Guild Wars 2

Sebrent.3625:

What? No one has any thoughts about the idea of giving Thief more evasion or block skills in their weapon sets?

Perma stealth is much more opd, so of course not.

Sebrent.3625:

What about Flanking Strike isn’t working?

I could swear I’m nailing the timing for the dodge, but I still get hit a lot.

[Death Blossom] doesn’t hold your hand like Heartseeker does.

How is Death Blossom not ezmode? It’s pretty much a WoW-style deepz rotation, except for the fact that you need to use dodges and timed death blossoms to avoid those horribly painful charge-up attacks.

What is a Heartseeker build anyway?

it does have respectable direct damage on top of the bleeds. I think most people get hung up on the 5 initiative cost.

That is so not true at all. The point of a death blossom spammer is to get 25 stacks of bleed on a big fat AoE of enemies practically all by yourself, while being very safe due to dodging and stealth. The big AoE on death blossom is why I like this for mob stomping. Also, I frequently get a Rally to happen because I go down but the enemies have massive bleed damage on them.

More particularly, you’re off with your idea that death blossom’s direct damage is noticeable at all.

@KitKat:
If you’ve ever used Mesmer’s Scepter’s block, Mesmer’s OH Sword’s block, Warrior’s Mace’s block, or Warrior’s OH Sword’s block then I don’t think you’d say that. These aren’t just skills you press and magic happens. They are best used to counter your opponents big hits. For example, when I block a warrior’s eviscerate with OH Sword (I run this a lot) I mitigate a large chunk of damage, do a large chunk do them, and summon a clone. It’s game changing by timing a 2 second block that goes away after you block one thing. It requires skill to use to its full potential.

More importantly, it is a visible skill.

@Kazuhiro:
Just sounds like learning the timing for flanking strike, though admittedly I’m not very good with Thief sword. Don’t play thief enough and that weapons requires skill.

Death Blossom is not easy mode because it doesn’t really chase the target the way heartseeker does and can’t be spammed nearly as much since it costs almost twice as much initiative. Furthermore, it doesn’t do good damage scaled to great damage as the target gets weaker. Finally, its condition damage can be countered with condition removal, so if you just spam it till you’re out of initiative, your opponent is going to just cleanse and laugh.

Sebrent.3625:

@KitKat:
If you’ve ever used Mesmer’s Scepter’s block, Mesmer’s OH Sword’s block, Warrior’s Mace’s block, or Warrior’s OH Sword’s block then I don’t think you’d say that. These aren’t just skills you press and magic happens. They are best used to counter your opponents big hits. For example, when I block a warrior’s eviscerate with OH Sword (I run this a lot) I mitigate a large chunk of damage, do a large chunk do them, and summon a clone. It’s game changing by timing a 2 second block that goes away after you block one thing. It requires skill to use to its full potential.

More importantly, it is a visible skill.

@Kazuhiro:
Just sounds like learning the timing for flanking strike, though admittedly I’m not very good with Thief sword. Don’t play thief enough and that weapons requires skill.

Death Blossom is not easy mode because it doesn’t really chase the target the way heartseeker does and can’t be spammed nearly as much since it costs almost twice as much initiative. Furthermore, it doesn’t do good damage scaled to great damage as the target gets weaker. Finally, its condition damage can be countered with condition removal, so if you just spam it till you’re out of initiative, your opponent is going to just cleanse and laugh.

You are probably the only person that thinks Death Blossom is some move that requires skill. You just press it when people are close thats all. This game isn’t very hard and MMO’s aren’t like a fighting game or something. Its about how you use those tools. Condition duration is how you reduce the effectiveness of cleansing at 75% duration 3 stacks of bleeds for 15 seconds it doesn’t matter if they cleanse that is why d/d and p/d work so well because unless you have active condition removal you can just apply one condition (bleeds) and kill most people. Only bunker guardians, elementalists, and other thieves with the remove condition trait really are the ones that laugh at bleed thieves even then all you need is caltrops to deal with a d/d ele since they can’t even come inside the circle to attack unless they want alot of stacks of bleeds.

D/D bleed thieves aren’t really that good unless its pve anyway or p/d thieves run it as an offset to P/D. Other than that in a burst build death blossom is like one of the last things anyone spends initiative on if they even use it at all. In condition build the prime time for deathblossom is when someone is down same goes for caltrops and people try to rez.

Your idea of blocking skills on a thief with different weapon sets isn’t a bad idea but thats really some future expansion thing if it would ever even happen. It definitely isn’t happening in this version of GW2.

for venoms i think a minor passive buff would be great.

An example: Basilisk Venom: Passive: Every 10 attacks you stun a foe for 1 second
Active: Instantly Stun for for 1.5 seconds
Ice Drake Venom: Passive: Every 10 attacks you recover from a condition
Active: Chilled for 1 second.

I think making them more like signets would give venoms more use, but plz idrc what you do with the venoms, just make them more practical, it feels like every thief build has to be a cookie cutter, and im a player who likes diversity, and feeling awesome with my unique builds.

Constantine.7812:

here is what i think about thief. BOOM BOOM STEALTH BOOM BOOM STEALTH BOOM BOOM STEALTH. you like fighting invisible players?

most of us don’t like fighting permastealthed beefed up cannons, no.

XZERO.3014:

for venoms i think a minor passive buff would be great.

An example: Basilisk Venom: Passive: Every 10 attacks you stun a foe for 1 second
Active: Instantly Stun for for 1.5 seconds
Ice Drake Venom: Passive: Every 10 attacks you recover from a condition
Active: Chilled for 1 second.

I think making them more like signets would give venoms more use, but plz idrc what you do with the venoms, just make them more practical, it feels like every thief build has to be a cookie cutter, and im a player who likes diversity, and feeling awesome with my unique builds.

your example is not good
Unload spam – number of attacks 8 – cast time 1.75 sec
3 x unload = 5.25 /2 (haste) 2.63 sec ( 2 times bas trigger ) roll for initiative spam 2 more unloads (2 sec stunned) , switch to D/D , use basilik (instant) 1.5 sec more stun, even the strongest bunker is dead

Rayya.2591:

XZERO.3014:

for venoms i think a minor passive buff would be great.

An example: Basilisk Venom: Passive: Every 10 attacks you stun a foe for 1 second
Active: Instantly Stun for for 1.5 seconds
Ice Drake Venom: Passive: Every 10 attacks you recover from a condition
Active: Chilled for 1 second.

I think making them more like signets would give venoms more use, but plz idrc what you do with the venoms, just make them more practical, it feels like every thief build has to be a cookie cutter, and im a player who likes diversity, and feeling awesome with my unique builds.

your example is not good
Unload spam – number of attacks 8 – cast time 1.75 sec
3 x unload = 5.25 /2 (haste) 2.63 sec ( 2 times bas trigger ) roll for initiative spam 2 more unloads (2 sec stunned) , switch to D/D , use basilik (instant) 1.5 sec more stun, even the strongest bunker is dead

Im just trying to get the idea across, make them apply something ever X amount of hits, it just makes sense. sorry for the abd examples, but they are just examples, the devs can do whatever they want with the venoms, i just think that the way i want venoms changed might make them more viable in arena, im not saying i want the specific changes, im happy with whatever i get, i just dont want to be stuck using the same utilities all the time.

Cynical, you should talk a bit more with some of the FTF thieves on our server. I was actually talking to a few last night while running fractals. A few are running condition builds. During zerg fights, yes, they definitely stay away from death blossom as it’s much safer (?and more effective?) to use shortbow and caltrops. In skirmishes and duels they are making good use of death blossom and caltrops. In both situations they are amused at how effective caltrops are … I agree, lol. Darin is a good thief to talk to if interested in such.

I’m glad you like my block idea. I was thinking there is at least 1 skill on each weapon set that thieves think is useless that could possibly be replaced. Not likely, but that’s my thoughts.

I do NOT want thieves to get whacked like other rogue-type classes in MMOs where they start out too strong and get nerfed to uselessness. It makes it pointless to even have the class in the game as you only get the time where it’s annoying and the most commonly played and then it’s still annoying (but diff reason) and least played.

What I’d like is for Thieves to remain unique in their gameplay while adhering to some of the key ideas relayed by ArenaNet for how combat in GW2 is supposed to be.

guys, i think we have agreed for 1 complaint per day/account, what happened ?
are we letting the thread slip away ? it will disappear from the front page if this continues
make it sticky so it can remain for eternity ?

In my experience bad players playing a thief are pretty easy pretty easy prey. Some of them don’t realize that attacking from stealth BREAKS stealth. A lot of them don’t know how to stack stealth. In fact many of them don’t even realize that C&D is their main stealth weapon. I’ve had thieves open up with all their attacks out of stealth until they’re at 10% health before they stealth.

Those are bad players.

An OK thief player who can successfully pull off an instagib backstab hs hs combo isn’t any more dangerous than a mesmer who can create 6 illusions and mind wrack them all or a frenzy bullrush HB or shield bash eviscerate warrior or volley killshot warrior, or a 100 nade engi. This is just speaking from my personal experience tho.

Rayya.2591:

XZERO.3014:

for venoms i think a minor passive buff would be great.

An example: Basilisk Venom: Passive: Every 10 attacks you stun a foe for 1 second
Active: Instantly Stun for for 1.5 seconds
Ice Drake Venom: Passive: Every 10 attacks you recover from a condition
Active: Chilled for 1 second.

I think making them more like signets would give venoms more use, but plz idrc what you do with the venoms, just make them more practical, it feels like every thief build has to be a cookie cutter, and im a player who likes diversity, and feeling awesome with my unique builds.

your example is not good
Unload spam – number of attacks 8 – cast time 1.75 sec
3 x unload = 5.25 /2 (haste) 2.63 sec ( 2 times bas trigger ) roll for initiative spam 2 more unloads (2 sec stunned) , switch to D/D , use basilik (instant) 1.5 sec more stun, even the strongest bunker is dead

If he spams 5 unloads on me I just pop wall of reflection. If that’s on cooldown Ill pop retaliation. 40 attacks? I’m going to be dealing 15k damage in retaliation to you that you cannot avoid. And I haven’t even actually attacked yet. Good luck with that.

P.S. Other classes can you know…dodge. Or get into melee range where they will outdamage the unload. Or they can block, projectile counter, simply get out of 900 range and kite at 1200 range. Seriously I hope you’re not trying to argue unload is OP because the build that is associated with it, P/P, is absolutely horrendous.

frans.8092:

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.

Oh man, +1 to this

I’m going to have to agree with those who are saying Unload is not OP. If someone has trouble with Unload spam then they simply did not take into account, either in their build or their playstyle (or lack thereof), how to deal with enemy spike damage. There are several classes with abilities like this. No one else’s is spammable, but I love spammed projectiles as they are trivial to counter in many instances. Good examples have already been given as to some ways to counter Unload spam.

Sebrent.3625:

What I’d like is for Thieves to remain unique in their gameplay while adhering to some of the key ideas relayed by ArenaNet for how combat in GW2 is supposed to be.

As far as ArenaNet has stated, the Thief class is working as intended. From an older post by Kasama.8941, which I quoted much earlier in this thread:

Interview (http://kotaku.com/5780900/the-guild-wars-2-thief-is-a-rogue-like-none-other):

“The wise Thief player will know when to retreat and recharge.”

“…the Thief is built around hopping in-and-out of combat. If you don’t know when to back off, you’re going to die.”

Here’s the description of stealth from wiki:
“Stealth — Thieves have access to multiple skills which, for a short duration, make them invisible to enemy players and avoid aggro of hostile NPCs. While stealthed the thief is not targettable, but can still be damaged by attacks which hit them, and attacking from stealth will break the deception.”

And from the 14th december update notes:
“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…”

Sebrent.3625:

Kazuhiro.5809:

One more stupid little complaint, Flanking Strikes and Death Blossom make me accidentally jump off of walkways all the time.

LMAO! Come talk to Ranger’s using 1H sword sometime. We’ll start a support group :-p

I enjoy the S/D build for Thieves, but I envy the pathing for Serpent’s Strike. Flanking Strikes always sends me careening away sideways, like my character was just overcome by disco passion.

Rayya.2591:

your example is not good
Unload spam – number of attacks 8 – cast time 1.75 sec
3 x unload = 5.25 /2 (haste) 2.63 sec ( 2 times bas trigger ) roll for initiative spam 2 more unloads (2 sec stunned) , switch to D/D , use basilik (instant) 1.5 sec more stun, even the strongest bunker is dead

When was basilisk venom changed to instant? If you interupt it’s cast time it fails.

Yes, ArenaNet also mentioned that combat was supposed to such that you saw your opponent’s animations and reacted to them. I’m just wishing they would find a way to marry these seemingly conflicting ideas.

Nothing in those descriptions mentions that the Thief has to give no indicator to their opponents. I’m asking for a 0.5 second to see/hear and react. With most people that’s not useful and far less than most classes give with their big hit abilities.

I can understand that, Serpent Strike is a nice skill. It does, however, sometimes miss as well.

There are just several abilities in this game that are sadly thwarted by your target simply moving a little. I’m not sure if that was the design, but I feel your pain.

I’m finally back to leveling up my Thief in PvE and have found that Flanking Strike doesn’t bother me too much after playing the Ranger quite a bit. I like Thief Sword much more than Ranger sword even though I’m currently likely much better with the Ranger variant (practice, ya know?)

Sebrent.3625:

Yes, ArenaNet also mentioned that combat was supposed to such that you saw your opponent’s animations and reacted to them. I’m just wishing they would find a way to marry these seemingly conflicting ideas.

Nothing in those descriptions mentions that the Thief has to give no indicator to their opponents. I’m asking for a 0.5 second to see/hear and react. With most people that’s not useful and far less than most classes give with their big hit abilities.

I’d actually like to see the resurrection of cast bars. From a PvE standpoint, have you ever taken a Guardian with you into AC? It’s a little challenging to see Kholer’s mating dance when he’s covered in bright blue flames.

I also get irritated that several completely different skills in both PvE and PvP have similar or identical animations, sometimes making me blow my cooldown unnecessarily, or waste an essential dodge.

Sounds like we agree that it would be nice if ArenaNet did a better job of fulfilling their claim about combat being “more visual”. :-)

I think C&D should have a more unique animation, that much I’ll agree. No more crying about people going into stealth, it’s 3/4 of a second and if it were more obvious it’s 100% on you.

Laika.8795:

I think C&D should have a more unique animation, that much I’ll agree. No more crying about people going into stealth, it’s 3/4 of a second and if it were more obvious it’s 100% on you.

I agree except in the case where classes depend on AIs (Mesmer Illusions, Ranger pet, etc.). That would still be a frustration as those are supposed to be beneficial to the class (especially those two where it’s a mechanic) but are quite detrimental to them when fighting a good Thief.

Interlink passive attack speed or movement speed with one trait.

Introduce paralyzer 7-10 percent to apply on one dagger.

Please double (or triple) the speed of cluster bomb. As it is, I can hit myself with a bomb at max range by running towards it. Its slow speed also really makes it unreliable at long range.

funny i can’t aoe someone with clusterbomb unless i stay at 0 range from them…
i takes 5 seconds+ just to get to the 1200 max range, LOL

A bit off-topic in the Thief section, but might as well briefly address it since the conversation as led to it:

I think the projectile speed of grenades was done to balance out the fact that Engineer can spam AOEs at up to 1,200 (1,500 traited) range.

I’ve also noticed since beta that while Engineer uses largely ranged weapons (everything but bomb and tool kits), it is more of a short to medium range character. Those are the ranges where it is the most dangerous to mobile targets. The Rifle and Pistol highlight this with several of their skills.

I think thief can be very weak at rezzing ppl we just don’t have the HP/toughness to do this when someone is whacking on us so here is my suggestion.

add a utility that teleports target (downed) ally to you and heals him for 20%.
this is mostly from pvp perspective but i believe this is also very useful in pve.

The Deadly Arts traits are not very interesting, in my opinion. Only if you’re running a Venom build. For example, Improvisation is lackluster, while Dagger Training and Combined Training are boring number increases.

The offhand-dagger skill ‘Dancing Dagger’ is only useful if you’re using a pistol in the main-hand.

The mainhand-pistol skill ‘Body Shot’ loses its value when you go for dual pistols. Since ‘Unload’ is far better. Change Unload to an evasion skill and let Body Shot strip a boon.

Deadly Arts is trash except for vennom build

As duegon/event thief player, its hard to find any team skill that help to boon/burst the team. The philosophy of the game always been “freedom”—-that is build your char however you like. e.g. you can build a tanky dps ele or cond dmg war etc. However, this philosophy does not apply to thief class. I know that the thief is a wonderful pvp/dps class, but the class should provide options that may used for the duegon/event team player . and I believe this is also anticipated by many other team players.
P.S. most of the pain, thief guild cool down is crazy. it is just do the job fine (or even less, considering aoe dmg and team dps) as dagger storm and twice the cd. Really confused.

I , as P/P player cannot agree more with the second insight.

biggs.4702:

Pragmatist.1349:

Hey there. My post/s will only concern Thief PVE issues.

Secondly, dual pistols could use a PVE damage buff, or perhaps some kindof buff to Ricochet in the Trickery traitline so the bullets bounce much more often. The recent change to the Body Shot cast timer was nice, but in PVE at the moment P/P is only really usable on ranged single target fights, which does not apply to many situations.

Thirdly, I feel that the 15% nerf to Pistol Whip was unjustified in PVE terms. As far as I can tell, its damage was only nerfed due to burst issues in pvp when stacked with Quickness/Haste against glass cannon players who do not take stunbreaks and do not learn to dodge perhaps the most predictable skill ingame (Pistol Whip). The damage should be refunded in PVE because at the moment you can do almost as much DPS autoattacking with the S/P combo. Pistol Whip is a dual skill that should out DPS autoattack by a decent margin. Black Powder on the pistol offhand is a great dungeon tool and should not be nerfed in any way.

Fourthly, I feel that Traps are very lacklustre at the moment. I have used each Trap maybe five times in PVE and overall I find that the Traps are not worth the utility slots.

Next, I would say that the Sword/Dagger combo is very poor for PVE, I only use it on the Mesmer boss in TA to remove her buffs.

I am glad you only implemented the Backstab nerfs in PVP, if they had been implemented in PVE also it would have destroyed crit daggers. However, I do not see why Dancing Dagger had its damage nerfed in both PVE and PVP, it was only an issue in PVP. The damage should be refunded in PVE.

I also feel that Sword should be available for use in the Offhand slot giving us another few weapon combos. Dual swords would be nice if designed well.

This poster expressed everything I wanted to say (and more, so I only quoted the points which I also wanted to make), so like many others who want to have a voice on these concerns, I’m posting if only to echo my agreement.

Pragmatist.1349:

Fourthly, I feel that Traps are very lacklustre at the moment. I have used each Trap maybe five times in PVE and overall I find that the Traps are not worth the utility slots.

+9000, completely waste of utility unless it can affect multiple targets, even the shadow one is lacking the “instant detonation and give stealth” unless someone triggers it, will never use them in pve unless they can do some aoe or affect multiple mobs passing trough them.
p.s. the imobilize one is good for the dredge power suit to stop under the cauldrons, but then again, caltrops does a much better job…

DanH.5879:

Pragmatist.1349:

Fourthly, I feel that Traps are very lacklustre at the moment. I have used each Trap maybe five times in PVE and overall I find that the Traps are not worth the utility slots.

+9000, completely waste of utility unless it can affect multiple targets, even the shadow one is lacking the “instant detonation and give stealth” unless someone triggers it, will never use them in pve unless they can do some aoe or affect multiple mobs passing trough them.

Traps would be amazing if they were like a Kit.

ya, making traps 1 slot that you click and your bar changes to 5 trap options would be alot more worth it. not sure how they would play mid combat. the same option could be given for venoms.. venom kit.. im not sure how clunky the skills would end up on demand.

the main time i use traps is wvw while beating up a door ill trap the sides of a fort to catch people trying to run into thier base. other then that there are just better options to chose from .

I actually thank Anet for the thief class.

By demonstrating that it take them 6 months to GET to balancing the thief, they display their approach to other imbalances. So maybe balancing the guardian and mesmer would take what..another year? 2 years? How about the Ele? meh throw in a 3rd year.

This way I know I shouldn’t invest anymore into this game and will be anticipating other Mmorpgs that will do a faster and better job at addressing imbalances.

Have fun with a plummeting player base or with them returning for future Anet products. Players have a limited patience that was abused, unfortunately.

Zonzai.2341:

Thieves only dominate new/unsuspecting WvW players. Once people get used to fighting against them (e.g. not standing still, using AoE) they aren’t nearly as effective – then they’re more like a normal glass cannon that kills fast but dies fast.

WvW presents players with a huge area and they never know when a thief will strike. I think that it is a fun dynamic to have, take away that burst damage and you’ve ruined one of the most frightening aspects of WvW. I like that sensation.

So, I am against a nerf to thief damage. They should eat glass cannons for breakfast. I’m okay with that. They should frighten new players. It creates a degree of intensity you couldn’t get if a thief didn’t burst you down so fast. Also, it helps to balance the meta. Play a glass cannon and you know the risks. Risk number one being thieves and other glass cannons that get the jump on you.

Anything we do to make zergs more powerful will, in my opinion, be bad for the WvW meta. The upcoming AoE nerf could do that. However, the thief shortbow AoE (2) could stand to be changed. But single target burst damage shouldn’t. (I think the short bow will be the next nerf for thieves anyway. And that’s probably for the best.)

Yea man, I think ArenaNet should send someone out to everyone’s home to stand over them with a raised fist so no one knows when they’re going to be punched in the head it adds to the “intensity”…

Come on, thieves being able to take out players who aren’t able to anticipate their actions at any and all times is a dumb mechanic, just like the current form of stealth. Stealth should be a tool carefully utilized not something that is an automatic “get out of jail free” card that can be facerolled to escape or attack.

Atticus.7194:

Zonzai.2341:

Thieves only dominate new/unsuspecting WvW players. Once people get used to fighting against them (e.g. not standing still, using AoE) they aren’t nearly as effective – then they’re more like a normal glass cannon that kills fast but dies fast.

WvW presents players with a huge area and they never know when a thief will strike. I think that it is a fun dynamic to have, take away that burst damage and you’ve ruined one of the most frightening aspects of WvW. I like that sensation.

So, I am against a nerf to thief damage. They should eat glass cannons for breakfast. I’m okay with that. They should frighten new players. It creates a degree of intensity you couldn’t get if a thief didn’t burst you down so fast. Also, it helps to balance the meta. Play a glass cannon and you know the risks. Risk number one being thieves and other glass cannons that get the jump on you.

Anything we do to make zergs more powerful will, in my opinion, be bad for the WvW meta. The upcoming AoE nerf could do that. However, the thief shortbow AoE (2) could stand to be changed. But single target burst damage shouldn’t. (I think the short bow will be the next nerf for thieves anyway. And that’s probably for the best.)

Yea man, I think ArenaNet should send someone out to everyone’s home to stand over them with a raised fist so no one knows when they’re going to be punched in the head it adds to the “intensity”…

Come on, thieves being able to take out players who aren’t able to anticipate their actions at any and all times is a dumb mechanic, just like the current form of stealth. Stealth should be a tool carefully utilized not something that is an automatic “get out of jail free” card that can be facerolled to escape or attack.

You’ll have to excuse the spiritual successor to the assassin class for assassinating. Runs in the family I suppose. (This aguement is kind of like saying Sniper in TF2 shouldn’t one shot) The truth is you shouldn’t lets your guard down anywhere in a pvp zone. Their combo won’t oneshot you in the initial hit (Mug+CnD) unless you’re complete glass, so you can react before backstab hits if you’re ready to react. (Part of the whole “don’t let your guard down in a pvp zone”.)
In anycase I’m guessing you didn’t get the memo but this month’s patch will be addressing culling (not the “End of Culling” headline in your launcher) and the devs have stated they’ll make is so all stealth ends in revealed status whether the stealther attacked or didn’t. See the latest State of the Game (that SotG thing floating around).

I honestly wish they’d scale back the burst in the game so that 2 glass cannons facing each other took at least 3-5 seconds to kill one another if one just stood and took the other one’s big hits. Whatever needed to be changed to balance this, go for it.

Fights should feel like fights. If that means getting rid of the extremes so you don’t have actual glass cannons nor actual bunkers, so be it. Allow the variety but get rid of the extremes.

My current feedback would be that thieves are not scaling well against the big armies sent against groups, particularly in fractals. The short bow is the only effective weapon against these groups with constant use of the cluster bomb. Dodge and evade mechanics fail against constant multiple incoming attacks. The gameplay becomes dull as well as frequently ineffective.

Boon classes can scale their boon bonuses across many enemies (as with protection, stability) but a thief struggles to apply conditions across multiple foes. Venoms for example have limited targets. Traps do not scale up well. Smoke fields are too small and single target interrupt are irrevelant. Shadowsteps and stealing can become irrelevant. And so on. Thief traits do little to address the problem.

Rather than overhaul the thief I’d rather see fewer encounters with such large enemy headcounts. The dredge fractal is the prime example of how encounters should not be scaled up.

I saw this and lolled. Unbelievably the devs actually try to justify the thief: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCUvIrH2BlU#t=1h28s
That stunned silence at 1h 2m 19s made me laugh my kitten off.

Svarty.8019:

I saw this and lolled. Unbelievably the devs actually try to justify the thief: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCUvIrH2BlU#t=1h28s
That stunned silence at 1h 2m 19s made me laugh my kitten off.

“One shotting them over/over/over.”

You know Steal is on a 45 second cool-down, right?

When i want to own someone in WvV,

I log my thief.

Most absurd burst in the game (if you know how to precast c/d)

Svarty.8019:

I saw this and lolled. Unbelievably the devs actually try to justify the thief: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCUvIrH2BlU#t=1h28s
That stunned silence at 1h 2m 19s made me laugh my kitten off.

See… I took that more as them all thinking “they just need to l2p against these classes then… why would we balance for such low skill level gameplay?”

playandchill.3908:

When i want to own someone in WvV,

I log my thief.

Most absurd burst in the game (if you know how to precast c/d)

Once you get better at other classes you can own WvW-ers on many more classes than just thief. I do it equally as well on all 4 of my 80’s. On my guard I pre-cast RoW to trap them then rotflstomp which is a lot of fun. It’s just different playstyles/tatics.

All I know is I was tearing it up in sPvP last night on my Sword+Dagger Norn thief.

I was playing around on my warrior, trying some solid builds I already had experience with. Had several good fights against people. Decided to switch and jump on my thief to compare the two. So I joined the same game. At least 6 of the people in the game were the same (probably more, but I’m bad with remembering names).

The performance of my Sword+Dagger Thief was ridiculous.

Flanking Strike → Cloak & Dagger (easy, they are immob’d) → Tactical Strike → Auto-attack chain (all 3 hits for weakness + cripple) → repeat starting at Cloak & Dagger

I would just do that over and over to every class and winning my 1v1s very solidly.

I was running Soldier’s amulet (can’t remember armor rune), sigil of fire and sigil of force and was 0/30/30/10/0.

Damage was solid, I could take hits, and the only time I didn’t just follow that chain was if they got extra help that could put decent pressure on me … in which case I just hit shadow return on sword, or shadowstep, or used shadow refuge.

It was cake, I enjoyed it, but it was far too easy for how effective it was. When I’m being that effective on my Mesmer, I’m working at least twice as hard and I certainly can’t escape as easily from a fight that turns when reinforcements, etc. swing a fight out of my favor.

What are all your init recoveries? That’s s 10 init combo and you don’t even have 15 in Trickery. I’d assume you aren’t running many of SA’s defensive traits. I’m also unsure about the quality of your opponents considering tactical strile is nerfed in Spvp and that spvp includes hotjoin.

Sebrent.3625:

All I know is I was tearing it up in sPvP last night on my Sword+Dagger Norn thief.

I was playing around on my warrior, trying some solid builds I already had experience with. Had several good fights against people. Decided to switch and jump on my thief to compare the two. So I joined the same game. At least 6 of the people in the game were the same (probably more, but I’m bad with remembering names).

The performance of my Sword+Dagger Thief was ridiculous.

Flanking Strike -> Cloak & Dagger (easy, they are immob’d) -> Tactical Strike -> Auto-attack chain (all 3 hits for weakness + cripple) -> repeat starting at Cloak & Dagger

I would just do that over and over to every class and winning my 1v1s very solidly.

I was running Soldier’s amulet (can’t remember armor rune), sigil of fire and sigil of force and was 0/30/30/10/0.

Damage was solid, I could take hits, and the only time I didn’t just follow that chain was if they got extra help that could put decent pressure on me … in which case I just hit shadow return on sword, or shadowstep, or used shadow refuge.

It was cake, I enjoyed it, but it was far too easy for how effective it was. When I’m being that effective on my Mesmer, I’m working at least twice as hard and I certainly can’t escape as easily from a fight that turns when reinforcements, etc. swing a fight out of my favor.

How was your success rate versus other thieves?

Against other Thieves I was tearing them up because Thieves don’t like being dazed and I had a closer that immobilized. Weakness and cripple are also an issue for thieves.

Sword thief is a great way to troll other thieves :-)

Aberrant.6749:

See… I took that more as them all thinking “they just need to l2p against these classes then… why would we balance for such low skill level gameplay?”

To which I would reply that they should balance for such low skill level gameplay because the thieves themselves can be more effective than most other classes with less skill.

EDIT: In fact, the devs say as much right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0togRMEc_o#t=41m06s

Svarty.8019:

Aberrant.6749:

See… I took that more as them all thinking “they just need to l2p against these classes then… why would we balance for such low skill level gameplay?”

To which I would reply that they should balance for such low skill level gameplay because the thieves themselves can be more effective than most other classes with less skill.

Yep. One thing that annoyed me last night on my warrior and made me get on my thief was that there was a group of 3 thieves that were horrible but since there were three of them they could just heartseeker spam and get kills. It didn’t matter if I created a gap as their one button turned them and closed the gap on me for them every time they pressed the magical #2.

Amusingly, sword thieves eat dagger thieves and stealth is a great counter to noobseeker spam.

Inf Strike against Heartseeker thieves is HILARIOUS….

1 sec immob so sorry.
Easy cloak and dagger … Tough cookies.
Daze from tactical strike … Poor baby.
Weakness and cripple from auto attack chain … Lol.
Shadow return if things “go south”.

Yep!