Guild Wars 2

Please take my following opinions in regard to PvE play.

I love the thief gameplay due to its solo nature, maneuverability, and trickyness. However, that does not apply to any underwater content. The underwater gameplay for a thief is incredibly limited and boring. Here are the reasons why:

• Mobility boils down to steal, 2 skills (ink shot teleport and roll for initiative), and 1 trait (acrobatics swiftness on dodge)
• Stealth is limited to only Hide in Shadows heal and our steal (if we trait into that)
• Attacking is mainly 1v1 combat. The spear skill 1 is the only AoE we have because I don’t include the speargun skill 1 as AoE (ya, it pierces multiple enemies in a straight line, but the situations where that is useful are rare)
• The ONLY elite skill we have available underwater is a joke in PvE. Seriously, our ONLY elite underwater is basilisk venom which would only be useful to use on a boss, but it rarely even affects bosses.
• The only skills we can choose from are venoms and signets which you have to be spec’d out for to be useful (i’m not going to respec traits just to be a little useful in underwater combat)

My recommendations:

• Give us more skills to go into stealth (why can’t we have shadow refuge? sure its ground targeted on land, but so is a Mesmer’s amazing elite skill time warp which they can use underwater)
• Give us maneuverability. As a thief, teleport feels more fun, but a skill to give us swiftness underwater seems like a good alternative since a directional teleport would be difficult to implement. Why does our spear gap closer (skill 3?) pull us to the target and stun us??? (if feels like i can’t do anything for a second or two after I use that skill)

I don’t know if these issues are specific to thieves or if underwater play is as disappointing on other characters as well, but I think it can be improved a lot.

Things that need to go:

Thieves resteathling repeatedly in a short interval.

Thieves moving across the map faster than any other class or any thing that ever lived in gw2.

You should not have multiple get out of jail cards. If you engage in a fight you should tough it out. If you lose..tough luck..learn to play like the rest of us.

The multiple restealthing has to be fixed either by introducing cooldowns or increasing the initiative requirements.

Its like monty python chasing a thief around. How can anyone take this game seriously if these glaring imbalances and broken mechanics are still in effect months into the game? The fixes are simple and easy.

@typingofthedead its called getting owned.You’ll have to accept that some people are just better than you because I play berserker elementalist too and I don’t have those problems that you’re talking about.
@XII wrong.Elementalist have way better mobility than thief.No class lacks mobility at all.Permanent swiftness and mobility skills aswell.Name 1 proffesion that doesn’t have those.What thief has instead?A skill that can teleport you 2 times 1800 range then your initiative is no more .I wouldn’t call that the best mobility , its rather loughable.Ye it might be good for short distances but ye lets take that away , and stealth too..its not like its their only defence.
Instead of calling for nerfs for something you don’t even understand you should try and learn about it.If you don’t listen then you don’t deserve to be listened.

XII.9401:

The multiple restealthing has to be fixed either by introducing cooldowns or increasing the initiative requirements.

You have no idea how stealth works now, do you? The appearance of this is something even Thieves have been calling for fix for. The rest of it is just you not understanding that they’ve already done what you asked for.

NightyNight.1823:

@typingofthedead its called getting owned.You’ll have to accept that some people are just better than you because I play berserker elementalist too and I don’t have those problems that you’re talking about.

hahah kitten that thats a lazy response bro. so what, do u have 0 latency and super human reaction time? im not exxagerating when i say twice in 1 match the SECOND i heard the thief weapon sound (before i could even see him), i went for mist form (which is bound to my mid mouse button and muscle memoried), and twice i was dead before i could use that SINGLE SKILL. with full health.

so i dont doubt he was a good thief. and sure, the first time i didnt know he was around. i could for instance preemptively put on protection (tho its not huge duration), or preemptively dodge, but its all just a guess. if i switch to soldiers i have 0 probs with the same thief (able to react, take the burst, aoe when hes out of initiative, etc). but if you’re so good, please, tell me, as a berzerker ele, how u manage to live that out of stealth burst that can drop me before i can move my finger slightly right and press a button

typingofthedead.5614:

NightyNight.1823:

@typingofthedead its called getting owned.You’ll have to accept that some people are just better than you because I play berserker elementalist too and I don’t have those problems that you’re talking about.

hahah kitten that thats a lazy response bro. so what, do u have 0 latency and super human reaction time? im not exxagerating when i say twice in 1 match the SECOND i heard the thief weapon sound (before i could even see him), i went for mist form (which is bound to my mid mouse button and muscle memoried), and twice i was dead before i could use that SINGLE SKILL. with full health.

so i dont doubt he was a good thief. and sure, the first time i didnt know he was around. i could for instance preemptively put on protection (tho its not huge duration), or preemptively dodge, but its all just a guess. if i switch to soldiers i have 0 probs with the same thief (able to react, take the burst, aoe when hes out of initiative, etc). but if you’re so good, please, tell me, as a berzerker ele, how u manage to live that out of stealth burst that can drop me before i can move my finger slightly right and press a button

Your first mistake was wearing berserker’s as an ele.

Get Valkyrie Jewelry, Mix it with Soldiers Armor with Valkyrie Orbs in them.

Get 100% chance to critical when switching attunements (weapons.) sigils, and the other one dealing poison or stealing life when switching.

Precision is useless on an Ele, you can switch attunements so much for 100% Criticals its not funny, Stack Toughness/Vitality/Healing/Power, Bunker it up brotha.

Amins.3710:

2 Main Issues:

1) Culling
2) Can use Full zerker build and still have the same survivability and very little downside compared to other classes that have to spec for survivability (at the cost of dmg).

You think darkness is your ally. But you merely adopted the dark; I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see the light until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but BLINDING! The shadows betray you, because they belong to me!

Daecollo.9578:

typingofthedead.5614:

NightyNight.1823:

@typingofthedead its called getting owned.You’ll have to accept that some people are just better than you because I play berserker elementalist too and I don’t have those problems that you’re talking about.

hahah kitten that thats a lazy response bro. so what, do u have 0 latency and super human reaction time? im not exxagerating when i say twice in 1 match the SECOND i heard the thief weapon sound (before i could even see him), i went for mist form (which is bound to my mid mouse button and muscle memoried), and twice i was dead before i could use that SINGLE SKILL. with full health.

so i dont doubt he was a good thief. and sure, the first time i didnt know he was around. i could for instance preemptively put on protection (tho its not huge duration), or preemptively dodge, but its all just a guess. if i switch to soldiers i have 0 probs with the same thief (able to react, take the burst, aoe when hes out of initiative, etc). but if you’re so good, please, tell me, as a berzerker ele, how u manage to live that out of stealth burst that can drop me before i can move my finger slightly right and press a button

Your first mistake was wearing berserker’s as an ele.

Get Valkyrie Jewelry, Mix it with Soldiers Armor with Valkyrie Orbs in them.

Get 100% chance to critical when switching attunements (weapons.) sigils, and the other one dealing poison or stealing life when switching.

Precision is useless on an Ele, you can switch attunements so much for 100% Criticals its not funny, Stack Toughness/Vitality/Healing/Power, Bunker it up brotha.

hahah i mean, i know i can bunker/balanced build it up, sure, and it works fine. but as long as im not facing a glass thief, berzerker is fine too. i can survive just fine while layin down a ton of hurt thru active defense and running away. my problem is that the thief hard counters pretty much every other offensive build from any class with little downside. which means the meta is to run a thief in your group for offense, and make every other class go defensive

edit: i am speaking pretty much exclusively for spvp or tpvp, where the gear choices are limited, and its much harder to stack just a lil toughness without going to far in at the cost of other things

typingofthedead.5614:

Daecollo.9578:

typingofthedead.5614:

NightyNight.1823:

@typingofthedead its called getting owned.You’ll have to accept that some people are just better than you because I play berserker elementalist too and I don’t have those problems that you’re talking about.

hahah kitten that thats a lazy response bro. so what, do u have 0 latency and super human reaction time? im not exxagerating when i say twice in 1 match the SECOND i heard the thief weapon sound (before i could even see him), i went for mist form (which is bound to my mid mouse button and muscle memoried), and twice i was dead before i could use that SINGLE SKILL. with full health.

so i dont doubt he was a good thief. and sure, the first time i didnt know he was around. i could for instance preemptively put on protection (tho its not huge duration), or preemptively dodge, but its all just a guess. if i switch to soldiers i have 0 probs with the same thief (able to react, take the burst, aoe when hes out of initiative, etc). but if you’re so good, please, tell me, as a berzerker ele, how u manage to live that out of stealth burst that can drop me before i can move my finger slightly right and press a button

Your first mistake was wearing berserker’s as an ele.

Get Valkyrie Jewelry, Mix it with Soldiers Armor with Valkyrie Orbs in them.

Get 100% chance to critical when switching attunements (weapons.) sigils, and the other one dealing poison or stealing life when switching.

Precision is useless on an Ele, you can switch attunements so much for 100% Criticals its not funny, Stack Toughness/Vitality/Healing/Power, Bunker it up brotha.

hahah i mean, i know i can bunker/balanced build it up, sure, and it works fine. but as long as im not facing a glass thief, berzerker is fine too. i can survive just fine while layin down a ton of hurt thru active defense and running away. my problem is that the thief hard counters pretty much every other offensive build from any class with little downside. which means the meta is to run a thief in your group for offense, and make every other class go defensive

edit: i am speaking pretty much exclusively for spvp or tpvp, where the gear choices are limited, and its much harder to stack just a lil toughness without going to far in at the cost of other things

Well my thief has no chance in killing a good ele, Burst, half life, full heal, he wins. (I pretty much have to run away or get stomped.)

Today I saw 4 Elementalist stop an entire zerg and kill several people with AOE damage, I wish my Thief had some good non-slow AOE damage.

‘’Before I could even see him.’‘Now this is the key sentence.Unless the game can’t load your graphics in time its impossible not to see him.He only goes stealth when he’s there to touch you.So there , problem solved.Don’t say you don’t see him.Its like saying , I closed my eyes and did not see him.Of course you can see him.

A lot of the complaints about thieves are due to nothing but confirmation bias. You don’t notice the dead glass canon spec thieves laying on the battlefield, you only notice the ones that get you.

Plain and simple thieves r Op all they do is stealth hit heal…its so stupid..everyone is starting to play one because they are OP..I play a warrior they stun stealth appear far away and when i hit a key to stun them stealth no affect rincse and reapeat and they heal like crazy so for every time i get one down they heal drastically almost like no CDs on heals. Its almost impossible to kill a thief especially as a warrior and for those of you gonna say learn to play I do know how and My Toughness and armor are over 2k 26kHP and armor 3100 they just have ways to many stealth and immobilize abilities. Their is a reason ALOT of people are complaining about them and why people are making them to play in WvW. The ones who defend Thieves of course are the ones who play them because the idea of having a OP class they have Nerfed annoys them cause they like the ease of killing ppl in WvW!

Rinak.4602:

Plain and simple thieves r Op all they do is stealth hit heal…its so stupid..everyone is starting to play one because they are OP..I play a warrior they stun stealth appear far away and when i hit a key to stun them stealth no affect rincse and reapeat and they heal like crazy so for every time i get one down they heal drastically almost like no CDs on heals. Its almost impossible to kill a thief especially as a warrior and for those of you gonna say learn to play I do know how and My Toughness and armor are over 2k 26kHP and armor 3100 they just have ways to many stealth and immobilize abilities. Their is a reason ALOT of people are complaining about them and why people are making them to play in WvW. The ones who defend Thieves of course are the ones who play them because the idea of having a OP class they have Nerfed annoys them cause they like the ease of killing ppl in WvW!

Immobilization?

Sword ‘2’ has it, but it costs a lot, theres also a venom that has it, but it has a long CD.

This class IMO need either a big damage reduction or a 50% Initiative regen increase or add GCD to many of thier skills that they chain togethor for 20k insta gibs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PgL1Gwgc_8

this video makes the class look super OP and no class should be auto attacking for 3k hits.

this video makes the class look super OP and no class should be auto attacking for 3k hits

Only warriors?

Rinak.4602:

Plain and simple thieves r Op all they do is stealth hit heal…its so stupid..everyone is starting to play one because they are OP..I play a warrior they stun stealth appear far away and when i hit a key to stun them stealth no affect rincse and reapeat and they heal like crazy so for every time i get one down they heal drastically almost like no CDs on heals. Its almost impossible to kill a thief especially as a warrior and for those of you gonna say learn to play I do know how and My Toughness and armor are over 2k 26kHP and armor 3100 they just have ways to many stealth and immobilize abilities. Their is a reason ALOT of people are complaining about them and why people are making them to play in WvW. The ones who defend Thieves of course are the ones who play them because the idea of having a OP class they have Nerfed annoys them cause they like the ease of killing ppl in WvW!

God, I really wish people would just L2P instead of constantly demanding nerfs.

Despite what you may think, thieves are not immortal when they stealth. We can still be hit while invisible and we are not tanks, we go down very easy.

We don’t have access to many immobilise skills, so not sure what you’re referring to there. We cannot constantly keep you immobilised, so move around and dodge our skills that put us back into stealth ie C&D.

Lay some conditions down or CC us. We don’t have access to much CC or condition removal, so play to our weaknesses.

To be honest I’m sick of defending the thief, it gets us nowhere. ANet clearly favors the whingers as we receive nerfs every single patch.

typingofthedead.5614:

Daecollo.9578:

typingofthedead.5614:

NightyNight.1823:

@typingofthedead its called getting owned.You’ll have to accept that some people are just better than you because I play berserker elementalist too and I don’t have those problems that you’re talking about.

hahah kitten that thats a lazy response bro. so what, do u have 0 latency and super human reaction time? im not exxagerating when i say twice in 1 match the SECOND i heard the thief weapon sound (before i could even see him), i went for mist form (which is bound to my mid mouse button and muscle memoried), and twice i was dead before i could use that SINGLE SKILL. with full health.

so i dont doubt he was a good thief. and sure, the first time i didnt know he was around. i could for instance preemptively put on protection (tho its not huge duration), or preemptively dodge, but its all just a guess. if i switch to soldiers i have 0 probs with the same thief (able to react, take the burst, aoe when hes out of initiative, etc). but if you’re so good, please, tell me, as a berzerker ele, how u manage to live that out of stealth burst that can drop me before i can move my finger slightly right and press a button

Your first mistake was wearing berserker’s as an ele.

Get Valkyrie Jewelry, Mix it with Soldiers Armor with Valkyrie Orbs in them.

Get 100% chance to critical when switching attunements (weapons.) sigils, and the other one dealing poison or stealing life when switching.

Precision is useless on an Ele, you can switch attunements so much for 100% Criticals its not funny, Stack Toughness/Vitality/Healing/Power, Bunker it up brotha.

hahah i mean, i know i can bunker/balanced build it up, sure, and it works fine. but as long as im not facing a glass thief, berzerker is fine too. i can survive just fine while layin down a ton of hurt thru active defense and running away. my problem is that the thief hard counters pretty much every other offensive build from any class with little downside. which means the meta is to run a thief in your group for offense, and make every other class go defensive

edit: i am speaking pretty much exclusively for spvp or tpvp, where the gear choices are limited, and its much harder to stack just a lil toughness without going to far in at the cost of other things

So you are saying you can kill anything but thieves and you complain about that? What if I tell you a glass thief can’t kill any defensive spec? Bunkers counter thieves as well as thieves counter glassy builds. Also my mesmer and my warrior are both full berserker and it works pretty well, so i’m not sure about your statment.

@Magicthighs : I agree, its perfectly natural. I’m poker dealer and I can’t count players who complains about bad luck and totally forget what they won (usually by luck) few hands before.

Rinak.4602:

Plain and simple thieves r Op all they do is stealth hit heal…its so stupid..everyone is starting to play one because they are OP..I play a warrior they stun stealth appear far away and when i hit a key to stun them stealth no affect rincse and reapeat and they heal like crazy so for every time i get one down they heal drastically almost like no CDs on heals. Its almost impossible to kill a thief especially as a warrior and for those of you gonna say learn to play I do know how and My Toughness and armor are over 2k 26kHP and armor 3100 they just have ways to many stealth and immobilize abilities. Their is a reason ALOT of people are complaining about them and why people are making them to play in WvW. The ones who defend Thieves of course are the ones who play them because the idea of having a OP class they have Nerfed annoys them cause they like the ease of killing ppl in WvW!

1: Stealth doesnt stop a skill thats already targetted us from working. Ether you are lying, or your attacking open air.
2: We have 4 skills that stealth us. 2 utillites, 1 healing, and 1 weapon skill. Thats about standard for a “type” set And with the acception of one that keeps us in a narrow area, none of them stealth us for very long.
3: I get annoyed about the Nerfs because they are not doing a good job at nerfing us. Reducing the damage output isnt going to do a kitten thing when we can still spam that skill 4 more times. The issue isnt skill related, its Initiative related. Anyone who has played the Thief for more than an hour, and has half a brain cell should be able to see that. Until Anet figures this out, we will keep getting more and more people running trash thieves in WvW.
I will conceed the healing issue because the CD’s are a bit low.

Thief healing issue ? first time i hear it lol. The only way i heal a lot is 30 points in shadow arts + berserkers gear valkyries jewelry, or sth like that, and 30 points in shadow arts, Ok you heal a lot then, but you cant burst even mst glass cannons down then in 1 combo.

StugLyfe.2134:

[N]o class should be auto attacking for 3k hits.

I disagree.

Auto-attacks should matter. GW2 isn’t the kind of MMOG where you’re doing practically nothing when you’re not activating one of your 50 cooldown skills.

Also, melee auto-attack chains already have their own kind of resource management: instead of a cooldown, you have what’s basically a “combo” you’re setting up, with two small hits requires before you can use your bigger-payoff final attack. And you can waste the whole chain if you miss or hang out too long. Or if you activate a utility skill.

StugLyfe.2134:

no class should be auto attacking for 3k hits.

Tell that to warrior, or rangers longbow at 1000 range in WvW hiting 5k as an autoattack.

What about Stealth breaking on damage, and when you’re de-stealthed from being damaged you cannot re-stealth for another 10 seconds? Would this be absolutely game-breaking?

Kiijj.3594:

What about Stealth breaking on damage, and when you’re de-stealthed from being damaged you cannot re-stealth for another 10 seconds? Would this be absolutely game-breaking?

Yes.

Off-hand Dagger pretty much only exists to stop kiting and set up sneak attacks with Cloak & Dagger. Stealth-breaks-on-damage makes sneak attacks almost impossible to achieve. There’d be, like, literally one real thief build left (Sword/Pistol).

Providing a way to detect the thief wouldn’t necessarily mess things up, but actually breaking stealth on damage? Completely unworkable without scrapping most of the class.

Kiijj.3594:

What about Stealth breaking on damage, and when you’re de-stealthed from being damaged you cannot re-stealth for another 10 seconds? Would this be absolutely game-breaking?

I don’t think you realize how easy it is to damage people in stealth. This would only be viable if stealth actually had some kind of evade component to prevent attacks from hitting.

ASP.8093:

Yes.

Off-hand Dagger pretty much only exists to stop kiting and set up sneak attacks with Cloak & Dagger. Stealth-breaks-on-damage makes sneak attacks almost impossible to achieve. There’d be, like, literally one real thief build left (Sword/Pistol).

Providing a way to detect the thief wouldn’t necessarily mess things up, but actually breaking stealth on damage? Completely unworkable without scrapping most of the class.

Tulisin.6945:

I don’t think you realize how easy it is to damage people in stealth. This would only be viable if stealth actually had some kind of evade component to prevent attacks from hitting.

Understood, thanks guys.

maybe it’s not that thiefs need a nerf so much as other classes needing a buff, except warriors they are good atm, but rangers and necromancers are the weakest imo. They pose no threat to a thief especially necro that relies on condi dmg because we can remove conditions and heal up all while we are in stealth so preety much we are invulnerable to a necro after we become hidden and rangers can bearly hit us with their bows when we are visible, no point in trying when we are hidden and the pets can just be ignored.

Soul.5947:

They pose no threat to a thief especially necro that relies on condi dmg because we can remove conditions and heal up all while we are in stealth so preety much we are invulnerable to a necro after we become hidden

Those are some pretty big generalizations though. Not all necromancers are condition-based, and not all thieves have passive condition removal during stealth.

Kiijj.3594:

What about Stealth breaking on damage, and when you’re de-stealthed from being damaged you cannot re-stealth for another 10 seconds? Would this be absolutely game-breaking?

i like this idea if stealth would not have a timer so you could stalk your target and wait for a good moment to engage.

Tulisin.6945:

Soul.5947:

They pose no threat to a thief especially necro that relies on condi dmg because we can remove conditions and heal up all while we are in stealth so preety much we are invulnerable to a necro after we become hidden

Those are some pretty big generalizations though. Not all necromancers are condition-based, and not all thieves have passive condition removal during stealth.

ofc not, just the good ones.

StugLyfe.2134:

This class IMO need either a big damage reduction or a 50% Initiative regen increase or add GCD to many of thier skills that they chain togethor for 20k insta gibs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PgL1Gwgc_8

this video makes the class look super OP and no class should be auto attacking for 3k hits.

The problem with posting videos as a statement of a class being ‘OP’ is that no one is going to post a video about how much they suck. No one goes “Man I sure am being stomped hard today, guess I’ll record this for the whole world to see!”. Videos aren’t evidence of a class being OP, they are evidence that good players and bad players exist. I bet you anything I can find videos of warriors kicking butt too, does that make them op? I suppose if your definition of OP means they can hit for 3 k with auto attack.

Thief alterations:

- Improvement of the pistol auto attack, right now it’s quite weak.
- Improvement/changing of Sword/Dagger 3 skill, right now it works great as an evade and a boon stripper but not much else, more so because it doesn’t keep you close to the target. (This may not be possible with a moving target actually, I like the teleport idea that keeps popping up)
-An additional condition removal that isn’t linked to stealth. Maybe just give the signet that removes conditions a straight 2 or 3 removed, rather then having it rely upon having people around us to cure more then one.

StugLyfe.2134:

This class IMO need either a 50% Initiative regen increase

Agree with that dude It will made my build possibilities much more wider ;-)

Also ppl should finally realize that the Thief class is basically designed as a counter to Glass-cannons builds, right? Just get used to it or do some research to find a way how to defeat those Thiefs. Blabbing on forums doesn´t resolve your issue, because it´s really just your issue.

Oppa patch note style!

Weapons
- Shadow Strike (Pistol/Dagger 3) now causes a 2 second blind on the first hit, so it is as defensively useful against ranged attacks as it is against melee attacks. (Due to the current linear shadowstep, projectiles would still likely hit the thief.)

- Surprise Shot (Shortbow Stealth) no longer applies Immobilize, but instead inflicts a 4-second Confusion, making it more useful against ranged opponents, who would otherwise react to the “surprise” with a fistful of arrows to the face of the hapless thief who thought Immobilizing an archer was a useful opening ploy.

- Disabling Shot (Shortbow 3) now has a 4 second cripple, making it comparable to the current Dancing Dagger.(A base 2 second cripple for a single-target evasion, versus a 5 second cripple on a 4-target attack for the same cost doesn’t seem quit balanced. Especially if Dancing Dagger double-taps an enemy for 10 seconds of cripple.)

- Dancing Dagger (OH Dagger 4) now has a 2 second cripple, but only costs 3 initiative.

- Cloak and Dagger (OH Dagger 5) blinds the target for 2 seconds, preventing the thief from being hit by attacks with long cast times from tracking them after going into stealth.

- Stab (Sword/Empty 3) now applies a 2 second immobilize. That skill needed some flavor, even if nobody is going to just use just a single one handed weapon.

- Pistol Whip (Sword/Pistol 3) no longer roots the player in place during the animation.

Utility
- Caltrops can no longer roots players. Sound effect has been changed to be quieter, and more akin to the jingling of small metal coins. This was decided to be more appropriate than the loud clang of what sounds to be a sledgehammer pounding against the Black Citadel. An aware player will still be able to hear the caltrops, but at a shorter distance, and only if they are paying attention, as opposed to half of a sPvP map hearing it every time a thief dodge rolls.

- Smoke Screen can now be used underwater as the “Ink Cloud” underwater skill. Functionally, it is unchanged. It’s a PBAoE, and thus shouldn’t have any difficulties working underwater.

- Blinding Powder can now also be used underwater as the “Blinding Silt” underwater skill.

- Scorpion Wire should now properly pull the target to you on hit. If they have stability or otherwise cannot be moved, you will instead be pulled to them.

- Venoms now work like Signets. Each active effect is the same as the skill is currently. The passive effect would be a 30% chance of the skill condition being applied on any given weapon skill, but each will have a 10-second internal cooldown. Spider Venom would provide a 5 second poison on passive application, Skale Venom would provide 5 second of vulnerability, and only 2 seconds of weakness, Ice Drake Venom would Chill for 2 seconds both passively and actively, and Devouerer Venom would Cripple for 3 seconds, and Basilisk Venom would Immobilize for 2 seconds. All Venoms have their recharges increased to 60 seconds to support this stronger version, and the Traits “Venomous Aura,” “Leeching Venoms,” and “Venomous Strength” would only apply to activated effects of Venom skills.

Elites
- Dagger Storm can now be used underwater as a skill called “Whirling Frenzy” that is functionally the same.

Underwater
-Tow Line (Spear 4) now works the same way Scorpion Wire does, pulling enemies towards to player when possible. While this would marginalize Scorpion Wire’s usefulness in underwater combat, this will allow players to maintain their attack tempo against non-stable targets. The pull of the attack left players “hanging” for a moment, even after the animation was complete, affecting the fluidity of combat negatively. This should hopefully fix that against most opponents, while allowing savvy players to weight the pros and cons of using Tow Line as a fast approach against a stable target.

Sorry for Double-posting, but the character limit killed my post.

Traits
-Mug (Deadly Arts III) has had it’s damage normalized to that of a weapon slot 1 attack (Sword 1 “Slice” comes to mind). This is a bit of a nerf, but it’s a Major Adept trait and shouldn’t be as powerful as it is right now. But honestly, it’s still pretty good.

-Furious Retaliation (Critical Strikes I) has been renamed Finish The Job. Getting a bonus for your opponent being weak has nothing to do with you retaliating against them.

-Hidden Thief (Shadow Arts VIII) has been combined with Long Reach (Trickery VI) and renamed Don’t Get Caught (Trickery VI). To replace the empty trait slot, a new Trait, “Sudden but Inevitable” has been added as the new Shadow Arts VIII.

-Sudden But Inevitable (Shadow Arts VIII) now applies a 1-second Daze to the target of an attack that breaks stealth, with a 20-second internal cooldown.

- Assassin’s Retreat (Acrobatics IV) has been changed to grant Swiftness for 4-seconds after using an attack that breaks stealth, giving the trait use in hit-and-run tactics.

- Quick Recovery (Acrobatics IX) now gives back 1 initiative per 5 seconds, giving a more steady rate of initiative regain.

- Ricochet (Trickery X) has had it’s chance to bounce improved to 100%, and cannot bounce to more than a single additional target (if it could do that at all). However, Black Powder cannot bounce.

These are all just my opinions, but I’d hope these changes would help with build diversity. If I had to pick one, I’d say the Venom change. Poisons are a staple of the backstabber lifestyle It’d be nice to have an option for them other than “Venomous Aura team support.”

The underwater changes would be nice too. I’m sure there’s a reason why Smoke Screen, Blinding Powder, and Dagger Storm can’t be used underwater. Probably having something to do with previous versions of them from the Beta Weekends, but it’d be nice to have a few more options.

So when is A-net planning on responding to this thread to let us know what they were thinking when creating it, and what the purpose of this thread actually serves?

Also, when will they lock it down because it clearly derailed some time ago…

I get that they wanted feedback yes, but there are more than enough common themes appearing in this thread by now.

Should we assume a patch to the class is incoming based on the common trends of this thread?

I only hope they can overlook all the whining.

typingofthedead.5614:

NightyNight.1823:

@typingofthedead its called getting owned.You’ll have to accept that some people are just better than you because I play berserker elementalist too and I don’t have those problems that you’re talking about.

hahah kitten that thats a lazy response bro. so what, do u have 0 latency and super human reaction time? im not exxagerating when i say twice in 1 match the SECOND i heard the thief weapon sound (before i could even see him), i went for mist form (which is bound to my mid mouse button and muscle memoried), and twice i was dead before i could use that SINGLE SKILL. with full health.

Either you have incredibly slow reactions or you’re just plain making this up. Even with the highest possible damage and lucky crits against a glass cannon light-armour target it would be impossible to kill anyone in less than 2-3 seconds, which should be plenty of time to at least hit one skill. It sounds like you’re just bad. That or you’re a low-level player going against 80s in WvW, in which case the damage will be much higher than if you were using equal level kit and is hardly representative of PvP as a whole. Also, if you had any situational awareness you would see the thief coming and be ready, since its not possible for a thief to run around perma-stealthed, they have to stealth shortly before attacking.

Dear developers. Thief really need some balance but buffs instead of nerfing. Thief is on many aspects very weak and underpowered.

1) buff of pistol and bow skills which are now really underpowered and some totally useless (like very short daze shot or body shot which is useless)

2) rework of F1 only to F1-Fx buttons where should be F1= stealth and F2-Fx should be poisons buttons. Many other classes has many skills on F1-Fx and thief only one and most time useless because stolen skills are on 9/10 cases total useless. It really need rework and buff because other classes has useful skill and thief useless.

3) rework utility skills like traps to be more useful on combat. Present traps are useless and deal almost no damage. It necessary to make utility skills more usable and more damage dealing.

4) its necessary to rework some traits as was said by Wasdclick.1764.

5) its necessary to make thief use rifles and shipe with them. Warrior can snipe and thief not? It has no sense.

6) and now most important thing is to STOP NERFING THIEF ALL TIME WHEN SOME KIDS QQ HERE ON FORUM!!! You really dont know what these ppl want??? They was defeated by some experienced thief with full exotic gear and now go cry on forum and nerf whole class only because they dont know how play their own class. Why you still nerf only thief? Thief is not op but up on many aspects and need some rework and buff instead of constant nerfing when kids cry here. They only want to make thief useless so they can kill thieves easily and fast.

I really dont understand you Anet. You make thief class, ppl start to play thief and then you are nerfing thief with every patch. My question is: Why the bloody hell you made thief class if you want totaly ruin this class????

One of my characters is thief on 80. level and i did hard work to make him full exotic with all maps revealed and now after this hard work is my thief totaly ruined by Anet. I ask why?

You are still nerfing and ruining only thief but what about look on other classes? Look for example on necromants or warriors. Warriors deal MUCH more than thief and its no problem for you? Necromants sap almost all HP from enemy and heal himself to full HP, can summon permanently about 7 monsters to accompany necromant and fight by his side and heal him and necromant has much more HP than paper thief BUT ITS OK FOR YOU ANET, YES?

Yes there are some OP characters but its not thief. Thief is only underpowered victim of crying of small brainless kids who cannot manage that some thief is more experienced that they and defeated them on fight. They then go to forum, cry here and Anet listen them like puppet and ruin thief. Nice work.

Its the high time to notify that thief is very specific class which need to deal high damage during first 1-3 second before enemy start to react. Thief is very paper class and for enemies is very easy to kill thief. If thief dont deal enough damage during some first seconds thief is dead. Because thief is paper class his only defence is stealth which is easy to break and dont forget that during stealth thief IS vulnerable so I dont really understand these fools here who still cry for nerf of stealth.

high damage + paper HP = Thief
little damage + paper HP = useless character with no chance hurt and kill enemy

Thing about it. Thief need high damage to fast kill or thief is dead on 1-2 seconds. If you listen to these crying fools here and nerf damage of thief you will only make thief totaly ruined and useless to play. And if you make thief useless i want some free profession transfer because its not my guilt that I started with good class and you ruined thief during last months.

Hyde.6189:

typingofthedead.5614:

hahah kitten that thats a lazy response bro. so what, do u have 0 latency and super human reaction time? im not exxagerating when i say twice in 1 match the SECOND i heard the thief weapon sound (before i could even see him), i went for mist form (which is bound to my mid mouse button and muscle memoried), and twice i was dead before i could use that SINGLE SKILL. with full health.

Either you have incredibly slow reactions or you’re just plain making this up. Even with the highest possible damage and lucky crits against a glass cannon light-armour target it would be impossible to kill anyone in less than 2-3 seconds, which should be plenty of time to at least hit one skill. It sounds like you’re just bad. That or you’re a low-level player going against 80s in WvW, in which case the damage will be much higher than if you were using equal level kit and is hardly representative of PvP as a whole.

Or maybe he has 2000ms latency That happens, but is has nothing to do with Thief class, we don´t have “raise the ping” skill, even that I´m sure some ppl actually think that we have

It´s very probably another lvl 1-70 player complaining about getting smacked by lvl 80 full-exotic Thief….
Or he runs a total GC Elementalist, which has the lowest HP and armor from the game and that would be really a shame for a Thief if he was unable to bring this type of character down….

Just for gags take exotic ranger with berserkers and all traits for longbow damage, its autoattack at 1000+ range can hit up to 5k damage on glass cannons + you have a pet.
Rapid fire does around 15-20k dmg if full channeled, in 2.5 second with quickness.
Dmg wise thief isnt even OP.

I hope that Anet developers are intelligent enough to not listen crying of small kids with 1. level character who was defeated by full-exotic 80. level thief on WvW. Developers cannot be so much blind and dont see that these whimpering fools only want ruin thief class. They will be satisfied only when thief is no opponent to their class and thief is totaly ruined.

If you really want balance classes and characters look on necromancers with about 7 permanent minions, HP like tank and super HP taking from enemies.

If you really look for balancing classes and character look on warriors with much more damage and HP than thieves and more weapons to use.

If you really look for balancing classes and character look for rangers which has 1000+ range and can kill glass class like thief in 2-3 seconds only wich autoattacks and some skills.

If you really want to balance classes and character look on mesmers which are like small army with thousands of clones and illusions and you must kill almost 4 characters to kill this one mesmer.

Necromants, Warriors, Mesmers and Rangers are OP, not thief. Thief is only underpowered victim of crying kids.

All that thief has is only short stealth and higher damage and you want to take it and make thief like paper with no damage, useless skills and nerfed stealth. Bravo, Anet, if you want useless and unplayable class you are on good way with thief :-/

You do better Anet if you put same energy to removing lags during one-time events than ruining thief class.

Wasdclick.1764:

- Stab (Sword/Empty 3) now applies a 2 second immobilize. That skill needed some flavor, even if nobody is going to just use just a single one handed weapon.

- Caltrops can no longer roots players.

Stab doesn’t need to be better specifically for the reason you noted. These X/nothing weapon combos don’t need to be viable. If we were to get a new offhand weapon that only had #4/5 skills and inherited the empty-offhand skills instead of having a dual skill then there’d be a reason for it. Every change comes at a cost in implementation and testing, there’s no reason to devote developer hours to something like this as-is.

And Caltrops doesn’t root players as-is, it has a 1-second channel but you’re entirely free to move for the duration.

The rest of the suggestions seem alright, especially making more skills available underwater. Buffing C&D with blind might be a little strong.

Runcore.5107:

1) buff of pistol and bow skills which are now really underpowered and some totally useless (like very short daze shot or body shot which is useless)

The pistol daze doesn’t need to be longer. The whole point of it is to interrupt the target’s current action. It’s really good for that, thanks to the short cast time.

Runcore.5107:

2) rework of F1 only to F1-Fx buttons where should be F1= stealth and F2-Fx should be poisons buttons. Many other classes has many skills on F1-Fx and thief only one and most time useless because stolen skills are on 9/10 cases total useless. It really need rework and buff because other classes has useful skill and thief useless.

Most skills you can steal from players are actually very good. You can get some crappy ones from monsters, but the majority are still strong.

Runcore.5107:

5) its necessary to make thief use rifles and shipe with them. Warrior can snipe and thief not? It has no sense.

A thief can instantaneously bridge a 2000+ range distance and port back when he’s done. I really don’t think a 1200-range weapon is a big priority.

ASP.8093:

Runcore.5107:

5) its necessary to make thief use rifles and shipe with them. Warrior can snipe and thief not? It has no sense.

A thief can instantaneously bridge a 2000+ range distance and port back when he’s done. I really don’t think a 1200-range weapon is a big priority.

I don´t think that you have a clue how Thief´s “teleport” skills actually work, judging by the post you´ve just written…
And there is a big difference between melee attacks with ports and ranged attacks without them, you know?

I propose that there is a penalty for executing the same attacks repeatedly, let me explain:

I don’t think the penalty should decrease Dmg at all. I would like to see consecutive uses of the same ability cost compounding initiative… So for the first use of HS it costs 3 ini, then if you use it again before doing anything else it would cost four ini, then 5 and so on.

The only way to reset the ini cost back to base cost would be to cast another skill that used ini aside from the one being spammed.

This would add a layer of depth and choice to the theif IMO. So it would have increased costs for repetition – so then good thieves would only use HS back to back as an execution move when they felt they could finish a fight, whereas the people Spamming HS would drain themselves of their offensive ability much faster, adding a layer of strategy while also hampering the press one button to win mentality without further punishing those of us that put all of our skills to use.

Thoughts?

Kristafa.9281:

I propose that there is a penalty for executing the same attacks repeatedly, let me explain:

I don’t think the penalty should decrease Dmg at all. I would like to see consecutive uses of the same ability cost compounding initiative… So for the first use of HS it costs 3 ini, then if you use it again before doing anything else it would cost four ini, then 5 and so on.

The only way to reset the ini cost back to base cost would be to cast another skill that used ini aside from the one being spammed.

This would add a layer of depth and choice to the theif IMO. So it would have increased costs for repetition – so then good thieves would only use HS back to back as an execution move when they felt they could finish a fight, whereas the people Spamming HS would drain themselves of their offensive ability much faster, adding a layer of strategy while also hampering the press one button to win mentality without further punishing those of us that put all of our skills to use.

Thoughts?

That´s not a bad idea, but have it´s flaws. Of course when taking D/D, it´s good against HS spammers, but on the other hand, it will totally ruin the other builds/weapon sets (P/P direct dmg depends on unload, D/D backstab depends on C&D —>backstab – backstab is without ini use so probably won´t count to the penalty reset etc.). Also if any other skill would count, it will not be problem to use HS → #1 → HS → #1 – repeat with very similar outcome as now….
So I find this kinda hard to implement Also it will punish unintended double-clicks because of skill queueing unfortunately…

Tulisin.6945:

Wasdclick.1764:

- Stab (Sword/Empty 3) now applies a 2 second immobilize. That skill needed some flavor, even if nobody is going to just use just a single one handed weapon.

- Caltrops can no longer roots players.

Stab doesn’t need to be better specifically for the reason you noted. These X/nothing weapon combos don’t need to be viable. If we were to get a new offhand weapon that only had #4/5 skills and inherited the empty-offhand skills instead of having a dual skill then there’d be a reason for it. Every change comes at a cost in implementation and testing, there’s no reason to devote developer hours to something like this as-is.

And Caltrops doesn’t root players as-is, it has a 1-second channel but you’re entirely free to move for the duration.

The rest of the suggestions seem alright, especially making more skills available underwater. Buffing C&D with blind might be a little strong.

It’s been a while since I’ve played my thief, so I’m just going off what I remember. I’m glad Caltrops is move-castable. For some reason, when I cast it “back in the day”, it would stop me dead in my tracks. Might have been bugged or something.

The sound needs to change though.

And the Stab was a bit of a joke, but every once in a while, I like to do unusual things, like bring a knife to a gunfight, eat applesauce with a fork, and wield just one weapon when I could hold two. If changes to those /Empty skills never happened, I wouldn’t care.

And my reasoning for blind on Cloak and Dagger is because it’s great as is for melee targets, but it does nothing against ranged, because you dodge parallel to your target’s line of fire. If they could program a shadowstep that was out of the ranged attack path instead of just shadowstepping in front of the bullet, then that would be fantastic. I just figured a small duration blind would solve the problem easier, since the melee guy has to walk back up to you anyway, and the ranged guy would pop it immediately with an attack since you don’t go that far away.

STRanger.5120:

And there is a big difference between melee attacks with ports and ranged attacks without them, you know?

Yeah, you actually have to expose yourself a bit. I’m well aware. Shouldn’t be a problem with SPvP.

There’s really nothing you can do in PvE with 1200 range that you can’t do with 900 range.

I do a ton of zergy WvW stuff and it’s very heavily dependent on Clusterbomb, but Clusterbomb hits like a truck. It’s also not that hard to pop in and out of 900 range to blast poison around downed enemies or get in some bouncing auto-attacks. Given the mechanics of sieges, a single-target ranged weapon has no hope of displacing Shortbow anyway.

Kristafa.9281:

I don’t think the penalty should decrease Dmg at all. I would like to see consecutive uses of the same ability cost compounding initiative… So for the first use of HS it costs 3 ini, then if you use it again before doing anything else it would cost four ini, then 5 and so on.

Now imagine this with every other skill.
- You throw Dancing Dagger at a fleeing opponent and he evades it. Now the next one costs 5.
- You try to C&D and whiff. For most builds, that’s already a 2-init penalty because you don’t get Infusion of Shadow. Now the next attempt costs 7.
- You’re fighting a boss and want to strip stacks of Unshakeable so your warrior or ele can hit him with a good long knock-down. Normally you can chain Pistol Whip to do that. I guess you could alternate Pistol Whip and Disabling Shot to do the same thing without increasing init costs, but, ugh.
- You’re Clusterbombing a mortar through a wall. This is already pretty taxing on your initiative. There’s really no other ability you can just throw in to reset costs. So…?

Thieves can spam skills. That’s just how the class is set up. That in itself is not actually a problem, at all, in my view.

If you have a problem with spamming Heartseeker, you need to address Heartseeker, not spamming skills in general. Unless you want to restructure every other weapon set, because the way they’re set up right now makes spamming skills necessary on occasion.

ASP.8093:

It’s also not that hard to pop in and out of 900 range to blast poison around downed enemies or get in some bouncing auto-attacks.

Ok, so now a practical test, try to pop in and out from the castle/fortress wall, you will see my point right away….

STRanger.5120:

Ok, so now a practical test, try to pop in and out from the castle/fortress wall, you will see my point right away….

Try to fire direct attacks at all from a fortress. It kinda sucks. You have to stand on the lip of the fort to hit anything.

Give me a 1200-range rifle and I’ll still be doing Clusterbomb, Clusterbomb, Clusterbomb.

StugLyfe.2134:

This class IMO need either a big damage reduction or a 50% Initiative regen increase or add GCD to many of thier skills that they chain togethor for 20k insta gibs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PgL1Gwgc_8

this video makes the class look super OP and no class should be auto attacking for 3k hits.

Warriors can wreck things pretty badly also and they have a PBAOE…. and in some cases do not need armour to kill level 80’s…. or traits for that matter…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR8jjDlM4rs

From about 12:10 you see the warrior killing things 1v1 without the usage of armor or traits (both of them are over-rated anyways, eh?)

It depends on the skill of your opponents and in the thief video there was a lot of synergy in that team.