if you count the 5 days of fun I had with my thief 2 years ago) with a few clarifications about the profession. I’m trying to pick a class to main and fully prepare for the expansion. This is important because I don’t think its practical time-wise to do so for more than one character. I’ll make this as brief as possible to avoid annoying anyone further since this place seems like a warzone (thieves vs ANet?) at the moment.

Basically, I’ve watched the most recent videos and read the most recent posts/news on all the professions. Normally, I would post this under general discussions to avoid subconsciouslly biased responses, but it seems less necessary in this game since there appears to be a greater degree of consensus on the state of the profession. I’m going to list down what I have learnt, and I’m requesting that you disabuse me if I have misperceived anything (a true/false is good enough, an explanation would be really great):

1) PVE: Thieves are desired in the vast majority of parties for its stealth and damage dealing abilities. It does the highest single target DPS in most situations. Dodge or die, just like how rogue archetype classes are in most other MMOs.

2) PVP/WvW: Thieves are wanted for the limited purpose of bursting down teamfights and capturing/re-capturing resources. D/P builds are the current meta, with S/D being a distant second and the rest being practically unviable. A thief cannot expect to win a 1v1 fight against any profession except the warrior, unless the other player is a lot less skilled than the thief. Generally, balance patches take place every 6 months.

3) Specialisation: I’m actually not too sure what to make of the daredevil, a little premature since it’s still being tested. Animations are clunky but are being fixed. People don’t seem to think that it does better than what the thief current has, at least not in PVP. Basically, it sports a different playstyle (evasive) compared to that which I’ve been seeing in the videos (stealthy)?

4) My latency hovers around 250ms because I’m currently deployed in SEA. From what I’m seeing, playing a thief involves relatively fast paced combat. Please tell me if my latency is too bad to overcome with skill, or if it will cause me to be a liability to my team. I do not intend to participate in tournaments.

Lastly, I’d like to offer a perspective of a new player. As a long-time MMORPG player I am aware that the ban/nerf hammer usually goes round so I don’t normally scrutinise how over/under-powered one class is at any point in time. However, reading this subforum (as compared to the rest of the profession subforums) gives me the impression that the thief so underpowered that (objectively speaking) playing it is not worth the frustration. I’m not sure if this is intended, but I thought I’d point out that this may be putting off new players from playing the profession, which may well be a good thing if an accurate impression is being given.

I am tagging this as [Newb] in hope that this will assist anyone who has the same questions as I do. If anyone wants to hang out do drop me a mail in-game (shizukesa.5826 from Jade Quarry). Cheers and I hope to see you all in-game!

A little note to the developers: It’s great that you are responding to threads relating to balance issues, albeit selectively and more so in the other subforums. It occurs to me that your customer service philosophy is to inform your players about the direction the game is heading in and how we can expect things to change. While it would be unreasonable to expect every balance issue to be addressed, the amount of unhappiness in this sub is quite palpable, and this comes from someone who hasn’t invested anything into the game yet. Clearly you’re busy with the expansion at the moment, but it would be great if you could shed some light on how you envision the thief’s role to be and what sort of changes we can expect in future. Have a great day.

1) True, although given the nature of pve content ( large mobs with big hitboxes ) I don’t think we’re the straight up best dps class, but we’re definitely competitive and wanted.

2) In sPvP, shortbow 5, stealth rez ( Mercyful Ambush is currently bugged, gives 20% rez speed isntead of 10 ) and the boon stripping daze steal are mostly what people seek when bringing a thief.
You can also expect a favorable / even 1v1 matchup against power mesmer in addtion to warriors. ( They used to be free food for us, which is why people won’t accept we still win this slightly )
The thing to understand about thief in sPvP, we are VERY efficient damage and CC. A good thief will be able to do something meaningful in a match at all time, and this is very rewarding gameplay in my opinion, even if people are angry at our lack of 1v1 potential.

3) Toker has been really positive about S/D Daredevil being a viable choice against D/P SA. Daredevil is looking pretty good at improving our 1v1 potential if anything. Bound damage and the insane weakness uptime given by the middle adept trait ( forgot the name ) will make it very possible to have the advantage against any other marauder build.

We lose stealth duration on shadow refuge and stealth rezzes but given the addition of multiple very frightening reveal abilities ( scrapper F5, herald facet, dragonhunter trap ) it’s possible shadow refuge might fall out of use anyway.

4) I couldn’t tell you, I play with 50ms usually. But Arenanet has recently begun working on technical additions to the engine helping people like you with higher latency. We can only wait to see if it has a real effect. I can tell you it can be very frustrating to die as a thief because of lag or rubberbanding tho. Missing Steal because of it for example can be gamebreaking.

Lastly, the forums are often a very extreme rendition of what playing feels like. Thief is not bad by any means, it’s currently in a great spot as far as being wanted for most game modes.
The class has some fundamental problems that start to be more obvious with time, and people are worried about the future because of it. Peopel who are angry about it keep on trying to get those issues solved because Thief is just a very fun and unique class, and we all want to keep playing it. It’s an unique freedom of mobility and in&out gameplay that doesn’t really exist on other classes.

Hope you foudn some answers in my ramble. Have a nice day.

Heya welcome back! Obviously my responses are just opinions so take everything we say with a grain of tasty tasty salt.

1) In PvE we’re taken mainly for skipping content. We’re quite good at speeding up a dungeon run by granting the party the ability to bypass large chunks of content. We’re not the highest single target DPS but we’re probably in the top 3 depending on comp. Dodge or die is pretty accurate.

2) Pretty much an accurate observation but we’re not useless. Quite often it’s more efficient for the thief to disengage even in team fights to go cap a point than it is for us to actually help in the fight. We’re easily one of the weaker 1v1 professions with our only real shining ability being that we can run away very well. Sadly this makes other professions more angry than if they’d lost to us and since the squeaky wheel gets all the grease, ANet has been consistently nerfing Thief way past competetive balance. We’re helpful in the sense that we’re mobile and much of the issues we have with 1v1s is more around OP builds of other professions than it just the Thief being too weak.

3) Animations are not being fixed, the bugged dodges are being fixed. The animations are remaining clunky and according to Karl’s most recent post we can expect to keep the Staff with the Hammer animations. The playstyle was already in existence until a very large nerf to the Acrobatics trait line 6 months ago. They essentially cut that trait line in half and made the other half the new Daredevil elite trait line. I used Acrobatics back in the day… It was nice…

4) That is pretty rough latency. You will suffer more from that as a Thief than any other profession, but in no way will it outright make it unplayable.

In regards to the profession seeming over-nerfed you are correct again. We were balanced around stealth being our primary sustain mechanic and in the current meta we’re out-stealthed by other professions who rely on it less. We were advertised as the king of 1v1s and in the current meta we’re the worst 1v1 profession. We were advertised as being the most evasive profession but they nerfed that so they could make room for Daredevil (even with Daredevil and Acrobatics we won’t be back to what we were pre-nerf)

Putting off new players to the profession is a good thing because we’re not lying. If a new player decides to play other professions they will have a better understanding of how great the game can be. We’re warning people of the actual reality of the current state of the profession.

Also as sad as it is, we were nerfed because the squeaky wheel gets all the grease and people complained about losing fights to a Thief. At a point, some of the nerfs were good and fair. They helped balance out the profession against the other professions and all was good in the world. The squeaky against Thief never stopped though. Just the other day I lost a few back-to-back 1v1s to a burn guard and he started saying in /map chat that Thieves were OP because it was difficult for him to kill me right away… He was complaining that it wasn’t easy enough but wording it as if I was OP.

The only way to recover from how hard we’ve been nerfed is to turn into squeaky wheels ourselves.

Please, allow me to disagree with you, Nocta. I would like to post my own opinion on the matter as well. I tend to be pessimistic by nature though, so you may want to keep it in mind.

1. Yes, thieves have really high single target damage which is good for certain aspects of pve, but I think that stealth is something that the mesmers are able to handle better right now compared to the thief. Wouldn’t say we’re undesirable in a party, but your post makes it seem like we are actively sought after, which is not the case.

2. Can’t really talk about SPVP since I almost never play it. I can definitely tell you about WVW though, because that’s what I’ve primarily been doing for the past 2 years. Thief is in a really bad state, as I’m sure you’ve realized yourself. Doing 1v1’s is almost out of the question if you aren’t experienced, rather the thief’s role is to +1, instead. If you like roaming, prepare for a Dark Souls type of experience, meaning it’ll take you multiple attempts of dying over and over before you nail down what exactly you have to do to defeat other classes.

3. I agree with you that the addition of the daredevil is an attempt from Arenanet to move the thief from a stealth mechanic to an evade mechanic. Despite what most people say, I think the Daredevil skill tree could synergize quite well with the Acrobatics tree, although that’s just a speculation. From what it seems, a combination of the two trees would create a class which would heavily punish thieves that spam their dodges, but reward those who time their dodges correctly and evade attacks. In other words, a single mistake and you’ll end up downed. Many players have raised their concern over this, at no surprise of course, since every other class is much more forgiving.

4. Having experienced what 250 ping feels like in other games, I would say you could get used to it if you want to PVE, but for something like WVW, probably not.

Lastly, do I think you should play thief? If you have lots and lots of patience, you could get at a decent level, where you could even duel other classes, or even win outnumbered fights. It will take a lot of time and training, but it’s not impossible. Frankly, I feel that training should not be an issue. Gw2 was just recently made free to play, so there are many new players pouring in every day, to train with (or on).

“1) In PvE we’re taken mainly for skipping content Unintended behavior though if certain mobs didn’t turn friendly thus not dropping any loot or just loads of elites and veterans not giving anything useful compared to world trashmobs people wouldn’t feel an incentive to skip. We’re quite good at speeding up a dungeon run by granting the party the ability to bypass large chunks of content. We’re not the highest single target DPS Despite the very positional requirement for thief’s damage: up close attacking from behind whereas warrior can stand anywhere for great damage while ele has range on top of that but we’re probably in the top 3 Guardian, warrior, elementalist, mesmer, guardian, nope can’t say top 3 for PvE depending on comp. Dodge or die is pretty accurate.”

Pretty much an accurate observation but we’re not useless But why bring a thief when elementalist and others can be so much more useful? If you’re underpowered then you’re crippling your team. Quite often it’s more efficient for the thief to disengage even in team fights to go cap a point than it is for us to actually help in the fight. We’re easily one of the weaker 1v1 professions That should be looked into with our only real shining ability being that we can run away very well. Sadly this makes other professions more angry than if they’d lost to us and since the squeaky wheel gets all the grease, ANet has been consistently nerfing Thief way past competitive balance. We’re helpful in the sense that we’re mobile and much of the issues we have with 1v1s is more around OP builds of other professions than it just the Thief being too weak.

“Putting off new players to the profession is a good thing because we’re not lying. If a new player decides to play other professions they will have a better understanding of how great the game can be. We’re warning people of the actual reality of the current state of the profession.”

Yep, I even quit WoW back when MoP was announced because they broke rogues in half. At Blizzcon there was an awkward silence when the level 60 rogue traitline was announced. You could take shadowstep (should be baseline) or preparation whereas in Cata and before you could have both and it was balanced. Reckful even quit and not even he could make thief viable. If you played the world champion in chess and he started down a queen you’d beat him. Sometimes a class is simply objectively inferior to count as a real disadvantage. Sure a group of players are inferior to a dungeon boss, but the AI having certain holes or patterns is what makes it balanced. Other players obviously don’t have that so PvP and PvE should be held to different standards. PvP is much fairer for this reason, but to make it truly fair you need to roll an OP class and spec like everyone else.

Thanks for all the helpful replies! I’m not selecting a “best answer” because I was looking for perspectives and all of the replies provided exactly that.

I’ll be starting out together with almost my entire guild from another MMO (not naming it in case I break any rules) next Tuesday after the finalized skill balance patch notes. If the preview provided during Twitchcon reflects all the changes to the thief, we will defer to the community’s most learned judgment and play another class instead (refer to the third last paragraph of my first post on being “objective underpowered”).

In the meantime, if any of you feel like sharing your thoughts on any of the points made above I would love to read them. Good day, I’m not too sure what to say but I actually feel slightly indignant for all of you.

Hey, I’m a Thief main from the SEA region as well, so I felt that I can give you a pretty good estimate on how thief preforms under higher latencies (200-300ms). Here’s my take on things.

1) PVE: Thieves are desired in the vast majority of parties for its stealth and damage dealing abilities. It does the highest single target DPS in most situations. Dodge or die, just like how rogue archetype classes are in most other MMOs.

This is generally true, most people (aside from newer players) who still do dungeons are doing them for the gold, and will want to rush through the dungeons as fast as possible. With that, thieves are invaluable, as they can provide almost unlimited stealth uptime for the whole party, allowing parties to skip large sections of the dungeon/fractal.

Pistol 5, Black Powder is also extremely valuable, permanently blinding any non-boss/champion and mitigating a huge amount of damage.

As for DPS, in an ideal party situation (with full zerk gear, full might stacks, full vulnerability stacks), we are one of the top damage dealers. I’d even go further by saying we were the highest DPSers in the party until the June patch happened (the loss of infusion of shadows which gave 2 initiative back everytime we enter stealth hit PvE thieves pretty hard, as the general rotation for D/D had to be changed, impacting our damage output).

However, we are very squishy, and even if we did not get one-shot when hit, we would generally try to get away from the boss if our health is not above 80%. This impacts the DPS we do, which is why good thieves try their hardest to never get hit in the first place. With the removal of the old Feline Grace, which used to give us 3 dodges (yes, they removed a trait just so they are able to give it to the elite specialization as a “new” class mechanism, which is an outrage), newer players like yourself would probably need a longer time to adjust to dodging, but since dodging is critical to playing a successful thief, you would get the hang of it eventually. =) *

2) PVP/WvW: Thieves are wanted for the limited purpose of bursting down teamfights and capturing/re-capturing resources. D/P builds are the current meta, with S/D being a distant second and the rest being practically unviable. A thief cannot expect to win a 1v1 fight against any profession except the warrior, unless the other player is a lot less skilled than the thief. Generally, balance patches take place every 6 months.

I’d say, the only real reason why thieves are still in PvP is all because of Shortbow 5. We are only needed for one skill. And yes, as thieves, to kill a person we have to do a lot more compared to other classes. In order to have a build capable of busting down anything except a tank warrior, medi-guard, or celestial DD eles/ engies,…. and other tanky classes, we need to go full glass cannon. With that, even bunker warriors can kill us if we are ever caught in their CCs, and we can go down in 2 hits from a power necro’s life blast, or a ranger’s longbow 2.
Thieves are said to be good at ganking, but I found that any other class can fulfill the role as a ganker, and do a better job at it. Mesmers come into mind, with decent mobility with blink, and an arguably higher bust damage at a safe distance.

But, an extremely skilled thief have the chance to pretty much 1vX almost any class, as Thieves are a class with an extremely high skill ceiling. Which is why you get to see really cool videos of outnumbered thief fights all over youtube. However, note that most of the videos are from WvW roaming, which is basically the only thing a thief excels at in WvW. In coordinated zerg combat, a ranger or a mesmer can outperform a thief in a focus party.

3) Specialisation: I’m actually not too sure what to make of the daredevil, a little premature since it’s still being tested. Animations are clunky but are being fixed. People don’t seem to think that it does better than what the thief current has, at least not in PVP. Basically, it sports a different playstyle (evasive) compared to that which I’ve been seeing in the videos (stealthy)?

The thing about Daredevil is that they are essentially trying to “introduce” something that used to be in the game (until they removed it). Having 3 dodges is not something new, and used to synergise with Sword/Dagger pretty well.
With the new Elite Specialization, all we get are “improved” -but broken- dodges, and a staff, which has lousy animations.

The staff is pretty underwhelming, and does not really offer much to the class, as dagger mainhand will still be better in terms of damage, and Sword/Dagger has the sustain, with spamable evades, boon stripping, gap closer, immobilize, on demand access to stealth, dazes.

What does the staff has? Weakness and cripple, and an expensive gap closer with a slow cast time. Try searching for older Sword/Dagger videos and you’ll understand where I’m going with this.

All in all, unfortunately we got the short end of the stick…. again.

4) My latency hovers around 250ms because I’m currently deployed in SEA. From what I’m seeing, playing a thief involves relatively fast paced combat. Please tell me if my latency is too bad to overcome with skill, or if it will cause me to be a liability to my team. I do not intend to participate in tournaments.

Admittedly, it is harder to play a thief with high latency, attacks will hit you almost as soon as the animation starts, your skills feels slightly delayed. But personally, I found it manageable. You would have to learn to read attacks, and have a smaller window to dodge, but overall I found it pretty manageable. But with experience, you can very well survive almost anything even with 250 ping.

With all that being said, why should you play a thief? Honestly, there is almost no reason to. Other classes can do a lot more compared to a thief, and things that thieves excel at are either not impactful (WvW roaming/scouting), unfulfilling (PvP capping and decapping), or are going to be addressed by Anet at some point. (scrapping the “dodge” zerk meta, addressing skipping large parts of dungeons with steath etc.)

Why do I play thief? Because it’s fun for me, personally. As primarily a PvE player, I feel empowered and kitten when I’m onto the front lines, most of the time soloing ard bosses while my teammates hang back, resorting to ranged attacks, knowing that if i get hit once, I’m screwed. It’s the sense of achievement, and satisfaction, seeing my party’s guardian and warrior getting downed next to me in a hard boss fight, while i’m still alive, with death being just one mistake away. It’s empowering, being the last member alive through sheer skill alone. That and whenever I want to do a dungeon, i can rely on myself to stealth through content rather then rely on hopefully getting a competent thief player in LFG.
In PvP and WvW, when I do kill another player, I know for a fact that I have out-played them, instead of rely on some cheap class mechanisms to help me button-mash and win. (others may argue that stealth is a cheap mechanism, and i disagree, as any hal-decent player will know when a thief is in stealth, he would plop down as many AOE’s as he can, and anticipating backstabs is not all that hard.)

As someone mentioned before, It’s like playing Dark Souls. You have to Git Gud to play a thief, but the satisfaction you gain may just be worth it.

Well, just my two-cents. Feel free to add me if you do decide to give thieves a try. And join the [Teef] guild and go to their classes once in a while~

Cheers