Guild Wars 2

Hello Everyone,

So from what I have been hearing and seeing all over the forums is that the Thief is OP or in other words kittening (Over Powered). But let us take a moment to think about that bold statement. Let it seep in. Okay now, is it the Thief or the user that is “OP”? Now let that same user hop on a Ranger/Ele/Warrior/Engi.. etc and smash all classes that stand below it. Should that specific class be considered OP? If not considered, than there is a serious problem that has emerged and clouded minds of foreign classes (non Thief class). The Thief is like any other class. It has it’s obvious advantages, and obvious drawbacks. Can we all take a minute to collectively and proactively talk about these advantages and disadvantages of the Thief. I do not like seeing the thief forum bombarded with crying, and nerf this, OP that. Lets talk.

P.S- let us keep in mind- Endure Pain/MistForm/Elixir’s/Invulnerability/Block,Block,Block,Block, Fear (Draw backs to a Thief in my perspective)

But let me say in my honest opinion (Away from all of what i said above). I believe in my opinion, the Thief is not as over powered as one may perceive. (The Thief specifically, not the User). My opinion on the Thief Utility’s(besides the obvious “OP” Stealth) are that they are very poor compared to other classes, and our traits could use A LITTLE tweaking here and there.

Please I would like to hear what any and everyone has to say. If you disagree with me at any point feel free to say so.

=)

Overlooked in the Support category is Cluster Bomb, a combo blast finisher we can spam. Fire > Might rawr rawr rawr rawr rawr!

We’re also great with the POOF-revive with blinding power and shadow refuge. Or stealth and revive, not so great for the guy hoping we save them, but great for me while I’m trying to revive.

I don’t think we’re all that OP. Every class is OP in its own way. I hope. I’ll get around to trying them all out eventually. We can set up high risk/high crit or stealthy safe and sorta in between. Mostly we’re gonna live longer than you do, one way or another.

Thieves, we can have our cake while eating yours.

The only people that think we are OP are people posting about how One Specific Thief absolutely destroyed them, then make generalizations about the class. One good player overpowered them, because it is certainly not the class mechanics.

Thank you Lord i am in agreement with your statement. As i said in my post. It is the user, not the Class. that is ‘OP’

And yes WyldKat the thief can have the best of both worlds in some situations and builds, but due to this pretty minor, but noticeable change on stealth, our trait tree with shadow arts, will need a little bit of work. Yes people adapt to situation, i am all for that. But there are certain builds that people would like to have, which won’t be viable due to these constant changes(builds). So it’s either your go full Balls to the groud GC/ Tank/Evasion/ etc, but the intermediate, will be slightly less viable. In my perspective. But then again. It is not the thief. It is the User that makes it work

My prediction is the rise of the Venom-Crit-D/P//SB and it being called OP. 30/15/25. Basilisk Venom Stun? Check. Devourers+Skale? Check. Interrupt/Daze? Check. Blinding Powder+HS+Stealth+Backstab? Check.

Suralin.3947:

My prediction is the rise of the Venom-Crit-D/P//SB and it being called OP. 30/15/25. Basilisk Venom Stun? Check. Devourers+Skale? Check. Interrupt/Daze? Check. Blinding Powder+HS+Stealth+Backstab? Check.

I do perma dodge build in Spvp. I run D/P full GC backstab build in WvW. It has everything a Thief would want/need.

I hope I hear more out of people..

I’m already glad that fights with Thieves are a bit more… fluid now that the culling issues have been removed, they don’t need to get any more hits. That might even convince me to bring mine back, if the average douchified Thieves left.

MrForz.1953:

I’m already glad that fights with Thieves are a bit more… fluid now that the culling issues have been removed, they don’t need to get any more hits. That might even convince me to bring mine back, if the average douchified Thieves left.

What i believe they should have done was get rid of culling, and then give it a week or two, then decide whether or not to do something to stealth.

Thief Strengths:
- Build variety, each with their own inherent strengths and weaknesses
- Burst (GC)
- Movement
- Ability to spam skills (initiative willing)
- Ability to escape hairy situations
- Sustained combat (tanky and/or condition builds)

Thief weaknesses:
- Too many ‘must have’ utilities resulting in inflexibility and poor diversity despite many great build options
- Inherently squishy
- One trick pony (GC)
- Too many builds hinge on a single mechanic/skill (stealth/cloak and dagger) resulting in easy shutdowns from good players
- Very weak in drawn out fights (GC) due to lack of sustain, squishiness and stealth nerf
- Thief ‘roles’ taken by other classes more suited (scout: ele, burst: warrior, harrass: ele etc)
- Poor group support, despite any combination of traits/skills
- Lack of boons
- Lack of cleanses when not traited into stealth

I won’t comment on PvE as I don’t do it, but having said all that, thieves are doing okay. We still operate well solo. We can do all the things a thiefy character should be able to do, such as ninja camps, snipe dolyaks from under people’s noses and take down seige/players behind enemy lines without drawing too much attention. We can also burst key targets and snipe buffs from enemy team. We can generally catch running players and outrun pursuers.

I don’t agree with the 4 second revealed nerf for the same reasons many have mentioned: no culling making stealth less effective already and no solution to back to back cloak and daggers. It was an extremely ham-fisted change that also resulted the spoiling of auto-attack timings. A more elegant and equally effective change would have simply been to give us the 3 second reveal after any stealth ended, as advertised.

Future changes:
Most non-stealth builds need help. The advertised movement buffs would go a long way to doing this, however with our burst pretty good but not amazing or reliable by half, non-stealth thieves need some better ways to sustain in fights. Sword/X is great for this but other builds, especially pistol/pistol, need this in spades. And no, running out of a fight and then back again isn’t what I’d call sustain.

Trap buffs.

Boon removal seems to me to be a thiefy thing to do, but we’re not great at it. One unreliable weapon skill and a 45 second ability is all we have (off the top of my head).

Other than that it’s mostly fixing wonky traits and improving our non-standard utilities.

I agree with sarrow who found The perfect words to say that even if culling fix is not a nerf…it actually nerfs our stealth…cause i’m not playing a GC build i have valky armor with divinity runes and zerk trinkets…and when i break my stealth in The middle of 5 ppl i’m bursted and i can sustain it…but when i can finally c&d again i take all of their aoe spam where i just c&d and they burst me down…i run a 1500 toughness 18000 hp and i still can’t take dmg without die…before patch i was into zergs without taking DMG at all…and it wasn’t correct…i agree with The culling fix…but not with The 4 secs nerf…now even a 1v1 is an hard thing to do if u run a d/d backstab spec…that’s not fair…

Thank you for your in depth and careful knowledge, and say in this conversation. I am also in agreement to what you have said.

With our builds now(after the patch) they have their strengths and obvious weaknesses
(GC). I feel their should be more variety to build structures. Because right now there is only Glass/Stealth/Evasion. And all the intermediate cant tend to put out a good amount of damage while being able to sustain and survive like a warrior/Ele/ Guardian. I know that would be the biggest hate for the thief to be able to do all of this and still be able to have the capability to stealth. But I am mainly talking about D/D thieves. I myself am D/P. Full glass, 3400+ attack, 2400+power, crit chance 57% without signet, and 114% crit damage. With still a good 12.4hp pool.
Which brings me to the GC, this build I do believe should have a little bit of tweaking involved. With spec that I am in right now, I 1 -2 shot the majority of light and medium armored, while 3 shotting heavies. There should be a damage nerf in all fairness. But there are times where the thieves worst enemy negates the burst. (Block, mist form, invul, fear, etc) which then leaves a GC thief to having to wait on 3 CD (Assassin signet, Bv, Steal). The Glass thief particularly. Just gets hammered if countered. (When combo is missed)

Our mobility, all I have to say is I wish thieves had a lunge, or dash like capability? To make us more rogue, or (ninja) run up and do your quick 1shot combo. How come warriors have the luxury of having a dash mechanism, which knock downs, then you’re left with 100 blades to the face, or blade trail etc. (Thief is only class I play, and only toon. I do not know much other than from what I have witnessed from warrior& other classes) should warriors be considered OP after that? It’s a pretty fast dash at that too.

Our utilities I’d have to say are very poor? Ruling out our stealth utilities. We need more useful venoms, or actually no. The venoms are fine. The duration is just poor. The traps do little to no good. Yes you can trait for them, to give 5 stacks vulnerability when triggered, but it’s not enough anymore. We do have a lack of boons, and the boons we manage to strip, last 5 seconds. (That’s being generous)

We cannot support as well as we’d like to, yes the shared venoms in shadow arts tree, but that is not quite enough. I could go on. But I will stop here for now.

Any in agreement or disagreement with what I have said. Please speak up ^^

Another thing. If our traps removed conditions just like engineers bombs removed conditions, or even gave us a random boon, or healed us. That would be interesting. To see. But of course adjust CD accordingly.

I also feel the withdrawal tool tip should be accurate. It says withdrawal heal gives back 4k+ hp, but I activate this heal, and receive, and even see visually 2k+ heals being given back to me.

Well, some nerfs did not bother me, others I disliked ( thief has a long history of nerfs). Long story short, I have not played my thief in about 3 days which is unheard of for me.

Thing is, I just do not trust the devs anymore. I cannot put any more time into this toon. I was irked with the change I found very unneeded in Feb. patch ( I never lost aggro unless I MADE stealth drop aggro, and really liked that ability), and was gonna step back and play other toons then…but, I decided to keep going on thief.

Over the past few days I had less and less inclination to log on my thief. I realized, I have little faith that the class will remain fun for me in the future.

I decided to shelf my thief, and see what happens before I waste my time on it.

I think it is quite far from over powered, ALL my other toons ( except Ranger which is not so hot), are much better….MUCH less fun play style, but much more useful (this is in pve). I just feel that for me, the thief has come close to a sort of breaking point for fun. It will not take much for me to just loose all sense of fun playing it.

It is OK as is, but for me now…just on the verge of being not what I want. So, I am taking a break for a long time to see what they do.

Its quite simple. Thieves were insanely overpowered at launch and now they’re just severely overpowered.

Well I’m here to tell you that the Thief Is still an extraordinary class. Don’t lose hope with us. With every bad there is bound to be a good. Yes other classes may be good and better pve. But when you want to get something done, and done quick dont leave your thief in the dark. It simply just isn’t our turn yet. We will get our holy grail of improvements.

tagnut.8621:

Its quite simple. Thieves were insanely overpowered at launch and now they’re just severely overpowered.

And unfortunately you’re right. But hey, let’s use this time to train and get better, because right now we’re in bad conditions. Once they start to look at us for improvements we would have already met our top shape, so then the improvements would simply be icing on a cake.

Can’t let this thread die, need some discussion.

As a thief I do not find thieves OP – I know what thieves do so when attacked by one I can deal with it. So much has been said about 3 shoting people and that is understandable, before the quickness nerf I did use pistol whip and found things a little easy then – however to be honest other classes hit just as hard if not harder. So at this stage as I don’t like the narrow Backstab route I’m still running D/P and S/B and do not front load much damage at all in fact most hit me harder, it is fun though and I’m kinda trying to feel for a build that sits well. I don’t think things are easy at the moment for my playstyle. One downside that’s a challenge in sPvP is dealing with mesmers – their images auto target and attack very quickly – making the slippy thief who’s manage to make the mesmer loose track of where he is vulnerable. This would be a downside of being a thief most certainly as we thrive on avoidance – any illusion/pet in the smaller confines of sPvP can be right annoying, without much effort.

Elmuerto.9840:

As a thief I do not find thieves OP – I know what thieves do so when attacked by one I can deal with it. So much has been said about 3 shoting people and that is understandable, before the quickness nerf I did use pistol whip and found things a little easy then – however to be honest other classes hit just as hard if not harder. So at this stage as I don’t like the narrow Backstab route I’m still running D/P and S/B and do not front load much damage at all in fact most hit me harder, it is fun though and I’m kinda trying to feel for a build that sits well. I don’t think things are easy at the moment for my playstyle. One downside that’s a challenge in sPvP is dealing with mesmers – their images auto target and attack very quickly – making the slippy thief who’s manage to make the mesmer loose track of where he is vulnerable. This would be a downside of being a thief most certainly as we thrive on avoidance – any illusion/pet in the smaller confines of sPvP can be right annoying, without much effort.

Well actually if you get it right, you can actually 1 shot any light and medium armored class. I’ve done it multiple times. While I sit on 115% critical damage (without food), and 3500+attack 2500+ power(without food) so it is pretty easy to 1 shot. If you want a 2-3 shot,and much more of a challenge, solely target the heavy armored classes. Yes mesmers can be annoying, but if you catch them off guard, they can still pretty much die in 1 hit. But yes the excitement is there when fighting with mesmers.but if you’re looking for a fun/ strong and viable build for spvp I’d recommend the Perma evade build.

I must look up this perma-evade build, its actually the way I rolled (mind the pun!) in WvW although I used food to assist that.

Elmuerto.9840:

I must look up this perma-evade build, its actually the way I rolled (mind the pun!) in WvW although I used food to assist that.

Hahaha, !, and well outside of spvp, this build isn’t really viable. But of you want a challenge you can try it by all means. But I wouldn’t spend all my gold on a set that’ll inevitably kill you. Take it from me. I’ve tried it already, it’s only usefulness is to solo camps, and yak attacks. The mobility is the biggest draw back. But if you’re in spvp this build does wonders. I could let you know what this build consists of if you would like. Other wise there is a thread already made by- Void about this build. You can find it. It’s called don’t need stealth bunker (2 new videos)thief.. Something like that.

I hope a Developer has taken Atleast a look at this thread. (: people have been giving pretty good feedback

Anyone who plays a thief and thinks they are OP I challenge you to duel

The “problem” with thieves is that mechanically we are weak, as others have said we lack proper access to boons we don’t get any access to protection outside of stolen stuff and yet we are lower health tier, we rely on evasion (which we have a reasonable amount of, though certain people would state every thief has unlimited evasion access on everyskills) and stealth to lower the damage compared to other professions that actively reduce damage incoming.

And there in lies the big thing, because one of our core defense mechanisms is stealth this means that a large part of a thief game play can rely on deception, this is not something new players encounter much in PvE (lets face it skelk battles are few and far between) and in a pvp situation its new to them and because they don’t have a button that removes stealth like they can with boon stripping or such and they don’t get feedback during the stealth like they do with people bunkered in boons etc they see it as total immunity and instant escape.

Stealth requires thought on the non thief side that is not needed for most other average to low level encounters, you see someone put up protection? you boon strip or you keep hitting and shrug off the reduced damage as something that happens, you see someone stack up confusion on you? you condition clear or you stop attacking momentarily.

You see someone stealth? What do most people do? They stop everything, often even movement and just stand there (I can only imagine this is to instantly open up their browser and complain about how an OP thief just instant killed them). This makes stealth exceptionally powerful against these people because it completely shuts them down.

Now good players will see this happen a few times and wonder if there are ways around it, they’ll either ask questions, experiment with skills in those fights or even simply roll a thief and learn first hand, once they do they no longer have massive issues with this one mechanic to the point where really good players don’t pause at all and just keep fighting like it wasn’t there (which because stealth doesn’t actually give any damage reduction it isn’t to them) leaving the thief with really just evasion which many other people have and has its own set of counters etc.

Bad players will just complain and never learn which is why our forums are always filled with complaints and “QQ’s” and of course then if anet listens to them they do stuff like nerf revealed time and such which of course to the bad players has no effect at all because they still haven’t learnt about stealth at all and still completely stop any sort of offensive or defensive play while the good players that are already able to counter stealth have easier and easier times against the thief leaving thieves to bumble along in low-mid tier picking on new and bads.

The same arguements basically covers the complaints about “spamming skills”, people die, latch onto something they have no understanding of and try to get it nerfed even though the mechanics of that system are actually in their favour for the most part.

i really dont care if we suck or op you having fun? cause every other class with the exception of my ele is boring to me even then i always come back to my thief,

the playstyle never gets boring so im having fun shrug.

Thank you for your input.
And yes, i agree with you that the people that usually rage at us thieves are usually the ones that have never rolled a Thief before, and know nothing about our class. Usually the (new or bad players). But, the funny thing is that Thieves have the most weakness’s in this game. (Aside from the obvious lowest HP Pool in the game, and armor tier.) Glass cannon thieves are usually the most hated thieves. And we have the most weakness in game. (Fear, Block, Invulnerability, Elixir, Mist Form, Endure Pain, and yes Blind can throw off our 1 hit wonder combo (BV+ A.S +Steal combo). After that we for the most part have about 2 utility skills left. Which makes us very vulnerable. The ironic thing is, that while we have our stealth, Every other class has access to 3-5 second invulnerability frame, And yes people can argue that we can spam blind, but blind is a pulse. And within each pulse there is a split second where damage can be applied. I just don’t feel that is right.

Everyone "QQ"s about stealth finishes. So you’re telling me a EP, Mistform, Elixir,etc. Stomp is better because you can see your opponent to get your CC attempt locked on them(Failed attempt).

Our Utilities are among the weakest in this game, not including our stealth’s. Our traits need tweaking, Our traps are triggered for a 1 enemy purpose. (which i can understand with the Ambush trap), But with the other’s no excuse. Our boons duration is poor, the boons we steal don’t steal the correct duration amount, Seems like every other class has a f2,f3,etc, while Thieves are bound to f1, and our condition removal is poor. But yes. Due to stealth. That compensates for everything I mentioned. (sarcasm).

Thieves are far from “OP” We’re under power aside from GC Thieves, which still can rarely out last a glass warrior with their 3-4 stuns.

Dasorine.1964:

The “problem” with thieves is that mechanically we are weak, as others have said we lack proper access to boons we don’t get any access to protection outside of stolen stuff and yet we are lower health tier, we rely on evasion (which we have a reasonable amount of, though certain people would state every thief has unlimited evasion access on everyskills) and stealth to lower the damage compared to other professions that actively reduce damage incoming.

And there in lies the big thing, because one of our core defense mechanisms is stealth this means that a large part of a thief game play can rely on deception, this is not something new players encounter much in PvE (lets face it skelk battles are few and far between) and in a pvp situation its new to them and because they don’t have a button that removes stealth like they can with boon stripping or such and they don’t get feedback during the stealth like they do with people bunkered in boons etc they see it as total immunity and instant escape.

Stealth requires thought on the non thief side that is not needed for most other average to low level encounters, you see someone put up protection? you boon strip or you keep hitting and shrug off the reduced damage as something that happens, you see someone stack up confusion on you? you condition clear or you stop attacking momentarily.

You see someone stealth? What do most people do? They stop everything, often even movement and just stand there (I can only imagine this is to instantly open up their browser and complain about how an OP thief just instant killed them). This makes stealth exceptionally powerful against these people because it completely shuts them down.

Now good players will see this happen a few times and wonder if there are ways around it, they’ll either ask questions, experiment with skills in those fights or even simply roll a thief and learn first hand, once they do they no longer have massive issues with this one mechanic to the point where really good players don’t pause at all and just keep fighting like it wasn’t there (which because stealth doesn’t actually give any damage reduction it isn’t to them) leaving the thief with really just evasion which many other people have and has its own set of counters etc.

Bad players will just complain and never learn which is why our forums are always filled with complaints and “QQ’s” and of course then if anet listens to them they do stuff like nerf revealed time and such which of course to the bad players has no effect at all because they still haven’t learnt about stealth at all and still completely stop any sort of offensive or defensive play while the good players that are already able to counter stealth have easier and easier times against the thief leaving thieves to bumble along in low-mid tier picking on new and bads.

The same arguements basically covers the complaints about “spamming skills”, people die, latch onto something they have no understanding of and try to get it nerfed even though the mechanics of that system are actually in their favour for the most part.

Thank you for your input

vincecontix.1264:

Anyone who plays a thief and thinks they are OP I challenge you to duel

This is a discussion thread , please discuss.
Thank you

The reason thieves (and mesmers) are complained about so much is that they don’t understand what’s going on. These two classes in particular punish the other players the most for not understanding their opponent. To a new player stealth seems like total information denial/invulnerability… and it seems impossible to tell the real mesmer from the clones… and massive complaints from ignorant players ensue.

More experienced players will be able to easily predict the one trick pony thief and tell which one is the real mesmer instantly.

Thief is too FOOS… they can do their one trick based upon whatever weapon set they are using. This makes them extremely predictable. I constantly use c&d to stealth off of other already stealthed thieves because it’s that obvious where they’ll be and what they’ll be doing.

Aberrant.6749:

The reason thieves (and mesmers) are complained about so much is that they don’t understand what’s going on. These two classes in particular punish the other players the most for not understanding their opponent. To a new player stealth seems like total information denial/invulnerability… and it seems impossible to tell the real mesmer from the clones… and massive complaints from ignorant players ensue.

More experienced players will be able to easily predict the one trick pony thief and tell which one is the real mesmer instantly.

Thief is too FOOS… they can do their one trick based upon whatever weapon set they are using. This makes them extremely predictable. I constantly use c&d to stealth off of other already stealthed thieves because it’s that obvious where they’ll be and what they’ll be doing.

Yeah I am also in agreement with this. To sum it all up, people should just learn to play their class. Because Thieves are far from Over powered. The User is the Over powered one. If you learn to play any class, You can be just as OP.

Anymore feedback from fellow thieves?

I feel thief is in a unique spot.

much more in any one direction and we will start to really feel a sting, or be a little brawny. it’s a tight rope we walk, but it’s that agility we use in combat to sustain the thrill of playing a thief.

without our fluid playstyle, which I feel we still have (though I can see people who got a chance to land a cnd every 3.25s after a backstab might have gotten a little roughed up having to throw in a little more aa chain), I doubt I would be here. The initiative system is brilliant, if not a rehash of similar mechanics in other games (for a similar class). The active evades tied onto weapons, and utilities is probably one of my favorite things.

all that being said we are just squishy as all hell. no protection access unless stolen – which instead of hating on boons, I think we should just have more ways to steal them and spread them, or keep them to ourselves, whichever – nice vigor uptime if traited for it, but vigor only goes so far when still your mistakes bear their fangs much quicker than for other classes.

the ele missed d/d fire3? like way off didnt even set his target on fire and still missed with his fire5 anyway? oh well, tactful dancing around in attunements for 20 seconds and he’s ready to try again, and probably at more health than when he tried the first time.

mesmer totally botched shatter? target wasnt even there when it went off? dodge, utility F4, kite, etc etc etc, it’s ready again soon enough.

Mistime stealburst/cnd/daggerswitch/backstab/aa/whatever, we can dance around for quite a while, but our damage output is generally not to grand on the defensive and regaining footing for the offensive again is much more difficult without a HARD reset of the fight (you drop combat and wait on all your skills), then that wasn’t really a fight now was it?

ugh. I still think we are fine, but that could be the bias. I am just not able to play other classes. the ele was the closest, but it still didn’t have the thrill.

Way to go Thieves!

Selver.1307:

I feel thief is in a unique spot.

much more in any one direction and we will start to really feel a sting, or be a little brawny. it’s a tight rope we walk, but it’s that agility we use in combat to sustain the thrill of playing a thief.

without our fluid playstyle, which I feel we still have (though I can see people who got a chance to land a cnd every 3.25s after a backstab might have gotten a little roughed up having to throw in a little more aa chain), I doubt I would be here. The initiative system is brilliant, if not a rehash of similar mechanics in other games (for a similar class). The active evades tied onto weapons, and utilities is probably one of my favorite things.

all that being said we are just squishy as all hell. no protection access unless stolen – which instead of hating on boons, I think we should just have more ways to steal them and spread them, or keep them to ourselves, whichever – nice vigor uptime if traited for it, but vigor only goes so far when still your mistakes bear their fangs much quicker than for other classes.

the ele missed d/d fire3? like way off didnt even set his target on fire and still missed with his fire5 anyway? oh well, tactful dancing around in attunements for 20 seconds and he’s ready to try again, and probably at more health than when he tried the first time.

mesmer totally botched shatter? target wasnt even there when it went off? dodge, utility F4, kite, etc etc etc, it’s ready again soon enough.

Mistime stealburst/cnd/daggerswitch/backstab/aa/whatever, we can dance around for quite a while, but our damage output is generally not to grand on the defensive and regaining footing for the offensive again is much more difficult without a HARD reset of the fight (you drop combat and wait on all your skills), then that wasn’t really a fight now was it?

ugh. I still think we are fine, but that could be the bias. I am just not able to play other classes. the ele was the closest, but it still didn’t have the thrill.

Way to go Thieves!

Thank you for the feedback, I don’t quite understand the point at what you’re making, but I still appreciate your time.

P.S I hope you got some good video shots of us in WvW. It was so coincidental i meet one of my re-pliers on forums.

I rant. Point was mistakes on thief are more or less brutal in comparison to other classes.i need more footage, and i’m slow on edit. Will post when published.