Guild Wars 2

Lofat.2406:

So if you have a “white thief” in your group that gives you buffs, you’re basically immune to any other opposing thief with your idea. So you suggest having a thief in your group to be able to see a thief 100% of the time which would basically give you super powers over all enemy thieves. I would propose a major damage reduction or an increase in the damage you take if you have this buff active. After all, if you want to see us, there has to be some risk involved.

In all reality, your proposal would nerf thieves to the ground as our stealth would be useless. It would eliminate backstabs and sneak attacks, not to mention give us no defensive skills. The Shadow Arts tree would have to be completely reworked to account for your proposal, and the bottom line is that it’s completely unrealistic. I’m all for hearing people out, but this isn’t a fix, it’s a gigantic advantage for everyone else and turns thieves into a useless class.

Looks like you dont know your benefits if you are on a permanent stealth right? Try to fire your pistol when you are on a stealth mode looks like machine gun right? And a lot of benefits you can gain if you are on a stealth mode., we only ask is to see you how beautiful are you., we just want to see you a lot of the times dont shy to us we are your friend. Thats the only thing want.

jan.9745:

… we just want to see you a lot of the times dont shy to us we are your friend. Thats the only thing want.

It’s hard to make out exactly what you are suggesting, but I am pretty sure you are no friend.

Hitting stuff ends stealth, a long duration stealth on a large cooldown will eliminate it as combat tool, including all the little benefits that replace some of the boons other classes get. Without those benefits, without the boons that other classes get, and without the damage from stealth skills this means every thief could as well be deleted. Suggesting we delete our character automatically puts you in the not-a-friend category.

frans.8092:

jan.9745:

… we just want to see you a lot of the times dont shy to us we are your friend. Thats the only thing want.

It’s hard to make out exactly what you are suggesting, but I am pretty sure you are no friend.

Hitting stuff ends stealth, a long duration stealth on a large cooldown will eliminate it as combat tool, including all the little benefits that replace some of the boons other classes get. Without those benefits, without the boons that other classes get, and without the damage from stealth skills this means every thief could as well be deleted. Suggesting we delete our character automatically puts you in the not-a-friend category.

Im am your friend., 1st of all we need you in a group or party before we engage to battle w/out you we die to all the black thiefs in the battleground., we just want to make the same venom kill there own venom. And the rules are we need to be near at you like 3000 range to activate that bufs.. If your white thief die, the bufs will no longer effective., so we need to revive you a.s.a.p it means thief will contribute a big role for the battle.,
And because we need your help., you need our help too. Why because you can’t capture a supply camp, tower or fortress. It means team work. Sounds good right?

jan.9745:

frans.8092:

jan.9745:

… we just want to see you a lot of the times dont shy to us we are your friend. Thats the only thing want.

It’s hard to make out exactly what you are suggesting, but I am pretty sure you are no friend.

Hitting stuff ends stealth, a long duration stealth on a large cooldown will eliminate it as combat tool, including all the little benefits that replace some of the boons other classes get. Without those benefits, without the boons that other classes get, and without the damage from stealth skills this means every thief could as well be deleted. Suggesting we delete our character automatically puts you in the not-a-friend category.

Im am your friend., 1st of all we need you in a group or party before we engage to battle w/out you we die to all the black thiefs in the battleground., we just want to make the same venom kill there own venom. And the rules are we need to be near at you like 3000 range to activate that bufs.. If your white thief die, the bufs will no longer effective., so we need to revive you a.s.a.p it means thief will contribute a big role for the battle.,
And because we need your help., you need our help too. Why because you can’t capture a supply camp, tower or fortress. It means team work. Sounds good right?

It sounds like horse manure to be honest… If you want to see us so badly, take a screen shot before getting stomped next time.

In all reality I don’t see that idea as one that holds any ground. I’ve stated my reasons, so have others in this thread. It’s just not viable any way you look at it. Every class has their own role to fill in GW2… You don’t like the role thieves play. I appreciate good ideas, but this clearly isn’t one of them.

Did ANET need a thread to realize how boring it’s a fight against a thief?

Come on guys, a class with high reward low risk while i’m doing my best to accomplish a kill it’s like a punch in the face,

Extreme mobility + High Burst + Stealth =/= fair, some kind of penalty after stealth, I don’t know but in my opinion a thieve who decide to engage in combat and play all their cards and was not able to kill his target within 15 seconds = dead thief,

It’s needs to be a small window of time, let’s say five seconds when the thieve without being able to inflict considerable damage on his target may decide to run away, (because he may feel the target is a high risk), but once he played all his cards no short bow, stealth or kitten should be able to save his kitten

That should be the skill needed to play a thieve, no the perma stealth and bullkitten we see everyday,

At this moment a thieve who decide to engage in combat and play all their cards and was not able to kill his target = escaping thief,

Attacks from stealth need to be fixed/adjusted (all “1” attacks from stealth… Sneak Attack, Backstab, Tactical Strike, and Surprise Shot). Atm I can do them multiple times if I miss/the person dodges the attack.

This is obviously kittened.

These attacks should remove me from stealth upon use. If I miss them or they are avoided I should be punished in some way like any other class does when they miss an attack.

I tend to avoid threads like these because I am sensitive and if my ideas get picked apart by the meanies on the forums I would just diiiiiiiiie, but since I hold thieves dear and near to my heart I felt the need to pop in and throw around my two cents.

As a thief, I feel like there are a lot of issues with my profession. There probably aren’t and you probably want to let me know that, but a wise woman once told me “DON’T TELL ME HOW TO FEEL.”

Someone posted it before, but it bears repeating.

“Thieves have the most weapon options available to them!” – Said nobody ever.

As it stands right now, I really feel like shortbow is the only viable option for range. It doesn’t benefit from our ‘special class dual skill’ setup though. There really isn’t much that could be done for this without adding a new “Quiver” weapon type into the game, or giving the thief some ability that let’s him decide what “quiver” he wants to use and ultimately determining what the last three button load out of his shortbow would be. As far as an option goes, this would be nice because it let’s use create better synergy between our melee and ranged spec.

I understand why you couldn’t give us a dual skill when we aren’t dual weilding, but it feels lazy, especially after getting hit for ~15K damage by a warriors Kill Shot. You definitely didn’t gimp ’em in the ranged department.

I saw sword/sword mentioned earlier in the thread and I love it. I think right now our melee setups are tied too directly around dealing a lot of damage. Dagger thieves deal a crap ton of damage from stealth or when a targets health is low (Though, I rarely see Death Blossom spam in dungeons, just backstab spam) and sword thieves deal moderate damage in a cleave, with a moderate damage stealth attack that blinds or dazes depending on position unless they go pistol. (But that’s not strictly melee now is it?)

Dagger thieves rely on their shortbow for AE fights, but sword thieves really lack a way of keeping up with dagger thieves against single targets unless they pick up a pistol in the offhand. I’m hoping with the introduction of something like an offhand sword, that gap can be closed.

You’re probably wondering why I haven’t said too much about pistol/dagger or dagger/pistol. Well, I don’t want to talk about things I have a very limited understanding of. I know of the specs and uses tied to each loadout, but I have never used them so I can’t provide any real feedback on them.

Now that we’ve put weapons behind us, let’s focus on the thief’s real issue: Utility!

Wow.

Just wow.

Traps. Holy crap.

I understand that when something is invisible to a player, you have to go out of your way to not make it too powerful, but I don’t understand the logic behind traps. They require an enemy to activate them meaning if no one trips it you just wasted a thirty second cooldown, their effects don’t linger meaning you either get one or all depending on how many people are on it when it triggers (except for ambush trap, which is just one), and even then the effects and damage are completely lackluster.

Poisons need a rework.

Skale venom has a consumable counterpart with a 10 minute duration that applies its effects on crit. Our skale venom gives us the effects on our next three attacks then goes on a 45 second cooldown. Here is a though, maybe we should get a a better version of the consumable? Rather than on critical hit, just a chance on regular hit?

Maybe have passive effects tied to poisons and activate effects? Passively, on hit, it has a chance to inflict weakness and vulnerability, then on use, guarantee the effects of the poison?

This couldn’t work for things like Devourer Venom or Ice Drake Venom. Passively allowing devouring venom to apply cripple for a short duration on hit, and allowing Ice Drake Venom to do something else while when then the activate would do what they do now would be a possible alternative.

As it stands now, without implementing something like that, venoms would just need a complete rework. You saw the ones that were useful in beta and you nerfed them into near oblivion. There are some uses for our elite poison, but the only one that comes to mind for me is underwater fights.

The problem with giving poisons passive and active effects is you end up just making them a lot like signets, but to be honest, if it will make them more appealing I’m all right with it.

Beta, the only specs I saw that involved poison were sPvP specs, and beyond Devourer and Basilisk venom, the only reason you put them on your bar was for the might stacks you could get out of them when using them for some heavy nuke damage.

We’re tied with Elementalist for the lowest amount of health in the game.

People complain that when we fail in a fight all we do is stealth and run away, but I’ve got news for you, that is all we can do.

We don’t have the luxury of running into a fight and standing there soaking up damage like a warrior does without sacrificing our own ability to do damage.

If a glass cannon thief gets away from you because of clever use of stealth, that’s a thief that can deal damage but had to use all of his utility slots to keep from dying. That’s where we are right now. It is just as annoying and painful for us to have to do it as it is for anyone to have to deal with it.

We were given the lowest amount of health, but as far as crazy nuke damage goes, it really only comes from three abilities; Cloak and Dagger, Heartseeker when an enemy is at low health, and Backstab when we are standing behind our targets.

Our nuke damage has been artificial culled by the restealth timer. Originally, we were only supposed to be hindered by the amount of initiative we have, but that changed so now we are slaves to our restealth timer if that is the kind of damage we want to do.

I get it, we were given too many ways to stealth ourselves. Shadow Refuge, Blinding Powder, Hide In Shadows, specced we can stealth on steal. Too many ways to do what feels like our only respectable source of damage in PvP.

So what? Stealth has a duration. If you see us drop a refuge you roll back, turn around, then run. Same mechanics are applied to just about everything else. We lack the snares we need to keep people in place for backstabs that we used to have, and you we can still be hit while we are stealthed so if you choose not to run away and swing blindly at the air, you’re still dealing damage to us while we try to position ourselves.

We have extremely low health, no protection or stability boons (Save for stability that comes from one of our elites while it is active), and deal all of our damage while we are in melee range while wearing medium armors we are assassins and as such, we need to be able to unload a crap ton of damage and escape if need be.

As far as group utility goes, we don’t bring the buffs. Hell, we don’t even buff ourselves. If we want might, we have to assign traits that give us might on use of venoms or signets. When you compare that to the setup engineers have, it just feels lackluster. Sure, theres requires 30 points in a tree, but when you compare the rewards they get just from their elixirs (Fury/Might/Retaliation, conditions to boons, health + Regen + Protection) and then the additional reward they get from their toolbar elixirs which also buff and aid allies (Big bonus there), plus the 1% damage per boon they have on themselves? Yeah, that’s awesome. Popping signets for 5 seconds of 5 stacks of might and dumping their passive effects for the active effects that in some cases are extremely conditional, is not fun.

That really ties into my next point. Our trait trees need to be looked at. Deadly arts really just feels very lackluster. Critical Strikes is in a good place. You might want to consider dropping Keen Observer though and replacing it with Practiced Tolerance because we kinda need the extra vitality. I love Acro and Shadows arts but I can’t go far enough into those trees without sacrificing my damage. You don’t get enough toughness and health our of them to feel comfortable gearing for damage stats, so you still need more toughness and vit to feel less than squishy, which sacrifices even more damage. That’s where our passive group utility feels like it is. Shadow Arts has the AE blind on stealth and the regen when we stealth our buddies but I’ve found that when I’m running with a group, other classes just do it better, and I’m better off just dealing damage.

Damage and cloak rezzing allies!

Cheers

This thread still goes on XD.

There’s no way you can have abilities to see thieves when stealth, or anything that lets you see stealthed thieves. There’s a very good reason too. Thieves that are built around stealth rely heavily on stealth to setup their attacks, and simply seeing them really makes it hard. I’m not sure if the bug still exists, but if you party up in SPVP and go into a match, your party members can see you invisible while you are stealthed even on the opposite side. This is the perfect time to test out how thieves fight when their stealth is see-throughable.

Let me tell you… I lost to my friends on every single class using a thief that relied on stealth.

And no, I don’t suck XD. It’s because the thief was designed like that. Stealth builds use stealth as both an offensive and defensive thing, and anything that affects stealth greatly affects them. That’s why it isn’t viable to just add stealth see-through abilities and other things unless Anet does some serious rebalancing to make thieves stronger and I’m sure most people don’t want that right?

Nerfs:
Reduce Mug damage by 50%.
Reduce Backstab damage by 35%, front damage improved by 35%.
Heart-seeker increased to 4 initiative from 3, its damage has been reduced by 15%.
Combined Training has been removed.
Combo Critical Chance has been removed.
Sundering Strikes has been removed.

Buffs:
Initiative Recharges at 1.0 per second instead of 1.6.
Steal cooldown has been reduced from 45 to 25.
Double Strike, Wild Strike, Lotus Strike has had a small base damage increase.
Shadowed Protector now grants Protection instead of Regeneration.
Expeditious Dodger now grants Vigor instead of Swiftness.
Opportunist no longer has an internal cooldown.
Keen Observer now grants critical chance over 50% Health instead of 90%.
Assassin’s Retreat now additionally gives Stability.
Last Refuge now removes and ignores “revealed” when it triggers.
Hidden Thief now removes and ignores “revealed” when it triggers.
Instinctual Response now removes and ignores “revealed” when it triggers.
Blinding Tuft (Stolen skill.) now removes and ignores “revealed” when it triggers.
Throw Feathers (Stolen skill.) now removes and ignores “revealed” when it triggers.
Deadly Arts [X] Fierce Brigand: Sword and Spear damage is increased by 10%.
Critical Strikes [IX] Swashbuckler: Increases your critical-hit chance with a Sword and Pistol by 10%.
Deadly Arts [VI] Weakening Strikes: Whenever you apply Weakness to a foe, you also steal 15 endurance from them.

This would improve the class over all.

jan.9745:

Im am your friend.,

No, you are not, you want to take our defence and our offence away, that’s not what a friend would do. And no, trying to reduce my character into becoming your little tracking kitten doesn’t make you a friend, on the contrary.

so, what is the conclusion after 48 pages ??
i should see only thieves in wvw because they are so OP, maybe i am blind ?

DanH.5879:

so, what is the conclusion after 48 pages ??
i should see only thieves in wvw because they are so OP, maybe i am blind ?

There is no conclusion by opinion this is a place created to keep the redundant threads from popping up all over the thief forums. Very smart move.

You can see there is no right way in here.

You have people that say I don’t mind the burst just remove the stealth/limit it.

Then you have people that are fine with stealth but don’t like the burst.

Then the people that are fine with how things are.

How do you create something to keep all those parties happy? Impossible

oZii.2864:

There is no conclusion by opinion this is a place created to keep the redundant threads from popping up all over the thief forums. Very smart move.

You can see there is no right way in here.

You have people that say I don’t mind the burst just remove the stealth/limit it.

Then you have people that are fine with stealth but don’t like the burst.

Then the people that are fine with how things are.

How do you create something to keep all those parties happy? Impossible

This^

I thought thieves were OP until I rolled one to 80 with best gear available and realized they have their own vulnerabilities that good players have learned how to exploit.

One glaring weakness ,which I’m still unsure about whether ANet intended, is that channeled attacks continue to hit after stealth which not only continues to damage us but also points out where other players should land their AoEs.

Daecollo.9578:

Reduce Backstab damage by 35%, front damage improved by 35%.

Funny, with your changes, a back placed Backstab will only do a tiny more damage than C&D. As this point the thief would be better of casting C&D so that it lands after stealth ends rather than face the revealed debuff.

Let’s not even talk about the Initiative regen nerf.

stof.9341:

Daecollo.9578:

Reduce Backstab damage by 35%, front damage improved by 35%.

Funny, with your changes, a back placed Backstab will only do a tiny more damage than C&D. As this point the thief would be better of casting C&D so that it lands after stealth ends rather than face the revealed debuff.

Let’s not even talk about the Initiative regen nerf.

Well, did you read the entire thing? Lol.

Daecollo.9578:

Nerfs:
Reduce Mug damage by 50%.
Reduce Backstab damage by 35%, front damage improved by 35%.
Heart-seeker increased to 4 initiative from 3, its damage has been reduced by 15%.
Combined Training has been removed.
Combo Critical Chance has been removed.
Sundering Strikes has been removed.

Buffs:
Initiative Recharges at 1.0 per second instead of 1.6.
Steal cooldown has been reduced from 45 to 25.
Double Strike, Wild Strike, Lotus Strike has had a small base damage increase.
Shadowed Protector now grants Protection instead of Regeneration.
Expeditious Dodger now grants Vigor instead of Swiftness.
Opportunist no longer has an internal cooldown.
Keen Observer now grants critical chance over 50% Health instead of 90%.
Assassin’s Retreat now additionally gives Stability.
Last Refuge now removes and ignores “revealed” when it triggers.
Hidden Thief now removes and ignores “revealed” when it triggers.
Instinctual Response now removes and ignores “revealed” when it triggers.
Blinding Tuft (Stolen skill.) now removes and ignores “revealed” when it triggers.
Throw Feathers (Stolen skill.) now removes and ignores “revealed” when it triggers.
Deadly Arts [X] Fierce Brigand: Sword and Spear damage is increased by 10%.
Critical Strikes [IX] Swashbuckler: Increases your critical-hit chance with a Sword and Pistol by 10%.
Deadly Arts [VI] Weakening Strikes: Whenever you apply Weakness to a foe, you also steal 15 endurance from them.

This would improve the class over all.

Could be interesting. I think it possibly takes too much burst out of the thief and hits to balanced builds harder, but unlike other suggestions I’ve seen, it returns survivability for longer combat and doesn’t push people in to a burst class like suggestions about limiting stealth do. If heartseeker got changed to 4 initiative, I think the damage brackets should be returned to the original 66%/33%. The mug nerf might be excessive because anything that’s not absolute glass will hit for 1 to 2 k only, easily made up for by less than half of an autoattack chain. I tend to think that something on a 45 second cooldown should hit like a truck, especially since an axe warrior can hit with eviscerate 4-5 times in that same time period. It would have to be accompanied by the reduction in steal cooldown that you mentioned, but I have a feeling people would start complaining about how often thieves get a free shadowstep to them (or a bunny in Wvw), especially when traited into trickery. That being said, you’d probably see a lot more support/boon oriented thieves running around using bountiful theft and thrill of the crime due to the increased uptime. I could take or leave these changes, but at least its the first set of changes that rebalanced the thief without gutting it. We might even see sleight of hand used.

Stealth is defensive and mobility skill. What is happening right now, you can focus all your stats in offense and with stealth, you do not lose much surviviabilty. If a non-stealth class does this, they are glass cannons and will die fast in most conflicts. Yeah, a GS warrior can kill people but they die a lot also. That doesn’t happen with a thief. You do your burst and then stealth to keep from dying.

The logical solution would be to somehow tie defensive stats to stealth. Someone that wants to pure dps of a thief should have weak to no stealth. They need to find that fine line between defensive and offensive stats like every other class.

Ljiona.9142:

They need to find that fine line between defensive and offensive stats like every other class.

But if you want it to be like the other classes why not just play them instead… i personally like its unique playstyle. in small fights you can kill a theif in stealth but what a lot of people try to do in wvw is attack a theif roaming around solo with 20 players and expect to win. what will happen is he will stealth and hide obviously but if he is trying to kill you, so can you. this is a balanced mechanic and they don’t have as many options for defensive skills. backstab usually do 3-7k those who get for 20k+ are players without armor no wonder.
turn the theif into a warrior clone = bad idea. if you want warrior play it.

tom.7468:

Ljiona.9142:

They need to find that fine line between defensive and offensive stats like every other class.

But if you want it to be like the other classes why not just play them instead… i personally like its unique playstyle. in small fights you can kill a theif in stealth but what a lot of people try to do in wvw is attack a theif roaming around solo with 20 players and expect to win. what will happen is he will stealth and hide obviously but if he is trying to kill you, so can you. this is a balanced mechanic and they don’t have as many options for defensive skills. backstab usually do 3-7k those who get for 20k+ are players without armor no wonder.
turn the theif into a warrior clone = bad idea. if you want warrior play it.

I wouldn’t even bother responding to people like the person you quoted. They don’t play a thief, they play another class. From the looks of it, I’m going to go with warrior. I have to laugh at it too. If you are having trouble against thieves as a warrior, chances are you’re doing something wrong. In most cases warriors burst puts ours to shame, which is a big part of the problem, and a good warrior knows that stealth means nothing.

You can continue attacking a thief in stealth, and they have a limited amount of time they can be in stealth so it isn’t like in WoW (Which it seems most people thing it is) where you can stealth forever and wait for the perfect time to attack, you have to position yourself quickly or you lose your burst damage. When you consider a dagger/dagger thief’s primary form of attack is CD/Backstab, and we have a small window to do our backstab before we have to wait to restealth again, it really is a wonder that people complain about stealth at all.

Someone suggested thieves be able to see other thieves while in stealth earlier in this thread. I’ve got news for you, we can. We know all their tricks because we use them ourselves. It is a fair assumption to make that one out of every two engagements with another thief, I continue to DPS him while he is stealthed, and he continues to DPS me while I am stealthed.

Tom is right. If you took away our stealth, you’d have to give us base health and armor in line with warriors. That means taking us from the lowest vitality at 80, and moving us up to the highest to be in line with warriors. Then do something about the base armor, and we can talk about it.

A warrior, without investing points into vitality or toughness, is significantly tougher than a thief and can still put out and in some cases out damage a thief.

I ran into a roaming pack of theives that did nothing but stealth over and over again. Stealth on steal, blinding power, hide in shadows, shadow refugee. They couldn’t do much of anything in a group fight and had to wait for stragglers before they started picking people off. Their damage was low because they had to go into the toughness tree to get stealth duration and stealth on steal, but in the end we killed most of them while they were still in stealth. The had to rely on eachother to stealth rez them, which meant less time to deal damage, and in the end the only time they managed to pick off the aforementioned stragglers was in 3v1s.

I don’t see an issue with stealth. The game already does what is being suggested, nerfs damage for extra survivability. If you ask me, it is too harsh.

I’m not going to go by 36 ways.

You want a useful change? Force revelation from stealth when struck or taking damage. I don’t mind ANYTHING else as Thieves are fightable and good Thieves can get to bypass this change, it’s just that stealth as it is right now gets you to be forgiven of alot of errors you’d make.

MrForz.1953:

I’m not going to go by 36 ways.

You want a useful change? Force revelation from stealth when struck or taking damage. I don’t mind ANYTHING else as Thieves are fightable and good Thieves can get to bypass this change, it’s just that stealth as it is right now gets you to be forgiven of alot of errors you’d make.

Then they would have to have stealth break channeling moves and provide half a second of invulnerability to counteract the melee swing that we usually take while stealthing. If not, the thief would never be able to stealth as it would be popped out immediately.

Maugetarr.6823:

MrForz.1953:

I’m not going to go by 36 ways.

You want a useful change? Force revelation from stealth when struck or taking damage. I don’t mind ANYTHING else as Thieves are fightable and good Thieves can get to bypass this change, it’s just that stealth as it is right now gets you to be forgiven of alot of errors you’d make.

Then they would have to have stealth break channeling moves and provide half a second of invulnerability to counteract the melee swing that we usually take while stealthing. If not, the thief would never be able to stealth as it would be popped out immediately.

Not to mention you’d have to tone up our unrelated stealth damage to make up for it. That would mean ramping up our auto attack damage and significantly reducing the cost of Cloak and Daggers. I’m cool with that. Drop Cloak and Dagger to baseline 3 since anyone swinging wildy at the air or AEing can render its secondary effect useless, and we won’t have to rely on stealth.

I liked that Idea if you miss the attack from stealth then you come out of stealth. Maybe you shouldn’t come out but if you missed backstab or any stealth skill then that skill have a 10 second CD. Then thiefs will really wait for the right moment not to miss an attack.

Maugetarr.6823:

MrForz.1953:

I’m not going to go by 36 ways.

You want a useful change? Force revelation from stealth when struck or taking damage. I don’t mind ANYTHING else as Thieves are fightable and good Thieves can get to bypass this change, it’s just that stealth as it is right now gets you to be forgiven of alot of errors you’d make.

Then they would have to have stealth break channeling moves and provide half a second of invulnerability to counteract the melee swing that we usually take while stealthing. If not, the thief would never be able to stealth as it would be popped out immediately.

This is spot on when you stealth you usually do so eating a hit of some kind

Well, yes. And besides, would need to see the post-culling-fix state of the Thief’s stealth gameplay before attempting anything. Opponents just disappear at random times right now.

Animi.4617:

I liked that Idea if you miss the attack from stealth then you come out of stealth. Maybe you shouldn’t come out but if you missed backstab or any stealth skill then that skill have a 10 second CD. Then thiefs will really wait for the right moment not to miss an attack.

There really isn’t time to wait for the right time to attack from stealth in the 3-4 second duration, especially when people simply continue to walk away (people underestimate the value of dodging forward then continuing to run away). Additionally this would punish the thieves twice since it would blow half of their initiative limiting their available attacks already and putting the thief’s primary defensive/offensive on cooldown, ensuring that if a thief misses a single attack, they will simply have to run away.

Engels.8537:

Did ANET need a thread to realize how boring it’s a fight against a thief?

Come on guys, a class with high reward low risk while i’m doing my best to accomplish a kill it’s like a punch in the face,

Extreme mobility + High Burst + Stealth =/= fair, some kind of penalty after stealth, I don’t know but in my opinion a thieve who decide to engage in combat and play all their cards and was not able to kill his target within 15 seconds = dead thief,

It’s needs to be a small window of time, let’s say five seconds when the thieve without being able to inflict considerable damage on his target may decide to run away, (because he may feel the target is a high risk), but once he played all his cards no short bow, stealth or kitten should be able to save his kitten

That should be the skill needed to play a thieve, no the perma stealth and bullkitten we see everyday,

At this moment a thieve who decide to engage in combat and play all their cards and was not able to kill his target = escaping thief,

Don’t you get tired? I mean you made it pretty clear that you have 0,00% clue how the thief class works (might be the reason they own you so hard, but just a guess) yet you scream for nerfs to the point where the class becomes obsolete.

This thread is just lolz anyway, i thought it would be about giving feedback to anet from THIEF PLAYERS to improve thief gameplay, yet it’s just a massive whinethread.

I have a level 80 Thief, Mesmer and Guardian. I’ve seen things from both sides of the fight and I’ve seen more than enough examples of entire groups being unable to take down a thief and for that thief to either escape or come back to harass the group. AOE isn’t a viable counter. It’s positively infuriating to fight against a thief who stealths every 4-5 seconds. It takes a few seconds just to get sight of him again, target him and try to land a couple skills, by which time he vanishes again. Some say ignore the thief. But the truth is you can’t.

I would like to see thief stealth skills brought in line with those of the Mesmer. Short duration, longer cool down. Effective but not overpowered. But in doing so other aspects of the class will need a careful boost because, as others have said, the Mesmer also has clones.

oellph.9450:

I have a level 80 Thief, Mesmer and Guardian. I’ve seen things from both sides of the fight and I’ve seen more than enough examples of entire groups being unable to take down a thief and for that thief to either escape or come back to harass the group. AOE isn’t a viable counter. It’s positively infuriating to fight against a thief who stealths every 4-5 seconds. It takes a few seconds just to get sight of him again, target him and try to land a couple skills, by which time he vanishes again. Some say ignore the thief. But the truth is you can’t.

I would like to see thief stealth skills brought in line with those of the Mesmer. Short duration, longer cool down. Effective but not overpowered. But in doing so other aspects of the class will need a careful boost because, as others have said, the Mesmer also has clones.

No, the truth is you can just ignore him. If he is stealthing as much as you claim he is, he’s gone into the SA tree and most if not all of his utility is for stealthing purposes. I’m going to wager he didn’t kill a single person during this entire skirmish and just frustrated you enough to make you feel like you deserved to be able to kill him.

He can’t deal damage by stealthing like you can by blowing up clones. He also doesn’t have a decoy that he can pop while he stealths that can completely misdirect most enemies or get blown up in their face to cause a status effect.

I’m amazed at how kitten people are about being distracted by a thief. There is a reason your Commander yells in all caps “IGNORE THE THIEF” when people start chasing stealth thieves. It is because they can’t do anything but stealth. One trick pony that cost them all their utility and a great deal of damage.

I believe that something has to be done concerning thiefs. Now I don’t have the best computer but a lot of the time they attack from stealth but for me their character still hasn’t appeared. This is a game breaker for me who plays an elementalist, I can be killed very easily so it’s very important for me to me able to see when I’m being ganked. I am often in the middle of a a hectic battle so I don’t pay very. Lose attention to my health I’m focusing on my character his positioning and where the enemy is. Then all of a sudden I am dead. I never even saw him till I’m dead of the ground. I suggest
1. Giving them more build options
2. Maybe break stealth or detection features
Or
3. Reducing damage output // more initiative cost per ability

Aceit.8029:

I believe that something has to be done concerning thiefs. Now I don’t have the best computer but a lot of the time they attack from stealth but for me their character still hasn’t appeared. This is a game breaker for me who plays an elementalist, I can be killed very easily so it’s very important for me to me able to see when I’m being ganked. I am often in the middle of a a hectic battle so I don’t pay very. Lose attention to my health I’m focusing on my character his positioning and where the enemy is. Then all of a sudden I am dead. I never even saw him till I’m dead of the ground. I suggest
1. Giving them more build options
2. Maybe break stealth or detection features
Or
3. Reducing damage output // more initiative cost per ability

Your problem isn’t thief profession.

You stated yourself that you don’t pay very close attention to your health(may be misstyped as “so I don’t pay very. Lose attention to my health” but it is clear that it is misstyped.) Your problem is a L2P issue because you need to learn to pay better attention to your health while doing other stuff. We all have to learn how to do that.

Maugetarr.6823:

Animi.4617:

I liked that Idea if you miss the attack from stealth then you come out of stealth. Maybe you shouldn’t come out but if you missed backstab or any stealth skill then that skill have a 10 second CD. Then thiefs will really wait for the right moment not to miss an attack.

There really isn’t time to wait for the right time to attack from stealth in the 3-4 second duration, especially when people simply continue to walk away (people underestimate the value of dodging forward then continuing to run away). Additionally this would punish the thieves twice since it would blow half of their initiative limiting their available attacks already and putting the thief’s primary defensive/offensive on cooldown, ensuring that if a thief misses a single attack, they will simply have to run away.

I didn’t mean that CD for every skill only for the first skill from stealth (So like backstab :P). You don’t need initiative for that skill if I know it right. So the other skills that you use normally wont have any recharge if you miss it. It would be only a penalty that thiefs must deal for 10 second.. okey maybe less for 8 second.

imo just raise the revealed debuff to 5-6 seconds, and all will be fine

Yuujin.1067:

oellph.9450:

I have a level 80 Thief, Mesmer and Guardian. I’ve seen things from both sides of the fight and I’ve seen more than enough examples of entire groups being unable to take down a thief and for that thief to either escape or come back to harass the group. AOE isn’t a viable counter. It’s positively infuriating to fight against a thief who stealths every 4-5 seconds. It takes a few seconds just to get sight of him again, target him and try to land a couple skills, by which time he vanishes again. Some say ignore the thief. But the truth is you can’t.

I would like to see thief stealth skills brought in line with those of the Mesmer. Short duration, longer cool down. Effective but not overpowered. But in doing so other aspects of the class will need a careful boost because, as others have said, the Mesmer also has clones.

No, the truth is you can just ignore him. If he is stealthing as much as you claim he is, he’s gone into the SA tree and most if not all of his utility is for stealthing purposes. I’m going to wager he didn’t kill a single person during this entire skirmish and just frustrated you enough to make you feel like you deserved to be able to kill him.

He can’t deal damage by stealthing like you can by blowing up clones. He also doesn’t have a decoy that he can pop while he stealths that can completely misdirect most enemies or get blown up in their face to cause a status effect.

I’m amazed at how kitten people are about being distracted by a thief. There is a reason your Commander yells in all caps “IGNORE THE THIEF” when people start chasing stealth thieves. It is because they can’t do anything but stealth. One trick pony that cost them all their utility and a great deal of damage.

It’s a basic tenet of balance – one player should never be able to trouble two players (in any way). Never mind more than two.

bhagwad.4281:

Yuujin.1067:

oellph.9450:

I have a level 80 Thief, Mesmer and Guardian. I’ve seen things from both sides of the fight and I’ve seen more than enough examples of entire groups being unable to take down a thief and for that thief to either escape or come back to harass the group. AOE isn’t a viable counter. It’s positively infuriating to fight against a thief who stealths every 4-5 seconds. It takes a few seconds just to get sight of him again, target him and try to land a couple skills, by which time he vanishes again. Some say ignore the thief. But the truth is you can’t.

I would like to see thief stealth skills brought in line with those of the Mesmer. Short duration, longer cool down. Effective but not overpowered. But in doing so other aspects of the class will need a careful boost because, as others have said, the Mesmer also has clones.

No, the truth is you can just ignore him. If he is stealthing as much as you claim he is, he’s gone into the SA tree and most if not all of his utility is for stealthing purposes. I’m going to wager he didn’t kill a single person during this entire skirmish and just frustrated you enough to make you feel like you deserved to be able to kill him.

He can’t deal damage by stealthing like you can by blowing up clones. He also doesn’t have a decoy that he can pop while he stealths that can completely misdirect most enemies or get blown up in their face to cause a status effect.

I’m amazed at how kitten people are about being distracted by a thief. There is a reason your Commander yells in all caps “IGNORE THE THIEF” when people start chasing stealth thieves. It is because they can’t do anything but stealth. One trick pony that cost them all their utility and a great deal of damage.

It’s a basic tenet of balance – one player should never be able to trouble two players (in any way). Never mind more than two.

Well by that logic bunker eles, guardians, and even some engi builds definately need rebalancing.

Maugetarr.6823:

Well by that logic bunker eles, guardians, and even some engi builds definately need rebalancing.

If that’s what it takes, then yes. Two players should always beat one player with ease in every possible way. A glass cannon should never be able to dish out enough damage to kill two people. A bunker should never have enough health to outlast two people.

A glass cannon should dish out more than a balanced player – enough to kill them. A bunker should be able to hold out against one player.

But never against two. No matter what profession, race, weapon set or traits, two (or more than two) people should never be troubled by one player in any way.

bhagwad.4281:

Maugetarr.6823:

Well by that logic bunker eles, guardians, and even some engi builds definately need rebalancing.

If that’s what it takes, then yes. Two players should always beat one player with ease in every possible way. A glass cannon should never be able to dish out enough damage to kill two people. A bunker should never have enough health to outlast two people.

A glass cannon should dish out more than a balanced player – enough to kill them. A bunker should be able to hold out against one player.

But never against two. No matter what profession, race, weapon set or traits, two (or more than two) people should never be troubled by one player in any way.

The game would simply turn into a numbers game then. Whoever brings more wins. No picking weapons and traits that synergize well so you can take on more than one player, especially if you are skilled in your profession. If the game were balanced so that 1 person could never give 2 trouble, people would just go glass in order to take down people faster. What’s the point in more defense when it would just extend the fight and leave it to chance whose teammates could get there faster to decide the victor.

It’s actually just a L2P issue.

Have you guys noticed how there are less and less complaints about it? It is really just because people learned and adapted… I definitely find WvW more challenging for my thief compared to 3 months ago, so people are definitely learning how to counter thieves.

For those thinking thieves are too good, please have faith in your abilities and skills to improve! Don’t think “I lost because he was a thief.” Instead, think “What can I improve to beat that particular class?”

I’m not just saying “L2P!”. I’m telling those who have trouble with thieves to have confidence in your ability to learn and improve and you will be beating most thieves in no time!.

That way, there’s no more need for non-sense changes like stealth reveals or higher stealth reveal debuff, or some plainly strange suggestions I’ve read in this thread over the past months lol.

I have an opinion as a warrior.

Thieves hurt. They hurt a lot. Especially when you’re alone in w3. Then again, why would you want to be alone there?

I fought my first thief 1v1 today. It was a close fight with me utilizing all I had to survive and trick him into being an easy burst. It was actually a lot of fun.

I lost. But the fight was fun. I really don’t think the thief needs changes. I think everyone else should learn to adapt.

bhagwad.4281:

Maugetarr.6823:

Well by that logic bunker eles, guardians, and even some engi builds definately need rebalancing.

If that’s what it takes, then yes. Two players should always beat one player with ease in every possible way. A glass cannon should never be able to dish out enough damage to kill two people. A bunker should never have enough health to outlast two people.

A glass cannon should dish out more than a balanced player – enough to kill them. A bunker should be able to hold out against one player.

But never against two. No matter what profession, race, weapon set or traits, two (or more than two) people should never be troubled by one player in any way.

That’s quite the design philosophy but I completely disagree with you.

If a bunker Engineer sacrafices his ability to deal damage to increase his survivability, he should be able to hold out against multiple opponents for an extended period of time.

If a thief sacrifices her ability to deal damage or have useful utility to extend the duration of her stealth to occupy the attention of a handful of players and distract them away from an objective she should be able to do that.

I don’t think anyone here is suggesting a vanish thief or bunker engineer should be able to 2v1 someone in a fight and win.

This is the thief, not the warrior forum.

(I kid, I kid.)

What amazes me about this thread is it was supposed to be a discussion about making thieves more enjoyable to play. Instead it has turned into a choir of people calling for nerfs on an already boring class that lacks variety.

Take away our damage and stealth and thieves are left with literally nothing.

Nothing.

kenshinakh.3672:

It’s actually just a L2P issue.

Have you guys noticed how there are less and less complaints about it? It is really just because people learned and adapted… I definitely find WvW more challenging for my thief compared to 3 months ago, so people are definitely learning how to counter thieves.

For those thinking thieves are too good, please have faith in your abilities and skills to improve! Don’t think “I lost because he was a thief.” Instead, think “What can I improve to beat that particular class?”

I’m not just saying “L2P!”. I’m telling those who have trouble with thieves to have confidence in your ability to learn and improve and you will be beating most thieves in no time!.

That way, there’s no more need for non-sense changes like stealth reveals or higher stealth reveal debuff, or some plainly strange suggestions I’ve read in this thread over the past months lol.

It’s not a matter of L2P, it’s the design philosophy of the Thief which puts it in a condition of opness.
Actually, a Thief with half a brain is capable to win every engagement simply because every fight which turns harder than expected can be easily left with stealth and the crap amount of mobility Thief has. This capability is given to not any profession, the Thief is the one in which it is more stressed, but also Elementalists and Mesmers are capable to.

If you combine the ability to leave any fight which is turning in a loss with the culling issues and the loads of damage the Thief deals, you can easily see why the Thief is OP.

Keep in mind that I’m not talking about how dealing with the Thief, there is always a counter to OP specs, that’s for sure, I’m talking about the overall balance of the game, considering effectiveness/efforts ratio, which in the Thief is way, way too high.

sorrow.2364:

kenshinakh.3672:

It’s actually just a L2P issue.

Have you guys noticed how there are less and less complaints about it? It is really just because people learned and adapted… I definitely find WvW more challenging for my thief compared to 3 months ago, so people are definitely learning how to counter thieves.

For those thinking thieves are too good, please have faith in your abilities and skills to improve! Don’t think “I lost because he was a thief.” Instead, think “What can I improve to beat that particular class?”

I’m not just saying “L2P!”. I’m telling those who have trouble with thieves to have confidence in your ability to learn and improve and you will be beating most thieves in no time!.

That way, there’s no more need for non-sense changes like stealth reveals or higher stealth reveal debuff, or some plainly strange suggestions I’ve read in this thread over the past months lol.

It’s not a matter of L2P, it’s the design philosophy of the Thief which puts it in a condition of opness.
Actually, a Thief with half a brain is capable to win every engagement simply because every fight which turns harder than expected can be easily left with stealth and the crap amount of mobility Thief has. This capability is given to not any profession, the Thief is the one in which it is more stressed, but also Elementalists and Mesmers are capable to.

If you combine the ability to leave any fight which is turning in a loss with the culling issues and the loads of damage the Thief deals, you can easily see why the Thief is OP.

Keep in mind that I’m not talking about how dealing with the Thief, there is always a counter to OP specs, that’s for sure, I’m talking about the overall balance of the game, considering effectiveness/efforts ratio, which in the Thief is way, way too high.

Sup.

Roll a thief. Play a thief in WvW and sPvP. Leave every encounter that goes south successfully. Show us how easy it is to play a thief. Make a video of the ‘effectiveness to effort ratio’, post it here, and then we can believe it’s not an issue of your ability to play but rather the state of the thief class.

Until then, I love when bad players blame their ‘game issues’ or ‘class balance’ for their lack of skill.

Yuujin.1067:

Roll a thief. Play a thief in WvW and sPvP. Leave every encounter that goes south successfully. Show us how easy it is to play a thief. Make a video of the ‘effectiveness to effort ratio’, post it here, and then we can believe it’s not an issue of your ability to play but rather the state of the thief class.

Until then, I love when bad players blame their ‘game issues’ or ‘class balance’ for their lack of skill.

I’ve rolled a thief and I’m leveling it up right now, so can’t play WvW effectively.
If you want, I can make you a tape showing how easily is to leave fight and to hold more than 2 people on a point as a thief.
In the meantime, you can check on youtube. There are lots of those kind of videos.

But I think that you should roll a profession which isn’t on the OP side of the balancing to see how easy and cheap is the Thief to play.

Maugetarr.6823:

bhagwad.4281:

Maugetarr.6823:

Well by that logic bunker eles, guardians, and even some engi builds definately need rebalancing.

If that’s what it takes, then yes. Two players should always beat one player with ease in every possible way. A glass cannon should never be able to dish out enough damage to kill two people. A bunker should never have enough health to outlast two people.

A glass cannon should dish out more than a balanced player – enough to kill them. A bunker should be able to hold out against one player.

But never against two. No matter what profession, race, weapon set or traits, two (or more than two) people should never be troubled by one player in any way.

The game would simply turn into a numbers game then. Whoever brings more wins. No picking weapons and traits that synergize well so you can take on more than one player, especially if you are skilled in your profession. If the game were balanced so that 1 person could never give 2 trouble, people would just go glass in order to take down people faster. What’s the point in more defense when it would just extend the fight and leave it to chance whose teammates could get there faster to decide the victor.

I think it should be a numbers game if we’re talking about equal skill level. The counter to a glass cannon would be a bunker one on one. If help from any side arrives, it should tilt the balance heavily in the favor of one side.

As it is, I never fight 2v1. Even if I’m winning a fight and I see another approaching from the corner of my eye, I bail. I’m not arrogant enough to think I can take on two people.

Yuujin.1067:

bhagwad.4281:

Maugetarr.6823:

Well by that logic bunker eles, guardians, and even some engi builds definately need rebalancing.

If that’s what it takes, then yes. Two players should always beat one player with ease in every possible way. A glass cannon should never be able to dish out enough damage to kill two people. A bunker should never have enough health to outlast two people.

A glass cannon should dish out more than a balanced player – enough to kill them. A bunker should be able to hold out against one player.

But never against two. No matter what profession, race, weapon set or traits, two (or more than two) people should never be troubled by one player in any way.

That’s quite the design philosophy but I completely disagree with you.

If a bunker Engineer sacrafices his ability to deal damage to increase his survivability, he should be able to hold out against multiple opponents for an extended period of time.

If a thief sacrifices her ability to deal damage or have useful utility to extend the duration of her stealth to occupy the attention of a handful of players and distract them away from an objective she should be able to do that.

I don’t think anyone here is suggesting a vanish thief or bunker engineer should be able to 2v1 someone in a fight and win.

This is the thief, not the warrior forum.

(I kid, I kid.)

What amazes me about this thread is it was supposed to be a discussion about making thieves more enjoyable to play. Instead it has turned into a choir of people calling for nerfs on an already boring class that lacks variety.

Take away our damage and stealth and thieves are left with literally nothing.

Nothing.

I think if a bunker engineer were to sacrifice all of their damage to increase survivability they should be able to hold out indefinitely against a single glass cannon. A thief sacrificing all their damage should be able to stealth, annoy, and escape one player.

But never two or more. I don’t believe a bunker guardian or engineer or ele should ever be able to hold off two players at the same time.

bhagwad.4281:

Yuujin.1067:

bhagwad.4281:

Maugetarr.6823:

Well by that logic bunker eles, guardians, and even some engi builds definately need rebalancing.

If that’s what it takes, then yes. Two players should always beat one player with ease in every possible way. A glass cannon should never be able to dish out enough damage to kill two people. A bunker should never have enough health to outlast two people.

A glass cannon should dish out more than a balanced player – enough to kill them. A bunker should be able to hold out against one player.

But never against two. No matter what profession, race, weapon set or traits, two (or more than two) people should never be troubled by one player in any way.

That’s quite the design philosophy but I completely disagree with you.

If a bunker Engineer sacrafices his ability to deal damage to increase his survivability, he should be able to hold out against multiple opponents for an extended period of time.

If a thief sacrifices her ability to deal damage or have useful utility to extend the duration of her stealth to occupy the attention of a handful of players and distract them away from an objective she should be able to do that.

I don’t think anyone here is suggesting a vanish thief or bunker engineer should be able to 2v1 someone in a fight and win.

This is the thief, not the warrior forum.

(I kid, I kid.)

What amazes me about this thread is it was supposed to be a discussion about making thieves more enjoyable to play. Instead it has turned into a choir of people calling for nerfs on an already boring class that lacks variety.

Take away our damage and stealth and thieves are left with literally nothing.

Nothing.

I think if a bunker engineer were to sacrifice all of their damage to increase survivability they should be able to hold out indefinitely against a single glass cannon. A thief sacrificing all their damage should be able to stealth, annoy, and escape one player.

But never two or more. I don’t believe a bunker guardian or engineer or ele should ever be able to hold off two players at the same time.

Why don’t you head on to the Ele board and tell them they shouldn’t be able to 3v1 and win.
If you want to make it so one can never beat two, good luck with that, you’d first need to get rid of all the AoE in the game. All damage would have to be single target. You’d also need to dumb the game down to the point that skill in combat wouldn’t matter. Two fresh players could take a single veteran because there’s more of them.

1vXing is the result of skill difference, not class balance.

Dual.8953:

I think if a bunker engineer were to sacrifice all of their damage to increase survivability they should be able to hold out indefinitely against a single glass cannon. A thief sacrificing all their damage should be able to stealth, annoy, and escape one player.

But never two or more. I don’t believe a bunker guardian or engineer or ele should ever be able to hold off two players at the same time.

Why don’t you head on to the Ele board and tell them they shouldn’t be able to 3v1 and win.
If you want to make it so one can never beat two, good luck with that, you’d first need to get rid of all the AoE in the game. All damage would have to be single target. You’d also need to dumb the game down to the point that skill in combat wouldn’t matter. Two fresh players could take a single veteran because there’s more of them.

1vXing is the result of skill difference, not class balance.[/quote]

When I say 1 should never beat 2, I’m talking about comparably skilled players naturally. Then it becomes an issue solely of class balance.

bhagwad.4281:

Dual.8953:

bhagwad.4281:

I think if a bunker engineer were to sacrifice all of their damage to increase survivability they should be able to hold out indefinitely against a single glass cannon. A thief sacrificing all their damage should be able to stealth, annoy, and escape one player.

But never two or more. I don’t believe a bunker guardian or engineer or ele should ever be able to hold off two players at the same time.

Why don’t you head on to the Ele board and tell them they shouldn’t be able to 3v1 and win.
If you want to make it so one can never beat two, good luck with that, you’d first need to get rid of all the AoE in the game. All damage would have to be single target. You’d also need to dumb the game down to the point that skill in combat wouldn’t matter. Two fresh players could take a single veteran because there’s more of them.

1vXing is the result of skill difference, not class balance.

When I say 1 should never beat 2, I’m talking about comparably skilled players naturally. Then it becomes an issue solely of class balance.

That’s relative too. Say the 2 skilled players focus on condition damage and they come against an equally skilled player who’s specced with strong condition removal and crits. Who should win?
In any case, why are you saying classes shouldn’t be able to 1v2 in the board of the class that’s iconic for 1v1 mastery?

Dual.8953:

bhagwad.4281:

Dual.8953:

bhagwad.4281:

I think if a bunker engineer were to sacrifice all of their damage to increase survivability they should be able to hold out indefinitely against a single glass cannon. A thief sacrificing all their damage should be able to stealth, annoy, and escape one player.

But never two or more. I don’t believe a bunker guardian or engineer or ele should ever be able to hold off two players at the same time.

Why don’t you head on to the Ele board and tell them they shouldn’t be able to 3v1 and win.
If you want to make it so one can never beat two, good luck with that, you’d first need to get rid of all the AoE in the game. All damage would have to be single target. You’d also need to dumb the game down to the point that skill in combat wouldn’t matter. Two fresh players could take a single veteran because there’s more of them.

1vXing is the result of skill difference, not class balance.

When I say 1 should never beat 2, I’m talking about comparably skilled players naturally. Then it becomes an issue solely of class balance.

That’s relative too. Say the 2 skilled players focus on condition damage and they come against an equally skilled player who’s specced with strong condition removal and crits. Who should win?
In any case, why are you saying classes shouldn’t be able to 1v2 in the board of the class that’s iconic for 1v1 mastery?

In your example, the single player should lose even though they have strong condition removal simply because he/she would be unable to cope with the number of conditions applied by two. Again – two should always beat out one.

I’m sorry, I didn’t understand your last comment…