Guild Wars 2

Thief

Experts at stealth and surprise, thieves can move through the shadows, vanish into thin air, or steal items from their opponents and use them as weapons. Thieves practice an agile, acrobatic fighting style, which can make them very hard to hit.

Source : https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/

It has been quite a while that the game is out and to be honest i quite don’t get it why we are getting more and more kittened on us day after day…

1) Low HP Pool / Low def can’t handle most wvw encounters

2) Really low choice of effective utility skills ending up people running with the same build everywhere (Basilisk, Infiltrator, Shadowstep, blablabla)

3) Really low skill animations on Shortbow 2 and most auto attacks for a class that is supposed to be stealth style

“Hey look at my cluster bomb it’s gonna land on you !”

4) You’d better bring us something amazing with HoT expansion cause Thief is just T3 profession atm (I’m being generous here).

5) Mesmers can do everything we do in bigger and stronger

NB : This is not a QQ topic just plain observations over dozens of thieves and shared experiences…

/!\/!\/!\ To ArenaNet / Developpers / Staff Members /!\/!\/!\

1) Increase HP pool and Toughness pool

2) Make some skill animation quicker (Shortbow 2, Sword/x auto)

3) More blind radius on black powder and less initiative required to use it
Who wants to spend 6 initiative to fight in a 120 radius????

4) Give us more condi cleanses into skills (Your job to find how)

5)More moving speed, Thief just feel so slow when moving arround without Traveler runes or speed signet and i dont really wanna spam steal just to get swiftness i like to have my steal ready for an encounter.

6) More range / less initiative use on Shortbow 5

7) Greatly increase speed while in stealth (Dont make it a traitline just make it a normal way because thief cruelly lacks of moving speed while in stealth and we dont want to be forced to pick irrevelant trait for this : Acrobatics has nothing to deal with stealth but yet you put +50% moving speed line on it ggwp

They better reveal our stuff this week. This is getting ridiculous. With so many people complaining and suggesting so many things everyday. Almost every thread we see nowadays asks for improvement, repair, answers, understanding, suggestions, etc.

We have yet to see the devs say anything. Zero signs of life whatsoever. If by the end of this week we don’t get anything, I will start another thing.

Kocoff.7582:

They better reveal our stuff this week. This is getting ridiculous. With so many people complaining and suggesting so many things everyday. Almost every thread we see nowadays asks for improvement, repair, answers, understanding, suggestions, etc.

We have yet to see the devs say anything. Zero signs of life whatsoever. If by the end of this week we don’t get anything, I will start another thing.

Yes me too. It seems they want to remove thieves from the game my making them stop playing it.

Man, the way you bolded some things (especially censored) made me think of Burnfall again.

The movement points are a touch overboard…

Don’t really count them to hear anything or listen. Just wait for the elite spec reveal and it’s PoI stream… if you don’t like it, yeah drop out and don’t get the expansion. If you’re still not sure, wait till come the next balance patch – they said that there will be one more big one before HoT (and I wager, after HoT too) – to see if you it suits you, if not, again don’t buy expansion and move on.

Zero Day.2594:

Man, the way you bolded some things (especially censored) made me think of Burnfall again.

The movement points are a touch overboard…

Don’t really count them to hear anything or listen. Just wait for the elite spec reveal and it’s PoI stream… if you don’t like it, yeah drop out and don’t get the expansion. If you’re still not sure, wait till come the next balance patch – they said that there will be one more big one before HoT (and I wager, after HoT too) – to see if you it suits you, if not, again don’t buy expansion and move on.

That is the problem, too many thieves moved on and gave up trying to open ANET’ eyes. I already bought HoT, i love the game itself but i have to admit that this “Hey lets nerf thief down to ground behavior” might make me change my mind and ask for a refund even if i know that ANET doesnt care

Seiroxena.6350:

Zero Day.2594:

Man, the way you bolded some things (especially censored) made me think of Burnfall again.

The movement points are a touch overboard…

Don’t really count them to hear anything or listen. Just wait for the elite spec reveal and it’s PoI stream… if you don’t like it, yeah drop out and don’t get the expansion. If you’re still not sure, wait till come the next balance patch – they said that there will be one more big one before HoT (and I wager, after HoT too) – to see if you it suits you, if not, again don’t buy expansion and move on.

That is the problem, too many thieves moved on and gave up trying to open ANET’ eyes. I already bought HoT, i love the game itself but i have to admit that this “Hey lets nerf thief down to ground behavior” might make me change my mind and ask for a refund even if i know that ANET doesnt care

See, I’m on the fence about getting it myself…

On one side, I don’t like some of the things they do (balance patches) and have done (balance patches, ascended, temporary content) to the game… and probably will do (same kitten).

On the other hand, if I treat it as almost a single player game, and just close my ears/eyes and pretend not to hear or see any of the kitten thats happening… I potentially could enjoy playing through the expansion once… And then probably drop it right after.

To be honnest i think what ANET really needs is a team in charge of making the connection between the developpers and the playerbase.

If only ANET knew about customer’s satisfaction they would for sure increase their profit even more but oh wait it seems that they are rich enough to don’t care about it.
I’m getting out of subject but yea….

if there is nothing announced tomorrow, I am going to make an open letter. This cannot go on in silence like this.

Kocoff.7582:

if there is nothing announced tomorrow, I am going to make an open letter. This cannot go on in silence like this.

You have my support 100% We need to strike hard and fast.

Seiroxena.6350:

Kocoff.7582:

if there is nothing announced tomorrow, I am going to make an open letter. This cannot go on in silence like this.

You have my support 100% We need to strike hard and fast.

Thanks mate. I finished the letter. I made it as polite and professional as possible. Just waiting for monday lol.

Kocoff.7582:

Seiroxena.6350:

Kocoff.7582:

if there is nothing announced tomorrow, I am going to make an open letter. This cannot go on in silence like this.

You have my support 100% We need to strike hard and fast.

Thanks mate. I finished the letter. I made it as polite and professional as possible. Just waiting for monday lol.

Can’t wait to see it up !

Zero Day.2594:

Man, the way you bolded some things (especially censored) made me think of Burnfall again.

The movement points are a touch overboard…

Don’t really count them to hear anything or listen. Just wait for the elite spec reveal and it’s PoI stream… if you don’t like it, yeah drop out and don’t get the expansion. If you’re still not sure, wait till come the next balance patch – they said that there will be one more big one before HoT (and I wager, after HoT too) – to see if you it suits you, if not, again don’t buy expansion and move on.

The thing is one can not and should not rely on the specialization line to fix the class. It should add diversity but if it intended to fix the class then there is no diversity.

What I do hope is that when they announce the spec line that just as they do with the revenant they treat the entire thief build as new and revisit every traitline and dedicate resources and attention to the same.

This should in fact happen with each and every profession.

If they cannot fix issues with builds built around the existing traitline , than quite frankly there can be no future .

Thieves are as not as bad off as some claim but of all the professions and given I play them all to some degree they need the most work to existing traitline.

babazhook.6805:

Zero Day.2594:

Man, the way you bolded some things (especially censored) made me think of Burnfall again.

The movement points are a touch overboard…

Don’t really count them to hear anything or listen. Just wait for the elite spec reveal and it’s PoI stream… if you don’t like it, yeah drop out and don’t get the expansion. If you’re still not sure, wait till come the next balance patch – they said that there will be one more big one before HoT (and I wager, after HoT too) – to see if you it suits you, if not, again don’t buy expansion and move on.

The thing is one can not and should not rely on the specialization line to fix the class. It should add diversity but if it intended to fix the class then there is no diversity.

What I do hope is that when they announce the spec line that just as they do with the revenant they treat the entire thief build as new and revisit every traitline and dedicate resources and attention to the same.

This should in fact happen with each and every profession.

If they cannot fix issues with builds built around the existing traitline , than quite frankly there can be no future .

Thieves are as not as bad off as some claim but of all the professions and given I play them all to some degree they need the most work to existing traitline.

That was well spoken and i think everyone can agree with this 100%.

Well, yeah… the elite spec probably won’t miraculously fix all the problems… But with 1 big balance patch prior to HoT + elite spec + (I hope to hell) 1 more big balacing patch soon after HoT (to you know… balance out elite kinks) … Gives them enough chances to do so.

Realistically, the expansion could/can warrant a full class overhaul and is the best chance to do so. Though, there’s no mention of it, so I’m guessing they’re not taking this opportunity.

You know what would go along way in fixing thief? Bring back Shadows Arts & Acrobatics to what they were pre-patch. Also give us our vitality trait back maybe in Acro or SA instead. Pre-shadow arts is what mesmers have when they take Chaos and Dueling traitlines so why can’t we have this?

Lyger.5429:

You know what would go along way in fixing thief? Bring back Shadows Arts & Acrobatics to what they were pre-patch. Also give us our vitality trait back maybe in Acro or SA instead. Pre-shadow arts is what mesmers have when they take Chaos and Dueling traitlines so why can’t we have this?

Yes new trait system kittened it all up. And to answer your question about why we can’t have this well i guess too many people complained about thief being op.
Even now i’m still being reported for “glitching” "hacking""flying" or god knows what simply because people are too dumb to keep track of a stealth target. Dev’s just follow the mass and dont care about stomping a profession to ground.

NB : I’m not a hacker otherwise i would be banned 1 year ago

The meta build is good. The bad thing about gw2 though is always build diversity. You’re lucky if your profession has more than 1 meta build.

ANet is probably trying to do elite specializations to fix this. Not that it gives “professions” more builds, but I think it’ll be easier to make more meta builds appear overall. The goal should be at least 1 meta build per profession and elite specialization, which results in 9 more meta builds each time a slate of elite specializations comes out.

Thief can’t 1v1 other meta builds well ever since everything power cropped up, which I think is what a lot of people don’t like. That said thief is still good at its role in conquest.

I wouldn’t hold my breath for any obscene rework of thief traits or base HP/armor. Wouldn’t really be fair across the board for all the other professions that are in kitten atm as well from the trait system rework. Thief still is one of the most mobile professions with SB-5, shadowsteps, steal, etc. The point of the acro line giving bonus speed to stealth is to try and add synergy but unfortunately, it feels awkward because the thief profession has really bad synergy between trait lines.

Every class we play against complains about stealth and how it’s too OP and so we got reaaaally kitten. Sad to say, but thief just seems like the most neglected class in the game and they’re all-too-ready to gut the stuff we’re supposed to excel at, essentially making our build diversity and roles in game smaller and smaller.

I mean, how is stealth so OP compared to what other classes can do? Ele essentially has 20 weapon skills, necro has a fail-safe button called DS, other classes have full damage negation, stability, etc. We rely on our stealth and evasive mechanics as a play style but they feel the need keep stripping that away piece by piece. Very discouraging.

Shockwave.1230:

The meta build is good. The bad thing about gw2 though is always build diversity. You’re lucky if your profession has more than 1 meta build.

ANet is probably trying to do elite specializations to fix this. Not that it gives “professions” more builds, but I think it’ll be easier to make more meta builds appear overall. The goal should be at least 1 meta build per profession and elite specialization, which results in 9 more meta builds each time a slate of elite specializations comes out.

Thief can’t 1v1 other meta builds well ever since everything power cropped up, which I think is what a lot of people don’t like. That said thief is still good at its role in conquest.

I will admit we still have a role in conquest but kitten we are always the catcher (taking it up the kitten. Can I be the pitcher sometimes?

I see alot of smart observations over there which i didn’t expect at first. Thank you guys for your time and effort to post this on forums cause it’s the only way we have currently to express the urge in rebalancing stuff.

In my opinion the lack of communication in terms of elite specializations means that ANET is currently aware of the imbalances and is just waiting for more people to complain just to have more feedback on how skilled they are to turn a good and almost balanced (pre patch) game into a complete “I hit you first so i win” type of game that just makes no sense.

Why would stealth be OP while condition spamming is not ? I just dont get it…
I have been playing thief long enough (1700+ hours) to know that thief is just squishy as hell and has not other way to shine than picking offensive builds.

Of course i could go WvW with Celestial Build but then again i would deal no damage, have decent survivability but would be even more useless hence no heal mechanics (Buff heal signet on thief) powerfull enough to make it up with other classes that has INSANE burst combined with high HP pool, defense, weapon sets, ect. I don’t even wanna talk about celestial ele cause there would be not enough censor words available.

Just roll a godmode condi PU mesmer and watch the tears flow…

People complain about my PU mesmer. Then I tell them I used to main thief until last patch and they should go ask for thief buff if they want me off the OP mesmer.

swinsk.6410:

Just roll a godmode condi PU mesmer and watch the tears flow…

People complain about my PU mesmer. Then I tell them I used to main thief until last patch and they should go ask for thief buff if they want me off the OP mesmer.

Not really i’d rather not play the game at all than being forced to play the meta class.
Thief is a profession of Gw2, in other terms, it deserve the same attention than any other class when rebalancing stuff.

https://twitter.com/GuildWars2/status/633307768800321536

swinsk.6410:

Just roll a godmode condi PU mesmer and watch the tears flow…
.

I would rather play Runescape than reach to this dishonorable state.