Guild Wars 2

Thobek.1730:

If they miss their burst they stealth and reset the fight.

The fight does not reset unless they run out of the combat zone. Do people not use CC? You should probably try it sometime. You also make it sound like all thieves can just stealth at will, which is not the case.

Thobek.1730:

Also they can leap on to ledges, Not all of them because you need to see the face of the ledge. But it can be done

Not in WvW, maybe true for some select ledges in sPvP. The post I replied to was talking about jumping up walls, which I assumed he meant towers & keeps, which isn’t possible. In fact I don’t know of any ledges you can leap up to in WvW, unless you’re referring to stairs or steep hills.

Thobek.1730:

Finally the way you say auto attack where they are or spam AoE, do you know the cooldown of most AoE in this game? It’s not something you can spam, they are on long cd’s. Do you also know they a lot of classes can’t auto attack without a target selected. Guess what – you can’t target stealthed classes.

You’re nitpicking my use of the word spam? Okay, use your AoE/s. There are classes that can indeed spam AoEs as well, so the statement is no false anyway, but go ahead and nitpick if that’s all you got. Do you also know that most classes can auto attack without a target selected ie. melee?

Thobek.1730:

Your entire post just shows a lack of knowledge of classes, especially the thief.

Yet I have no trouble dealing with them. What does that tell you?

Brassnautilus.2941:

hell fellow thieves, did we dodge a bullet?
oo snap, new build again….

No bullets dodged at all. Anyone that does a bit of research will see that the last time thieves got nerfed was november 15th (mostly in PvP) We have had several patches since then each with minor buffs each time. The people that aren’t doing any looking at all don’t realize that the thief isn’t going to get nerfed anymore they might as well give it up. I do enjoy reading the funny suggestions though.

aNet, reverse your “stealth doesnt drop aggro” change in your last patch..

oZii.2864:

theoretical.9862:

Here’s an idea, but keep in mind that I’ve only played this game for about 200 hours, so I’m by no means an expert.

Separation of PvP and PvE
Us thief players know very well that thieves can do very well in PvP but get kicked around in PvE. I personally know this all too well. I always find myself thinking in dungeons, “Why am I the only one getting downed? It’s not like I don’t dodge, and I do spec for some Vitality/Toughness.” I look around and all the other classes never get downed once. In PvP, we are some of the toughest players to beat if you don’t know how to counter thieves. That’s a huge issue: the huge gap between PvP and PvE is extremely hard to balance. When you buff in PvE, you end up buffing PvP, and next thing you know, thieves are mediocre in PvE and completely trash the other classes in PvP. So I suggest having different stats for PvP and PvE. That way, ANet has a much easier time of balancing the two. From what I’ve read, this was implemented in GW1 and things didn’t go too well. However, I trust that ANet learned a lesson or two and try this again.

Let me know if there’s something that would make this idea not work. I’d like to hear what the community has to say about this.

If you do this for thief then you have to do it for all classes. Honestly thief is probably the only class that ever talks about how weak we are in pve. At the same token I don’t see a ton of threads popping up saying (insert class) is OP in PvE. Though it isn’t as bad as people make it out to be if it was everyone and there parents would roll thieves. I see more d/d eles than I see thieves probably more rangers too. Thief was already nerfed in sPvP but they didn’t touch thief really in WvW my guess is that they didn’t think it was necessary from whatever metric they use.

Seriously d/d ele is king in sPvP and WvW right now. I am not complaining about the class I just know after I tap it a few times and I can tell its full bunker I troll a bit and then leave cause its a waste of time. If its full bunker ele I would “have” to run SoS to stay on top of it and Bow so they cant run and heal. I don’t run either of those in my damage set as I would rather run s/d as my other set and a diff utility than SoS. If I run those I have no problem killing them but I choose not to run those just for D/D eles. I have no problem with that I am referring to WvW since the landscape is so large they have tons of room to leave and heal. The problem is people think if they see it they should kill it. A thief, d/d ele, and warrior specced for mobility are just going to get away if they want people just have to accept it.

Sorry, I wasn’t very clear. I did mean all classes, including thief, will have separate stats for PvP and PvE. The only reason people don’t complain that class X is OP is because that class isn’t the ones killing them. That class is actually helping them by doing tons of damage or tanking everything. Just a matter of perspective.

masztipapa.7519:

Backstab thieves can kill almost anybody in a second, thats a serious issue with the class and the other thing that bothers me is the initiative system. Add some diminishing return (so noobies dont spam heartseeker for win -.-), like it only does a third of its original dmg after the first use for like 2 or 3 seconds.

If I had to guess… you dont really play a thief.

Ruggan.4102:

masztipapa.7519:

Backstab thieves can kill almost anybody in a second, thats a serious issue with the class and the other thing that bothers me is the initiative system. Add some diminishing return (so noobies dont spam heartseeker for win -.-), like it only does a third of its original dmg after the first use for like 2 or 3 seconds.

If I had to guess… you dont really play a thief.

that is a really old post you quoted.

katniss.6735:

I don’t think I need to do a write up. The screenshot pretty much sums up the thief class and how OP they are:

Wow, I really would like to know how that dmg happens with those stats. Those stats are pretty much from a thief with no gear on… and I happen to know for a fact that there is no way to get that dmg output with that low of power/precision… I play a thief built on Power/Prec/Crit dmg… my average pve BS is about 5k and my average mug is about 3.5k… this with a 52% crit chance and a 80% crit dmg… not to mention Prec and Power in the high 2k range or higher. Yes, in WvW I can get to the 7k or greater mark but again, because I am statd to do that…

Ruggan.4102:

katniss.6735:

I don’t think I need to do a write up. The screenshot pretty much sums up the thief class and how OP they are:

Wow, I really would like to know how that dmg happens with those stats. Those stats are pretty much from a thief with no gear on… and I happen to know for a fact that there is no way to get that dmg output with that low of power/precision… I play a thief built on Power/Prec/Crit dmg… my average pve BS is about 5k and my average mug is about 3.5k… this with a 52% crit chance and a 80% crit dmg… not to mention Prec and Power in the high 2k range or higher. Yes, in WvW I can get to the 7k or greater mark but again, because I am statd to do that…

I think the point he was trying to prove is that despite his high levels of toughness, he was getting hit for 7k-9k. Those aren’t the thief’s stats; those are his.

As of the Feb 26th patch, stealth was removed for me, personally. I used it to drop aggro, as I constantly need to dodge, evade, and get out of harms way.

With this patch, aggro cannot be dropped by stealth. Stealth has become a waste of initiative or a cooldown, slot…and now the SA tree to get toughness ( I am not a GC type), is pointless aside from the toughness.

With this loss, I am shelving my thief after realizing…it is not the thief anymore. This is in PVE, I don’t play any of the pvp type things.

Just not fun for me anymore, so why do it?

as of the Feb 26th patch, we need new downed skills too..
skill #3 was a joke before this patch (u die before is rdya almost all the time, in both pve and pvp), now is like haven’t at all in pve;
couldn’t think u would be able to make it more useless, but i were wrong :/

DanH.5879:

the fun thing is that thieves can’t C&D of mobs (stealth for that matter) to reset their health, a good nerf to the wvw thieves
resetting abuse is gone ?, this is why they complain so much, because the cheating era came to an end ?
to me, it is the only patch i agree it is ok, i am not afraid to use SR to stealth all my party during boss encounters (1 dead, 4 ressing him/her)

C&D never reset thieves’ health. On the contrary, it put them ‘on-combat’ with the mob regardless of their stealthed status, so they had to get far from the mob or kill it in order to reset their health.

I guess you can add that to your personal list of: ‘Wrong assumed facts about thieves’.

The change is PvE/dungeon only… And it only hurts the already cuestionable utility of thieves in group/dungeon activities. No impact on PvP at all.

the only downside is that some bad/poor performance thieves will roll a guardian/warrior/mesmer etc.
you mean a GC spawning BS to the boss every 4-5 sec, constantly getting out of agro list, is ok ?

DanH.5879:

the fun thing is that thieves can’t C&D of mobs (stealth for that matter) to reset their health, a good nerf to the wvw thieves
resetting abuse is gone ?, this is why they complain so much, because the cheating era came to an end ?
to me, it is the only patch i agree it is ok, i am not afraid to use SR to stealth all my party during boss encounters (1 dead, 4 ressing him/her)

News at 11 post made to say I told you so but I was wrong.

I would like to talk a bit about PvP (HotM) thief.
In general I think that thief has a lot of potential, but this potential remains unused. And compared with other classes thiefs suffer a lot.

I will divide my opinion over few sections.

1) Damage:
The damage on thief is really bad compared to other classes.
Bleeding.. u can stack 9 stacks of bleed before run out of initiative… Otherclasses – like elementalist, mesmer, warrior, ranger, engineer – Can easilly cause 15 stacks of bleed while having just a little or no cooldown on it (warrior / elementalist) . Using a pistol bleed also relies on dagger and cloak.. which again cost too much initiative and when u run out your damage is greatly nerfed.
Roaming – Thief damage in this spec is just the lowest one in the game. As a thief classic opener with daggers – Steal + Cloak and Dagger + Backstab (from behind) thief deals approx 3000+2000+6000 = 11000 damage.. Yes u can say now that it is a lot. Again comparison with other classes. I tried out a mesmer and warrior roaming specs. As a warrior I was able to do 13 500 damage with Greatsword 2 ability while the target was immobilized. As a mesmer I was spamming my clones out… they did a bit of damage before they all went out and then shatter them for over 10k damage in 1 hit that when added to damage that clones did earlier kills the target. And I had to use 1 ability…. Lastly an engineer that just kills you instantly… I dont know exact numbers but I had an engineer jumping on me and when he landed i was dead instantly.
And in addition to this.. If thief gets disabled… well… he is dead. Simple as that.. 1 stun / knock / imobilize or even daze and thief is dead. While other classes can either survive it or use stability which bring me to the second point…

2) Sustain
Thief is the most squishy class in the game. Lowest HP and lowest toughness in the game. Not speaking about the fact that thief does NOT have an ability to grand himself stability.
Yes there are some specs that allows you to go quite tanky but if you do spec that way u have absolutely no damage and u cant even be a point holder because EVERY single trait is build about stealth. And while in stealth (as you all sure know) You cannot hold points…
Thief has absolutely no defensive abilities except shadowstep. Compared to other classes that each have 5 or more. We have no way of removing certain conditions or just in general removing conditions except DoTs with Hide in Shadows. Again compared to other classes that can either remove them, transform them into boons or send them to the enemy.

3) Crowd control
Once again thief suffer by having the lowest crowd control in the game compared to other classes In order to have crowd control you need to have pistol equiped in offhand. Every spec with pistol in off hand – Except dual pistol roaming – cannot be utilized. Why u ask? Lets see. Using a Sword + Pistol. Pistol whip ability – too long initial animation.. Can be avoided easilly… the stun is only .5 sec and u cannot deal the full damage before enemy runs away. (U can use Venoms to stun them but it gets just allways broken). Also this spec doesnt have a single combo finisher and THAT is what really sucks. Dagger + pistol with this spec u require 9 initiavite to get in stealth. 6 for blinding powder + 3 for heart seeker (smoke field + leap finisher = steath) it means u go in stealth once.. and then u have nothing to follow up.

4) Stealth
Stealth is really nice thing except that u can be easilly bursted down even when stealthed. And this is what i think is the real problem for thiefs. While in stealth u can stil be knocked down, damaged, basicly everything u are just not seen… Enemy can still blindly burst you down with ease.

In the end I would like to say this… Thief is my favorite class. I enjoy playing it and it brings me great pleasure when I make my enemies hit the dirt. I play thief since the day Guild wars 2 came out and I am planning to stick with him.
Thief has a lot of unused potential that yet waits to be introduced into the game. Like remaking traits to make thief be able to spec tanky without the need of using stealth. Or making stealth somehow beneficial for us in terms of sustain – Like reduces damage taken by 50% while in stealth or just something else.

Columba.9730:

This was an exploit. Some thieves will now need to L2p

this is EPIC ! funny, how the wheel is turning
L2P issues are everywhere now !

We’re now quoting all over the forum? Dan, Columba’s post is in ‘Goodbye Pistol Whip’

I wonder who ever came up with the idea to let the thief be able to avoid damage while stealthed makes no sense to me, why not make it so they cant dodge or evade ground target AoE’s like marks and stuff atm thiefs are always hidden and high dps tbh they dont even need armor lol

Crille.5638:

I wonder who ever came up with the idea to let the thief be able to avoid damage while stealthed makes no sense to me, why not make it so they cant dodge or evade ground target AoE’s like marks and stuff atm thiefs are always hidden and high dps tbh they dont even need armor lol

Is this a joke?

The thief takes ALL damage while stealthed.

Faeyd.5094:

Crille.5638:

I wonder who ever came up with the idea to let the thief be able to avoid damage while stealthed makes no sense to me, why not make it so they cant dodge or evade ground target AoE’s like marks and stuff atm thiefs are always hidden and high dps tbh they dont even need armor lol

Is this a joke?

The thief takes ALL damage while stealthed.

Not from mobs or non aoe attacks. This is the only game that allows stealthers to be able to stealth during combat. It’s a bad mechanic.

Columba.9730:

Faeyd.5094:

Is this a joke?

The thief takes ALL damage while stealthed.

Not from mobs or non aoe attacks. This is the only game that allows stealthers to be able to stealth during combat. It’s a bad mechanic.

That is an out and out lie, and you know it.

Columba.9730:

Faeyd.5094:

Crille.5638:

I wonder who ever came up with the idea to let the thief be able to avoid damage while stealthed makes no sense to me, why not make it so they cant dodge or evade ground target AoE’s like marks and stuff atm thiefs are always hidden and high dps tbh they dont even need armor lol

Is this a joke?

The thief takes ALL damage while stealthed.

Not from mobs or non aoe attacks. This is the only game that allows stealthers to be able to stealth during combat. It’s a bad mechanic.

That is because it stops aggro… So any single target dps will not hurt the thief as he does not have aggro. Just like a necro using fear, not fair he can not get hurt while they run away? But wait, they come back and attack him right? Same for thief now… Or a Mesmer using clones to migrate the aggro. Or a guardian pushing all the mobs away from him? Or or or… I think you get the point. Take away stealth if you must but all those other class mechanics go with it

Just because I can, you’re 100% wrong this is the only game with a stealth mechanic for combat, I know of a game where stealth reigns over everything and its 100% perma because the devs in that game are kitten.

Columba.9730:

Faeyd.5094:

Crille.5638:

I wonder who ever came up with the idea to let the thief be able to avoid damage while stealthed makes no sense to me, why not make it so they cant dodge or evade ground target AoE’s like marks and stuff atm thiefs are always hidden and high dps tbh they dont even need armor lol

Is this a joke?

The thief takes ALL damage while stealthed.

Not from mobs or non aoe attacks. This is the only game that allows stealthers to be able to stealth during combat. It’s a bad mechanic.

yeah no. If a thief is stealthed and in range of and Ettin’s swing, he’ll be hit. If a thief is in range of another thief’s Dagger melees, he’ll be hit, provided the attacker isn’t targetting someone next to him.
Thieves are hit by AoEs, but not exclusively. They’re hit by AoE because most AoE is untargeted. By extension, they can be hit by any nontargeted attack, which includes almost every Melee and AoE attack in the game.
Also, some mobs have a ton of AoEs. See the Nightmare Vines or Malrona in TA or Fire Elementals. Or go fight some Karkas as a thief if you want an example of stealth versus channels.

Thief DOES take all dmg while in thief in stealth as if he wasn’t stealthed at all…
- All cleave attacks still hit the stealth if hes in it’s range
- All single target attacks still hit the thief in stealth if you were lucky enough to actually hit him (hes stealth so u gotta do some guessing and hit the air, melee attacks have a bigger hit detection area than projectiles so this is more likely to happen with melee attacks)
- Dots still keep on ticking
- AOE’s still hit him
- Channeled spells keep on channeling as if the thief didn’t go stealth at all… Good examples: Karka’s, Ranger rapid fire, breath attacks, Mesmer’s confusion ray beam thingy.

All it did was make it impossible to actively target me during the stealth. Any auto attack made in the air and i happen to just be there hits me…
This is why you see thieves striking in the air in thief vs thief duels… They try to hit the stealthed thief while unable to see him. And you know what? It works. He’s not a dumb kitten for doing that, it works! He just doesn’t know exactly where he is but if he strikes one in the right place at the right time it’s a hit. (and you can tell by the auto attack chain continuing further, hint, that doesnt happen vs a block or an immune so saying stealth = immune is just plain wrong)

I really hate this misconception about thieves being immune in stealth. It’s just not true. Not even close! It’s time people learn this because without it they seem to think Thieves are OP, which they ain’t….

Now to the latest patch note not resetting aggro anymore…
This, Arena Net, IS A VERY BIG PROBLEM for thieves.

Stealth has always been the excuse for low passive resilience and lack of acces to vigor while still being melee oriented. The only reason this was a viable excuse was because the aggro reset on stealth simply made thief a less likely to be attacked target so he wouldnt need as much resilience as a warrior or a guardian. With that gone, but the damage still high (specially on berserker thieves out there) we are in for a big ammount of getting downed if we try to melee bosses for examples in dungeons…

PLEASE revert this change or make a change in such a way that thieves somehow can trait for aggro drop on stealth (or make it a base extra effect in the skills) so thieves get this excuse for low resilience back without being able to abuse it for friendlies (who don’t really needed that because they are designed to function without an aggro reset). Thieves were designed with this aggro reset, without it however we are in trouble!

From a practical standpoint, thieves are immune in stealth unless someone gets lucky with a random aoe. In most games, stealth isn’t possible while you are in combat. It’s very easy to move out of danger while in stealth.

Those other games you mention allow for infinte stealth out of combat though and i’ve always thought that to be a bigger problem. You can’t see them coming. Here in GW2, you can see that thief coming.

And about the practical standpoint… No that’s just not true… With a bit of forecasting on the thieve’s movements it’s not that hard to predict his movements. With a bad sense of combat awareness this could be a problem ofcourse but that’s something we just gotta learn to be succesful in a game like this anyway. It’s like throwing a grenade at someone, you have to predict his movements. You’re gonna miss if you can’t do it.

The thief usually only has 3-4 seconds of stealth and most thieves will try a backstab. So basically he wants to get in your back, the routes to that position are likely for him to be during the stealth unless he’s retreating (but then there’s other likely options for him to be moving) so aim your attacks there. Ofcourse there’s still a chance you miss but what else did you want? Adapt, it’s no practical immunity. It’s a hightened challenge on the opponent’s combat awareness and it really is not more than that.

Columba.9730:

From a practical standpoint, thieves are immune in stealth unless someone gets lucky with a random aoe. In most games, stealth isn’t possible while you are in combat. It’s very easy to move out of danger while in stealth.

No, from whatever way you look at it, thieves are not immune to damage while in stealth. Stop spreading misinformation, it doesn’t help your crusade against thieves lying about them.

All stealth does is make the thief invisible and untargetable for the duration. They don’t enter god mode. They can still be hit with AoE and attacks that don’t require a target. You know this, stop spreading lies to try and help your cause.

I hopped on my warrior last night for the first time in a while to try out Sanny’s glass hammer build. My first encounter was a against a thief. As soon as he popped shadow refuge I went in there and unleashed everything in the circle. When stealth wore off he was already downed and ready for the stomp. I just followed all the advice myself and others have provided to counter stealth. Guess what… It worked!

Columba.9730:

From a practical standpoint, thieves are immune in stealth unless someone gets lucky with a random aoe. In most games, stealth isn’t possible while you are in combat. It’s very easy to move out of danger while in stealth.

What everyone else has said. ^
Also I’d like to add. In those other games Stealthers almost always have a passive evasion stat, meaning all attacks directed at them have a chance to miss for no other reason then “the game mechanics said so”. That element doesn’t exist in GW2, instead evasion’s all on the player.

Columba.9730:

From a practical standpoint, thieves are immune in stealth unless someone gets lucky with a random aoe. In most games, stealth isn’t possible while you are in combat. It’s very easy to move out of danger while in stealth.

No point trying to tone down your earlier statement about stealth=immunity when the exact opposite is true. What do you hope to achieve? Anet play the game and can see that’s horseradish.

About a 3rd of the thieves I kill are in stealth. It’s a no-brainer when they just stealthed in front of you or used refuge – easy kill – and single attacks work great.

Ruggan.4102:

masztipapa.7519:

Backstab thieves can kill almost anybody in a second, thats a serious issue with the class and the other thing that bothers me is the initiative system. Add some diminishing return (so noobies dont spam heartseeker for win -.-), like it only does a third of its original dmg after the first use for like 2 or 3 seconds.

If I had to guess… you dont really play a thief.

Allthough, i rly wouldnt mind this change as long as it would work against attacks that actually hit. That would destroy the hasted HS spammers which have no place in thief community anyways. As for the poster before you, no BACKSTAB thiefs cant kill anyone within a second.

the only thing i want changed (and probably changes the entire working of it) is the initiative it self, remove it.
every single profession gives you plenty of space to fight on and even when one skill is recharging you can still use another one, the thief however makes it impossible to do just that.

i would suggest to instead of having initiative every skill has it’s own adrenaline pool, this makes combining skills allot more flexible and the profession less a spam-a-lot target.
i can understand that the thief is suppose to be a burst profession but after the burst has gone it’s simply a walking target, i don’t even see why ppl call it OP when some professions can take it down without any problems.

less spam-a-lot, more flexibility.

Columba.9730:

From a practical standpoint, thieves are immune in stealth unless someone gets lucky with a random aoe.

From a practical standpoint, mob-ai does know how to hit thieves in stealth. I guess they are just smarter then you when it comes to fighting thieves.

i dont play a thief anymore, had one but didnt enjoy it that much…

my only negative observation would be the movement speed during stealth… i find it illogical for a thief to run at max speed during stealth… you dont simply trample around while being “sneaky”. It’s is against any common sense and so stupid that i cant even begin to explain were the whole stealth concept fails.

Other then that, thief DPS and such isn’t a “OP thief issue”, it is a “other professions are crappy balanced” issue….

I don’t agree to invisibility being the ultimate “state”… give some negative movement speed penalty and make the “sneaky” skills a bit more “realistically sneaky”

It’s not ‘being sneaky’ it’s ‘magic’ from GW1 lore on stealth. The stealth effects are all magic based ability… real life application of copious amounts of talcum powder to disappear into didn’t work out great for real life ninjas.

coming from someone who’s played every class, i can say the skill thief requires to play is significantly lower than most of the others. the things thief can do that the others can’t can be insufferable at times. i understand that thief is the stealth class, and that it is a burst class, but there is no way to reveal stealth’d enemies nor is there really a way(no matter how much armor you get, i’ve had 3200 armor and still been 50%‘d by a backstab) i’ve tried matching that damage on other classes and i just can’t. if classes like Thief’s role is damage, i recommend clearly defining in the character creation that this is their role. if other classes exceed at support, make them called support classes in their description. as well as difficulty levels in star-rating form at character creation.

Lightsbane.9012:

coming from someone who’s played every class, i can say the skill thief requires to play is significantly lower than most of the others. the things thief can do that the others can’t can be insufferable at times. i understand that thief is the stealth class, and that it is a burst class, but there is no way to reveal stealth’d enemies nor is there really a way(no matter how much armor you get, i’ve had 3200 armor and still been 50%‘d by a backstab) i’ve tried matching that damage on other classes and i just can’t. if classes like Thief’s role is damage, i recommend clearly defining in the character creation that this is their role. if other classes exceed at support, make them called support classes in their description. as well as difficulty levels in star-rating form at character creation.

I mained mesmer for when the game came out I didn’t make a thief until after the last nerf (dancing dagger damage). I found thief to be alot more difficult than my mesmer.

Mesmer is like don’t get your hands dirty except to blurred frenzy gameplay. I didn’t feel I needed to know other classes abilities on my mesmer, 100b, eviserate etc. When I made my thief and I started dying to stuff I didn’t on my mesmer thats when I began to learn more about other classes etc.

So you have my story and your story showing total opposites. I feel like mesmer is so faceroll its not funny compared to thief. When it comes time to fight I hardly ever really had to think about how I was going to engage the rotation was pretty much the same everytime because it worked. I can’t do that on my thief unless I am running p/d, or full gc blow my load build.

Lightsbane.9012:

coming from someone who’s played every class, i can say the skill thief requires to play is significantly lower than most of the others. the things thief can do that the others can’t can be insufferable at times. i understand that thief is the stealth class, and that it is a burst class, but there is no way to reveal stealth’d enemies nor is there really a way(no matter how much armor you get, i’ve had 3200 armor and still been 50%‘d by a backstab) i’ve tried matching that damage on other classes and i just can’t. if classes like Thief’s role is damage, i recommend clearly defining in the character creation that this is their role. if other classes exceed at support, make them called support classes in their description. as well as difficulty levels in star-rating form at character creation.

From the December 14th patch (thief part excerpt):

“Class balance philosophies
We normally try to employ metered and controlled balance changes with each pass, rather than huge reductions or improvements to classes. We want to get all classes on the same playing field, and we want to avoid “whack-a-mole” style balance. HUGH increases and HUGE decreases lead to meta instability, and thusly, we try to make multiple small tweaks rather than putting in massive changes that we have to later correct.
When designing and balancing the classes, we try to make sure that class roles and identities stay intact. So, in doing so, we make sure that there are rules and boundaries outlining the capabilities and weaknesses of each class.

Thief:
Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters

Maugetarr.6823:

Lightsbane.9012:

coming from someone who’s played every class, i can say the skill thief requires to play is significantly lower than most of the others. the things thief can do that the others can’t can be insufferable at times. i understand that thief is the stealth class, and that it is a burst class, but there is no way to reveal stealth’d enemies nor is there really a way(no matter how much armor you get, i’ve had 3200 armor and still been 50%‘d by a backstab) i’ve tried matching that damage on other classes and i just can’t. if classes like Thief’s role is damage, i recommend clearly defining in the character creation that this is their role. if other classes exceed at support, make them called support classes in their description. as well as difficulty levels in star-rating form at character creation.

From the December 14th patch (thief part excerpt):

“Class balance philosophies
We normally try to employ metered and controlled balance changes with each pass, rather than huge reductions or improvements to classes. We want to get all classes on the same playing field, and we want to avoid “whack-a-mole” style balance. HUGH increases and HUGE decreases lead to meta instability, and thusly, we try to make multiple small tweaks rather than putting in massive changes that we have to later correct.
When designing and balancing the classes, we try to make sure that class roles and identities stay intact. So, in doing so, we make sure that there are rules and boundaries outlining the capabilities and weaknesses of each class.

Thief:
Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters

Masters of defense too with perma stealth

Columba.9730:

Masters of defense too with perma stealth

engineer: master of control, able to easily run around in areas 6+ levels above themselves and contribute enough to events 10 levels above themselves to receive gold. My engineer feels OP to me. It’s a matter of perception. Try playing a class before suggesting “fixes.”

Some thief builds have burst but not all thieves play a busrty backstab build either. Backstab is a high risk high reward attack if you can land it. That’s how it should be.

Lofat.2406:

Some thief builds have burst but not all thieves play a busrty backstab build either. Backstab is a high risk high reward attack if you can land it. That’s how it should be.

Where is the high risk in a backstab build? If you miss it, just stealth and run away or try again a few seconds later.

I think they are overpowered in the simple glass cannon kill, and underpowered in most other areas. If a thief isn’t 25/30/x/x/x heartseeker, they aren’t really useful. GG unload? rofl. sword? rofl.

Despina.6970:

Lofat.2406:

Some thief builds have burst but not all thieves play a busrty backstab build either. Backstab is a high risk high reward attack if you can land it. That’s how it should be.

Where is the high risk in a backstab build? If you miss it, just stealth and run away or try again a few seconds later.

Go try it.

Chrysaliss.8720:

Thief is the most squishy class in the game. Lowest HP and lowest toughness in the game. Not speaking about the fact that thief does NOT have an ability to grand himself stability.

Ehm, no. Thief has the same base HP pool than ele and guardian, so its not the lowest. And thief has access to medium armor which results in ~7% more damage reduction compared to light armor classes.

Stability is granted by dagger storm, an extremely OP AOE damage skill granted to a single target damage profession (lol). Not only does it deal extremely high AOE damage in a huge area, ignoring the 5 target cap, it also cripples + reflects projectiles + grants stability.

Thieves are NOT squishy per default. Thieves are squishy because you decide to go (mostly) full glass canon. All the other professions explode on damage spikes when running full GC builds in WvW. Thieves just deal massive damage in a few seconds then vanish in stealth.

Sure, you can hit a thief in stealth. But due to missing hit feedback, thats just pathetic. Looking at the chain animations is not an option because (i) not every profession has access to anytimer chains and (ii) you have to wait for the second hit to actually see if you first hit has landed – at this time the thief may be miles away.

Rayya.2591:

Shrilly.7184:

Rayya.2591:

vespers.1759:

you mean you don’t think this is balanced?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7OYniHrGqE

An thief killing other thieves and low lvls.
Hi , do i miss any point ?
did he even atempted to kill an lvl 80 guardian /elementarist /engenier /warrior /necro /mesmer … with double food buff, like he used ?
would he even had an chance?
How dare you

get off my thrwead unless you are going to see other evidence

I am sorry that not everybody share same point with you.
And please stay on topic, is related to thieves issues.
Stealth is an defence mechanism

Defense mechanism!? Umm… Let’s see, yes, but a good defense only contributes to a good offense. Considering stealth is OP and a GREAT defense, it is easily turned into and used as a GREAT offense. One in which most all other players/classes have little defense against…

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

Rayya.2591:

Shrilly.7184:

Rayya.2591:

vespers.1759:

you mean you don’t think this is balanced?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7OYniHrGqE

An thief killing other thieves and low lvls.
Hi , do i miss any point ?
did he even atempted to kill an lvl 80 guardian /elementarist /engenier /warrior /necro /mesmer … with double food buff, like he used ?
would he even had an chance?
How dare you

get off my thrwead unless you are going to see other evidence

I am sorry that not everybody share same point with you.
And please stay on topic, is related to thieves issues.
Stealth is an defence mechanism

Defense mechanism!? Umm… Let’s see, yes, but a good defense only contributes to a good offense. Considering stealth is OP and a GREAT defense, it is easily turned into and used as a GREAT offense. One in which most all other players/classes have little defense against…

The thief is encouraged to flank based on traits or weapon skills. Even the thief rune gives 10% more damage from the side or back.

I’d like to see how someone gets around the side or back of a player not invisible. My backstab hits for like 2.4k from the side on a crit and I have 75 crit damage 2.3k power.

Im in all pvt gear and only 3 zerker trinkets and runes of divinity with like 65 crit damage and iZerker on my mesmer easily clears 4k. Duelist is on average 3k.

oZii.2864:

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

Rayya.2591:

Shrilly.7184:

Rayya.2591:

vespers.1759:

you mean you don’t think this is balanced?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7OYniHrGqE

An thief killing other thieves and low lvls.
Hi , do i miss any point ?
did he even atempted to kill an lvl 80 guardian /elementarist /engenier /warrior /necro /mesmer … with double food buff, like he used ?
would he even had an chance?
How dare you

get off my thrwead unless you are going to see other evidence

I am sorry that not everybody share same point with you.
And please stay on topic, is related to thieves issues.
Stealth is an defence mechanism

Defense mechanism!? Umm… Let’s see, yes, but a good defense only contributes to a good offense. Considering stealth is OP and a GREAT defense, it is easily turned into and used as a GREAT offense. One in which most all other players/classes have little defense against…

The thief is encouraged to flank based on traits or weapon skills. Even the thief rune gives 10% more damage from the side or back.

I’d like to see how someone gets around the side or back of a player not invisible. My backstab hits for like 2.4k from the side on a crit and I have 75 crit damage 2.3k power.

Im in all pvt gear and only 3 zerker trinkets and runes of divinity with like 65 crit damage and iZerker on my mesmer easily clears 4k. Duelist is on average 3k.

Speaking WvW in particular:

Sure, the thief needs to be able to ‘get around’ and have the ability to attack from the rear and from the side. Though they can go in and out of stealth pretty easily. Just because a thief puts on SR doesn’t mean he’ll stay there to be hit by some luckily places AoE. That’s what it is when the thief goes stealth for most classes, it comes down to lucky AoE. Even then, Thieves can get away pretty easily.
If an opposing class is playing a bunker type build and has a high amount of toughness/hp, the thief has a lot of freedom to give up on the fight, stealth, and go for someone else.

The issue(and it’s not completely culling), is the fact that opposing classes against the thief lose target and have little if any reliable tracking of the thief when he goes into stealth. Rightly so, because it’s stealth. However, it’s very hard and almost impossible to fight something you can’t see.

Players have no clue that a 6k+ damage assault from a thief is coming, can’t defend against it, and little to no time to react to prevent the thief from going back into stealth. Defending player may be able to get a heal and get back to close full health, but then the cooldown to heal again is typically longer than the thief’s cooldown to for stealth abilities. So even after the initial strike, opposing players are forced to try to predict where the thief is, acquire target, try to land some damage and possibly dodge(depending on health at this point) all within a very short window of time before the thief goes stealth again. Stringing stealth, average to good thieves can whittle down an opponent rather quickly in a 1-1 encounter in WvW. Sure WvW isn’t 1-1, but there are many cases it happens. Besides, I’ve seen a thief take down more than 2-3 players in WvW several times who were trying to fight against the thief. They all died. They’re not terrible players either, but against a good thief, they couldn’t be very effective. It took another thief to come and kill the thief that killed them…

If you don’t take down a thief in the very small window of opportunity you typically hardly have, the thief can easily get away, recoup, and come at you again at his leisure.

I certainly don’t want the class to be nerfed to any major degree. Though, there needs to be some adjustment.

teg.1340:

Stability is granted by dagger storm, an extremely OP AOE damage skill granted to a single target damage profession (lol). Not only does it deal extremely high AOE damage in a huge area, ignoring the 5 target cap, it also cripples + reflects projectiles + grants stability.

Stability is EXCLUSIVELY granted to thieves by dagger storm, a well balanced ELITE skill with a 90 seconds cooldown that IS NOT an AOE damage skill, despite the fact that thieves have good AoE capabilities with the Short Bow and the Sword (lol). Instead, Dagger storm throws daggers in random directions, which won’t cause any damage if there’s no target in its way (since its direction is fixed), and will bounce to another target only if the first dagger hits and there’s another target in the near vicinity.

Not only the dagger hits for about just an autoattack, but since it is not an AoE attack, it can be blocked, obstructed by walls, or even reflected back at the thief. If the dagger hits, however, it’ll cripple their target for the staggering and gamebreaking amount of… 2 seconds.

Meanwhile, the thief is spinning during the whole process, unable to use any of their other skills, and extremely vulnerable to melee attacks or any true AoE skill. It happens that in order to maximize the number of hits, the thief has to be right in the middle of the enemy zerg, defenseless against melee or AoE, because if the thief uses Dagger Storm in the zerg’s border, it will only hit one or 2 targets at most.

Ya, mate, fixed it for you.

teg.1340:

Chrysaliss.8720:

Thief is the most squishy class in the game. Lowest HP and lowest toughness in the game. Not speaking about the fact that thief does NOT have an ability to grand himself stability.

Ehm, no. Thief has the same base HP pool than ele and guardian, so its not the lowest. And thief has access to medium armor which results in ~7% more damage reduction compared to light armor classes.

Stability is granted by dagger storm, an extremely OP AOE damage skill granted to a single target damage profession (lol). Not only does it deal extremely high AOE damage in a huge area, ignoring the 5 target cap, it also cripples + reflects projectiles + grants stability.

Thieves are NOT squishy per default. Thieves are squishy because you decide to go (mostly) full glass canon. All the other professions explode on damage spikes when running full GC builds in WvW. Thieves just deal massive damage in a few seconds then vanish in stealth.

Sure, you can hit a thief in stealth. But due to missing hit feedback, thats just pathetic. Looking at the chain animations is not an option because (i) not every profession has access to anytimer chains and (ii) you have to wait for the second hit to actually see if you first hit has landed – at this time the thief may be miles away.

I’ve gotta point out a couple falacies there Teg. You’ve stated Thieves don’t have the lowest HP pool, as if there’s a class with a lower base HP which is untrue. Guardians, Thieves and Elemenalists do have the lowest HP pool, but despite thier HP pool, Guardians and Elementalists are widely considered the tankiest classes in the game, because of their access to sustained defensive boons and buffs. Thieves only have access to a weak version of Regen.

And Daggerstorm is only as strong as what you shoot at it. It’s non-reflective damage is 224, around the damage of most sword auto attacks, and it’s not like it other AoEs in that it doesn’t pulse but literally scatters daggers in all directions, and it doesn’t hit everyone in range. The cripple is 2 seconds, the bleed is 1 stack for 5. The stability is only in effect during the skill, it can’t be used for stomps, it’s not a stun-break and it’s only defense is reflect. Daggerstorming thieves can be focused with non-projectile attacks and they’re sitting ducks in that event unless they cancel the skill early.

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

oZii.2864:

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

Rayya.2591:

Shrilly.7184:

Rayya.2591:

vespers.1759:

you mean you don’t think this is balanced?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7OYniHrGqE

An thief killing other thieves and low lvls.
Hi , do i miss any point ?
did he even atempted to kill an lvl 80 guardian /elementarist /engenier /warrior /necro /mesmer … with double food buff, like he used ?
would he even had an chance?
How dare you

get off my thrwead unless you are going to see other evidence

I am sorry that not everybody share same point with you.
And please stay on topic, is related to thieves issues.
Stealth is an defence mechanism

Defense mechanism!? Umm… Let’s see, yes, but a good defense only contributes to a good offense. Considering stealth is OP and a GREAT defense, it is easily turned into and used as a GREAT offense. One in which most all other players/classes have little defense against…

The thief is encouraged to flank based on traits or weapon skills. Even the thief rune gives 10% more damage from the side or back.

I’d like to see how someone gets around the side or back of a player not invisible. My backstab hits for like 2.4k from the side on a crit and I have 75 crit damage 2.3k power.

Im in all pvt gear and only 3 zerker trinkets and runes of divinity with like 65 crit damage and iZerker on my mesmer easily clears 4k. Duelist is on average 3k.

Speaking WvW in particular:

Sure, the thief needs to be able to ‘get around’ and have the ability to attack from the rear and from the side. Though they can go in and out of stealth pretty easily. Just because a thief puts on SR doesn’t mean he’ll stay there to be hit by some luckily places AoE. That’s what it is when the thief goes stealth for most classes, it comes down to lucky AoE. Even then, Thieves can get away pretty easily.
If an opposing class is playing a bunker type build and has a high amount of toughness/hp, the thief has a lot of freedom to give up on the fight, stealth, and go for someone else.

The issue(and it’s not completely culling), is the fact that opposing classes against the thief lose target and have little if any reliable tracking of the thief when he goes into stealth. Rightly so, because it’s stealth. However, it’s very hard and almost impossible to fight something you can’t see.

Players have no clue that a 6k+ damage assault from a thief is coming, can’t defend against it, and little to no time to react to prevent the thief from going back into stealth. Defending player may be able to get a heal and get back to close full health, but then the cooldown to heal again is typically longer than the thief’s cooldown to for stealth abilities. So even after the initial strike, opposing players are forced to try to predict where the thief is, acquire target, try to land some damage and possibly dodge(depending on health at this point) all within a very short window of time before the thief goes stealth again. Stringing stealth, average to good thieves can whittle down an opponent rather quickly in a 1-1 encounter in WvW. Sure WvW isn’t 1-1, but there are many cases it happens. Besides, I’ve seen a thief take down more than 2-3 players in WvW several times who were trying to fight against the thief. They all died. They’re not terrible players either, but against a good thief, they couldn’t be very effective. It took another thief to come and kill the thief that killed them…

If you don’t take down a thief in the very small window of opportunity you typically hardly have, the thief can easily get away, recoup, and come at you again at his leisure.

I certainly don’t want the class to be nerfed to any major degree. Though, there needs to be some adjustment.

Yes they do have to stay in SR.. For 3 seconds or so.