the problem of this games balancing isn’t really in first place the thief or any other class.
The problem of this games imbalance lies in completely different areas of the game that have nothing to do at all with classes.
1) The game has since release day a massive problem with balancing incompetence/ignorance in regard of the Game’s Stat System.
If the Stat System would finally see some proper rebalancing then the Game would become automatically also alot more balance,d without that Anet has to touch much at all at the classes.
This game has stats, that are in themself completely obsolete and should have been merged already years ago with other Stats.
For WTF do we need to have Healign Power as as seperate Stat? This is something, that should have been merged already ages ago with Vitality the very moment, when Berserker builds went through the roofs and became pretty much everywhere meta.
Toughness is still as frigging useless and underpowered like it is sicne game release date. You can have like over 3k defense and all your defense roughly brings you NOTHING as you can stil lget killed with so much deefense in like 2-3 seconds, because Toughness is totalyl ridiculously useless when it actually comes to what that stupid Stat SHOULD BE GOOD FOR – name significantly REDUCING DAMAGE THAt YOU TAKE….
But at the current balance of Toughness it seems lke that you wold need to have first a defense value of probably over 9000 before you finally get MAYBE that kind of feeling, that toughness finalyl starts to significantly reduce your incoming damage to the point, that not everbod’es little fart of a critical hit already takes like 20+% of your maximum health away with one strike …. or far more if you are unlucky and eat a fatal burst attack that can nearly instant kill you if you play a low health build.
Toughness needs to become finally a valuable stat, that god darn it needs to do finally its stupid JOB at reducing the incoming damage and that so good, that you actually feel a clear difference in combat when fighting against a high defensive builded player, compared to a non high defensive builded player.
If you fight against a high defnesive player, that battle should take you alot longer when you are a direct damage build. Fighting agaisnt these kinds of builds needs to become alot more, as like fightign with a direct damage build agaisnt these super high defensive MORDREM that take signifiantly lesser damage from direct damage and which receive only high damage from conditions, because Conditions ignore Toughness.
Once Toughness gets finally fixed and works, as it actualyl should do by beign a significant help agaisnt direct damage so that you force with high defensive builds players to fight agaisnt you with conditions if they want to overcome you, rather than fightign you with direct damage attacks, then this game would be finally a huge step forward more towards being balanced in regard of its current horrible Stat System.
What Anet could do then also, once the Stat System gets finally rebalanced through fixing Toughnness and merging obsolete Stats into the Main Stats is to use the created new space to fil lthe gaps with new more useful Stats, that actually can help the game more to become balanced and the game’s combat system to become more fun.
GW2 needs a Dual Stat System. Each Stat should have 2 Effects
- Power = Increases Direct Damage + Increases Condition Durations
- Toughness = Decreases Incoming Direct Damage + Increases Protection Time after incoming CCs (After getting Stunned, you have now Base 2s CC Invincibility, Toughness increases this Base Time to max 5s)
- Vitality = Increases significantly Max Health,(Healings in as outgoing are based now on your Health, means so more Health you have, so better can you heal yourself and others, Healing Power basically baselined into Vitality) + Decreases incoming Condition Durations
- Precision = Increases Critical Hit Chance + Bonus Damage of Criticals (Ferocity merged with Precision, to bring Direct Damage more in Line with Condition Builds in regard of the number of Stats needed for Max DPS)
- Agility = Increases Endurance Refill Speed + Increases the Duration of Dodges/Evades
- Courage = Decreases the Chance to receive Critical Hits + Increases Durations of Boons
- Wisdom = Increases Condition Damage + Reduces Class Specific Mechanics get reduced. So a high Wisdom Elementalist can change quicker his Attunements, a high Wisdom Guardian will recharge quicker his Virtues, a high Wisdom (cunning)Thief recharges quicker his Steal and so on …
thats how I’d change the Stat System, removing/merging Healing Power, Ferocity, Expertise, Concentration and let have all remaining Stats have 2 instead of 1 effect integratign the removed old Stats into the remainign ones and addign with Agility and Courage some helpful better new Stats with effects that can help balancing the Combat System by affectign things, that yet no single Stat makes usage of – endurance regen amplifying and critical hit chance reducement for incoming hits as both are some defensive effects that this game’s combat system needs to get better balanced.
2) Rebalancing the Base Health Values of Classes and balancing the Health Values of Classes EACH ON THEIR OWN INDIVIDUALLY.
Balancing health for all classes in 3 sets hurts the overall game balance alot more, than it does anythign good for the game.
The Base Health Values are all way too low for this current Power Creep State of the game. For exa,mple, the Base health of the Thief should get increased from 11k to 15k at least, better would be around 17,5k to make them lesser dependant from Vitality to be able to survive long enough, unless anet fixes also finalyl the balance of Vitality and lets Vitality finally give instead of laughable 10HP per point at least 20HP per point, to make Vitality finally more effective, so that a high Vitality build actually also really has significantly more health, than a low vitality build that is then also able to survive significantly longer…
However rebalancing Base Health is the simpler and more effective way and imo bette for the overall Game Balance, than to change too much on Vitality. I think its already good enough, when Vitality gets finalyl merged with Healing Power as result of my proposed Stat System Redesign/Rebalancement. Makign ten Vitality also more powerful on top of that would be imo too much/good, the merge with Healign Power owuld be already good enough as a change to actually matter for the Game Balance of GW2
3) Take a serious look onto all of the games Sigils and Rune Sets and rebalance them.
Theres so much junk under them, while a handful others are simply too powerful.
For my taste Anet is ignoring these things way too much. Sigils and Rune Sets need to become far more constant part of Game Balancing.
Its not done with it alone by making always only number changes at Weapon Skills and traits.
The Upgrade System plays also a heavy role in the overall class balancing of this game and Naet needs to finally stop ignorign them constantly and take them more into consideration when they make changes on weapon skills and traits.
4) Gameplay Mechanic Rebalancing in regard of Boons and especially Conditions.
The whole Boon/Condition System is in a dire need of an overhaul, it was already pre 23rd June 2015 patch horrible, but that patch made everything only much worser to the point, where it was already hard to believe, that anet could actually make it much worser than it already was.
Some Boon Effects need to get buffed or toned town.
Same as like with Condtions.
the game currently has im oway too much damage over tiem conditions.
Confusion should get turned back how it was pre 23rd june. its change alone togethewith stuff like torment and burnign are the very reason for it, why condi power creep is so out of control, because these conditions simply deal too much damage therefore that they ignore Toughness and can be spammed much more than peopel are able to remove conditions, due due condi removal skills all having much longer CDs, than the skilsl with that you can constantly apply con and there also being other external options to apply conditions withiout having to use at al skisl for that (traits/sigil effects by simply AAing).
it would also help this game, if some Boons/Conditions would get merged together.
Like Merge Stability with Resistance and keep it as Resistance.
Like Merge Cripple with Weakness to make it more different from Chill, so that Cripple is more than just only a movement speed reducer.
So lesser Boons/Conditions there are, so better also for the overall Game performance.
Remove Buff Items from WvW, these thigns should be PvE Only, that would allow you then also to make for PvE alot more interesting buf foods ect. without that WvW balance gets screwed over. In GW1 were these kind of buff items also PvE only and that out of a good reason …
If these 4 points would finalyl get solved first, then its about time to talk about changign numbers at class skilsl and traits…
The only number based class related thing that I would nerf right now is the Revenants Boon Boost of total overpowered 50% increase in boon durations.
Reduce that flat down to a 25% increase would be a first good step towards balancing Revs and making them lesser of a stacking meta, because this big environmental boon duration boost is simply too powerful and is the sole reason for it, why people want to have multiple revs in raids or why revs have basically replaced thieves so much, because revs simply give for the group much better support, than thieves do …. due to this overpowered 50% boon duration booster effect.
Personally I like the idea behind sub classes ~ quoted from Chris Whiteside
