Guild Wars 2

Nike mentioned that the thief’s blind and stealth role can now be accomplished by other professions and the dps increase in the other professions no longer provides the thief a secure spot in the dungeon meta.

How do you guys feel about this comment?

I believe the damage comment is true. Thief did lose a few damage modifiers in the both the Deadly Arts and Critical Strikes trait lines in the June 23rd patch while other professions seemed to benefit a lot more out of that patch. With the elite specializations, daredevil does seem to give a small boost in dps but other professions seem to benefit a lot more out of their elite specializations.

Now, the thief’s dps isn’t what upsets me. I don’t mind if all professions had similar, or competitive, dps. What bothers me is that other professions got a lot more out of their elite specializations not including damage.

For example:

• Guardians get a drastic change to their profession mechanic (virtues) and access to very unique traps that grant boon support, cc, and utility.

• Mesmer YOU RIP THROUGH THE TIME SPACE CONTINUUM. Mesmer gains a new profession mechanic (Continuum Split) as well as fundamental changes to the original profession mechanic (shatters). Along with TIME WELLS with unique cc, support and utility mechanics. Also, gets Alacrity which is unique to only chronomancers. (It must be obvious now that I’g going to be maining my mesmer now and tossing aside my thief) .

• Necromancer ANOTHER drastic change to the profession mechanic (shroud). All shroud skills are completely replaced. Access to unique shouts with boons, boon control, condi control, tooonnns of chill, and minion summoning.

So what does thief get?

• NO CHANGES TO PROFESSION MECHANIC (Steal). Nothing changes for Steal except for minor GM trait (gain endurance). Instead, we get a change to our dodge mechanic. Why? We get access to physical skills which I really don’t like except for maybe the heal. Distracting Daggers allows you to interrupt stuff up to 3 times. This can already be easily accomplished by Pistol #4. So why do we have this? It’s also getting harder to interrupt enemies now with uninterruptable enemies and break bar. Fist Furry is a bizarre way of dealing damage. Weapon skills deal more damage. Impairing Daggers might be okay for a poison build but great for pve.

I can’t speak for the new weapons for each profession but staff is not that useful. Sure, staff can do a lot of damage, but it’s very hard to pull off. Staff doesn’t provide anything unique to the thief. Staff #2 applies weakness but so does every skill you apply poison with minor trait in Deadly Arts or sword auto and you aren’t forced to change your positioning like Staff #2. Staff #3 is similar to the heal Withdraw except its an attack. Staff #4 is a blinding attack but Pistol #5 works way better. Staff #5 is the only thing thats somewhat unique. An AOE leap instead of Dagger #2 single target leap.

Simply put, unless there are major changes to daredevil, I’ll be abandoning my thief after years of main-ing it.

DD has absolutely enormous CC potential. Impact Strike -> Uppercut is enough to wipe out almost an entire breakbar alone. Add Palm Strike to that and the bar is gone, or use Bandit’s Defense to block something and get equal results.

Sword applies Weakness far too slowly and to only 3 targets. Staff applies an infinite amount of Weakness to 5 targets while also dealing the highest damage available to the profession with the same skill. Against a lot of adds in raids this will be invaluable.

DD itself has so much evasive capabilities that you can tank pretty much anything by just not getting hit.

Condition-wise, Lotus Training provides a large boost to condition damage, and with Alacrity + Adrenal Mushrooms (which are bound to appear in raids) Venomshare will be an absurd amount of DPS.

Dungeon meta…LOL. Who cares about dungeons now? Dungeons are worthless with HoT. This coming from someone who has spent thousands of hours in them. Raids and high Fractals are all that matter to Arenanet now.

Young Padawan, you have found the truth. Thief is no more, it is but a memory. Relinquish the struggle and abandon ye faith, just move on. It is Time.

Don’t forget…

The extra dodge that thief got, was kind of what thief had with Feline’s Grace prior to acro being gutted.

Potato.7318:

Nike mentioned that the thief’s blind and stealth role can now be accomplished by other professions and the dps increase in the other professions no longer provides the thief a secure spot in the dungeon meta.

How do you guys feel about this comment?

Well, he’s wrong. The Thief’s DPS is not based on it’s base damage rather it’s based on their damage frequency. Bound by itself is enough to earn a spot in a dungeon. Of course, other players will continue to alienate Thieves in dungeons without a valid reason, just because it’s a Thief.

Just a disclaimer, I’m speaking of dungeon runs where the group does what it’s meant to do rather than skipping and speed running.

@Potato.7318

No.

First… who really cares about meta in dungeons nowadays ? Grinding Dungeons is no longer interesting so there’s no use to have a “meta” anymore..

Second… High lvl fractals still are in demand for thieves and people are beginning to understand full power team in high fractals are obsolete… its funny to notice in the lfg how the comments are different between lvl 1-50 fractals and 70+

Third… I agree however that DD is not a drastic change in our class but DD has a lot of synergy with our other specializations ! It gives us a gameplay based upon mobility and.. a third dodge is really useful.

Fourth …Staff is a great weapon.. btw is there any other weapon having a reflect missile and whirlwind in their 1# and still doing damage ? Staff #5 deals a huge spike damage.. is a dodge .. a combo leap and can be used for mobility..
Staff got 2 dodges, blind, cripple, whirlwind and leap combo, reflect missile.. and it’s not enough for you ?
Are you serious ? Maybe were you expecting for fire, water, and smoke field too ?
Staff is a good weapon mixing AoE damage, mobility and survivability.

And Fifth … About our new physical skills..they are all (beside the heal) giving us some tools to break the defiance bar.. no other class is able to have so much tools to do that. In fractals thieves are able to break this bar alone. (And i dont even speak about basilisk venom share)

So.. NO we are not in a precarious Spot in PvE .. we may be in PvP however.

I understand you may have expected more changes with our Elite specialization but saying it put us in a precarious spot is a nonsense…so i wish you having some success in your new class because DD will not change imo.

Easy fixes (order top to bottom):

Preparedness baseline because we can’t function without this ONE trait holding us by the thingies we shall not mention. Non negotiable when Friggin Illusionary Persona gets a free pass.
Lead Attacks changed. It encourages you to NOT spend initiative right now, its counter productive to playing your class.
Hp to be swapped with other medium class. We don’t have any tools to flat out say “0 damage take it. suck it.” but the other two do. This is the theme in all classes, if you notice. A way to literally say 0 damage at 11k hp. Yet Thief no? I say swap our hp to engis, let them enjoy the struggle and separate the meek and mighty.

Alas, devs will not listen to playerbase. Inb4 Dec 10 repeat. This is what, D-Day 3 for Thief? Daredevil is fine, base is just utter garbage at this point.

Edit: I do agree mostly with blackdirk. Mostly. I play pvp a lot. PvE this spec is fantastic (but dps is low. problem with other lines though, not DD- DD gives me 27% damage).

blackdirk.1324:

@Potato.7318

No.

First… who really cares about meta in dungeons nowadays ? Grinding Dungeons is no longer interesting so there’s no use to have a “meta” anymore..

Second… High lvl fractals still are in demand for thieves and people are beginning to understand full power team in high fractals are obsolete… its funny to notice in the lfg how the comments are different between lvl 1-50 fractals and 70+

Third… I agree however that DD is not a drastic change in our class but DD has a lot of synergy with our other specializations ! It gives us a gameplay based upon mobility and.. a third dodge is really useful.

Fourth …Staff is a great weapon.. btw is there any other weapon having a reflect missile and whirlwind in their 1# and still doing damage ? Staff #5 deals a huge spike damage.. is a dodge .. a combo leap and can be used for mobility..
Staff got 2 dodges, blind, cripple, whirlwind and leap combo, reflect missile.. and it’s not enough for you ?
Are you serious ? Maybe were you expecting for fire, water, and smoke field too ?
Staff is a good weapon mixing AoE damage, mobility and survivability.

And Fifth … About our new physical skills..they are all (beside the heal) giving us some tools to break the defiance bar.. no other class is able to have so much tools to do that. In fractals thieves are able to break this bar alone. (And i dont even speak about basilisk venom share)

So.. NO we are not in a precarious Spot in PvE .. we may be in PvP however.

I understand you may have expected more changes with our Elite specialization but saying it put us in a precarious spot is a nonsense…so i wish you having some success in your new class because DD will not change imo.

^ This

Serious Thought.5394:

Easy fixes (order top to bottom):

Preparedness baseline because we can’t function without this ONE trait holding us by the thingies we shall not mention. Non negotiable when Friggin Illusionary Persona gets a free pass.
Lead Attacks changed. It encourages you to NOT spend initiative right now, its counter productive to playing your class.
Hp to be swapped with other medium class. We don’t have any tools to flat out say “0 damage take it. suck it.” but the other two do. This is the theme in all classes, if you notice. A way to literally say 0 damage at 11k hp. Yet Thief no? I say swap our hp to engis, let them enjoy the struggle and separate the meek and mighty.

Alas, devs will not listen to playerbase. Inb4 Dec 10 repeat. This is what, D-Day 3 for Thief? Daredevil is fine, base is just utter garbage at this point.

Edit: I do agree mostly with blackdirk. Mostly. I play pvp a lot. PvE this spec is fantastic (but dps is low. problem with other lines though, not DD- DD gives me 27% damage).

^ and that

I totally agree with everything that has been said. Ive mained thief for the whole game. Literally only play thief. So far ive stayed away from the specialization tab because im not exactly sure how to use it right. I do really agree with the point made by Potato that it didnt really benefit us a lot or even at all for pvp or pve. Its a great idea and i still need to learn how to use it but when i go against any other class, the damage is ridiculous and i really dont have anything to counter it. I hope there is a balance change because thief really did drop to the low end. Ill still play it forever regardless, but its making game play a lot harder than it needs to be! What ever happened to thief being the op stealth class……….

Oddly DareDevil is the best elite to me not from a “destroy my enemy” perspective but from pure enjoyment. I do find DareDevil to be under-performing damage-wise but it is seriously fun. I believe the thief is supposed to be a fun-to-play class. The staff is fun. P/P used to be fun. D/D used to be fun. S/D used to be fun.

It really just needs some tweaks. P/P should have Ricochet on Unload. S/D needs to go back to a pre-nerf state. D/D backstab needs its HeartSeeker un-nerfed. Both D/P and S/P are fine.

I don’t expect the thief to be king of the hill but I do expect it to feel fun to play.