Guild Wars 2

Great in-deph view of all the different skills, add a bit on where to be and team synergy and it would be perfect, thanks Jumper.

Still no video to prove his statement tough, how convenient.

Thief can easility contribute to a number of things in every dungeon. People stating otherwise like Ichishi are either: 1: so bad at the class that they are not accepted in groups and fail to see that it is them and not the class, or 2: people playing a different class then thief and are still in the lower tier of fractals where, I do admit, most thiefs suck.

My suggestion at this moment is probably s/p and sb tough. s/p has the amazing AOE cleave from sword, while also offering on demand invulnerability via pistolwhip, condi removal and out of combat stepping via infiltrator’s strike, a nice defiant remover and mob freezer on headshot and last but not least the great blinding powder, which allows easy ganking of all the trash in almost every dungeon and fractal. If you are sure you will be playing in the higher fractals, go full berserker as you will be one hit there regardless of your gear, dodging is the key to survival.

I play as a thief in higher fractals and I have no problem finding groups, you can pretty much proof yourself in the begining of every fractal by doing something a thief does best, be it blind tanking a full group or stealthing the dredge fractal.

Traits are up to you, I suggest taking full critical strikes tough because you will need it do deal decent damage. Utilities will show themselves, smokescreen is amazing and you will always have shadow refuge on your bar.

WonderfulCT.6278:

I beat a war and guard 2v1 (and later a guard and ranger 2v1), does that mean both of these classes suck and engineers are OP?

No it doesn’t.

Jorun is right about the condition builds (at least P/D anyways) since you are pretty much impossible to kill all that really happens is a stalemate.

As a sidenote, all D/P thieves suck.

As a sidenote, you have probably seen two d/p thiefs in your playtime, one of those being yourself.

Just found out that if you type fly.l2p while dodgerolling you gain noclip, pretty cool.

Marduh.4603:

Instinctual Response
Use feathers to blind and stealth when you take more than 10% of your health in a single strike. This effect can only trigger once every 60 seconds.

That one isn’t good either, but at least we can choose to have this one and we have plently of other choices. Last refuge can’t be chosen, and hard to catch is a grand master trait, I expect a little more from those.

Seeing all the threads over the last months, I think us thief players have agreed that these two traits not only flat out suck, but that they can actually be a negative. That makes me wonder two things: why isn’t last refuge choosable, and why hasn’t hard to catch been changed to something useful? Why not initiative regain on dodge for example, fits with acrobatics nicely and would give us some new build options.

I tried it again since the buff, but it’s just bad, the worst part is how for example a downed necro can make you shadowstep. Last refuge has been explained enough already I think. I request a change on these two.

No thief analysis, meh. I do agree tough, anet has just kept on nerfing till we lost every dedicated role, and now they are buffing things that other classes just do better. Roamer thief is still a good addition tough imo.

Can’t decide if troll or plain bad player. Firstly, S/P does NOT have any stealth except for utilities. Secondly, if you go into with 20 level 5 inexperienced friends what do you expect? Next time someone posts something like this, post some evidence, because I strangely never see a video of all this whining.

Excalibur.9748:

I want to be leading the massive steamroll zerg.

I hate every kind of meta, but in this case I will have to say guardian. I myself would still play the thief for it, and even tough I can survive, people will not like it. If you love your thief as much as I do tough, just run with your guild. They are more forgiving, and they automatically respect you more, even if you stand in the back.

bobross.5034:

Irapi.5937:

Just started commanding a week ago on my thief, and I don’t see the problem, unless you want to play as a massive steamroll zerg, which is quite boring imo. A proper group that knows how to communicate can have anything as a commander, and thief is not excluded. We can step out of the battle to command on demand, we mass stealth and we can stay in a just overtaken tower/keep with permastealth to recap it. But to be honest, class is a fraction of what really matters as a commander. The player is what matters.

The OP asked about commanding a 50+ zerg. That 50+zerg will be going up against other huge zergs, and although apparently some commanders pride themselves on commanding from the side or back-lines. It still seems to be the norm that a commander is leading the front-lines. With that in mind, there is no way that a thief can fulfill this function better than other professions.

You are right there, yet I still don’t see the difference between a full bunker guardian doing 0 damage and a stealthed thief. Add to this that, as stated, the no. 1 for commanders is staying alive, a thief has by far the best escape mechanics. A 50+ zerg can crush a front line bunker, but can’t find a stealthed thief.

Just started commanding a week ago on my thief, and I don’t see the problem, unless you want to play as a massive steamroll zerg, which is quite boring imo. A proper group that knows how to communicate can have anything as a commander, and thief is not excluded. We can step out of the battle to command on demand, we mass stealth and we can stay in a just overtaken tower/keep with permastealth to recap it. But to be honest, class is a fraction of what really matters as a commander. The player is what matters.

Just looked over all the result, to me this looks like a case of people voting on things they don’t even play, but just want to up their profession. That ranger comes in so low is understandable, as they are still fairly weak in most aspects of the game except for tpvp. The only results that don’t seem like bogus to me are the tpvp ones.

The credibility of this test already reaches below every level when it shows how thief is considered one of the worst professions for open world. Really, a profession that can do any interact skill point without having to fight, a profession that moves faster and more efficient then any other class is considered one the worst for exploration and events?

I agree party on the dungeon part, thief isn’t the best for group support except for stealth revives and for the so easily overlooked blind tanking. On the zerg part tough: how is having a personel assassin of squishy targets not incredibly handy? A thief in zerg WvW shouldn’t be fighting like any other class, they should instead do what they are good at: kill fast, efficient and unseen. Take for example a ballista in the back of the enemy zerg. It can plow trough your men like a knife trough butter. But wait, there is a thief. Shadow refuge, wait tilll the stealth is full, run trough the zerg, kill the ballista, move in and out to keep it out of work and there you go, artillery gone.

The problem with thiefs is that there are so many bad ones. The majority of thief players doesn’t even know how most utilitys work. A good thief can be handy in every aspect of this game, as long as you remember that you are not a warrior.

Mauz.4926:

I wasn’t aware that having legit physics in a game is considered a nerf.

“My target dodged my arrow because he moved out of the way.” Where’s the problem in that? A heat-seeking arrow? Even in GW that sounds farfetched.

We can dodge NPC projectiles, so why is it a bad thing if players can dodge player projectiles?

Don’t want a player to dodge your arrows? Stealth and shoot him/her up close. Use a trap.

I wasn’t aware that bows are close combat weapons. I use my bow to be at a safe distant, so now we are supposed to smack people in the face with our bows because the arrows don’t get to our target if not in a 1 meter radius?

Kasama.8941:

Irapi.5937:

Indeed, I think it’s fair to get atleast a reason from a dev behind this nerf, imo nerfs are ok as long as a dev can give us a solid and logical answer on why the nerf was made, and I don’t really see a solid and logical answer here myself.

Honestly, I think the majority of balance changes are made based on computer calculated equations, rather then player experience.

And that is exactly the problem sometimes, just because the computer calculates that the shortbow is too strong doesn’t mean that it is too strong in every combat situation in this game. And besides that, this nerf didn’t only nerf the weapon, but it destroyed one of the only viable damage sources on it.

Indeed, I think it’s fair to get atleast a reason from a dev behind this nerf, imo nerfs are ok as long as a dev can give us a solid and logical answer on why the nerf was made, and I don’t really see a solid and logical answer here myself.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

What Arenanet need to do with shortbow:

skill 1. increase firing rate to 80% of ranger’s Shortbow auto attack firing rate – so it actually does enough damage over time to actually apply some kind of pressure to enemies (20% less because our auto attack is sometimes an AoE if other players happen to be standing nearby)

Reason: I was playing on my soldier armour warrior and I had a thief attack me with shortbow auto attack. It was hilarious – he did virtually no damage to me and the attack speed was just soooo slow – I didn’t even need to heal after he shot at me for 10-15 seconds. Shortbow auto attack really is very weak. If situation was reversed and I was on my warrior rifle or longbow – the thief would have been feeling the pain.

skill 2. increase travel speed of cluster bomb by 150%

Reason: it is way too slow – even 100% wouldn’t be enough of a buff. You can’t use it against moving targets – even if you predict where they are going to be – the red circle appears well before they arrive and they can dodge it or run around it too easily. It is responsible for 100% of the burst damage that shortbow can do and yet it can only be used at zero range by spamming detonates. Cluster bomb is the equivalent of a warrior’s Volley skill or a ranger’s Rapid Fire skill (burst) – yet it is so hard to hit anyone unless you are at zero range [which is not really the point of using a ranged weapon] or standing on top of a keep wall shooting down into the zerg. Additionally, buff the range to 1200 to help with thieves having better AoE during offensive/defensive sieges – then I can do something while I am standing outside the keep door.

skill 3: nothing – it’s good
skill 4: nothing – it’s good

skill 5: make it an instant cast shadow step – not a projectile shadow step

State of the game said they wanted thieves to be more mobile. When I have lag in WvW and I am running with swiftness my infiltrator arrow actually makes me shadow step backwards because the projectile speed is so slow and the shadow step range is so small that I have run past the target area before the projectile even hits. If they can’t switch to instant step, then perhaps buff the range to 1200.

I agree with this, altough cluster should cost more initiative then, otherwise we would get some insane SB burst which isn’t what the weapon exists for. Would love some buff in mobility too.

It was bugged a while back and didn’t work in any way, now it does what it’s supposed to do: the hit you land from stealth is a critical hit, nothing else.

Actually, I played the instagib mug spec for a few hours, got bored and started trying other specs, all of which I liked more. Burst users with nothing else left? What about stealth, mobility, blinds etc.? Really, just because we can wear dual daggers and are called thiefs doesn’t mean that we are bound to use a standard burst spec that is almost as predictable as a 100blades burst warrior in PVP. Besides that, I woulnd’t really call this a nerf. We lost some damage, gained some survivability via the heal, seems fair to me.

Why is everyone always so kitten at every change? Last patch we asked them to undo the revealed to 4 secs nerf in PVE, and they did that. The only things I am upset about this patch is the completely uncalled for SB nerf and the fact that warrior still isn’t seeing any nerfs PVE wise.

8/10, nice touch on using fire in the name of a plant, fits good with an ele too ^^.
My Sylvari is called Pringled, figured that potatoes are plants too.

Coffeebot.3921:

Due to the nature of PvP it’s a direct nerf, probably to get us to use something else for a change (not like that’s happening though) but it won’t have a huge impact on PvE because of simplistic AI.

The problem stems from the SB now being treated as the guardian scepter in terms of how it works (although not for speed) but the fact that it has near a 1s fire animation and a moderate projectile speed makes this ‘nerf’ extraordinarily painful and rather undeserved, oh sure, it might not have been functioning the way the devs wanted it to, but as the saying goes “If it ‘aint broke’ don’t fix it” which makes you wonder… where is the compensatory pistol love?

True, not a huge nerf on PVE, but I actually use it for PVP alot too, mainly because of the awesome mobility coupled with the nice aoe damage from trickshot and cluster bomb. I even run specs in tPVP sometimes where I use it as my main weapon, kind of painful to see my unique spec that has quite a steep learning curve getting nerfed like this. And I agree on the pistol love, P/P is a nice set for beginner thiefs in dungeons, but it should also be viable for more skilled players who want to get the most out of this class.

Shortbow was perfectly balanced as it was, and now we are getting nerfed for what? Trickshot is completely useless, the projectile is too slow and it doesn’t even require a dodge to evade it, sidestepping does the trick.

What is the reasoning behind this nerf? I have played thief for a long time, and I have yet to hear a single complaint about SB. Mug nerf is fine by me, change on flanking strike is awesome, but really, couldn’t we just get a damage nerf (which is also not needed I think, but ok), or make it hit one less target? Because now we are hitting nothing. At least increase the projectile speed then.

I’ve been using P/P for quite a long time now in combination with SoM, assassin’s reward and steal on crit food, and find it to have very sustained damage and great survivability (running fractals 30+ with full zerker gear). There are no real damage checks in gw2, but what sets can outdps unload spam (taking in consideration the stealth nerf)? I deal about 8k dmg every 1,75 secs with it, and am able to keep that up for quite a while, making for a dps of around 4,5k. Keep in mind that this is ranged dps, and that I can move freely while doing this. What’s the average damage that you can actually keep up on the other sets atm? Was looking for a good discussion about P/P thiefs, because I think they are kind of underrated.