Guild Wars 2

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Thieves are… I don’t know. Annoying. But the average player have huge problems playing thieves as “OP”. They are easy to beat if YOU know how.

I have been running the glass cannon build since August, changed my build in end of February after my 2 month hiatus, and I find this PUPPY nerf about stealth. Facepalm. For whatever reason, the devs doesn’t seem to have a clue that thieves aren’t OP, but the mechanics of thieves are just annoying to the players.

But okay, let’s just nerf the class. For a month.

Obviously when I ran WvW, I found majority of the thieves seem to have quit playing. I’m quitting too, but here, let me show you what I think of your nerf. Don’t worry, I know you will continue to nerf until the class disappears. Good job, anet (you guys are just seriously bad at balancing. Stop nerfing, start overhauling thieves, seriously. Even Icefrog do it in Dota.).

I’ll post the build later. Man, creating a video takes forever.

Glass cannon build

To be honest the video shows you quite clearly how to activate all the skill at 6:50.

The only that’s missing is the traits. Once again the build is 30/30/0/0/10.

Deadly arts

Trait 3, 4, 12

- Trait 3 is Mug. This trait gives you very high damage. A typical example will be 5000 damage.
- Trait 4 is Venomous strength. This trait when activated gives you 2 mights per venom, so in total you have 4 mights or 140 power gained.
- Trait 12 is Residual Venom. This trait allows you to use 1 more poison stack. If your first basilisk poison missed or did not activate for some reason, you have one more chance.

Question: Why not use Dagger training?

Answer: It’s a useless ability that gives you 5% of extra dagger damage, not even 50 power gained from this (and no, it doesn’t add 2 daggers worth of damage.). You can’t possibly fight head on with someone else with this. Besides, that extra 1% incoming damage from residual poison takes incoming damage as a whole package, and even if it loses out in damage slightly, you gain an extra 6.5 seconds worth of weakness.

Even though the extra basilisk poison doesn’t stack in duration, it guarantees the full 1.5 seconds duration to land your backstab (the second strike from CnD). If it misses, like the thief battle in 4:55, you can still land your secondary CnD and backstab him with the poison.

Aside from that, you’re going to use the shortbow 90% of the time. The only time you can use this on enemies is when you have a clear advantage on the tactical battlefield.

Critical Strikes

Traits 2, 3, 11.

- Trait 2 utilizes signet of power to give you even more damage in might. TECHNICALLY, you can use your heal, signet of malice to gain even more might, but I’m not sure what that achieves (mainly because you already do enough damage.). Maybe one day when Anet decides to nerf mug damage… but handling the mug damage ALSO affects other builds, so I don’t know how Anet is going to balance things.
- Trait 3 is side strike. Basically it’s very important for your backstab to be a critical strike. You want a reasonable amount of HP and yet maintain good precision stats. That’s really quite hard. The best that you can possibly do is probably traiting it instead of relying on your trinklets.
- Trait 11 is executioner. This trait is just too good in zerg vs zerg.

The only other trait you could possibly want is Furious retaliation which you cannot control actively. It has a cooldown, while your side strike is always up. And you also get Fury from the Trickery bar.

Trickery bar

- The only trait that’s possibly effective for this is, Thrill of the crime. Your allies and you gain fury.

Foods, nourishments, sigils

My shortbow is kinda silly in stats, but the only thing that matters is the sigil of bloodlust.

Daggers are sigil of air (does coefficient damage of 1.1 or CnD damage, I think. It will never use critical % damage, but just take or give 2000 damage.) and force (5% dmg).

In total, I think you should add around 600 power from these 3 alone, and an additional 315 power from activating your skills.

That should put you in 4200 power at its maximum. Good luck in your backstabs.

I like this vid.

Totally agree with this video. I don´t get the mania about thief being OP. I think that mesmers , guardians, elementalists are more close to be OP.

Already started my D/D elementalist. Waiting for those “mobility buffs” the developers harped on about.

Yeah… I’m really not sure what the hell is going on in this video. You should probably have cut it off after the first clip where you demonstrated what the average Thief does, because I’m not sure why the hell you then went into a gankfest where you showed off the combo that makes this forum explode with QQ every kittening day.

Also, the anime… thing… in the middle was just a tad out of place… just a tad…

better nerf irelia

Incurafy.6329:

Yeah… I’m really not sure what the hell is going on in this video. You should probably have cut it off after the first clip where you demonstrated what the average Thief does, because I’m not sure why the hell you then went into a gankfest where you showed off the combo that makes this forum explode with QQ every kittening day.

Also, the anime… thing… in the middle was just a tad out of place… just a tad…

Well, Anet is nerfing everything, so I wanted thief to go out in a bang. Since the next patch will probably nerf mug damage (given the inept balancing and catering, I’ll say highly likely), this is the last chance to use a glass cannon thief build, so I’m trying to promote the usage of it.

Hmm you kind of started out showing that even GC Thieves have a hard time chipping away at the tankiest of Guardians, but then the rest of the video was just you melting everything you touched with the exact combo that so many scream about in these forums. So I guess what your video shows more than anything is: Toughness saves lives (as does situational awareness).

I like the bit with the anime though. Abstract enough to make me raise my ‘What the kitten?!’ eyebrow ;-/

Are thieves really crying about that 1s extra reveal? That’s sad. I have played a thief before so I know that this change is nothing.

Simonoly.4352:

Hmm you kind of started out showing that even GC Thieves have a hard time chipping away at the tankiest of Guardians, but then the rest of the video was just you melting everything you touched with the exact combo that so many scream about in these forums. So I guess what your video shows more than anything is: Toughness saves lives (as does situational awareness).

I like the bit with the anime though. Abstract enough to make me raise my ‘What the kitten?!’ eyebrow ;-/

You weren’t watching the same video as the rest of us, me thinks. The rest of the video set to ‘like a boss’ was a combination of him failing to kill stuff before moving on to a different fight, killing people in when he was in a large groups, or getting killed.

Also, to the guy above me. One second extra reveal was just dumb. It hurts PvE more than it hurts PvP but at the end of the day, it just shows that thieves feel like they have to rely to heavily on the stealth mechanic.

No ‘melting’ occurred.

Video shows bads vs bads.
You made so many mistake and so did the enemies, let alone none of the people there used their character at half of their efficiency.
I should have really closed it when you CnD+steal’d into a dodge.

vinceftw.5086:

Are thieves really crying about that 1s extra reveal? That’s sad. I have played a thief before so I know that this change is nothing.

Obviously you didn’t play it enough. The change doesn’t do much to PvP builds, so they tell me, but messes up PvE left and second left. All the changes to stealth the last month have just been punching PvE in the gut – I’m guessing to show those PvPers what’ll happen to them if they keep winning. (since Anet can’t seem to figure out how to actually fix PvP problems themselves)

Sure, you might have played a build what didn’t use any stealth and so the extra reveal does all of nothing to you – but there are plenty of builds it does mess up. Saying “It don’t affect me so it’s not a problem” isn’t an acceptable excuse.

Thieves are OP, every random WWW PvDoor karma zergling will say you that.

What this video really shows me is that people actually pay attention to titles. I’ll remember that next time I’m corpse dancing.

Stealth mechanic is broken and badly designed . It makes thieves a nightmare in WvWvW , but useless in PvE . Classes that can easily escape a zerg like that are broken , and only elementalits and thieves can do it .

Lack of build diversity is noticable as well .

Red Falcon.8257:

Video shows bads vs bads.
You made so many mistake and so did the enemies, let alone none of the people there used their character at half of their efficiency.
I should have really closed it when you CnD+steal’d into a dodge.

Lmao. There’s an idiot here! Wait, is that against the conduct? My apologies if I somehow crossed the line.

This is how the average players play in WvW, there’s nothing very OP about it. There are plenty of mistakes made and even the title states “The truth about average thief players”.

Did the average thief player kill someone and made it OP like the Yishi’s video? Nope. And here you are mocking me and the WvW players here for being “bad”. My, my, my. Some attitude.

Your video is so biased it isn’t even funny. Less than 1 minute into the video you say “2 thieves can’t even down a guardian so this is OP”?

Guess what
1) The guardian isn’t even doing any damage to either of you.
2) A thief can survive against 2 of any other class as long as the player doesn’t suck.

I don’t believe thieves are OP anymore but your video is just…biased.

Edit: I don’t really care if you play well or not (after all it’s just a video game) but the conclusions you are drawing don’t make sense.

Chokolata.1870:

Stealth mechanic is broken and badly designed . It makes thieves a nightmare in WvWvW , but useless in PvE . Classes that can easily escape a zerg like that are broken , and only elementalits and thieves can do it .

Lack of build diversity is noticable as well .

Stealth is only useful for two things in pve: reviving the dead and access to stealth attacks.

Stealth in wvw isn’t as horrible as people make it out to be. There really are a LOT of newbs who’ve run hundreds of hours in a zerg but fail to realize they don’t know how to handle smaller scale fights. One of the enjoyments I get from wvw is playing against ele’s who spam there attacks like I dont know how dodge, backpedal, or position my thief and then facetank my onslaught without any kind of damage reduction. No wonder they die?

Slazarian CZE.9874:

Totally agree with this video. I don´t get the mania about thief being OP. I think that mesmers , guardians, elementalists are more close to be OP.

Woah woah woah!
Eles are no where near close to OP, the way ele is, you either survive a long time by being a punching bag and do very little damage knicking away at bads or you balance it out a little.

But yeah, thieves ar eno where near OP.

Mesmers on the other hand, Confusion is like empathy + backfire on steroids. -.-

Rizzy.8293:

Slazarian CZE.9874:

Totally agree with this video. I don´t get the mania about thief being OP. I think that mesmers , guardians, elementalists are more close to be OP.

Woah woah woah!
Eles are no where near close to OP, the way ele is, you either survive a long time by being a punching bag and do very little damage knicking away at bads or you balance it out a little.

But yeah, thieves ar eno where near OP.

Mesmers on the other hand, Confusion is like empathy + backfire on steroids. -.-

Not to be ‘that guy’, but Eles can tank and do a lot of damage. Refer to BitCloud1 on twitch for his new build showcasing such.

Sunflowers.1729:

Your video is so biased it isn’t even funny. Less than 1 minute into the video you say “2 thieves can’t even down a guardian so this is OP”?

Guess what
1) The guardian isn’t even doing any damage to either of you.
2) A thief can survive against 2 of any other class as long as the player doesn’t suck.

I don’t believe thieves are OP anymore but your video is just…biased.

Edit: I don’t really care if you play well or not (after all it’s just a video game) but the conclusions you are drawing don’t make sense.

I was being sarcastic, actually. You can never beat a bunker guardian without using a glass cannon thief. Likewise, a stealth thief can be beaten as well, but you need good knowledge and a strong build.

Woah woah woah!
Eles are no where near close to OP, the way ele is, you either survive a long time by being a punching bag and do very little damage knicking away at bads or you balance it out a little.

But yeah, thieves ar eno where near OP.

Mesmers on the other hand, Confusion is like empathy + backfire on steroids. -.-

http://www.twitch.tv/saetiasc/c/1827679

@Yuujin – Me thinks you stopped watching the video half way through then. Sure, he made tons of mistakes, but he used the exact same insta-gib melty Thief burst that so many people complain about. My comment wasn’t on his performance, only that he portrays quite often the exact thing that people point out and then scream for nerfs. If this video was ever an attempt to portray the Thief as balanced to those who have already decided the Thief is OP, then it’s not really going to help the cause. But actually it looks like the OP was just having some fun kittening around, so none of this analysis even matters.

I think the vid is a great addition to any OP discussion. I’ve played thief a hell of a lot now and can flow through condi and damage builds pretty well. Two of my mates have started playing thieves and it’s been a very rough learning curve for a couple of weeks.

There is a low skill floor due to stealth and Heartseeker, but not really any lower than a gurdian that basically stays up on it’s own. I don’t think the skill ceiling is Elementalist high, but it is higher than the rest and that is why a few career thieves reach the 1vx levels and kitten everyone off.

Iove.3902:

Rizzy.8293:

Slazarian CZE.9874:

Totally agree with this video. I don´t get the mania about thief being OP. I think that mesmers , guardians, elementalists are more close to be OP.

Woah woah woah!
Eles are no where near close to OP, the way ele is, you either survive a long time by being a punching bag and do very little damage knicking away at bads or you balance it out a little.

But yeah, thieves ar eno where near OP.

Mesmers on the other hand, Confusion is like empathy + backfire on steroids. -.-

Not to be ‘that guy’, but Eles can tank and do a lot of damage. Refer to BitCloud1 on twitch for his new build showcasing such.

I refer to you the point of this thread.

Average player vs Awesome player.

Bitcloud has amazing leet skillz comparable to Bill.

Simonoly.4352:

@Yuujin – Me thinks you stopped watching the video half way through then. Sure, he made tons of mistakes, but he used the exact same insta-gib melty Thief burst that so many people complain about. My comment wasn’t on his performance, only that he portrays quite often the exact thing that people point out and then scream for nerfs. If this video was ever an attempt to portray the Thief as balanced to those who have already decided the Thief is OP, then it’s not really going to help the cause. But actually it looks like the OP was just having some fun kittening around, so none of this analysis even matters.

I want to correct you on this. It wasn’t many people complaining about the instant gib problem (but yes, there are people complaining about that too), it’s the unkillable thief who runs around in 1vsZerg and STILL manage to kill tons of people. People are angry about that.

My point is, D/D stealth builds cannot beat bunkers. They can beat hybrid and glass cannon builds (and the strong thief players make it look OP) casual players who don’t bother learning what they do. Since I’m not at the top, I can’t tell you how close it is between fights of high skilled players.

Also I have 1000 hours in my account, but I have no other professions (other than a dungeon warrior). This means I have not learned what other professions’ skill sets have. This is the problem with other casual players. They didn’t bother picking out other professions to see what they have, and then start complaining about how they can’t counter thieves. If you saw how I played against that bunker guardian, I went in just whacking at him without knowing what his class can do (which made me look bad at playing).

Is the D/D build overpowered? I think it needs toning, but nerfing the stealth duration to 4 seconds is effectively killing the entire thief at the high skill levels.

Now, on the part on the instant gib factor. Bunkers are ridiculously good. They are next in line with stealth. Out of the most frustrating fights I have, elementalists and guardians make me want to break keyboards. But can a D/D stealth build beat the bunkers? No. Can a bleed thief beat them? Kinda hard. I don’t think you can really kill an elementalist 1v1. Guardians, well, I never did learn them. I can’t tell you whether it’s possible to do it with bleed thief.

The only other build that works against bunkers is the burst damage build. The fight lasts 3 seconds. At this point, the thief would have assessed the scenario, making sure that we have the best chance to inflict all the damage, Mug, CnD, backstab. That’s it. If you mess with this combination, you might as well thrash the entire build instead.

Thieves currently have no means of doing it in a hybrid way that doesn’t look awkward. 25/30/0/0/15 builds mean you spam heartseeker, another huge complaint about why thieves can instantly do high burst hits that goes from 5-7k damage in a row.

So where does this leave us? I really have no idea. If I can’t use stealth builds, you complain about instant gib, and you think wild bill’s bleed thief is also ridiculous, maybe you can ask Anet to delete the entire thief section. There has been so much QQ, that I really can’t respond in any way other than sarcasm and ridicule. My god. I don’t even know why I’m typing this up to defend the thieves. Or even showing you how to get thieves. I used the same clip 3 times in a row where I killed the thieves just like that.

This video proofs that thief’s can not do as much damage as they did before (and to demonstrate that you did pick guardian. One of the classes with the highest survivability.) yet while trying to demonstrate that you pretty much solo a whole zerg. You don’t get any kills (inside of the enemy zerg) but try what you are doing with any other class and THEY will get a kill. Notice how the other player (not a thief) dies.

Also see how little HP you lose when fighting the guardian (not saying that you would have to much HP it’s just because he can’t see you the whole time, so thats shows how powerful (and according to some to powerful) that is ) You and another thief get him to about 10% HP. Then you run into the zerg and they get you to about 50% HP.

Eventually you get downed, outside of the zerg.. By a thief!

Before thief’s could use the backstab to medium / light armor players that do not build on toughness and/or vitality to get them downed instantly. Those players will now (only) lose about 75% of there health when you do that.

Devata.6589:

This video proofs that thief’s can not do as much damage as they did before (and to demonstrate that you did pick guardian. One of the classes with the highest survivability.) yet while trying to demonstrate that you pretty much solo a whole zerg. You don’t get any kills (inside of the enemy zerg) but try what you are doing with any other class and THEY will get a kill. Notice how the other player (not a thief) dies.

Also see how little HP you lose when fighting the guardian (not saying that you would have to much HP it’s just because he can’t see you the whole time, so thats shows how powerful (and according to some to powerful) that is ) You and another thief get him to about 10% HP. Then you run into the zerg and they get you to about 50% HP.

Eventually you get downed, outside of the zerg.. By a thief!

Before thief’s could use the backstab to medium / light armor players that do not build on toughness and/or vitality to get them downed instantly. Those players will now (only) lose about 75% of there health when you do that.

Once again, you ignore the fact that a stealth thief survivability is the rough equivalent of a bunker elementalist and a hybrid guardian who specs in between bunker and dps. How do you get a thief? By burst damage. How do you get an elementalist? By burst damage. How do you get a guardian? Make sure he has no aegis on him and burst him down.

See the pattern here? The way to get a thief is through burst damage or high skilled players who actively seek to dodge/hamper the thief combos, and then beat him with true sustained damage. And casual thieves are easy to beat if you got the right build.

Otherwise if you think that 1 vs zerg surviving thief is “OP”, how about watching the 2 elementalists vs zerg again, who are equally “OP”. I have gotten burst down by a mesmer before who immobilized my thief, chaining his sword skills and shatter combo. That’s 1vs1. Before that, warrior had quickness combo with 100b who manages to catch me from time to time (1 second to react), but that combo ended when Anet nerfed quickness.

Nice video and I actually liked the ‘search’ for the thief—it was hilarious. OP, I think you have a future on youtube.

I suppose it’s a good thing that Anet listens to the community. It’s a shame they don’t have a reality-testing filter to employ after listening. I was PvE-only with my s/d thief and loved the fluid playstyle. The stealth nerf utterly destroyed it and it now feels like I’m fighting the profession as much as I’m fighting the mob. Anet, success in class design (as when you succeed in producing a fluid playstyle) is a good thing, not something to remove as a problem. The world is full of voices; the trick lies in listening to the right ones.

LoneWolfie.1852:

Simonoly.4352:

@Yuujin – Me thinks you stopped watching the video half way through then. Sure, he made tons of mistakes, but he used the exact same insta-gib melty Thief burst that so many people complain about. My comment wasn’t on his performance, only that he portrays quite often the exact thing that people point out and then scream for nerfs. If this video was ever an attempt to portray the Thief as balanced to those who have already decided the Thief is OP, then it’s not really going to help the cause. But actually it looks like the OP was just having some fun kittening around, so none of this analysis even matters.

-What LoneWolfie said

You did actually stop watching halfway through because in your post you said he was melting faces and that just isn’t what was happening.

No offense, Wolfie, but what I saw wasn’t you kicking copious amounts of butt all by your lonesome.

Simonoly, you sound like you’ve already made up your mind on the thief issue, because all this video showed beyond what an average thief player looks like, is how unreliable the so called ‘insta gib’ method is on someone that isn’t specced glass cannon.

No one cries when a glass cannon anything dies, that’s the price you pay for sacrificing all of your surviability to deal damage, and wandering off by yourself.

Thieves don’t get heavy armor, a high health pool, a second health bar like Necromancers, clones and confusion, or anything along those lines. Thieves get stealth. No fear, no knock backs, no invuln mist or sword attacks, no protection buff, just damage and stealth.

Devata.6589:

This video proofs that thief’s can not do as much damage as they did before (and to demonstrate that you did pick guardian. One of the classes with the highest survivability.) yet while trying to demonstrate that you pretty much solo a whole zerg. You don’t get any kills (inside of the enemy zerg) but try what you are doing with any other class and THEY will get a kill. Notice how the other player (not a thief) dies.

Also see how little HP you lose when fighting the guardian (not saying that you would have to much HP it’s just because he can’t see you the whole time, so thats shows how powerful (and according to some to powerful) that is ) You and another thief get him to about 10% HP. Then you run into the zerg and they get you to about 50% HP.

Eventually you get downed, outside of the zerg.. By a thief!

Before thief’s could use the backstab to medium / light armor players that do not build on toughness and/or vitality to get them downed instantly. Those players will now (only) lose about 75% of there health when you do that.

Hp didn’t drop on the guardian because the guardian really didn’t attack back, he survived the zerg because he stealthed and they made a beeline for the door. The only reason he got downed was because he was ressing someone and wasn’t in stealth. Im pretty sure a Ele could escape that zerg too, maybe mesmer as well.

Sunflowers.1729:

Your video is so biased it isn’t even funny. Less than 1 minute into the video you say “2 thieves can’t even down a guardian so this is OP”?

Guess what
1) The guardian isn’t even doing any damage to either of you.
2) A thief can survive against 2 of any other class as long as the player doesn’t suck.

I don’t believe thieves are OP anymore but your video is just…biased.

Edit: I don’t really care if you play well or not (after all it’s just a video game) but the conclusions you are drawing don’t make sense.

The concept of sarcasm was lost on you friend. If you’re really offended by that then you need to take a BIGGGGGG step back and see the context there. People complain about thieves because they can do something that no other class can do… stealth. In that guardian fight did you notice something? Block, block, block, block, block, block, block, evade, block, block, block. They also get burning while blocking and perma retaliation. A guard can kill someone without ever even touching them. Not saying they’re op, just saying they have their own special strengths.

With that said, now just imagine if everyone who saw block in a fight raged and complained in the forums until everything guardian was nerfed. Does that sound fair to you? THAT was what the op was trying to show you in his video.

Iove.3902:

Rizzy.8293:

Slazarian CZE.9874:

Totally agree with this video. I don´t get the mania about thief being OP. I think that mesmers , guardians, elementalists are more close to be OP.

Woah woah woah!
Eles are no where near close to OP, the way ele is, you either survive a long time by being a punching bag and do very little damage knicking away at bads or you balance it out a little.

But yeah, thieves ar eno where near OP.

Mesmers on the other hand, Confusion is like empathy + backfire on steroids. -.-

Not to be ‘that guy’, but Eles can tank and do a lot of damage. Refer to BitCloud1 on twitch for his new build showcasing such.

What “new build?” I am curious.

OP, you’re doing it wrong.

Lol…..troll post? Hell with the rest of you crybaby thieves I just can’t tell…

So, the video starts by showing that a thief can act like a complete kitten running around like a chicken with its head cut off, hitting random buttons and tabbing through targets.

Then the video shows how thieves are over powered because they hit like trucks and only get downed when they make a mistake or over-extend themselves?

I can only hope this is all serious. After spending my first few months WvWing as a Ranger…thief tears are delicious when nerfs happen. I now play a (P/D) thief, and I say keep the nerfs comin!

ski.4927:

Lol…..troll post? Hell with the rest of you crybaby thieves I just can’t tell…

So, the video starts by showing that a thief can act like a complete kitten running around like a chicken with its head cut off, hitting random buttons and tabbing through targets.

Then the video shows how thieves are over powered because they hit like trucks and only get downed when they make a mistake or over-extend themselves?

I can only hope this is all serious. After spending my first few months WvWing as a Ranger…thief tears are delicious when nerfs happen. I now play a (P/D) thief, and I say keep the nerfs comin!

A) Here’s your ranger’s dev post.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Thief-haters-take-this-wisdom-from-a-dev/1840249

B) Yes, blowing all my traits and skills, sacrificing armor and HP, eating food and stones that cost 10 silver+ in total each time I activate to achieve one singular usage of high burst damage combo. Did you also forget I’m hiding in a zerg and waiting for the opponent to not pay attention OR have a good tactical advantage (he just used his stunbreaker) before using the combo?

C) “Only” got down because I made one single mistake sounds about right for this build. You obviously don’t understand how to play a thief.

D) Thieves are the only one with burst damage? Watch this.

-100 Nades (retired build due to true OPness)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_rXq2LYg0 – Kill shot

E) The wrong answer is nerfing thieves. The right answer is buffing other professions. Right now putting into damage items is much stronger than trying to put toughness into a character. Even if you nerf thieves, there are other classes with burst damage that is just as powerful.

F) Great. Another whiner from another profession.

How do you press F2, Q, 5 and F1 that quickly in order?