Guild Wars 2

We are now approaching the 8 week mark since HoT’s release. While a vast amount of effort has been pumped in to the well being of the expansion by the Anet Devs and player’s assessment alike, one can only feel let down by the current state of the infamous Thief.

Whether this longing is created by a saturation of god like, yet well executed, Elite specs currently running a muck in PvP and basking in their comfortable entrusted Raid slots in PvE, or a possible overlooking, I believe that it is time to talk balance.

Over the past few months, I’ve seen a tremendous amount of ideas being tossed around the forums with hopes of saving the Thief/Daredevil class. These ideas ranged from introducing new class mechanics, tweaking numbers to raise dps, and complete overhauls. There have always been limiting factors that seem to obliterate these concepts before they truly come to fruition, the biggest restraint being our unique class mechanic: Stealth.

I am still baffled by the notion that our “Unique” class mechanic is as deceitful as it is limiting. Gw2 has grown tremendously since it’s dog days. We have seen classes change in entirety from their prior effectiveness. Now that we have new classes (scrapper) with the ability to provide group stealth, it truly does seem silly to hinder Thief dps potential due to it’s effectiveness in providing a now saturated party utility.

Now that we are seeing the shift in Dev response/support from getting HoT ready and on the market to dedicating more time for reshaping old core classes and really getting a good balance going, I’d like to dedicate this thread to any constructive ideas that may help get our beloved thieves some more playing time

I know that everyone has pretty much had this disdain-train of thought rolling since the announcement of Daredevil, yet, I’d like to also acknowledge some of the positive changes we saw from our short lived cb2/3 to release: new Staff auto animation, new graceful dodge animations, general staff dps increase, SOME dps increase in old thief (p/p). Let’s make some new changes asap!

I’ll get the ball rolling with some highdeas…

I would LOVE to see the Thief core class get Marks, (not your typical necro well/mark either). Imagine having the ability to provide a debuff/mark on your target, (maybe a huge red skull on enemy for a tell), that once cast, starts to store party member damage done to that enemy until it either reaches a dmg cap or a time limit cap (3 sec?). Once the Mark is fully charged, it triggers and releases all party damage done (or maybe a fraction of it) back onto the enemy. This would have to be tweaked so it would not be oneshotting or over powered.

The idea here is to provide something unique to Thief that increases its damage, while also adding a unique damage boost utility to everyone else sharing the party with a Thief.

No point really. Devs hate this class. 3 years speak for themself.

Reflects. We should dust projectile attacks like water, preferably with one spammable reflect on every weapon set. This is valuable support, and if they were all relatively low effect range reflects, it would require a lot of mobility and be very thematic for the theif.

I envision support thief builds that are just jumping all over the place, intercepting arrows and bullets for their party, and redirecting them back to the enemy. Reflect is kind of a boring mechanic in its current implementations, what with guardian fields and mesmer bubbles. it’s powerful, but easy to use, and has long cooldowns.

I think thieves with lots of easily accessibly but harder to use reflects would halp our support, survivability, and overall be in theme with the class.

Marks sound really cool. Maybe implement them as Shouts with different shouts “marking” the target for different effects? Also marking party members with buffs maybe to add some group support.

Just undo some of the nerfs and nerf the passives of other classes – that should be enough for the start.
Anet wants to go away from the bunker meta, right? More damage isn’t the answer.
We should probably make a scavenger hunt with clues why everything is as it is right now.
I do hope the new devs were around pre June when most classes were “balanced” – to compare now and then and drawn conclusions what went wrong.

PopeUrban.2578:

Reflects. We should dust projectile attacks like water, preferably with one spammable reflect on every weapon set. This is valuable support, and if they were all relatively low effect range reflects, it would require a lot of mobility and be very thematic for the theif.

I envision support thief builds that are just jumping all over the place, intercepting arrows and bullets for their party, and redirecting them back to the enemy. Reflect is kind of a boring mechanic in its current implementations, what with guardian fields and mesmer bubbles. it’s powerful, but easy to use, and has long cooldowns.

I think thieves with lots of easily accessibly but harder to use reflects would halp our support, survivability, and overall be in theme with the class.

I really like this idea (Acrobatics overhaul plz)! Gives us two things we desperately need: survivability and team contribution. Reminds me of The Clone Wars series where you see a Jedi in front of a trooper squad batting back blaster bolts. edited for 100% more dweeb