Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer: My main character is a thief, and I love the profession.

That being said, many of the issues and complaints people have with our profession is the damage we’re able to deal in a very short amount of time. The complaints, I would suggest, are mainly directed at Pistol Whip and Backstab.

However, I think the real culprit is Haste; a skill that has almost no drawbacks aside from a long cooldown and draining endurance. This allows glass cannon thieves to deal an incredibly amount of damage in about 1-2 seconds, before disappearing and escaping in stealth.

My proposal?

Haste should, rather than draining endurance, prevent stealth for 2-3 seconds.

Evasion can at least be seen, and people have a variety of options to deal with something that can be seen. They can guage the situation they’re in and respond correctly; attack, heals, evasion, roots, condition damage and so on.

With Haste + stealth, there are very, very few ways to counter a thief’s initial burst damage.

So I believe preventing thieves from stealthing immediately after popping Haste would make them think twice about using it to initiate a fight. It would for me, at least.

Reincarnation Pistol Whip

Thieves would’ve then be able to dodge for the time they got the revealed debuff.
I don’t see the point of it. IMO quickness isn’t even that good on thieves.

Malicious.6742:

Thieves would’ve then be able to dodge for the time they got the revealed debuff.
I don’t see the point of it. IMO quickness isn’t even that good on thieves.

I’m not a D/D glass cannon build, but I have a sigil of rage that gives a 10% chance on quickness when I crit, as well as the trait that does the same.

I don’t use haste as my build and play-style renders other utilities more favourable, but I would not be without at least one of quickness-chance item/trait. My setup crits quite often, which results in quickness at least once a fight. It really does help.

Pistol Whip is only good if your opponent thinks its good to stand in your AoE or if your allies hold your enemy. It practically needs haste to be viable vs players.

I do not think backstab build uses haste that much does it? Either way haste isnt the big damage issue with backstab build. The main spec to utilize haste would be pistol whip, and that build only has utility stealth.

Putting stealth debuff on haste would be pointless.

Aegis.3042:

no drawbacks aside from a long cooldown and draining endurance.

Some of the whining that goes on on these forums is literally shocking. I feel that I’ve joined a community worse than WoW.

You cannot sit there and say that an ability has no drawbacks, and then list 2 drawbacks. The endurance drain alone is a drawback worth mentioning, because of how reliant thieves are on endurance because they’re so squishy. And then of course the long cooldown. Again, that’s enough.

I, somehow, spend 90% of my time in WvWvW, which is at least 3 hours per day, and I have come across 1 backstab thief. And I met him when I was running, alone, to an enemy garrison. And I wasn’t even mad. I thought it was actually quite funny that I got outplayed and hoped to meet him again.

I know this thread isn’t about backstab, however it is still relevant. I have not come across a thief that has had a significant advantage over me because he’s used Haste. So unless there is some sort of thief army that I am unaware about that runs around and ruins the game for everyone else, kindly filter your kitten from the forums because you should literally be ashamed. And that goes to the OP of every other whine thread too.

@Pantheon.4230

Agreed. All that’s missing is a thread “Thiefs should be deleted as a class since they’re overpowered” and someone from ANet will probably read and think it’s a good idea (like they did with all of the nerfs so far).

Give it a break guys.

Haste should allow us to run faster. I don’t how many times I have clicked that trying to escape in a panic and to see it do nothing (running wise).

Or reduce Quickness in general as an effect from 2.0x to 1.33x like GW1. You know, so it’s not a balance-wrecking piece of kitten for any class that utilises it for anything, ever.