Guild Wars 2

This is a rather philosophical question, I suppose.
What does a truly balanced Thief look like?
And does it take a skilled played to be successful with it?

A ninja could kill you in your sleep with a spoon.
Does that make the spoon an overpowered or balanced weapon?
If a ninja uses a basic sword on the battlefield, is the sword overpowered because he is still skilled enough to outfight 3 opponents with the same type of sword at once?

What is a balanced Thief?
Is it a profession that stands an equal chance in combat against any other profession as long as the other player is equally as skilled?
Or is it a profession that can destroy anyone if truly mastered, yet cannot compete with equally skilled opponents if not mastered?

And also, what SHOULD the Thief be? What should it be capable of, and what is the skill level that should be able to be effective with it?

In other words, what do we want to happen to the Thief? Is it bad to want improvements to become more competitive because it may require less skill? Is it bad to want improvements for lower skilled players because it will make it overpowered for masters or against new players? Is it preferable to be fighting with spoons instead of swords because it does require more skill?

Ps. These questions are combat-based. Not pertaining to the ability to hide or run around a map.

Its pretty much the same method of comparing non-HoT builds to their meta counterpart. In the right hands, you can play a non-meta build and do good or so-so, but you have a much easier time playing that “cheesy” garbage that puts out higher numbers with less effort. Can buff thief all day, but it won’t do any good to “master” or new players, thief needs QoL changes and reworks. It is still playable but only on a moderately skilled level, new players are very noticeable on a thief.

I guess that’s really the question. Where does balancing/changing/reworking end and “overpowering” begin?

One man’s “balanced buff” is another man’s “cheese.”

First, three dodges with Feline Grace was considered overpowered. Then two dodges with vigor was seen as underpowered. Then Daredevil gets a third dodge as baseline… plus a Leap Finisher to boot, but that seems to be ok.

People like to use terms like “OP,” “broken,” and “cheese” so much. But I don’t always understand what their standards are based on. Should we base that standard on an ideal Thief playstyle? Should we base it on the current Thief status in an isolated manner? Should we base it on the current/past status of the other professions?

First of all, thieves should be a class that rewards ‘skill’
So if a normal profession was this , a faceroll profession looked more like this (just the graph, not actual numbers), thief should be this.
That is of course a rather rough approximation.

But that does not neccessarely mean that we have to ‘destroy’ everyone on pro level play.
In a perfect world we would start most high level fights with a small advantage, but not one that cant be overcome.
Additionaly there would also be counter guar…classes, that can beat us more easily.
And of course being a stronger class does not mean you have the advantage in 1v1 or in fights in general.
Thieves in duels should be dangerous. At least an equal chance to kill every profession (excluding counter mechanics), but focussing the class entirely on winning every 1v1 would mean to create a moster. We can choose our opponents after all.
So parts of our strenght would include the movement.
A few general guidelines:
-A bad thief will loose most of their duels.
-A good thief will be able to win every fight as long as they make no mistakes (impossible in practice, rather: less mistakes)
-A thief on the offense is in the best possible position
-A thief defending will have a much harder time
(The suprise, the first hit, the dependance on blocking your point)
-A thief is the least desireable class in any fighting scenarios of more than 4 players.
(For teamfights our current role of picking up the weakest link as soon as they retreat is pretty much perfect)
-The thief class should be extremely unforgiving. To both the thief player and their opponent.

Asrat.2645:

First of all, thieves should be a class that rewards ‘skill’
So if a normal profession was this , a faceroll profession looked more like this (just the graph, not actual numbers), thief should be this.
That is of course a rather rough approximation.

But that does not neccessarely mean that we have to ‘destroy’ everyone on pro level play.
In a perfect world we would start most high level fights with a small advantage, but not one that cant be overcome.
Additionaly there would also be counter guar…classes, that can beat us more easily.
And of course being a stronger class does not mean you have the advantage in 1v1 or in fights in general.
Thieves in duels should be dangerous. At least an equal chance to kill every profession (excluding counter mechanics), but focussing the class entirely on winning every 1v1 would mean to create a moster. We can choose our opponents after all.
So parts of our strenght would include the movement.
A few general guidelines:
-A bad thief will loose most of their duels.
-A good thief will be able to win every fight as long as they make no mistakes (impossible in practice, rather: less mistakes)
-A thief on the offense is in the best possible position
-A thief defending will have a much harder time
(The suprise, the first hit, the dependance on blocking your point)
-A thief is the least desireable class in any fighting scenarios of more than 4 players.
(For teamfights our current role of picking up the weakest link as soon as they retreat is pretty much perfect)
-The thief class should be extremely unforgiving. To both the thief player and their opponent.

I do not agree with the idea that Thieves should reward skill to a greater extent than other professions. Ideally, a competitive player could use any profession and be rewarded at a high level of play -though, of course, roles and build options would be dependent on profession. I would rather see all professions be given access to both low risk – low reward builds and high risk – high rewards builds. This way both highly skilled and newer or less skilled players can use any profession. In other words, the graphs you show should apply, ideally, to different builds available to every profession.

Some of your other guidelines, however, seem to describe more of the flavor or playstyle of the profession, and these are perfectly fine in my opinion (e.g. Thieves should do better on offense than on defense).

Good point. But there will alsways be professions that are easier to play and some that require more training. Thieves should be in the second category. Not exclusively tho.

I don’t usually like making comparisons to other games but this one is pretty good.

For any of you who have played blade and soul, the assassin class is one of the harder classes, and it’s very very rewarding if you outplay the other opponent at every opportunity. It’s called OP by those who don’t know their skills and how to counter them. They can 100-0 if they predict and react to what the opponent is doing.

Basically, the thief needs to be heavily rewarded for outplaying the opponent. Right now there isn’t much risk/reward factor.

Asrat.2645:

First of all, thieves should be a class that rewards ‘skill’
So if a normal profession was this , a faceroll profession looked more like this (just the graph, not actual numbers), thief should be this.
That is of course a rather rough approximation.

But that does not neccessarely mean that we have to ‘destroy’ everyone on pro level play.
In a perfect world we would start most high level fights with a small advantage, but not one that cant be overcome.
Additionaly there would also be counter guar…classes, that can beat us more easily.
And of course being a stronger class does not mean you have the advantage in 1v1 or in fights in general.
Thieves in duels should be dangerous. At least an equal chance to kill every profession (excluding counter mechanics), but focussing the class entirely on winning every 1v1 would mean to create a moster. We can choose our opponents after all.
So parts of our strenght would include the movement.
A few general guidelines:
-A bad thief will loose most of their duels.
-A good thief will be able to win every fight as long as they make no mistakes (impossible in practice, rather: less mistakes)
-A thief on the offense is in the best possible position
-A thief defending will have a much harder time
(The suprise, the first hit, the dependance on blocking your point)
-A thief is the least desireable class in any fighting scenarios of more than 4 players.
(For teamfights our current role of picking up the weakest link as soon as they retreat is pretty much perfect)
-The thief class should be extremely unforgiving. To both the thief player and their opponent.

My condi shatter mesmer says “Hi”

Azukas.1426:

My condi shatter mesmer says “Hi”

Your condi shatter mesmer is the exact oposite of unforgiving.
It takes some basic practice to get it, after that the invulnerability uptime makes it almost impossible to hit you, the heal makes every mistake you may make just a minor lack of comfort.
The insane access to new illusions means you cant do anything wrong with your shatters and the condi means your enemy is kiling themselves. All you have to do is not get hit (easy), press shatters (easy) and create illusions quickly (kinda hard)
And ofc you still have a split moa in case something goes wrong.
Chronophantasma is the only build that is able to reliably win every 1v1 and has a fair chance of winning 2v1s.
It also offers decent mobility.
In other words: it is exactly what thief should not be and it is exactly what thief used to be, just less squishy and therefore more forgiving.

Asrat.2645:

Azukas.1426:

My condi shatter mesmer says “Hi”

Your condi shatter mesmer is the exact oposite of unforgiving.
It takes some basic practice to get it, after that the invulnerability uptime makes it almost impossible to hit you, the heal makes every mistake you may make just a minor lack of comfort.
The insane access to new illusions means you cant do anything wrong with your shatters and the condi means your enemy is kiling themselves. All you have to do is not get hit (easy), press shatters (easy) and create illusions quickly (kinda hard)
And ofc you still have a split moa in case something goes wrong.
Chronophantasma is the only build that is able to reliably win every 1v1 and has a fair chance of winning 2v1s.
It also offers decent mobility.
In other words: it is exactly what thief should not be and it is exactly what thief used to be, just less squishy and therefore more forgiving.

I was pointing out that the creating of what you are scared of has already been done in a significantly easier to play form.

Hopefully tomorrow brings skill back into my class and the rest of the game

Azukas.1426:

Asrat.2645:

Azukas.1426:

My condi shatter mesmer says “Hi”

Your condi shatter mesmer is the exact oposite of unforgiving.
It takes some basic practice to get it, after that the invulnerability uptime makes it almost impossible to hit you, the heal makes every mistake you may make just a minor lack of comfort.
The insane access to new illusions means you cant do anything wrong with your shatters and the condi means your enemy is kiling themselves. All you have to do is not get hit (easy), press shatters (easy) and create illusions quickly (kinda hard)
And ofc you still have a split moa in case something goes wrong.
Chronophantasma is the only build that is able to reliably win every 1v1 and has a fair chance of winning 2v1s.
It also offers decent mobility.
In other words: it is exactly what thief should not be and it is exactly what thief used to be, just less squishy and therefore more forgiving.

I was pointing out that the creating of what you are scared of has already been done in a significantly easier to play form.

Hopefully tomorrow brings skill back into my class and the rest of the game

Well that we can agree on. Seeing power mesmers or true elementalists suffer like that aint nice.

Asrat.2645:

Azukas.1426:

Asrat.2645:

Azukas.1426:

My condi shatter mesmer says “Hi”

Your condi shatter mesmer is the exact oposite of unforgiving.
It takes some basic practice to get it, after that the invulnerability uptime makes it almost impossible to hit you, the heal makes every mistake you may make just a minor lack of comfort.
The insane access to new illusions means you cant do anything wrong with your shatters and the condi means your enemy is kiling themselves. All you have to do is not get hit (easy), press shatters (easy) and create illusions quickly (kinda hard)
And ofc you still have a split moa in case something goes wrong.
Chronophantasma is the only build that is able to reliably win every 1v1 and has a fair chance of winning 2v1s.
It also offers decent mobility.
In other words: it is exactly what thief should not be and it is exactly what thief used to be, just less squishy and therefore more forgiving.

I was pointing out that the creating of what you are scared of has already been done in a significantly easier to play form.

Hopefully tomorrow brings skill back into my class and the rest of the game

Well that we can agree on. Seeing power mesmers or true elementalists suffer like that aint nice.

Stop forgetting about scrappers. I don’t know why but everyone keeps forgetting to nerf them ridiculous scrappers.

Get that under control too.

Kageseigi.2150:

This is a rather philosophical question, I suppose.
What does a truly balanced Thief look like?
And does it take a skilled played to be successful with it?

This comes down to equal representation.

If they give a Thief access to P/P, then this weapon set should perform close to other weapon sets. Making this set underpowered makes the Thief unbalanced.

Then the Thief needs to be relatively balanced when compared to other professions. Just by simply looking at how many weapon sets each other profession has access to, the Thief is left with a handful of skills due to limited weapon sets. The balance of Thief relative to other profession is based on the Thief’s capability of doing their job — that is to do massive damage to single or AoE targets. If the Thief cannot do their job, the Thief is unbalanced.

Then the Thief needs to be balanced when it comes to mechanic restrictions. No other profession has a mechanic restriction like Revealed. This mechanic restriction affects the Thief the most since the Thief uses stealth for both offense (stealth attacks) and defense (invisibility). To be the only profession with such a mechanic restriction makes the profession unbalanced.

So to answer the question about a balanced Thief, all of the above needs to be adjusted and Revealed to be abolished.

The player skills should simply be a factor that tips the balance. When all professions are balanced, it would end up in a stalemate so a balance tipper needs to be in place. Therefore, the player skills should not be counted as a factor when balancing the profession because nerfing the Thief because someone is too good at using the profession will only make it a bad profession for everyone else.

Think about this as a car race where everyone is using a stock vehicle. The winner of the race didn’t win because his car is overpowered, the winning team won because of the skill of the driver, the wisdom of the coach, and the skills of the crew. They didn’t nerf the car because one particular team is too good at racing — that’s stupid and lazy — thus the decisions of the GW2 balance team in nerfing the Thief is stupid and lazy.

In my personal opinion, ArenaNet needs a new person in charge of the balance team and I nominate Karl. He’d showed that despite what the other developers are doing with their professions (like overpowering them to heck), Karl kept his senses and gave us a well rounded Daredevil profession.

As per the normal, I disagree entirely with Vincent’s post.

Revealed keeps the thief in check. The problem is over-dependence on stealth for a specific set of effects on core thief (condition removal namely), and other classes having such ridiculous stealth access these days while being designed to function optimally out of stealth, making their access strictly better than the thief’s, and then AoE-revealing effects being so easy to acquire where such defenses are overly-punished on the build-level. Cut down other classes, round out the thief’s capabilities more across trait lines to make it function better while not in stealth without simply providing passives or ridiculous sustain, and things start looking good. Simply removing revealed this late in the game is a conceptually misguided attempt at a fix to a problem which really barely even exists in the scope of the identified weakness.

I think Karl knows how to balance PvE to make things useful. That’s all. I think he’s inept for PvP balancing, especially when we’re seeing the Daredevil be so much more mathematically and conceptually superior to the core thief on numerous levels when it comes to PvP encounter analysis. I frankly do not think the Daredevil is even remotely well-designed, as it is redundant, strictly improves the thief, and simply warped an existing style of play to fit a new agenda and level of power of the expansion.

As far as the prospect of skill versus balance and the philosophical question of what that entails, there should not be a profession which is objectively better in “more skilled” hands than any other. Each style of play, a build objective of each profession acting as a subset style of play, should have its strengths and weaknesses, which mechanically, are minor enough to offset a margin of error accounting for player-skill discrepancies, not to any particular class or opposing build, but to entire styles of play or build concepts. In an ideal world, the abstract “skill ceiling” should be equal for all classes and builds, where a win in a given fight should come down to a mixture of where that player stands relative to his opponent to said “ceiling” and the innate advantages/disadvantages of the builds themselves. This may seem unfair and imbalanced, but that is because the notion of a perfectly-balanced game involving such complexity is quite literally impossible, for skill is an abstract concept which cannot be objectively measured. The only way to tell is through attempted data analysis and consumer feedback, which thus invalidates the prospect of ever being able to objectively measure player-driven difficulty, and if attempting to balance the game in doing so, would create a paradigm where high skill = better yields design would always indicate that the performance of a given build/class designation in competitive play is always superior to others assuming equally- or near-equally-skilled players, implying the very definition of the class/build not being balanced.

I do wonder what the guys at anet are doing.
They destroyed my thief with a single patch a year ago – the pvp forum, this forum and probably other forums are full of complaints about the powercreep and what did they do? add more powercreep and now we have to wait another 4months until some things might or might not change – a time in which players one shot each other.
Why are they so afraid to make a proper balance patch and nerf big time?
They are losing players because they don’t – screw those facerollers they will leave anyway.

I will be on topic in a few mins.. probably

OT: In short, I want my thief back – it’s that simple. I wasn’t playing a faceroll build, I was vulnerable, I had a 50% to win a fight (the rest 45% was my skill, believe it or not – has been destroyed because of the other classes passives and changes to the game).
I didn’t create a thief because I wanted an “assassin” I created a thief because I promised Iwould do it – what blew me away was how fast he was and I loved the initative system. In the end; I grew into the role of an assassin. And I guess that’s just how thief is and always will be, no matter if we try to change the roles: Someone who’s super fast = assassin, has to be squishy = stealth and so on. Redefining the role of thief would create a whole new class. How about something like Revenant?

And with that I’m retiring from the forums – I need you guys to take care of D/D thief for me as I’m probably the last one around (not so sure about Deceiver )
Be loud and be fair and if you want to push ground targetting, insist that it will be an option – GW2 is a completely different game than GW1 and ground targetting and thief is no real good idea. Probably not even for staff.

Revealed doesn’t keep Thief in check. Cooldown added to stealth attacks and stealth detection mechanics can also keep the Thief in check without the burden placed on the Thief because of laziness reason. If stealth is such a problem, then remove stealth then change stealth attacks to flanking attacks where it triggers depending on the players position. So if the Thief is attacking from behind, skill #1 changes to Backstab. There are better solutions than Revealed.

Daredevil didn’t power creep at the same level as the other professions. It is a display of common sense and restraint to keep a balance profession. The current person in charge of the balance team is obviously clueless giving us more power creeps than an actual balance. This needs to change.

This notion about “skill ceiling” is nothing but a white rabbit that offers nothing but a wild goose chase. How can you even determine it in the first place? It’s utter nonsense. You’ll just keep nerfing anf buffing every season just because the skill level of the players fluctuates — this will become ArenaNet’s Sisyphus boulder.

A basket ball doesn’t get heavier just because MJ or KB is carrying it. Their skills in playing the game don’t grant less skilled players more points just to keep it balance. GW2 is practically giving free points to less skilled players and less point to more skilled players. Since the skill level of each players varies deeply, it is better for ArenaNet to simply develop a profession that is balanced relative to other professions and let players play the game how ever they want to. Rather than trying to be a nanny or a police all the time, the Devs needs to take a step back and keep in mind that this is a game to be enjoyed by everyone and not just by those who play in sPvP. Besides, the Mist already have their own restrictions that they can expand if they really want a fair and well balanced PvP. However, for the rest of the players who doesn’t care about sPvP, they should be allowed to play their professions fairly balanced relative to other professions.

The Thief class is lacking a lot of skills compare to other class in terms of weapon skills. If they increase this number by giving the profession more access to other weapons, it will give the Thief the ability to be relatively balanced compared to other professions. Thief has no support weapon set while other professions have. Thief has no access to heal and cleanse weapon skills. Thief overall is not a finished product.

Can someone explain to me how access to more weapons would make thief more balanced/viable? I’m really hearing this a lot, but being a newer kind of player I don’t really get it? Isn’t thief’s variety of weapons diverse enough to suit the thief play style from single target burst dodger to condi aoe trapper? I mean i guess compared to the other classes aoe dmg, survivability and passives thief might not be viable, but how would more weapon diversity change this? Would really creating even more diversity that’s underperforming compared to other classes help?

NuhDah.9812:

Can someone explain to me how access to more weapons would make thief more balanced/viable? I’m really hearing this a lot, but being a newer kind of player I don’t really get it? Isn’t thief’s variety of weapons diverse enough to suit the thief play style from single target burst dodger to condi aoe trapper? I mean i guess compared to the other classes aoe dmg, survivability and passives thief might not be viable, but how would more weapon diversity change this? Would really creating even more diversity that’s underperforming compared to other classes help?

Here’s some possible weapon skills (personal preferences varies):
A Rifle can give Thief a 1200 range weapon with probably some support skills tied to the weapon.

A Torch can give Thief a party-wide buff and AoE zone control.

A Focus can give Thief a way to remove conditions and steal buffs.

The Staff would have been a good weapon to expand Shadow Arts by giving party heals, party stealth, etc.

A Greatsword can have CC skills (shadow stiching) and party buffs with shadowstep focused DPS skills.

The possibilities are endless.

I see you listed some of your thoughts about expanding the thief weapon lore. But my point is, why would thief need this. For example, if the devs decide to incresed the P/P range for thief to 1200 wouldn’t that be the same as what you said about using a riffle?

This is my first point to you. Secondly, by adding some of this options wouldn’t thief really start to play like other professions, why would you choose a thief that fights with GS like an Guardian and not choose the Guardian itself? The point isn’t to change the play style of the class, but the improve on it an let it be unique the way it play. Why add something you can play on another class and not really improve on what’s already there?

NuhDah.9812:

I see you listed some of your thoughts about expanding the thief weapon lore. But my point is, why would thief need this. For example, if the devs decide to incresed the P/P range for thief to 1200 wouldn’t that be the same as what you said about using a riffle?

No. Because a new weapon set can grant the Thief access to 5 new weapon skills. Increasing the range of pistol doesn’t really improve the profession.

This is my first point to you. Secondly, by adding some of this options wouldn’t thief really start to play like other professions, why would you choose a thief that fights with GS like an Guardian and not choose the Guardian itself?

The skills given to Thief may be similar to other professions but functions differently. Your questions is basically asking the question to Mesmer why pick a Mesmer if you’re going to use stealth and why not just pick a Thief. Or Why pick a Guardian if you’re going to DPS with a Greatsword when Warrior is better at using them. Mesmers, Necro, and Rangers all uses Greatsword, why not just use Warrior?

It comes down to skill combinations. Each profession can both DPS and support, so why is this denied from Thief? How come Thief has no access to support in their weapon skills?

So your question is out of the game context.

The point isn’t to change the play style of the class, but the improve on it an let it be unique the way it play. Why add something you can play on another class and not really improve on what’s already there?

First of all, Thief is lacking condition removal from their weapon set. Sure Sword #2 can remove condition, but it cannot remove condition from the Thief’s party members. And to change the functionality of a weapon skill will cause a lot of balance issue. So the best course of action is to introduce condition removal skills by adding new a weapon — just like my Focus example above.

Second of all, the addition of other weapons doesn’t change the play style of the profession. It simply gives the profession more options in their weapon set. Right now weapon swapping for Thief means nothing due to initiatives restrictions. What if a Greatsword weapon skill is part initiative based and part cooldown based? Say skill #2 and #3 are DPS skills that cost initiatives, but #4 and #5 has cooldowns that can be used party wide. It doesn’t change the playstyle of the Thief, it just makes then less a liability in a party or raid settings.

Third, if your argument is to be taken seriously, they should just delete all classes except for Warrior, Elementalist and Engineer.

NuhDah.9812:

Can someone explain to me how access to more weapons would make thief more balanced/viable? I’m really hearing this a lot, but being a newer kind of player I don’t really get it? Isn’t thief’s variety of weapons diverse enough to suit the thief play style from single target burst dodger to condi aoe trapper? I mean i guess compared to the other classes aoe dmg, survivability and passives thief might not be viable, but how would more weapon diversity change this? Would really creating even more diversity that’s underperforming compared to other classes help?

I wouldn’t say it would make the Thief more balanced or viable. It could definitely create more versatility, though.

I think your last sentence nails it. The Thief is underperforming compared to other professions. That can be fixed with the weapon sets we have now. But it isn’t.

Just as an example, the Thief has access to traps. You can literally say that the Thief is versatile enough to run as a trapper. The problem comes when you actually look at the traps the Thief has compared to those that other professions have.

Thief Traps
Ambush: Does no damage. Calls in a weak AI Thief at YOUR location (not the target). If you are Stealthed, the AI Thief gives away your location… even if you’ve moved to the other side of the map when the trap is triggered. In order for the AI to do anything helpful, you must actually engage the target yourself.

Needle Trap: Does only condition damage (not useful for a power Thief). Immobilizes target for 3 seconds, which is handy if you are already on top of the target.

Shadow Trap: Does no damage. Buffs your power and grants Stealth temporarily. In order to actually do any damage, you have to blindly teleport to the target… that is if your teleport can actually reach the target because of all of the pathfinding issues in the game. It can be uses as a stun-breaker or escape, but has a VERY long casting time, and it still suffers from pathfinding issues… which may lead to you escaping on 15 feet away into a wall.

Tripwire: Does no damage. It knocks the target down for 3 seconds. In order to do any damage whatsoever, you must already be on top of the target.

Not to mention that these traps ONLY affect 1 target… unless you get EXTREMELY lucky. Now, compare these to the other traps in the game…

Traps that heal the trapper and allies.
Traps that give the trapper and allies Aegis.
Traps that cover an entire control zone on a map.
Traps that Chill, affecting skill cooldowns.
Traps that create combo fields.
Traps that Reveal Stealthed targets.
Traps that literally trap a target inside.
Traps that pull a target inside.
Traps that do direct, power-based damage… that can kill a Thief instantly.

So the problem isn’t necessarily that the Thief can or cannot do things. The problem is that it can’t do things as well as others. So, perhaps, in increasing the options for a Thief (with more weapons, etc.), the Thief will have more chance of gaining something that it can do as well or better than others.

If Staff, Dagger and Sword didn’t play out with nearly identical combat purposes, but with different combat styles, we won’t have to go thru this endless series of music chairs where the viability of the weapon sets changes each balance path.

Sir Vincent III.1286

When I said upping P/P range to 1200 I was just giving an example of improvement, it doesn’t have to be this, it can be this and other improvements/changes to the whole weapon set to make P/P play the way it does, but being worth using if you build your character in certain ways -> so changes should be done to core specializations too. I mean they should work on the builds that already exist rather then adding new things.

They’ve added staff a few while ago and can’t seem to find too many people playing it in sPvP since it doesn’t make the thief more viable. I know I’m repeating myself, but instead of adding whole new things that don’t make thief viable, why not improve on what already exists. Thief wasn’t always the underdog, but repeated nerfs to our mechanics and the newly introduced power creep took it to the ground.

And since thief is a class that works more with burst and mobility rather then range and support what would be the point in adding some range miracle to this profession. Not to mention that would probably make either the thief op or would not add much to it’s performance (e.g. staff usefulness).

And yeah, I know I’m talking about pvp, and staff does good in pve (at least in terms of dmg) which is great, so with few trait changes to make the profession more team oriented thief would may even be a wanted party member, not a filler.

Anyways, every profession has and should have things they are better at and things they don’t get to shine at in different real (if possible an mostly equal amount of end game pve and pvp situations) contexts. This makes professions different. So the thief was always a class which is mostly burst, very mobile, and better at single target dmg or the poson/bleeder/dodger. Most notable in the past there were other effective chioses for thief like burst/condi + stealth types or medium range condi pressure kiter + stealth P/P or P/D. So the thief class has/had various options more based on sneaking, high mobility (either for escaping and returning for another burst either for sustained kiting) and lower range then other classes. the problem is they are not viable anymore so they need either to rework them to get them to match classes potential (to make thief shine more in some situations and less in other compared to the other classes) or to balance the other out of control … miracle … that’s happening nowadays in the game.

Back to what your post, thief has one of the best condi removal trait lines in SA, but again that spec is not very effective right now and that is what needs rework. Weapon condi removal isn’t something mandatory and also there are sigils which can do that kind of stuff if you need it. As for removing party members conditions are you seriously telling me because this is one thing thief can’t do they are undesired or underperforming? No, in fact thief is not desired because it’s underperforming in most of what it can do, even the traditional single target dmg. You hope for balance in a game where there are classes that can aoe group burst people faster then others that have their peak in single target dmg and still don’t match the one that can do more and with multiple targets at the same time. Again this is just an example, but let’s say thief would be the same squishy thing it is now and lack in team support as it is now. If the thief would have access to the best single target dps in the game can you still say it wouldn’t be a wanted team player. This also applies for other of possible characteristics including best support of some kind either condi removal or buff provider, or a balance overall sustained with support… all those things can be possible if they tweak the spec trees or changing some game mechanics – I’m sure there should be ways to do this without messing up balance that much – not that there is much more to mess up.

As for your second point – why not reduce initiative consumption on things that consume to much initiative and puts the thief in a bad spot? How would adding cooldowns and abilities that don’t use initiative not be a change in the core of the thief play style? <- also if you want to play with cooldown and resource I’m sure other classes have those kind of choices (hail to rev). Every class should have ways into the higher ranks without betraying it’s core mechanic. I’m telling you if they are liability right now get them some real useful buffs in their specs don’t change them by adding stuff they either don’t need or out of their play style. (oh, and with today’s “useful” changes, I see Acrobatics almost viable, but taking acrobatics would kill all the burst potential of the thief, which wasn’t, compared to other classes, so much of a cruel burst in the first place unless you went 100% glass cannon, save to say if the thief needed survivability with no burst SA would have been more then enough).

I’m not sure what you wanted to make of your 3rd point, but all the classes have different play styles, even though there might be similarities between some builds of different classes, I don’t believe this is something that you’d want to add more of.

MadRabbit.3179:

If Staff, Dagger and Sword didn’t play out with nearly identical combat purposes, but with different combat styles, we won’t have to go thru this endless series of music chairs where the viability of the weapon sets changes each balance path.

Not that they put too much effort in trying to balance them according to the thief community needs.

NuhDah.9812:

When I said upping P/P range to 1200 I was just giving an example of improvement…

However that is not an improvement at all. When the game first released, Pistol and Shortbow has 1200 range and they don’t really make the Thief more viable then. So going back to that is not an improvement to the profession. It will be just more of the same thing since it is still centered on DPS.

They’ve added staff a few while ago and can’t seem to find too many people playing it in sPvP since it doesn’t make the thief more viable…

The staff was a missed opportunity. If they instead made an Elite Spec based around Shadow Arts instead of Acro and create skills and traits using Shadow Magic, it would be the very definition of improvement to the Thief profession. The Thief is a profession about shadow art, shadowstep, and steal — none of those can be found in the DD spec. It would have been a better design choice for them to not create the Revenant and create a Monk instead with the DD and Revenant specs. But moving forward, Thief doesn’t need another way to do DPS. What the Thief needs is something to do when it cannot DPS due to PvE fight mechanics and certain PvP situation.

And since thief is a class that works more with burst and mobility rather then range and support what would be the point in adding some range miracle to this profession…

There are times that the Thief cannot burst and mobility doesn’t do anything. In that situation, all the Thief can do is pick his nose until it has the opportunity to do damage. Instead, the Thief should be able to swap weapon set to play support until the opportunity presents itself rather than doing nothing. This is how the other professions plays and this is the main design idea of ArenaNet for all profession — to be able to switch to a supporting role in certain situations. The major difference is that the Thief has to commit to a set of support utility skills while other professions can simply swap weapons.

And yeah, I know I’m talking about pvp, and staff does good in pve (at least in terms of dmg) which is great, so with few trait changes to make the profession more team oriented thief would may even be a wanted party member, not a filler.

That’s the issue about the staff, it just another DPS weapon when the Thief needs range and support capabilities. You can’t just keep changing the traits because it will cause other builds to be affected. The traits needs to be general enough so that the Thief can benefit from it regardless of what weapon they choose. Traits like Dagger Training and Swindler’s Equilibrium needs to stop specifying certain weapon, instead it should be applicable to all weapon. All these traits does is further pigeon hole the builds around certain weapon set instead of encouraging build diversity.

Anyways, every profession has and should have things they are better at and things they don’t get to shine at in different real (if possible an mostly equal amount of end game pve and pvp situations) contexts…

Not in GW2, unfortunately. Take the Guardian for example, it shines in melee, range, tank, and support. Engineer is the same way. Ele is the same way. Necro is the same way. But Thief? Thief cannot do half of those. So that notion is not within the context of the game. That’s simply an idea that doesn’t apply in GW2.

Back to what your post, thief has one of the best condi removal trait lines in SA, but again that spec is not very effective right now and that is what needs rework…

We’re talking about weapon sets. Why does the Thief have to spec SA in order to deal with conditions while other professions can do so with a simple weapon swap?

Weapon condi removal isn’t something mandatory and also there are sigils which can do that kind of stuff if you need it…

I’m sorry but that is pure nonsense.

As for removing party members conditions are you seriously telling me because this is one thing thief can’t do they are undesired or underperforming? No, in fact thief is not desired because it’s underperforming in most of what it can do, even the traditional single target dmg…

That perception is too narrow. When the Thief cannot DPS due to fight mechanic, then what? While other profession swaps to support weapon set, the Thief does nothing but wait. The Thief cannot contribute to the party when it cannot DPS. Yes there are fights where the boss goes invulnerable or goes airborne while your whole party takes damage. During this time, the Thief can’t do anything but pick his nose.

As for your second point – why not reduce initiative consumption on things that consume to much initiative and puts the thief in a bad spot? How would adding cooldowns and abilities that don’t use initiative not be a change in the core of the thief play style? <- also if you want to play with cooldown and resource I’m sure other classes have those kind of choices (hail to rev). Every class should have ways into the higher ranks without betraying it’s core mechanic…

What are you talking about? My examples are very clear that an option to combine initiative and cooldown in the same weapon set is but one possibility. Stealth attacks don’t use initiatives, is that a betrayal to the core mechanic? That’s nothing but a ridiculous notion.

Simply reducing the init cost won’t fix the problem in terms of build diversity. Sure you can simply pick another profession but what if the player wants to play Thief and wants to play support. Right now the Thief can build Venom Share with Shadow Refuge, but that’s all in the utility skills and nothing in the weapon set. If I want to play Ranger and I want to play support, the support skills are also available in the weapon set. If I want to play Elementalist and I want to play support, the support skills are also in the weapon set.

If after all these you still not getting the necessity of more weapon set and build diversity — I have nothing more to tell you.

I’m not sure what you wanted to make of your 3rd point, but all the classes have different play styles, even though there might be similarities between some builds of different classes, I don’t believe this is something that you’d want to add more of.

All other professions can melee and range dps, and support right off their weapon set. Thief cannot. Play style is based on build diversity and has very little to do with what profession you choose, except of course the Thief because choosing this profession will pigeon hole you to a DPS play style due to limited build diversity.

NuhDah.9812:

if the devs decide to incresed the P/P range for thief to 1200 wouldn’t that be the same as what you said about using a riffle?

Check the proposal in my signature as to what the rifle could bring and how a massively different weapon skill kit can have a profound difference in play style viability.

Buffs aren’t the answer to any profession. Options and breadth-of-capability are.

Thief is pretty hard to master but once you do … Your main role is to bring havoc on the battlefield and confuse your opponents and drop shadow refuge before the stomp on your allies and always be running around for weak targets. Shortbowing the hell outta your allies auras is also a good way to apply boon while dealing decent amount of DPS.
I hope this helps.

Feel free to pm me if you want in depth details about thief gameplay.

-Kaishina

I..I dont think anyone uses shadow refuge in pvp anymore.

Asrat.2645:

I..I dont think anyone uses shadow refuge in pvp anymore.

Yea that’s right because reveal has become too mainstream but SR is still useful in many many ways not to mention that it works as an aura and projectiles that go through it have awesome outcome.