Guild Wars 2

1I’d like to offer a different approach to complaining about ANET’s poor class design related to thief. in this approach we can simply compare thieves to all other classes and see where we really shine. Of course we know we don’t shine anywhere…but let us go to the length of pointing it out. I’d like your input as well.

First we must look at a thieves role.
What is our role? Group healing? AOE damage? Tanking? Buffing? Damage?

I think we can all agree it should be damage. So some questions come to mind:

1.) How do we compare to other classes in pure damage numbers?
2.) How does our damage scale to our health and armor class in comparison to others?
3.) What kind of ranged damage do we have?
4.) How far can we deal damage from?

So in order to do damage you need to get to the target as thieves really only do fairly close damage. So how do we do this? Some questions arise:

1.) Are thieves kings of stealth?
a.) Do they enter and exit stealth better than a Mesmer or engineer?
b.) Does it last much longer?
c.) Does it offer any protection?
2.) Do other classes have obvious stealth marking zones (shadow refuge…aka kill me here)
3.) Are cooldowns on stealth skills adequate for all builds (dagger dagger..hint hint).

Then comes surviving:

1.) Is our medium armor really better than light armor?
2.) Is the 11 K base health really necessary on top of a bad armor class?
3.) Is the lack of blocks, invulns, useful blinds etc that other classes have all replaced by stealth?
4.) How does our condition removal compare to other classes (elementalist cough cough).
5.) Stealth is easily countered by special skills and AOE’s…what is the counter for heavy armor and a huge health pool? What is the counter to blocks and invulns etc?

I think answering the above questions would be very revealing for the ANET developer.

My assertion is that thieves have the 3rd best stealth.
Are actually toward the bottom of outright damage.
They are 2nd to last in survival (first being hunter).
They only have 1 or two viable builds and dagger dagger aint one of them.
They have very poor healing capability.
They have poor condition cleanse.
They shortbow is needlessly kitten vs other classes ranged options…Mostly because of its super short range and mostly useless poison shot.
If you try to build a survival build then you not only are still the easiest class to kill but don’t do ANY damage at all.

Here, let me help spell this out for anyone who isn’t totally clear on the answers to these questions.

What is our role?
Based on what Anet seems to be telling us, it is to be relentlessly dumpstered by all other classes and to live our lives as burst finish/venomshare(meh)/stealth rez bots.

I think we can all agree it should be damage.
Lol, not according to Anet. Unless staff maybe. Gotta sell that xpac.

1.) How do we compare to other classes in pure damage numbers?
LOL.

2.) How does our damage scale to our health and armor class in comparison to others?
Meh.

3.) What kind of ranged damage do we have?
Depends. Shortbow is trash, only mostly good for utility and AOEs. Pistol is okish but nowhere near the condi potential of… anything else in the game.

4.) How far can we deal damage from?
Eh.

So in order to do damage you need to get to the target as thieves really only do fairly close damage. So how do we do this? Some questions arise:

1.) Are thieves kings of stealth?
LOLOLOLOL no. Not even close.

a.) Do they enter and exit stealth better than a Mesmer or engineer?
No. Especially not any build requiring CnD.

b.) Does it last much longer?
No.

c.) Does it offer any protection?
Meh. Not like it used to (shadow’s embrace -_-)

2.) Do other classes have obvious stealth marking zones (shadow refuge…aka kill me here)
lol no.

3.) Are cooldowns on stealth skills adequate for all builds (dagger dagger..hint hint).
Not something thats a huge problem for me, but I run with hidden thief, which makes a huge difference.

Then comes surviving:

1.) Is our medium armor really better than light armor?
Not really. Met eles far tankier than I am and i’m still running full dire.

2.) Is the 11 K base health really necessary on top of a bad armor class?
No, but anet apparently hates thieves.

3.) Is the lack of blocks, invulns, useful blinds etc that other classes have all replaced by stealth?
LOL no.

4.) How does our condition removal compare to other classes (elementalist cough cough).
Nerfed to insignificance. Only moderately viable cleanse now is dash + escapist’s absolution. Gotta sell that xpac! $$$$$$$$$$$$$

5.) Stealth is easily countered by special skills and AOE’s…what is the counter for heavy armor and a huge health pool? What is the counter to blocks and invulns etc?
“vulnerability”

….LOL.

But seriously, that’s prob what they’ll say.

“My assertion is that thieves have the 3rd best stealth.
Are actually toward the bottom of outright damage.
They are 2nd to last in survival (first being hunter).
They only have 1 or two viable builds and dagger dagger aint one of them.
They have very poor healing capability.
They have poor condition cleanse.
They shortbow is needlessly kitten vs other classes ranged options…Mostly because of its super short range and mostly useless poison shot.
If you try to build a survival build then you not only are still the easiest class to kill but don’t do ANY damage at all.”

Coming from a dire p/d thief, I can certify this post as 100% accurate. Not quite as screwed as d/d, but p/d is pretty close to it at the bottom of the new world order of HoT.

So Anet did not balance this game for 1v1, they intended to balance the game around “team fights”. Then you realize the ones that are good at team fights are usually decent in 1v1s as well.

Now you look at thieves, upon character creation, they tell you that you are supposed to be deadly in 1v1s, but you are not… So you must be good in teams? NOPE…. The lack of aoes and team support makes you useless in team fights, and the constant passives of other classes makes you useless in 1v1s.

So basically I wanted to test out the thieves’ dmg, I went in pvp and asked a maurauder amulet druid to stand there and let me hit him and all he does is heal, so every few seconds he passively applies weakness to me, and let me tell you I could not kill him. Imagine if he actually moved around, there is no way a thief can kill the ranger. Then I asked him to attack me with his bristleback pet, which almost one shotted me…… Seriously wtf?

Conclusion: Thieves are weaker than ranger pets.