Guild Wars 2

Doomdesire.9365:

I’m actually for steal interrupting casting. That is the only think I would find about backstab that truly needs a nerf.

That’s what some of us have been pitching since the advent of the first backstab nerf thread, but no one seems to listen, they just want the raw damage output of the thief to be reduced so they can roflstomp us.

steal interrupting casting would kill a lot of uses for it, such as steal stomping and precasting caltrops. It would also be inconsistent with other teleport skills (such as blink/lightning flash) currently in game.

Breaking cool mechanics like these is stupid. Also, Mug is broken OP.

On an unrelated note, I got hit for an 18,532 kill shot on my necro earlier.

Pics or it didn’t happen. I’ve never even heard of a legit 18K+ backstab with the recent assassins signet change

Doomdesire.9365:

Pics or it didn’t happen. I’ve never even heard of a legit 18K+ backstab with the recent assassins signet change

I think he meant kill shot as in the warrior rifle burst skill.

@doomdesire
Everybody knows thieves are a major unbalance right now speaking out won’t stop the nerfs as they are rightfully deserved ! trying to bring down other peoples threads about this issue won’t work either, this is a skill based game !

NOT catacalism !!!!

Latinkuro.9420:

@doomdesire
Everybody knows thieves are a major unbalance right now speaking out won’t stop the nerfs as they are rightfully deserved ! trying to bring down other peoples threads about this issue won’t work either, this is a skill based game !

NOT catacalism !!!!

Yes, a skill based game. Use a little skill, and the thief is toast unless he can produce more skill.

bwillb.2165:

remove the ability to cast mug in the middle of CnD

That’s fine as long as it is a change to that mechanic everywhere that it is available, not just these specific skills.

lower the damage of mug by about 50%

The damage coefficient at extreme levels of stats, maybe. It’s already not that big of a hit with anything but the most extreme of fringe cases.

possibly even remove the vulnerability stacks from CnD, but only if necessary.

No, that’s not needed at all. Thieves don’t have a lot of vulnerability available, and it fits this skill quite nicely.

how about this? have it so that mug does a 1 second knockdown instead of doing any damage, and counts as an actual attack. that way it would break the stealth provided by CnD, but the target would be prone and open to a few free attacks.

Phantom.8130:

how about this? have it so that mug does a 1 second knockdown instead of doing any damage, and counts as an actual attack. that way it would break the stealth provided by CnD, but the target would be prone and open to a few free attacks.

Very interesting idea, also lowers the damage of the combo. But I believe that those ppl who whine about this combo will consider it a buff to the Thief (Knockdown? 10-point trait? Nerf nerf nerf), so I think that this would be even worse for these forums

Pistol Whip, Devourer Venom, and next backstab? We have the lowest health next to guardians, the fewest choices in weapon skills, the most limited class utility (most vets, champs, bosses are immune to effects of half the stolen stuff). And half of our traits, weapon skill and utility skill slots are dedicated to just being able to get in to do damage and live to get back out.

Now we are also dealing with our burst damage, which is the hallmark of the thief/assassin/rogue archtype, taking a hit?

From a numbers and efficiency perspective, assuming more dmg nerfs come down the pipes, why play a thief as opposed to a warrior? Warriors are just as mobile, have higher damage, can provide more support for the party, and quickness + 100 blades is more devastating than quickness + pistol whip ever was. The only think you lose is stealth and the teleport skills, but why would you even need them when you can get double the AC and three times the health pool?

Stealth and its limitations are the mechanic that you use to balance being physically fragile with very high damage potential. Without that potential there is no reason to be fragile, which means there is no reason for stealth, which pretty much eliminates the need for a thief to exist.

Phantom.8130:

bwillb.2165:

remove the ability to cast mug in the middle of CnD

That’s fine as long as it is a change to that mechanic everywhere that it is available, not just these specific skills.

lower the damage of mug by about 50%

The damage coefficient at extreme levels of stats, maybe. It’s already not that big of a hit with anything but the most extreme of fringe cases.

possibly even remove the vulnerability stacks from CnD, but only if necessary.

No, that’s not needed at all. Thieves don’t have a lot of vulnerability available, and it fits this skill quite nicely.

how about this? have it so that mug does a 1 second knockdown instead of doing any damage, and counts as an actual attack. that way it would break the stealth provided by CnD, but the target would be prone and open to a few free attacks.

That would make it even more powerful in PvP, and kill Mug as a valid option in dungeons. It also already counts as an attack, it just goes off before the thief is actually stealthed when timed right.

One possible option, though, which would curb this burst without making it useless in PvE, would be to have mug apply to the target when using the stolen skill rather than when stealing. This would add a second or so to the minimum time required to complete the full burst combo, and likely split the damage before backstab so that half of it would come after backstab, making it even easier to avoid.

bwillb.2165:

Phantom.8130:

bwillb.2165:

remove the ability to cast mug in the middle of CnD

That’s fine as long as it is a change to that mechanic everywhere that it is available, not just these specific skills.

lower the damage of mug by about 50%

The damage coefficient at extreme levels of stats, maybe. It’s already not that big of a hit with anything but the most extreme of fringe cases.

possibly even remove the vulnerability stacks from CnD, but only if necessary.

No, that’s not needed at all. Thieves don’t have a lot of vulnerability available, and it fits this skill quite nicely.

how about this? have it so that mug does a 1 second knockdown instead of doing any damage, and counts as an actual attack. that way it would break the stealth provided by CnD, but the target would be prone and open to a few free attacks.

That would make it even more powerful in PvP, and kill Mug as a valid option in dungeons. It also already counts as an attack, it just goes off before the thief is actually stealthed when timed right.

One possible option, though, which would curb this burst without making it useless in PvE, would be to have mug apply to the target when using the stolen skill rather than when stealing. This would add a second or so to the minimum time required to complete the full burst combo, and likely split the damage before backstab so that half of it would come after backstab, making it even easier to avoid.

How would that work with that tree thing you steal from rangers?

Or the skill you steal from mesmers?

Shizzlenit.7648:

bwillb.2165:

Phantom.8130:

bwillb.2165:

remove the ability to cast mug in the middle of CnD

That’s fine as long as it is a change to that mechanic everywhere that it is available, not just these specific skills.

lower the damage of mug by about 50%

The damage coefficient at extreme levels of stats, maybe. It’s already not that big of a hit with anything but the most extreme of fringe cases.

possibly even remove the vulnerability stacks from CnD, but only if necessary.

No, that’s not needed at all. Thieves don’t have a lot of vulnerability available, and it fits this skill quite nicely.

how about this? have it so that mug does a 1 second knockdown instead of doing any damage, and counts as an actual attack. that way it would break the stealth provided by CnD, but the target would be prone and open to a few free attacks.

That would make it even more powerful in PvP, and kill Mug as a valid option in dungeons. It also already counts as an attack, it just goes off before the thief is actually stealthed when timed right.

One possible option, though, which would curb this burst without making it useless in PvE, would be to have mug apply to the target when using the stolen skill rather than when stealing. This would add a second or so to the minimum time required to complete the full burst combo, and likely split the damage before backstab so that half of it would come after backstab, making it even easier to avoid.

How would that work with that tree thing you steal from rangers?

Or the skill you steal from mesmers?

Hit your current target if you’re in range, I imagine.

Yeah I didn’t run back stab cause its not viable in competitive play and then they nerfed my dancing daggers to garbage. My team just kicked me they said if i cant play guardian then they will find some one else…

Zawaka.5170:

Yeah I didn’t run back stab cause its not viable in competitive play and then they nerfed my dancing daggers to garbage. My team just kicked me they said if i cant play guardian then they will find some one else…

You have really dumb ppl in the team, right?
I play darts in RL competitively, and it´s like if we kick our player because he had a bad day and performance once… You should find a team with a normal people and forget about those nut-cases….

AcidicVision.5498:

Pistol Whip, Devourer Venom, and next backstab? We have the lowest health next to guardians, the fewest choices in weapon skills, the most limited class utility (most vets, champs, bosses are immune to effects of half the stolen stuff). And half of our traits, weapon skill and utility skill slots are dedicated to just being able to get in to do damage and live to get back out.

Now we are also dealing with our burst damage, which is the hallmark of the thief/assassin/rogue archtype, taking a hit?

From a numbers and efficiency perspective, assuming more dmg nerfs come down the pipes, why play a thief as opposed to a warrior? Warriors are just as mobile, have higher damage, can provide more support for the party, and quickness + 100 blades is more devastating than quickness + pistol whip ever was. The only think you lose is stealth and the teleport skills, but why would you even need them when you can get double the AC and three times the health pool?

Stealth and its limitations are the mechanic that you use to balance being physically fragile with very high damage potential. Without that potential there is no reason to be fragile, which means there is no reason for stealth, which pretty much eliminates the need for a thief to exist.

Pretty much this. My Thief is starting to lose all purpose. Damage output? Soon enough, a Warrior is UNIVERSALLY going to be better, not just better in 50-60% of areas. Support? Every other profession can do better. Control? Beaten by almost every other profession as well, save for perhaps Headshot, DD and TS.

I’m sick of the morons that just want to strip everything that the Thief has, make them a pseudo-Warrior and earn themselves free kills.

The developers need to let the dust settle for a few months and give QQ players time to re-evaluate the thief after the current nerfs.

They should stop the nerfing for a month or three and see if the complaints are still rolling in.

Let’s not forget we’re an assassin type profession so we’re meant to hit hard out of the shadows. That’s what defines us.

Given our class has difficulty taking down Guardians, bunker Elementalists and various other classes I don’t think we are OP. I think we are about right.

Anyway, my original point: they should leave the thief alone for some months to see the impact of the changes they have made. Don’t keep nerfing and nerfing until you take it one step too far. I already have a level 80 ranger who has suffered from the over nerfing – remember the OP spirit build from beta? No Ranger’s run spirit builds now – don’t make the same mistake on thief.

STRanger.5120:

Zawaka.5170:

Yeah I didn’t run back stab cause its not viable in competitive play and then they nerfed my dancing daggers to garbage. My team just kicked me they said if i cant play guardian then they will find some one else…

You have really dumb ppl in the team, right?
I play darts in RL competitively, and it´s like if we kick our player because he had a bad day and performance once… You should find a team with a normal people and forget about those nut-cases….

No, it’s not like that at all. To use your analogy, it’s like kicking a player because his arm got chopped off and now he can only throw darts with his weaker arm.

Okamakiri.8746:

No, it’s not like that at all. To use your analogy, it’s like kicking a player because his arm got chopped off and now he can only throw darts with his weaker arm.

Chopping off an arm would equal to deletion of all Thieves skills except autoattack, believe me
It´s not the “weaker” arm, it´s more like if you´ve never thrown a single dart.

The nerf can be reverted/adjusted (bad days/performance issues can be overcame), but you can´t get back an arm which was chopped off :-)

Kerishan.8460:

Really? Just search on youtube “backstab thief” and you’ll see an huge amount of 20k+ bursts in sPvP/tPvP.
Here’s one I’ve randomly found using that query and looking for most recent videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvH9IA97bzw

You have watched this video? In this video a glass cannon thief doesn’t hit more than 6K/7K and you wrote is simple to find a thief that hit hard for 20k?
It is impossible for a thief land a backstab for 20K NOW. Only on bunnies.

actually any class can hit bunnies for ~100k + poor bunnies

I’m actually thinking on quit the game, the non stop nerf to the thief is already stupid, i really thought that Anet could be a good game manager but i can see that i was wrong and they can’t handle all the winning, besides they buff more and more their loved warrior that was OP since the beta weekends.

AcidicVision.5498:

Now we are also dealing with our burst damage, which is the hallmark of the thief/assassin/rogue archtype, taking a hit?

Thief =! Rogue

Not sure where you guys are getting this, but the thief class is not a rogue from WoW or a sin from Aion. GW2 is not balanced for that type of gameplay…which is why it’s being removed in a slow, controlled fashion.

AcidicVision.5498:

Warriors are just as mobile

Warriors are just as mobile as thieves? Really? Even most BAD thieves would have to concede that no class can touch the thief in mobility with exception of, maybe, an out of combat elementalist. Initiative vs. cooldowns, teleport skills vs movement-based skills. There’s no comparison. Cripple and/or chill any other class and their movement is impaired. Shadowstep isn’t hampered by any slow effects.

AcidicVision.5498:

Stealth and its limitations are the mechanic that you use to balance being physically fragile with very high damage potential. Without that potential there is no reason to be fragile, which means there is no reason for stealth, which pretty much eliminates the need for a thief to exist.

The ability to stealth offsets the frailty of the class, not the damage. Stealth and trickery, coupled with the highest mobility in the game as well as the most frequent dodge capacity is your defense as a thief. Thats what the low HP and medium armor comes from.

Stealth doesn’t mean you get burst damage. Quite the opposite, in fact. What you’re suggesting is that because you have the ability to confuse players, hide, run, and avoid damage better than any other class in PvP, you should get the highest burst damage as well. Does that sound like game balance?

Watch good players with condi-build thieves. Its amazing how little damage you take as a thief if you know how to do more than Steal+CnD+Backstab.

Over and over have I read thieves saying : if you’re getting hit for 8k, get better gear!

Imagine an elementalist with full berserker gear. Pure glass cannon. He would probably have less than 12k hp and about 1100 armor. Not a good idea, but this is theory-crafting.

How would he fight a thief unleashing from stealth? He WILL be hit for all his hp within the first second.

If the answer is : just don’t do it, then why can thieves? And, more importantly, why is it JUST thieves stopping people from going full glass cannon? Against ALL OTHER classes you would stand at least a chance.

A lot of professions use the same mechanic that we use with steal not breaking animations. Stop asking for that to be nerfed. It’s a great mechanic that requires a tiny bit of skill. It also allows us to 1shot stomp teleporting thieves when steal is up.

I think thief is in a balanced position in PvP now, but maybe somewhat weaker than it should in PvE.

@Frye
All glass cannons except Necros can total 12k+ dmg in 3 skills / 2-3sec.
Glass Eles totals 12k with Burning speed → Fire grab → Arcane Wave.
Glass Ranger hits for 12-15k in 2.5s with frenzied Rapid Fire.
Glass Warrior hits for 20k frenzy-bull-HB, 15k Killshot, 8-10k Volley.
Glass Mesmer hits for 18k with shatter.
Glass Engi totals 15-20k with that grenade combo thing.

If there’s some way to do a 20k backstab combo, someone please tell me (hint: it doesn’t happen). I’ve never gotten even close to that and I’ve tried every cheesy gimmick imaginable.

Auesis.7301:

Soon enough, a Warrior is UNIVERSALLY going to be better, not just better in 50-60% of areas.

We’re already there.

Redscope.6215:

Warriors are just as mobile as thieves? Really? Even most BAD thieves would have to concede that no class can touch the thief in mobility with exception of, maybe, an out of combat elementalist.

Tell that to all the Warriors I’ve seen this week waltzing through enemy zergs ignoring everyone, swapping between the horn and a leap to negate any cc attempts, and keeping enough of a speed boost that I have to switch to SB and waste all of my initiative just to keep up.

The fact is that at release Thieves were in an okay state, but only an okay state. The nerfs since then have set us back to where only a few builds and weapon combinations are viable, and most of those rely on some uncanny emergent playstyle just to survive.

Don’t get me wrong, the Backstab combo does need to be nerfed (still. The latest attempt has made almost no difference to the backstab combo, but has ruined many other builds), but they need to look at why it works instead of just taking chunks out of base damage. For instance: Steal being cast in the middle of CnD. I’ve heard a suggestion to give Steal a .5 second cast time, and that might work. Another thing to look at would be the traits in the Precision trait line, as that’s where a large portion of the bonus damage of the combo comes from. 5 stacks of might on activation of a signet, and a signet that grants increased power on activation are just asking to be used together.

What I’d like to see is some of this changed around to lower that burst potential slightly and replace it with options for creating higher sustained damage for pretty much all of our weapon sets.

Red Falcon.8257:

I think thief is in a balanced position in PvP now, but maybe somewhat weaker than it should in PvE.

@Frye
All glass cannons except Necros can total 12k+ dmg in 3 skills / 2-3sec.
Glass Eles totals 12k with Burning speed -> Fire grab -> Arcane Wave.
Glass Ranger hits for 12-15k in 2.5s with frenzied Rapid Fire.
Glass Warrior hits for 20k frenzy-bull-HB, 15k Killshot, 8-10k Volley.
Glass Mesmer hits for 18k with shatter.
Glass Engi totals 15-20k with that grenade combo thing.

Dude….get real! none of those can’t be avoided!

You are conveniently forgetting the stealth thing : you get the first hit, always. Like I said : against the others our glass ele at least has a chance. That still stands, even if other professions could also oneshot him.

In other words : thieves prevent other classes from also going glass cannon. Thats the problem.

Frye.4608:

Red Falcon.8257:

I think thief is in a balanced position in PvP now, but maybe somewhat weaker than it should in PvE.

@Frye
All glass cannons except Necros can total 12k+ dmg in 3 skills / 2-3sec.
Glass Eles totals 12k with Burning speed -> Fire grab -> Arcane Wave.
Glass Ranger hits for 12-15k in 2.5s with frenzied Rapid Fire.
Glass Warrior hits for 20k frenzy-bull-HB, 15k Killshot, 8-10k Volley.
Glass Mesmer hits for 18k with shatter.
Glass Engi totals 15-20k with that grenade combo thing.

Dude….get real! none of those can’t be avoided!

You are conveniently forgetting the stealth thing : you get the first hit, always. Like I said : against the others our glass ele at least has a chance. That still stands, even if other professions could also oneshot him.

In other words : thieves prevent other classes from also going glass cannon. Thats the problem.

“I’m a 30/30/0/0/10 warrior with full berserker gear, but because I have endure pain on my bar, I’m no longer a glass cannon.”