Guild Wars 2

There seems to be a fundamental unfairness to the Thief in the game mode of Conquest. While a Thief can move from point to point quickly, it cannot effectively hold or even contest a point against most professions. Compare the Thief’s on-point capabilities to the following which still allow the ability to contest/capture points.

Guardians can lay traps that nearly occupy the whole point.

Rangers can lay traps that occupy much of a point as well as activate a signet that makes them immune to direct damage while still maintaining their fighting ability.

Necromancers can lay marks that nearly occupy the whole point as well as double their health when in need.

Warriors can go immune to direct damage twice while still maintaining their fighting capability.

Engineers can place turrets that can continuously sustain them and also help defend an entire point.

Elementalists… yeah, not even going there.

But what can Thieves do? Evade. Daredevils have a little damage output from dodging. But that’s about it.
So a Thief has no special advantage on-point. In fact, they only have disadvantages, two in particular…

1. They are squishy, and require avoiding damage and control effects in order to survive as opposed to being able to absorb them and recover.

2. Stealth provides the most methods of sustain and recovery, yet it cannot be used if a point must be held.

So the Thief is forced to fight around a point if it is to survive, or it must give up a point in order to recover.

Here is the question to consider…

Would the Thief’s on-point capabilities overshadow even those of the professions listed above if ONLY the Thief gained the ability to contest/capture a point while in Stealth?

It would not boost the Thief’s damage output in any way. It would only allow sustain. It would improve deception potential, of course, but that is the way it should be.

Opinions?

The ability for the thief to perform in combat is the result of the sPvP/PvE balance split such that stats are lower in sPvP than they are in PvE and WvW, which causes the Thief to lose an upwards of 60% of its damage from its scaling not being any good, while defensive abilities get their fixed-number advantages to favor tankier builds.

It really has nothing to do with the skills or balance of the classes but is a result of the stat split causing reduced scaling effectiveness and over-promotion of boons since their relative effectiveness is increased vastly.

If they brought PvE stat amounts to sPvP and split the amulets into six parts, but kept the rune choices as they are for sPvP, the format would become almost immediately balanced, and the thief would have the capacity to fight well in 1v1 situations and even 1v2’s if out-playing the opponents well enough.

Proponents for balance-splitting between skills for the formats are ignorant that the very split itself has led to the poor state of profession balance, increased the time needed to make balancing decisions, and has exacerbated the poor decisions to all formats’ balance states, since at times it is not possible to balance them independently.

Go into WvW and look if you wish, the thief performs almost flawlessly in small-scale, and only starts losing ground in massive-scale battles due to its limited AoE boon application, which in it of itself is another balance nightmare.

Allowing stealth capture was nerfed very early in the game as it became popular for people to run full stealth camp builds and contest enemy points while their team took one and held it until the end of the game. Even allowing contesting is too much as stealth bunkers would be too powerful in terms of conquest gameplay and then other builds would suffer from inevitable nerfs to stealth and in stealth sustain.

Unfortunately I don’t think thief will ever have an on point fighting build until they are given the ability to tank a bit more damage and skirmish with more sustain options not tied to dodge spam.

Interesting. In the current PvP game, does the Thief even have a Stealth build that would be so difficult to pin down and kill? At least compared to other professions’ non-Stealth builds?

Even a Ghost Trapper in WvW would be extremely vulnerable if it had to stay in a confined area.

Not to mention that there now exist several Revealing skills that completely remove Stealth altogether.

I guess I’m trying to figure out why a Thief (and only a Thief) would be overpowered if it could contest/capture a point while in Stealth… even if built for it.

Resilience of Shadows only grants 25% damage mitigation compared to Protection’s 33%.

Shadow Rejuvenation’s base healing is less than the Warrior’s Signet of Healing.

Shadow’s Embrace removes only one condition every 3 seconds, and the Thief has no access to Resistance.

The Thief has virtually no access to Stability or Protection or Aegis.

So while Stealth does add sustainability, I don’t see how it would make the Thief overpowered at bunkering a point when compared to an Elementalist or even a Warrior.

The Thief has no Stability. It is still vulnerable to CC, especially if it gives up stun-breaker utilities for Stealth access.

The worst issue that I can see is that it will make the Thief more annoying because it can stay hidden while on point, causing more complaints of Stealth. But that is the nature of the Thief.

It has to do more or less with stealth causing icons and vision ti disappear entirely, and most 1v1 builds for sPvP are structured to play a fight via sustain rather than landing a killing blow. Being invisible also removes targeting and in general causes skills to miss.

basically, it’d let the thief decap for free and not be intercepted by really anything, or endlessly contest by trolling the outer rims of the points while negating damage through dodges spammable via DrD.

Having no capture presence is fine while in stealth. The problem of thief’s on-point viability extends almost solely from it not having the stats it needs to scale properly to deal damage, which it can do in WvW. Even Daredevil, designed to help the thief sustain better (and it does), is not sufficient for the thief to deal enough damage to kill sustain-oriented builds which simply have higher skill coefficients on damage and other effects.

If damage were to go up to PvE/WvW levels, the thief would do fine by bringing just enough sustain to not die, but enough damage to break down bunkery builds if played well. As it is, no amount of out-playing (within reason) lets a thief beat out a sustain build while keeping point presence in a strict 1v1.

The issue isn’t stealth, but again, rather stats for sPvP.

Deceiver, you bring a good point. Would you rather see builds in pvp as you select the stats of each gear piece to add more customization and stats into the game? Hey anet, this is a chance for build diversity!

Thieves struggle in PvP but the first thing to do is to divorce the Dare Devil from Unhindered Combatant. Both Bound and Lotus Training offer far better localized cast off damage for sustained pressure. Thieves are still coming into that fight with disadvantages but they will generally perform better with either.

Well until you fight a condi necro, then unhindered combatant is your bae.

in the beginning thief could stealth cap in WvW guess what happend…. 1 thief could stop a zerg of 40 from ever achieving a cap lol.

Taobella.6597:

in the beginning thief could stealth cap in WvW guess what happend…. 1 thief could stop a zerg of 40 from ever achieving a cap lol.

That is the way of the Thief, hehe… to play spoiler! :-D

However, in today’s game, Thieves can’t even hide in Stealth because of Reveal skills. And PvP capture zones are almost always small when compared with WvW zones.

A Guardian trap or a Necro mark fills up an entire point, so there’s not really any way a Thief can skirt danger while still contesting. Not to mention all of the large AoE skills that everyone has these days.

that one way to view it but traps mean nothing mark mean nothing if you stealth hold a point. if you reveal a thief you shut him down for 6 second at 30 seconds cd. so he always be netting time in a game if he can control a cap or even negate one. i think it would just be to strong.

assuming you playing against people that can telegraph a thief perfectly in theory it could be shut down on paper i would say most likely most legend players would not be able to stop it. you just take mid thief camp it all game.

Taobella.6597:

in the beginning thief could stealth cap in WvW guess what happend…. 1 thief could stop a zerg of 40 from ever achieving a cap lol.

an easy way to fix that is to make the point work diferent 1v1 point does not change 2v1 points start to change to the 2 person color same thing with more players, the team with more players on points get the cap slowly.
this will even kill solo bunker a point

Brokensunday.4098:

Taobella.6597:

in the beginning thief could stealth cap in WvW guess what happend…. 1 thief could stop a zerg of 40 from ever achieving a cap lol.

an easy way to fix that is to make the point work diferent 1v1 point does not change 2v1 points start to change to the 2 person color same thing with more players, the team with more players on points get the cap slowly.
this will even kill solo bunker a point

i do like this idea.

Kageseigi.2150:

There seems to be a fundamental unfairness to the Thief in the game mode of Conquest.

LOL, complaining about a class being weak at conquest that was so strong in conquest that for the first 3 years of this game thief was perma-meta and the strongest solo carry in the game.

We have too much access to stealth now for stealth capping/contesting to be fair.

That’s only because it had the most mobility in the game. The second another class was introduced that had comparable mobility on it the thief became obsolete. People who think being meta for the role of decap/+1 bot makes thief good are stupid. Sorry but that’s the way it is.

Ario.8964:

That’s only because it had the most mobility in the game. The second another class was introduced that had comparable mobility on it the thief became obsolete. People who think being meta for the role of decap/+1 bot makes thief good are stupid. Sorry but that’s the way it is.

It’s good to be stupid then

Ario.8964:

Well until you fight a condi necro, then unhindered combatant is your bae.

Fairly easy to kite a Necro. It can be tough to hold a point sometimes but stacking cover condi or hitting for 5k+ more per fight tends to perform better than CC mitigation in my experience.

zinkz.7045:

Kageseigi.2150:

There seems to be a fundamental unfairness to the Thief in the game mode of Conquest.

LOL, complaining about a class being weak at conquest that was so strong in conquest that for the first 3 years of this game thief was perma-meta and the strongest solo carry in the game.

Whoa, let’s at least keep things in context. Please read the next sentence of mine. I never said anything about the Thief being weak… that’s another issue. What I said is that a Thief cannot hold or contest a point effectively compared to other professions.

While GW2 PvP is a combat game, implying the necessity to kill the enemy, this particular thread is focused on the goal of Conquest which is to score points by maintaining control of nodes and denying control to the enemy.

How does one do that? By remaining on-point. Decapping can only be done when the enemy leaves a point or is killed. Currently, the Thief is not viewed as a reliable 1v1 fighter, leaving only the option to wait for the enemy to leave a point free.

If the enemy does not leave a point open, the Thief’s ability to decap is negated, forcing the Thief to enter into teamfights to be useful. At that point, being a Thief can become a liability instead of an asset.

The purpose of this thread is to point out that the Thief lacks the ability to hold/contest a point. That is the truth. If a Thief were able to hold/contest a point, it would become much more useful, and much less dependent on what the enemy allows the Thief to do. It would also allow the Thief more independence from the actions/ability of the rest of its team.

For instance, if you want to improve your chances at the Mid fight at the beginning of a match, you could feel more confident of sending all 4 non-Thieves to Mid while the Thief takes Home. As it is now, if the enemy sends even one person to take your Home at the beginning, the Thief is at a terrible disadvantage, and usually forced to rotate instead of holding it’s ground until help arrives.

Again, this thread has nothing to do about improving the Thief’s ability to kill the enemy… but only to improve the Thief’s ability to deny the enemy points by surviving in a confined area.

rennlc.7346:

We have too much access to stealth now for stealth capping/contesting to be fair.

Perhaps, though remember that builds are about balance. In order to gain sustain from Stealth, that requires taking Shadow Arts over an offensive line. Stealth utilities/runes take away from offensive capabilities. So unless you build to be a bunker, which should allow you to hold a point by nature, you’re Stealth access is still going to be limited to normal use.

However, if the ability to capture/contest a point in perma-Stealth is too much, I would suggest a 3 second grace period for Thieves. So a Thief may remain in Stealth for 3 seconds before losing the ability to control/contest. This would remove the ability for Stealth-stacking. But it would allow a Thief to jump in and out of Stealth for strategic attacks and sustain (if traited) while not allowing the enemy to (de)cap as long as the Thief remains present.

The problem with balance in PvP is that the Dev’s are aiming for more action in PvP, thus the focus on dodge/evade as oppose to full stealth when it comes to Thief’s defensive skills. They can surely allow a node cap while in stealth, but that’s (not) a good PvP game to watch — it’s very passive and it’s boring.

So the challenge they are facing is how to make Thief viable at point defense and we already know the answer to that — Daredevil with staff. I can stay and defend a point and sometimes win a 1v1. At the same time, the Devs gets the action they need to promote the PvP matches to spectators.

Of course, I never accepted that Daredevil is anything related to the Thief profession, but it’s the only way to see a Thief in PvP actually defending a point. However, the bunker meta have obsoleted my build so yeah, no go unless you play decap and +1 using boring D/P.

i do not think it thief that is presay bad. i think it more way the map is design. like what if conquest became only 1 of the 3 point can be active at a time. then movement would be king. such things like trapper guard or or even nerco would be classed as weak classes because they always end up running around the map trying to catch up to the active point.

I have a feeling that Thieves Guild may be able to help these fights in confined spaces as well as trigger any traps/marks, allowing the thief/Daredevil to burst the enemy down. Ive seen a good condi thief (using Thieves Guild) that hit like a frigging truck, apply massive condi’s that was able to 2v1 on a point (in the Temple map). Used his thieves guild to clean any traps, was pretty good (squishy af tho). He was “overconfident” in chat so I was glad to be able to get him more then he got me (although hwere wer eon the same team the next match). Was a quick in and out rotation for him.

TLDR: There are current utilities/set ups that can make a thief/daredevil deadly confined on a point, even in a 1v2 scenario.

Except we shouldn’t have to run condi evade gimmick builds in order to be effective in combat. The issue is we can’t just run normal builds and stand a chance in a fight, we as a class have to build specifically for each encounter or run a gimmick and be useless outside of the 1 thing the gimmick allows us to do.

Ario.8964:

Except we shouldn’t have to run condi evade gimmick builds in order to be effective in combat. The issue is we can’t just run normal builds and stand a chance in a fight, we as a class have to build specifically for each encounter or run a gimmick and be useless outside of the 1 thing the gimmick allows us to do.

And this is the problem.

Thief is supposed to be the spiritual successor to Cantha’s Assassin, SO…critical strikes is important. Critical strikes was super important to the ol’ sin. With our outgoing damage mitigated, we lose what we need in structured PvP. WvW, we can run builds that are (possibly) more normal and it be fine.

Ragfell.7594:

Ario.8964:

Except we shouldn’t have to run condi evade gimmick builds in order to be effective in combat. The issue is we can’t just run normal builds and stand a chance in a fight, we as a class have to build specifically for each encounter or run a gimmick and be useless outside of the 1 thing the gimmick allows us to do.

And this is the problem.

Thief is supposed to be the spiritual successor to Cantha’s Assassin, SO…critical strikes is important. Critical strikes was super important to the ol’ sin. With our outgoing damage mitigated, we lose what we need in structured PvP. WvW, we can run builds that are (possibly) more normal and it be fine.

I disagree. It seems that you have not played an Interrupt Assasin, KD Assassin, and Deep Wound Assassin…no need for CS.

Brokensunday.4098:

Taobella.6597:

in the beginning thief could stealth cap in WvW guess what happend…. 1 thief could stop a zerg of 40 from ever achieving a cap lol.

an easy way to fix that is to make the point work diferent 1v1 point does not change 2v1 points start to change to the 2 person color same thing with more players, the team with more players on points get the cap slowly.
this will even kill solo bunker a point

I feel like this is a really cool idea, but I also feel it could potentially have some negative game-play repercussions. I think we should brainstorm the potential side-effects on what players would end up doing and how the meta would change if this were to be put into effect.