Guild Wars 2

Okey. We all know how thieves are fun and fast-paced. A class that requires to be focused and has 0 room for error. If an error occurs – Thief is punished by an instant death. And yes – i am talking about PvP and WvW and overall balance between classes. I’m hopeless already at this point but i wish some dev could answer this.

Will you ever bring the class back? Have you ever tried going to a ranked match as a Thief? If you did – how did that feel? Weren’t you insta-killed by Dragonhunter/Reaper/Scrapper (or just a regular planted trap that 1 shots)? And if you will ever bring the class back can you tell me when please? So i’ll know when i can install the game again.

I’m sorry for this rant but this is getting ridiculous. A 3-year main Thief veteran gets killed by some passive overtuned class that requires no focus/skill whatsoever. I wonder actually how many ex-thieves already quitted. And i’m quite surprised i still had patience to be a Thief after June and HoT patches.

I’ll agree that things are much harder for thief. Also, you should not be getting one shot by scrappers, thieves can hold their own to them, and even decap them off a point with pressure. However, Necro and DH can both kill you super easily if you aren’t careful. What needs to happen is nerf the outliers. I made it to diamond on thief solo queue, and have been getting more into revenant lately. I got a little tired of being so vulnerable to damage when not evading or running. I think thief can bring a lot to a team, but it is a struggle, and you need perfect gameplay. (less room for error than most other classes)

I didn’t switch to rev only for pvp though, just haven’t been having as much fun in Diamond (it might be my plateau with Thief, as my win rate dropped to 50% since entering diamond). So I’m just rolling my first rev to play around with the class.

Thieves need help on a lot of their skills that are never used. (some weapon sets too) However, the problem in pvp is due to overtuned classes that can almost sleep at the wheel. I get tons of compliments on my thief, from enemies and allies, and some games I mess up a few times, and all I get are insults. Very unforgiving class. Good luck with you thief. I never felt underpowered on it, just less room to exploit enemy team weaknesses in the higher divisions, as they play better. Also if your team is uncoordinated nothing you can do about it. I lose games feeling helpless on all professions. (At least thief can end those games with 0 deaths if played well)

Thief/Reaper matchup is much better for the thief than scrapper.

It’d be fine if every class just didn’t have auto-proc defensive abilities like CC reflection/stun, auto-weakness, auto-daze, auto-invuln, auto-negation, etc. It was one thing on the warrior due to their kit simplicity. It’s out of hand now with no space to engage except when playing D/P and spamming 3 because it’s all that actually does work.

idk mates.. i just feel that i’ve had enuff. tried it all. S/D. D/P. D/D condi cancer. hell – even S/D acro to compensate the squishiness lol. nothing works. and i mean – yes it works in 2v1 or some unfair fights.(tho any class works in 2v1) but remember the times when Thief was able to 1v1 and not loose if played well? well now u gotta play well to have a slight chance to 1v1 someone. and yes – all those passive traits, stability, reflect ccs, blocks makes it even worse. even spamming #3 Shadow Shot isn’t as useful as you say. it won’t land that often cuz of blocks/invulns. anyway – the whole pattern that emerged after HoT is that they totally promoted casual, passive, easy-to-play classes and just overtuned them. that pretty much sums it up. and active/offensive style class like Thief is now totally maybe just for veteran players who can dodge perfectly, be aware of opponents boons, be aware of surroundings, be aware of disengage/engage windows etc etc… hell. imagine a new player creating Thief and trying it out in PvP. would be quite hilarious wouldnt it? so yep – let’s promote passive casual classes so new players can feel good. i guess that was the logic behind HoT.

Well they wanted to sell HoT. They took everything guards/wars/thieves ever wanted and made new class – revs. Revs also happen to counter thieves pretty hard. More reasons to buy HoT. That being said, chances that thief will be in better position are relative low unless devs finally decide to tone down powercreep.

I just think that to bring thief back, the rewards need to be higher for the risk along with improving less-used abilities and weapons. Also, making bountiful theft steal at least half boon stacks and half duration would do a lot for teams. Rev also can do eeverything a thief can and more, so nerfing rev a bit will also help.

DeceiverX.8361:

It’d be fine if every class just didn’t have auto-proc defensive abilities like CC reflection/stun, auto-weakness, auto-daze, auto-invuln, auto-negation, etc.

Dave.6819:

be aware of opponents boons

I may be missing something completely obvious, but outside of boons, is there any way for a Thief to know if another player does have “auto-this” or “auto-that” traited before actually triggering them?

I don’t really want the Thief to have passives like everyone else. Keep it an active playstyle. But at least give it the ability to punch through or negate passives… or more tools to deal with them.

It reminds me of my Ninja Gaiden argument. In that game, you are squishy. You don’t have passives. But you get a lot of defensive “actives” in order to survive. It’s tough, but manageable. The Thief in Guild Wars 2 seems to be severely lacking enough “actives” to do the job.

Dave.6819:

Thief is now totally maybe just for veteran players who can dodge perfectly

Is a non-DareDevil Thief even capable of dodging everything needed and still be able to apply pressure? I suppose it can depend on the weapon sets used also. Adding to that thought, not having a cooldown on swapping weapons would help with that.

alchemyst.2165:

Also, making bountiful theft steal at least half boon stacks and half duration would do a lot for teams.

Speaking of which, I understand balance issues, but really… why shouldn’t a Thief be able to Steal more boons from a target… especially with Bountiful Theft traited? Or may even “reverse-pickpocket” conditions onto the target?

Every class got a crazy boost with hot cept foe thves and warrs
Sry guys u got left behind

Amaranthe.3578:

Every class got a crazy boost with hot cept foe thves and warrs
Sry guys u got left behind

sad but true. nothing to add..

the only problem is – i don’t enjoy any other classes. no way im gonna play those passive classes. and that’s why farewell gw2.

What’s this outrage today? Did anything happen? Did I miss it?
Everything but D/P is dead for now nearly a year and you guys just realize it?

If we talk competitively theres quite a few classes that suffers the same issues. Guardians, Rangers, Warriors and Thieves

Yeah, lets have a minute of silence for the poor rangers and guardians.

Wait. Warriors are back in the game now since the last update. Evis can no longer be evaded. (I know this because I have hit through mesmer blurred frenzy)

I think thieves need more access to Unblockable, and a faster weapon swap.

@bluri I’ll tolerate you bunching guards with warrs and thieves, since they are a one-trick-pony. But rangers? Rangers are definitely in the meta, they even have a notable presence in the ESL Pro leagues. And a good win rate as well, I might add.. They aren’t even a filler class, some teams opt to have druids instead of other classes.

Dave.6819:

A class that requires to be focused and has 0 room for error. If an error occurs – Thief is punished by an instant death.

Which isn’t really true, sure sometimes you get obliterated on thief and there is nothing you can do about it, but the reality is much of the time you aren’t one shot and you can disengage, where as on many classes (especially pre-hot) even though they may not be one shot, it is still basically game over because they will not be able to disengage and are at too large deficit to do much other than die.

It reminds me of a comment someone made about a very good thief player in a tournament who was playing rev and died rather too much – “X still thinks he is playing thief and can disengage at will”.

true if you still try to stick to the old glory of 5-2 d/p overlords you are going to get rekt

but if you adapt and change your thief build and playstyle significantly you can expect great results

Yannir.4132:

I think thieves need more access to Unblockable, and a faster weapon swap.

@bluri I’ll tolerate you bunching guards with warrs and thieves, since they are a one-trick-pony. But rangers? Rangers are definitely in the meta, they even have a notable presence in the ESL Pro leagues. And a good win rate as well, I might add.. They aren’t even a filler class, some teams opt to have druids instead of other classes.

I can agree to some extent. You see druid being represented in NA (good for you) but in EU you will see 0 druids, you had one team and that’s because they didn’t have the time to reroll mesmer.

And I still can’t grasp how you can think it’s not a filler class, why would you EVER pick a druid over scrapper/mesmer?

Lexander.4579:

true if you still try to stick to the old glory of 5-2 d/p overlords you are going to get rekt

but if you adapt and change your thief build and playstyle significantly you can expect great results

Not sure if I trust someone who claims that D/D is the pvp vanilla thief..

ETA: I mean yesterday (in wvw, yes sorry) – I was with my blob in Durios, the other blob was in lords and came down – the whole area was plastered with red rings which I tried to avoid – There was only one tiny spot left without AoE and while I got there an enemy DrD staff thief (right next to me) tried to avoid our AoE and died instantly – so what does this mean? That thief is still good or bad?

Jana.6831:

Lexander.4579:

true if you still try to stick to the old glory of 5-2 d/p overlords you are going to get rekt

but if you adapt and change your thief build and playstyle significantly you can expect great results

Not sure if I trust someone who claims that D/D is the pvp vanilla thief..

ETA: I mean yesterday (in wvw, yes sorry) – I was with my blob in Durios, the other blob was in lords and came down – the whole area was plastered with red rings which I tried to avoid – There was only one tiny spot left without AoE and while I got there an enemy DrD staff thief (right next to me) tried to avoid our AoE and died instantly – so what does this mean? That thief is still good or bad?

d/d thief was the vanilla build which has been used for several months after gw2 launch, substantial nerfs to some thief abilities (rip dancing dagger the wrecking ball of 2-3 people groups) and people learning how to build and play to not be insta downed by CnD-steal-backstab has lead to thieves rerolling to d/p for the utility and safety it provided

somewhere in between there was also s/p abusing haste+pistol whip but that only led to pistol whip getting a huge nerf and thieves being pushed further towards the use of d/p

as for wvw blobs thief is simply not the right class to do that, sorry, you bring the squishiest class with the lowest range in game and zero AoE to the place where people trade their numbers and anyone who comes closer than 1.5k range is getting sniped down with prejudice and that have happened before HoT and will happen after HoT

Im perfectly fine with the class being very punishing. If i screw up and get caught in a dh trap and die of it, ok. No problem. I make a mistake, I die: alright, thats kinda why I play thief.
My main issues are those:
1)Even if you make no mistakes, you cant really win a whole lot of fights. Even the unavoidable passive pressure is enough to force me to disengage or perhaps even kill me.
2)The class should be rewarding. You make mistakes, you die. You make no mistakes: they die.
But it doesnt work that way. If I manage to kill some1 its not because I landed a good vault, its because my opponent was too stupid to dodge it. And of cousre some classes can just heal all damage I deal, even if they allowed me to stand right next to them and autoattack.

I know some people are fine with the rotate only role we have. I dont get that to be honest. It sucks hard. And even if you make it work on highest level, pro league proves us, that it is not enough against equally skilled players.

Anyways, I find all these people wanting to ‘quit gw2’ a litte overly dramatic. If things dont work out for you, you fight to make them better, you dont just turn around and look another way.
For me working on ways to improve a game has become a huge part of the fun. Gw2 is probably one of the main reasons, I havent joined any political organization yet ^^

Lexander.4579:

d/d thief was the vanilla build which has been used for several months after gw2 launch,

Alright, so you’re using vanilla differently than everybody else – ok.

Lexander.4579:

as for wvw blobs thief is simply not the right class to do that, sorry, you bring the squishiest class with the lowest range in game and zero AoE to the place where people trade their numbers and anyone who comes closer than 1.5k range is getting sniped down with prejudice and that have happened before HoT and will happen after HoT

Zero AoE.. alright then hides shortbow and daggerstorm
But question is: Why did I survive and the enemy thief died in the same situation?

BTW: I’m doing good – I die maybe 2 times a night and in most cases it’s because I tried to rez someone. For me a thief in blobs still works – although all of it could be better. What I tried to say though is: If 98% of all players say that thief is UP you can believe them. If you think you found the “right build and stuff” then you’re likely better than your enemies or being carried by your team(s). Or you just have very good teams and everybody carries themselves – but you can be very sure that there have been enough thieves around who tried every build possible and still say “thief is kitten” – they have a point – otherwise we would see them in Espurtz.

Asrat.2645:

Im perfectly fine with the class being very punishing. If i screw up and get caught in a dh trap and die of it, ok. No problem. I make a mistake, I die: alright, thats kinda why I play thief.
My main issues are those:
1)Even if you make no mistakes, you cant really win a whole lot of fights. Even the unavoidable passive pressure is enough to force me to disengage or perhaps even kill me.
2)The class should be rewarding. You make mistakes, you die. You make no mistakes: they die.
But it doesnt work that way. If I manage to kill some1 its not because I landed a good vault, its because my opponent was too stupid to dodge it. And of cousre some classes can just heal all damage I deal, even if they allowed me to stand right next to them and autoattack.

I know some people are fine with the rotate only role we have. I dont get that to be honest. It sucks hard. And even if you make it work on highest level, pro league proves us, that it is not enough against equally skilled players.

Anyways, I find all these people wanting to ‘quit gw2’ a litte overly dramatic. If things dont work out for you, you fight to make them better, you dont just turn around and look another way.
For me working on ways to improve a game has become a huge part of the fun. Gw2 is probably one of the main reasons, I havent joined any political organization yet ^^

I really think that thief is ok but it just gets extremely overshadowed by other classes. The powercreep introduced with HoT really ruined it for us as well. Say miracle would happen and all the aoe, CC and passives would get toned down, i think thief would be waaaayy better off and probably even appear on pro league rosters. Buffing thief is not exactly helpful as it would be just fighting cancer with another cancer = at the end host dies anyway.

I really wish devs would just take old logic back (risk vs reward, opportunity costs etc.) and apply it to the current state of classes/elites (yes even thief has cheese that needs to be toned down), e.g. AoE is very powerful thing, why the hell it is on short CD and does a lot of single target dmg in many cases?
Or mobility got thrown at other classes like candy (hello druid has RTL on 15 CD which allows him to camp mid and home at the same time, i don’t even want to start on revs) when it supposed to be selling point of the thief.

But….. i don’t see how any common sense will ever be applied to balancing because
1. they still try to force players to buy HoT
2. raids – if classes get toned down, your average pve Joe won’t be able to complete raids – GG pvp suffers from raid balancing like it did in wow for years while being completely separate game mode
3. they actually don’t have much clue in a lot of cases and it is not my words

Jana.6831:

Lexander.4579:

d/d thief was the vanilla build which has been used for several months after gw2 launch,

Alright, so you’re using vanilla differently than everybody else – ok.

Lexander.4579:

as for wvw blobs thief is simply not the right class to do that, sorry, you bring the squishiest class with the lowest range in game and zero AoE to the place where people trade their numbers and anyone who comes closer than 1.5k range is getting sniped down with prejudice and that have happened before HoT and will happen after HoT

Zero AoE.. alright then hides shortbow and daggerstorm
But question is: Why did I survive and the enemy thief died in the same situation?

BTW: I’m doing good – I die maybe 2 times a night and in most cases it’s because I tried to rez someone. For me a thief in blobs still works – although all of it could be better. What I tried to say though is: If 98% of all players say that thief is UP you can believe them. If you think you found the “right build and stuff” then you’re likely better than your enemies or being carried by your team(s). Or you just have very good teams and everybody carries themselves – but you can be very sure that there have been enough thieves around who tried every build possible and still say “thief is kitten” – they have a point – otherwise we would see them in Espurtz.

people can use those vanilla or whatever buzzwords as they like, afterall usually those words have certain meanings forced upon them by people who dont have much clue and then it catches on and everybody else starts misusing them as well

you are bringing up some awkward example: some random thief died in the aoe chaos and you didnt, well good job, i suppose, but that sounds even more silly than boasting beating a random thief in a sapphire sPvP match

thief in blobs works, everything works in this game, including healer thief and tank thief since this game is just a silly casual game, but it still will be suboptimal with nearly or literally every other class outperforming thief in the said roles or situations

as for pro playurs, well, since this game is having growth issues pro playurs arent really much of authority here, since they dont have a reason to spend 24/7 playing the game and as a result they are not likely going to be much better than your average legend player who just copy pasted his rev build from meta battle and progresses the tiers by having 50%+ win rate

Kageseigi.2150:

DeceiverX.8361:

It’d be fine if every class just didn’t have auto-proc defensive abilities like CC reflection/stun, auto-weakness, auto-daze, auto-invuln, auto-negation, etc.

Dave.6819:

be aware of opponents boons

I may be missing something completely obvious, but outside of boons, is there any way for a Thief to know if another player does have “auto-this” or “auto-that” traited before actually triggering them?

I don’t really want the Thief to have passives like everyone else. Keep it an active playstyle. But at least give it the ability to punch through or negate passives… or more tools to deal with them.

Nope. You won’t know until you’ve hit them. They were initially few-and-far-between surprises, but it’s getting to a point now where a large number of builds just stack them. These effects are slowly killing the PvP formats’ legitimacy and contribute to why nobody cares about ESPORTZ!!!1 here; the only way to understand what’s going on is to know a ton about the game, which defeats the purpose of generating mass-appeal to gain popularity that e-sports scenes are trying to do.

I can think of only a handful of situations where I experienced anything like an ‘instant kill’ and it was only from when I made big mistakes against a DH that stacked all their traps at once.

But really, this class is supposed to be glassy and reliant on active defenses. If you want an EZ mode where you can just ignore what the enemy is doing and soak up all the damage, go play a scrapper or reaper.

On topic @ OP:

I main Thief and Engi -

I’m playing very little at the moment because Thief is comparatively too weak and Engi is too easy. Both my favourite classes feel unrewarding for different reasons.

I honestly don’t know how anyone can enjoy winning because a man in a development studio has tweaked numbers in your favour.

I lose on Thief with unfair odds against me – feels kitten
I win on Engi with unfair odds in my favour – feels kitten

I honestly don’t expect great balance in a game with so much diversity but the enormous gulf between professions and specs in GW2 is appalling for a game that is apparently trying to take its PVP seriously.

There is just no way I’m having it that skill is the most important factor in this game and anyone who thinks differently just hasn’t spent enough time playing games that actually are balanced. There are too many crutches in this game that Jimmy-no-brain can give himself just by dialling up metabattle and kidding himself he’s good.

As an example of what I mean by this – I know Thieve’s who are way better than me and can beat me 1v1 all day long. I swap prof to fotm faceroll on something I’m less familiar with and suddenly I must have had a major skill upgrade because I’m winning – that shouldn’t be a thing.

So yeah OP good on you… stop playing… you and many others I’m sure.

If you really like GW2 then you’re stuck… but if what you really like is exciting balanced PVP games – there are much better games than this.

Lexander.4579:

people can use those vanilla or whatever buzzwords as they like, afterall usually those words have certain meanings forced upon them by people who dont have much clue and then it catches on and everybody else starts misusing them as well

Yes, and it makes perfectly sense that you know that and still answer a serious question about builds with that – cause you know better, right?

Lexander.4579:

you are bringing up some awkward example: some random thief died in the aoe chaos and you didnt, well good job, i suppose, but that sounds even more silly than boasting beating a random thief in a sapphire sPvP match

How is it you people never get the point?
The point is that you’re boasting about your perfect build and forget that there are hundred of smart thieves out there who tried the exact same build you feel successful and unique with.

Lexander.4579:

thief in blobs works, everything works in this game, including healer thief and tank thief since this game is just a silly casual game, but it still will be suboptimal with nearly or literally every other class outperforming thief in the said roles or situations

You do know that you don’t make much sense right now, yes?
1) You claim you have found the perfect build.
2) You claim thief is fine
3) You say thieves don’t belong in blobs
4) You say everything works
5) .. and this game is just brainless..

Btw: Valk/Zerker D/D thief, CS, SA, T – I’m still running mostly frontline, depending on the situation.

Lexander.4579:

as for pro playurs, well, since this game is having growth issues pro playurs arent really much of authority here, since they dont have a reason to spend 24/7 playing the game and as a result they are not likely going to be much better than your average legend player who just copy pasted his rev build from meta battle and progresses the tiers by having 50%+ win rate

And why do you have authority if the rest of us haven’t?

Dirtyrascal.1023:

I lose on Thief with unfair odds against me – feels kitten
I win on Engi with unfair odds in my favour – feels kitten

I passively killed a thief on my engi today – Was node farming in wvw and he tried to BS me thrice but I seem to have some protection trait (don’t know actually) – I pressed blast gyro once and the thief was dead. It feels really weird. It was that fast that I couldn’t even think if I wanted to – but I hadn’t to.

But – don’t forget that there should be a patch in april – maybe things will become better then. I still have hope, like with every patch – but I somehow guess that it’s better to have none.

Jana.6831:

Lexander.4579:

people can use those vanilla or whatever buzzwords as they like, afterall usually those words have certain meanings forced upon them by people who dont have much clue and then it catches on and everybody else starts misusing them as well

Yes, and it makes perfectly sense that you know that and still answer a serious question about builds with that – cause you know better, right?

Lexander.4579:

you are bringing up some awkward example: some random thief died in the aoe chaos and you didnt, well good job, i suppose, but that sounds even more silly than boasting beating a random thief in a sapphire sPvP match

How is it you people never get the point?
The point is that you’re boasting about your perfect build and forget that there are hundred of smart thieves out there who tried the exact same build you feel successful and unique with.

Lexander.4579:

thief in blobs works, everything works in this game, including healer thief and tank thief since this game is just a silly casual game, but it still will be suboptimal with nearly or literally every other class outperforming thief in the said roles or situations

You do know that you don’t make much sense right now, yes?
1) You claim you have found the perfect build.
2) You claim thief is fine
3) You say thieves don’t belong in blobs
4) You say everything works
5) .. and this game is just brainless..

Btw: Valk/Zerker D/D thief, CS, SA, T – I’m still running mostly frontline, depending on the situation.

Lexander.4579:

as for pro playurs, well, since this game is having growth issues pro playurs arent really much of authority here, since they dont have a reason to spend 24/7 playing the game and as a result they are not likely going to be much better than your average legend player who just copy pasted his rev build from meta battle and progresses the tiers by having 50%+ win rate

And why do you have authority if the rest of us haven’t?

on topic of the “vanilla” word i simply like that my opinion usually matches the truth more than that of others, whether they agree with it or not so i feel totally fine to express it rather than just sticking to the false truths

if you think that my build has been tried then i have bad news for you, its so unusual that most of the time people are so surprised by my gameplay and build that when i first encounter the enemy 1v1 i simply kill them without any counterplay from them as they futilely try to defend themselves or counterattack

you have written down all of my statements correctly, kudos to you, thief belongs at small scale pvp and roaming, sure you can do anything with your thief, just how your parents tell you that you can be anything, but it doesnt mean that inside blob your mad cluster bomb and dagger storm skillz will outperform staff necromancer randomly pressing his weapon abilities in fact you are very likely to die simply trying to hit just anything within that meager 900 range of yours

i didnt say i have any more authority than others, in fact i’ll benefit more from people not listening or paying attention to what im saying but i just like to express my opinion that much

Lexander.4579:

you have written down all of my statements correctly, kudos to you, thief belongs at small scale pvp and roaming

Learn to play thief

Jana.6831:

Lexander.4579:

you have written down all of my statements correctly, kudos to you, thief belongs at small scale pvp and roaming

Learn to play thief

son, im learning every day of my life not stopping even when people surrounding me acknowledge that im good, but thanks for reminding me

The difference with wvw roamers and pvp roamers is that the pvp guys struggle when it comes to zerg fights because they never have that in pvp (I am talking 30 v30 v30) I knew a guy who did pvp, knew every glass and was a 1v1 hero in svp/obsidian sanctum but put him in a wvw fight and he just fell apart. Same can be said about wvw people in pvp, I can’t play for kitten as much as I use to because I spend far more time in wvw, it’s weird how different game modes, based on pvp and alter your own game play completely different. Don’t get me wrong, there are some guys that can do both modes easily but most pvp only shine in 2-5 people… MOST

I know that everybody thinks I’m always offtopic, but actually I’m not.
I survived that fight contrahery to that other thief because I’m used to zergs and now even blobs. I started out as a zerg thief on one of the best servers that might have ever been, then turned roamer after the ferocity patch and when I came to EU, I started to run with zergs/blobs again.
So the (topic) bow goes the following: OP says thief is dead. Lexander says he has got the ultimate build with which thieves aren’t bad. I try to explain to him that all possible builds have already been tried, even his mystery build (I accidently came up with the meta build (not invented by me) when I was a noob ranger because the traits made the most sense – and we had a greater build diversity back then) and that the reason why he’s doing good is that his enemies are worse than him or that his teams are really good.
I can run with any of my thieves (5) in a zerg and have the nearly same outcome – a few of them run DA instead of CS, all have different armor – but it’s me who’s the factor (I don’t survive long in full zerker’s though).
Thieves have very much become unicorns – most people don’t really know what a good or bad thief is as most long time thief players have quit – so complimenting someone’s fairytale build “I have never seen anything like this” isn’t extraordinary.

And I can tell you guys what I’m doing in blobs:
Enemy melee party is undecided/tries to run away: Daggerstorm and steal to cripple them.
~5-10 Enemies on a spot are halflife: Daggerstorm to down them – even better with friendly AoE under me – the power of combos.
Pressure from the enemies is too high, I can’t really get frontline: I’m staying behind my melee party and daggerstorm through light and waterfields to heal them.
I can also blast waterfields, but it’s really hard to make them out – I do blast static fields while we’re running though, or the backliner’s waterfields if I’m close and see they’re low. I should more randomly spam blast though as it’s the best finisher in game – although whirl is nice too.
I’m usually spamming choking gas to weaken the enemies which works really good. Would be more effective if there were still warriors around as their banner doesn’t work in poison.
My SB autoattack hits 3 people at a range beyond 900.
If someone is downed I can rez and stealth them if I can get to them (which isn’t rare).
If someone is downed and being rezzed by someone else but I can’t get to them, they get my SR = heal and distraction.

Most of this probably wouldn’t work in pvp, but it’s kind of weird to say thieves have got no place in a blob – although I do know that I’m a special snowflake.

I´m a little bit confused @Jana

Thief never was and never will be a real “frontliner”. And no, not even as nurse or condi-D/D. You can try and do it, but most other classes work better in that situation or it just won´t work, cause enemies are at least capable to do good damage/CC (condi D/D nothing to say and nurse… if you want to rezz or something you get vulnerable – gg). Entering the enemy with daggerstorm and steal? Seriously? If you play with SA you don´t do much damage, at least not enough to make a real difference, the whirl end isn´t much help either and any halfway decent player gonna love you spining around him, instacleave and you are dead or have to waste another cd – shadowstep. 50sec cd stunbreak, 20sec cd steal and 90sec elite daggerstorm for a bit of damage. Not really worth it. Blasting waterfield, good idea, just that they normally are where your frontline is, where you have nothing to do.

“I’m usually spamming choking gas to weaken the enemies which works really good. "
So in 900 range spamming choking gas and hoping they still are where you shot your blast-finisher to? Banners still work through posion, they have a reduced healing though.

Sry, but that sounds to much like my old times at the beginning when I ran around in melee with D/D unicorn-build and thinking I actually acomplish something.
A D/P normal gank-squad build is much more effectiv than that. Thanks to DrD you sruvive a kitten long time, too.

Thieves job in wvw-zerg fight is still the ganking. The bigger the blobb-fight gets, the more redundat you become. Any other class would propably be more effective. And thats what I want – to be effective.

And you don´t need full zerker, add a little bit of marauder and you get a lot of suvivability in tradeoff for a bit of power. Far better than using SA insead of DA, trickery or DrD.

I don’t think she actually meant as a front line role, just getting close to the front line. I am quite often on the edge of my melee train to get a better veiw of who to gank and as s/d you can pretty much gank anyone and return back “home” in the safty of your blob.

Coronit.9432:

Entering the enemy with daggerstorm and steal? Seriously? If you play with SA you don´t do much damage, at least not enough to make a real difference

Did you read the cripple part? I’m slowing them down so my melee party can get to them.

Coronit.9432:

, the whirl end isn´t much help either and any halfway decent player gonna love you spining around him, instacleave and you are dead or have to waste another cd – shadowstep.

Umm, so what am I doing for now 2 years? Try it before you start your theorycrafting, alright? A dancing thief in the chaos of a zergfight is often missed and last night I was hit by a thief who daggerstormed along for ~3k. The whirl helps a lot – again: try it. The cripple helps a lot – try it. And I’m not using shadowstep, actually.

Coronit.9432:

50sec cd stunbreak, 20sec cd steal and 90sec elite daggerstorm for a bit of damage.

70 or 75 seconds – I’m using trickster.
And it’s a lot more than a bit of damage – try it?

Coronit.9432:

Sry, but that sounds to much like my old times at the beginning when I ran around in melee with D/D unicorn-build and thinking I actually acomplish something. A D/P normal gank-squad build is much more effectiv than that. Thanks to DrD you sruvive a kitten long time, too.

20 kills within 1 minute don’t sound too bad, do they? It’s hard to tell who is or isn’t accomplishing “the most” in a zergfight. Ganking single enemies is pretty much impossible since June – so good luck with your “single target focus”.

Coronit.9432:

The bigger the blobb-fight gets, the more redundat you become. Any other class would propably be more effective. And thats what I want – to be effective.

Yes, and no – that goes for everybody in a zerg/blob.

Coronit.9432:

And you don´t need full zerker, add a little bit of marauder and you get a lot of suvivability in tradeoff for a bit of power. Far better than using SA insead of DA, trickery or DrD.

My main is valk zerker – if you comment on something at least read it (I have 5 thieves in different gear/sometimes different builds and can do the same on all of them as the deciding factor is me – I don’t survive long in full zerker though = 2 of my thieves are full zerker but I rarely use them in blob/zergfights).
Marauder isn’t anything like my valk/zerker mix – I wish you people would finally look the stats up and don’t compare valk/zerker with it – it’s actually a valk/zerker/assassin’s mix.

I think my signature was banned.. now I’m sad..
Or amused – I’m uncertain.

ETA: Picture: A pretty typical situation of me in wvw – the commander is really fast though, that’s why he’s that far in front – he loves his guardian leap. And if you actually understand how daggerstorm works you know how to make the most of it. And now I expect it to be nerfed because someone said it’s good.

Dirtyrascal.1023:

On topic @ OP:

I main Thief and Engi -

I’m playing very little at the moment because Thief is comparatively too weak and Engi is too easy. Both my favourite classes feel unrewarding for different reasons.

I honestly don’t know how anyone can enjoy winning because a man in a development studio has tweaked numbers in your favour.

I lose on Thief with unfair odds against me – feels kitten
I win on Engi with unfair odds in my favour – feels kitten

I honestly don’t expect great balance in a game with so much diversity but the enormous gulf between professions and specs in GW2 is appalling for a game that is apparently trying to take its PVP seriously.

There is just no way I’m having it that skill is the most important factor in this game and anyone who thinks differently just hasn’t spent enough time playing games that actually are balanced. There are too many crutches in this game that Jimmy-no-brain can give himself just by dialling up metabattle and kidding himself he’s good.

As an example of what I mean by this – I know Thieve’s who are way better than me and can beat me 1v1 all day long. I swap prof to fotm faceroll on something I’m less familiar with and suddenly I must have had a major skill upgrade because I’m winning – that shouldn’t be a thing.

So yeah OP good on you… stop playing… you and many others I’m sure.

If you really like GW2 then you’re stuck… but if what you really like is exciting balanced PVP games – there are much better games than this.

Asrat.2645:

Im perfectly fine with the class being very punishing. If i screw up and get caught in a dh trap and die of it, ok. No problem. I make a mistake, I die: alright, thats kinda why I play thief.
My main issues are those:
1)Even if you make no mistakes, you cant really win a whole lot of fights. Even the unavoidable passive pressure is enough to force me to disengage or perhaps even kill me.
2)The class should be rewarding. You make mistakes, you die. You make no mistakes: they die.
But it doesnt work that way. If I manage to kill some1 its not because I landed a good vault, its because my opponent was too stupid to dodge it. And of cousre some classes can just heal all damage I deal, even if they allowed me to stand right next to them and autoattack.

I know some people are fine with the rotate only role we have. I dont get that to be honest. It sucks hard. And even if you make it work on highest level, pro league proves us, that it is not enough against equally skilled players.

Anyways, I find all these people wanting to ‘quit gw2’ a litte overly dramatic. If things dont work out for you, you fight to make them better, you dont just turn around and look another way.
For me working on ways to improve a game has become a huge part of the fun. Gw2 is probably one of the main reasons, I havent joined any political organization yet ^^

well i completely agree with your point 1 and 2. class should be risky in a trade-off of being very rewarding. which it was. and which it isnt now.

anyway. i doubt its being overly dramatic. because… yes , i have tried many times to overcome things. i think i had like 7thieves of level 80. that’s how many times i still kept trying and rage-deleting. and trying and rage-deleting. and repeat it x7 times. rolled even all classes too. to figure out how to deal with that and that. looked through all traits. basically i was studying GW2 like a nerd from Thieves perspective to figure out how to deal with things so i can still keep playing my fave class. you see what i’m saying? that yes – i really tried hard to make things work and i didn’t just dramatically wanted to quit the game without a fair shot. but all in all – all this struggle just because IT guys developed DrDvil in sucha way.

its quite hilarious isnt it? thinking now of the statement i made before. that “imagine a new rookie player trying Thief for the first time”. ohhhh boyos.. he would have so much trouble staying atleast somewhat competetive. so yup – at this point Thief is totally just for some nerd veterans that played all classes, memorized all traits, utilities etc.. and even then – risk is high.

Coronit.9432:

“I’m usually spamming choking gas to weaken the enemies which works really good. "
So in 900 range spamming choking gas and hoping they still are where you shot your blast-finisher to?

You shouldn’t need a Blast Finisher in order to weaken enemies if you are traited with Lotus Poison, correct?

EDIT: This makes me think… having never played DareDevil before, could it be effective to just stay with Shortbow the whole time and apply permanent Weakness the with a combination of Weakening Strikes and Lotus Poison + Bound?

Kageseigi.2150:

Coronit.9432:

“I’m usually spamming choking gas to weaken the enemies which works really good. "
So in 900 range spamming choking gas and hoping they still are where you shot your blast-finisher to?

You shouldn’t need a Blast Finisher in order to weaken enemies if you are traited with Lotus Poison, correct?

EDIT: This makes me think… having never played DareDevil before, could it be effective to just stay with Shortbow the whole time and apply permanent Weakness the with a combination of Weakening Strikes and Lotus Poison + Bound?

In theory that would give a very high uptime albeit some would overlap and encounter the ICD.

Both weakening strikes and Lotus poison are on an ICD of 10 seconds. The Choking gas can in fact crit so you might get a double app of weakness there giving 9 seconds. With a leap application in that mix weakness uptime should be very high.

I myself use SD with weakening and you get a whole lot of weakness uptime there even without lotus poison. A nice combo to have with s/d is using Unhindered in conjunction with weakening strikes which gives two sources of 10 percent damage reduction. If you take that Mussel food for another 10 percent you can get as much as 80 percent reduction. (if a fumble occurs due to weakness)

It’s making me want insta-weapon swap (no cooldown) even more! Not having access to DareDevil, I could at least combo Choking Gas with Heartseeker without getting stuck on one weapon for 10 seconds.

Kageseigi.2150:

Coronit.9432:

“I’m usually spamming choking gas to weaken the enemies which works really good. "
So in 900 range spamming choking gas and hoping they still are where you shot your blast-finisher to?

You shouldn’t need a Blast Finisher in order to weaken enemies if you are traited with Lotus Poison, correct?

EDIT: This makes me think… having never played DareDevil before, could it be effective to just stay with Shortbow the whole time and apply permanent Weakness the with a combination of Weakening Strikes and Lotus Poison + Bound?

You weaken enemies with poison no matter what – and I didn’t mean blasting my own poison fields – everyone who’s ever been in zergs knows there’s a lot of stuff on the ground – but alas – I know nothing

Every blasted field is a win – but there was something with necro fields – I forgot what it was though. It was incredibly important to blast them.

Edit: spelling

ETA: Yay, my signature is back woohoo.
On topic – I think I didn’t get your drift and answered another question than the one you had – I didn’t see that this guy thought I wanted to blast my own poison fields. No, I’m not chuckling right now – I’m really dead serious and stuff.
Btw: Poison is more useful against zergs and classes/buils you know have little condi clear. I think I tried it on some druids to no avail – I killed a heal druid the other day and have honestly no idea how. I think even blasting your poison fields against a daredevil would have little effect. Too much of a hassle to be really worth it.

Dave.6819:

remember the times when Thief was able to 1v1 and not loose if played well?

TBH as long as thieves mobility/stealth keeps untouched, they should not be able to 1v1 anything when equally skilled.

Krysard.1364:

TBH as long as thieves mobility/stealth keeps untouched, they should not be able to 1v1 anything when equally skilled.

I still don’t understand this way of thinking.

Mobility and Stealth doesn’t make a great fighter. It makes a great racer, and it makes great bait, but it definitely doesn’t make you deadly. And this isn’t a racing game. Speed helps, but it is SIGNIFICANTLY less important than lethality.

And what’s the purpose of a PvP game where you can’t be deadly?

Yes, Thieves can hit hard.
But so can others.
And Thieves cannot hit hard enough to break through armor, high health pools, and passives.

Yes, Thieves can hit fast.
But many others can also.
And Thieves cannot hit fast enough to avoid dying.
However, Thieves can die very quickly.

Yes, Thieves can hit without notice.
But they cannot hit hard enough to kill a target that is paying attention and knows how to play.
Even as the GLASSIEST of Thieves, I cannot remember the last time another Thief insta-downed me… even when he catches me completely unaware.

And that’s really the sad truth to it. Thieves aren’t much of a threat (relatively speaking) to my Thief… because their bursts are too weak, and I’m evasive. They also have no advantages over me. It’s really a matter of who can outplay the other. But almost any other profession IS a threat.

Again, mobility and Stealth may allow me to run away and engage on my terms, but it does NOT help me kill something. The Thief is a melee fighter. If it stays out of melee, it can’t apply full damage. If it stays in melee, it’s like a fly waiting to get swatted.

And that’s not even mentioning the issue about having to focus on a single target instead of having lots of AoE potential. Can’t even focus one target down easily. Yet other professions can down me easily with AoE or single-target attacks.

I keep going back to Ninja Gaiden. In that game, you’re squishy, but you have a lot of active defense potential. In Guild Wars 2, you don’t have the active defenses needed in order to survive… especially without Daredevil. If swapping weapons refilled the initiative pool, it would help tremendously, but it doesn’t. Or insta-weapon swap with no cooldown would allow you to change your fighting style on the fly… as well as open up evasive capabilities without locking you out of damage potential for 10 seconds.

The bottom line is this. Mobility is not a combat skill. Stealth is not a combat skill. They help you enter combat. They help you exit combat. They do not help you win combat. They help you to not die. And not dying is completely different than winning.

No. Its true unfortunately. As long as we are as mobile, we cant be too strong in 1v1.
You really dont want a class that can move to any point they want and force you to rotate there with two players to get it back.
Mobility and dueling strenght should be exclusive.
Traits, skills, weapon sets, whatever: You can only have one of it, not both..

And: ‘mobility is not a combat skill.’
That is not true. Mobility is the strongest combat skill.
It doesnt matter what games you play, but movement, positioning, rotation, whatever you want to call it, its a pro players asset and will win the war.
It will not win the fight unfortunately, and thats why a lot of us are so frustrated.

You really should bring this discussion to the pvp forums – a bunch of people will tell you that revenants are more mobile that thieves (debateable, I guess), that mesmers hit harder, can outstealth thieves and also have their portals, that scrappers can easily stealth and are incredibly tanky.
Your arguments as to why thieves shouldn’t be able to defend themselves are outdated since at least HoT.

Oh as you may have observed im a big supporter of giving us back the duelist role.
I just think we should have to sacrifice mobility to do so.
For example working more with weapons that are not shortbows.

Short bow is only better in spvp because it port up on higher platforms, apart from that #5 isn’t that awesome and in wvw it’s only really used to get away from enemy zerg. And let’s not forget that once you’re in combat and you change to short bow to open a gap you are stuck with low dmg for 9 seconds. Our other ports are on long cd if you don’t include sword #2 d/p #3 which cost iniative.

I don’t belive we should give up mobilty for a better chance for 1v1, I would give it up if we had protection and better ways to regenerate with out stealth. That won’t happen and we all know it.

I’m pretty bad at remembering names or people and usually don’t read post histories – also there’s a lot of people with a similar name around.

My point still stands though. As long as other classes aren’t nerfed significantly there’s no reason to claim that thieves shouldn’t be able to 1 vs 1 – with the mobility they currently have.

Also: Kageseigi and you meant different kinds of mobility, I think.
Mobility in combat is being hampered with chill and slow (although I’m not sure that many classes can apply it) – so there is already counterplay and for my taste it’s too much counterplay actually. It’s not as if thieves or anyone can really move around like they want to (in combat). When it comes to travelling distances mobility isn’t really a combat skill, with that Kageseigi was right. And, like I said: Other classes can do that as well.

ETA: So maybe: We can’t really say what a thief should and shouldn’t have until we know what is going to happen with the other classes.

ETA²: I only remember Fat Disgrace because his char has got really skimpy clothes and I need to interfere with one of his duels because I got the blame for it while I didn’t do anything – so I’m haunting him (lie).
Carved your names into my desk and filled them with red ink, yo!

Asrat.2645:

As long as we are as mobile, we cant be too strong in 1v1.
———————————
And: ‘mobility is not a combat skill.’
That is not true. Mobility is the strongest combat skill.
It doesnt matter what games you play, but movement, positioning, rotation, whatever you want to call it, its a pro players asset and will win the war.
It will not win the fight unfortunately, and thats why a lot of us are so frustrated.

Jana.6831:

Also: Kageseigi and you meant different kinds of mobility, I think.
Mobility in combat is being hampered with chill and slow (although I’m not sure that many classes can apply it) – so there is already counterplay and for my taste it’s too much counterplay actually. It’s not as if thieves or anyone can really move around like they want to (in combat). When it comes to travelling distances mobility isn’t really a combat skill, with that Kageseigi was right. And, like I said: Other classes can do that as well.

That may very well be the case. Two different types of mobility. And the following is the reasoning for my way of thinking… be it accurate or not…

As for in-combat mobility, we can’t run any faster than anyone else. And swiftness is everywhere. We can’t dodge any more than anyone else (unless you’re a Daredevil). You could dodge slightly more with Acrobatics, but then you lose damage potential, and that’s already lacking. Chill and Crippled still affect us as much as anyone unless you take Acrobatics, which again decreases damage potential.

The main source of combat mobility is in our shadowsteps, and that’s mainly tied into weapons. And each of those has their own weaknesses. The Sword/Dagger is, perhaps, the strongest in mobility, giving both gap closer as well as gap opener… plus evades. Dagger/Pistol has a blinding gap closer which is amazing, but it lacks a gap opener and evades. Dagger/Dagger lacks a shadowstepping gap closer, any kind of gap opener, and also blinds. Pistol/Dagger has the gap opener a ranged weapon needs, but the weapon set is slow for killing, and Pistol/Pistol provides nothing.

Shortbow is by far the most mobile weapon, but it’s combat mobility is extremely limited. Infiltrator’s Arrow is mainly an escape tool. Disabling Shot provides evades, but it does use valuable initiative, and using it also means you’re locked out of melee combat for 10 seconds.

What is the main problem with Dagger/Pistol’s Shadow Shot? The same problem that Steal has. It’s a one-way ticket into the jaws of death. Blinding the opponent is very helpful, but it only lasts for one strike. What happens after that? You start eating everything. You can blind again, but it takes time, and it uses initiative. You can dodge to create distance, but dodges are scarce, and what are you going to do outside of melee range? Just rinse and repeat until you’re out of initiative and/or dodges. The best case scenario is that you did enough damage to down your target. If not, it’s time to switch to Shortbow and get out of there… provided you have the 6 initiative to do so… and provided that your opponent does not also have the mobility to catch you or ranged weapons to down you.

As for out-of-combat mobility, yes, we’ve got it. Thieves can travel long distances faster than others consistently. How much faster? It depends on the path. but as for flat ground, there are some pretty speedy competitors out there. So is our mobility that much greater than others to justify our disadvantage in close combat? I don’t think so.

The point being that mobility doesn’t help a squishy Thief to kill a tanky Guardian… or “name your profession here.”

There are only two things that can do that. Either strengthen the Thief or weaken the opponent. And there are only two ways to effectively strengthen the Thief. Either improve its offense or improve its melee defense.

Until then, using a WWII example, we are like little Sherman tanks trying to take on a giant Tiger tank. We may be fast, but we are at a significant disadvantage if we ever get into combat range.

I’m not saying make the Thief super-powerful or easy to play. Just give us a good shot at holding our own in melee without having to run away. Even if it’s just easier to get and stay behind an opponent so we’re not as vulnerable.

Basically, it comes down to this. We can’t use tricks like making our opponent fight facing into the sun so he’s blinded. We can position ourselves on cliffs to have position advantages, but so can anyone else. But it all comes down to the fact that the Thief is a melee fighter. In order to do full damage, it must be in melee range of the target. In doing so, the Thief is extremely vulnerable to incoming melee attacks… and it cannot afford to trade blows with anyone. So no matter how fast you can move around the map, when you’re face-to-face with the baddie, you’re going to die.

Example… “Dodge This”
https://youtu.be/ggFKLxAQBbc?t=17