Guild Wars 2

Would you like a chance to be able to do damage at 1200 range with an auto attack like every other class in the game has?

1200 range pretty much allows you to faceroll the dragon world events and many others, it is also a huge advantage when attacking/defending keeps… yet thieves only have 1 1200 ability and its dps is pantsacious…

900 range doesn’t cut it when most people are nuking from 1200 and some from 1400… it makes you easy to tab target.

I agree the thief needs some changes… but can we perhaps have some positive changes too?

Guardians complained in beta they needed a 1200 and got one… perhaps its our turn? … Discuss

Edit:

Is the Rifle the answer to our lack of range options AND lack of overall weapon choices?

A rifle set with 1200 skills that does decent damage with some cast times or self rooting skills ie. behaves like a sniper rifle could be the answer to our woes?

I would like to have a 1200 range on either shortbow or pistol but not both. Ranger shortbow is 1200 so I dont see why Thief cant be. Rangers might try to argue that its because they are “Rangers” but that doesn’t stop them using melee weapons effectively.

Maybe if there was a trait that increased range by 33% with shortbow in shadow arts (because thats where the +5% dmg shortbow trait is).

I believe the consensus on this issue is…..

Sniper Rifle.

Or just give us rifles and create some sniping abilities.

Rifles would be awesome.

Thieves would honestly be bloody OP if pistols/shortbow got 1200 range.

We do, however, need more weapon diversity… we have the least amount of sets of all. And harpoon gun already has 1200 range, so something else should have the same.

I think the auto attack on the short bow should at least have a 1200 range. When there are 50 people attacking a tower (with possibly more not even visible due to another issue all together) its not viable to jump down and attack for a few moments, you die 90% of the time. We need to be able to stand on the wall and attack like every other class.

Actually you can attack people that are somewhat near the walls just fine with your shortbow. Longer range would probably be OP for shortbow as the range defines your survivability.
I’d love the rifle option for longer range!

thiefs cant retaliate when defending something unless with bow. I dont find the poison debuff much promising on bow. I wish we had a better 2nd aoe on bow. Really wish we could do double swords or rifles. Rifle thief would be fun. It seems possible i mean ranger gets GS lmao.

Give us a Rifle, please °_°

Take it easy guys, they need to save some content for expansions

1200 on shortbow with its current bounce would be a little ridiculous. I think 900 is a good spot for it. However pistols could use a buff, there is not much incentive to be using them right now over other weapon set ups.

Short bow range actually is slightly longer than the tooltip suggests. If you try to shoot it at roughly 900-1100 range, it will still hit. The red line under the skills will still be on, however, indicating that you can’t hit. You have to manually shoot, as auto attack won’t take over, however.

I agree, shortbow should have 1200 range. I don’t see how that would be overpowered at all, otherwise wouldn’t all the sPvP and tPvP players be complaining?

If they did give thieves access to the rifle, with a range of 1200-1500, then that could be a good compromise. Stealth Snipers FTW!

Thanks guys for all the good responses and constructive criticism, the forum community here seems to be a lot better than the simple l2p you get elsewhere

Krathalos.3461:

Short bow range actually is slightly longer than the tooltip suggests. If you try to shoot it at roughly 900-1100 range, it will still hit. The red line under the skills will still be on, however, indicating that you can’t hit. You have to manually shoot, as auto attack won’t take over, however.

This is actually the case for any weapon that shoots in an arc rather than a straight line… it works the same for Rangers bows, Elementalists fireball etc, tested it this morning.

I also realize they need to leave some content for expansions, but it just doesn’t seem right that we are the only class without the 1200 auto. Also the 1200 aoe we do have does terrible dps at max range due to the arc it takes being huge and us not being able to launch another one until its either been detonated or hits the ground.

We are already so good at so many things but please GIVE US MORE MORE MORE.

Please go look at some of the other class boards around here. Elementalists are in sad shape and Necros have basically one viable build.

Jnaathra.6549:

We are already so good at so many things but please GIVE US MORE MORE MORE.

Please go look at some of the other class boards around here. Elementalists are in sad shape and Necros have basically one viable build.

And this thread was going so well, if we wanted to talk about Ele’s or Necro’s surely we would be on their forums?

I agree with Necros, and to an extent Elementalists , I’m actually playing an Ele instead of Theif right now.

Theif is considered so good mainly because of gimmicky builds that allow pistol whip to 2 or 3 shot pretty much every class while they cannot escape… or stacking lots of bleeds and then vanishing into stealth and waiting about before finishing said player off… which is counterable via condition removal…

please stay on topic and post why you feel that theif should be the one class with out a 1200 range auto, and your reason for this.

Thank you

I think a major trait in the Precision that extended pistol range to 1200 (could call it “Crack Shot” or something) would be a nice middle ground between adding a whole new weapon to balance (Rifle, for example) and leaving thieves to just spam 2 slow-moving shortbow skills for the duration of a siege.

Edit: They could replace Critical Haste, because that trait is worthless on a 30s CD.

As if cluster bomb doesn’t allow you to function as a kitten cannon. If there’s anything thieves are during siege defense it’s lethal. Much more dangerous than those horrid rangers and elementalists and their 600-800 dmg/tick AOEs.

You mean spam their auto attacks and press 2/3/4/5 whenever cooldown falls off. Yeah, I wish I had that kind of interesting gameplay…

And if anyone can get away with jumping off a wall it’s thieves. Dagger storm is hilarious.

They probably won’t do this because the attacks bounce

I do wish they would give us something here more than Cluster bomb, yes it CAN do some damage if you’re specced right, but its SUPER slow.

However I’d be slow to throw Guardians out there as an example of 1200 range weapons. The scepter auto attack is nearly useless at that range as its slower than cluster bomb. However the 2 ability on guardian scepter is one of the best abilities I’ve used on oil pots and such. Low cool down and pretty good AoE damage.

Because hitting 5 people for 5k every 2-3 seconds is terrible.

Far as I’m concerned, it’s not necessary. I don’t feel that Thieves, aesthetically speaking, are meant to be part of big sieges. We’re more fringe/skirmish fighters.

Though, to be fair, if WvWvW was designed so that straight-up melee combat in massive zergs against each other was more common gameplay, instead of resorting entirely to max 1200 range, firing arrows and bullets and bombs at each other from a “safe” distance, this wouldn’t be such a big issue.

Gamblit.5041:

If Rangers shortbow can shoot from 1200 and Warriors can increase the range of their Longbows to 1200 as well, why can’t Thief Pistols do the same?

Perhaps, because there are numerous other areas in which theives are superior to rangers and there is a thing called balance.

I’m confused as to just how many areas Thief’s excel over rangers apart from getting away?

- sword warhorn + quickness….. allowing the birds to hit while auto attacking is huge damage… which equates to thief burst (try it yourself)
- better single target ranged dps… about the same ranged aoe that requires less effort
- better overall sustained dps
- higher hp
- large choice of conditions

Please state your reasons for your beliefs if you would like to add to the topic and be constructive.

I don’t understand how having a 1200 attack would break balance? Its just bringing our ranged into line with all the other classes (apart from maybe guardians)

Gamblit.5041:

Sylosi.6503:

Gamblit.5041:

If Rangers shortbow can shoot from 1200 and Warriors can increase the range of their Longbows to 1200 as well, why can’t Thief Pistols do the same?

Perhaps, because there are numerous other areas in which theives are superior to rangers and there is a thing called balance.

How will the balance change if we increas the range for Pistol skills from 900 to 1200?

Isn’t it self explantory why a 300 buff to range with no corresponding nerf elsewhere alters the balance?

But anyway, the fact some other class has 1200 range is irrlevant, classes are not balanced on one aspect, classes do different levels of damage, have different levels of mobility, etc, classes are balanced as a whole.

Sylosi.6503:

Gamblit.5041:

Sylosi.6503:

Gamblit.5041:

If Rangers shortbow can shoot from 1200 and Warriors can increase the range of their Longbows to 1200 as well, why can’t Thief Pistols do the same?

Perhaps, because there are numerous other areas in which theives are superior to rangers and there is a thing called balance.

How will the balance change if we increas the range for Pistol skills from 900 to 1200?

Isn’t it self explantory why a 300 buff to range with no corresponding nerf elsewhere alters the balance?

But anyway, the fact some other class has 1200 range is irrlevant, classes are not balanced on one aspect, classes do different levels of damage, have different levels of mobility, etc, classes are balanced as a whole.

Altering the balance to bring something into line with everything else is not a bad thing.

Dronin.3957:

Sylosi.6503:

Gamblit.5041:

Sylosi.6503:

Gamblit.5041:

If Rangers shortbow can shoot from 1200 and Warriors can increase the range of their Longbows to 1200 as well, why can’t Thief Pistols do the same?

Perhaps, because there are numerous other areas in which theives are superior to rangers and there is a thing called balance.

How will the balance change if we increas the range for Pistol skills from 900 to 1200?

Isn’t it self explantory why a 300 buff to range with no corresponding nerf elsewhere alters the balance?

But anyway, the fact some other class has 1200 range is irrlevant, classes are not balanced on one aspect, classes do different levels of damage, have different levels of mobility, etc, classes are balanced as a whole.

Altering the balance to bring something into line with everything else is not a bad thing.

So if thieves range should be brought into line, I take it you have no objection with every other classes mobilty, lack of stealth, burst damage, being “brought into line” witht that of a thief? Oh look we’ve just ended up with 8 classes exactly the same.

Thieves range is in line, given it is the most mobile class that can get in and out of range easier than other class, the level of burst, etc.

It seems you find this topic very personal Sylosi,

Stealth and steal are somewhat the thief’s things

Although mobility of the thief is very good, there are other classes with a lot of mobility, they just often dont choose to use the weapons/utility for it. for example

Warrior with gs and 1 handed sword has access to a 1200 charge and a leap, one is on an 8sec cooldown. You also get bulls rush for a 3rd charge and can grant yourself swiftness, while holding a melee weapon you can also have a 10% increased movement speed

Shall we look at elementalist? DD elementalist can give themselves swiftness, has a 1200 charge, a 900 charge and a 600 charge, they also have a 1200 blink utility, they can also spec for an increased movement speed in air of up to 25%

Guardian can give themselves swiftness in a boatload of ways, gets access to a 10 second teleport charge, a 900 range leap and has a utility with a 1200 teleport

Theif if hes shortbow/dagger dagger, he has a 900 teleport charge, a 900 slow moving projectile which causes about 300units of teleport which cannot be used with heartseeker, heartseeker spam which is a 450 spammable leap (is this the problem?), the 25% movement speed signet and a 1200 teleport

7 classes have 1200 autos, 1 doesnt, this is my point, WvW and some events are built around ranged damage…. this was the reason guardians got their ranged auto changed to 1200 (yes it still sucks due to slow projectile speed but this is the thief forum)

I’m not suggesting thiefs health be changed and i fully agree that there needs to be a change to the gimmicky pistol whip spec that you are referring to with your burst damage and people are so upset about, and I would’nt mind a change to heartseeker….. but that is not what this topic is about.

It seems you find this topic very personal Sylosi,

?

Stealth and steal are somewhat the thief’s things

I entriely agree, the point was “bringing into line” is utterly illogical as classes have differnt strengths/weakness/skills, etc and that classes are balanced as a whole, not on one specific aspect, if you bring everything into line, you have 8 identical classes.

Although mobility of the thief is very good, there are other classes with a lot of mobility…

None with that a of a thief.

7 classes have 1200 autos, 1 doesnt, this is my point, WvW and some events are built around ranged damage….

And? A thief can do ranged damage in events, sometimes that involves more dodging / movement than a class with longer range, but then thieves have other advatages to balance that, whcih is the point.

As for WWW, again and? Some classes can move very fast accross the map, others can’t, some are good at AOE, others aren’t, some can get more than 1200 range, others can’t and so on.

Clicky

perhaps this is for you buddy

Dronin.3957:

Clicky

perhaps this is for you buddy

You seem more interested in attacking the user instead of articulating on your idea of “balance”.

For what it’s worth, I think max range of 900 is entirely appropriate given that we a) deliver most of our burst from melee, and b) have so many escape tools at our disposal that putting us 300 ft further away from our opponents is only tipping the scales in our favor (a bad thing).

Also note that the Guardian’s 1200 range isn’t that great, as their projectiles are very slow moving, so you could effectively consider them in the same boat as us (swap “escape tools” with “mitigation tools”).

> I’m confused as to just how many areas Thief’s excel over rangers apart from getting away?

As a ranger who’s trying out a thief character, I’ll throw in my tuppence-worth.

The main difference so far is conditions. As a ranger, it seems to be largely about power – the only way I can stack some conditions is sending my pet in to fight, running round the side of my target and stacking bleed with my shortbow. But after just half an hour with my thief it’s obvious I can stack without thinking about it, and I’m really excited about trying out some condition-boosting gear rather than power all the time.

The second thing is melee. The main thing about rangers is their pets – send in your pet bear to tank, hit your target from distance, job’s a good ‘un. That’s fine against most mobs, but Risen completely ignore pets and go straight for you. Since I, like most rangers, go longbow/shortbow, there’s hardly any options for melee and you have to try and create distance, forcing you give up a utility space for Lightning Reflexes. I’ve not been on it long, but I’ve really enjoyed my thief getting up-close and personal with my targets, absolutely running rings around them. From a distance or toe-to-toe, I feel confident.

Initiative is a fantastic thing. With my ranger, I have a specific order in which I fire shots – not because it’s effective, but because it’s timed correctly with my cooldowns. If I use Rapid Fire, I then have to use something else afterwards. But with my thief, if I want to Unload my dual pistols three times in succession, I can. It’s a brilliant system and I wish it replaced cooldowns for all classes.

I’ll leave my final word for WvW. I’ve not tried it out with a thief yet, but as I say, for a ranger the big difference is their pet. Human players completely ignore pets so you’ve just completely lost your advantage. It’s tedious having to re-spec traits when entering WvW because beastmastery is useless; whereas I imagine anything useful for a thief in PvE is useful in WvW.

I concede that the guardians isn’t that good, but that’s mainly because it was an afterthought from Anet after significant moaning through the beta weekends. Guardians ranged still needs some work.

Sylosi was a borderline troll who was suggesting that a 1200 would make all classes the same, That is why i felt that the link might help him out a little bit.

Blowing things out of proportion is silly, I’m only suggesting a very small change, the only way other classes would notice it is in keep fights. Changing the range of 1 ability wouldn’t change the way a class plays

Unfortunately I think you misunderstand Anets objectives with GW2… All classes are supposed to be able to perform all roles just in different ways with a different flavour.

That should mean that every class build options for:
- Close range flat damage,
- Long range flat damage
- Close range conditions
- Long range conditions
- Support
- Damage mitigation

warriors are the most popular class, arguably due to the fact that they can tick all of these boxes. All the other classes need the same options i feel.

The reason that thief should have a 1200 is due to WvW and Events designed around that range.

just my two cents….

Clicky

perhaps this is for you buddy

Well given thief is probably my second most played class and I haven’t suggested thieves range should be nerfed, no not really.

Sylosi was a borderline troll who was suggesting that a 1200 would make all classes the same, That is why i felt that the link might help him out a little bit.

The only troll here is you (lying about what I said, classy), I never said that, I stated that “bringing into line” based on one aspect is idiotic, that if we followed that logic on all aspects, then all classes would be the same and that is not how they balance classes.

What you actually mean is, I disgaree with your suggestion on the grounds of balance and you don’t like it, perhaps you should avoid forums if you can’t cope with people disagreeing with you.

CorliCorso.6254:

> I’m confused as to just how many areas Thief’s excel over rangers apart from getting away?

As a ranger who’s trying out a thief character, I’ll throw in my tuppence-worth.

The main difference so far is conditions. As a ranger, it seems to be largely about power – the only way I can stack some conditions is sending my pet in to fight, running round the side of my target and stacking bleed with my shortbow. But after just half an hour with my thief it’s obvious I can stack without thinking about it, and I’m really excited about trying out some condition-boosting gear rather than power all the time.

The second thing is melee. The main thing about rangers is their pets – send in your pet bear to tank, hit your target from distance, job’s a good ‘un. That’s fine against most mobs, but Risen completely ignore pets and go straight for you. Since I, like most rangers, go longbow/shortbow, there’s hardly any options for melee and you have to try and create distance, forcing you give up a utility space for Lightning Reflexes. I’ve not been on it long, but I’ve really enjoyed my thief getting up-close and personal with my targets, absolutely running rings around them. From a distance or toe-to-toe, I feel confident.

Initiative is a fantastic thing. With my ranger, I have a specific order in which I fire shots – not because it’s effective, but because it’s timed correctly with my cooldowns. If I use Rapid Fire, I then have to use something else afterwards. But with my thief, if I want to Unload my dual pistols three times in succession, I can. It’s a brilliant system and I wish it replaced cooldowns for all classes.

I’ll leave my final word for WvW. I’ve not tried it out with a thief yet, but as I say, for a ranger the big difference is their pet. Human players completely ignore pets so you’ve just completely lost your advantage. It’s tedious having to re-spec traits when entering WvW because beastmastery is useless; whereas I imagine anything useful for a thief in PvE is useful in WvW.

that is the way YOU play your ranger…

Try short sword warhorn, its a fantastic melee set… you can also get a huge variety of conditions on a ranger. Lets look at your shortbow shall we? you can sustain 12 stacks of bleed AND poison using this set alone… with traps you can also apply burn among other things… In fact I can think of very few classes that can stack all 3 dots

anyways we have gone way off topic here.

When you have more experience of your thief in WvW and doing high level events your input will be valuable as you can compare between the two

Wile a rifle/longbow would add more options for people other than just using a shortbow. I honestly am in the boat that not everyone should be able to do the same thing. We are one of the deadliest, if not the deadliest classes up close and personal. Giving us the tools to also be very deadly at range makes me wonder what we would have to give up in order to get that.

I take it like this. Play to your strengths if you don’t like using a short bow that’s fine don’t and if you don’t have the range to defend a keep from the tower then there are other ways to go about doing it. Build an arrow cart, get on a cannon, And lets not forget we are one of the fastest classes in the game with our lovely signet of shadows constant 25%. Run supplies to repair the door/walls. WvW isn’t just about the killing someone has to do the grunt work.

However, we can dream cant we? If we were to get a rifle I think the only way for it to be fair is if it was like a real sniper rifle, long cast times on shots and you are not able to fire on the move.

I’d be happy if there was some way the game would increase the max. range of your abilities when firing from an elevated position.

+30% range when firing from wall, cliffs, etc?

Yes please!

Kind of off-topic, but I also really wish they’d bring back dynamic weapon range and damage based on elevation. That was in GuildWars1. So that if you’re on level ground with your target you might have 900 range, but if you get a good vantage point you have 1200 range and a damage bonus, and if you’re lower than the target you could have 600 range and a damage penalty. As the game currently stands height advantage is actually punished in PvE with mobs turning invulnerable and completely ignored in PvP.

bwillb this sort of works, weapons that arc (bows, fireball etc) tend to have slightly longer range than guns, you can notice it if you go slightly out of range the projectile will still hit as it drops.

it only works a short distance, perhaps an extra 100 units but its still there

Im not even sure where the argument against this is coming from. Have you ever encountered a short bow wielding thief and thought “Oh god I’m screwed!” The short bow has pitiful damage outside of the cluster bomb, it’s mainly a utility thing (great when used with allies ranged abilities) but in a wall siege poison is next to worthless (most people retreat before trying to heal.)

Making JUST the 1 have a 1200 range would mean you could hit a single target and 2 random ones regularly for some simple damage, and would give you something to focus on more than “shoot cluster shot, wait a few seconds, push again for maximum damage, hope you didn’t push too early.” The MOST you’d see from this is an actual use of the short bow, because having 1200 range to pepper a target means there might be a reason to keep it as a secondary weapon.

The biggest counter argument I could think of are the short bows mobility is the strongest of all the thiefs weapons. (disabiling shot and infiltrators arrow, meaning as long as they have initiative they can engage or disengage at will)

Sylosi.6503:

So if thieves range should be brought into line, I take it you have no objection with every other classes mobilty, lack of stealth, burst damage, being “brought into line” witht that of a thief? Oh look we’ve just ended up with 8 classes exactly the same.

That’s number one where you mention all classes becoming the same.

Sylosi.6503:

I entriely agree, the point was “bringing into line” is utterly illogical as classes have differnt strengths/weakness/skills, etc and that classes are balanced as a whole, not on one specific aspect, if you bring everything into line, you have 8 identical classes.

That’s twice. By that logic GW2 would have 7 identical classes currently…

Sylosi.6503:

Dronin.3957:

Sylosi was a borderline troll who was suggesting that a 1200 would make all classes the same, That is why i felt that the link might help him out a little bit.

The only troll here is you (lying about what I said, classy), I never said that, I stated that “bringing into line” based on one aspect is idiotic, that if we followed that logic on all aspects, then all classes would be the same and that is not how they balance classes.

And yes you did say that (not classy). And clearly we are not requesting to bring EVERYTHING into line. You are saying that “bringing into line” one aspect would be idiotic if we did that on all aspects, which we are not.

So by your own logic, you are at least a borderline troll if not a fully grown forest lumberjack troll.
/rant

Back on topic, playing as a thief on WvW Defense makes makes me real sad cause the only attack I can do from the walls is Clusterkitten. If you’ve tried it you will know how agonizing it is to shoot one, and wait for it to slowly fall for about 3-4 seconds while mashing #1 hoping it hits something.

Yes, Cluster Bomb does nice damage if you trait glass canon but 3-4 sec 4k’ish crit chunks of damage isn’t going to kill even a half asleep player. Yes I can do other duties, but why am I not given the OPTION to just autoattack and Clusterbomb? Isn’t it all about giving players options regardless of how well the class is at it?

I don’t know how much it would really affect s/tPvP considering that the auto doesn’t do mind boogling damage and using Clusterbomb out to max range is slow as hell. Plus any player chasing you is gonna be well within 900 as the Evasive Shot for the Cripple is still the same range, meaning 1200 range isn’t going to be balance breaking as effective kiting distance is Cripple distance (ps. if you strafe to kite and shoot, you run slower than if you just run forward. so if you are kiting, you need chill/cripple/swiftness).

Dronin.3957:

Shall we look at elementalist? DD elementalist can give themselves swiftness, has a 1200 charge, a 900 charge and a 600 charge, they also have a 1200 blink utility, they can also spec for an increased movement speed in air of up to 25%

remember that if you play d/d you are always in mid/close range and cannot switch to a long range wep while in combat. you will usually be around 240-600 depending on the skill used (excluding Ride the Lightning and Magnetic Grasp). also, the utility skill you are referring to (Lightning Flash) is 900, not 1200

the trait that gives passive movement speed (Zephyr’s Speed) does not stack with other movement speed buffs. the other trait (Windbourne Dagger) does not stack with speed buffs either. apparently it doesn’t work at all.

i don’t play as a thief so i won’t say whether you should or shouldn’t have a 1200 skill

SilverUniverse.7103:

Dronin.3957:

Shall we look at elementalist? DD elementalist can give themselves swiftness, has a 1200 charge, a 900 charge and a 600 charge, they also have a 1200 blink utility, they can also spec for an increased movement speed in air of up to 25%

remember that if you play d/d you are always in mid/close range and cannot switch to a long range wep while in combat. you will usually be around 240-600 depending on the skill used (excluding Ride the Lightning and Magnetic Grasp). also, the utility skill you are referring to (Lightning Flash) is 900, not 1200

the trait that gives passive movement speed (Zephyr’s Speed) does not stack with other movement speed buffs. the other trait (Windbourne Dagger) does not stack with speed buffs either. apparently it doesn’t work at all.

i don’t play as a thief so i won’t say whether you should or shouldn’t have a 1200 skill

Sorry lightning flash is 900 and not 1200, I apologise,

No speed buffs currently stack sadly. But this thread Isn’t to address the Elementalist, or their issues, I was just proving that other classes have options. I’m currently playing an ele because its more fun up to 60 so far… but this is WAY off topic…

1200 range is the standard for some events, some dungeons and certainly WvW

Several dungeon encounters are intentionally designed to be not melee friendly. Thief lack of 1200 weapon is a serious hamper.

fortytwo.3485:

Several dungeon encounters are intentionally designed to be not melee friendly. Thief lack of 1200 weapon is a serious hamper.

agree

How about that: since 900 → 1200 is a 33% increase in range, so nerf the damage by 33%. (Btw: It would not be the first time that a class gets hit by a 33% nerfhammer)

But I agree that Thieves should also get 1200 option – even though they are gernerally OP atm.

pmnt.4067:

How about that: since 900 -> 1200 is a 33% increase in range, so nerf the damage by 33%. (Btw: It would not be the first time that a class gets hit by a 33% nerfhammer)

But I agree that Thieves should also get 1200 option – even though they are gernerally OP atm.

I’m confused how to why you think thiefs are generally overpowered…

The stand out skill that is causing the most whine at the moment is Pistol whip… now I agree it can be cheap and irritating in pvp and may need a tone down… however it is very important to thief’s PvE which is probably why PW hasn’t been changed, It is also counterable by people using stability or spamming dodge…

Apart from that I don’t see any other stand out skills or specs?

The Thief’s ranged weapons already have pretty poor damage overall on their auto attack, I mean, lets compare the ranger shortbow to thief… the auto attack does more than twice the amount of damage!

But if you have to nerf the damage by a small amount to increase the range then fine, just make it a small amount, thief’s ranged dps is appalling with anything apart from unload.

I agree that giving the Thief more 1200 range options is nothing but a good thing. Guild Wars 2 class design is definitely about being flexible, which each offering numerous builds to suit many many different play styles. You’ve got Warriors that can be absolutely lethal at 1200 with the longbow/rifle, and in melee with axe builds and such. ANet broke the paradigm!

I don’t see why Thieves need to be limited to 900 range. It seems to go against that design philosophy.

I would totally understand extending Shortbow range to 1200 to be a trait. Some players are going to want to be pistol whippers, and others deadly at range. So, it makes sense this is a specialization you set out for with your build.

But I don’t see how giving Thieves 1200 range would make the class overpowered. It’s a ridiculous notion to think it homogenizes the classes. And it subtracts nothing from players that prefer to play as a melee Thief.

Why is this a problem?

Why are you having problems being in 900 range of anything considering you generally blow all your initiative ASAP and you can dodge A LOT. We’re easily fast enough to get into that range. We don’t need 1200.

And lol at you if you die to a rifle/longbow warrior. I don’t even know how you can die to one.