Guild Wars 2

coso.9173:

it looks like most of the people commenting here just are tinking about PVP. not all of us do PVP, remember that.

Not true – I’m a wvw player which is basically pve, ask anet.

But honestly: I can run with my vanilla thief build (DA, CS, T) through the HoT maps, with D/D SB and am fine – I can do whatever I want in PvE and am fine. Doesn’t mean PvE thief couldn’t use a buff as well but every buff thief might get is because these “pvp kittens” who tried to make the class heard for now 7 months. (I hope you get my point).

ETA: Right, I forgot raids – I don’t think more damage is helping in raids, tbh. But I have yet to be in one – so I can’t really judge.

Jana.6831:

ETA: Right, I forgot raids – I don’t think more damage is helping in raids, tbh. But I have yet to be in one – so I can’t really judge.

Basically the raids are a DPS check, but nothing that can’t be done with a thief in party.

Zerker is not the only build available for thief, there are condi thieves out there too. Why only buff up auto attack thief and not condi thief’s traits? Again Anet tunnel visioning on how they think a class should be played.

I hope Acro gets what it needs to make it useful and set it apart. Maybe some boons and team support along with more mobility. I won’t complain about an AA buff, but I hope that the skills that spend initiative get a look. Does anyone even use Dancing Dagger or Body Shot ever?

Also, why does the quick mobile class have no superspeed, quickness, or alacrity? Why does the master of stealth have the easiest stealth to deny and the jack-of-all-trades class (Engi/Scrapper) gets near perma group stealth in one skill?

Galandil.9641:

Jana.6831:

ETA: Right, I forgot raids – I don’t think more damage is helping in raids, tbh. But I have yet to be in one – so I can’t really judge.

Basically the raids are a DPS check, but nothing that can’t be done with a thief in party.

The problem my buddies had while in a raid was survivability – none of them thief. So I guess pure DPS won’t help thief there either

From a PVE perspective (mainly raiding) – Buffing Theifs damage and survivability (acrobatics) is defenitely a good start but it won’t get us into the META or a spot on a raid team in any serious capacity unless we are given a useful utility/boon that benefits the raid squad like Mesmers, Revenant’s and Warriors have.

With that being said if Anet delivers on its promise of giving Theifs higher damage and better survivabitlity it might not be a complete liability to bring a Thief to a raid like it is now.

Zodryn.4216:

Also, why does the quick mobile class have no superspeed, quickness, or alacrity? Why does the master of stealth have the easiest stealth to deny and the jack-of-all-trades class (Engi/Scrapper) gets near perma group stealth in one skill?

You realize that Alacrity does almost nothing for Thieves correct?

Why did he specify “melee autoattacks” when SB and MH Pistol have the autoattacks in most need of retuning?

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Zodryn.4216:

Also, why does the quick mobile class have no superspeed, quickness, or alacrity? Why does the master of stealth have the easiest stealth to deny and the jack-of-all-trades class (Engi/Scrapper) gets near perma group stealth in one skill?

You realize that Alacrity does almost nothing for Thieves correct?

Group alacrity would make us more desirable in raids (why not on thrill of the crime) and even solo it benefits our utilities, which usually make a big difference in our survival (shadowstep, signet of agility) or damage (venoms). 66% faster regen is extremely good even if it doesn’t benefit our weapon skills.

Funny how 4 of the top five posts on the balance thread on reddit are thief related (the other being a tldr post).

Einlanzer.1627:

Why did he specify “melee autoattacks” when SB and MH Pistol have the autoattacks in most need of retuning?

Cause it’s Anet, they have no clue about what’s really needed.

And this is the Nth example.

Einlanzer.1627:

Why did he specify “melee autoattacks” when SB and MH Pistol have the autoattacks in most need of retuning?

SB as a whole needs retuning.

Zodryn.4216:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Zodryn.4216:

Also, why does the quick mobile class have no superspeed, quickness, or alacrity? Why does the master of stealth have the easiest stealth to deny and the jack-of-all-trades class (Engi/Scrapper) gets near perma group stealth in one skill?

You realize that Alacrity does almost nothing for Thieves correct?

Group alacrity would make us more desirable in raids (why not on thrill of the crime) and even solo it benefits our utilities, which usually make a big difference in our survival (shadowstep, signet of agility) or damage (venoms). 66% faster regen is extremely good even if it doesn’t benefit our weapon skills.

Yeah those can be decent, but I guess I am of the mind set certain classes should have there niche mechanics, say keep Chrono as the only class with Alacrity and so on it would provide more distinction and allow for more diversity now it would be great if Thief was given more group Utility maybe by redesigning Venoms or some thing else.
And FYI they are nerfing alacrity so it may not even be 66% come tomorrow

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Zodryn.4216:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Zodryn.4216:

Also, why does the quick mobile class have no superspeed, quickness, or alacrity? Why does the master of stealth have the easiest stealth to deny and the jack-of-all-trades class (Engi/Scrapper) gets near perma group stealth in one skill?

You realize that Alacrity does almost nothing for Thieves correct?

Group alacrity would make us more desirable in raids (why not on thrill of the crime) and even solo it benefits our utilities, which usually make a big difference in our survival (shadowstep, signet of agility) or damage (venoms). 66% faster regen is extremely good even if it doesn’t benefit our weapon skills.

Yeah those can be decent, but I guess I am of the mind set certain classes should have there niche mechanics, say keep Chrono as the only class with Alacrity and so on it would provide more distinction and allow for more diversity now it would be great if Thief was given more group Utility maybe by redesigning Venoms or some thing else.
And FYI they are nerfing alacrity so it may not even be 66% come tomorrow

What other boon or condi is only accessible by one class? I’d say their unique mechanic is being able to reset any and all skills on their bar as well as health and endurance. Alacrity just supplements the time theme. My point was just that thief has little to no access to the “do stuff quickly” boons, which seems weird.

I don’t enjoy condi thief, spamming deathblossom and venoms is really stale.
If we had similair options with different weapon sets that were as effective it could be good. So I hope they’ll add/increase offensive conditions for AA’s, like some extra stacks of bleed/poison.

They should also consider lowering some of the weapon skill’s initiative cost.

Zodryn.4216:

What other boon or condi is only accessible by one class? I’d say their unique mechanic is being able to reset any and all skills on their bar as well as health and endurance. Alacrity just supplements the time theme. My point was just that thief has little to no access to the “do stuff quickly” boons, which seems weird.

He’s probably referring to stuff as Banners, Empowered Allies and Assassins presence.
Alacrity pretty much falls in the same category, right now.

as if you have time to hit your target with a lot of autoattacks in any pvp enviroment. i really hope there is more to it and some actual nerfs to all these passive defense invuls other classes have.

this is a massive pve buff tho, unfortunately i don’t care a single bit about pve.

=conclusion: this doesn’t sound too promising yet.

luzt.7692:

Zodryn.4216:

What other boon or condi is only accessible by one class? I’d say their unique mechanic is being able to reset any and all skills on their bar as well as health and endurance. Alacrity just supplements the time theme. My point was just that thief has little to no access to the “do stuff quickly” boons, which seems weird.

He’s probably referring to stuff as Banners, Empowered Allies and Assassins presence.
Alacrity pretty much falls in the same category, right now.

I could argue that stealth should be unique to thief, or at least that it should have the most access to it. Then we have mesmer and scrapper…

Zodryn.4216:

luzt.7692:

Zodryn.4216:

What other boon or condi is only accessible by one class? I’d say their unique mechanic is being able to reset any and all skills on their bar as well as health and endurance. Alacrity just supplements the time theme. My point was just that thief has little to no access to the “do stuff quickly” boons, which seems weird.

He’s probably referring to stuff as Banners, Empowered Allies and Assassins presence.
Alacrity pretty much falls in the same category, right now.

I could argue that stealth should be unique to thief, or at least that it should have the most access to it. Then we have mesmer and scrapper…

I wholeheartedly agree with Thieves being the epitome of stealth users, since you know they have a whole trait line dedicated to it should provide better group utility with stealth and all, Mesmers should have some access due to misdirection and thematics of the class, but engineers, Rangers and so on should have none imo.

But yes I was referring to how most classes have a unique way of buffing the party War has banned, Rangers have spirits, Revs have aspects while Chrono only has alacrity they should give all classes a group utility that makes them desirable in their own way that is unique.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Zodryn.4216:

luzt.7692:

Zodryn.4216:

What other boon or condi is only accessible by one class? I’d say their unique mechanic is being able to reset any and all skills on their bar as well as health and endurance. Alacrity just supplements the time theme. My point was just that thief has little to no access to the “do stuff quickly” boons, which seems weird.

He’s probably referring to stuff as Banners, Empowered Allies and Assassins presence.
Alacrity pretty much falls in the same category, right now.

I could argue that stealth should be unique to thief, or at least that it should have the most access to it. Then we have mesmer and scrapper…

I wholeheartedly agree with Thieves being the epitome of stealth users, since you know they have a whole trait line dedicated to it should provide better group utility with stealth and all, Mesmers should have some access due to misdirection and thematics of the class, but engineers, Rangers and so on should have none imo.

But yes I was referring to how most classes have a unique way of buffing the party War has banned, Rangers have spirits, Revs have aspects while Chrono only has alacrity they should give all classes a group utility that makes them desirable in their own way that is unique.

Venom share without Venom Aura would be great.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

But yes I was referring to how most classes have a unique way of buffing the party War has banned, Rangers have spirits, Revs have aspects while Chrono only has alacrity they should give all classes a group utility that makes them desirable in their own way that is unique.

It makes zero sense that guardians, who have a ton of party healing and aegis applications also have some of the best reflects in the game. Guardian prot should have always been about blocks, heals, and the best condi cleanse to go around the purification theme.

Thieves should really be the ones with all the reflects. It’s thematic in terms of it being flashy and tricky. I don’t know why, as an extremely anti-range class from a basic design level, that we don’t have significantly more reflects or projectile destruction abilities.

Pistol 5? This should destroy projectiles.
Deathblossom? Reflect.
Smoke screen? Cut that cooldown in half.
Daggerstorm? Actually that’s fine. Maybe increase the reflect radius?
CnD? 2s smoke field, destroys projectiles.
Pistol whip? Reflect

etc. etc.

Thief’s mobility and spammable skills make him the perfect choice for anti-projectile support. he should be the guy constantly shadowstepping around forcing ranged enemies to resposition or shoot at him. In stead of mostly long line reflects, thieves should have access to a bunch of small radius reflects on their init skills that force them to move around and get between shooters and targets to support their allies.

This has the added effect of making theives play extremely well against ranged opponents, giving them a clear design advantage in PvP as range controllers, and allowing them to better engage med range builds with skillful play. In this way we can keep the design idea that thieves aren’t strong long range fighters, but make them strong AGAINST long range fighters so they have a valuable role at all ranges.

remember, these are just goals, nothing concrete. wait for more specifics before deciding if it’s good or bad.

Gray.9041:

remember, these are just goals, nothing concrete. wait for more specifics before deciding if it’s good or bad.

Their stated goals should be correcting the biggest and most longstanding flaws thieves have, and they’re not. That doesn’t inspire confidence. I’ll gladly eat my words if they have a bunch of hidden plans they aren’t discussing but I have no idea why they’d aggressively bury the lede like that.

ANet: We’re fixing thieves. More auto attack damage.

Masochistic Desperate Thief: …but that’s not what’s needed; need more survivability and team utility and participation.

ANet: Don’t worry, more damage will fix that.

Masochistic Desperate Thief: …but…that still doesn’t address the problem of the Trickery trait line.

ANet: MORE DAMAGE!!!

Masochistic Desperate Thief: Why am I forced to take Trickery for sPvP to be decent with 3 bonus initiative? Shouldn’t you make that baseline?

ANet: MOAR DAMAGE BREH…DON’T WORRY…MOAR DAMAGE!

Masochistic Desperate Thief: …but…but how does that address the problem of Steal having a stupid long base cooldown?

ANet: Shut up and take more damage and be happy.

Masochistic Desperate Thief: Fine! =[

Jana.6831:

coso.9173:

it looks like most of the people commenting here just are tinking about PVP. not all of us do PVP, remember that.

Not true – I’m a wvw player which is basically pve, ask anet.

But honestly: I can run with my vanilla thief build (DA, CS, T) through the HoT maps, with D/D SB and am fine – I can do whatever I want in PvE and am fine. Doesn’t mean PvE thief couldn’t use a buff as well but every buff thief might get is because these “pvp kittens” who tried to make the class heard for now 7 months. (I hope you get my point).

ETA: Right, I forgot raids – I don’t think more damage is helping in raids, tbh. But I have yet to be in one – so I can’t really judge.

This is because thieves are still good at eating bad players. We still have one the highest opening in game bursts. Most word vs world players don’t have much 1v1, 1v2 mechnaical skill or knowledge. Look at how many ruby or diamond tier player you see there vs emerald, sapphire, its quite telling.

I’m choosing to remain cautiously optimistic. At least they didn’t mention anything that needs to be “toned down” for us. Karl, I believe in you!

Zodryn.4216:

I’m choosing to remain cautiously optimistic. At least they didn’t mention anything that needs to be “toned down” for us. Karl, I believe in you!

I don’t mean this as a dig at you specifically and I’m glad you can feel optimistic here and I hope it pays off. I just think we’re in a really dark place when thieves are the least sought after profession for any area of the game who also have the worst elite spec, but we’re still like “Well they didn’t mention wanting to make us even worse, so this is good news!”

Can’t really judge anything about this patch based on a short paragraph but at the same time, you can judge it based on the history of thief updates.

I don’t like the sound of upping our auto attack damage as a form of buffing our damage. Initiative is meant for utility and timing bursts and they do fall into that line, however it takes much more effort to pull it off compared to other professions. Not to mention being sub-par in everything and superior at nothing. We don’t do anything really unique that other professions can do and that is a big problem.

-We don’t really offer any unique stealth other than granting resilience of shadows, but our group stealth is awful anyways
-Our bursts take much more effort which can be done faster or more reliably with another profession
-Our only unique support is with venoms, which are not very good even with VA and are next to useless without it
-Our mobility can be tested or even matched by builds that perform far better in a team setting begging the question, why are we here?
-We die incredibly quick in melee range and are puny at ranged
-For having a build centered against boon heavy enemies, it doesn’t seem all that unique. At least necro corrupts boons and Mesmer can remove or steal them from groups, we just take 1 at a time from a very obvious rotation.

I feel like we’re just given the basics of good ideas and the other professions get to expand on the real ideas that, strangely enough, see a ton of gameplay. At least we look cool using them, sometimes…

You know what……..If i can finally play Thief without getting destroyed and mauled, I’m Happy.

MAKE THEIF PLAYABLE AND VIABLE WOOOOT! HAVE HOPE!

The HoT beta is almost over, guys!

rennlc.7346:

The HoT beta is almost over, guys!

You mean early access.

James Quall.6029:

Zodryn.4216:

I’m choosing to remain cautiously optimistic. At least they didn’t mention anything that needs to be “toned down” for us. Karl, I believe in you!

I don’t mean this as a dig at you specifically and I’m glad you can feel optimistic here and I hope it pays off. I just think we’re in a really dark place when thieves are the least sought after profession for any area of the game who also have the worst elite spec, but we’re still like “Well they didn’t mention wanting to make us even worse, so this is good news!”

Well, if acro gets rethemed and becomes as cohesive as Daredevil, the line could end up pretty decent. If we have 2 lines dedicated to evasion, it would be sort of weird. Retheming it to “Infiltration Arts” or the like would give them a broad umbrella of shadowstep modifiers and boon hate.

I wont get my hopes high.We all know what will happen since core mechanics will not be changed as far as i can see.If they work only on acro traits its bad they also need to tune some of our utilitys cd`s.Trying to rework acro mean they will have to buff it to a level that we can chose it insted of deadly , trickery or daredevil which i hightly doubt they will do.Hight risk hight reward gameplay i`m all for it but i still think we will just be hight risk class not sure about reward since the cc and sustain other classess have right now are way better then ours.
Wish they will take a look at our low hp pool our lack of stability or resistance.
Autos dmg buff sound ok but dont forget the “LOL” pistol dmg buff and its hidden nerf.
Dont forget that the devs didnt deliver their past promises about the thiefs changes in past blogs so just my 2 cents.

Also in general after the xpac i felt like other classess are overly done in terms of improvements and thief is in kinda ok spot if everything else gets toned down to good and balance level instead of lol dmg number cc`s and sustains.

I’d like to see the new balance open up more build variants for thief other than the standard cookie cutter build. Moar D/D and P/P

With the state of meta, daredevil & trickery seems to be the go to trait wise

Doggie.3184:

rennlc.7346:

The HoT beta is almost over, guys!

You mean early access.

Aha! That’s a much better quip. xD

Tengu.5267:

“Thief

In the recent history of thieves, their damage roles have been largely burst-based due to initiative, while their autoattacks do little to sustain their DPS. In addition, initiative often needs to be used defensively, which can take a toll on overall damage output. Our design for this profession tends to lean toward damage, mobility, and evasiveness. In the first quarter of this year, we’ll be looking to drastically improve thief melee autoattacks until their overall sustained damage when coupled with initiative use is extremely dangerous. In addition to the damage improvements, we’ve done a bit of reworking and improvements to the Acrobatics specialization line."

This sounds promising..

So wait…you’re going to make us spam “1” more and a “bit of reworking” on acrobat?

That’s it?

This is what you choose to tease us with?

Sigh. Can we PLEASE get so someone who ACTUALLY plays thief regularly to talk to us?

This is just sad.

I apologize in advance if you do not understand what I say (french Inside…!)

I think that one of the main problem of the thief, it’s his initiative. Other classes have cooldown on their weapon’skills. When they use all their cooldowns with a weapon, they can switch to a new weapon and continue to launch news attacks (news cooldowns).

Why do not create a similar system with our initiatives’s bar : I mean creating a specific or independent bar of initiatives, for each set of weapons used by the thief.
It would allow the thief to consume his initiatives and then, when he switchs a new weapon, he obtains a new full bar of initiatives. Meanwhile the first bar filled normally until he decides to use it again.

In the reality of the game, the thief uses 12 (or 15) points of initiative to manage two sets of weapons. If at least we had capacities allowing to accelerate this regen, but we haven’t it anymore. At the beginning of the game, we had a capacity which allowed us to get back a point of initiative on criticals strikes. Why not to put back it again ?

PS : Sorry for using translator ! xD

Armaelus.6120:

I apologize in advance if you do not understand what I say (french Inside…!)

I think that one of the main problem of the thief, it’s his initiative. Other classes have cooldown on their weapon’skills. When they use all their cooldowns with a weapon, they can switch to a new weapon and continue to launch news attacks (news cooldowns).

Why do not create a similar system with our initiatives’s bar : I mean creating a specific or independent bar of initiatives, for each set of weapons used by the thief.
It would allow the thief to consume his initiatives and then, when he switchs a new weapon, he obtains a new full bar of initiatives. Meanwhile the first bar filled normally until he decides to use it again.

In the reality of the game, the thief uses 12 (or 15) points of initiative to manage two sets of weapons. If at least we had capacities allowing to accelerate this regen, but we haven’t it anymore. At the beginning of the game, we had a capacity which allowed us to get back a point of initiative on criticals strikes. Why not to put back it again ?

PS : Sorry for using translator ! xD

you know there is a trait which when you switch weapon you gain 3 ini, when you steal 2 ini, when you evade 1 ini, and a signet which refill you ini bit sooner

Could add something like:
“Shadow’s Mark” Any critical hit on this target does 50% more damage.
Would make Thieves more appealing to take in Raids, and they would have something unique to Thief.

Yeah I know, but using trickery again and again. I feel boring using all days long the same skill, the same gameplay with the thief… For the first time of this game, I would like to have the choice, playing my thief like I want. Not likes the other…!

Zodryn.4216:

I’m choosing to remain cautiously optimistic. At least they didn’t mention anything that needs to be “toned down” for us. Karl, I believe in you!

I’m hoping for a good showing too, but remember that requiring a target on steal was considered an improvement.

just because they say it’s going to be an improvement, doesn’t mean that it is.

chronometria.3708:

Its a rare day that I applaud news of a thief buff, but as a warrior main, I offer a toast to my thief cousins – “Lets murder some bunkers and restore the balance of guildwars”

Amen to that.

I suspect a 5-10% damage buff on AA’s.

Don’t know what they will do with acro. Considering it’s all too useless and so not picked too often, it might remain there, which means that nothing “bad” happened… Maybe they will joking add trap traits into it… Like on dodge/evade you drop a trap… Or maybe, they will gut it some more, for the next elite… who the kitten knows, honestly…

Not really expecting much.

Zero Day.2594:

Not really expecting much.

I’m baffled they are baffled. Really. When the traitline merge notes came up most thieves said “great more damage” – Pointing out that our defenses go down the drain brought me: “Are we really playing the same game? This is great news for thieves!!” – turns out more damage doesn’t help especially not since the traitlines of other classes don’t seem to have been nerfed – who would’ve guessed?
So yes – I expect D/P being viable again half a year from now, S/D somewhen in the future and D/D never again. P/D depends mostly on what they plan to do with condis – won’t probably be viable again either, P/P never was and likely never will unless the whole weapon set gets an overhaul. SB will likely stay as it is cause #5, you know?! And I still don’t know too much about staff and I guess that weapon depends on how other classes will be nerfed/buffed.
But lets just throw MOAR DAMAGE, right? Solves everything.

Spartacus.5243:

Just lol @ these sad kents complaining about thief. If you kittens would get good and play staff and my build. you wouldnt even ask for a buff lmao. im doing amazing.

can we already get this spammer banned?

fumcheg.1936:

Spartacus.5243:

Just lol @ these sad kents complaining about thief. If you kittens would get good and play staff and my build. you wouldnt even ask for a buff lmao. im doing amazing.

can we already get this spammer banned?

Considering that all it takes to kill him is one backstab or one true shot
Funny how noobs hype staff, just like the noobs that call DH traps op, both are sets/builds that only work well/op against noobs ^^

Doggie.3184:

rennlc.7346:

The HoT beta is almost over, guys!

You mean early access.

rofl

By the way, do you think when they said AA they meant to backstab? Since it’s in the AA chain… (if you get what i mean)

Yeah, I got a bit of a sinking feeling when I read Karl’s “melee”: I hope that doesn’t mean that fixing non-melee Thieves is being kicked even further to the right, with the next major balance patch after this one.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “It’s only five skills, for shame. Other MMOs offer tens or hundreds of skills that mostly work and are balanced. Five! Get it sorted already, for goodness sake.”

Spartacus.5243:

Just lol @ these sad kents complaining about thief. If you kittens would get good and play staff and my build. you wouldnt even ask for a buff lmao. im doing amazing.

Ugh.

/15egocentrists