Guild Wars 2

Quoted from a Game Dev earlier on the supposed ‘Backstab’ OP-ness:
“Just wanted you guys to know we’re looking at this specifically right now. We will probably bring down the raw spike DPS for some builds, but we’ll be careful to increase other areas to compensate.”
(this is not intended as a call out nor insult, just a topic of discussion)

Does anyone else disagree with this? Thieves don’t need yet another nerf in my opinion. Any form of ‘OP thief’ is a one trick pony. Take that trick away from them, and you’re basically beating a dead horse.

Discuss maturely please.

Overall damage nerf, no.

Same damage but more difficult to execute or easier to avoid/counter, yes.

Edit :Example (potentially a bad one), lower damage on BS but increase damage on #3 abilities when dagger is in the offhand to give the same damage. Same/similar burst, easier to counter/avoid

This is just an example to show what I mean, btw.

Double edit: Or just leave it exactly as is, have steal interupt CnD cast and have steal not apply bas venom.

Paranoid.9542:

Overall damage nerf, no.

Same damage but more difficult to execute or easier to avoid/counter, yes.

I completely agree with you there.

That’s perhaps what the devs are thinking as well, but the question is; How?

They’re going to work around the problem and nerf where it isn’t needed. Pistol Whip is the prime example of what they’re willing to nerf.

They hit its raw damage, while its issue of still being able to stun lock still exists.

Reduce damage (maybe by 1/3rd), inflict 10 stacks of vulnerability.

As long as they don’t nerf our condition builds I won’t be too unhappy. I think out condition builds are very balanced atm.

My argument with regards to backstab echoes a lot of other people’s. Yes the burst is nice but after the burst, the Thief becomes useless until his cooldowns are back up, the stars align, and he takes down another single target. The backstab build Thief is more of a detriment to a team in the long run but the unlucky person who got crit for 8k has too mant tears in his eyes to see that.

Finally, I guess I am just resigned to the Thief getting nerfed in pretty much every patch. It is no different in other games, RIFT, WoW, Tera, the Rogue archetype is constantly cried about and ultimately crushed into the ground and this game won’t be any different.

Luckily, like I said, I don’t use the backstab/heartseeker builds anyway, I much prefer our condition style gameplay so the previous nerfs haven’t effected me too badly.

I don’t trust Anet at all as a developer to get this right, because quite frankly, they’ve got nothing right since they released the game with regards to class balance, from nerfing rangers to sweeping necro bugs under the carpet, to buffing warriors, to nerfing thieves lol, to ignoring elementalists.

That is my opinion, if it’s not the same as your opinion, I don’t care

I wouldn’t be surprised if Backstab is next, after that is Thieves Guild and Dagger Storm, so that will be all three ultimates nerfed. Then, people will be start using conditions and people will cry that they can’t hit a thief when he uses Death Blossom so that will be after. Then people will cry that thieves are using Scorpion Wire to drag enemies into caltrops. “Anet, I made the decision to not walk in caltrops, I should NOT be forced by a thief to walk in them when I had enough sense to run out of them in the first place. Thieves disgust me”.

Then it will be, “you know, you could just nerf caltrops, I mean, they can stack 8 bleeds so fast!”

Then we will lose the ability to stealth whilst stomping. Would you believe I’ve already seen two threads about this in our forum and one of them was made by a Guardian lmao!

The thing is, I am being deadly serious when I write this. All these things, I have seen people complain about. I sound like a typical ‘doom-sayer’, whatever, I’d bet 10 dollars that this will come to pass in some shape or form.

I get the feeling that they will lower the rear portion of backstab by 25% (for me 2000 down to 1500) and raise the active portion of Assassin’s Signet by 5% (15% bonus to 20% bonus for 5 attacks) with a 3-5% increase in Wild Strike and Lotus Strike damage.

Of all the classes, Thief’s get the absolute most out of completely dedicating themselves to one aspect.
The class is just simply designed that way. I’m not saying there is no “inbetween” builds. Just that if we build entirely for 1 hit, then we really have nothing to follow that hit up with. It’s easily 45 seconds before we can do it again.

If I want to backstab someone to death, then my entire character has to be devoted to that concept in order for it to work. If it takes just a second or two longer, then that requires another stealth, which requires us to use more initiative then we actually have. And since we don’t have enough, then that results in us standing out in the open with nothing but auto attacks and no defensive options what-so-ever.

We don’t have bunker options. We have to run/stealth/shadowstep away. Even a full toughness/vit build can’t stand around.
Unlike the other low armor classes (ranger, elementalist, mesmer, ect…) we don’t have viable ranged damage…. Pistol #2, 3 and 4 all need work(As in complete overhaul), and Pistol #5 isn’t worth it’s initiative cost for no damage and a single blind… unless the players are bad enough to just stand in it(But is the game really being balanced around the worst of the worst players?). And ShortBow is a far cry from viable, most thief’s only use #3 for the dodge/mobility and the #5 for moving between points before swapping to an actual weapon, the #1 feels nice, but without good initiative spending options, the bow just comes off weak.

So we are are practically forced to use melee options. However unlike the other melee classes(guardian, warrior) we don’t have armor, aegis, block, ect… so we rely on stealth for defense, which doesn’t even mitigate damage against good players.

I fully understand backstab is overpowered, and it does need to be brought in line (especially if the rendering thing can’t be readily fixed). But the reason so many people use backstab builds isn’t because it’s overpowered. It’s because it actually works and we are a class with a lot of skills/mechanics that just don’t work for pvp.

The only respectable and comparable playstyle left after this is condition damage. I could accept pistol whip nerf, assassins signet nerf, but plain out nerfing raw damage isn’t what should happen. What have thieves left after this, besides condition damage? And then what makes thief unique after this nerf? Surely it’s not the condition build, as almost all classes can do it.

What is wrong with taking some effort to do many packets of damage rather than effortlessly doing one large packet? Every other class has to do this, so should thieves.

Hopefully Anet comes to their senses after (if they do) reading this thread. Obviously not everyone is for the backstab nerf, and any others they are considering including.

Whilst they do listen to their community, which is amazing, I don’t agree with listening to the influx of QQers. If every player were to cry over something, we’d get it, no matter what it is. I feel like this is the case we’re experiencing right now.

Perhaps we should all cry for 1 gem : 2 gold ratios from now?

Doomdesire.9365:

The only respectable and comparable playstyle left after this is condition damage. I could accept pistol whip nerf, assassins signet nerf, but plain out nerfing raw damage isn’t what should happen. What have thieves left after this, besides condition damage? And then what makes thief unique after this nerf? Surely it’s not the condition build, as almost all classes can do it.

I think you’re over-reacting in thinking this damage change is going to remove all options to thieves besides conditions.

Yeah, i disagree with it. I haven’t bothered to play much at all in the last month or so. Anet has really changed and is showing their true colors. Refuse to give an FoV option or fix the myriad of camera, performance and rendering issues, but give in to every single whine of OP (except against warriors, of course. can’t nerf their favorite class when there are other targets available to scapegoat!)

bwillb.2165:

Refuse to give an FoV option or fix the myriad of camera..

Isnt something to do with FoV in beta atm?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/FOV-Field-of-View-Changes-Beta-Test/first#post551634

Or am i misunderstanding what that is?

(sorry bout the OT comment)

Edit: also comment thread here with screens of changes and the heaped praise.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/FOV-Field-of-View-Changes-Beta-Test-Feedback-Thread/first#post551648

If they compensate the Thief for reduced backstab damage by, say buffing poison damage (just an example, it could be anything really to help equalize the damage output of the D/D thief rather then give it super-high bursts) then I’d be fine with it.

But imo the major, major issue with backstab is the faulty rendering. If people could actually see the thief the huge damage spikes would be mitigated by “revealed” debuff (which still doesn’t work properly as people hove shown, can be bypassed by not attacking and chaining your stealth skills. Revealed should be applied at the end of a stealth skill regardless if you decide to dance, cry, sit or backstab.)

Paranoid.9542:

bwillb.2165:

Refuse to give an FoV option or fix the myriad of camera..

Isnt something to do with FoV in beta atm?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/FOV-Field-of-View-Changes-Beta-Test/first#post551634

Or am i misunderstanding what that is?

(sorry bout the OT comment)

Huh looks like it is. Didn’t see that announcement. Took enough arguing to get it… I’ll scratch that off the list. Other points still stand, though.

edit: Nevermind. Just gave it a try. A single option that’s just a minor increase? I see they put about as much effort into that as they did into the pistol whip nerf. Try again, Anet.

Assassin classes with bursts and high mobility are always, always poorly balanced. I’m sorry to say it but I don’t have faith they will do this right. I want to! But I don’t.

People QQ because they get instagib’d by a character who put every single skill, attribute, and weapon into a single burst for a single target. It’s pathetic and I thought ANet was above listening to such QQ. I don’t care if you think it’s “Easy to do”. It should be if you invest everything into it and your opponent is caught off guard.
Hate all you want but getting killed by a spec’d burst character is your own fault as well. There are so many tools in this game you can abuse to avoid it and yet its all just QQ. Nerfing “the raw DPS” of a weapon set who’s absolute sole purpose is high burst DPS is like taking birth control while trying to have a child. Simple as that. Have a good night and I’m sorry it’s come to this.

I think that Thief burst is not so easy to land if your opponent doesn´t stand like a training dummy, try to hit turning/running target to the back (and count with the latency as well).
Little OT: one change came to my mind yesterday, much more like a weapon sets diversity for DD/condition builds.
For example: There will be two different stealth attacks for each mainhand weapon (f.e. Backstab – as we know it now/Cutthroat – Minor direct dmg and huge bleed stack) which will be selectable just like the major traits are. What do you think about this idea?

I dont mind the idea of reducing raw spike burst from a game wide balance perspective. I dont think the devs ever wanted 3 sec deaths even with glass cannon on glass cannon, and personally i would prefer minimum 5-10 sec 1v1 battles. But what i would hope is that if they nerf thief burst, they also nerf other classes burst in a similar vein. Thief is definitely not the only deadly burst combo maker out there: mesmer can do it, engi, ele and warrior can too (admittedly warrior tends to be easier to avoid). Here’s hoping the change is for the better (overall) !

Giving the same profession huge spike damage and invisibility and/or great mobility always leads to disaster; I don’t know why they even tried.
Everyone who looks at the Backstab build objectively will agree it’s OP; killing characters who didn’t explicitly speced into survivability in ~1 second is insane, and even if the target survives the combo the Thief is far from beaten; with 9-13 Initiative, up to 2 utility skills and the healing skill left it is hardly an easy target.

They said they are thinking about giving Steal a cast time and an aftercast delay; both changes wouldn’t matter in PvE but would lengthen the backstab combo to give other players a chance to avoid it.

Ugh. I hope they don’t screw it up for those that didn’t invest every trait point to make those huge bursts. I didn’t go full power/crit traits to maximize backstab. I’m a stealth build and there is no reason to mess with backstab for those builds.

Figures though..started off ranger..now thief. I’m a glutton for punishment ;p

I have a back up plan if they nerf bs. I will just go back to venomous aura build and let my
whole team stack poison on them :P

Yes, it is. You can try playing necro where using every single tool at your disposal at the right crucial time will still not achieve the same results as thieves can. Whereas thief design allows you to utilize stealth to create the crucial moments at your whim, as others have said ‘with one trick’.

If you compare it to say Guardian Gw #2, this ability applies a snare to the caster, has a massively obvious visual and is easily avoidable, same for Hundred Blades. Can the same be said for a backstab from stealth with higher base damage and access to the extra damage signet? Even then if by some mistake on the thief’s part it doesn’t finish the job you can stealth out and try a different point.

More rantings;
Then there’s caltrops on dodge. Oh-My-God, I don’t know how this one ever made it live, here you can stack bleeds up to max stealthing away from damage weaving death blossom in between to stack endurance buff. It’s insane, and I really want to cap a video of it, on my guardian [when specced for 20khp and total condition removal] I can accomplish one condition lost every 5 seconds as passive, one meditation utility to remove all conditions and up to six conditions removed with consecration. That’s more condition purges than the next best options [necro/mesmer] and still a decent hp pool to last out the ticks. I can still never match the bleed application of this spec, caltrops apply stacks all the while you are stood in them, you can reach 10 stacks withing a second, it’s a permeating field lasting 10 seconds, endurance refills within three seconds with boon uptime, all the while death blossom attacks evade damage, dodging to apply cantrops evades damage and massive access to stealth.
What are the options here? Aoe into stealth; you are still stood in the bleed field, and will die. Stand off the bleed field; point neutralized by thief. Condition removal; the best condition removal spec in the game can’t even come close to the application power at thieves’ disposal.

Let’s also look at this in perspective, Necromancer condition specs can gain access to a similar talent leaving a mark of blood whenever they dodge, so why are they not reaping heads left right and center? It has a 10 second internal cooldown, is not a permeating field, can be dodged/blocked, has a smaller radius and lower damage [my necro is sitting on max condition damage available in pvp].

Please come back down to earth.

I am a very bad player and alrdy find backstabbing hard to execute:0 especially on npcs that turns randomly or run in an unexpected direction -__-’
And atm my cloack and dagger deals more dmg than backstab so far as I can see, dps wise I dunno if it is better to use backstap since (unless u alrdy behind the enemy) lose some time position yourself..

Most mmoes have backstab being one of the high end dmg dealing ability.. Remove it idk just make S/D better then^^ I find the cloak ability lacklust (yeah I am a bad player, but still:b) and flanking strike often just throws me away from my target. Give some more love to the dmg there:D

azuzephyr.7280:

Yes, it is. You can try playing necro where using every single tool at your disposal at the right crucial time will still not achieve the same results as thieves can. Whereas thief design allows you to utilize stealth to create the crucial moments at your whim, as others have said ‘with one trick’.

If you compare it to say Guardian Gw #2, this ability applies a snare to the caster, has a massively obvious visual and is easily avoidable, same for Hundred Blades. Can the same be said for a backstab from stealth with higher base damage and access to the extra damage signet? Even then if by some mistake on the thief’s part it doesn’t finish the job you can stealth out and try a different point.

More rantings;
Then there’s caltrops on dodge. Oh-My-God, I don’t know how this one ever made it live, here you can stack bleeds up to max stealthing away from damage weaving death blossom in between to stack endurance buff. It’s insane, and I really want to cap a video of it, on my guardian [when specced for 20khp and total condition removal] I can accomplish one condition lost every 5 seconds as passive, one meditation utility to remove all conditions and up to six conditions removed with consecration. That’s more condition purges than the next best options [necro/mesmer] and still a decent hp pool to last out the ticks. I can still never match the bleed application of this spec, caltrops apply stacks all the while you are stood in them, you can reach 10 stacks withing a second, it’s a permeating field lasting 10 seconds, endurance refills within three seconds with boon uptime, all the while death blossom attacks evade damage, dodging to apply cantrops evades damage and massive access to stealth.
What are the options here? Aoe into stealth; you are still stood in the bleed field, and will die. Stand off the bleed field; point neutralized by thief. Condition removal; the best condition removal spec in the game can’t even come close to the application power at thieves’ disposal.

Let’s also look at this in perspective, Necromancer condition specs can gain access to a similar talent leaving a mark of blood whenever they dodge, so why are they not reaping heads left right and center? It has a 10 second internal cooldown, is not a permeating field, can be dodged/blocked, has a smaller radius and lower damage [my necro is sitting on max condition damage available in pvp].

Please come back down to earth.

Woaw please come up to earth^^ just roll thief then:D bunker guardians are still a pain(got a guardian myself).. Necroes always cries but we should not incluede necroes!!
Yu can’t say but my necro cant do this or that compared to X class.. Since it is a broken class that needs prober fixing before even nerfing any other class.. Why come down to the necro state? Why not higher the necro to the other professions state?

All in all.. Fix before nerf.. You can’t judge it so early in the game with nubs like me not even understanding the core of the game mechanisms or wi so many crucial bugs etc.

I’d agree necro as a whole needs redoing/fixing, but that particular talent setup is the least of their problems, and tbh it’s about right design. Stacking a bleed once every ten seconds on dodge is pretty standard, a constant permeating field which can be stacked ontop of one another with no cooldown and massive damage, all from dodging that’s not good design. If necro could stack bleeds endlessly form dodging, yes it’d bring them up to ridiculous levels, but I still wouldn’t call it good design, and if someone said to me that it’s overpowered, I’d agree with them.

I do have a thief btw! 100 matches played, around 10 enjoyed

They really just need to alter some of the burst traits. Assassin’s Reward should be changed as it directly encourages burst-builds.

Steal during C&D is equally burst-encouraging and should probably be prohibited as well.

I don’t think Backstab needs a direct damage nerf as it’s a situational skill.

Thieves nerfs should be targetted at the right spots so that thiefs are still equally strong, but harder to play.

It’s a bit lame that a noob thief can kill half the spvp community in 3 seconds with a few button presses, while a noob elementalist player had to use all of their 20 skills at the right time to not be killed.

Dee Jay.2460:

They really just need to alter some of the burst traits. Assassin’s Reward should be changed as it directly encourages burst-builds.

Steal during C&D is equally burst-encouraging and should probably be prohibited as well.

I don’t think Backstab needs a direct damage nerf as it’s a situational skill.

Agreed, make it so steal and CnD don’t work together.

Paranoid.9542:

Overall damage nerf, no.

Same damage but more difficult to execute or easier to avoid/counter, yes.

Edit :Example (potentially a bad one), lower damage on BS but increase damage on #3 abilities when dagger is in the offhand to give the same damage. Same/similar burst, easier to counter/avoid

This is just an example to show what I mean, btw.

Double edit: Or just leave it exactly as is, have steal interupt CnD cast and have steal not apply bas venom.

They’re going to nerf backstab damage and leave everything else as is, they aren’t going to add any damage back in anywhere else.

Look at heartseeker, overall damage just dropped, they didn’t put damage anywhere else.

Look at pistol whip, S/P dps just overall dropped, and now autoattack is the best DPS on the skill bar.

Do you think they’ll change their tune this time?

No.

Thief damage is just going to keep going down until we’re all just autoattacking.

Dancing dagger and cloak and dagger damage nerfs are coming next.

Just like the pistol offhand skills do next to no damage because they have utility, it’ll be argued that the cripple on dancing dagger and stealth on cloak and dagger make them worth the cost alone and the damage will be reduced to near nothing.

Totally disagree with nerf on thief. Thief is glass cannon and withou damage is only glass without any damage. You want completely ruin one nice proffesion. Instead of nerf thief just delete thief because more nerfes make this class useless and only moving practise target for other classes.

I like Paranoid’s suggestions: “Or just leave it exactly as is, have steal interupt CnD cast and have steal not apply bas venom.”

These changes would help fix that issue of being unable to avoid the chain, while still leaving it viable.

Yes, the nerf is absolutely needed.

Some of you guys refuse to understand that Thief not only has damage, but it’s coupled with amazing escape and disengaging abilities, which brings Thief’s effective survivability to amazing levels. Not only that, but Steal/Shadowstep/Signet into CnD into Backstab is practically impossible to counter, which spells doom to glassy or even balanced builds when facing this type of Thief.

^ What he said. 100% agree, upfront damage is WAY too high for a class with the ability to go stealth 90% of the time.

completely agree it doesn’t need nerfing. They do need to look at how the exploits are being done instead. I’ve seen people just teleport to someone far far away suddenly and do massive damage all at once, that’s not normal. (and I’m sure they are looking into it). There also seems to be some confusion over the stealth. stealth is not as powerful as people are making it. It’s certainly not like it is in other titles. This stealth is already a nerfed stealth and shouldn’t be messed with. (again only to improve the removal of exploits)

You do realize that there’s a three second delay between stealthing keep people from jumping from stealth to stealth over and over, AND that AOE’s still do their normal damage to those in stealth. It’s not an issue.

It DOES needs adjustment. Nerf is the wrong word. Simply making Steal an actual skill by itself that does not cast parallel to other skills would be an instant fix.

I’m more concerned about the slippery slope that Thieves are going down. First Anet destroy S/P for no good reason (Haste is the actual problem (HS spam + Haste = smash keyboard), Pistol Whip never was), then they “forget” to put various changes in to patch notes when every other profession was properly accounted for, what next?

Backstab MIGHT need to be nerfed, I don’t know though. However, the CnD-Steal combo is fine as is. It’s similar to an ele’s CE-LF, yet that never gets complained about.
Also, as far as I know, Thieves are one of the only classes without some form of damage reducing utility skill, weapon skill, or traits. Our damage avoidance comes through the form of evades and stealth, which doesn’t even stop damage.

Devildoc.6721:

They’re going to nerf backstab damage and leave everything else as is, they aren’t going to add any damage back in anywhere else.
Look at heartseeker, overall damage just dropped, they didn’t put damage anywhere else.

I only based this on “but we’ll be careful to increase other areas to compensate.” – in regards to lowering raw damage of these builds (backstabbing). I dont recall seeing any Anet dev saying that they’d compensate those other builds like they’ve said here.

Whether this happens or not is an entirely different story, however I’m hopeful.

@tigirius you do realize that even though thats how stealth works, and the not entering stealth for 3 second wait is how it is intended. with rendering the only person atm seeing what you do on your screen (leaving stealth then reentering) is yourself… The rest of us just see a 6-10 second of stealth and so much life gone we are stunned that this is still here.

that said i can redo my template for your single class. switch my lb and sb for a axe/horn and gs (ranger) and drop traps just so i can always take you out. or hope i can chain dodges, and sb skill enough to keep you at bay to make it a even fight (assuming im not left with 20 percent of less health) but have you every actually tried to get away from yourself? dropping every immobilize and cripple i have makes very relatively small chance of escape… unless i blow my elite skill on you and only if the thiefs not dumb enough to realize he has to hit the roots…

Unfortunately they’ve already established a track record of nerf first, do nothing later. Expecting them to nerf the Thief and give them “compensation” somewhere else just isn’t justifiable. I suppose you could hope they will keep their word and help the Thief somewhere else and if they do it’d be a little light at the end of the tunnel that perhaps Anet does give a kitten. But how they will compensate the Thief for taking away even more of the one thing that makes them what they are? Who can say. Not that anybody cares but here’s a one of my own suggestions:

Give the Thief several options other than the 1 skill while in stealth. Why not give them 5 different skills while in stealth, with each weapon that makes you choose the attack based on the situation. Right now, you have 1 button to use, 1 attack and that’s it. Why not do something such as this with D/D as an example: 1) Backstab, 2)2~3 second stun(WoW’s Cheap Shot), 3) attack that puts 10 Bleeds on target instantly, 4)puts Weakness, Chill, Confuse on them for 5 seconds, 5)cripple and poison the target for 10 seconds.

It’s as though Anet didn’t think anybody would want choices of things in stealth. This is the only stealth type of character in any MMO I’ve played in the last 6 years that didn’t have a lot of options of what to come out of stealth with. Even a WoW Rogue had a disorient (sap), a stun (cheap shot), a bleed (garrote) a damaging hit (Ambush) and could even steal actual items from almost anything (Pick Pocket). That’s 5 options all the time. While not all of these things were always useful in every situation, almost every skill was useful at some point. Anet could easily do the same for the Thief. There’s more I could suggest or say, but I know it makes no difference what my opinion is on this subject. Once Anet starts the nerf rollercoaster ride, I get off, simple as that. There’s tons of free to play games with much more interesting things in them that I can always go to, so I’ll always find something to do and I bet a lot of others will also.

Paranoid.9542:

Devildoc.6721:

They’re going to nerf backstab damage and leave everything else as is, they aren’t going to add any damage back in anywhere else.
Look at heartseeker, overall damage just dropped, they didn’t put damage anywhere else.

I only based this on “but we’ll be careful to increase other areas to compensate.” – in regards to lowering raw damage of these builds (backstabbing). I dont recall seeing any Anet dev saying that they’d compensate those other builds like they’ve said here.

Whether this happens or not is an entirely different story, however I’m hopeful.

Well, as a S/P thief I’m not exactly optimistic.

I spend most of my time autoattacking in a smoke cloud now since that’s highest dps. I only pistol whip on enemies that can’t be blinded, like the mad king.

and let me tell you, spending that much time autoattacking is just not fun, at all.

it makes me want to stop playing the game entirely.

This is Anet’s chance to prove whether they will do what they say. They’ll certainly do the nerf, and we’ll see if they compensate, and how fairly. I hope they do the right thing and make the class more fun with the changes. The last big thief changes they did before BWE3 were really nice, and it made me love the class more.

Get over it OP. The ability is out of control and I AM A THIEF. We should NOT be running around and doing those types of burst damage.

Warriors burst damage will more than likely be hit, too. Cry about Backstab nerf, but it will get adjusted for balance as it should be.

Crawford.4135:

Get over it OP. The ability is out of control and I AM A THIEF. We should NOT be running around and doing those types of burst damage.

Warriors burst damage will more than likely be hit, too. Cry about Backstab nerf, but it will get adjusted for balance as it should be.

I’m fine with it if it’s across the board. If I can’t backstab for 10k, a Warrior shouldn’t be able to HB for 10k. I’m fine either with or without, just make it fair.

I hope, developers, that you after nerf buff pistols and bow as compensation for nerf.

I wouldn’t mind a baseline 1200 range on shortbow, but all the same, I don’t think it’s needed. It would just keep me alive in WvW tower defense situations more.

This class gets 4 shot by most and even mob in orr downs the thiefs in 7 hits. They are so friggen weak compared to warriors, the more they nerf the mass dmg, the more like kitten warriors thief becomes. This game wants to be e-sport? lol compared with dota 2 and dota 2 holiday event, it has no chance. It couldn’t even pull off a better event.
Take a look at warrior weapon skins compared to thiefs. Yup, the game is a warrior feast forget the rest.

I would really ask our developer which said here that thief will be nerfed if developers will buff other weapons like pistols and short bow which are really weak in compare with daggers. Please answer my question here. You are still only nerfing thief (most time only because QQ ppl on forum) and nothing give to thief like compensation. How you can only constantly nerf one class and give nothing. Its normal discrimination of one proffesion. Pls answer my question.

I don’t like playing them at all, but the one-trick pony builds that die very easily I consider a valid approach. However, there are some isolated situations where maximum possible burst damage can get out of hand and it’s certainly not limited to thieves. 100B warriors might actually be the worst offenders there and they still have big health pools even when they do go full glass. Players feeling like they die without even having an opportunity to respond is very frustrating and not fun.

For the majority of normal circumstances and builds, the damage of these burst abilities is actually pretty well balanced already. It’s mostly just the extreme cases where stacking enough buffs, abilities, traits, stats, cooldowns, and combo chains that create the negative outcomes.

So, the emphasis should be on tweaking the stacking potential instead of the base abilities. If a-net tweaks the base abilities, it just forces players to abuse more and reduces the number of useful builds available. If they hit the right traits, buffs, and cooldowns, then it has the opposite effect with discouraging abuse (because it’s less effective) and it increases the number of useful builds.

And again, this is not limited to thieves.

If they change most of the normal skills for all the weapons to be really useful, then even I could deal with losing a good bit of spike damage. How about:
Dagger/Dagger:
~auto attack is faster and the poison lasts longer
~Heartseeker evades attacks during the leap
~Leaping Death Blossom stacks more bleeds and they do more damage
~Dancing Dagger stays about the same but if it hits only one target you can hit the button again within 5 seconds to knock them down for 1 second and remove the cripple effect
~CnD has a cast time of 2 seconds can hit up to two targets within 150 range and gives 5 seconds of stealth

Shortbow:
~Trick Shot fires faster and hits mokittengets
~Cluster Bomb flies faster and the explosion always puts at least 7 bleeds on any target hit or 5 bleeds on anybody hit if you detonate it midair
~Disabling Shot costs 1 less initiative, the cripple lasts 1 second longer and the distance you evade backwards is based on how close they are to you when you shoot. At point blank you’d evade twice as far backwards as you do currently.
~Choking Gas fires faster, the poison lasts 10 seconds, the field lasts 5 seconds and does 25% more damage to players standing in the field.
Infiltrator’s Arrow fires faster, costs 1 less initiative and has a larger radius of effect

Pistol/Pistol
~Vital Shot’s bleed lasts 1 second longer per shot and does about 10% more damage
~Body Shot fires faster, gives them 10 stacks of vulnerability and does 10% more damage
~Unload has a 1200 ranger and fires 10 shots, the final shot applies 5 stacks of bleeding for 3 seconds
~Head Shot’s Daze lasts 1/2s, causes Confusion for 1 second and does 10% more damage
~Black Powder’s radius is larger and the field lasts for 5 seconds. I think this skill should become a ground target attack but that might make it way too good in large group PvP.

And that’s my initial suggestions for the weapons that I enjoy using. I’ll leave out Sword/Pistol, Pistol/Dagger and Dagger/Pistol for now only because I have much less experience with those types.