Guild Wars 2

In my opinion, Thieves need to have cool downs put on abilities 2, 3, 4 and 5 for all weapons they can use.

My feedback after playing one to 45 in WvW and PvE is:

You can hit very hard IF you are geared for it but you will also die in one or two hits when immobilized.

What I think annoys people is being 2 shot by a select couple builds with no way to counter it. I think if you deal with those builds BUT increase survivability to compensate it would be a fair trade.

So yeah: Some OP builds in certain areas but for the most part a very very brittle class.

Last Refuge / Instinctual Response useless with the current stealth mechanics. Revealed effect turns these traits in the trash. They kill, not save you.
Propose to replace the effect of a second Evade / Invulnerability / Distortion or two seconds Endure Pain. This would make it more balanced builds better for pvp, and will also be very useful for pve.

Signet of Shadows.
Replace active effect to black powder.

Akumashogun.5973:

In my opinion, Thieves need to have cool downs put on abilities 2, 3, 4 and 5 for all weapons they can use.

In my opinion, all casters need an sp or mana bar, and in order to refill it, have to drink potions.

Seriously: initiative is what makes a thief. If we had cool downs like other classes, we would just be a squishy medium armor warrior.

Take away initiative, then may as well take away thief Thieves are not near as over powered as many like to think. We just get forced to use the same builds over and over by lack of balance from our other skills. If our poisons and traps weren’t worthless, we would use them just as much. A lot if people who play thief do it for the mechanics and tactics.

Archtus.6971:

Akumashogun.5973:

In my opinion, Thieves need to have cool downs put on abilities 2, 3, 4 and 5 for all weapons they can use.

Take away initiative, then may as well take away thief

This is what non thieves don’t seem to realize and we keep trying to tell them. If ya took away the initiative system you’d have to redesign every single weapon skill the thief has to add a movement mechanic, because the init system is what allows us to stay so slippery and adaptable. Ya just couldn’t do it without a complete revamp of the class from the ground up – and you’d lose a lot, probably all, of your thief players that way.

First thing to do is to implement the thief changes in spvp to WvW.

Second, reduce mug damage by 50%.

Third, remove the “seek” out of heart seeker.

Finish…

for wvw just put a lower cap on critical dmg, since the fact people (of all classes not just thief) can get like 118% crit dmg is too much really messes up balance for wvw, instead of trying to address individual skills. putting a 75% max on crit dmg might help.

pvp.. alot of crying but thiefs arent that bad, i think just focus on making some of the other weapon sets more useable, and maybe dancing dagger needs to be adjusted again, since its very bad now, i think some condition builds need work, like venoms. i wouldnt say backstab is too overpowered in spvp just maybe the animation should be longer. giving a slight reaction time between mug/cnd/backstab combo.

pvp.. alot of crying but thiefs arent that bad, i think just focus on making some of the other weapon sets more useable, and maybe dancing dagger needs to be adjusted again, since its very bad now, i think some condition builds need work, like venoms. i wouldnt say backstab is too overpowered in spvp just maybe the animation should be longer. giving a slight reaction time between mug/cnd/backstab combo.unless its intended the steal not breaking skill animations is part of what makes these combos happen. its fun. but i can see why people QQ about it.

pvp.. alot of crying but thiefs arent that bad, i think just focus on making some of the other weapon sets more useable, and maybe dancing dagger needs to be adjusted again, since its very bad now, i think some condition builds need work, like venoms. i wouldnt say backstab is too overpowered in spvp just maybe the animation should be longer. giving a slight reaction time between mug/cnd/backstab combo.unless its intended the steal not breaking skill animations is part of what makes these combos happen. its fun. but i can see why people QQ about it.for pve i think make sure pvp changes are separate.. thats all pve thiefs are weak, and dont have too much group utility.. i cope, but people do complain, maybe venom share should be more effective and maybe a bleed venom, since all the other venoms do not stack. and since they are normally multi aplication it makes sence to have one that stacks.

From someone who mains thief:

Nerfs:

1) Steal: Using steal should cancel out whatever skill you were using before it. Steal+CnD is really cheesy, and feels more like a bug/exploit than a real game mechanic. Steal should also not apply venoms. This will people to actually work to get in close to someone using D/D.

2) Heartseeker: Reduce range from 450 to 200. This should reduce QQ about heartseeker spammers in hotjoins.

3) Haste: This skill needs to go. Quickness + initiative system is just way too good. Replace this with something else that will give thieves boons or something, or maybe another condition removal.

Buffs:

-If the nerfs above are implemented, then CnD and Pistol whip damage should be restored to what they were before they were nerfed. Pistol whip will not be overpowered if haste is gone, and CnD will not be a problem if the Steal + CnD combo no longer works.

1) Shadow Shot: This skill needs to just execute a lot faster than it does currently. The reason people don’t use this is because it’s way too slow. Making this better will make D/P actually viable.

2) Flanking Strike: Fix the tracking on this.

3) Body shot: Speed up the animation for this. This will make Pistol mainhand sets alot more viable.

Thieves I like thieves where they are. High burst damage, in and out of a fight, but generally weak to condition damage. The offensive style thieves excel in 1 v 1 situations but generally won’t find a happy home in a zerg. The change to assassin signet was also welcome due to 1 shot backstabs being a bit overboard. However, there are two things about the thief I think could use some tweaking for balance/enjoyment.

1- long, long stealth
There is not too much stealth, per se, just too long stealth. Blinding powder, hide in shadows, I don’t see as too bad, shadow refuge is a bit OP. I don’t think stealth should stack so high, or stack at all really. In addition the revealed debuff is very short. Keep in mind that thief stealth brokenness is empowered further by the slow model loading in WvW.

To further illustrate this point, I would like to mention that I have achieved UNLIMITED stealth with my thief and no outside help. If you want to reproduce it just offhand a pistol and switch between bow. That alone + initiative traits can do it, but if you want to go overboard you can take shadow refuge, blinding powder, and smoke screen. 3 initiative blast finishers with no cd + smoke field + 2 initiative back on creating stealth… deception cd.. you get the point.

This might be okay if there were a way to break or reveal stealth, but there is no such mechanic, and the balance was supposed to be short duration. This relates to my #2 gripe,

2- Easy mode- I like the initiative idea, but it lets people spam button for the win. Maybe reduced effect or double initiative penalty for using same skill repeatedly in a row?
History of the thief patches: haste then,
dagger 222222222222- stealth, F key. patched but still somewhat effective
short bow 3333333333333 on face, stealth, f key. patched
sword/pistol 3333 stealth, f key. 15% damage nerf patch, still somewhat effective
(current fads)
dagger/dagger 333333333333 stealth, f key.
pistol pistol 33333333 stealth, f key

also two bugs that REALLY need to go: 1- infinite stealth+ sitting on control point in wvwvw trolling 50 people for 5 minutes lawls
2- inifinite stealth + shooting short bow 4 tons of people with poison build for almost a whole minute..and never leaving stealth, because the 4 skill doesn’t do damage on hit.

edit because I forgot some 33333s.

PS the sword and short bow stealth moves could use some love

dmt.3490:

From someone who mains thief:

Nerfs:

1) Steal: Using steal should cancel out whatever skill you were using before it. Steal+CnD is really cheesy, and feels more like a bug/exploit than a real game mechanic. Steal should also not apply venoms. This will people to actually work to get in close to someone using D/D.

2) Heartseeker: Reduce range from 450 to 200. This should reduce QQ about heartseeker spammers in hotjoins.

3) Haste: This skill needs to go. Quickness + initiative system is just way too good. Replace this with something else that will give thieves boons or something, or maybe another condition removal.

Buffs:

-If the nerfs above are implemented, then CnD and Pistol whip damage should be restored to what they were before they were nerfed. Pistol whip will not be overpowered if haste is gone, and CnD will not be a problem if the Steal + CnD combo no longer works.

1) Shadow Shot: This skill needs to just execute a lot faster than it does currently. The reason people don’t use this is because it’s way too slow. Making this better will make D/P actually viable.

2) Flanking Strike: Fix the tracking on this.

3) Body shot: Speed up the animation for this. This will make Pistol mainhand sets alot more viable.

If thief steal cancels what you are casting so should other classes like elementalist and so on. Thief isnt the only one who has it

if heartseeker has 200 range its gonna be close to basic attack with more dmg and leap will only make animation of 200 range attack rly long. 300 range could be ok i guess.

Haste has to be changed somehow but some skills need fix first before haste could go away. PWhip, and some from other classes.

CnD damage should be brought back anyways since if you arent glass cannon now it barely does any damage.

yagerau.6438:

Thieves I like thieves where they are. High burst damage, in and out of a fight, but generally weak to condition damage. The offensive style thieves excel in 1 v 1 situations but generally won’t find a happy home in a zerg. The change to assassin signet was also welcome due to 1 shot backstabs being a bit overboard. However, there are two things about the thief I think could use some tweaking for balance/enjoyment.

1- long, long stealth
There is not too much stealth, per se, just too long stealth. Blinding powder, hide in shadows, I don’t see as too bad, shadow refuge is a bit OP. I don’t think stealth should stack so high, or stack at all really. In addition the revealed debuff is very short. Keep in mind that thief stealth brokenness is empowered further by the slow model loading in WvW.

To further illustrate this point, I would like to mention that I have achieved UNLIMITED stealth with my thief and no outside help. If you want to reproduce it just offhand a pistol and switch between bow. That alone + initiative traits can do it, but if you want to go overboard you can take shadow refuge, blinding powder, and smoke screen. 3 initiative blast finishers with no cd + smoke field + 2 initiative back on creating stealth… deception cd.. you get the point.

This might be okay if there were a way to break or reveal stealth, but there is no such mechanic, and the balance was supposed to be short duration. This relates to my #2 gripe,

2- Easy mode- I like the initiative idea, but it lets people spam button for the win. Maybe reduced effect or double initiative penalty for using same skill repeatedly in a row?
History of the thief patches: haste then,
dagger 222222222222- stealth, F key. patched but still somewhat effective
short bow 3333333333333 on face, stealth, f key. patched
sword/pistol 3333 stealth, f key. 15% damage nerf patch, still somewhat effective
dagger/dagger 3333333 roll some 33333 stealth, f key.
pistol pistol 33333333 stealth, f key

also two bugs that REALLY need to go: 1- infinite stealth+ sitting on control point in wvwvw trolling 50 people for 5 minutes lawls
2- inifinite stealth + shooting short bow 4 tons of people with poison build for almost a whole minute..and never leaving stealth, because the 4 skill doesn’t do damage on hit.

edit because I forgot some 33333s.

PS the sword and short bow stealth moves could use some love

What you said about WvW holding point invisible is silly, and perma stealth is achivable but each blast finisher gives off smoke animation… which clearly shows where you are for sure.

Penalty for using same skill 2 times in a row … Nah rly, some weapeons got only 1 dmg skill in tottal in it. It would ruin those weapeon sets completely. This could never be done withouth fulll remake of weapeons.

They have made changes already that change the damage in WvW without nerfing PVE power. PVErs should not be getting worked up about this thread. I have an 80 thief, undergeared, that doesn’t do what other thieves do to my ele (yet) because I haven’t spent the coin/farmed the karma for exotics yet. Undergeared, wrong spec thieves aren’t OP. Not at all. 2288 armor is plenty high for light armor. It’s not glass cannon for it to be that high. I just need 1 more weapon and acessories. My backpiece is PVT.

Overmind.3705:

To Thief players…
Name one other profession that can kill a player in under 2 seconds.

Frenzy Hundred blades warrior

Killthehealersffs~ just wanted to point out that in some cases, Vanilla Rogues could ONE shot anything in cloth. Warlocks, Priests and even Paladins wearing cloth (remember back when they didn’t have healing Plate?). Vanilla WoW players had around 6~8k max health assuming they were tanks with top end gear for the day. But we had counter classes that could chew us up and spit us out in record time (mainly Warriors).

And again even after this many pages I’ve seen maybe two constructive and thought out suggestions, and the rest are “I’m terrible at the game and lost to a Thief one time in 100 fights when I was alone in the middle of a jumping puzzle. Nerf Thieves!” Unless Anet is like Blizzard (which I pray they’re not talking to each other) they’re not about to start over with the class and change how it plays completely. So get this part through your heads:
Stealth isn’t going away
Steal isn’t going away
Mug isn’t going away
Burst damage 3 shots aren’t going away

Those are key aspects to the class and the burst part is not a Thief specialty either. Youtube some burst videos of any class and I bet you can find nice big hits for all of them (maybe Ranger and Necromancer are the exception here). Burst is damage based on you having no defense. The Thief has the fastest burst and pays for it with the lowest health pool and two skills to try to get out of trouble: Shadow’s Refuge and Infiltrator’s Arrow. Other classes have even higher burst, but pay for it by it being easier to avoid but at the same time, theyhave more health. A full Berserker Thief is sitting around 12,500 health before any buffs. A Warrior in similar gear is 19,000 health or more (these are the numbers my Thief and Warrior have in similar gear).

I’m telling you all to stop worrying about a glass cannon that can kill 1 guy in WvW in the middle of fking nowhere every 45 seconds. What good is that to the team? It’s not. That’s the point. You don’t see people in tPvP or sPvP screaming about Thieves because the skill cap is higher, the players are better, the teamwork is better and Thieves have to try even harder to pull off big hits (which are reduced even more because of the lowered damage potential in those modes of play). Anet isn’t going to balance WvW Thieves because 1 rolled you over there. They don’t care about balance in WvW anymore than Blizzard gives a rat’s azz about PvP balance in anything but the maximum level brackets.

If I assume correctly, I’d think the things Anet wants to hear are why out of the skills Thieves have, we use about 4 or them and everybody uses the same two or 3 utility skills and that’s about it. Tell them why Dancing Dagger blows now, or what’s wrong with Unload or Flanking Strike. How about making Infiltrator’s Arrow not root us when we shoot it? Ya know, things that aren’t interesting to play with, not things that make you all cry that you suck at the game. I don’t think they wanted to drown the Thieves in a sea of tears, but find out what things make them boring as heck to play and half useless in teams/dungeons/zergs/etc. Just my two cents, I could be wrong.

Overmind.3705:

Kurow.6973:

@ Reiven.2543:

Stealth in GW2 is PERFECTLY fine as is. In fact, it’s the best set-up of stealth I’ve seen.

What needs to be fixed is culling issues in WvW. There’s ABSOLUTE NOTHING wrong with stealth skills…just players who fail to adapt and identify the weaknesses of certain skills.

I have seen many thieves with much higher uptime on stealth than that. Look around at some thief videos for ideas on how to maximize (abuse) stealth durations.

Listen! If you are running a build specifically to stealth (D/P traited for maximum stealth & initiative regen), you’re useless in a fight! Do not try justify one build into others. If you haven’t played a thief (which is obvious you haven’t)…please do not talk about it.

I do hope ANet doesn’t take into account more half 5% of these suggestions here because from what I’ve seen so far from this thread, they’re mostly from non-thief players just simply qqing about the class instead of working to adapt to it like the good players have.

I mean, I even read someone complaining how the revealed debuff should be longer. Really now? If you’re having trouble tracking thieves with 3~4s stealth and a whopping 3 second revealed debuff, you got other problems.

PS: It is NOT hard to predict the C&D spamming thief’s C&D. Learn to dodge it and they waste 6 initiative pointlessly. The animation for it is OBVIOUS and SLOW…not to mention the fact that they need to be in melee range (ergo much easier to predict when they’re about to try it). That’s half their initiative gone instantly without doing ANYTHING.

The heart seeker spammers are back! Got hit for two 6k HS this morning on my Mesmer with 1400 toughness. Ridiculous OP class in WvW worse even than DAOC archers at release. Gotta love a thief griefing an entire group and getting away over and over

Then you fail as a Mesmer. You have more outs than anybody including a Thief and you have clones to distract them with. 1400 Toughness is nothing at all. You’d need up closer to 4000 Toughness to start noticing a big drop in physical damage (50% less) and I really don’t see any class outside of bunker Guardians even bothering to come close to that much. Go with higher Vitality if you want to survive. You sound like a glass cannon build to me. Also for a Thief to hit you for 6k with Heartseeker you had to be under 25% health and the fact that he was able to hit you with two without you dodging, porting, cloning or even Alt+F4ing either means you were getting zerged by more than a Thief (stunned, immobilized, knocked down, Feared) or you just suck. In either case, you lost, respawn and move on.

Kurow.6973:

Listen! If you are running a build specifically to stealth (D/P traited for maximum stealth & initiative regen), you’re useless in a fight!

“Useless in a fight?”
You are NEVER useless in a fight where you are able to do damage but never take it. It’s not a fast 2 shot, but it’s a hell of a lot safer. And you will win any fight where you take no damage when the other guy is taking damage and can’t run away.

That kind of build is crazy powerful at any control node.

My concern about thieves are this. You hired a balancing team who did wonderful work and had many aspects balanced besides for 2 main points. you then proceeded to lock them in the basement and starved them of light and nourishment hitting them with stacks of forum threads printed on paper. it didn’t take them long to crack but when they did and escaped the room of perpetual darkness there minds had been broken and they truly believe the whiners on the forums where right…
all the while missing the 2 points: capping while stealth and steal c+d and back stab…

So in short. delete every change you made. fix those 2 things. and we are now balanced again… you can leave revealed we’ve gotten used to it by now…

any bets on how long this post will last

Setima.8741:

Then you fail as a Mesmer. You have more outs than anybody including a Thief and you have clones to distract them with. 1400 Toughness is nothing at all. You’d need up closer to 4000 Toughness to start noticing a big drop in physical damage (50% less) and I really don’t see any class outside of bunker Guardians even bothering to come close to that much. Go with higher Vitality if you want to survive. You sound like a glass cannon build to me. Also for a Thief to hit you for 6k with Heartseeker you had to be under 25% health and the fact that he was able to hit you with two without you dodging, porting, cloning or even Alt+F4ing either means you were getting zerged by more than a Thief (stunned, immobilized, knocked down, Feared) or you just suck. In either case, you lost, respawn and move on.

I believe it’s “armor” you should be referring to and not “toughness” since 4000 toughness is unobtainable.

Before making such comment as “(other players are) terrible at the game and lost to a Thief one time in 100 fights when I was alone in the middle of a jumping puzzle. Nerf Thieves" maybe you should take some time to learn the mechanics of this game.

Overmind~I wouldn’t say D/P is useless but as Kurow said if you’re traiting to hold a node and waste time in stealth for long periods of time, you’re not killing anybody. The entire point of the build is to stall the capture until your zerg can show up or at least hold up their zerg to slow things down. These types don’t go out and start trying to fight somebody in the middle of 30 people, that’s instant death. They throw down black powder and heartseeker through it a few times to keep up their stealth. Somebody posted a “theory of permanent stealth” video and while it does work, they eventually find him and he dies. There’s flaws in that strategy the same as any. One screwed up auto targeted Heartseeker and the Thief pops out in front of 20 people and is dead 5 seconds later. It’s never 100% of course some luck is involved, but again, while he’s not “useless” he’s not dealing damage in any meaningful way and they don’t even have CnD to stealth with in the first place (and if he’s not careful he’ll definitely take damage).

Highlie~ I agree that they should make it so if you’re in stealth, you can’t hold a point just like in sPvP and tPvP. However, I still believe the CnD>Mug>Backstab combo should always stay. I mean outside of that one combo, what are Backstab Cannons supposed to do? The entire reason for the build is high damage+fast attack, i.e. surprise! While the setup is pretty simple, so are the means to defeat it. You can see the Thief coming because they can’t be in stealth first or they ruin the combo. If you think they’re going for the combo, ready your stun break or dodge just as you see them hit 900 range. A good dodge or stunbreak ruins their big damage for 45 seconds. At that point, they’ll probably run away or risk dying.

Again and again I see most people complaining due to them not understanding how to play a Thief and just hate to lose to them. Everybody, please, stop with the crying and make a Thief. Even if you hate their guts, even if the thought makes you throw up, make one, go join The Mists and play around with the class. Go glass cannon Backstab some of those NPCs or the mini-boss mobs in there. You’ll see really quick just how fast you can die and where you’re weak. Once you know the downsides, the upsides don’t seem nearly as good as people think they are. I’ll even bake cookies for the ones who try to do this! Mmm cookies! =D~

You can’t perma-spam skills as a Thief, because – you guessed it – you run out of initiative. Classes, that can really spam skills, are the ones, that got lots, like Elementalist and Engineer. Why? Because they can switch kits or attunements and have a “fresh” number of skills ready, which are not on cooldown.

Ok – you have to keep track on what skill you used up… ok.

So forget about that “222222” heartseeker nonsense already. Just stop spreading myths and lies if you can’t prove your words.

Oh… and if you really want to do the math… please keep in mind, that a good thief would not spend ALL initiative at once but keep some points for defensive actions.

Skupuz~ Toughness is a defensive character attribute. Each attribute point put into toughness increases the armor of the character by one, which improves the character’s ability to withstand direct damage. As far as I’m concerned, the two are effectively the same thing and do the same thing which is reduce incoming damage. Of course you add your defense stat+toughness stat to get your total armor, but since you didn’t say how much armor you had total, it sounded more like you meant to say you had 1400 armor and not toughness.

Either way I should have corrected myself but oh well. So you probably have in the range of 2200+ armor or a bit higher then? (my Thief has 2300 armor by comparison) Either way it still isn’t in the 3000~4000 range you’d need to really laugh off the damage a Thief does. I’ve ran into those bunker builds plenty of times on my own Thief. Backstab critical hits for 2500 aren’t too fun.

Overmind.3705:

Kurow.6973:

Listen! If you are running a build specifically to stealth (D/P traited for maximum stealth & initiative regen), you’re useless in a fight!

“Useless in a fight?”
You are NEVER useless in a fight where you are able to do damage but never take it. It’s not a fast 2 shot, but it’s a hell of a lot safer. And you will win any fight where you take no damage when the other guy is taking damage and can’t run away.

That kind of build is crazy powerful at any control node.

Show me this amazing video you speak of that defies the boundaries I said…and that doesn’t contradict your statements.

Steal does NOT negate damage like block and invulnerability do.

I think we’re playing different games.

• Powerful spammable abilities like Heartseeker need to have a Cooldown (2-3 seconds)

• Skills like Unload and Head Shot need to buffed with an added cooldown also, reward players for timing these abilities properly, instead of just spamming them without any punishment.

• Traits for every class need to be looked at very closely, most of them are useless.
  In my opinion Trait lines should not give any stats (or very minimal stats). You’re just making class/build balance harder to achieve!

• Nerf Mug into the ground, having a trait that deals 6k damage is completely unbalanced. Give it a flat damage of ~5% of the opponents health. Or just get rid of it

• There needs to be a cap on +Critical Damage; around 50%? Also adjust Toughness/vitality/healing accordingly. This needs to sorted out immediately, imo!

• Body Shot – LOL, this ability rivals the crapynes of most the Ranger abilities… I heard a good suggestion about making our #2 Pistol ability a Blast Finisher. This would give P/P a way to Stealth without having to use Utilities. Again, abilities like this should have a small cooldown.

• Self-rooting abilities like Pistol Whip need to changed. Which one of you thought a self-rooting mechanic would be fun or interesting to use? Nerf the damage/damage mitigation and for the love of god remove the self-root!!11

• Quickness obviously need to fixed: Reduce the ’’Speed’’ from 100% to around 20% and increase the duration by ~250%

Chakuna.6325:

• Powerful spammable abilities like Heartseeker need to have a Cooldown (2-3 seconds)

• Skills like Unload and Head Shot need to buffed with an added cooldown also, reward players for timing these abilities properly, instead of just spamming them without any punishment.

• Traits for every class need to be looked at very closely, most of them are useless.
  In my opinion Trait lines should not give any stats (or very minimal stats). You’re just making class/build balance harder to achieve!

• Nerf Mug into the ground, having a trait that deals 6k damage is completely unbalanced. Give it a flat damage of ~5% of the opponents health. Or just get rid of it

• There needs to be a cap on +Critical Damage; around 50%? Also adjust Toughness/vitality/healing accordingly. This needs to sorted out immediately, imo!

• Body Shot – LOL, this ability rivals the crapynes of most the Ranger abilities… I heard a good suggestion about making our #2 Pistol ability a Blast Finisher. This would give P/P a way to Stealth without having to use Utilities. Again, abilities like this should have a small cooldown.

if you give an 3 seconds cooldown to HS, with the current 1 second cast time, then you need 4 seconds for 1 leap at 450 range, skill become useless. Not sure how you calculated this, or how often you played D/D thief, but maybe you can explain me how an thief will catch any class ( they already get outrunned by some elementarists)
You cannot ask for an crit damage cap at 50% when only 1 single ascended ring add 8% and you can get 30% on trait line.What adjustments you talk about ? an bunker elementarist can kill 2thieves same time, an bunker guardian can heal forever from glass cannon thief and just ignore his damage, is up to everybody what stats he focus on.
steal from range without using utility’s = 100% avoid damage

Rayya.2591:

if you give an 3 seconds cooldown to HS, with the current 1 second cast time, then you need 4 seconds for 1 leap at 450 range, skill become useless. Not sure how you calculated this, or how often you played D/D thief, but maybe you can explain me how an thief will catch any class ( they already get outrunned by some elementarists)
You cannot ask for an crit damage cap at 50% when only 1 single ascended ring add 8% and you can get 30% on trait line.What adjustments you talk about ? an bunker elementarist can kill 2thieves same time, an bunker guardian can heal forever from glass cannon thief and just ignore his damage, is up to everybody what stats he focus on.
steal from range without using utility’s = 100% avoid damage

I was going to edit my post and say that gear should give less crit damage (less stats overall). I did say other attributes need to adjusted accordingly, and I also said that Trait lines should not give stats. My point is: reduce burst, and reduce bunkerness.

I didn’t understand the last part of your post, sorry.

edit: You really need to spam Heartseeker to connect with your oppenent? lol, 25% perma speed buff, cripples, stealth, condition removal when we stealth and while in stealth (cant be kited for very long), steal, and heartseeker on ‘’2-3 cooldown’’ isn’t enough? Really? (that’s not including utility skills, or your second set of weapon skills).

‘’Not sure how you calculated this, or how often you played D/D thief’’ – lol (oh and HS doesn’t have a 1 sec cast time)

Setima.8741:

Killthehealersffs~

I’m telling you all to stop worrying about a glass cannon that can kill 1 guy in WvW in the middle of fking nowhere every 45 seconds. What good is that to the team? It’s not. That’s the point. You don’t see people in tPvP or sPvP screaming about Thieves because the skill cap is higher, the players are better, the teamwork is better and Thieves have to try even harder to pull off big hits (which are reduced even more because of the lowered damage potential in those modes of play).

If this game had a healer , then the 2 sec TKK would be justified :P
If the Enginner Grenades barage could crit for 14k in sPvP-tPvP iwould support Thiefs :P

IF a <<noob>> in sPvP is dying constatly from these 2 sec TKK , he will whine on the forums
IF he whine of the forums and the only answer is L2P > he will go back in his old game , where theres a chance that a healer will save him
Less noobs > less ppl trying sPvP> Less playing in tPvP > and less trying paid tournaments

IF they find a way so these 2 sec TKK is only the highers skilled cap players could off , while protects the lower skilled , then i dont have a problem

Byw in vanilia WoW warriors + demonology locks had the highest hp (4300-5k) (there was a feral druid in MC , who reached 12k with the cooking-raid buffs)
And back then Rogues where a more control + mobility class (like in the Kufupantaland) , while firemages could 3 shot ppl :P

You can’t give the Thief class skill cooldowns. It’s not what the class is about. kitten do you even read what the heck you’re typing? The class is a burst class, it is a spam X button class. Get the kitten over it, that’s what Anet said our “Rogue/Assassin” class is supposed to be. Our “cooldown” is our limited initiative supply. We have 12 unless traited for 15. By default we can use CnD twice or Infiltrator’s Arrow twice and we’re without power to stealth or get away very efficiently for a good bit of time.

At least it wasn’t a gd energy bar like in WoW or Rift. The Thief still remains the same as those other versions from other MMOs because the same rules apply: Apply spike burst and run out of gas in 4 moves, or spike a little bit and conserve the energy for getting back out. Anet isn’t here asking how to delete the Thief and turn them into Backstab Warriors. They don’t give two shiets if you like the class or if you like how they play or how you want them nerfed or redesigned. The only thing they can do at this point is adjust the damage, range and initiative costs of our skills and other minor changes which we’ve already seen is all they do.

The problem is there’s very little middle ground for the Thief. It’s either all burst, no survivability or all survivability and no burst. The in between stuff like P/P, S/P, D/P just are not as effective or are just too useless to be much fun. And again, people are putting up unrealistic suggestions because they lost to a Thief and it got them all upset so they come here to throw their anger at the Thief. If you can’t figure out how to kick their faces in, make one, or quit, or even easier, stay out of WvW and do sPvP/tPvP where the Thief is barely even played at all.

Killthehealersffs~ well from my perspective, I 3 shot anybody in cloth. Ambush>Backstab>Cold Blood+Eviscerate= 10k+ easy especially if you had the Grand Marshal gear before it became easy mode to get (like most everything in WoW these days). The way I look at it though is that a Thief is like the old Warlock’s Fear that didn’t break on damage. Fear chain into dots into more Fear chains=dead guy. Unless you had a PvP trinket to break that stuff, it was easy to get locked into some chain of death. Here though, having a stun breaker or some sort of blink/teleport will save your azz all the time, even from a Backstab combo. I’ve had D/D Elementalists light me up in a heartbeat from nowhere and without Shadow Step I was dead before I could get up from the knockdown.

None of this is any different in how you die outside of how you react to what’s happening. You can deny a Thief his burst the same way you can deny a Warrior his Bull’s Rush>100B. Is it as easy to see coming as a Warrior? No, probably less obvious, but by now everybody knows it’s coming just as much. Every class has a burst rotation (again, except Necromancers and Rangers, though I’m sure somebody out there made a video to prove me wrong!) and if you play the class or watch a couple of videos, you’ll know what to expect, because the setup will always be the same.

I’m not saying all the burst in the game should be on one class, I’m saying that burst is a part of this game for ALL classes to deal with. For some classes it’s easier than others or more obvious than others, but the fact remains that everybody is given the tools to deny that burst or at least survive it and get away. People want to focus on only the Win/Lose aspect without realizing there’s more to it than just that. What I fear is that people crying too loudly over things they can do something about now (i.e. learn to counter it) and won’t be happy even if the Thief ends up doing a full burst combo that does 1200 damage tops with their combo. =(

Yes but Warriors Bull Rush/Hundread Blade
and the Elementalist Lighting Ride/Updrift/Dragon Tooth or Churning Earth ,
have a visual animation u can respond to and its not magically teleport to u target istantly .

In real life , theres some ppl that can catch arrows on the air
Why they cant catch bullets from guns , while the formula is the same , while knowing that the bullets are coming towards them , like the arrows ?
Should say to them , lol u noob , L2P its the same thing ?

Edit: 6-10 k its fine from backstab , but either make Steal a Bull rush animation or change something else
As far i know from animes , Thiefs means playing dirty (daze+bling+shadowstep-evade) and not do huge amount of damage like Assasins

Killthehealersffs~ the way I look at it is more preemptive than reactionary. You have to make the first move and not let the Thief get the big hits on you. Remember that all pieces of that combo can miss and be evaded. You dodge Mug and you’ll also dodge CnD which takes the Thief down by half their initiative and now they just lost their burst. Lets assume you misjudged and eat the Mug>CnD. You know they want to Backstab you, so dodge backwards twice. There’s no way they will be able to stay behind you to hit you with the full Backstab damage. If they mistime the hit, you take about 2k damage, if they miss you completely you’re now at range and they’ll be out of stealth in 1 second. Swap to ranged yourself and keep them away from you. Their Mug is down for 45 seconds (default) and the only utility skill they’re using to stay safe is Shadow Refuge. They generally won’t have Shadow Step, Caltrops or any type of trap. They could be using Devourer Venom to immobilize you, but unless they swap to ranged also, they can’t apply it. If they do swap to ranged, you’ve got 8 seconds to blow them up before they can even go back into stealth due to the weapon swap. They most likely have Shortbow which had it’s damage gutted last patch.

Lets assume one step further and say they used Basilisk Venom to stun you. You have two choices here. Wait for the stun then break it (no duh!) or use any form of Stability or Damage Immunity immediately before or after it happens.

As I said, is it easy to do it? No it requires a little thinking ahead and good reactions. What I think people here whine about most is that they’re either alone in WvW and get taken out by a lone Thief, or they’re part of a zerg and get downed by a Thief taking people out in the back. Now if you die in the middle of a zerg to a Thief, really, who cares? So you got singled out and ate it, happens to people (and me!) all the time. Thief gets blown up at that point and I get a res, negating his pathetic attempt to make me rage. If you’re out roaming, expect to see a Thief or two. Look around sometimes, watch your back. I’ve been blown away by how many people will run by me in WvW when I’m standing near a rock or a tree in plain sight of them.

On a side note, have you ever Shadow Refuged a Warrior, snuck around the corner of a keep and watched him Frenzy>100B 12 people beating on a gate? Nobody was whispering the Thief with rage on that one! FUN! =D

Reading these replies the one thing that disgusts me are the blatant posts by non thieves coming in here trying to nerf our class into the ground.

You really need to have separate forums for feedback BY thieves and feedback from people who don’t play them. You’d see the HUGE discrepancy between the two groups on just exactly what needs fixing and what doesn’t.

Taking peoples views at equal face value without first determining what side of this fence they are on is going down a bad path if you want real fixes.

Personally as a thief these are my top concerns:

Fix the culling bug – (before you address anything else)

Tweak Initiative cost on Dancing Dagger

Fix Flanking Strike

Possibly add the option to dual wield swords.

Look at Traps (right now they are rarely used)

Remove Quickness – or make it increase initiative gain (and or add vigor) for X seconds instead of attack speed.

Fix Pistols to be useful for something besides single target ranged.

Tweak Shortbow skills ( 2 is very clunky to use, too high of an arch makes it impossible to use in a tunnel and it takes entirely too long to land from when fired. )

Shortbow could benefit greatly from some type of timed skill that goes farther the longer we aim it. (maybe starting at 900, then going to 1050 then 1200 for a 1-2-3 second pull on the bow.) Giving us a REAL single target attack on the bow.

Don’t allow Cloak and Dagger to be precast before Steal (keep the dmg)

(and please, please, please dont be hasty with tweaking damage numbers until you FIRST and FOREMOST fix the bugs and things like precasting Cloak and Dagger first)

Some Thiefs i am afraid , and shown me the true horor in tPvP , have been using Devourer+ Basilisc
My break stun doesnt remove the Devourer immobilize
The Thiefs Backstab doesnt need to be from behind , but it works even in the sides .
Nor the Thief <<must use the Steal from 900 range>> he could wait patiently , while aproching me , with this dodge/swiftness

By the time i use the break stun , the Thief is already behind me (he pass through me) and used his Backstab , before i had time to use my Toolkit shield or my Shiled-offhand .

Like the other have said , either dont let Mug+CnD to work in the time , or make Steal and bull rush /ninja animation , or simply nerf Backstab and increase once again any other weapon attack

Backstab will work from any direction, but it won’t do double damage unless you’re behind them though I guess side is still sort of behind them. If he’s using both Basilisk and Devourer, then he’s really wasting a lot of slots just to kill you every 90 seconds. He wouldn’t even need both. If you’re immobilized you can’t dodge the Backstab anyway, so I don’t see the point in using both at the same time.

Assuming you’re quick and saw him coming, you should still be able to stun break>dodge the Backstab, but again, sometimes you’ll just have to be ready before he gets to you. Yes he can bait you to blow your dodges early, so don’t fall for it. One really good way to tell if he’s getting ready to burst is to watch his buffs. If Assassin’s Signet is up and suddenly drops off, ROLL! I could probably go nuts on how to deal with a Thief on a class by class basis, but I’m really only good with my Thief vs Thief scenario stuff. Sometimes you’re just going to die, but nobody should get upset over that, it’s just a game. Respawn and go kick his nuts in while all his skills are on cooldown and watch him run away like a little girl!

Also, they probably won’t change Mug+CnD because as others have also said, it’s not just the Thief that can precast something during the animation of another skill. Elementalists are also a class that uses that to do really awesome burst/surprise tactics. It’s built into the game engine and changing it would be like getting rid of the Jumping Roundhouse>Low Forward Kick>Hadouken combo from Street Fighter games.

oh i don’t think steal cnd and backstab is op at all. i play a sword/dagger thief myself and i can says its pretty easy to counter. hell setima has listed off how many ways so far heh.
i would just like to add please don’t change flanking strike. it is fine the way it is though i really think you should give it the ability to hit invulnerable like how you made it target unblockable. (thanks btw now those pesky guardians are where they belong. dead on the ground )

Highlie.7641:

i would just like to add please don’t change flanking strike. it is fine the way it is

This is like the second time I’ve heard this ever. Can you explain what you like about the current functionality?

sure. it evades and gives 2 hits whats not to like? its great when you’re in the middle of a zerg. and a plus vs d/d thiefs casting this will not only make there heartseeker miss your hit will usually land. (it seems to take longer for the animation) i think most people don’t like it cause if you fail the trick, your drove sideways. but what is really happening is your locking onto another target and u evade towards them. which is fine it puts you in great range for cnd. sorry im tired probably ain’t making much sense atm

Some posters here have deeper concerns, but I do have two things that bother me.

1) Many of the weapon and combinations don’t stack up when trying to accomplish a certain playstyle. For example Mainhand Pistol has a nice stacking bleed for condition builds, but skill #2 is vulnerability, which doesn’t do much for condition builds and the dual skill offers nothing in this regard either. There is also not really a very good offhand that support a condition build. Sure, Shortbow is clearly the most condition heavy weapon, but its really meant for aoe use overall.

2) Steal makes no sense playing as a ranged thief. The functionality needs to differ based on your mainhand.

-Dagger = shadowstep behind, backstab and steal.
-Pistol = steal if close range, shadowstep away and fire a barrage of bleeding shots.
-Sword = shadowstep to enemy stealing and dazing while gaining a riposte, blocking
next attack.
-Shortbow = steal if close range, shadowstep backwards while immobilizing up to 3 enemies for 2s.

There are many issues on a vast multitude of thief issues, but since this is the “official” thread, I’ll try to bullet point it. I highly reccommend you look over other high post count threads in this particular forum as well, as the thief forum tends to have the most reasoned counterarguments to complaints against the class, as they are written from the perspective of thief players. I’m sure you’re taking all this with a grain of salt in any case.

Stealth
I know you’re working on it, but the rendering delay problem more negatively effects the perception of thieves (and to a smaller extent mesmers) than any other single issue. People are literally fighting us without ever seeing us between stealths in a lot of cases. Although the overall solution to this has widespread effects, it is a large problem for the perceptions players have of the thief profession, as we have so many stealths avaliable to us, and rely on them in many builds for damage and survivability. If some interim solution could be implemented specifically to raise stealth-reveal priority to the top of the stack for whatever algorithm selects what order entities are loaded, or simply leaving stealthers cached somehow it would do a lot to improving gameplay in pvp versus stealthers, and thus allow for more reasoned discussions on the subject.

Burst Damage & Mug
While we are getting closer to something that’s still rewarding for the thief, but not blatantly unfair to play against, potential burst damage could still stand to be spread out slightly. The change to cloak and dagger was a warranted one, as the ability was simply too good for its cost. However, this was not a significant adjustment in terms of burst damage for the thief. The real culprit here, more so than anything else, is mug and its interaction with whatever ability is qued to interact with it. The problems with mug are twofold. Firstly, it enables an emergent mechanic that allows a simultaneous large damage spike to coincide with any skill, which makes it very difficult to fairly balance other damage dealing skills. Secondly, used outside of this emergent mechanic, it is not a very useful ability. Moving mug to another function, such as a modest stack of long-duration vulnerability (AKA the assassin’s signet treatment), granting the thief reactive damage, applying as a non-removable DoT, or any other way to keep the total damage it adds to a burst while simultaneously spreading that damage out over time would allow the thief to keep the burst-retreat style builds, but allow for slightly more fair counterplay. If applied as a debuff this would also make it much more versatile trait.

Underwater skills
Thieves have zero viable DPS methods for condition-based builds, and no reliable underwater stealths. If we’re intended to be evasion-tanks in melee so be it, but give us some solid bleed stacking options in ranged, and open a few more utilities for underwater use. Shadow refuge could easily be a PBAoE bubble for instance. Traps could be mines.

Traps
Our traps are largely sub-par for their cast timers. I’m not asking to have the equivalent of ranger traps, as I believe ranger traps and thief traps should be functionally different, and I like the idea of thief traps being more focused on instant effects wheras ranger traps are more persistant. The traps themselves aren’t half bad, but they’re not worth using in most cases because we only get one use on a relatively long cooldown. Severely reducing the cooldown on them, or giving us something like multiple applications with a cooldown based on the first use would go a long way toward making them effective.

Venoms
Venoms suffer the same fate as traps. While their benefits are useful, many of them have either too few charges, too short condition durations, or both to be attractive when compared to solid skills like shadow refuge, shadowstep, or blinding powder. The traits for a debuff-focused venom build are there, but the venoms themselves can’t live up to the build. In addition, venoms are a very hit and miss prospect, as simply attacking uses a venom charge, whether the attack connects or, indeed, is even aimed at anything. I think it would be feasible to increase the power of venoms if they worked a bit more like mesmer mantras. Require a substantial rooted channel time to “mix” the venom for use, and then make the application instant for a single charge per press until the charges are depleted. This would allow us much finer control of venoms like ice drake, where we would really like to space out the applications, and would instantly make them much more attractive choices when combined with the venom-related traits.

Steal
Steal IS good when traited for the build, but it pales in comparison to every other profession mechanic in terms of usability. I don’t have a problem with it being pseudo-random. That’s actually part of the fun, and part of what allows stolen skills to be as powerful as they are. Simply allowing it to be used slightly more frequently by lowering the base cooldown would match it in power with other profession mechanics, and further incentivize currently unliked Trickery focused builds. In addition, I believe that due to a lack of a 1200 range weapon option, steal should have an inherant range of 1200, and the range increasing trait should be moved to another function.

Please remove, that you can tap or prevent a tap whil in stealth.

It is no fun having 2 thiefs keeping a 30 man force with culling and stealth from tapping. It is easy to fix and as long culling is an issue this would help.

(And yes everybody was dropping aoe, but the thiefs never showed up.)

Marduh.4603:

Stealth:
Mug – reduce damage
Backstab – reduce back damage by 10%
Backstab – increase cast time (1/4 to 1/2)
Dancing dagger|headshot – reduce cost 3 ini

There is no problem with those skill, the problem is with people going full zerk mode, if you tone those skills down people that are not full zerk wont be able todo anything anymore.

People dont seem to get it that not everyone goes full zerk !!!

Play a thief learn to counter attack them and its very easy to down a thief !!!

All this is from a PvE perspective:

D/P & D/D are fine as is.

P/P has lower DPS and lower utility than Short Bow. This isn’t good. It’s got fun animations and makes a nice bang, though. ^^

P/D (pre nerf) was a good competitor to Short Bow. Now it’s much worse. It still works, it’s just now much lower DPS with less utility and double the expense.

Short Bow’s only problem is the short range. Thief is the only class without a 1200 range option. Due to the dancing nerf, it’s now the only ranged DPS option, too.

S/P is quite nice except for what people call the “root” aspect of pistol whip; it doesn’t actually root you in place. You can still move, but moving will halt the skill.

S/D hasn’t seen much use by me due to the slow awkward animation for Flanking Strike.

“Off Hand Light” is bugged. If you have an alternate weapon set with an off-hand, it will use the off-hand from that other set. Currently, I like this feature. It saves gold and there are no good reasons to ever NOT use an off-hand weapon. So, uh, why are off-hand light skills in the game?

—

The first thing I’d do is fix pistols. They badly need it. The dancing dagger nerf made pistols completely non-viable for PvE compared to Short Bow, where DPS is pretty much king. In order to compete with Short Bow, you’d have to offer similar DPS and utility:

• AE. Pistol is single. SBow is 3 bounces.
  • Body Shot => Exploding Bullet: 300 radius AE
  • Vital Shot => Piercing Shot (same as before, adds piercing ability)
• Ranged jump back. P/D is melee. Sbow is 900 ranged.
  • Shadow Strike works at 900 range (throws the dagger instead of stabbing)
• Pistol is about 60% of Sbow’s DPS, not including bounces.
  • Up all pistol output by ~40%.
  • Unload uses exploding bullets, too (3 target AE cap)

I’d also up Short Bow’s range on 1&4 to 1200. I’d like them all to be a uniform 1200, but that’s just a bit too much gain in the mobility department for the top mobility class. It does, however, give thief a 1200 range DPS option like other classes. With those changes I’d be hard pressed to choose pistol or bow based on stats. I do admit to being partial to the noise and animation for pistols. I want to use them just for that as long as it doesn’t ruin my DPS relative to other options.

I’m playing warrior (rifle build) in WvW only and this is what I think about thieves:

Damage:
Thieves can really hurt! But I think it’s ok because it’s in the nature of a stealth class to deal single target dmg. However two things should be adjusted:

1. WvW is PVP so A.net should really apply PVP-rules for skills in WvW as they do in sPVP. IMO a better name for WvW would be wPVP.

2. Thieves have much less trade offs running a full glass canon build (e.g. full berserker items) than other professions because stealth is so superior for disengaging combat (see below). That results massive spike damage.

Stealth
Stealth is great! I love playing cat and mouse against thieves. Stealth is the nature of the thief profession. However three things should be considered for WvW:

1. Stealth need a counter! IMO the counter should be damage, so let damage break stealth. The same mechanics work so well in other games (e.g. DAOC). ATM its really difficult to react against a heavy stealthy thief. Its ok for melee chars because you can use your weapon-1 skill which deals cone aoe. But its really bad for range dps specs who lacks any aoe damage.

2. Stealth is way to strong for disengaging combat when things went wrong for the thief! ATM thief can use stealth to start the combat, he can use stealth during combat and when things went wrong for him he can also use stealth to disengage from combat and run away.
Thats way to much stealth for my taste. IMO it should work like this: thief should either use stealth to start combat or to disengage from combat but NOT BOTH. Thieves should have to decide whether to use it offensively or defensively.

3. Stealth has to much impact on equipment. Because stealth is so superior both as an offensive skill (start combat from stealth with a massive damage opener) and defense (disengage from combat whenever something went wrong). Because of that most thieves run an (almost) full berserker build.
No other profession can go like this! No other profession can ignore toughness and vitality like thieves can in WvW because its almost impossible for other professions to disengage from combat. Sure other classes have panic buttons (e.g. Endure Pain) but those skills just delay the time of death.

as mainly a pve player the only thing i want to be solved are all the bugs about stealth, like:
1. when using blinding powder or shadow refuge while taking damage you will not enter in stealth at all
2. every stealth skill while under channeled damage not work, you will continue to receive all the damage (main example is against the 3 shoot karka skill that will always follow you even if you stealthed before the first “projectile” started)

Ayurox.1069:

There is no problem with those skill, the problem is with people going full zerk mode, if you tone those skills down people that are not full zerk wont be able todo anything anymore.

People dont seem to get it that not everyone goes full zerk !!!

Play a thief learn to counter attack them and its very easy to down a thief !!!

Compare 6-10k damage from backstab with other stealth attacks.
Problem in this skill.

I can see why you nerfed dancing dagger, because you didnt want d/d to have the ability to kite, although I dont like it. I used it in pve and wvw against minion necros, mesmers with clones and rangers to great effect. Now it is just an overcosted cripple.

The biggest issue I have right now is as been stated many times already. When targeted with a channeled ability, going stealth does not drop target from the abilities viewpoint and you are still hit with it. If going stealth did drop targeting of channeled abilities it would promote more strategic/defensive stealth mid fight.
As stealth is right now, it is either used at the beginning of a fight to get a backstab spike combo off, or at the end of fights to run away and heal.

Also I find signet of shadows odd. The passive is a speed boost, but the active ability is a blind. I would of thought the active was a 3 sec swiftness or something like that considering the passive. Or maybe a passive of immunity to blind with the active of the blind.

Also as long as haste is an ability, there will always be spike problems with the thief in pvp. It would be best to get rid of the ability and replace it with new ability.

I come here and after reading all this all over again I am starting to think topic should be renamed to “bunker builds not op enough”

lotusedge.6743:

Also I find signet of shadows odd. The passive is a speed boost, but the active ability is a blind. I would of thought the active was a 3 sec swiftness or something like that considering the passive. Or maybe a passive of immunity to blind with the active of the blind.

Can be swapped active effects Infiltrator’s Signet and Signet of Shadows.

Signet of Shadows
Passive: Grants a 25% increase in movement speed.
Active: Shadowstep to your foe.

Infiltrator’s Signet
Passive: Regenerates one extra initiative every ten seconds.
Active: Blind foes near your target.