Guild Wars 2

when playing a thief , do you get the sense that there is not a whole lot to gripe about but think maybe this could be nerfed a bit for the class ?

Not so much nerfed, but I would move some of the damage increase from auto attack into other attacks.

There is a need to make thief less about dropping down onto a target and auto attacking. That isn’t very involved and feels like pure power creep.

The standard gripe about HoT applies, but all the elites would need to be nerfed at the same time to keep the game balanced in a HoT vs HoT sense and not just in a HoT vs Core sense.

ANet. Nerf ANet.

I’d honestly prefer the signet change in PvP to also be applied to WvW just for consistency, which would technically be a nerf to the signet in WvW, but whatever. At the moment 2 dodges and 3 condi clears is a bit much (albeit, it’s WvW where pretty much any build can become op) so I wouldn’t really care if it got brought down to 1 dodge.

alchemyst.2165:

I’d honestly prefer the signet change in PvP to also be applied to WvW just for consistency, which would technically be a nerf to the signet in WvW, but whatever. At the moment 2 dodges and 3 condi clears is a bit much (albeit, it’s WvW where pretty much any build can become op) so I wouldn’t really care if it got brought down to 1 dodge.

They might do this. They buffed sword #2 in pvp only then also made the same move in pve/wvw a few months later

The dodges, they used to be a mechanic to stay alive as S/D, now every thief has acces to them, a D/P thief with dem dodges is strong, too strong.

I think Debilitating Arc (Staff #3) needs to cost 1 more initiative to bring it in line with how loaded it is.

Black Powder, Shadow Shot, Shadow Step, Auto Attack for starters.

Cobrakon.3108:

Black Powder, Shadow Shot, Shadow Step, Auto Attack for starters.

Just say thief.

maybe nerf trickery…It’s too good to consider anything else

honestly ppl are gonna get really mad when i say this
first of all i am a thief main my self for 1 year before HoT

now, i really really think dp needs a nerf, it is the main reason thief gets so many nerfs, the reason there is 0 viable pvp set besides it.
Shadow shot does way too much for way too little effort and cost, on demand stealth, on demand interrupt, there needs to be a nerf for it to get the other sets in line
if you play thief vs thief and you aren’t playing dp, and both thieves are around the same skill lv dp will win 95% of the time, just because it’s the superior set, hands down

D/D power is dead, P/D is dead, S/D is fine as long as you don’t fight another thief with dp, Staff (which is my main set currently) fairs well against every thief set, no advantage or disadvantage, except for dp of course, the best set for thief no matter what you do
and honestly it bores me as well, every is playing the exact same build, there is no variaty, no surprises in builds that you may encounter, it’s always dp power,
My point is, pls nerf D/P, into the ground for as much as i care, i hate the set but that is n ot the point, nerf dp, buff the other weapon sets, take away the dmg from shadow shot, have it be blind and gap closer only, or at least cut the dmg in half if not more

but i know all the dp mains are gonna rage at me for saying this even tho every thief who has played this game long enough knows dp is the reason for 80% of our problems

Cobrakon.3108:

Black Powder, Shadow Shot, Shadow Step, Auto Attack for starters.

I don’t see why Shadow Step needs a nerf, 50s cd stun break/teleport. There is really no reason at all to nerf it
for the auto attack it has to stay that way in pve, so either change it in pvp/wvw but if you do that a bit of the dmg taken away has to be given to the other skills, dd 3 (take away condi, fix the animation to be more fluid and increase dmg) Staff 2 could use more dmg, pd needs buffs across the board, pp is fine, maybe p2 could use some changing

but to everything else yeah, hell yeah

can we pls nerf the perma evade condi thief bullkitten?
the constant 333 dodge 333 dodge throw dagger back to 333
it’s kittened, it does way too much dmg for way too little effort

Shadow Shot needs a damage nerf. Dagger AA also needs a damage nerf, but maybe move the damage to Heartseeker. Headshot should get a follow up skill when a target is interrupted so that it can’t spam interruptions as quickly. This will also help keep PI damage down a bit too. Vault is still an insanely OP skill, though it does have an obvious tell when you know it well enough. Still, moving some of its damage to other staff skills would be nice.

Trickery needs a nerf! That trait line is so good and gives so much to the profession. However, lines like Shadow Arts and Critical Strikes could get some love as compensation. Basically, what I’d like to see is Trickery no longer mandatory. My mind is still boggled that they buffed Bountiful Theft and Lead Attacks! They buffed an already necessary line. They could just move Lead Attacks damage increase to Critical Strikes and make it increase crit damage or crit chance. Shadow Arts needs love too, so they could add a trait that increases Stealth Attack damage because for whatever reason, the only Stealth Attack damage trait is in Critical Strikes. It does make sense really, but Shadow Arts needs something too.

So, nerf D/P, nerf Trickery, buff Critical Strikes and Shadow Arts.

if we nerf trickery the ini cost needs to be reduced by one for almost every skill tho, or else you will have no options during compat compared to every other class, since our utilty skills are so bad/long cd/mosty bad
our trick elite needs a huge buff, it is utterly useless, daggerstorm or whatever it is called

thief pls buff … nerf ?? are you crazy??

Elyxia.2943:

thief pls buff … nerf ?? are you crazy??

if we nerf dp and trickery we can “overbuff” everything else, because thief has been balanced solely around dp for about 2 years now they can’t really buff the other traitlines or else dp would become even more unbalanced compared to the rest
so nerf dp so we can buff everything else

Raven.8941:

Elyxia.2943:

thief pls buff … nerf ?? are you crazy??

if we nerf dp and trickery we can “overbuff” everything else, because thief has been balanced solely around dp for about 2 years now they can’t really buff the other traitlines or else dp would become even more unbalanced compared to the rest
so nerf dp so we can buff everything else

honestly d/p needs a serious nerf.

Aury.1367:

Raven.8941:

Elyxia.2943:

thief pls buff … nerf ?? are you crazy??

if we nerf dp and trickery we can “overbuff” everything else, because thief has been balanced solely around dp for about 2 years now they can’t really buff the other traitlines or else dp would become even more unbalanced compared to the rest
so nerf dp so we can buff everything else

honestly d/p needs a serious nerf.

In exchange for what? This argument as been done too many times. The game has gone to far now to make other sets meta and to drop d/p, it can’t happen unless they destroy the thief class full stop

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Aury.1367:

Raven.8941:

Elyxia.2943:

thief pls buff … nerf ?? are you crazy??

if we nerf dp and trickery we can “overbuff” everything else, because thief has been balanced solely around dp for about 2 years now they can’t really buff the other traitlines or else dp would become even more unbalanced compared to the rest
so nerf dp so we can buff everything else

honestly d/p needs a serious nerf.

In exchange for what? This argument as been done too many times. The game has gone to far now to make other sets meta and to drop d/p, it can’t happen unless they destroy the thief class full stop

already given up trying to make the ppl understand, as you already say it doesn’t matter if we remove dp and buffed other wepsets, thief would be a joke, only playable sets would be staff (decent, still is regardless of dp) and then condi D/D. S/P, DD power and S/D remains unplayable because them lacking tools, doesn’t matter wether we tweak it or buff it, unless you overly buff it until it becomes too broken

The only thing I find really justifiable to nerf on D/P is Shadow Shot’s damage or its initiative cost. But I’ve been arguing that for years. The AA buff was pointless but clearly ANet isn’t lowering anyone’s damage. No sense in lowering just the thief’s and not other professions.

Even the stealth access isn’t intrinsically overpowered so much as it is bad design. It’s not fun to play against. Stealth as a whole needs a rework in this game.

While D/P might need marginal shaving, the other kits suck because they’re both numerically worse and most importantly, their design is just bad. Most kits have little diversity within them and are very one-dimensional. If you just move to buffs on the numbers level the thief will either be overpowered and boring or just terrible and worse than it is now through a lack of D/P.

At the end of the day, most weapon skills and a lot of traits need substantial reworks and better interactions with the rest of the game to enable more build diversity. The elite specs need dramatic nerfs and changes in general as well in order to re-enable a lot of core. Fact is ANet isn’t willing to put forth the effort, and frankly, nothing will ever improve until they do so, regardless of their numerical/effect tweaking.

Ya, remove elite specs from pvp and balance from there – i would be very happy.

Perma-evasion builds (both power and condi) need to take a shot to the knee. Stealth stacking D/P builds also need to take a hit.

If ANet does this, they must boost the other weapon sets. They also need to bring down the rotational defense of some builds. The problem is the thief lives close to the edge already so nerfing any of the stronger builds will make the class seriously under-perform in this meta.

Lol these threads. There should be some system in place that if person plays a thief and makes thread like this he/she would get a box of glitter delivered to his home address, and in addition be permanently banned from making thief ever again.

Dagger auto-attack and shadow shot do too much damage. The PvP nerf to signet of agility should be applied to WvW and the signet should have a short cast time for counterplay. Pulmonary impact shouldn’t stack – really shouldn’t be rewarding up for headshot spam.

But CnD should cleave and have a shorter cast. Pistol AA should richochet with every other shot. There’s just so many things that need slight boosts to make them relevant that I can’t be bothered to list.