Guild Wars 2

Signet of Renewal was reworked in the balance patch in preparation for this expansion, and it is even more brokenly unusable than before. Signet of Renewal’s active effect does absolutely nothing while Soulbeast is active.

Every ranger ability needs to be functional without an active pet.

I’m having difficulty seeing portals since patch. Is the new Effect LOD mechanic making friendly player portals not show up?

You guys know that cluster bomb can score 7k crits easily right? Shortbow DPS is just barely behind P/P single target when built to do damage with the weapon set, so long as you place your cluster bombs wisely. With 5-target AOE, before staff it was the thief’s best trash pack tool and still might be if you consider the ranged flexibility.

Backstab does a crapton of damage already, and like others have said here already it’s the defenses of your targets that are overpowered not that backstab is underpowered.

Making backstab ignore armor would be the only maybe balanced way to increase its damage output and impact on the fight, by buffing it where it needs the help (against people running 3k+ armor and protection) and not where it doesn’t (against targets that have low armor and lack automatic proc defensive traits).

Increasing the power multiplier or the base damage is a really, really bad idea, just like buffing the autoattack was.

DHawk.2687:

now to sum it all up, my last point, if a whole thread disaggrees with your point of it being op in wvw/pvp, ppl that have been maining thief since get go, that have been present in this forum since forever, don’t you think you should rethink your somewhat silly argumentation?

No, I shouldn’t, because there have been several in the thread that seemed to agree that the autoattack buff was not the change that thieves needed or liked the idea of more interesting mechanics instead. I have even received a private message from a person who agreed with me but didn’t want to deal with the toxicity they knew that they would get in response for publicly agreeing with me on the subject.

You’ve made comparisons in your post to abilities that are nothing like backstab, with completely different damage models, cast times and counters, as a way of trying to argue that the autoattack buff was merited. This thread isn’t about backstab being overpowered. It’s about autoattack, which contributes a large portion of thief personal damage even in PvP. Talking about every mechanic or ability that other classes have that is good is only deflecting the argument without addressing it.

I completely agree on one point, that you can’t just follow someone around autoattacking them and expect to live. However, in the course of one fight with the d/p weapon set you’ll frequently find yourself with a blinded target. What should you do while your target is blind? Autoattack. After every shadow shot, after every smoke field, and at least once after every backstab until they turn to face you, you’re autoattacking. Like it or not, thief autoattack is a significant portion of thief damage in a realistic scenario.

Did you know that staff thieves reflect missiles during their autoattack chain? That’s right, one of the best autoattacks in the game for DPS provides missile reflection for a full second, every two seconds. That’s 50% uptime on missile reflect, plus 4 stacks vulnerability, for every autoattack chain. Does Dragonhunter’s longbow 2 seem a bit ridiculous, compared to backstab because of its similar damage and 1200 range? At first glance, sure… but then you have to consider that backstab can only be dodged or blocked and that Dragonhunters can end up eating their own True Shot… because the thief used autoattack.

Derigar.7810:

Derigar.7810:

Can someone tell me what trait is causing Thieves to be so strong? Just made one and I have no idea what I’m doing or looking at.

I love how I re-ignited a discussion completely irrelevant to what I was asking.

I’m not sure what you expected with your question other than bumping the thread. The thief traits right now seem fairly well thought out in general. It’s stat balance and damage scaling that’s causing problems, not some specific trait that someone’s going to be able to point out to you as the sole cause of good thieves being good.

In terms of trait lines, if you want to max damage then try either Deadly/Critical/Trickery or Deadly/Critical/Daredevil. If you want to max survivability then try Acrobatics/Shadow/Daredevil. Deadly/Trickery/Shadow or Deadly/Trickery/Daredevil are the main setups used in PvP that everyone cries about being overpowered as the thiefed, or underpowered as the thief. Trickery/Shadow/Daredevil is a solid choice for a more balanced PvP thief that can win duels consistently through excellent sustain and permanent stealth in one package.

Hopefully that helps? You should probably check out some more build theorycrafting threads so that you will have a better context in mind for discussion of mechanics such as the autoattack buff.

Puz.8529:

Show us how the change to the AA chain, gaining 1k over 2.4s(?) is excessive. You talk about burst in a fraction of a second. But that does not come from AA. So please, give us a detailed description of damage done in a fraction of a second where this AA buff made such a big difference?

If you want a specific example, look no further than a trickery build that procs quickness automatically when striking an enemy from behind. Against a defenseless target (easily obtainable through basilisk venom and good timing), quite a few autoattacks occur immediately after an opening backstab and the numbers quickly add up. I have seen individual autos crit for well over 6k damage on targets in WvW with my thief.

The other more common and obvious application of autoattack damage is with shadow shot. The majority of fighting with the d/p weapon set outside of stealth is shadow shot for mobility and straight up autoattack for damage during the blind. Since the buff to autoattack, it’s much easier for a thief to kill someone by repeatedly pressing button 3 because of the extra damage that autoattack does between shots.

Puz.8529:

Also, if a thief can do a kill in a fraction of a second, then the other player should reconsider their berserker gear..

If thief can wear berserker gear and get away with it, then why shouldn’t other professions?

Yes, they squish, but a berserker thief can completely avoid damage when played at a high level. Either other classes need that kind of active defense/stealth, or stats need to be toned down a bit on both ends (both berserker and tanky stats) to help balance. There’s too much active defense in the game already.

Puz.8529:

As a quick example, a burst mesmer does more damage, does it AoE compared to single target and has more tools, including automatic traits to survive.

Burst mesmer has been a problem for a long, long time. To everyone. The only reason burst mesmer isn’t quite as irritating as a thief to play against is that thief can easily bring permanent stealth to the table with all of their burst, and mesmer only gets a little stealth in a burst build. On the mesmer side of things, I will say that mesmer burst takes a lot more work to set up properly in terms of button presses… and the game really needs to be balanced around the maximum potential of the classes and not the faceroll potential. I agree here with your point and think it could be expanded to include other builds beyond mesmer in the argument… just, preferably outside of this thread.

Puz.8529:

Perhaps it is time to consider that the fight you created here isn’t actually what you are aiming for? I’d say, open a new thread where you ask how the thief class can be fixed for pve and pvp by giving it group utility, since to me it seems that is what you want to see.

I’m glad you see the point I’m trying to make. My concern with creating a “how to make thief better” thread is that thief will keep their damage buff and have better utility to boot as a result of Anet seeing that kind of thread without this kind of thread. Unfortunately, the mere mention of reverting the damage buff as part of the suggestion has all the rabble out with their pitchforks. I don’t see a new thread going any better.

fumcheg.1936:

Just stop answering to OP and bumping this thread please. OP is obviously bad on his druid.

Atm druid is absolutely superior in 1vs1 PvP and counters thief 100:0. If OP is somehow (I don’t really know how it is possible anyway) losing to thief that just shows his skill lvl and nothing more.

You make so many assumptions, like every other player who comes into this thread to trash-talk me without reading anything.

I play every class, and I spent a good portion of yesterday crushing people in pvp with the meta druid build. Including thieves. Is that because thieves are bad? Is it because I am good if you assume I’m bragging here? It’s neither. It’s because that specific druid build is ridiculously powerful and only Reapers can easily counter it. You, like all other toxic kittens, assume that the thread is about my inability to kill thieves. You are completely wrong, and shamefully shortsighted.

Thief in PvP settings doesn’t feel OP from the perspective of the average thief because while they may have the capability to one-shot people, they die even faster than they can kill. Naturally, the average thief is going to get a bit upset with me when they assume that I’m suggesting thief should be nerfed when they are having so much trouble killing people. Outstanding thieves can still wipe the floor with any of the new meta builds if they aren’t forced to fight over a point, simply because of the class’s ability to reset a fight indefinitely… but let’s not get into the what-if combat scenarios in great detail here.

I am not trying to suggest that your precious thieves be nerfed. I don’t want my thief nerfed either. I’m suggesting that thief’s AA damage buff be undone, and that thief gain other more interesting tools to help them perform better in PvE and PvP settings without sacrificing intelligent gameplay mechanics to mindless, no-cooldown autoattack damage.

So let’s talk about mechanics that can replace the flat damage buff… again, because not enough people will look back to other pages of this thread to read about it.

PvE: Cause vulnerability applied by the thief to also apply a 5% increased damage taken debuff to the target that is unique to the thief class, refreshing (not stacking) duration with vulnerability application and removed with vulnerability when conditions are cleared.

PvP: Ideally, reduce the amount of immunity other builds—including Daredevil Acrobat thieves—have toward power-based thief builds. That means less blocks, less invulnerability, less evades for everyone to allow thieves (and other builds that have similar difficulties) the chance to actually land a hit.

As a band-aid fix before the other classes get reworked, giving thief some counters to the block spam would help. Anet already did this, actually, by making Basilisk Venom unblockable. Continuing in this direction risks overbuffing thieves against builds that do not abuse block but still depend on at least one block skill.

Lastly, the #1 complaint of thieves everywhere is the inability to kill bunker type classes, which is a problem not unique to thieves. We can’t just buff damage until the bunkers die though, because that leads to problems like the cause of this thread: thieves would kill everyone else too easily.

So… everyone calling for a damage buff to backstab… why do you want damage versus everyone? Why not, say, backstab ignores armor as a mechanic available through a trait? With just one mechanics change, suddenly thief would be extremely effective against bunkers without gaining anything against the glass builds that they already murder so well.

Lest you misunderstand, I’m not saying that a mechanics change to backstab will solve everyone’s problems… I’m just using it as an example to show that there are plenty of options other than buffing autoattack damage that could give thief even more potential while also making it even more fun and skillful to play.

Unless, of course, the only thing fun to you is bigger numbers.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Orion.3812:

In the meantime, thieves could try exploring a way of approaching PvP that doesn’t involve a dependency on instantly killing the enemy-

Note.

these options exist.

However, I’m still against what is apparently looking like a request for a direct nerf without an apparent fix to what the core problem was, which was survivability against classes in general, whether or not they specced tanky.

If they want to run the “Thief survives by being scary” angle, that’s okay I guess.

I’d rather what I quoted, but also would dislike a rollback if the problem isnt addressed.

The damage buff was intended as a PvE buff. Instead of the base damage buff, a proper PvE buff would allow the thief to bring a small damage boost for their whole party instead of a base personal damage boost to themselves, as previously suggested in this thread.

The basis of this thread is that berserker thief’s ability to gank people was fine as-is and that the excessive damage output post-patch negatively affects gameplay in WvW/sPvP by encouraging thieves to be as squishy as possible in order to make everyone else as squishy to them as possible and end fights in fractions of a second regardless of outcome.

Fights should not be decided from full health in less than one second, no matter who is fighting who. This is not a first person shooter.

Balancing thief in sPvP, indepedent of the damage buff and/or its reversal in future patches, is a separate topic that is absolutely worth investigating but falls outside the original scope of this thread.

Nizio Nightblade.8109:

Orion.3812:

Nizio Nightblade.8109:

I play s/d so buff doesn’t affect me…so yeah.

Actually, sword autoattack was buffed more than dagger autoattack relative to where the weapons were pre-patch.

So yes, the patch did affect you. You do more damage now than you did before. All thief melee was buffed.

We were not talking about the buff to skill casting but the buff to dagger damage so yeah….

We’re talking about a buff to damage output. DPS was buffed for all melee weapons. You deal more DPS than you did before, even if you may deal the same damage on each individual hit. You are more likely to kill an immobilized target before immobilize expires.

Kaishina.6584:

Thief is fine as it is now. GTFO and L2P you do not die from auto attack learn your class or change game.

Responses like these are what make thief forums such a special place.

Healing spring could be useful as a trap if it were reworked with some changes. Examples:

• Change the arming time so that the trap will go off immediately if the trigger conditions are met
• Split the direct heal between the cast and the trap itself as an area heal. This would allow the trap to play a more significant role in supporting allies. A healing spring on the ground should be something allies really want to step on instead of just a green thing that makes an annoying sound.
• Change the trigger condition from “friendly present and not full hp” to “friendly present and (not full hp or has condition)”

Now the last bit’s a little harder, and there are a few ways to go about it. Right now, the trap won’t trigger if someone is already standing in it as an invalid target (full hp, no conditions) and then becomes a valid target because someone hit them. Either of the following options could solve that problem depending on how the game engine is designed:

1) Check the trap trigger conditions on a timer, such as every 0.5 seconds (in addition to immediately on placement and on contact with a friendly)
2) Have the trap add a status effect to players that enter the trap. Mechanically, this could be like any non-boon status effect such as the Frost Spirit buff. Remove the status effect when players leave the trap area. The status effect would cause the trap to trigger whenever the person affected gets hit.

I think option 2 would be the more responsive one. There are all sorts of other ways to implement these effects, I’m sure, but that’s what seems to me makes the most sense as easiest to implement without actually knowing what the game’s code looks like.

With these changes, the trap would not only work how healing spring did before it was changed to a trap, but pre-casting healing spring in a strategic location ahead of time would significantly impact the outcome of combat.

I had healing spring bug in a dungeon run recently. I went down as I was casting it, and the result was that the trap was placed but never triggered. I also never received the heal, or I wouldn’t have gone down.

It seems like whatever code governs healing spring must still have some race conditions that haven’t been fixed yet.

Nizio Nightblade.8109:

I play s/d so buff doesn’t affect me…so yeah.

Actually, sword autoattack was buffed more than dagger autoattack relative to where the weapons were pre-patch.

So yes, the patch did affect you. You do more damage now than you did before. All thief melee was buffed.

Nizio Nightblade.8109:

Orion.3812:

Jana.6831:

If we had that traits – surprise we have none.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAsa4Yn8lCFmilOBmPBkmiFkiqLEygPY+9r/+nrBCgFA-TJxGABAcSA2uMQQ7PYwTAAA

Try flailing around with that for a while in sPvP. If you still die, swap that Marauder amulet out for Cleric for maximum lulz.

Note that gw2skills.net has not updated some tooltips for thief traits yet, so evasion under 50% hp and regen on dodge don’t show in the build in their editor.

I just threw that together and took it into a few matches. It seems difficult to screw up badly enough to get killed with that spec.

The only thing keeping thief from holding a conquest point is that they lose ticks while they are stealthed.

what’s the point of the stealth if you can’t get into stealth(only can get in stealth through stealing and black powder and cluster bomb)? seems like u wasted a trait line… Take bounding dodger and it makes more senses but u lose your mobility. also you’ll die in any team fight with pistol whip with that root. If played right yeah you should be fine against solo q’es but against organized teams you won’t…( i got legendary as an s/d thief soloing and duo qing so yeah i still understand that the player makes the build but yeah that one would be better suited with some tweeks)

Also you still haven’t answer a question I asked earlier. What classes and builds does this one AA increase counter? Because of this one buff how do thieves need to get it reverted? give me examples class types and builds, because I’m 100% sure that this buff didn’t change anything when it came to outcomes of fights. If you can explain how this buff has negatively affected the community (talking pvp because wvw has to many passive power buffs such as food and stones). I will gladly say your right but until you can proof that because of this buff that thieves are op and can counter classes it shouldn’t then well your wrong and the buff was correct for purpose of pve. (also i’m still an S/D thief.)

Dagger/Dagger is the alternate weapon set in the linked build, which provides stealth. So does steal. There is no need for bounding dodger and taking it would run counter to the purpose of the build which is survivability, not damage.

To point out why the damage buff is a problem yet again… in any situation where the thief’s opponent would otherwise get away with a sliver of health pre-patch, the thief wins post-patch. That’s across the board, against every class. The squishier the build, the harder the thief damage buff will hit them—but it’s still a universal change that just makes thief more powerful in a department where they were not previously lacking.

There was no PvP justification for the buff. It was a PvE buff. I have been asked over and over now to justify the PvP significance of the damage buff and to all of those still asking after I have already pointed out the problem, my reply is: if you don’t think it matters yourself then you would not be so desperate to argue in favor of keeping the buff.

Good timing of dodges to remove condis, assuming you have that trait. That said…

Daredevil is not a full replacement for Shadow Arts survivability against condition builds. If you want to wreck condi builds, take both DD and SA.

Kageseigi.2150:

Orion.3812:

Sorry for the confusion. I think I was thinking of Side Strike instead. So, the thief gives up fury, and receives a small quickness buff. The thief still has to make a choice there. Will that decide some matches? Yes, but so will the lack of Fury.

No worries. There are too many similar names between traits and skills for the Thief anyway :-P

Yes, Flanking Strikes will cause the Thief to lose some Fury uptime compared to Thrill of the Crime. But it still provides 6 seconds of Fury and Quickness for the burst. So I guess it goes back to the Burst vs. Sustain issue. If the burst can down the opponent, there’s no need for sustain. However, if the burst fails, the Thief will be lacking the sustained damage.

Yep. And the most important part of that is the choice between one or the other. That’s why I advocate solving the thief’s PvE woes through traits instead of a straight damage buff to an already potent class.

Edit: I suppose utilities could work too. Even reworking Assasin’s Signet to debuff the target instead of buffing the thief would do the job.

Jana.6831:

If we had that traits – surprise we have none.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAsa4Yn8lCFmilOBmPBkmiFkiqLEygPY+9r/+nrBCgFA-TJxGABAcSA2uMQQ7PYwTAAA

Try flailing around with that for a while in sPvP. If you still die, swap that Marauder amulet out for Cleric for maximum lulz.

Note that gw2skills.net has not updated some tooltips for thief traits yet, so evasion under 50% hp and regen on dodge don’t show in the build in their editor.

I just threw that together and took it into a few matches. It seems difficult to screw up badly enough to get killed with that spec.

The only thing keeping thief from holding a conquest point is that they lose ticks while they are stealthed.

Kageseigi.2150:

Orion.3812:

The flanking strikes trait is less of a problem because a thief taking critical strikes in PvP/WvW has probably foregone a more defensive spec. The difference is that they had to give up survivability to get that damage, whereas a flat damage boost doesn’t cost the thief anything to get there.

Ah, I actually was speaking of the Flanking Strikes trait in the Trickery line. Sorry for the confusion. It gives the Thief Haste (Quickness and Fury) for 6 seconds when attacking from the side or rear. Having a proper Backstab proc the Haste, the Thief’s AA chain significantly speeds up, allowing for that extra hit you mentioned before. I believe the only thing that must be given up is Thrill of the Crime.

Orion.3812:

As for the +1 second of revealed in sPvP, it’s annoying and I think it was a band-aid fix to a problem that has better solutions now. It’s about time that the extra second of revealed in PvP went away.

Amen! :-D

Sorry for the confusion. I think I was thinking of Side Strike instead. So, the thief gives up fury, and receives a small quickness buff. The thief still has to make a choice there. Will that decide some matches? Yes, but so will the lack of Fury.

Kageseigi.2150:

Orion.3812:

The difference between it taking two hits or three from the AA after backstab to down someone is win or lose.

In that case, wouldn’t the Flanking Strikes trait have been just as bad even before the buff to AA damage?

Orion.3812:

these are the thief’s sustained damage abilities, not auto-attack which was and should remain a filler only.

While it would not benefit every build, filler would be less essential (in PvP) without the extra second of Revealed. I’d much prefer a shorter Revealed time than an AA damage increase… though any buff is welcome, especially to the Sword.

The flanking strikes trait is less of a problem because a thief taking critical strikes in PvP/WvW has probably foregone a more defensive spec. The difference is that they had to give up survivability to get that damage, whereas a flat damage boost doesn’t cost the thief anything to get there.

As for the +1 second of revealed in sPvP, it’s annoying and I think it was a band-aid fix to a problem that has better solutions now. It’s about time that the extra second of revealed in PvP went away.

Jana.6831:

Orion.3812:

Jana.6831:

Orion.3812:

Buffing thief damage isn’t the answer. Balancing the new specs is.

And what should thieves do in the meantime?
Buffing Dagger mainhand and Sword was the easiest way to get thief back on track in PvE and let them apply a bit more pressure during all the invulnerabilities flying around. Still the DPS (including burst) a thief dishes out is less than what most if not all other classes can do.
What you should do is to create a thread on the pvp forums: “Anet your game is absolutely unbalanced, pls fix”.
But: There’s already a lot of threads like that around since at least HoT.

In the meantime, thieves could try exploring a way of approaching PvP that doesn’t involve a dependency on instantly killing the enemy. I’ve had some success with DD/SA/AC setups even still using berserker stats.

The most popular thief builds for PvP and WvW are all damage, damage, damage! There are some fine examples of alternative builds right here on this forum that get the job done without the glaring weakness of paper-thin defenses.

Go put on some tanky condi gear and spec to throw caltrops and poisoned daggers everywhere when you dodge. It’s fun and kittenes all of your enemies off. Thief is good at doing that.

But… if your reflexes are good enough and you choose your targets and timing wisely, you can keep on stabbing the same way you always have. That’s right, without Daredevil. It still works.

Yes, I think in a pvp environement there should always be classes who are unable to defend themselves – makes perfect sense!

You’ve missed the point. Taking a build that isn’t focused so much on damage means you can take traits focused on staying alive instead. At some point, you become so difficult to kill that it’s no longer possible 1v1, and you only need to do enough damage to finish off the opponent between heals in the long game instead of trying to kill them before they get a chance to heal the first time.

Playing like this requires patience, but if you’ll look back at old threads this is ironically the same advice that thieves used to give everyone else who had problems dying too quickly. This strategy works best against glass cannons, because they die easily to any damage at all and if they can’t kill you they lose.

Jana.6831:

Orion.3812:

Buffing thief damage isn’t the answer. Balancing the new specs is.

And what should thieves do in the meantime?
Buffing Dagger mainhand and Sword was the easiest way to get thief back on track in PvE and let them apply a bit more pressure during all the invulnerabilities flying around. Still the DPS (including burst) a thief dishes out is less than what most if not all other classes can do.
What you should do is to create a thread on the pvp forums: “Anet your game is absolutely unbalanced, pls fix”.
But: There’s already a lot of threads like that around since at least HoT.

In the meantime, thieves could try exploring a way of approaching PvP that doesn’t involve a dependency on instantly killing the enemy. I’ve had some success with DD/SA/AC setups even still using berserker stats.

The most popular thief builds for PvP and WvW are all damage, damage, damage! There are some fine examples of alternative builds right here on this forum that get the job done without the glaring weakness of paper-thin defenses.

Go put on some tanky condi gear and spec to throw caltrops and poisoned daggers everywhere when you dodge. It’s fun and kittenes all of your enemies off. Thief is good at doing that.

But… if your reflexes are good enough and you choose your targets and timing wisely, you can keep on stabbing the same way you always have. That’s right, without Daredevil. It still works.

alchemyst.2165:

Orion.3812:

Jana.6831:

This is just getting really stupid: After June no thief has been able to 1 vs 1 any class and everybody knew. That’s why thieves who wanted to play pvp were reported and/or their team mates refused to play because they had a thief on their team – and you say an 1k damage increase is “over the top and unneccessary”?

I have been infracted for asking someone if he was trolling (that was a genuine question) so I’m not asking it again.

I recognize that thief was and is still at an unfair disadvantage against specific builds. I simply disagree that buffing autoattack is the answer to help them in any game mode. For the record, it was intended to help them in PvE. I say again that any damage buff short of 50% will not make up for the lack of 10% group damage buff (or 5% raid buff), and 50% increased damage is obviously out of the question.

In PvP, it’s not a Thief problem. It’s a Chronomancer problem. It’s a Scrapper problem. It’s a Dragonhunter problem, etc. Buffing thief damage isn’t the answer. Balancing the new specs is.

You still ignored my counterargument. And if thief isn’t the problem and balancing the new specs is then why are you here on the thief forum?

Thief being at a disadvantage is not a problem with thief being individually weak. Thief doing too much damage in PvP/WvW is a current problem since patch. Don’t twist my words.

Your counter argument was to claim that a class with a completely different design has a higher DPS dagger auto. First, DPS and total damage are two different things and thief dagger auto speed was noticeably changed even though I don’t recall seeing it in patch notes. I can get two full chains off before leaping through a black powder now. Second, if we skip fact-checking your claim and assume that it is true, you’re looking at thief autoattack vs necro autoattack in a vacuum. If Necro has less damage potential outside of autoattack, then they need to have a higher autoattack DPS to remain comparable to thief in total DPS.

Jana.6831:

This is just getting really stupid: After June no thief has been able to 1 vs 1 any class and everybody knew. That’s why thieves who wanted to play pvp were reported and/or their team mates refused to play because they had a thief on their team – and you say an 1k damage increase is “over the top and unneccessary”?

I have been infracted for asking someone if he was trolling (that was a genuine question) so I’m not asking it again.

I recognize that thief was and is still at an unfair disadvantage against specific builds. I simply disagree that buffing autoattack is the answer to help them in any game mode. For the record, it was intended to help them in PvE. I say again that any damage buff short of 50% will not make up for the lack of 10% group damage buff (or 5% raid buff), and 50% increased damage is obviously out of the question.

In PvP, it’s not a Thief problem. It’s a Chronomancer problem. It’s a Scrapper problem. It’s a Dragonhunter problem, etc. Buffing thief damage isn’t the answer. Balancing the new specs is.

Jana.6831:

Orion.3812:

Why can’t a thief rely on initiative consuming skills for damage now, when they clearly could in the past?

When did you start to play, after June?

I’ve been playing since launch day, and thief is one of my oldest characters. Thief sustained damage has always been high and derived from a combination of initiative regeneration and timely skill use, allowing the lead attacks trait to maximize your damage by spending only enough initiative so as not to waste your regen.

Cloak/Backstab, Pistol Whip, Cluster Bomb, Heartseeker… these are the thief’s sustained damage abilities, not auto-attack which was and should remain a filler only. Proper management of initiative should be rewarding, and squandering your initiative by spamming shadow shot or whiffing cloak until you run dry should be severely punished.

Initiative management is the heart and soul of the thief class, and buffing auto-attack damage instead of adding other new features for PvE value waters the initiative mechanic down and narrows the performance gap between a good thief and a bad one.

If you get stuck in a bad spot as a thief, you can spend your initiative to escape where other classes would simply die. By spending that initiative, you become unable to deal significant damage for a short period of time. You can do the same thing for burst, spamming high damage abilities at a target until it dies to finish it off quickly. By spending that initiative, you are now vulnerable if your target did not die. You should have to choose offense or defense, instead of having your cake and eating it too.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Orion.3812:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Orion.3812:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Orion.3812:

fumcheg.1936:

The all antire thread is about your personal skill lvl

No, it’s becoming about people like you that can’t see past the fact that I happen to sometimes play a ranger. Intellectually, you lack so much vision that I doubt you can properly understand anything past the end of your nose.

You’ve not addressed the argument or provided any reasoning in the context of thief autoattack damage buffs.

Yeah yeah we’re all bad, we’re all wrong, you’re right, you’re good.

Many of us have addressed the reasoning of autoattack buff. You just hate that thieves aren’t fodder anymore.

I play Mesmer, Scrapper and revenant. Thief is still easily the weakest out of all 4 in nearly every situation from my 3k+ hours of playing, at least 2k which are on thief.

Don’t sit in melee auto. L2P.

I made no personal claims about my own skill level save to defend myself from baseless accusations. You and those that are responding like you are the ones who brought personal skill into any of this.

You in particular have provided a grand total of one argument: no matter how powerful thief autoattack gets, just never get hit by it and you’re fine! You can just walk away by strafing and there’s no possible way the thief could ever have a chance of hitting you!

Thief could be dealing 99k damage per swing with autoattack and you could make the same argument if that were true. People would be justifiably upset that they died instantly when a thief so much as looked their direction, but you’d still be here saying that you can “walk away” if you stuck to your guns.

The reasoning of your argument is ludicrous, whether you are successful or not in PvP.

And you’re whining about a 1k average increase to AA chain. My argument with walking away is that AA is SUSTAINED damage. Not BURST. You have plenty of time to react before significant damage.

If you let a thief stick on you and SUSTAIN melee damage on you because you didn’t react, that’s on you. Remember, you’re whining about 1k every 3 seconds in melee range, 3 seconds in which a thief can’t do anything defensive.

An increase to autoattack is an increase to thief burst as well as sustain. The difference between it taking two hits or three from the AA after backstab to down someone is win or lose. There’s an enormous difference between “low hp with heal skill available” and “downed”. The autoattack buff pushed thief damage over that threshold in many situations.

Whether or not a thief can do something defensive during autoattack is irrelevant when the next autoattack that lands will end the fight. A good thief will cover the auto with a blind anyway.

4k AA chain over 3 seconds is burst now wtf?

Idk why you don’t understand that thief cannot rely solely on stealth attacks and initiative consuming skills for damage anymore. We have a global CD that affects our weapon sets equally no matter if we swap. Prepatch every class would laugh in my face as I would hit 1k AAs that crit. If that extra 1k every 3 seconds in melee is downing you that many times, idk what to say.

Source: thief main that has almost zero problems with thieves on core Mesmer.

Why can’t a thief rely on initiative consuming skills for damage now, when they clearly could in the past?

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Orion.3812:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Orion.3812:

fumcheg.1936:

The all antire thread is about your personal skill lvl

No, it’s becoming about people like you that can’t see past the fact that I happen to sometimes play a ranger. Intellectually, you lack so much vision that I doubt you can properly understand anything past the end of your nose.

You’ve not addressed the argument or provided any reasoning in the context of thief autoattack damage buffs.

Yeah yeah we’re all bad, we’re all wrong, you’re right, you’re good.

Many of us have addressed the reasoning of autoattack buff. You just hate that thieves aren’t fodder anymore.

I play Mesmer, Scrapper and revenant. Thief is still easily the weakest out of all 4 in nearly every situation from my 3k+ hours of playing, at least 2k which are on thief.

Don’t sit in melee auto. L2P.

I made no personal claims about my own skill level save to defend myself from baseless accusations. You and those that are responding like you are the ones who brought personal skill into any of this.

You in particular have provided a grand total of one argument: no matter how powerful thief autoattack gets, just never get hit by it and you’re fine! You can just walk away by strafing and there’s no possible way the thief could ever have a chance of hitting you!

Thief could be dealing 99k damage per swing with autoattack and you could make the same argument if that were true. People would be justifiably upset that they died instantly when a thief so much as looked their direction, but you’d still be here saying that you can “walk away” if you stuck to your guns.

The reasoning of your argument is ludicrous, whether you are successful or not in PvP.

And you’re whining about a 1k average increase to AA chain. My argument with walking away is that AA is SUSTAINED damage. Not BURST. You have plenty of time to react before significant damage.

If you let a thief stick on you and SUSTAIN melee damage on you because you didn’t react, that’s on you. Remember, you’re whining about 1k every 3 seconds in melee range, 3 seconds in which a thief can’t do anything defensive.

An increase to autoattack is an increase to thief burst as well as sustain. The difference between it taking two hits or three from the AA after backstab to down someone is win or lose. There’s an enormous difference between “low hp with heal skill available” and “downed”. The autoattack buff pushed thief damage over that threshold in many situations.

Whether or not a thief can do something defensive during autoattack is irrelevant when the next autoattack that lands will end the fight. A good thief will cover the auto with a blind anyway.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Leohart.4610:

What motivates you to play your thief considering the wide arrays of abilities other classes bring to the table, pre-HoT and post-HoT? What is it that keeps the class fresh to you? Is it the concept of the class? Or perhaps the combat?

It’s the only class in the game that largely rewards reactive play. Most other classes with the exception of some odd warrior builds can boil down their playstyles to a rotation of skills that deals with healing, damage, and blocks, but thieves reward cerebral play and cleverness more heavily.

Thief vs thief is one of the most intrinsically rewarding duels because of this, assuming your builds are roughly equal in capability.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Orion.3812:

fumcheg.1936:

The all antire thread is about your personal skill lvl

No, it’s becoming about people like you that can’t see past the fact that I happen to sometimes play a ranger. Intellectually, you lack so much vision that I doubt you can properly understand anything past the end of your nose.

You’ve not addressed the argument or provided any reasoning in the context of thief autoattack damage buffs.

Yeah yeah we’re all bad, we’re all wrong, you’re right, you’re good.

Many of us have addressed the reasoning of autoattack buff. You just hate that thieves aren’t fodder anymore.

I play Mesmer, Scrapper and revenant. Thief is still easily the weakest out of all 4 in nearly every situation from my 3k+ hours of playing, at least 2k which are on thief.

Don’t sit in melee auto. L2P.

I made no personal claims about my own skill level save to defend myself from baseless accusations. You and those that are responding like you are the ones who brought personal skill into any of this.

You in particular have provided a grand total of one argument: no matter how powerful thief autoattack gets, just never get hit by it and you’re fine! You can just walk away by strafing and there’s no possible way the thief could ever have a chance of hitting you!

Thief could be dealing 99k damage per swing with autoattack and you could make the same argument if that were true. People would be justifiably upset that they died instantly when a thief so much as looked their direction, but you’d still be here saying that you can “walk away” if you stuck to your guns.

The reasoning of your argument is ludicrous, whether you are successful or not in PvP.

fumcheg.1936:

The all antire thread is about your personal skill lvl

No, it’s becoming about people like you that can’t see past the fact that I happen to sometimes play a ranger. Intellectually, you lack so much vision that I doubt you can properly understand anything past the end of your nose.

You’ve not addressed the argument or provided any reasoning in the context of thief autoattack damage buffs.

fumcheg.1936:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBW9rj4GJzw

perma full might stack, protection, retalation, fury. 20+k HP. 2300 Armor.

Well, I’m still sure OP is either really bad player itself or is playing wrong build. In both cases this is his own problem =(

Toxic bullkitten, again. You cannot invalidate my argument by making a completely different, unrelated and false argument about my personal skill level.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Every video showing dps with thieves compared to other classes does not show anywhere close to a 50% dps increase over other classes they show roughly the same dps numbers minus Chronomancer since they bring the lowest personal dps to raids and only have a spot for buffing the entire raids dps when played right . Thieves have never brought group utility besides stealth and trying to shoe horn group utility is a horrible design.

Thieves don’t even come close to winning every pvp encounter. And it’s not going that way the AA increase is negligible in pvp and in WvW the sustain every other class brings more sustain to outlast any " burst" thieves have.

Thieves are viable in raids yes because now it’s not beneficial to stack multiple Revs for their AA damage on top of their group support. Thieves have always been a selfish class when it comes to group play, but that is normally how every thief/rogue/assassin archetype in every game is they provide great single target dps at loss of survivability and group utility.

In pvp if thieves offered their team 5% damage increase just by being nearby the thief would be nerfed almost instantly due to all the QQ.

You’ve not read the whole thread, but it’s long and that’s understandable. I will explain again.

My 5% damage buff suggestion is single-target only, done as a non-stacking debuff applied (and removed) with thief application of vulnerability, tied to a trait that is never brought to PvP because it would compete with Panic Strike.

This targeted damage increase is common to the thief/assassin archetype in other games. See Expose Armor (Rogue skill) from World of Warcraft, or Trick Attack (Ninja skill) from FFXIV. They are the exact same kind of concept.

Lastly, I didn’t make the claim that thief deals 50% more damage than everyone else right now, but that buffing autoattack is heading in that direction for the sake of PvE balance. My claim is that in order to justify taking a thief over another class that brings a 10% damage boost for a party of 5 is that the thief would have to do 50% more personal damage than the other class to make up for that. I’m using that to show that personal damage can never be a substitute for the group damage buffs available in this game without creating a problem in PvP/WvW caused by the overbuffed personal damage.

DeceiverX.8361:

It was the right answer to PvE. Unless you want to argue the thief should be offering competitive support on top of its already-high damage potential, which is just ludicrous.

The issue is that the fixes needed for PvE are not the same ones as PvP until offensive stats stop being so horrible in sPvP, and that thief issues in PvP stem from limited trait choices due to vastly superior options (especially with Daredevil) and weapon sets which do not perform well compared to others/other classes.

And .5s will determine the outcome of a fight depending on the matchup.

There are two kinds of support: offensive and defensive. Heal/cleanse your allies, or boost their damage numbers.

The only significant group support that thief brings to the table presently is stealth, which is a buff that is not unique to thief and has little relevance in group PvE unless you’re skipping trash or covering a downed ally. They can also provide group healing through regen, through clunky mechanics and enormous loss to personal DPS.

In order to be competitive with other professions in PvE, either thief needs more group support ability in the offensive category (group damage buff) or they need so much personal damage that they can make up for not having a multiplier for 5 people.

In the name of PvE balance, would you like thieves to automatically win every PvP encounter by breathing on their opponent, or would you like them to have the option to bring a group damage buff? One of these things has to happen. Right now, the game’s leaning toward that first option and it’s a problem.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Yeah bro, 4k PvP backstab much burst. And I say PvP because this game is balanced on that game mode. If thief auto should be worst in game, I’d like 10k backstab on 3k armor targets.

Thief burst highest in game LOL I’ve been hit harder by passive pet attacks, mauls, shatters, CoR, unrelenting assault, DH traps, Gunflame, Trueshot, passive traited spinal shivers, you name it. Sometimes ACCIDENTALLY.

BTW, you play a profession with possible 5k autos from the south pole with Longbow. But yeah melee autos where I’m actually in the fight should be weaker, mhm.

Sure, a single 5k auto in WvW when buffed with a 30 sec cooldown against a target with no armor. You’re not going to see that number in sPvP. You’ve made it abundantly clear that you do not understand basic game mechanics and the only investment that you have in this conversation is to ensure that your class deals so much damage that there is no relevant counter.

Is thief auto the only overbuffed thing in the game right now? No. But this isn’t a thread to discuss every problem the game has. This is a thread is about thief auto-attack vs player health pools, and right now thief auto-attack is not only too strong, buffing it failed to address thief’s group utility in PvE.

If thief gave a 5% damage buff to everyone else in a raid, that’s effectively the same as 50% extra DPS from a single player. So to make thief comparable to other classes that bring a 10%-ish 5-man buff, thief would have to deal 50% more damage than every other class that can bring group support instead.

Does having one class deal 50% more damage than everyone else sound balanced to you? Buffing thief personal damage is absolutely not the right answer to PvE.

alchemyst.2165:

This may be the funniest thread I’ve seen in a while. The thief nerf threads are back, guys, just like we knew it would happen because some autoattacks got buffed lol.

Seriously, theres not a problem with a thief having some sustained damage to use when they’re out of initiative. Again, there are higher AA’s on other classes, go complain on their forums.

Show us the OP autoattacks of other professions, please.

Keep in mind that when you’re deciding which ones are OP, that other classes do not have backstab burst damage which counts toward total DPS. Thief auto should be the weakest auto in the game to allow for thief burst to be the highest in the game. That is balance.

fumcheg.1936:

Btw I missed whether OP already justified why thief should be free lootbag?

I’m not going to justify something that I am not trying to argue for. Thief viability can be improved in all game types through means other than unnecessary damage buffs.

Thief was not a free loot bag pre-patch. Thief was fine and the power creep of other professions’ survivability rather than thief’s inability was and still is the real problem.

Nizio Nightblade.8109:

Orion.3812:

Nizio Nightblade.8109:

True but still the buff was needed for pve

A buff was needed for PvE. Is increasing AA damage the only viable option for improving thief status in PvE? No.

yes actually what thief was lacking was sustain dps for raids, once initiative was gone you became a liability to the group and reduce the overall dps.

I want to challenge this. I want to say that thief damage was fine and better than all others save fire staff ele, and that thief simply did not provide group damage buffs that other classes bring. However, making the direct comparison would require a source for damage numbers. The problem is that accurate DPS checks in a timely manner require the use of software unsupported by the game’s TOS and admission of its use in the forums would likely not be a good idea.

So how do we get this info without said software? How do we test the actual 2+ minute sustained DPS of every profession in a raid situation to compare them, in the current live version of the game? Or should we pester Anet until they actually implement a damage meter?

Nizio Nightblade.8109:

True but still the buff was needed for pve

A buff was needed for PvE. Is increasing AA damage the only viable option for improving thief status in PvE? No.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I’m running 3750 armor and 21k health, mussels gnashblade for the 10% damage reduction and several sources of Protection and now instead of being able to beat thieves 1v1 and at least escape 2v1, I am down within seconds. It is exactly as described above; Basi, Steal, BS, AA a couple of times.

Utterly absurd damage increase.

They didn’t get a damage increase. The excessive aftercast and slow auto attack speed got speed up. Anets self described concept for thief is , “They dictate the speed of an encounter…” Either keep your hotkeys firmly under finger, or lose. If you think its unfair on you, try playing a thief vs another thief that is attacking from stealth. If you can’t break stun in under 0.5 of a second, you’re a gonner. Anet stated the goal was to increase their sustain.As stated above players remind us that they used to be able to make a thief back off with a couple of hits..that is what sustain is, thieve’s no longer have 1-2 punch and then back off and rinse repeat. they start and finish their burst now in a single movement.

I think most of your ideas here are pointed in the right direction, but a correction must be made:

Thieves received a damage buff. Staff and dagger attacks deal more damage and dagger timing is slightly faster. Sword timing is much faster. The net change for all melee weapons is an increase in damage per second, regardless of whether or not there was an increase for the weapon in damage per hit.

Jana.6831:

Orion.3812:

Surely you cannot be arguing that the AA buff is justified when you just stated that the entire problem with the game is that damage is too high?

Did I ever say it was justified? No – just that it shouldn’t be a problem to you as every class hits out equal if not bigger damage.

If you are not here to address the idea under discussion, then why are you here? Either agree with my point that buffing AA was a bad move or disagree with it and provide supporting arguments, but kindly take your personal offense toward my interest in a fairly balanced game elsewhere.

It’s a waste of everyone’s time to read the L2P drivel that this thread has turned into, and if we as players ever hope for Anet Developers to take our discussions in the forums seriously then the toxicity has to stop and intelligent study and well-articulated opinion must become the norm.

Jana.6831:

Orion.3812:

Jana.6831:

My point is: Thief is still one of the weakest classes out there, so if you’re dying to AA you’re doing things wrong.

ETA: I said it half a year ago – the longer the brainless meta would stay around the more people get used to it and think this is how the game is supposed to be. So, people might be surprised that thief has gone from a lootbag to a lootbag with legs.
I killed a mesmer today with 3 hits (one while he was stealthed apparently, just got a lootbag and didn’t see a body) – seems as if their passives got nerfed a bit but he didn’t notice yet.
So yes, if you ask me: the game is still out of control balance wise but thief is the least of your problems.

This isn’t a “QQ I died” thread. This is a thread from the perspective of both the thief and the thiefed. It’s about more than AA. I would encourage you to go back and read my original post. The AA buff trivializes initiative management, which is what defines the thief profession. The AA buff trivializes thieves.

Are you running Panic Strike? Just keep flailing your auto-attack around where you saw that Mesmer stealth. Congrats, you just won the fight!

CS, SA, T with CiS instead of SRej, D/D – I’m the weakest thief possible.
All I read was complaining and no knowledge of the class/the game.
Mesmer sees thief first: thief dead. Pre patch: Thief sees mesmer fist: Thief dead, post patch: Thief sees mesmer first: Mesmer dead.
All classes have got utility to prevent being locked and bursted down (which a mesmer can do better btw).
So sorry, my point still stands: You have no point.
If you want to have one then you should look at the state of the game as a whole – It’s burst all around and has been since June. The Bunker Meta was kind of a lie and just possible with certain classes and their passives.

Surely you cannot be arguing that the AA buff is justified when you just stated that the entire problem with the game is that damage is too high?

Jana.6831:

My point is: Thief is still one of the weakest classes out there, so if you’re dying to AA you’re doing things wrong.

ETA: I said it half a year ago – the longer the brainless meta would stay around the more people get used to it and think this is how the game is supposed to be. So, people might be surprised that thief has gone from a lootbag to a lootbag with legs.
I killed a mesmer today with 3 hits (one while he was stealthed apparently, just got a lootbag and didn’t see a body) – seems as if their passives got nerfed a bit but he didn’t notice yet.
So yes, if you ask me: the game is still out of control balance wise but thief is the least of your problems.

This isn’t a “QQ I died” thread. This is a thread from the perspective of both the thief and the thiefed. It’s about more than AA. I would encourage you to go back and read my original post. The AA buff trivializes initiative management, which is what defines the thief profession. The AA buff trivializes thieves.

Are you running Panic Strike? Just keep flailing your auto-attack around where you saw that Mesmer stealth. Congrats, you just won the fight!

Jana.6831:

Orion.3812:

Jana.6831:

I don’t believe you.

Would you believe me if it was convenient for your side of the argument?

Being a “dynomite” thief who sits on the toilet while playing pvp and dying to autoattack sounds like a good story. But none of it is believeable.
So my point is: you’re making all of this up – how have I taken any side of an argument?

Oh, you took that part seriously. Awkward.

I like to think I’m a pretty good thief with a mouse and keyboard in front of me, though. I was not joking about playing all classes, just about playing on the toilet. Best anyone can do with an Android soft keyboard is chat and jump due to technical limitations.

Jana.6831:

I don’t believe you.

Would you believe me if it was convenient for your side of the argument?

BeepBoopBop.5403:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Orion.3812:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Orion.3812:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

I’m well aware forward speed is faster. Turn with your mouse. Stop clicking your skills like you probably do too.

I do “click” skills, but only when I’m taking a dump and winning PvP via remote control with my phone’s touch screen. Get on my level, you condescending twit.

If I’m condescending its because of things you’ve said lol. I started out pretty serious about my defense of the AA buff, but after some of your statements like about how you can’t kittening kite from melee AA, I have dismissed you as another baddie QQing. Like everyone else here should.

If we moved the damage to anywhere else, sword AA raw damage increase, larc strike, backstab, odds are you’d still be whining. That’s because thief hard counters bads. Stop being bad.

You can burn cooldowns to open the gap. You cannot just “walk away”. I shouldn’t have to explain to you the difference if you are such a good player.

I have explained plenty my defense of buffs. You have said nothing but " wahhh I sat in melee autos and died teef OP!"

You can walk away. Unless the thief has godmode reflexes and best internet, you can always position yourself to make him miss autoattacks. Out of melee range. Or you can counterpressure because a thief is half dead after smokescale and bristleback bursts and BECAUSE WE CANT DODGE OR DEFEND OURSELVES DURING AA.

Just admit that your panties are rustled that thieves aren’t free kills anymore rofl. Must hurt to have to use your brain huh? Oh well back to your braindead profession of “build tanky no prob pet hits harder than teef!”

Two edits followed by a double post quote? You should maybe relax before all that angst gives you a heart attack.

MidoriMarch.8067:

Orion.3812:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

I’m well aware forward speed is faster. Turn with your mouse. Stop clicking your skills like you probably do too.

I do “click” skills, but only when I’m taking a dump and winning PvP via remote control with my phone’s touch screen. Get on my level, you condescending twit.

Stop QQing and go back to ur ez mode ranger forum that require no skills to play.

If u actually think thief is op, go and roll thief and see how bad u are going to get rekt

and u will never say thief is op again.

I have a thief. I have to warm up a bit before I can stay alive, but even pre-buff could kill just about anyone without much effort after shaking the rust off. I once moved my ascended gear over to my thief and spent a day ganking people in WvW. It was fun for a while, and then it just got kinda boring because with ascended + food buff, nobody could counter except other thieves that got lucky. The tankier the enemy, the harder it is to win but not impossible if you have the patience. Thief scales differently in sPvP, but it’s still very powerful there except against bunkers which were too prevalent because they countered everything.

I’ve played both power and condi builds of every class, and play 3-4 characters on a daily basis. I am not just a ranger. I understand a bigger picture than the view from behind a longbow.

I am also not the only one in this thread, nor the forums as a whole, who recognizes the problem with buffing thief personal damage instead of providing them the group utility that they need to have instead. See this other thread.

Nizio Nightblade.8109:

Okay cool toxicity guys but back to what i was trying to ask OP, why does a 2 sec AA chain that now does 4-5K overall(pvp) need to be reverted back down to 3-4k(pvp) overall? if we revert the change it would take me 2.5-3 secs instead 2 secs to deal the same damage. so one full AA chain + double strike.

Because 0.5 seconds is easily the difference between life and death in GW2.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Orion.3812:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

I’m well aware forward speed is faster. Turn with your mouse. Stop clicking your skills like you probably do too.

I do “click” skills, but only when I’m taking a dump and winning PvP via remote control with my phone’s touch screen. Get on my level, you condescending twit.

If I’m condescending its because of things you’ve said lol. I started out pretty serious about my defense of the AA buff, but after some of your statements like about how you can’t kittening kite from melee AA, I have dismissed you as another baddie QQing. Like everyone else here should.

If we moved the damage to anywhere else, sword AA raw damage increase, larc strike, backstab, odds are you’d still be whining. That’s because thief hard counters bads. Stop being bad.

You can burn cooldowns to open the gap. You cannot just “walk away”. I shouldn’t have to explain to you the difference if you are such a good player.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

I’m well aware forward speed is faster. Turn with your mouse. Stop clicking your skills like you probably do too.

I do “click” skills, but only when I’m taking a dump and winning PvP via remote control with my phone’s touch screen. Get on my level, you condescending twit.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

If you don’t know how to avoid melee auto attack, then I’m not equipped to deal with that. Kiting from melee in this game is as easy as moving a step to the left and then keep going. Thieves don’t have super speed and limited quickness.

Tldr this whole thread L2P.

Forward run speed is higher than strafing speed. Quickness doesn’t even affect run speed. Thief gets super speed (equivalent) from Hidden Thief while stealthed (formerly an effect from Acrobatics, was changed in patch).

Have you misplaced the W key on your keyboard?