Guild Wars 2

So, I’ve seen that usually people around this forum are like “this is fine”, “doesn’t need to be changed.” And so on because the class is “okay”.
So I went ahead, tried about most classes in PVP.

For the elementalist, I tried the famous DD set up. I went about laughing because I could like smash my keyboard all over and get kills, support allies, ect. I didn’t even bother to read what the skills did and still did extremely well, even got top player once, if it even means anything.
Mesmer was like a joke, bursting around, spamming clones and acting like one. I did need to read the skills AT LEAST. But there was no much to learn about it.
The engineer melted down through people quite quickly with condtions, which are supposed to be long term damage…. it was incredibly easy to play too.
The other classes were okay, did take time to learn and all and they didn’t seem off balanced.

Now back to the thief…. It dies very VERY quickly. Deals only single target damage, mostly, they’re skills are BORING. Utilities are…meh… For ranged we gotta spam 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 (SB) I have loved the thief for being so slippery and sneaky but seeing how these other classes are more fun and much less punishing, it’s like… wow, the thief actually need to steroid up.

Also, init system. We can cast less abilities, the abilities are more sucky (lesser effects than other classes), weapons share CD and at the cost of casting them at will?
Bah, I’m somewhat dissapointed, my thief just lost some of my love.

I Don’t think any Thief will tell you that our class is okay the way it is, over nerfing has brought us to a point where we are not quite sure what our role is in the game as someone else can do everything we do far better.

Except stealth troll, but you Can’t realy do anything with that stupid build.

PearlGore.7419:

I Don’t think any Thief will tell you that our class is okay the way it is, over nerfing has brought us to a point where we are not quite sure what our role is in the game as someone else can do everything we do far better.

Except stealth troll, but you Can’t realy do anything with that stupid build.

Stealth troll is fun… but yeah, killing stuff with it requires you to play x3 times better than the other player. Le sigh, I really liked the thief.

It’s funny that you found Elementalist easier to play than a Warrior or Guardian.

Nevertheless, you are right that you can’t just pick up a Thief and face roll with it but once you master the profession, the profession is perceived to be OP.

There’s no way we can win this.

So basically, we just entrust ourselves to the wisdom of Anet balance team that they will do the right thing and at least hear us out before making a drastic decision.

IMO, the changes on FS/LS is just a bone they throw at the dogs just to stop them from barking for a while.

The problem is that, moreso than any other profession, people have really hardline ideas about what sort of motif they think the thief should follow. Pirate, assassin, brigand, duelist, there are tons of archetypes the GW2 thief fits into. This is true of all professions, a ranger can be an elite bowman or a beastmaster, a warrior can be a burly melee tank or a rifle-wielding soldier, a guardian can be a paladin or a battlemage, etc.

But when it comes to thieves, there is a much greater sense of “my vision of thieves is the way they should be played”, such as people wanting to make stealth an innate profession mechanic instead of an optional path.

Any change to thieves should strive to make the build variety and viability of thieves flourish so that any given thief you encounter could approach you with a variety of styles or tactics depending on personal preference. Unfortunately, most changes to thieves tend to diminish build diversity and force thieves into a few specific play styles. As a result, instead of pushing for increased build variety, people tend to want to overspecialize in the existing playstyles. This weakens the profession even more, and eliminates opportunity for innovation and synergy to be found within the toolset.

Tulisin.6945:

The problem is that, moreso than any other profession, people have really hardline ideas about what sort of motif they think the thief should follow. Pirate, assassin, brigand, duelist, there are tons of archetypes the GW2 thief fits into. This is true of all professions, a ranger can be an elite bowman or a beastmaster, a warrior can be a burly melee tank or a rifle-wielding soldier, a guardian can be a paladin or a battlemage, etc.

But when it comes to thieves, there is a much greater sense of “my vision of thieves is the way they should be played”, such as people wanting to make stealth an innate profession mechanic instead of an optional path.

Any change to thieves should strive to make the build variety and viability of thieves flourish so that any given thief you encounter could approach you with a variety of styles or tactics depending on personal preference. Unfortunately, most changes to thieves tend to diminish build diversity and force thieves into a few specific play styles. As a result, instead of pushing for increased build variety, people tend to want to overspecialize in the existing playstyles. This weakens the profession even more, and eliminates opportunity for innovation and synergy to be found within the toolset.

^ This, so many people need to be aware of this fact.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

It’s funny that you found Elementalist easier to play than a Warrior or Guardian.

Nevertheless, you are right that you can’t just pick up a Thief and face roll with it but once you master the profession, the profession is perceived to be OP.

There’s no way we can win this.

So basically, we just entrust ourselves to the wisdom of Anet balance team that they will do the right thing and at least hear us out before making a drastic decision.

IMO, the changes on FS/LS is just a bone they throw at the dogs just to stop them from barking for a while.

true…or a deflection from the SB/mug nerf…..20 nerfs in a row with no upside….is bad for thief morale. could be a bone…or a distraction/trade

Travlane.5948:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

It’s funny that you found Elementalist easier to play than a Warrior or Guardian.

Nevertheless, you are right that you can’t just pick up a Thief and face roll with it but once you master the profession, the profession is perceived to be OP.

There’s no way we can win this.

So basically, we just entrust ourselves to the wisdom of Anet balance team that they will do the right thing and at least hear us out before making a drastic decision.

IMO, the changes on FS/LS is just a bone they throw at the dogs just to stop them from barking for a while.

true…or a deflection from the SB/mug nerf…..20 nerfs in a row with no upside….is bad for thief morale. could be a bone…or a distraction/trade

you just got boon hate, stealth reverted back to 3 seconds, and all your signets reworked. You focus all on the bad

Bacon Please.8407:

Travlane.5948:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

It’s funny that you found Elementalist easier to play than a Warrior or Guardian.

Nevertheless, you are right that you can’t just pick up a Thief and face roll with it but once you master the profession, the profession is perceived to be OP.

There’s no way we can win this.

So basically, we just entrust ourselves to the wisdom of Anet balance team that they will do the right thing and at least hear us out before making a drastic decision.

IMO, the changes on FS/LS is just a bone they throw at the dogs just to stop them from barking for a while.

true…or a deflection from the SB/mug nerf…..20 nerfs in a row with no upside….is bad for thief morale. could be a bone…or a distraction/trade

you just got boon hate, stealth reverted back to 3 seconds, and all your signets reworked. You focus all on the bad

we got stealth reverted in pve only….a nerf that shouldnt have been done in first place hence it going back to “normal”…normal means normal…not a buff :P and everyong got signets reworked…(one of ours is null and void active now assassins signet) so we got boon steal on a slow/weak dmg set which is very nice dont get me wrong but its 2 major major nerfs for 1 good buff. or to be realistic like what 25 nerfs in a row to 1 boon hate buff? :P

Travlane.5948:

Bacon Please.8407:

Travlane.5948:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

It’s funny that you found Elementalist easier to play than a Warrior or Guardian.

Nevertheless, you are right that you can’t just pick up a Thief and face roll with it but once you master the profession, the profession is perceived to be OP.

There’s no way we can win this.

So basically, we just entrust ourselves to the wisdom of Anet balance team that they will do the right thing and at least hear us out before making a drastic decision.

IMO, the changes on FS/LS is just a bone they throw at the dogs just to stop them from barking for a while.

true…or a deflection from the SB/mug nerf…..20 nerfs in a row with no upside….is bad for thief morale. could be a bone…or a distraction/trade

you just got boon hate, stealth reverted back to 3 seconds, and all your signets reworked. You focus all on the bad

we got stealth reverted in pve only….a nerf that shouldnt have been done in first place hence it going back to “normal”…normal means normal…not a buff :P and everyong got signets reworked…(one of ours is null and void active now assassins signet) so we got boon steal on a slow/weak dmg set which is very nice dont get me wrong but its 2 major major nerfs for 1 good buff. or to be realistic like what 25 nerfs in a row to 1 boon hate buff? :P

ok change stealth back to 4 seconds in pve since you so ungrateful. they didn’t have to change it back, it is a buff. So what if everyone got signets reworked, they could of excluded you.

I honestly think this class needs a major rework.

Bacon Please.8407:

Travlane.5948:

Bacon Please.8407:

Travlane.5948:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

It’s funny that you found Elementalist easier to play than a Warrior or Guardian.

Nevertheless, you are right that you can’t just pick up a Thief and face roll with it but once you master the profession, the profession is perceived to be OP.

There’s no way we can win this.

So basically, we just entrust ourselves to the wisdom of Anet balance team that they will do the right thing and at least hear us out before making a drastic decision.

IMO, the changes on FS/LS is just a bone they throw at the dogs just to stop them from barking for a while.

true…or a deflection from the SB/mug nerf…..20 nerfs in a row with no upside….is bad for thief morale. could be a bone…or a distraction/trade

you just got boon hate, stealth reverted back to 3 seconds, and all your signets reworked. You focus all on the bad

we got stealth reverted in pve only….a nerf that shouldnt have been done in first place hence it going back to “normal”…normal means normal…not a buff :P and everyong got signets reworked…(one of ours is null and void active now assassins signet) so we got boon steal on a slow/weak dmg set which is very nice dont get me wrong but its 2 major major nerfs for 1 good buff. or to be realistic like what 25 nerfs in a row to 1 boon hate buff? :P

ok change stealth back to 4 seconds in pve since you so ungrateful. they didn’t have to change it back, it is a buff. So what if everyone got signets reworked, they could of excluded you.

we were talking about buffs/nerfs per class…..u made it sound like thieves got allt his special treatment last patch :p the only thing they got buffed was FS/LS. thats all im pointing out…first buff in forever.

A class who can heal damaging conditions and become invisible at the same time,

A class who can restart any fight at will,

A class with an impressive mobility and burst damage,

A class with the best escape mechanism,

A class with the best damage mitigation in the whole game, (stealth),

A class with almost no cooldowns and a laughable punishment for spamming a single key during the whole fight,

Yep… super hard to master, and it dies super easily…

By a huge margen, behind the warrior, is the most noob friendly class in the whole game… it just took me a couple of hours to master the basic, and a couple more to be more than decent,

Engels.8537:

A class who can heal damaging conditions and become invisible at the same time,

A class who can restart any fight at will,

A class with an impressive mobility and burst damage,

A class with the best escape mechanism,

A class with the best damage mitigation in the whole game, (stealth),

A class with almost no cooldowns and a laughable punishment for spamming a single key during the whole fight,

Yep… super hard to master, and it dies super easily…

By a huge margen, behind the warrior, is the most noob friendly class in the whole game… it just took me a couple of hours to master the basic, and a couple more to be more than decent,

Noob friendly != easy mode. The war and thief may be easy to get used to, but you’ll sure have a hard time in tPvP, different from say, playing a bunker guardian.

I was talking about Spvp, there’s where i test classes,

A bunker guardian is not hard either, but hey is harder than a roaming thief for sure,

The only difference between a thief and a warrior is that the warrior is kitten against any half brained player,

On the other hand a half brained thief performs decent at worst case,

At higher complexity and better teams i’d accept the thief is mediocre, (i’m sure this is not the reason of this post),

On a glory fest aka public game is above the average,

The devs are going in the right direction. They seem to be intent on giving you more survivability and utility if you spec for it, but overall a little less burst damage and survivability if you do not spec for it.

This seems fair. Stealth doesn’t perform very well on mobs but used correctly in conjunction with other skills it becomes impressive vs other players. As long as thief has a strong stealth basing you will be lesser than some other classes in straight damage, tankiness, and etc. This is due to the synergy of stealth with….everything.

If you wish the thief to be an overall more competitive class you will need to lose a bit of stealth prowess in turn for that power, otherwise thief will always be a balancing nightmare. This is the way stealth classes are in every game and the difficulty in balancing them.

No class is hard to play, the skill comes from having to counter other classes properly and react against the opponent. sPvP is also no place to test things as 99% of the people there aren’t very good to begin with.

Ralathar.7236:

If you wish the thief to be an overall more competitive class you will need to lose a bit of stealth prowess in turn for that power, otherwise thief will always be a balancing nightmare. This is the way stealth classes are in every game and the difficulty in balancing them.

“Losing a bit of stealth prowess in turn for that power” is called not putting traits into shadow arts. Stealth is already a specialization choice, not something innate to thieves, and people can and do choose to go without it in order to have power in other areas. “But stealth!” is no more a legitimate counterargument to thief abilities than “but traps!” or “but venoms!”, it just happens to be a more effective and therefore more popular specialization.

Anyone that says thieves need buffed (WvW) need to L2P. 100%

Good lord, baddies. Thieves are better than fine.

I play a thief.

I just don’t want my class to be the sole owner of the Poopstain of the Month Trophy anymore. :c

Zacchary.6183:

I just don’t want my class to be the sole owner of the Poopstain of the Month Trophy anymore. :c

I believe warriors still hold that title.

wookie.8934:

Zacchary.6183:

I just don’t want my class to be the sole owner of the Poopstain of the Month Trophy anymore. :c

I believe warriors still hold that title.

No. All of the facerollers believe “Warrior is best” and that anything > warrior = OP. Maths never lie.

Tulisin.6945:

“Losing a bit of stealth prowess in turn for that power” is called not putting traits into shadow arts. Stealth is already a specialization choice, not something innate to thieves, and people can and do choose to go without it in order to have power in other areas. “But stealth!” is no more a legitimate counterargument to thief abilities than “but traps!” or “but venoms!”, it just happens to be a more effective and therefore more popular specialization.

Considering how much stealth you can have without investing a single point I must disagree.

Ralathar.7236:

Tulisin.6945:

“Losing a bit of stealth prowess in turn for that power” is called not putting traits into shadow arts. Stealth is already a specialization choice, not something innate to thieves, and people can and do choose to go without it in order to have power in other areas. “But stealth!” is no more a legitimate counterargument to thief abilities than “but traps!” or “but venoms!”, it just happens to be a more effective and therefore more popular specialization.

Considering how much stealth you can have without investing a single point I must disagree.

Then you vastly overestimate the strength of untraited stealth against a skilled opponent. C&D is un-viably expensive, HiS gives stealth in return for burning out your heal while having the longest cooldown, and Shadow Refuge removes nearly all positional uncertainty. The only resource cheap malleable is Blinding Powder. Without trait-based stealth incentivization, you’re left simply lowering your combat uptime for little benefit. The vast majority of stealth’s mechanical benefits come solely from traits.

You can use stealth without specializing in it just like you can dodge without acrobatics, but it isn’t going to be particularly effective.

I am not conformist with thief but i dont like complaint in forums, i simply adapt.
I play S/P thief since 25 august (over 1500h), it never was a OP set and players rarey complaint about it but was collaterally nerfed in several patchs : pw nerf, onnomberry nerf, mug nerf, haste nerf .
I would like some minor buffs like revert PW damage or increase smoke field radius to 180.

Ralathar.7236:

The devs are going in the right direction. They seem to be intent on giving you more survivability and utility if you spec for it, but overall a little less burst damage and survivability if you do not spec for it.

Any more survivability then we become mini-Warriors. That is not the right direction for this profession. The burst damage is what define this profession and losing that capability will surely kill this profession. That is the direction we are currently going, so according to you, killing this profession is the right direction.

If you wish the thief to be an overall more competitive class you will need to lose a bit of stealth prowess in turn for that power, otherwise thief will always be a balancing nightmare. This is the way stealth classes are in every game and the difficulty in balancing them.

If Stealth is such a problem or a “balancing nightmare”, then they should remove it — but give us Critical Defense (3s Evade on Crits) and Flashing Blades (100% evade while attacking) as our utility skills if they want to give us survivability skills.

Zacchary.6183:

No. All of the facerollers believe “Warrior is best” and that anything > warrior = OP. Maths never lie.

Not sure if serious… or trolling….

ski.4927:

Anyone that says thieves need buffed (WvW) need to L2P. 100%

Good lord, baddies. Thieves are better than fine.

I play a thief.

In wvwvw? Yes, I agree. But if you stop and think about what a thief can do in spvp you will suddendly realize that he can only do C-R-A-P. You HAVE to go glass cannon to deal damage but then you are just a walking dead.

Engels.8537:

A class who can heal damaging conditions and become invisible at the same time,

A class who can restart any fight at will,

A class with an impressive mobility and burst damage,

A class with the best escape mechanism,

A class with the best damage mitigation in the whole game, (stealth),

A class with almost no cooldowns and a laughable punishment for spamming a single key during the whole fight,

Yep… super hard to master, and it dies super easily…

By a huge margen, behind the warrior, is the most noob friendly class in the whole game… it just took me a couple of hours to master the basic, and a couple more to be more than decent,

You realize going stealth stops 0 damage right? Just keep hitting him and think if u went stealth where u would run.. Yes using “skill” and intuition beats stealth. How do you beat a thief in real life? You catch him, and handcuff him.

On a side note, I feel thieves are finally balanced in spvp/tpvp. You cant really mug>cnd>bs 1 shot people in spvp anymore, and I’m glad. Mug was simply too much. I run D/P and find tanky classes to be.. tanky, and thieves to be delightfully slippery, but by no means unstoppable. I’ve been playing thief for about 6 months, and have met few on the duel servers that can beat me (many many many thief v thief fights) if that means anything. The class that tends to have the easiest job are engi, which to me shows how some classes are better against some than others, some are comparable, and some are worse.

And i find it funny how since heartseeker is so loud and noticeable people think thats all we use. Sure some do, but I haven’t seen anyone actually die from one of those “noobs” in a long time. Heartseeker is a leap finish combo, and if you don’t try to use combos on almost every aoe field you see.. then idk what to tell you. You should. Learn them. They require a lot of skill to recognize and engage in a productive manner. The skill comes in knowing when to use it, and, a lot of times, make sure it DOESN’T hit someone. Since our skills are bundled with multiple aoes, or buffs or condi, we take this skill and use it for many different utilities. This is where the thief skill cap lies.

Just my opinions and 2 cents. Happy playing!

Nickeloneon.8714:

Zacchary.6183:

No. All of the facerollers believe “Warrior is best” and that anything > warrior = OP. Maths never lie.

Not sure if serious… or trolling….

Serious troll is serious. :I

Zacchary.6183:

Nickeloneon.8714:

Zacchary.6183:

No. All of the facerollers believe “Warrior is best” and that anything > warrior = OP. Maths never lie.

Not sure if serious… or trolling….

Serious troll is serious. :I

It’s an obvious troll because Warrior is not the best, Guardian is — they are a walking, breathing, one man army of tank, heal, and DPS — a manifestation of the Holy Trinity.

Bacon Please.8407:

you just got boon hate, stealth reverted back to 3 seconds, and all your signets reworked. You focus all on the bad

You mean like thief-haters focus all on the good?

Engels.8537:

A class who can heal damaging conditions and become invisible at the same time,

As opposed to classes who can drop conditions automatically by slotting a signet or trait (no other pre-requisites required)

A class who can restart any fight at will,

“Restarting” a fight would require remaining in stealth for quite a bit. For that time, the thief isn’t doing any damage, contesting any points, or contributing anything significant. Unless they’re deep into SA, they’re not gaining much more than their opponent while he waits for the thief to unstealth. A few lucky AoE’s, and the thief might be in a worse situation then when he decided to try “restarting the fight” with a long duration stealth.

A class with an impressive mobility and burst damage,

Well, Duh. With no access to protection, stability, blocks or immunes, subpar access to regen, medium armor and the lowest base HP bracket in the game, without being mobile and bursty we would count as NPC’s.

A class with the best escape mechanism,

See above

A class with the best damage mitigation in the whole game, (stealth),

Stealth is actually tied for the worst damage mitigation in the game, along with every other ability that mitigates 0% damage. Anything that completely nullified damage (Guardian elite, Distortion, block) would be best, followed by skill that completely nullify direct damage (like endure pain), then protection.

A class with almost no cooldowns and a laughable punishment for spamming a single key during the whole fight,

There are costs associated with initiative that most thief hating players tend not to notice.
A) Initiative is a resource pool shared across both weapons. We cant “Go nuts” with weaponset 1, then switch to 2 for a whole new set of cooldowns. We hit 0 init, both our weapon sets are out of mojo.
B) Spammable attacks means very restricted effects on those attacks – No knockdown/blowback/knockback of any kind. Extremely short duration on any stun, daze or immobilize. Short duration on any buff granted by an ability. All because they can be spammed. It’s perfectly fair, but just something most don’t notice when complaining about the spammability of thief attacks.

Yep… super hard to master, and it dies super easily…

Yes, actually. The difference between a new/noob thief and an experienced/good thief is extremely noticeable.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Zacchary.6183:

Nickeloneon.8714:

Zacchary.6183:

No. All of the facerollers believe “Warrior is best” and that anything > warrior = OP. Maths never lie.

Not sure if serious… or trolling….

Serious troll is serious. :I

It’s an obvious troll because Warrior is not the best, Guardian is — they are a walking, breathing, one man army of tank, heal, and DPS — a manifestation of the Holy Trinity.

Troll was directed at facerollers. I was still being serious though. Warriors imo require the least amount of thinking to use. My first alt was a warrior and I just stopped using it after lvl 25 because the “slap keyboard to win” style of gameplay was boring. At least with the guardian you have to put some thought into it.

I even used a build calc to see into my warrior’s future.

After that, I went back to my thief to max him out because trying to get an effective tanky non-stealth s/p build was more challenging and fun than searching for a more creative warrior build. The warrior is purely straightforward damage and buffing. The skills are mind-numbingly simple.

If you don’t know what I mean, roll a thief and then roll a warrior. You will see the difference.