Guild Wars 2

Hey all. High Warlord Sikari, long time Necromancer. I wanted to give some non-thief player change ideas, just to give an outside perspective and maybe be a bit less biased (at least in the buff department) and help break the hive-mind a bit (I don’t mean that in a derogatory way), and see what we can come up with. I’ll try to give specific reasons for my larger changes so that we’re on the same page of thinking. Keep it civil, be honest, and lets have a good discussion!

General Thoughts:
Thief tends to lack good fight presence. The burst is okay, but not as good as it once was, but I don’t think it is as bad as people suggest, I more think the gap between Thief and Mesmer became a bit too great and some Balancing needs to be done on Mesmer’s end as well. Overall, burst mobility seems a bit high in terms of burst mobility, which often leaves them as decap roamers as their primary role which is a bit unfulfilling. Lastly, (void of Mesmer discussion) I feel stealth is handled in a boring way which promotes passive play and leaves the class susceptible to future Reveal spells.

On to some proposed changes to provide an out-side perspective. The reason I feel like this might be important is, while I agree thieves could use some help, out-side views help ensure the game remains fun for everyone and not just the thief. And of course, feel free to criticize, add, or specifically further discuss anything written, it’s just a view.

Weapons:
Overall, I feel Pistols are in the worst position as far as weapons go, while other sets get more issues based on Traits. Shortbow also seems to add its own issues due to Infiltrator’s Arrow.

Pistol: Needs some form of AoE back into the weapon set, particularly P/P.
- Increase Body Shot’s base damage and velocity, add “Increased damage cripple for 4 seconds within 300 range”, a slight nudge for escaping a target and punishing melee on the P/P a bit more, adds synergy with pistol trait.

- Unload, allow it to pierce up to 2 enemies (hitting up to 3), do not return the bouncing, but increase the width of the unload to make for a line-up skill shot, favoring better positioning. (Added after Publish, add piercing to pistol #1, in the same way.)

Short Bow: Shortbow is used on most builds in PvP because the nature of thief only requires a single offensive weapon set, and as such, Shortbow provides some ranged pressure and utility. Currently, it provides a bit too much burst-mobility, though, making them a key-stone for decapping.

- Cluster Blomb, slightly increase velocity.

- Infiltrator’s Arrow, here’s the toughy, but an idea I wanted to throw out. Double the velocity, but reduce the max range to 600, but reduce the cost from 6 to 5. The reason I suggest this is that it reduces the total distance travelled from ~150u per initiative to ~120u (20% decrease), but when used to just create distance less distance is lost through moving due to slow projectile speed and allows them to be chained more quickly to escape bad situations. It does however reduce the total distance achieved while crossing a distance. This also means when using two in a row to create an ideal distance between enemies (1200+) you have spent less initiative and when starved on initiative you can use it sooner. This might be a weird idea to wrap the head around, but I feel like it could improve responsiveness and reflex defenses while reducing the problematic areas.

Utilities
Some cooldowns are a bit high, and could generally be tweaked a bit to be more favorable.

- Shadow Step, reduce cooldown to 45 seconds.

- Shadow Refuge initial cast clears reveal from players within the impact area.
- Increase tripwire velocity.

- Roll for Initiative, Reduce cooldown to 50 seconds.

- Caltrops, reduce cast to .5. Reduce cripple duration to 8.

- Assassin’s Signet, reduce cooldown to 30 (streamlines signet cooldowns), change from 15% damage on kittens to 10% damage on 6. (Slightly less overall burst with the signet, better overall usage, something to consider.)

(Not overly interested in traps or Venoms at this point for the sake of this discussion.)

Traits
Deadly Arts:
- Trapper’s Respite, drop the trap at the initial location of the heal with withdraw.

- Improvisation, changed to “You can use Stolen items Twice. After stealing, your next utility has its cooldown reduced by 50%. I feel like this would reduce the RNG and the initial impact of certain resets while increasing the play. With the right set up and consideration, I feel like this could make for some better decision making and increase defenses in a more predictable manner. (Buff lasts 15 seconds.)

Critical Strikes:
- Ankle Shots, increase Cripple to 4 seconds, 100% on critical hit (it has an ICD, why even chance it…?)

- Invigorating Precision, I don’t personally like the way it’s handled. It might be a good heal for PVE but not super useful for PVP, imo. To better synergize with pistols I suggest a different idea. “Invigorating Precision, landing a critical hit heals for 300 hp (minor scaling), and grants 2 seconds of swiftness and 12 seconds of might 1 might . 2 second ICD.” This would incentivize constant attacking and landing critical hits while keeping the attacker mobile and powerful “invigorating” them as they continue their assault. It also adds a bit more might to add to the Signets of Power trait.

Acrobatics:
- Expeditious Dodger, just bump it to 3 or 4 seconds of swiftness.

- Pain Response, include Torment.

- Guarded Initiation, add “when striking an enemy while your health is above the threshold, or from stealth.” I realize this isn’t shadow arts, but I don’t feel the rest of the class has to be void of stealth synergy. This might make the trait more useful throughout a fight.

- Assassin’s Reward seems kind of ‘meh’, not sure I’ve noticed many people use it, though. I wouldn’t know what to suggest, but the thought is there.

Trickery
- Preparedness, for diversity reasons and fluidity of the class, make the 15 initiative baseline. In it’s place, to avoid a major “power creep” to the line itself, I suggest changing “Preparedness” to: Your first successful initiative attack in combat refunds the full cost.” This prevents it from being exploited when Ooc, but gives you a good starting point, especially if you land a Black Powder. This effect would not come back until you leave combat entirely, though, so it wouldn’t add to long-lasting effects. (Could have so interesting implications in PvE, however.)

- Bountiful Theft, I’ll be honest, guys. I don’t feel like having an instant ‘guaranteed’ stun is the best option for the game. I do feel like (which might help change up some of the trait meta a bit), it would be best if the stability was lowered on priority or made random on the boon theft. It’s a bit too safe of an interrupt and completely voids realistic counterplay. Feel free to argue with me, but I feel pretty deeply about this.

Shadow Arts: I saved this for last, because I’d prefer the most change to it. Overall, I feel like every bit of this tree pushes for passive play, and in general isn’t very fun to play against, and doesn’t do the thief justice for their actual goal, staying in combat, but instead, just turns them into big successful chickens.

- Last Refuge, rather than Blinding Powder, I feel like it should just self-stealth when hit under 25% with a 60 second cooldown, automatically removing revealed effects, with a 3 second stealth. This would reduce the reveal issues with allies, makes it more self-reliable, but at an increased cooldown.

- Shadow’s Embrace, remove 1 harmful condition when entering stealth. Landing an attack from stealth removes 2 harmful conditions. This is one part of my goal to increasing the play to Shadow Arts. The overall goal is to move Shadow Arts from the stealth-camping chicken (so much), to more of a shadow-boxer who benefits from stealth-dancing and actively assaulting from stealth. This would provide a higher amount of removal overall when utilized, but benefit hiding and fleeing far less.

- Resilience of Shadows, the next step from the above would be to change RoS. My suggested change would be to rename Resilience of Shadows to “Shadow Cloak”, and have it grant the thief 3 seconds of protection when exiting stealth, which would include reveals, 4 sec ICD (to prevent exploiting). The purpose of this is, again, to reduce the potency of just fleeing, but increase the thief’s “stay power’ when fighting, rewarding them for using their stealth timely and efficiently keeping up their protective ‘shadow cloak’.

- Shadow’s Rejuvenation, similarly to the above, I’d like to make this a bit more active. To make the trait make more sense, it would also need to be renamed to something like “Shadow Gambit” (trading the shadow for a further advantage). Functionality would change to: “Landing an attack from stealth grants ‘Shadow Gambit’, Regenerating Health and Initiative every 3 seconds for 6 seconds.” This would tick as you gain it and every 3 seconds, similar to now. Refreshing it before it runs off would just reset it to 6 seconds and trigger the initial tick again. Again, the ideal is less camping, but a significant boost to sustain as a shadow boxer who uses stealth less as a constant fleeing tool (which it could still be used for fleeing, obviously), it’s much more rewarded for a continuous assault and timing stealth attacks for sustaining benefits.

Conclusion
Okay that’s it for now, I’m not touching Daredevil. Let me know what you think. Keep it civil, I realize some people will be not-so-happy with my suggestions, others might be more happy than others. Lets just have a calm discussion and see where it goes.

Also, I realize this might not hit every thief concern, and won’t be perfect. But this is as far as I’ve gotten so far.

Thanks for reading!

Oh, one more note, Shadow Arts changes might need different number tuning, I didn’t do extensive number-crunching there.

ronpierce.2760:

Thief tends to lack good fight presence. The burst is okay, but not as good as it once was, but I don’t think it is as bad as people suggest, I more think the gap between Thief and Mesmer became a bit too great and some Balancing needs to be done on Mesmer’s end as well.

Agreed. Other professions had their burst increased—so the gap between professions in terms of burst has shrunk some—but Thief’s is still quite good. Predictably, the bigger problem is that Thief often can’t survive long enough to deliver their potential burst. Until ArenaNet makes some major changes in the durability department, Thief will be a tough profession to even make adjustments to… so much potential is actively hindered or obscured by Thief’s inherent squishiness and lack of passive durability.

ronpierce.2760:

- Infiltrator’s Arrow, here’s the toughy, but an idea I wanted to throw out.

Infiltrator’s Arrow is such a huge, huge crutch for the Thief profession that I’m not even sure if there are meaningful balance adjustments to be made to it. At this point, I’d rather see it completely remade into something different (with some buffs and redesigns to the rest of Shortbow to even things out, of course). Maybe then Thieves could finally be allowed access to some of the tools every other profession seems to have.

ronpierce.2760:

- Improvisation, changed to “You can use Stolen items Twice. After stealing, your next utility has its cooldown reduced by 50%. I feel like this would reduce the RNG and the initial impact of certain resets while increasing the play. With the right set up and consideration, I feel like this could make for some better decision making and increase defenses in a more predictable manner. (Buff lasts 15 seconds.)

As much as I enjoy it at times, Improvisation definitely needs some kind of redesign. The more skill categories that are added, the more inconsistent Improv will get. My previous idea was to have it function mostly as now, but to reduce the recharge of a category of skills that ARE on your bar by 50% if the refresh RNG fails. Your idea would also work.

Most of your suggestions are generally on point, so I don’t have a lot of other specific feedback that immediately comes to mind

all thief needs is a small buff or so while seeing:

• elementalist heavily nerfed
• necro slightly nerfed
• mesmer even more slightly nerfed (very little needs to be done with them)
• ranger’s Beastly Warden fixed and also given slight counterplay
• elixir engineer getting toned down

elementalist is self-explanatory at this point. there’s so much wrong with it you can start almost anywhere and bring a valid argument to have whatever it is you choose get nerfed.

necro is bad as well, not as bad, but definitely a problem. celestial necro is essentially a not-as-mobile celestial ele in terms of being faceroll-strong against both power and condition specs. MM necro needs to be toned down as well a la turret engie. nobody appreciates AI being viable especially when it works unfairly well against unarguably harder to play specs. turret engie being axed out of the meta was one of the best things to ever happen to pvp, and nearly nobody will disagree with that. there should be no difference when it comes to MM necro.

mesmer could see mindwrack damage get nerfed and a slight nerf to PU. that’s it.

Beastly Warden is one of the most obnoxious things in the game and was banned from the upcoming 1v1 tournament for good reason. It’s broken usage (going through evades/blocks/blinds/invulns) of course makes it unbearably awful to play against but even still, without any counterplay it’ll be too strong of a mechanic regardless of it being fixed. It’s so strong that the entirety of the ranger meta is shaped around it.

elixir engineer will probably be one of the new meta-dominating builds once we see ele/necro/mesmer/burn damage (btw, burn itself isnt broken it’s how certain professions can apply it) get nerfed. doesn’t seem like many people are aware of it now, but it’s ridiculously strong against anything that isn’t ele or necro and surprise surprise it runs celestial and can maintain 20+ stacks of might by itself.

i cannot stress enough how much of this can be solved simply by removing celestial. this amulet alone has done more damage to pvp over the past year and half (or so) than anything else i can possibly think of. it’s usage is completely binary. it either enables ridiculously strong builds or doesn’t do anything for a profession.

seeing celestial just removed entirely (or nerfed considerably) would do a lot of good for the professions i’ve mentioned using them, as it would help reduce the amount of profession-specific mechanics that need to be nerfed for the sake of celestial builds not to be overpowered.

sinject.4607:

i cannot stress enough how much of this can be solved simply by removing celestial. this amulet alone has done more damage to pvp over the past year and half (or so) than anything else i can possibly think of. it’s usage is completely binary. it either enables ridiculously strong builds or doesn’t do anything for a profession.

seeing celestial just removed entirely (or nerfed considerably) would do a lot of good for the professions i’ve mentioned using them, as it would help reduce the amount of profession-specific mechanics that need to be nerfed for the sake of celestial builds not to be overpowered.

GOD YES. I don’t understand how Celestial is still in the game; it’s so absurdly binary! When you design an amulet that’s 130% of the normal stat budget, spread across all stats, there are really only two possible outcomes: either it’s useless for a build, or the linchpin that makes that build disgustingly powerful. Just remove it already.

Amante.8109:

sinject.4607:

i cannot stress enough how much of this can be solved simply by removing celestial. this amulet alone has done more damage to pvp over the past year and half (or so) than anything else i can possibly think of. it’s usage is completely binary. it either enables ridiculously strong builds or doesn’t do anything for a profession.

seeing celestial just removed entirely (or nerfed considerably) would do a lot of good for the professions i’ve mentioned using them, as it would help reduce the amount of profession-specific mechanics that need to be nerfed for the sake of celestial builds not to be overpowered.

GOD YES. I don’t understand how Celestial is still in the game; it’s so absurdly binary! When you design an amulet that’s 130% of the normal stat budget, spread across all stats, there are really only two possible outcomes: either it’s useless for a build, or the linchpin that makes that build disgustingly powerful. Just remove it already.

If I remember correctly, celestial was the chance for eles to come back into meta. So it wasn´t doing only damage. I think eles weren´t OP before the patch in juni cause they got less might and damage overall —> great sustain, but less damage. Some people said that shoutbow would be superior cause of better supprt. Now support of shoutbow got nerfed (shouts heal less) and ele are stronger and deal more damage while blinding with burning. Celestial is a perfect amulet for eles, it souldn´t be removed but simply balanced, so ele are still viable.

Now to infiltrators Arrow. I was thinking about that idea and I´m not sure about it.
Like you said, Shortbow is a utility weapon, providing decent cleave when needed (AA and cluster), CC (from stealth, so you have to do something to get the immobilize), teamsupport with poison on downs/bunkers (#4), blastfinisher (#2), evade to get out of AOE or attacks (4ini, IMPORTANT: aftercast, with some practice easy to abuse that —> steal into the aftercast for secure steal) and gap-opener/gap-closer/mobility (#5).
If we look into all that stuff there are decent ways to useshortbow, but all of them have some aspects making them weaker --→ damage of AA on single targets, travel speed, high ini-cost, etc.
Infiltrators Arrow isn´t only used to go away and decap, but to get to the enemy, too. Or to get to better positions for engage. With a lower distance some spots will be very difficult to reach. We shouldn´t forget that shortbow is a range weapon with a very short range. We need gap-closers to get to the targets BEFORE reforcements arrive.

I don´t think shortbow need changes right now. Not even that faster travel speed on #2. Its not so great for targets far away, but great in close-quarter combat —> advantage/disadvantage, exactly ho it should be.
First provide the thief with better fight capability and if we have that, then look into infiltrators arrow if a change is needed.
If you can´t even teleport out of an AOE with 1 port I don´t think I would like it —> Meteor, wells or over some peoples fighting. If you first have to port almost out of it, but still are in middle of the fight you could get hit by to much randoms damage before porting again

sinject.4607:

all thief needs is a small buff or so while seeing:

• elementalist heavily nerfed
• necro slightly nerfed
• mesmer even more slightly nerfed (very little needs to be done with them)
• ranger’s Beastly Warden fixed and also given slight counterplay
• elixir engineer getting toned down

elementalist is self-explanatory at this point. there’s so much wrong with it you can start almost anywhere and bring a valid argument to have whatever it is you choose get nerfed.

necro is bad as well, not as bad, but definitely a problem. celestial necro is essentially a not-as-mobile celestial ele in terms of being faceroll-strong against both power and condition specs. MM necro needs to be toned down as well a la turret engie. nobody appreciates AI being viable especially when it works unfairly well against unarguably harder to play specs. turret engie being axed out of the meta was one of the best things to ever happen to pvp, and nearly nobody will disagree with that. there should be no difference when it comes to MM necro.

mesmer could see mindwrack damage get nerfed and a slight nerf to PU. that’s it.

Beastly Warden is one of the most obnoxious things in the game and was banned from the upcoming 1v1 tournament for good reason. It’s broken usage (going through evades/blocks/blinds/invulns) of course makes it unbearably awful to play against but even still, without any counterplay it’ll be too strong of a mechanic regardless of it being fixed. It’s so strong that the entirety of the ranger meta is shaped around it.

elixir engineer will probably be one of the new meta-dominating builds once we see ele/necro/mesmer/burn damage (btw, burn itself isnt broken it’s how certain professions can apply it) get nerfed. doesn’t seem like many people are aware of it now, but it’s ridiculously strong against anything that isn’t ele or necro and surprise surprise it runs celestial and can maintain 20+ stacks of might by itself.

i cannot stress enough how much of this can be solved simply by removing celestial. this amulet alone has done more damage to pvp over the past year and half (or so) than anything else i can possibly think of. it’s usage is completely binary. it either enables ridiculously strong builds or doesn’t do anything for a profession.

seeing celestial just removed entirely (or nerfed considerably) would do a lot of good for the professions i’ve mentioned using them, as it would help reduce the amount of profession-specific mechanics that need to be nerfed for the sake of celestial builds not to be overpowered.

If you did all this while buffing thief, thief would be absolute godmode. Ranger is currently in a worse position than thieves by far for anything other than 1v1. I can’t comment on all of the classes, but i will say this: mesmer does NOT need its damage nerfed. Since the mirror blade nerf mesmer has lower dps than it has ever had on a mesmer meta spec. Mesmer needs a nerf to its survivability (pu, blind spam) and POSSIBLY its burst setup- aka confounding suggestions.

I’m of the opinion that for thief to be capable of fighting well, they have to give up some of their insane mobility. I actually got into a somewhat heated argument with a friend over what thief should and shouldn’t be able to do. now of course we are talking idealistically, but in terms of mobility/escapability and staying power in a fight, we came to agreement that the two should be inverses of each other. In other words, the more mobility you have, the less fighting capability you should have, and vice versa. As it stands, thief is on the extreme end of this spectrum (great mobility but no fighting power).

Now in terms of my opinion on the matter. My belief is that thief’s greatest strength lies in its ability to decide the terms of engagement. My friend managed to convince me that the reason thief is balanced competitively is because it can also decide the terms of disengagement. In generalized terms, if a class is allowed to choose when to enter a fight, as well as when to leave one AND is capable of winning more often than not, then that class is overpowered.

So this brings me to why I believe our traits don’t lend themselves to helping us fight well. Regardless of what trait setup we take, we will always have the option of taking sb5. With the insane amount of mobility offered by sb5, if we were given traits that allowed us to contend evenly with other classes, we would essentially be allowed to pick fights we can win, and leave any fight we are losing…in other words, we would never die. THAT is what I feel is the root of our problems, as well as why the devs are so hesitant to give us nice things.

It isn’t so simple as removing sb5 and putting something else in though. Thief is supposed to be one of the most mobile classes in the game. The problem is that all of thief’s mobility comes from one skill…sb5. To keep the feeling that thief is still mobile, while not keeping all of the mobility offered by sb5, my suggestion is to rework Shadowstep (skill) and sb5 together to become something like such

Infiltrator’s Arrow 6ini
Blinds target for 5s and grants 3s stealth on hit.

Shadowstep 20s cd
Shadowstep 1200 units. Remove 1 Condition. Holds up to 3 Charges.

Maybe my reworked Shadowstep is too strong, but the idea is remove thief’s consistently extreme mobility and give them a potentially high burst of mobility while still allowing decent, but not as powerful, escapability. With this in place, thief will be able to dictate what fight it enters, but not necessarily what fight it leaves.

As a final note, I want to say that this is the groundwork for giving thief more staying power in a fight. It would simply be unreasonable let to take away thief’s mobility and give nothing in return, so my suggestion isn’t a nerf, bur rather is a rebalancing of thief’s strengths.

Amante.8109:

sinject.4607:

i cannot stress enough how much of this can be solved simply by removing celestial. this amulet alone has done more damage to pvp over the past year and half (or so) than anything else i can possibly think of. it’s usage is completely binary. it either enables ridiculously strong builds or doesn’t do anything for a profession.

seeing celestial just removed entirely (or nerfed considerably) would do a lot of good for the professions i’ve mentioned using them, as it would help reduce the amount of profession-specific mechanics that need to be nerfed for the sake of celestial builds not to be overpowered.

GOD YES. I don’t understand how Celestial is still in the game; it’s so absurdly binary! When you design an amulet that’s 130% of the normal stat budget, spread across all stats, there are really only two possible outcomes: either it’s useless for a build, or the linchpin that makes that build disgustingly powerful. Just remove it already.

Maybe remove healing power from it for balance? I made a Triforge and don’t want to see a big nerf that would make all those mats and grinding a big waste.

This discussion has been a bit spread out, more than I expected, but kudos on keeping in civil.

I wanted to note a few things, but I don’t want this to get too off-topic about other classes and celestial.

- Celestial isn’t a problem. I’m not sure how old of players we have here, but in fact, Celestial used to be weaker and needed a 10% buff to get any use. At that point, Celestial alone was still not much of a consideration. What made Celestial useful was the addition of many class specific buffs, a good example is the Shout Warrior, which got a huge buff on base healing, once that got toned back down, Settlers became the ideal.

At its core, there really is no issue with a brawler class or build. And one must realize (Specifically Necromancer), not every class is built with the same active defenses, the class relies on being slightly more spongy, and filling the lack of power with gained Might. Thief on the otherhand don’t require as much initial beefing as they have better active tools to mitigate damage (which can be argued if they’re good enough, but undeniably they have more of it). It’s a difference in character goals and that shouldn’t be punished.

As far as Necros go, Necromancers to thief are a bit like a Skull Cracker stance warrior to a Necromancer. They feel that much more “OP” because they tend to counter you in all the right ways. There are some areas where Necro could be toned down (and areas where it could be better), but Necromancers stand in a particularly strange place in reference to the Thief. Also, S/D has become quite a bit less popular as D/P seems to be the main ‘go-to’ build, but S/D actually does a fair amount better against Necro than D/P due to Life Force starvation from evades and steady pressure.

Just some things to consider here. Thanks for the feedback!

EDIT: Oh, and I wanted to give some insight as to ‘why’ Celestial has so many more stats. In a lot of ways, stats compound in such a way that you gain a much better result for having each high (such as power with ferocity and precision). Having stats spread out is actually a very big weakness, and has to be compensated with slightly more total stats. This is common in many games. If you chose something that provides more of a single stat rather than many, you’ll often find the total stat gain is lower if you focus your energy on fewer stats. It’s a necessary evil but can be pretty deceiving.

In that way, a Celestial amulet having +130% stats (or whatever it actually is, I don’t feel like looking it up atm), is vastly inferior to a Berserker’s Amulet with +130% stats, which should be fairly obvious just by playing the game. That should help work as a reference point as to why there is that stat total difference.

So I’m hesitant to nerf Infiltrator’s Arrow, but honestly it might be necessary. Combined with making preparedness baseline and making it 5 Initiative it would make it take your entire initiative pool to go 1800 units, which seems about right. If you were in combat, most likely you could only get 1 off initially, then 1 a couple of seconds later allowing for more counterplay. The caveat I have on that thiugh us that the arc needs to be higher and the arrow faster so that it doesn’t clip the ground (resulting in a short shot) as much.

There’s more I think needs to be done, but this idea was one tradeoff I found myself agreeing with.

Like I said previously said.

I put no stock in your “ideas”

Roll a thief and go play it b/c atm all your suggestions are going to do is make necro face roll a thief even more so.

The fact you are defending the cele amulet and stating b/c necros rely on might stacking…..really? I bet if you put on mauraders you’d have just as much power as any thief in the game. Heck you could even run zerker since you got tons of health.

Your whole argument fails and reeks of bias and ignorance on the subject matter.

You want thief to be balanced? Then lobby for your own class to get nerfed b/c cele signet necro is OP as kitten. Lobby to have d/d cele eles reduced to normalcy. Jump on the get rid of taunt bandwagon that is running right along with the stop burn stacking motion. I bet you wished you got aboard the “Nerf PU to 1 sec only” bus huh?

Every single class in this game counters thief at the meta level. We are seeing more classes move into the Hard Counter Thief Category as well. Now you are sitting here lobbying we need to give up something to get something.

kitten no.

Revert all nerfs to thief defensive lines and reinstate the might traits into our baseline traits. Reassess the situation after that. Anything else will fall on deaf ears specially the give and take scenarios you like to spout on about.

I agree with almost everything OP mentioned above, and I posted something similar a while back. SA should be a bit less passive, but I would prefer to focus benefits from leaving stealth to act similarly to Revealed Training; a static bonus that cannot be removed but also cannot be stacked unlike boons.

A change I’d prefer to the IArrow is to make the targeted distance cause a scaling initiative loss based on the distance travelled/targeted, and then bumping up the max range instead. Right now, a lot of thieves just repeatedly use this skill to exit combat, and I think reducing the max range and init cost will only cause this to be more of an initiative spam-reset hoping you don’t get hit rather than just being a smooth transition to 1200. This would also enable the shortbow to be a much more potent close-quarters skirmishing option by allowing a reduction in the initiative cost on point-blank uses to allow for better blind use while also not burning an unnecessary amount of initiative.

The SA cleanse is a cool idea, but I think the concept belongs better in the Critical Strikes line. Hidden Killer is a very sub-par trait at the moment since CS is arguably a weak line in sPvP and builds already run very high crit chance and often do not focus on raw backstab damage but instead on fire/air procs and just innately high damage with HS/Shadow Shot spamming for damage. I’d drop it down to one cleanse on gaining reveal as an addition to HK, and put Shadow’s Embrace back to being able to remove one condition (DoT or control) every four seconds in stealth, since SA provides this duration baseline. Now you still have your sneaky and more passive options available, and you have the ability to bait cleanses on other classes for your DoT’s to get ticks for a while, but now crit strikes builds or low-stealth builds get some extra much-needed durability and a real decision to make between IP and NQ in crit strikes. Trickery is still going to be a “must-have” line, but now decisions can be made between CS, SA, and DA with very obvious benefits and trade-offs between each of them, depending on the need of the thief.

Agemnon.4608:

Maybe remove healing power from it for balance? I made a Triforge and don’t want to see a big nerf that would make all those mats and grinding a big waste.

It’s a lot more egregious in SPvP, so they could start by removing the Celestial amulet and people could continue to do what they’re doing with Celestial in PvE/WvW for now.

ronpierce.2760:

In that way, a Celestial amulet having +130% stats (or whatever it actually is, I don’t feel like looking it up atm), is vastly inferior to a Berserker’s Amulet with +130% stats, which should be fairly obvious just by playing the game. That should help work as a reference point as to why there is that stat total difference.

Cele D/D Ele and Zerker D/D Ele is an interesting comparison, because the former is substantially stronger than the latter and I don’t think 30% extra stats on the Berserker amulet would change that.

I know Celestial used to suck (and still does for a lot of builds and professions), but I continue to believe that it’s far too binary. If a profession has solid durability and heal scaling, the chances of them having a strong Celestial spec are very high. It’s not a coincidence that a lot of the best builds are Celestial right now.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m okay with bruisers existing as a type of build, but there are non-Celestial stat packages that support that playstyle. If anything, Celestial supports the wrong kind of bruiser build, one that does way more damage than it should for something that durable. Bruisers are never an easy archetype to balance, and when they’ve been problematic in other games it’s been for the same reasons just listed.

T raw.4658:

Your whole argument fails and reeks of bias and ignorance on the subject matter.
give and take scenarios you like to spout on about.

As far as I can tell, yours does as well. I know that thief isn’t in the best place right now, and I know that other classes are not terribly well balanced either, but that is not an excuse for us to become just as overpowered. You want to be given something without compensation, and I understand the mentality behind that. Since every other class is doing so well, it is only fair for us to be brought up to their level right? The problem with this is that the issue with thief extends to much more than a simple number tweak. The CORE of our class puts us in the situation where we will either be completely overpowered at what we do, or completely useless.

Again, suppose ANet grants us our wishes and decides to revert all the nerfs to out class. What is thief then? Thief is a class where the skilled player can choose to only engage in favorable conditions, and disengage from all unfavorable ones. Is that balanced? Maybe that is what the thief flavor is supposed to be but in terms of game balance that is NOT fun to play against. If we are to become reasonable fighters, we’re going to have to give up something, and that something will probably have to be our ridiculous mobility. To keep our theme of mobility, I would like to see us become sprinters and travel very quickly across shorter distances, but fall behind, say, a warrior who I would consider a marathon runner. As it stand, we are currently both, which I feel is the main barrier to us getting buffs.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

T raw.4658:

Your whole argument fails and reeks of bias and ignorance on the subject matter.
give and take scenarios you like to spout on about.

As far as I can tell, yours does as well. I know that thief isn’t in the best place right now, and I know that other classes are not terribly well balanced either, but that is not an excuse for us to become just as overpowered. You want to be given something without compensation, and I understand the mentality behind that. Since every other class is doing so well, it is only fair for us to be brought up to their level right? The problem with this is that the issue with thief extends to much more than a simple number tweak. The CORE of our class puts us in the situation where we will either be completely overpowered at what we do, or completely useless.

Again, suppose ANet grants us our wishes and decides to revert all the nerfs to out class. What is thief then? Thief is a class where the skilled player can choose to only engage in favorable conditions, and disengage from all unfavorable ones. Is that balanced? Maybe that is what the thief flavor is supposed to be but in terms of game balance that is NOT fun to play against. If we are to become reasonable fighters, we’re going to have to give up something, and that something will probably have to be our ridiculous mobility. To keep our theme of mobility, I would like to see us become sprinters and travel very quickly across shorter distances, but fall behind, say, a warrior who I would consider a marathon runner. As it stand, we are currently both, which I feel is the main barrier to us getting buffs.

First you revert the nerfs to the defensive trait lines and thief is FAR from OP. Even before June 23rd thieves were UP.

Warriors already out pace thieves over long distances. So according to you no changes to thieves mobility is needed.

In today’s game my proposal will give thieves some sustain without making them OP. They will remain weaker 1v1 vs all other classes but hopefully gain the ability to skew the 1v1 odds to 40/60 or 30/70 instead of the insane up hill battle you have today

T raw.4658:

First you revert the nerfs to the defensive trait lines and thief is FAR from OP. Even before June 23rd thieves were UP.

Ok…so here’s my point. As it stand, any good thief can basically escape any situation he finds himself in, provided he does not commit anything to that fight. The ability to decide any terms of engagement, whether on an enemy or by an enemy on the thief, is an incredibly powerful ability. Yes thief cannot fight worth kitten right now, but they can indeed run like hell. In essence, a good thief (even now) has presence around the entire map, and in practice, will be around to +1 fights and turn stalemates in favor of his team far more often than any other class. I am not saying that this is a good role to play, or that thief is balanced because of this. If you give thief the ability to survive IN combat as well as allow him to have the ability to decide any terms of engagement, the task of catching and killing a thief is just that much more frustrating. I agree that thief wasn’t strong in a fight before the June 23rd patch, but fighting was never the reason thief was played in competitive PvP, as I’m sure you understand. The fact of the matter is that as long as shortbow is what it is, ANet will never allow thief to become any better at fighting, regardless of what we think.

Warriors already out pace thieves over long distances. So according to you no changes to thieves mobility is needed.

As for your point about warriors being able to outrun thieves in long distances. This kind of warrior runs GS + S/wh. How good is this warrior in a fight? Not very, honestly, since any decent player will find dealing with GS by itself to be a fairly easy task, and S/Wh is a very weak combination for dealing damage. Thus, to achieve this kind of mobility, the warrior is giving up a massive amount of combat capability.

T raw.4658:

In today’s game my proposal will give thieves some sustain without making them OP. They will remain weaker 1v1 vs all other classes but hopefully gain the ability to skew the 1v1 odds to 40/60 or 30/70 instead of the insane up hill battle you have today

Maybe here is where we differ. I don’t want to be weaker in a 1v1 situation. I want to be strong in a 1v1 situation. To this end, I will accept being weaker in bigger fights, but I’ve always thought of thief to be the class that punishes players for being caught out alone…like any assassin archetype in any game. I also want to be able to trade some 1v1 strength to have more stay in larger fights (ie old D/P for old S/D). To get this, though, I will have to let go of the ridiculous amount of map control that thief currently has, and that is absolutely fine for me. I don’t care that thief maybe be less competitive or whatever in esports…I just want to have fun again.

In the end, we all want what is best for our favorite class…but we also need to see things for outside perspective beyond the amount of fun we are having. I think it’s a good idea to get more people to tell us what they think about thief, even if we think they are wrong.

You don’t have to give up anything IMHO. All the other classes get have their cake and eat it too.

Now we are staring at a whole slew of new broken reveal skills with HoT and you want to nerf mobility? No.

Things are about to get worse unless they get DD up to par (which i doubt)

“- Invigorating Precision, I don’t personally like the way it’s handled. It might be a good heal for PVE but not super useful for PVP, imo. To better synergize with pistols I suggest a different idea. “Invigorating Precision, landing a critical hit heals for 300 hp (minor scaling), and grants 2 seconds of swiftness and 12 seconds of might 1 might . 2 second ICD.” This would incentivize constant attacking and landing critical hits while keeping the attacker mobile and powerful “invigorating” them as they continue their assault. It also adds a bit more might to add to the Signets of Power trait.”
Thats one of the best ideas i saw in thiefs forum in my life.
Also the whole “fix pistols” i just feel that as pistol user in main hand you have way too many spells that dont know what kind of dmg they want to deal… I would borrow trait from warrior and make bleed stack up crit dmg(instead of crit chance), so when you go power on thief pistol you dont feel bad about autoattacking(also making your stealth attack + unload insane combo from hell) and with whole going condi would give you healthy side dmg if you go carrion amu.

I agree with your changes to thief stealth, i feel like these would make thief way more active in fight and stop forcing them to abuse invis, your changes to Shadow’s Embrace in skilled thiefs hand would give him about 3condi cleared each 3/4 sec that is rly nice. SR trait right now lets thief stay in stealth for a rly long time due to buff on ini regen while in stealth, your approach seems healthier and promotes restealthing alot instead of sitting in stealth(that will be probably way more annoying for enemies) What i think that this whole “on hit when stealth” should be just changed to “on revealt” to give thief a way to respond when got in “anti stealth” spells (that in my opinion is needed but shouldnt punish 1 class harder than any other (mechanics deny))

Guarded Initiation this whole trait is garbage and should be changed.

If Anet rly want to force thief + acro to use vigor then acro miniors should make dodges to refill 1 sec worth of vigor and eat up 1 sec of vigor.(this way multiple ways of stacking vigor would be worth including in build)
Your changes to SB#5 i think arent bad, but buff in velocity should feel like “instant cast” to prevent moments it glitches and eats initiative.

T raw.4658:

You don’t have to give up anything IMHO. All the other classes get have their cake and eat it too.

Now we are staring at a whole slew of new broken reveal skills with HoT and you want to nerf mobility? No.

Things are about to get worse unless they get DD up to par (which i doubt)

Well, I don’t think that those classes should be able to have their cake and eat it too…thus I don’t think that we should have both either.

As for mobility, it’s not like we won’t be compensated. My main point is that with our mobility nerfed, we can be given more staying power in a fight. The reason DD isn’t as good as it could be is because they still have access to shortbow.

I’m not asking for another nerf to the class. That’s been done enough. I think we just need to rebalance our strengths. Since all of our eggs are in one basket, I am asking for some of those eggs to be removed and placed in another basket.

As it stands, most engineers will probably not use Stealth Gyro anyway (taken from Wolfineer’s review) because Supply Drop and Mortar Kit are just that much better. If they use Stealth Gyro, they’re going to be gimping themselves just to win harder against us…an obviously silly choice on their part.

Can you guys somehow take this to another forum as you don’t seem to have the slightest idea about thieves yet think you know how the class should be nerfed so you guys can kill it faster.

Jana.6831:

Can you guys somehow take this to another forum as you don’t seem to have the slightest idea about thieves yet think you know how the class should be nerfed so you guys can kill it faster.

I’m open to suggestion. Tell us what you think then.

Jana.6831:

Can you guys somehow take this to another forum as you don’t seem to have the slightest idea about thieves yet think you know how the class should be nerfed so you guys can kill it faster.

Much of what I said actually benefits thief staying power…. Almost all of it, actually. I did very little that would make you much easier to kill. Unless you mean trading some of the easy “get out of jail, free” cards for better combat presence. Yeah, I prefer thieves become a better combat class and have to think and plan their escapes a bit better. I’m not going to cover that idea up. Camping stealth is a design I absolutely do not support and in fact, I think I would play thief more often with a style similar to the suggested, which benefits using stealth efficiently rather than just to reset a fight you screwed up on.

ronpierce.2760:

Much of what I said actually benefits thief staying power…. Almost all of it, actually. I did very little that would make you much easier to kill. Unless you mean trading some of the easy “get out of jail, free” cards for better combat presence. Yeah, I prefer thieves become a better combat class and have to think and plan their escapes a bit better. I’m not going to cover that idea up. Camping stealth is a design I absolutely do not support and in fact, I think I would play thief more often with a style similar to the suggested, which benefits using stealth efficiently rather than just to reset a fight you screwed up on.

I just want to say thank you…I think you’re one of the few (if not the first) non-thieves to give us something more than “thief needs nerf.” I wish that more of us here would appreciate that.

ronpierce.2760:

Much of what I said actually benefits thief staying power…. Almost all of it, actually. I did very little that would make you much easier to kill. Unless you mean trading some of the easy “get out of jail, free” cards for better combat presence. Yeah, I prefer thieves become a better combat class and have to think and plan their escapes a bit better. I’m not going to cover that idea up. Camping stealth is a design I absolutely do not support and in fact, I think I would play thief more often with a style similar to the suggested, which benefits using stealth efficiently rather than just to reset a fight you screwed up on.

You’re only talking about the traits that are still kind of useful and ignore the rest.
I meant “all” of you – I’m not really in the mood to have people around who know little to nothing about thief yet think they can “repair” the class.
No offense, but really, roll a thief and see what they need. Go S/D if you despise stealth. I really mean it in a respectful way, just like the following:

My proposal to make Necro better would be: Dodge – honestly, I’ve never seen a necro dodge.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

T raw.4658:

You don’t have to give up anything IMHO. All the other classes get have their cake and eat it too.

Now we are staring at a whole slew of new broken reveal skills with HoT and you want to nerf mobility? No.

Things are about to get worse unless they get DD up to par (which i doubt)

Well, I don’t think that those classes should be able to have their cake and eat it too…thus I don’t think that we should have both either.

As for mobility, it’s not like we won’t be compensated. My main point is that with our mobility nerfed, we can be given more staying power in a fight. The reason DD isn’t as good as it could be is because they still have access to shortbow.

I’m not asking for another nerf to the class. That’s been done enough. I think we just need to rebalance our strengths. Since all of our eggs are in one basket, I am asking for some of those eggs to be removed and placed in another basket.

As it stands, most engineers will probably not use Stealth Gyro anyway (taken from Wolfineer’s review) because Supply Drop and Mortar Kit are just that much better. If they use Stealth Gyro, they’re going to be gimping themselves just to win harder against us…an obviously silly choice on their part.

Well its 3yrs later and they still some cake eating having mutha kitteners now aren’t they?

Thieves dont get compensated. Never has anet given a thief anything in return for taking something away. Seriously the class has been nerfed for 3yrs straight in just about every patch….they nerfed our choking gas because they gave a kittenty poison trait. That’s Anet’s compensation to thieves. Nerfed something to get Potent Poison which sounded great on paper didn’kitten Then you realized they nerfed poison damage to kitten thus making the trait worthless….and I forgot to mention they nerfed it in potency from +50% to +10% damage. Meanwhile ppl are stacking burns that tick for thousands of damage a second.

Besides we are thieves and they are supposed to be mobile + slippery. Not some watered down kittenty warrior who can’t take a hit. So we keep what we have and we get more mmkay.

O btw lately every time I queue and end up with some engies on the opposing team they have been running Lock On. Yes its not used in extremely high lvls of play but for 99.9% of the gaming population it is being ran. Gyro will be ran just for the simple fact of all the rage you can induce while running it.

ronpierce.2760:

- Improvisation, changed to “You can use Stolen items Twice. After stealing, your next utility has its cooldown reduced by 50%. I feel like this would reduce the RNG and the initial impact of certain resets while increasing the play. With the right set up and consideration, I feel like this could make for some better decision making and increase defenses in a more predictable manner. (Buff lasts 15 seconds.)

I want this so bad (it should affect too heal and elite), Im tired of the more or less gamechanging RNG and I feel that this change is so much needed. I’ve also thought about making your f2 skills last 20% more or something lile this instead of the skill recharge, but this change solve the problem too

Nah. Just reset the Thief to what it was about two years ago, three if at all possible, and we should be fine.

T raw.4658:

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

T raw.4658:

Your whole argument fails and reeks of bias and ignorance on the subject matter.
give and take scenarios you like to spout on about.

As far as I can tell, yours does as well. I know that thief isn’t in the best place right now, and I know that other classes are not terribly well balanced either, but that is not an excuse for us to become just as overpowered. You want to be given something without compensation, and I understand the mentality behind that. Since every other class is doing so well, it is only fair for us to be brought up to their level right? The problem with this is that the issue with thief extends to much more than a simple number tweak. The CORE of our class puts us in the situation where we will either be completely overpowered at what we do, or completely useless.

Again, suppose ANet grants us our wishes and decides to revert all the nerfs to out class. What is thief then? Thief is a class where the skilled player can choose to only engage in favorable conditions, and disengage from all unfavorable ones. Is that balanced? Maybe that is what the thief flavor is supposed to be but in terms of game balance that is NOT fun to play against. If we are to become reasonable fighters, we’re going to have to give up something, and that something will probably have to be our ridiculous mobility. To keep our theme of mobility, I would like to see us become sprinters and travel very quickly across shorter distances, but fall behind, say, a warrior who I would consider a marathon runner. As it stand, we are currently both, which I feel is the main barrier to us getting buffs.

First you revert the nerfs to the defensive trait lines and thief is FAR from OP. Even before June 23rd thieves were UP.

Warriors already out pace thieves over long distances. So according to you no changes to thieves mobility is needed.

In today’s game my proposal will give thieves some sustain without making them OP. They will remain weaker 1v1 vs all other classes but hopefully gain the ability to skew the 1v1 odds to 40/60 or 30/70 instead of the insane up hill battle you have today

“Even before June 23rd thieves were UP. "

No they were not. Absolutely not.

Care to offer any supporting evidence, or are we just supposed to take your word for it?

Amante.8109:

Care to offer any supporting evidence, or are we just supposed to take your word for it?

Who are you talking to?

You.

T raw.4658:

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

T raw.4658:

You don’t have to give up anything IMHO. All the other classes get have their cake and eat it too.

Now we are staring at a whole slew of new broken reveal skills with HoT and you want to nerf mobility? No.

Things are about to get worse unless they get DD up to par (which i doubt)

Well, I don’t think that those classes should be able to have their cake and eat it too…thus I don’t think that we should have both either.

As for mobility, it’s not like we won’t be compensated. My main point is that with our mobility nerfed, we can be given more staying power in a fight. The reason DD isn’t as good as it could be is because they still have access to shortbow.

I’m not asking for another nerf to the class. That’s been done enough. I think we just need to rebalance our strengths. Since all of our eggs are in one basket, I am asking for some of those eggs to be removed and placed in another basket.

As it stands, most engineers will probably not use Stealth Gyro anyway (taken from Wolfineer’s review) because Supply Drop and Mortar Kit are just that much better. If they use Stealth Gyro, they’re going to be gimping themselves just to win harder against us…an obviously silly choice on their part.

Well its 3yrs later and they still some cake eating having mutha kitteners now aren’t they?

Thieves dont get compensated. Never has anet given a thief anything in return for taking something away. Seriously the class has been nerfed for 3yrs straight in just about every patch….they nerfed our choking gas because they gave a kittenty poison trait. That’s Anet’s compensation to thieves. Nerfed something to get Potent Poison which sounded great on paper didn’kitten Then you realized they nerfed poison damage to kitten thus making the trait worthless….and I forgot to mention they nerfed it in potency from +50% to +10% damage. Meanwhile ppl are stacking burns that tick for thousands of damage a second.

Besides we are thieves and they are supposed to be mobile + slippery. Not some watered down kittenty warrior who can’t take a hit. So we keep what we have and we get more mmkay.

O btw lately every time I queue and end up with some engies on the opposing team they have been running Lock On. Yes its not used in extremely high lvls of play but for 99.9% of the gaming population it is being ran. Gyro will be ran just for the simple fact of all the rage you can induce while running it.

You are so negative it seriously hurts to read your post. How can you say that “Thieves dont get compensated”. Did you play the game when thief recieved a 33% baseline boost to initiative regeneration to compensate for the nerfs to initiative generation traits?

Amante.8109:

You.

Use the reply function next time =)

That aside, why should i give proof when the person i replied to simply stated that “Even before June 23rd thief was UP”.

Jana.6831:

ronpierce.2760:

Much of what I said actually benefits thief staying power…. Almost all of it, actually. I did very little that would make you much easier to kill. Unless you mean trading some of the easy “get out of jail, free” cards for better combat presence. Yeah, I prefer thieves become a better combat class and have to think and plan their escapes a bit better. I’m not going to cover that idea up. Camping stealth is a design I absolutely do not support and in fact, I think I would play thief more often with a style similar to the suggested, which benefits using stealth efficiently rather than just to reset a fight you screwed up on.

You’re only talking about the traits that are still kind of useful and ignore the rest.
I meant “all” of you – I’m not really in the mood to have people around who know little to nothing about thief yet think they can “repair” the class.
No offense, but really, roll a thief and see what they need. Go S/D if you despise stealth. I really mean it in a respectful way, just like the following:

My proposal to make Necro better would be: Dodge – honestly, I’ve never seen a necro dodge.

If you played S/D b4, you will understand the biggest problem with S/D is the SA d/p thief and PU mes.

stealth is the biggest problem with the unstealth build.

if DareDevil cant have a 50% chance VS Shadow Arts, and it will be useless

Arlowslol.1974:

If you played S/D b4, you will understand the biggest problem with S/D is the SA d/p thief and PU mes.

I killed all but 2 S/D thieves I’ve ever met, as a D/D thief – so not so sure if D/P really was the biggest problem for them, guess not.
And, I used to kill all mesmers I came across, no matter whether condi or power – in fact they’ve been my favourite enemies. The fights felt like chess and my biggest advantage was CnD which S/D thieves also can.

Arlowslol.1974:

stealth is the biggest problem with the unstealth build.

if DareDevil cant have a 50% chance VS Shadow Arts, and it will be useless

Don’t get what you mean, to be honest.

Jana.6831:

Arlowslol.1974:

If you played S/D b4, you will understand the biggest problem with S/D is the SA d/p thief and PU mes.

I killed all but 2 S/D thieves I’ve ever met, as a D/D thief – so not so sure if D/P really was the biggest problem for them, guess not.
And, I used to kill all mesmers I came across, no matter whether condi or power – in fact they’ve been my favourite enemies. The fights felt like chess and my biggest advantage was CnD which S/D thieves also can.

Arlowslol.1974:

stealth is the biggest problem with the unstealth build.

if DareDevil cant have a 50% chance VS Shadow Arts, and it will be useless

Don’t get what you mean, to be honest.

I guess you dont play SPVP, lol

ronpierce.2760:

Shadow Arts: I saved this for last, because I’d prefer the most change to it. Overall, I feel like every bit of this tree pushes for passive play, and in general isn’t very fun to play against, and doesn’t do the thief justice for their actual goal, staying in combat, but instead, just turns them into big successful chickens.

- Last Refuge, rather than Blinding Powder, I feel like it should just self-stealth when hit under 25% with a 60 second cooldown, automatically removing revealed effects, with a 3 second stealth. This would reduce the reveal issues with allies, makes it more self-reliable, but at an increased cooldown.

- Shadow’s Embrace, remove 1 harmful condition when entering stealth. Landing an attack from stealth removes 2 harmful conditions. This is one part of my goal to increasing the play to Shadow Arts. The overall goal is to move Shadow Arts from the stealth-camping chicken (so much), to more of a shadow-boxer who benefits from stealth-dancing and actively assaulting from stealth. This would provide a higher amount of removal overall when utilized, but benefit hiding and fleeing far less.

- Resilience of Shadows, the next step from the above would be to change RoS. My suggested change would be to rename Resilience of Shadows to “Shadow Cloak”, and have it grant the thief 3 seconds of protection when exiting stealth, which would include reveals, 4 sec ICD (to prevent exploiting). The purpose of this is, again, to reduce the potency of just fleeing, but increase the thief’s “stay power’ when fighting, rewarding them for using their stealth timely and efficiently keeping up their protective ‘shadow cloak’.

- Shadow’s Rejuvenation, similarly to the above, I’d like to make this a bit more active. To make the trait make more sense, it would also need to be renamed to something like “Shadow Gambit” (trading the shadow for a further advantage). Functionality would change to: “Landing an attack from stealth grants ‘Shadow Gambit’, Regenerating Health and Initiative every 3 seconds for 6 seconds.” This would tick as you gain it and every 3 seconds, similar to now. Refreshing it before it runs off would just reset it to 6 seconds and trigger the initial tick again. Again, the ideal is less camping, but a significant boost to sustain as a shadow boxer who uses stealth less as a constant fleeing tool (which it could still be used for fleeing, obviously), it’s much more rewarded for a continuous assault and timing stealth attacks for sustaining benefits.

Absolutely this. A shadow arts build rewards sitting in stealth passively whereas what most love about thief is the action and the reaction. I 100% agree with you that stealth effects should trigger on revealed instead of when stealth hits. Thematically, sure, I can understand that when a thief enters stealth it’s like he enters a safe plane of existence where he can heal, shed condis and what not, but in terms of gameplay it’s a huge, passive fail.

Your suggested changes would encourage Shadowdancer-style gameplay, darting in and out of stealth. Therefore the only buff that perhaps should remain during stealth is a movespeed buff to aid this kind of combat agility.

This would also fix:
- reveal issues (while you get booted from stealth, your buffs still trigger)
- reduce player drama (the teef leik perma stelthed, got 100% healz and backstabbd me for 20k damages)
- improve staying power

Remember thief could still choose to stay in stealth if he wanted to obfuscate the enemy, it’s just that it wouldn’t be rewarded with buffs and condi cleanse.

Guys, you can balance on two different ways: either buffing unused stuff or nerfing overused stuff. Guess what’s the best way to go? For me a mix of both. Nerfs to the overused spec while giving this same spec some buffs as well, along with buffs to unused stuff.

That said, I mostly agree with the OP, but I’d divide the changes into different parts. For example, right now with D/P SA Thieves, the buff to Shadow Refuge would be an overkill. However, if some changes goes through the SA specialization then it might make that change totally viable, recovering some SA identity while giving more utility to non-stealth (as a main mechanic) builds.

As for my own biases on Thief, I loved S/D and the build has been pretty much killed by full SA Access for D/P users and an overall classes’ increase of direct/condition damage, along with a nerf to the build’s evasion (Feline Grace “nerf”, Vigor nerf…)

So, I’d love if ANet totally reworked Acrobatics. Even the Daredevil elite specialization brings more to S/D than Acrobatics does at the moment. I still don’t know what I’d suggest, because as I see it, it’d need a complete new identity.

Aside from that, I think a nerf on Trickery is much needed, although as once Sizer told, Trickery is needed for newer Thief players to stay “safe” and “relevant” on matches. Low Steal CD, heal, damage, daze and vigor, it has many things.

But, as a whole, I agree with your changes to Trickery. The combo Bountiful Theft + Sleight of Hand is just so good to ignore, as well as Preparedness that, as you mentioned, would be nice if it went baseline.

Now that we talk about traits, your Improvisation suggestion is brilliant. It is both a nerf (you can’t get 3 utilities off CD randomly with one click) and a buff (you actually control the situation. “I have the buff, I’ll use Shadowstep for mobility, I’ll have it shortly”.)

I read here also a suggestion to improve the Tricks skill type and it was to make the Trickster trait to give those skills “new” functionality, such as “Caltrops now inflict Torment as well” or “Roll for Initiative now gives Super speed for X seconds”. I think this would compete with Bountiful Theft given some changes to utilities and other triats.

As for the Thief playstyle… it’s always tricky. S/D was all about mobility and getting in and out of the fights easily (thanks to Sword #2 power), constantly pressuring and not necessarily bursting. D/P, however, proves to be a burst-y, “vulnerable” build, relying on good stealth usage (SA traits simply messed up with this “balance”). So, as you implied, nerfing passive traits on SA would bring D/P to it’s original supposed role I feel it should have: "I can “burst” but I need my stealth. Do I use it to attack or defend and escape?"

Right now S/D Thief can’t sustain himself in fights long enough to justify the “reduced” damage compared to other builds. It has greater mobility but you can’t duel other classes equally anymore (it still can be done, though. S/D magicz!). On the other hand, D/P has lost some burst potential, but has gained more team support (Shadow Refuge ressing with other things) and, sadly, a very unhealthy passive playstyle for the game.

Finally, I agree with most of your weapon skill changes, but I’d change Shadow Shot (D/P #3). I only want that skill’s blind to be evadable. Maybe it was changed and I didn’t notice, but the skill’s blind goes, for example through dodges or Thieves’ S/D #3 Flanking Strike. Told you, I have my biases. :P

P.S.: Props to @blarghhrrkblah.3412 for bringing me here from the PvP Forums!

Arlowslol.1974:

I guess you dont play SPVP, lol

I actually put how I play into my signature so that people know what I’m referring to when I say something on the forums.

Everyone says ranger is in the worst position years now and everytime aney buffed them litte bit and little bit now they are no doubt passed thief in strength as do all the other classes.Thief is just the 3 years back ranger,its funny how they made the ranged class with so many defensive utlities to hae more health pool than thief that have no defense at all.
Ranger is essentialy belong to rogue type as do thief.

I just read OP’s suggestion and I am surprised to say I agree with him 90%. Stealth is cool for sneaking in and getting out, but in combat? It can be redundant, abused and exagerated, especially when no damage is being dished out while in stealth.

I very much liked the suggestions and changes done to Shadow Arts because OP is right: SA promotes passivity, and that’s not what the Thief is about.

Of course, some numbers should tweak to adapt to the actual sustain, but the idea is there and that is what matters most.

You have done a lot but I would like to see you make changes to Deadly Arts.

On the other hand, I want the utility CDs be dropped even lower, to promote competition and diversity in fixing our bar. Not enough RFI around here, and the same applies to traps.

anyways I hope you read this OP and TY for your efforts.

Kocoff.7582:

I just read OP’s suggestion and I am surprised to say I agree with him 90%. Stealth is cool for sneaking in and getting out, but in combat? It can be redundant, abused and exagerated, especially when no damage is being dished out while in stealth.

I very much liked the suggestions and changes done to Shadow Arts because OP is right: SA promotes passivity, and that’s not what the Thief is about.

Of course, some numbers should tweak to adapt to the actual sustain, but the idea is there and that is what matters most.

You have done a lot but I would like to see you make changes to Deadly Arts.

On the other hand, I want the utility CDs be dropped even lower, to promote competition and diversity in fixing our bar. Not enough RFI around here, and the same applies to traps.

anyways I hope you read this OP and TY for your efforts.

Hey, thanks for chiming in!

What specifically are your main concerns with Deadly arts? I found some areas where there wasn’t much trait competition, certainly, but my personal biggest beef was how Improvisation works. If you could elaborate specifically what areas you dislike about DA, it would provide a good base for discussion.

RFI could probably be even a bit lower, I tend to agree. I wouldn’t get too out of hand though. Pushing things up to the edge of viable and alternative without making it the next “go-to” can be hard. RFI is the type of thing that might need to be tried at different levels and see what cooldown fits, but it’s certainly too high as it stands.

Quadox.7834:

T raw.4658:

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

T raw.4658:

Your whole argument fails and reeks of bias and ignorance on the subject matter.
give and take scenarios you like to spout on about.

As far as I can tell, yours does as well. I know that thief isn’t in the best place right now, and I know that other classes are not terribly well balanced either, but that is not an excuse for us to become just as overpowered. You want to be given something without compensation, and I understand the mentality behind that. Since every other class is doing so well, it is only fair for us to be brought up to their level right? The problem with this is that the issue with thief extends to much more than a simple number tweak. The CORE of our class puts us in the situation where we will either be completely overpowered at what we do, or completely useless.

Again, suppose ANet grants us our wishes and decides to revert all the nerfs to out class. What is thief then? Thief is a class where the skilled player can choose to only engage in favorable conditions, and disengage from all unfavorable ones. Is that balanced? Maybe that is what the thief flavor is supposed to be but in terms of game balance that is NOT fun to play against. If we are to become reasonable fighters, we’re going to have to give up something, and that something will probably have to be our ridiculous mobility. To keep our theme of mobility, I would like to see us become sprinters and travel very quickly across shorter distances, but fall behind, say, a warrior who I would consider a marathon runner. As it stand, we are currently both, which I feel is the main barrier to us getting buffs.

First you revert the nerfs to the defensive trait lines and thief is FAR from OP. Even before June 23rd thieves were UP.

Warriors already out pace thieves over long distances. So according to you no changes to thieves mobility is needed.

In today’s game my proposal will give thieves some sustain without making them OP. They will remain weaker 1v1 vs all other classes but hopefully gain the ability to skew the 1v1 odds to 40/60 or 30/70 instead of the insane up hill battle you have today

“Even before June 23rd thieves were UP. "

No they were not. Absolutely not.

Besides countering shatter mesmers in pvp group fights who did they counter?

Thieves had such excellent group fighting skills too right?

Oh thats right they weren’t a complete roll over class so people’s lack of personal skill clouded their vision

ronpierce.2760:

Kocoff.7582:

I just read OP’s suggestion and I am surprised to say I agree with him 90%. Stealth is cool for sneaking in and getting out, but in combat? It can be redundant, abused and exagerated, especially when no damage is being dished out while in stealth.

I very much liked the suggestions and changes done to Shadow Arts because OP is right: SA promotes passivity, and that’s not what the Thief is about.

Of course, some numbers should tweak to adapt to the actual sustain, but the idea is there and that is what matters most.

You have done a lot but I would like to see you make changes to Deadly Arts.

On the other hand, I want the utility CDs be dropped even lower, to promote competition and diversity in fixing our bar. Not enough RFI around here, and the same applies to traps.

anyways I hope you read this OP and TY for your efforts.

Hey, thanks for chiming in!

What specifically are your main concerns with Deadly arts? I found some areas where there wasn’t much trait competition, certainly, but my personal biggest beef was how Improvisation works. If you could elaborate specifically what areas you dislike about DA, it would provide a good base for discussion.

RFI could probably be even a bit lower, I tend to agree. I wouldn’t get too out of hand though. Pushing things up to the edge of viable and alternative without making it the next “go-to” can be hard. RFI is the type of thing that might need to be tried at different levels and see what cooldown fits, but it’s certainly too high as it stands.

That is my point actually, I don’t really see anything to change for Deadly Arts, but there is always room for improvement in terms of synergy, and since you did good job with those suggest I wanted pick on your mind even more lol.

But your concept of balance is definitely in par with mine. We definitely don’t want to push, because let’s face it, we want to have fun as much as our enemies.

T raw.4658:

Besides countering shatter mesmers in pvp group fights who did they counter?

Thieves had such excellent group fighting skills too right?

Oh thats right they weren’t a complete roll over class so people’s lack of personal skill clouded their vision

OK guys cmon let’s not get hissy with each other. I think you both have valid points on the matter, but as far as “balance” goes, thieves were in a relatively decent place…at least that’s what I thought. I mean the theme of the class discourages teamfighting, other than diving in to finish low health targets so I think his point has merit. Likewise, not having good teamfighting ability was also an issue, which was the one we have been waiting for 3 years to be fixed, so your point also has merit.

Quadox.7834:

T raw.4658:

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

T raw.4658:

You don’t have to give up anything IMHO. All the other classes get have their cake and eat it too.

Now we are staring at a whole slew of new broken reveal skills with HoT and you want to nerf mobility? No.

Things are about to get worse unless they get DD up to par (which i doubt)

Well, I don’t think that those classes should be able to have their cake and eat it too…thus I don’t think that we should have both either.

As for mobility, it’s not like we won’t be compensated. My main point is that with our mobility nerfed, we can be given more staying power in a fight. The reason DD isn’t as good as it could be is because they still have access to shortbow.

I’m not asking for another nerf to the class. That’s been done enough. I think we just need to rebalance our strengths. Since all of our eggs are in one basket, I am asking for some of those eggs to be removed and placed in another basket.

As it stands, most engineers will probably not use Stealth Gyro anyway (taken from Wolfineer’s review) because Supply Drop and Mortar Kit are just that much better. If they use Stealth Gyro, they’re going to be gimping themselves just to win harder against us…an obviously silly choice on their part.

Well its 3yrs later and they still some cake eating having mutha kitteners now aren’t they?

Thieves dont get compensated. Never has anet given a thief anything in return for taking something away. Seriously the class has been nerfed for 3yrs straight in just about every patch….they nerfed our choking gas because they gave a kittenty poison trait. That’s Anet’s compensation to thieves. Nerfed something to get Potent Poison which sounded great on paper didn’kitten Then you realized they nerfed poison damage to kitten thus making the trait worthless….and I forgot to mention they nerfed it in potency from +50% to +10% damage. Meanwhile ppl are stacking burns that tick for thousands of damage a second.

Besides we are thieves and they are supposed to be mobile + slippery. Not some watered down kittenty warrior who can’t take a hit. So we keep what we have and we get more mmkay.

O btw lately every time I queue and end up with some engies on the opposing team they have been running Lock On. Yes its not used in extremely high lvls of play but for 99.9% of the gaming population it is being ran. Gyro will be ran just for the simple fact of all the rage you can induce while running it.

You are so negative it seriously hurts to read your post. How can you say that “Thieves dont get compensated”. Did you play the game when thief recieved a 33% baseline boost to initiative regeneration to compensate for the nerfs to initiative generation traits?

Wow really?

You are bringing up that to make your case….they toted it as something better/compensation but in reality it was quite a significant nerf to initiative regeneration. Do you know why it was a nerf or you just fishing for anything?

So I can understand your opinion on my posts considering the ignorance you have regarding the subject matter. That’s ok and I don’t really care about your opinion. You do have to remember that this is a forum of the most nerfed/complained about class in this game. Negativity is warranted here.

If you don’t agree with that maybe you should limit your forum browsing.

Thank you and have a nice day

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

T raw.4658:

Besides countering shatter mesmers in pvp group fights who did they counter?

Thieves had such excellent group fighting skills too right?

Oh thats right they weren’t a complete roll over class so people’s lack of personal skill clouded their vision

OK guys cmon let’s not get hissy with each other. I think you both have valid points on the matter, but as far as “balance” goes, thieves were in a relatively decent place…at least that’s what I thought. I mean the theme of the class discourages teamfighting, other than diving in to finish low health targets so I think his point has merit. Likewise, not having good teamfighting ability was also an issue, which was the one we have been waiting for 3 years to be fixed, so your point also has merit.

Looks like i’ma have to spell it out for you and just address your entire stance with this once post.

Team Fighting Ability was the sacrifice that thieves made for their mobility. Not 1v1 capabilities.

So when you are considering whatever it is you are considering go back to that statement.

Now we will inevitably get the response of “Give up mobility for Team Fighting Ability” and I will remind you that this is a thief….You Can’t Give It Team Fighting Ability.

It’s the way the class is made and functions at a base level. There are zero boons, invulns, blocks, group heals, water fields, good condi removal, etc. The undisputed fact is the thief class is the absolute squishiest class in this game. The dev time required to completely remake and balance the thief from the ground up isn’t happening at this point in time in a game’s life. If this was alpha circa 2012 yeah i’d say go for it….but its 2015 3yrs after release.

Yes so even the new touted Daredevil spec will fail to give thieves sustain or group fight ability due to the way a thief is built at the base level, but we are fine with that. We signed on to thief knowing this and willingly accepted it. Thieves figured out ways to function with in a group setting utilizing their special skill sets, but here we are horribly UP with only Shortbow 5 keeping us meta. Now I read people want to nerf Inf Arrow……lol