Guild Wars 2

Hello Thief Community,
I’ve been playing thief as alt for long time,but since hot he’s been my main in pvp(warrior is my main so…)
What i actually understood is that shortbow 5 Infiltrator’s Arrow is the reason thieves are kept weak.It’s just so good,makes you the best roamer,you can go in and out of fights.
Even if Shortbow had only Infiltrator’s Arrow and auto attack people would still think about using it.
And that’s why Thieves are kept back so much.A small buff it can be a huge one with how much mobility and map presence it gives.
I don’t know what can be done to be fixed without nerfing the skill.
What i have in mind is maybe giving a trait in order “jump skills” let you go over cliffs and nerfing a bit the Infiltrator’s Arrow and buffing Shortbow damage.In my mindset looks right .
What do you think?

It’s not “holding us back”, it’s confining us into a role. Since the main pvp game mode in GW2 is Conquest, it’s usually not a good idea to give crazy mobility to a profession capable of bunkering a point. Just look at how ridiculous bunker mesmers have been this last couple of weeks. That’s because mesmers weren’t meant to be bunkers, but to be mobile roamers, thanks to Portal. In essence, if thieves were powerful bruisers or bunkers, it would be impossible to out-rotate them. I think that’s in essence what you meant.

But is that really a bad thing? Anet has tried to articulate two aspects of balance since release: having 8 (now 9) professions that feel very distinct, and having these profession able to fill different roles, to avoid the trinity of other games.

Because of profession design, some professions have always been better in certain roles. Mesmers and thieves have always been the best roamers. Necromancers are tanky teamfighters or point holders. I think guardian (and now mesmer) is the only profession with two viable builds filling extremely different roles.

Is that a bad thing? If you are a hard-core roleplayer with just one character who you imagine to be an honorable duelist, maybe. If you are a competitive pvp player, not that much: if I feel like holding points, or wrecking havoc in team fights, I just don’t play thief, and play one of the other professions. I like that thief has such a specific role. The game would not benefit for having 9 bruiser professions: how boring would that be?

That being said, the real thing holding thief back now is not SB: it’s the powercreep. Once things get nerfed, you’ll find yourself extremely useful, if you’re ready to embrace the thief playstyle.

Please don’t touch it.
Touch that without adding something proper back and then this class really is kitten and I’ll have to agree with those who say that “teef sucks” and ask me to reroll (or just report me right away).

Like Sorel said: The only thing holding back Thief right now, is the powercreep and insane buffs other classes (aside of warrior) have received. Not to mention that Passives at x% Health have incredibly dumbed down the game and make it even harder on Thieves.

EDIT:
I also don’t think they’ll actually be able to implement the idea you had due to engine restrictions. If it were possible, they’d probably have given Staff #5 (Vault) the option of vertical mobility with lower damage (coefficients) I think.

I’m okay with being squishy by class, as long as I can eat bunkers if I embrace the squishy, instead of being bad if I try to spec tanky and bad if I spec squishy.

Going to die if outplayed/bursted is ample tradeoff for bunker predator.

- [some] Thief players 2015

Welcome. As you’re new to thief we’ll inform you of something important to consider when talking about class skill and trait changes:

Don’t trust ANet to buff thief, even if it’s their honest intention.

Impact.2780:

Welcome. As you’re new to thief we’ll inform you of something important to consider when talking about class skill and trait changes:

Don’t trust ANet to buff thief, even if it’s their honest intention.

Thief was buffed, and in the coolest way possible. Daredevil is probably my favorite elite spec, and it gave us a lot of new tools which are excellent in theory. You can play a melee fighter with staff, or a super evasive interrupt build with Dash and PI.

Unfortunately, other professions were overbuffed.

A new F3 ~ F4 skill could do wonders since other classes get 5-8 of them. But other classes are the more popular cool kids who get more development work spent on them.

I agree with the OP and have made remarks in the past. Shadow Shot on D/P is also keeping the mainhand dagger from being buffed, and the Death Blossom “fix” made to D/D will now forever hurt the weapon from being used more effectively.

The sad part is they will likely never get the balance done correctly to warrant such a change.

There are a lot of major issues with the thief that can’t be solved by tuning numbers. Unfortunately that is all ANet is willing to do.

It has heavy initiative cost so the skill balances out. I notice some thieves using shortbow 5 to rush ahead to a node at the start and I’m like dude, you’ll need that initiative for your actual damage and debuff abilities.

Agemnon.4608:

It has heavy initiative cost so the skill balances out. I notice some thieves using shortbow 5 to rush ahead to a node at the start and I’m like dude, you’ll need that initiative for your actual damage and debuff abilities.

Not being a thief myself I can support that thief player based on what can actually happen.

He’ll beat the opposing teams player to the node or arrive at the same time. This prevents Far from being capped, and since this isn’t pro league play it will allow your team to cap Home while stalemating Mid. A good thief player can ensure you start ticking points before they do which gives your team an advantage, and also get away leaving that enemy player at home to join mid.

So what that means is your team is currently ticking at home with an imminent 5v4 at mid b/c they have to finish capping home.

Azukas.1426:

Agemnon.4608:

It has heavy initiative cost so the skill balances out. I notice some thieves using shortbow 5 to rush ahead to a node at the start and I’m like dude, you’ll need that initiative for your actual damage and debuff abilities.

Not being a thief myself I can support that thief player based on what can actually happen.

He’ll beat the opposing teams player to the node or arrive at the same time. This prevents Far from being capped, and since this isn’t pro league play it will allow your team to cap Home while stalemating Mid. A good thief player can ensure you start ticking points before they do which gives your team an advantage, and also get away leaving that enemy player at home to join mid.

So what that means is your team is currently ticking at home with an imminent 5v4 at mid b/c they have to finish capping home.

I get your point, but it’s almost always better to send a mobile bruiser (typically a scrapper) to far, since he can not only ensure the point stays decapped, but can also win the 1v1, or stay far for long enough to get a +1. Meanwhile, mid is a 4v4 (it starts as a 3v4, but by playing carefully and having 1-2 bunkers, it’s not a problem), far is contested, and close is ticking in your favor.

DeceiverX.8361:

I agree with the OP and have made remarks in the past. Shadow Shot on D/P is also keeping the mainhand dagger from being buffed

What would you want to buff? It’s already amazing. Shadow Shot blinds, and allows you to follow your target even if it blinds. You can land a BS with it. The auto-attack is fast, hits hard, and apply poison. Backstab hits hard from stealth. Heartseeker deals a ton of damage if you land it correctly, and it’s a leap finisher (I don’t have to explain why it’s great).

Frankly, d/p is amazing as it is. The only real problem with thief is the total lack of condition removal, and the current meta composed of bunkers, evades and stun-breakers spam, passive stuns, and AoE damage.

Some changes I would like to see, would be to update the conditions list on hide in shadows for all the damaging conditions in the game. In fact, evaluate the general condition removal options of the thief entirely. Possibly more healing on stuff like mug. Make 15 initiative baseline. Revert the changes done to black powder.

Some tradeoffs for these would be to increase the opportunity costs of the thief: Find a way to increase the cooldown of steal on a trickery thief without breaking the class entirely – this is the big one. Either make black powder shot not have a projectile finisher, or make it so that you can only get 1 stack of stealth from its field (similar to how temporal curtain worked on the mesmer) – this would force the thief to burn a cooldown for extended durations of stealth. Finally possibly reducing the range on shadow shot and shortbow 5 to 600 range. Maybe revert the regen change back to its original values (make 15 int baseline instead).

The rest of the balance would need to come from outside sources (other classes), in my opinion. For example, the near complete removal of revealed skills. Force players to properly time their CC’s to disrupt a thief going into stealth.

Hi Im new to the thief class, is there a reason why this is the only class that doesnt have any stability what so ever, or am I missing something?

Without the mobility, most of the thief and DD players would leave the class. The class is already redundant and its abilities mirrored by other classes far better with this one exception. IA isn’t holding the class back, it is fundamental to its current architecture.