Guild Wars 2

Really the low HP is the main problem with thieves…not too many classes get accidentally killed but thieves do all the time. Is fun to shoot thieves with my warrior and watch them go from full to dead in one shot.

And I enjoy reflecting it and watching you leap away. I wouldn’t say no, but I operate okay without mesmer hp.

Normally I’d say don’t flat compare 1 profession to another but there is some truth to this. Take ele and guardian, the 2 professions that share the lowest health tier with thief. Guardian has heavy armor and strong healing/condition cleansing. Ele has again strong healing and condition cleansing and also mobility (atleast more than guardian by a lot). Even though they have a low health pool to start with, they can work with it pretty well given their traits and skills.

Despite the 7.5k difference in the base health pools between tier 1 and 3 health, thief is suffering the most because they rely heavily on complete avoidance rather than soaking it up and recovering. For example, how many thieves would choose toughness over vitality in their build? Thief is rather squishy by nature, no matter how they build however the base health pool only makes up a small part of this problem.

Condi thieves would be unkillable with higher base HP.

Power thieves would (maybe) stop dying to my ele/guard that fast.

thieves are fine, hybrids and tanky builds from other classes need to be toned down

issues is: thieves have to go full glass to do as much dmg as currently hybrid with a lot of survival can do… that is just wrong on many levels.. let’s not even start on AI builds

there are in general 2 fundamental things that are very wrong in this game:
- some classes are allowed to be very tanky and yet dish out high dmg making going full glass pointless
- aoe is cheap (CD/recources) and often does more dmg than single target spells rendering those pointless, especially in conquest

if those 2 things were fixed we would see better trade off between builds/classes imo

but looking at class/build design and patches for the past 2 years almost it doesn’t seem like anet devs have any interest in common sense or balance

just pray that next “balance” patch won’t be again obligatory “let’s throw random nerfs at thieves”

you want candies too?

Idk, I like my 11k hp thief and how much damage he does without dying. Its living on the edge

Cynz.9437:

just pray that next “balance” patch won’t be again obligatory “let’s throw random nerfs at thieves”

But then it wouldn’t be a balance patch…

The problem with this is it would make thieves own mesmers even more.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Condi thieves would be unkillable with higher base HP.

Pretty much this.

The Thief needs a redesign, as much as liek the Ranger, thats for sure.
Raising the Max Health to the same of a Mesmer? Sure, would be one way that would help making the Thief lesser reliant on Stealth, if they could survive longer with more Base Health.

However, the real issues of the Thief are completely at a different spot.
The current Thief Gameplay has these problems, that need to be solved:

• Uncripple the Thief Design’s Underwater Skills and redesign and rebalance all of the Thief’s Underwater Skills, so that Thieves can make full usage finally of their Gameplay Mechanics also under water and not just only on land. Under the current System, Thieves are in Water like fishs on land presented on the silver platter, because their whole Underwater Design is just total pathetic thought out, but that problem have also other classes, like the Engineer and the Elementalists which lose like half or more of their Utility Skills when going into the water, or worser can use only just 1 single Elite Skill under Water, like the Thief with its pathetic Basilisk Venom, when ANet could easily redesign Dagger Storm to work underwater similar like the Elementalists Tornado, that changes into Maelstrom under water. Each Skill should work like this in GW2 when going into water and if a skill get get changed to work like this, it should get completely removed and exchanged with a new skill, that can work in both areas!!

• Merge alot of useless/ too weak Utility Skills of the Thief to make space fore new better Utilities/Healing Skills, like moving all the Venom Skills of the Thief into a new and better F2-4 Mechanic, with that the Thief can use Venoms on the fly to change their Weapon Skills based on the used Venom which could be equipped manually in the F2-4 Slot, like Utilities choosign them out from a seperate list, so that there would be space for 4 new Utility, 1 new Healing skill and 1 better new Elite Skill, because the effect of Basilisk Venom is absolutely not worth it to be called an elite skill…

• Merge useless/too weak traits of the Thief to make space for new and more useful Thief Traits.
  The thief got nerfed from release date on basically with every patch. Its finaly time that ANet does here somethign right and just merges some traits together, that no one uses or seem to be in general too weak compared to what all the other classes have gotten with the last few balance patches, so that the Thief becomes again more on par with them.

• Redesign Shadow Steps from a stunable teleportation Mechanic into a free non stunable Dodge Move Mechanic together with a change in the animations so that you can see, that its a long dodge move (that costs in that moment no endurance).
  Together with this, Thieves will also get more independent from stealth.

• Increase the Stealth Max Duration of Shadow Refuge from 10s to 20s for also a slight increase in its Recharge Time from 60 to 70s for a better Usage/Risk relation and remove the Red Rings from Shadow Refuge, that enemies can see, basically telling them exactly where you are like a big HERE AM I, NUKE THIS SPOT! … and lets it give us the max duration instantly, without this silyl stay in the refuge for 4 seconds to get the max duration crap that just cripples the flow of the thief gameplay.
  Therefore, reduce the Movement Speed under this Skill by 25%.

I would not condone or agree with any of the above…

Selver.1307:

I would not condone or agree with any of the above…

I sure would. I’de be playing my thief again.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Condi thieves would be unkillable with higher base HP.

Can’t tell if serious or joking..

Skeletor.9360:

Really the low HP is the main problem with thieves…not too many classes get accidentally killed but thieves do all the time. Is fun to shoot thieves with my warrior and watch them go from full to dead in one shot.

Ha
Ha
Ha

maybe you need to use stealth and some traits related on stealth, huh?

yolo swaggins.2570:

Selver.1307:

I would not condone or agree with any of the above…

I sure would. I’de be playing my thief again.

Okay Okay… I agree bv shouldn’t be called an elite and that we’ve been nerfed almost every patch. I also agree they should update and revise our (and all classes) traits/utilities, but I don’t agree with replacing steal, changing step, or fundamentally altering the thief. It plays great. It needs some QoL improvements as all classes do, and a reevaluation of past nerfs..

Do you really expect any of anything in the thread though? Oh except more nerfs. I mean with 6mo balance passes and small tweaks mostly… We’re in for a long ride. I like road trips though. I’ll black out when I’m bored enough

But fundamentally altering the Thief is exactly, what this class needs together with Trait and Utility Skill Merges, same as like the Ranger needs finally more fundamental changes to their Pet System, or both Classes for their Traps to become more useful, especially the one of the Thief, which are mostly all totally useless, whiel the ones of the Ranger are at least to call it – decent. with the Flame Trap (which should be imo a Torch Skill and not an Utility Skill)

The Steal System shouldn’t be something, thats based on Button Presses, it should be an Automatism, cause a Thief steals always when possible and he should do that automatically in Melee Range as long he has enough Free Slots for Stolen Skills, which should be increased from 1 to 2 and be further increaseable via Trait from 2 to 3.
Alot of the Stolen Skills could get merged also to make space for some new and more interesting Stolen Skills

I play Thief since Game Release, its my Main Class and this Class simply got mostly with every patch so far only nerfed, while other Classes always receive significant improvements to their Traits or received completely new Traits that were alot better, than the junk that the classes had before, while the Thief stood there with empty hands basically.
Its about time now finally for a payback, that the Thief gets finally some love and changes, that improve the Gameplay Potential of the Thief, so that this class makes again more fun to be played, especially also in under water, where it makes absolutely no fun at all to play this class cause of getting half our build options cripples instantly, not beign able to use any stealth, gettign crippled sown to use only BV as an “Elite” that is none at all and having mostly all utility skill not useable, cause of Anet being too uncreative to think of ways, how to change those skills into underwater versions in the way how they creatively changed the Eles Tornado for under water into Maelstrom, so that this skill works in both areas.

And as said, if they fidn no ways to do this for all skills, they they should remove those incompatible skilsl from the game and exchange them completely with new better skills, which can be compatible for both aras of the game easily.
Its just a sign if very bad skill design if you have a game with two different battle areas where your skilsl then are not in both areas useable.

Even the original “fire can’t burn under water-discussion” is invalid, because magnesium fire can burn under water – the funny thing is, magnesium fire burns even hotter/brighter, if it gets in contact with water, because of chemical reactions !!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrjYb1Oy-Pc

And any other fire from other classes that come not from torches are magical fires anyway or are altered into other fire related things (Lava/Magma,/Steam/Hotness asnd so on which can burn also under water or are simply hot, which is relative to fire)

I wish we would get to see somewhen in the near future a Thief CDI

Thieves do not need a larger health pool, they hard counter mesmers, so it’s really a learn to play situation. When you play a glass cannon thief, you need to learn that accidentally walking into AoE’s is something you can’t let happen and to avoid it, not ask for compensation for players that are too lazy to avoid red circles or pay attention to animations. Its a risk reward situation, and if you can’t deal with it, then you picked the wrong class. Re-roll or re-spec.

Thieves HP pool is ok.

Medium health pool, heavy armor, and death shroud please, to make it fair and balanced for the poor underpowered thieves.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Medium health pool, heavy armor, and death shroud please, to make it fair and balanced for the poor underpowered thieves.

Pretty much this…this thread is laughable.
Watch some good thieves…you will see that it is close to unkillable when played well.
Thieves have far too much survivability (not talking about stealth but more about never ending dodging machine).
Before giving hp nerf drastically evade spammability….after we can talk.

The current base HP only seems okay because of the vitality you get with the berserker amulet in PvP. If it was pure berserker stats, there would be a problem, and we should, and would need to be, raised to mid-tier health.

Thieves are not designed to be able to sustain in fights through tanky stats and healing power, but through avoidance via evasion or stealth. This is clear from the fact that:
- we need to be berserker stats to compete with the same damage other classes can deal as soldier or celestial, and the need for it to be so is created by the need to balance for our initiative mechanic, which - combined with what those skills are of course - is what gives us our versatility.
- our healing skills have a high base, but scale horribly with healing power
- our top healing skills grant either an evade or stealth
- we have the best mobility in the game
A larger health pool (larger than current + a few thousand from berserker amulet vitality) would make us able to survive the burst of other classes easier, thus putting them at an even bigger disadvantage. This is talking from a tPvP perspective as well, since that is what the devs balance around.

Skill changes by merging them together? Well... I get where you’re coming from in wanting additional profession skills. Currently the meta for thieves relies heavily on landing steal - all those eggs in one basket. Strictly merging utility skills is not necessary though. Our utilities are great as they are. Moving some to profession skill slots? Well if venoms were moved, thieves would be quite overpowered - especially condi thieves, since they’d then have their condi burst and sustain along with the controlled mobility that power builds rely on. If it was something like shadow refuge - which is basically our signature move since almost all thieves run it - then it would actually be a nice non-game breaking buff, although there would be a period of increased QQ about thieves having an "extra utility skill."

Merging traits? Hell yes; and it’s something the devs have shown that they are prepared to do - they have already done it for some other classes.

Kicast.1459:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Medium health pool, heavy armor, and death shroud please, to make it fair and balanced for the poor underpowered thieves.

Pretty much this…this thread is laughable.
Watch some good thieves…you will see that it is close to unkillable when played well.
Thieves have far too much survivability (not talking about stealth but more about never ending dodging machine).
Before giving hp nerf drastically evade spammability….after we can talk.

Just want to point out that both of your post histories show a deep hatred for the thief profession so it easy say your posts are as dismissable as this thread is laughable.

Please be more constructive and openminded (and reasonable).

EDIT: Corrected my atrocious grammar >.<

yolo swaggins.2570:

Kicast.1459:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Medium health pool, heavy armor, and death shroud please, to make it fair and balanced for the poor underpowered thieves.

Pretty much this…this thread is laughable.
Watch some good thieves…you will see that it is close to unkillable when played well.
Thieves have far too much survivability (not talking about stealth but more about never ending dodging machine).
Before giving hp nerf drastically evade spammability….after we can talk.

Just want to point out that both of your post histories show a deep hatred for the thief profession so it easy say your posts are as dismissible as this thread is laughable.

Please be more constructive and openminded (and reasonable).

EDIT: Corrected my atrocious grammar >.<

Are you suggesting that thieves don’t have great survivability in not only stealth but also evades (among other things), and that a good thief is near unkillable? Because, call me crazy, but regardless of whether or not you judge people to be hateful of thieves or not, you still actually have to address the class itself, not people and there supposed opinions.

Just to make it real simple for you, you don’t dismiss arguments based on the people making them, you have to address the argument itself. But if attacking people is more your thing well, good luck with that.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Are you suggesting that thieves don’t have great survivability in not only stealth but also evades (among other things), and that a good thief is near unkillable? Because, call me crazy, but regardless of whether or not you judge people to be hateful of thieves or not, you still actually have to address the class itself, not people and there supposed opinions.

Just to make it real simple for you, you don’t dismiss arguments based on the people making them, you have to address the argument itself. But if attacking people is more your thing well, good luck with that.

Stealth is only great against people who can’t think under pressure. Evades are decent if constantly applied but things still get through and can still kill the thief.

And part of the reason why this class is where it is today is because anet listened to people like you who willingly have no consideration for the other side’s issues. It’s really convenient that you mention attacking because your first comment:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Medium health pool, heavy armor, and death shroud please, to make it fair and balanced for the poor underpowered thieves.

was a nice little bit of nonconstructive sarcasm towards the whole thread.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Are you suggesting that thieves don’t have great survivability in not only stealth but also evades (among other things), and that a good thief is near unkillable? Because, call me crazy, but regardless of whether or not you judge people to be hateful of thieves or not, you still actually have to address the class itself, not people and there supposed opinions.

Just to make it real simple for you, you don’t dismiss arguments based on the people making them, you have to address the argument itself. But if attacking people is more your thing well, good luck with that.

Stealth is only great against people who can’t think under pressure. Evades are decent if constantly applied but things still get through and can still kill the thief.

And part of the reason why this class is where it is today is because anet listened to people like you who willingly have no consideration for the other side’s issues. It’s really convenient that you mention attacking because your first comment:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Medium health pool, heavy armor, and death shroud please, to make it fair and balanced for the poor underpowered thieves.

was a nice little bit of nonconstructive sarcasm towards the whole thread.

Well you tried to address the issue but couldn’t help but taking another personal shot at me. That’s fine, I can take it.

Your last sentence at least makes a claim about my quote and you add your personal opinion that it was “nonconstructive”. You’re welcome to your personal opinion, of course, but don’t think everyone’s just going to take your feelings as objectivity. Was I implying sarcasm? Sure, a little bit. The point, though, was to highlight the absurdity of the OP’s request with hyperbole. No, thief shouldn’t have medium health anymore than they should have heavy armor, or death shroud. I’m sure almost everyone else who came along and read that understood the subtleties of that constructive, albiet rhetorical argument right away. Just because you didn’t appreciate it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a place right where it is.

Ross Biddle.2367:

yolo swaggins.2570:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Are you suggesting that thieves don’t have great survivability in not only stealth but also evades (among other things), and that a good thief is near unkillable? Because, call me crazy, but regardless of whether or not you judge people to be hateful of thieves or not, you still actually have to address the class itself, not people and there supposed opinions.

Just to make it real simple for you, you don’t dismiss arguments based on the people making them, you have to address the argument itself. But if attacking people is more your thing well, good luck with that.

Stealth is only great against people who can’t think under pressure. Evades are decent if constantly applied but things still get through and can still kill the thief.

And part of the reason why this class is where it is today is because anet listened to people like you who willingly have no consideration for the other side’s issues. It’s really convenient that you mention attacking because your first comment:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Medium health pool, heavy armor, and death shroud please, to make it fair and balanced for the poor underpowered thieves.

was a nice little bit of nonconstructive sarcasm towards the whole thread.

Well you tried to address the issue but couldn’t help but taking another personal shot at me. That’s fine, I can take it.

Your last sentence at least makes a claim about my quote and you add your personal opinion that it was “nonconstructive”. You’re welcome to your personal opinion, of course, but don’t think everyone’s just going to take your feelings as objectivity. Was I implying sarcasm? Sure, a little bit. The point, though, was to highlight the absurdity of the OP’s request with hyperbole. No, thief shouldn’t have medium health anymore than they should have heavy armor, or death shroud. I’m sure almost everyone else who came along and read that understood the subtleties of that constructive, albiet rhetorical argument right away. Just because you didn’t appreciate it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a place right where it is.

See, he did respond to you, though after he just rustled your jims…
Bolded what was the main thing to get out of his response.

Besides not being able to think under pressure when dealing with (anything in PvP) a thief, the thing that amazes me the most about the people that come here specifically to complain (check the nerf wish list (filter out the jokes, and look at the ones that are “originally by”)), is that instead of dealing with the issue themselves (ei. struggling and finding a way to do something about it (hmmm…)) they instead build up rage and hatred which gets them absolutely nowhere. Though I haven’t seen a case where the QQ’er complained twice or more (aside from obvious trolls, like our long beloved and missed BurnFall), so i presume they pulled their snot in, wiped the tears and persisted, which is a good thing for them since that means they did actually go somewhere after QQ’ing on the forums.

Those are generally the kind of people that come here to complain… hopefully, it’s not insulting enough to get infracted for, but yeah.

Weirdly enough those kind of people still come out on top since if they do manage to persist, they improve, and if they persist long enough (till the next patch) ANet will nerf the thief a bit more (almost guaranteed – no it’s not a cry for “buff us please”, I personally would love a complete overhaul of thief as opposed to small tweaks (nerfs/buffs)) . It might not be what they have hoped for though, since ANet has it’s own agenda for “balance”, we can’t really do anything about that.

But yeah lol medium health pool, heavy armor, and death shroud does seem a bit of an overkill.

The problem with thief seriously does belong with its design. Top PvP thieves are amazing assets to a team and extremely strong and capable at 1v1s to 1v2s. But if you’re not a top thief then you’re a dead weight to the class. There is very little in between. Either you are useless, slightly suck or you’re a god.

If only there were items in the game that increase your health.
protip: there are

Thieves are better in pvp as they can use line of sight and jump on enemies better. Sw/d thieves can teleport to a target and not have to worry about walls like the rest of classes. They are in a better spot than lb rangers and shatter mesmers in pvp. Roaming in wvw is different because the meta is different. Celestial isn’t that good so you have people running builds with more toughness and raw dps (tougher fight vs eles and engis imo). You also have more people running condi in wvw than in pvp currently. And honestly, if you have 14k health and no toughness and you jump into the middle of a 5v5 and die you deserve it.

pmargeti.7680:

If only there were items in the game that increase your health.
protip: there are

If only those items didn’t keep us from using items to increase our DPS to competitive levels.

NinjaEd.3946:

thief is suffering the most because they rely heavily on complete avoidance rather than soaking it up and recovering

And thieves are doing a kitten fine job doing exactly that. Most thieves run builds that are either stealth or evade heavy. You either run S/D and evade 80% of whatever your opponent is throwing at you, no matter what build he runs. Or you go along with P/D or D/P with massive access to stealth.

Mesmers survivabilty relies heavly on the cooldown of your utility skills, that usually being Decoy, which is on a 40sec CD (untraited), Blink which has a 30sec CD and finally Mass Invisibility that sits on 90 seconds. Once these are used up, you will have to facetank the damage that is thrown at you, unless you’re doing incerdibly well at kiting your enemy around when you’re using the staff.

Thieves can survive just fine, with what they have on their weapon-sets which dont have any cooldown. That means that waiting another 2 or 3 seconds already gives you another dodge or an option to stealth or shadowstep around. Combined with the crazy disengage you can bring, you’ve got more than enough to keep you alive.

So in conclusion: No, thieves don’t need the same healthpool mesmers share.

For those guys who think thief HP pool is ok here, I doubt they really play a thief hard core, if you let any of these big mouth show you how they play thief, I bet none of them has the guts to do so, why? they will be get kitten kicked hard, I met quite a few big mouths like these guys in the game, when you ask them to show the real game, they chicken out ^

ViciousVyne.2935:

stuff.

Just want to point out that mesmers rival eles for healing capability. All due to one trait. So… not so much.

yolo swaggins.2570:

ViciousVyne.2935:

stuff.

Just want to point out that mesmers rival eles for healing capability. All due to one trait. So… not so much.

So what ? Just because Mesmers have mantra heals doesn’t mean every other profession should get their HP increased because of it.

One thing has nothing to do with the other. You are reffering to the Inspiration traitline that you have to spend 4 points into, that is only used for PvE reflection builds when you’re running offhand Focus, and even then the trait is not used. I highly doubt any decent mesmer would waste 4 points into a traitline that cripples his DPS and makes him the most vulnerable target on the battlefield while chanelling Mantras over and over again. Infact I’m pretty sure you would eat up alot more damage then the 2.660 healing you would get, spending almost 3 seconds on, during which you cant dodge.

If that traitline was so super strong as you claim it to be, we would definitely see more mesmers utilize it, I however have only seen a single mesmer use mantra of Pain during the last 2 months, and he didn’t even use that trait.

I’m goning to quote you because it applies here aswell. Note that I made a slight change to it, maybe you can spot the difference.

If only those traits didn’t keep us from using traits to increase our DPS to competitive levels.

But furthermore, that doesn’t change anything about what I said in my previous post.
A thief that got down his skillrotations well, will still have a much easier time staying alive whether or not a mesmer is using Restorative Mantras. I don’t even get what you’re trying to point out there. That’s the same thing as saying Rangers should get more HP because necros have Deathshroud. One thing has nothing to do with the other, so please stay on topic.

Keyboardwarrior.8021:

For those guys who think thief HP pool is ok here, I doubt they really play a thief hard core, if you let any of these big mouth show you how they play thief, I bet none of them has the guts to do so, why? they will be get kitten kicked hard, I met quite a few big mouths like these guys in the game, when you ask them to show the real game, they chicken out ^

That could be said about any other profession in the game. Just replace “Thief” with any other class and the same thing could be said about them. Of course a vanilla thief will beat anyone re-rolling it, no shame in that. Only because I decided to pick a different profession at launch doesn’t mean I can’t talk about general balance. For example, you don’t need to hardcore celestial Ele or Engi for 2 years to talk about how it is outperfmorming most current builds and is the way to go in sPvP.

I’m not saying thieves are easy to play. I know myself that thief is among the hardest profession to master but once you’ve hit a certain point your HP doesn’t matter that much as on other professions.

I understand that you guys are biased for the profession you main and like the most, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But if you are asking for a straight out health increase for it, you gotta back it up with some serious arguments. Do that and I might take your side and support you. But simply saying : “I die when I accidentally walk into AoE’s” Is not going to cut it.

yolo swaggins.2570:

ViciousVyne.2935:

stuff.

Just want to point out that mesmers rival eles for healing capability. All due to one trait. So… not so much.

And who’s running the trait + MoP?

ViciousVyne.2935:

moar stuff

Actually I was trying to point out how much you are overvictimizing the mesmer profession. So it COMPLETELY relates to what you are talking about. Secondly, I never said nor claimed “It’s super strong”. So stop putting words in my mouth.

Now if you have an issue with Mesmer’s survivability, they have options for healing and condition removal (which they probably don’t normally use). Thieves don’t. Their condition removal is anchored to sword 2 and traited stealth (and they use them almost all of the time) while healing is reliant on resetting, other than the heal skill itself.

And last thing I am going to point out: Since most of the mesmer DPS comes from phantasms anyway, going 5 into Inspiration gives Phantasms a 10% boost in damage. Combine that with Empowering Illusions and your phantasms are doing 25% damage. So your counterquote is void.

vvv Another fun thing about mesmers’ Inspiration line vvv

Ross Biddle.2367:

yolo swaggins.2570:

ViciousVyne.2935:

stuff.

Just want to point out that mesmers rival eles for healing capability. All due to one trait. So… not so much.

And who’s running the trait + MoP?

Probably players who are not afraid to step outside the meta. Seriously, that outheals Meditation guards. Another thing about that line I like:

Mender’s Purity + Restorative Mantras + Mantra of Recovery + Power Return = 7840 HP and -4 conditions every 12ish seconds which competes well with Consume Conditions.

And me being a necro main, I would most definitely love to have that as an option. BTW how many mesmers ever go deep into inspiration? Do they know about the permaregen (and possibly permaprotection) they could have just by going 3 into both Chaos and Inspiration? That’s free armor…. for summoning illusions… which is part of mesmer combat mechanics.

If mesmer survivability is lacking, perhaps its time to get out of the meta a bit?

yolo swaggins.2570:

Probably players who are not afraid to step outside the meta. Seriously, that outheals Meditation guards. Another thing about that line I like:
Mender’s Purity + Restorative Mantras + Mantra of Recovery + Power Return = 7840 HP and -4 conditions every 12ish seconds which competes well with Consume Conditions.

Sorry to be the one that busts your bubble, but just because something sounds nice on paper doesn’t mean it’s viable in a more competetive scene. I’ve been playing mesmer since the 3 day head-start and I’ve tried all the different builds to see which ones are actually helping my team from a sPvP point of view.

yolo swaggins.2570:

BTW how many mesmers ever go deep into inspiration?

I go 6 points into Inspiration when I go Phantasm builds and you are right, Phantasm is an option, I myself have been playing it for quite a long time, and even ended up getting 2 legendaries just for that build, but you don’t go RM on a Phantasm build, since there are much, much better options.
But other than gimping people in WvW that were not expecting that much damage output, you are not going to achieve much in any other scenario.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Since most of the mesmer DPS comes from phantasms anyway

Unless you’re playing a heavy phanatsm build, no. Shatters are superior to phantasms in almost every way, and spending those 6 points into the Illusion traitline gives you much more survivability, on-demand burst, teamfight presence and kiting potential, than what you would get from the Inspiration traits.

yolo swaggins.2570:

If mesmer survivability is lacking, perhaps its time to get out of the meta a bit?

Do you really think that all the problems could be solved if people just tried out different builds ? Are you really that ignorant to claim that nobody even tried ?
Out of all the Subforums, I believe the mesmer forum is the one that comes up with the biggest amount of build suggestions, go and see for yourself. I’ve seen people try to utilize even the worst traits and utility skills, just to get something out of it. From Mantra Support, over intterupt lockdown (CI), Power Block, and hybrid builds.

The reality however is, that even if you perform excelent on them, you still end up being average at best.

I’ve seen mesmer go a tanky build, something similar just as you described. Almost all of them were considered freekills, got laughed at, and got huge flame from their teammembers, because lets face it, they bring nothing to the fight, that other professions can’t do better without putting back the entire team.

The sad truth is, the last time people actually considered taking a mesmer into their premades, were the good old days of 2012 when mesmers used to camp the Trebuchet on Khylo and used Portal for faster repairs. But those days dissapeared faster than the Tournament Tickets would last.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Actually I was trying to point out how much you are overvictimizing the mesmer profession.

I did not overvictimize mesmers, infact I think they’re pretty balanced right now. It’s just that everything else around us is overperforming, but that’s a completely different topic for itself, and I’m not going to go into that.

You are focusing way too much on the mesmer rather than on the thief, which is what this thread is about. The OP demanded to increase Thieves HP to match the Mesmer
All I did was point out that thieves have better and easier ways to completely avoid damage all together compared to what a mesmer brings to the table.

That is my claim and I still stand to it. You have not adressed that even once, but instead wobbled around my arguments trying to find something else to talk about, and lecture me about what mesmers could do if we were just to think outside the box.
So maybe you should be the one to

stop putting words in my mouth

If people claim or demand something, the burden to back it up lies on their shoulders, not on those that are sceptic. And unless you give me a good reason why a thief needs another 4.000 HP I wont be buying into your witty, half-knowledged stories.

Thieves benefit more from going more dps just like an ele will benefit more from more healing power. If a thief wanted 20k hp they could get it, but its not what the class was optimized for. I understand the frustration of thieves, you melt fast. Its all about timing and choosing your battles. Everything has counter play.

Goodie, quote wars.

ViciousVyne.2935:

1st and 2nd paragraph stuff

That’s cool, but you didn’t get my point and I am not going to reiterate it. Secondly, I know a multiclass theorycrafter who would easily disagree with you.

ViciousVyne.2935:

shatter build stuff.

Illusions would be best for survivability if mashing shatters was considered a defense. The whole line affects confusion and shattering. There isn’t a single defensive trait, healing trait, condition removal trait or stun break on that line. The line itself barely provides anything your shatters do not have. In fact, it doesn’t do much of anything you specify unless you consider confusion and (again) shattering as a defense.

ViciousVyne.2935:

Do you really think that all the problems could be solved if people just tried out different builds?

Actually, yeah. If everyone is stuck using the same build, the change in build itself will throw players offguard or create a counter nobody expects. How do you think metas are formed or changed? Because players (theorycrafters) try new things. But it never happens because everyone is afraid to step outside the meta.

Out of all the Subforums, I believe the mesmer forum is the one that comes up with the biggest amount of build suggestions, go and see for yourself. I’ve seen people try to utilize even the worst traits and utility skills, just to get something out of it.

….

The reality however is, that even if you perform excelent on them, you still end up being average at best.

Then you need to get out to the other profession forums more. Everyone has been posting ideas to make their favorite profession more fun. And if most of the bright minds in the thief community didn’t give up, you wouldn’t be able to make that statement at all, especially not in the thief forum. Ask any of the ex-thieves here (if they are on) and they’ll show you their threads.

ViciousVyne.2935:

I’ve seen mesmer go a tanky build, something similar just as you described. Almost all of them were considered freekills, got laughed at, and got huge flame from their teammembers, because lets face it, they bring nothing to the fight, that other professions can’t do better without putting back the entire team.

I am pretty sure it is a given that going pure tanky without having the survivability and damage of a war or guard is a free kill. Why do you never see a tanky thief? Because thieves can’t tank…. ever. Even with all those tanky traits.

ViciousVyne.2935:

mesmer folly stuff

Kinda like how you use to see decent thieves all over the place but now all you see is hotjoin heroes.

ViciousVyne.2935:

I did not overvictimize mesmers, infact I think they’re pretty balanced right now. It’s just that everything else around us is overperforming, but that’s a completely different topic for itself, and I’m not going to go into that.

…other stuff…

I’m just giving you perspective on your argument. You seem to leave out a few things which I have provided. Everything you’ve specified happens to the thief too, but the thief does not have the luxury of options nor do they have the luxury of covering themselves in any degree of a defensive boonwall. They have stealth and evades which (like i’ve said) only works on bad players.

ViciousVyne.2935:

That is my claim and I still stand to it. You have not adressed that even once, but instead wobbled around my arguments trying to find something else to talk about, and lecture me about what mesmers could do if we were just to think outside the box.
So maybe you should be the one to

stop putting words in my mouth

If you can’t cover your arguments from all sides, don’t be surprised when someone flanks you. Same concept applies to comparisons (and swordfighting). It isn’t my problem you don’t want to try anything different and there is no need to force you, but nothing will change until you change first.

Hence why I am providing perspective and comparisons of my own. And no, I havn’t put words in your mouth. It seemed to me you had a minor issue with mesmer survivability when you put “Mesmers survivabilty relies heavly on the cooldown of your utility skills,” up against the usual thief advantages everyone is tired of hearing.

Quite frankly, that is something alot of builds from every other profession tend to heavily rely on because that is part of combat.

So from everything I have gathered, your argument really boils down to is “no because stealth and evades” and I am really getting sick and tired of those two things being held up like its the be-all-end-all reason for every argument against thief buffs. And although that would be considered putting words in your mouth, a majority of the time it ends up being the exact reason.

ViciousVyne.2935:

If people claim or demand something, the burden to back it up lies on their shoulders, not on those that are sceptic. And unless you give me a good reason why a thief needs another 4.000 HP I wont be buying into your witty, half-knowledged stories.

If a good reason was given, would you accept it? Because if I didn’t know better, the general qualities of a good reason and (assuming) your version of a good reason are in completely different leagues.

Those good reasons are there and have been given time and time again but they are not “good enough”. So the answer remains “no”.

yolo swaggins.2570:

They have stealth and evades which (like i’ve said) only works on bad players

I don’t see how evades only work on bad players. True, you get more comfortable about dealing with stealth at a certain stage, but an evade will still get rid of all the damage no matter how skilled your opponent is, that you are fighting.

yolo swaggins.2570:

ViciousVyne.2935:

Do you really think that all the problems could be solved if people just tried out different builds?

Actually, yeah. If everyone is stuck using the same build, the change in build itself will throw players offguard or create a counter nobody expects. How do you think metas are formed or changed? Because players (theorycrafters) try new things. But it never happens because everyone is afraid to step outside the meta.

You forgot to quote the second part of my sentence in which I’ve said that people are trying hard to come up with builds but all we get is medicore at best. The Problem is not that we are too affraid to try, it’s just that we can’t come up with anything better with the options that are given to us right now.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Illusions would be best for survivability if mashing shatters was considered a defense. The whole line affects confusion and shattering. There isn’t a single defensive trait, healing trait, condition removal trait or stun break on that line. The line itself barely provides anything your shatters do not have. In fact, it doesn’t do much of anything you specify unless you consider confusion and (again) shattering as a defense.

I never claimed Illusions to be the best traitline for survivability, I said that compared to the phantasm builds you get of the Inspiration traitline, Shatter builds are much more versatile, giving us more options to addapt to the fight in an offesnive way, because sometimes offense is a good defense.
Of course you will have an easier time staying alive when you pick all the fancy mantra heals, but as you and me already figured out, you wont be able to kill anyone serious with it, and you will still die in the end.

yolo swaggins.2570:

I know a multiclass theorycrafter who would easily disagree with you.

I already told you, theory and reality are two different things.

yolo swaggins.2570:

I am really getting sick and tired of those two things being held up like its the be-all-end-all reason for every argument against thief buffs

I absolutely agree with you on that part. I believe thief needs a buff in certain areas since they can only really go down the DPS route, and I can totaly understand why that makes you mad. What I don’t agree with is giving them an HP increase (Which again, this thread is all about ) since that would also buff builds and areas that they are already toptier at, and that would end in a massive QQ-backlash in the forums. Anet would probably end up nerfing it again but not compensate with any buffs, leaving the thief worse than it was before.
Since you’re playing a necro I am pretty sure you know what I am talking about.

yolo swaggins.2570:

It seemed to me you had a minor issue with mesmer survivability when you put “Mesmers survivabilty relies heavly on the cooldown of your utility skills,” up against the usual thief advantages everyone is tired of hearing.

Well I don’t have an issue with it, we must have had a misunderstanding there, and I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear enough at that part. Mesmer survivability is just fine as it is.
But even if you’re tired of hearing the thieves advantages, it doesn’t change the fact that they have an easier time avoiding damage altogether compared to a mesmer that is required to take a couple of hits in the face every now and then, hence the larger HP pool.

I honestly believe a huge part of the build variety could be achieved if we had more game modes. If for over 2 years we’re stuck with conquest that requires you to stand in a tiny circle that is covered with AoE’s it hugely favors certain classes and builds while naturally puts others in a disadvantage.

yolo swaggins.2570:

If a good reason was given, would you accept it?

I would.
There is no shame in being wrong aslong as you can agree on it.

ViciousVyne.2935:

stuff

I guess we did have a big misunderstand but just to be clear, I left out some things because of the 5001 character limit and ended up just splitting it all into 2.

And as for the good reason, the reason thieves need any and all buffs is so anet can nerf all the evadespam, backstab and stealth spam builds without suffering another thief exodus. That is why thieves hardcore defend the class, something i’ve highly respected since I first joined.

yolo swaggins.2570:

the reason thieves need any and all buffs is so anet can nerf all the evadespam, backstab and stealth spam builds without suffering another thief exodus.

Sounds about right, and I can agree with that. The HP increase however, would have to be delevired in an overall rework of the thief, along with several other buffs and tweaks.
Just putting it in the game with the next patch would do more harm to the profession in the long run, because of how the community would react.

I completely agree, thieves need more Health. My mesmer kills them way too fast, it’s not funny anymore. Please turn my thief enemies in some kind of challenge, Anet!