Guild Wars 2

How often do you see “LF1M thief for …”? I see warrior guardian, elementalist, mesmer and occasionally some other class, but I don’t think I have ever seen someone wanting or needing a thief.

The reason is obvious, and has been stated many times before: thief has no place in PvE, period. Its a redundant class, and its spot in a group is always better filled by another profession.

Anyone saying thief is strong in PvE is either simply trolling, or more likely one of these guys that think a boost for one class is the same as a nerf for the class they are playing.

Agnima.3714:

Otherwise at this rate thieves will end up like WOW rogues after BC and be the forgotten class that nobody wants.

Aren’t we already there? Maybe thief has a place in PvP (I don’t PvP much so I can’t say), but for PvE thief are a class that has no role or porpose, just a group filler if no other class are available.

I played loremaster in LOTRO when it was released, and I played Necromancer in AoC from start. Those where pretty horrible classes, but they where fixed and later become both fun and balanced.

But I think that thief in its current state, for PvE, is more broken than any of those classes. It seems that ANet has done exactly what I was afraid of, balance the stealth class for PvP only, making it totally worthless for PvE in the progress.

Fix thief or remove the class!

Venoms are so underwhelmed for Thiefs, and the elite skills are worst of them all, 1 second stun every 45 seconds. So I agree with you there.

But most of all I want to feel useful in a group. Today, there are no reason (except for stealth-ressing) to have a thief in group instead of for example a warrior.

And 2 thiefs are very redundant, especially if they are both condition specced (they will hardly do more damage than 1 thief).

Thief is the class with fewest and weakest group abilities, and our damage is behind many classes as well, so why bring a thief in a group for PvE content? The only reason is the AoE stealth that is very good for ressing, but being a ress-bot is not why I rolled a thief.

Please make us more useful in groups, or give is a “Reincarnation” so I can change class to something more useful (the replay value of GW2 is way to low for me to reroll).

As someone mentioned, SoM is not as good as the other heals, unless you fight lots of mobs at the same time and spam AoE.

But isn’t it more in line with a thief and the name “Malice” to have it as a life leech instead of a heal. Its also more logical (why would I heal when I hit mob, if it wasn’t some life leach to begin with)?

Or reduce its strength and make it into a trait instead, so it can be combined with withdraw (should still be a life leech though).

I agree, P/P should be made more fun and interesting, today its just a boring ok-ish ranged damage, spamming the same “3” over and over. And especially the auto-attack should be improved (no movement skill in it though), and at the very least you should use both pistols. Its a dual wield after all.

Would it not be better if Signet of Malice became a life leech alike ability, that makes attack do a little more damage (in %), and returns that damage as health. This would help solve 2 problems:
1. An adjustment in the right direction for thief DPS, which due to lower health and worse survivability should be higher than warriors (today its lower).
2. Give a little extra survivability to DPS specced thiefs, since more damage would mean more healing.

It could also to some extent offset the nerf on food that heal on crit, which affected us (or at least the build I was using) very much.

These changes are meant for PvE, I don’t PvP enough to know how this will affect PvP, but it can always work a little different in PvP if needed for balance purposes.

Brutakus.2784:

I thought I was a pve monster with my p/p sb thief until I ran my first dungeon. I must have died in AC 6 or 7 times. Was not what I expected the way I tear through above ground content. I utterly destroy a mob with 2 unloads. Most mobs never touch me. AC was an eye opener and makes me wonder if I should gear more tough/vit and less pwr/pre

Its easy to build a thief for survivability, just make sure you pick self healing traits and endurance-boost trait, use P/P and dodge around. Then you can enjoy a class that does less damage than most other classes, has virtually no skills for group or support, but at least you will stay alive almost as good as DPS specced warriors.

Support thief? Only someone who don’t actually play a thief can even say that with a straight face. Thief is by far the class with least group and support skills.

As thief is today, all it brings to a group is DPS and stealth-resses. Its not strange if people see thief as a DPS class and nothing else, because that’s what we are now.

There is currently no reason for a group to invite a thief instead of a warrior, even if the group have warriors already. That fact alone speaks volumes about how incredible bad thief is right now in group PvE.

SanityAssassin.8795:

If someone tries to play thief like a warrior they are doing something wrong…a good indication of that is saying, like the OP, that thieves feel like warriors.

No, thats where you are wrong. They should feel different, but in many ways they don’t (except the obvious difference with initiative vs cooldowns).

But if warrior played like thiefs has to do, they would have a ton more survivability. Even when a warrior play less optimal, its a very forgiving class, unlike thief where one missed dodge means you are downed.

The term “Balance” means you gets compensate for your class flaws, by being extra good in other areas. But when compared to warrior, it gets very hard to see that compensation, since warrior do more DPS, have more health, more armor, more weapons, better survivability, more support skills.

Why would a group ever prefer a thief over a warrior?

I have soloed several champs, even the one at the end of the Plinx events, by using a stealth trick (if done correctly you wont take any damage). Not sure if that works now though. But it takes way to much time to be worth it, and is pretty boring fight.

And yes, I am talking about thief at endgame, especially harder endgame like 30+ in fractals.

As LOCO said, warrior does outclass thief in every way for PvE. Well, except the stealth-ress trick.

darkace.8925:

Sinner.7139:

Currently thief is like a bad joke for PvE. Yes, we do decent DPS if specced for it, and we can (if traited) do a few extra dodges. But we have zero survivability…

Funny, my thief in PvE has no survival issues while still outputting very good damage. In addition to “a few extra dodges”, you’ve got plenty of ways to blind and plenty of crowd control skills. If you’re having trouble staying alive in PvE, I would humbly suggest that it’s user error, not a flaw design in the class.

I don’t have problem staying alive either, because the content in GW2 is pretty easy, even on fractals 30+. But that does not mean thief is balanced, it just means I know how to stay alive.

And bosses are almost immune to crown control and blind, which makes those pretty useless when they are needed most (who bothers with CC on thrash mobs). Besides, I don’t consider 1 sec stun or 3 sec snare to be real CC.

Xynn.2748:

shadow refuge -> rez. Honestly, it’s so good that I would bring a thief along just to auto attack and do that.

Yea, that was I said in my starter post: the main reason to bring a thief is to get good resses. In fact, any group looking for a thief is probably a group you should stay away from, since they obviously plan to die a lot :-)

But that’s hardly the designed purpose or role of a thief, is it?

I should clarify that by PvE I mean mostly group play in hard content, like deep in Fractals. Grinding events in for example Orr is pretty good for thief due to good AoE.

The main problem is that thief are supposed to be much more moveable, but in fact we are not. Many other classes has 25% run buffs, and many (all?) classes has some sort of endurance buff. Thief is a little extra moveable if traited for it, but its not a big margin.

A warrior for example, that tries to evade damage the way a thief has to do, will have much more survivability than its possible to have for a thief. And they do more DPS as well, more health, more armor, more everything.

And if a thief specs for survivability, what is that thiefs purpose then? Sure, he might survive better, but he will bring even less to the group than a DPS thief.

The (for PvE) pretty useless F1 ability, and the way stealth is (not) working in PvE, certainly don’t help.

Perma-blind isnt very useful, since all bosses are almost immune to it. I do agree about AoE, shortbow AoE is very good, but that alone does not make a class.

A good way to look at balance is: when is a thief really needed in PvE? While we do have some small support-alike abilities, its nowhere near what other classes has. And the 5-10% extra DPS we (might) do is nowhere near to compensate, especially since we have very few abilities that helps other do DPS. Besides, DPS in GW2 is a convenience only, there are no DPS-checks in the game as far as I know.

Also, our special F1 ability is not very good for PvE unless the mob is easy. When fighting bosses, I do my best to stay out of melee range, since pretty much every attack a boss at 30+ fractal does will instakill you if DPS specced.

All put together, thief is currently by far the worst class for PvE, without any clear role or purpose.

Currently thief is like a bad joke for PvE. Yes, we do decent DPS if specced for it, and we can (if traited) do a few extra dodges. But we have zero survivability beside dodging, stealth is useless after last patch, our main heal (crit heals) is nerfed to uselessness.

I heard some dev saying that each class should have several good builds to choose from. Well, lets start by giving thief a single good build for PvE, because right now thief is 100% redundant for PvE (as in, no role to fullfill).

Its also very hard to motivate why any group, no matter the content, would pick a thief before another class. Maybe if they know they will die a lot, and need stealth-ressses. But then, everyone can do that with spy-kits.

Basically, thief feels like a warrior, but:
- less weapons and skills
- worse healing
- lower health
- lower armor
- less support
- no tanking ability

And warriors complain? :-)

Very disappointing changes, P/P will be just as boring and tedious as before, and only marginally more DPS. Thief in PvE continues to be shortbow and repeatedly pressing “2” button.

Thieves brings some nice things to a group, the problem is that every other class brings much more. And the latest changes does certainly not address this problem.

I would definitely switch to another class if I could (can’t be bothered to level another class to 80), because Thief is a PvP class, with only a few uses in PvE.

As I said in my first post, steal might be great in PvP. But its for PvE I want it changed or improved. Against a boss fight, a steel is a teleport with a little damage or buff/debuff and with a long cooldown. And the teleport takes you close to the boss, which is not where you want to be as a thief (at least not on harder bosses deep into fractals).

Compare this to other classes class-abilities, which in most cases are crucial for all types of play.

Thieves are good in PvP from what I hear, but not at all very good in PvE. Very squishy and not many support skills, and the DPS, while pretty good, is not good enough compared to for example an Elementalist that brings a lot more support abilities.

(PvE in my case is deep fractals and explorer dungeons, they are very good in events due to spammable AoE).

DreamOfACure.4382:

You think +25% speed and Feline Grace isn’t enough movement?

LOL

I’ve never had a problem with mobility or movement on my Thief, and I don’t even use the +25% signet.
I’m partial to Shadowstep though.

That just means you dodge less than I do, I run out of endurance all the time.

A good example is the boss you meet 3 times in COE (forgot his name), its easy to dodge out of the circles, until you are out of endurance and then its insta-downed and probably death. And that is with good movement and 20/20 in survivability traits.

Pure DPS builds just don’t work for Thief in hard encounters (but I am sure some use it anyway, and end up downed several times/boss). And thats what I mean with movement not being good enough. We are supposed to use movement for survivability, but currently its not enough.

I don’t PvP much (just enough to completely monthly), but I hear a lot of talk about OP and Thief in PvP. I have no idea how valid it is, but I know one thing: Thief will never ever be balanced both for PvP and PvE, if all skills works the same both in PvP and PvE.

The reason why this is true for Thief is because of Stealth, which have a pretty small impact on PvE, but a very big impact on PvP. And its the same in other MMOs, take assassin/nightstalker in Rift, and all the problem they had for balancing, or assassin in AoC.

Currently, Thief has got a number of nerfs because of PvP that also affects PvE, and its getting to the point where groups prefer everything else but thief. And why not, we are far from top DPS since we have to use survivability builds, and our movement is nowhere near good enough to compensate (I use 25% speed signet and less-endurance-dodge trait). And anyone who has seen me know I move quite a lot (I’m a former European Champion in UT, which has similar dodge and movement).

And we certainly don’t have a lot of support skills, the only really usable one is the AoE stealth, which mesmer also has.

Please think a little about us PvE Thiefs as well!

I don’t PvP much, but I imagine its much more useful in PvP/WvW. In dungeons, I try to stay far away from mobs (squishy me), and F1 is kinda the opposite

But useful or not, its not a very fun ability. The F1-F4 idea would be an improvement. Or something more stealth related. Also, it does not have to be the same in PvP and PvE, if balancing issues becomes a problem.

Maybe something that could improve our survivability, I die as soon as a boss looks at me, and I’m 20/20 in survivability traits (rest in crits).

If traited, the steal ability is marginally useful I guess, but even then its a complete garbage compared to other class abilities, and in no way defines the thief as a class. Its nothing but a teleport with a random buff or debuff, and with a long cool down.

Besides, the ability don’t make a whole lot of sense, since its not actually a steal. Whoever heard of a thief stealing feathers from a bird, for example.

Maybe its more useful in PvP (I don’t PvP a lot), but when running dungeons or events I hardly bother to use it. I bet 10G its the least used class ability of them all.

At first the patching failed, and I had some corrupted files and crach-text in the logfile (it was similar to many others with the same issue). I tried various things like disabling the Firewall, antivirus and running as administrator and nothing worked.

I then uninstalled the game, and manually deleted the gw2 files and the directory in documents, and then downloaded the client again. When starting the Gw2Setup.exe it does not crash, nor write anything in the log. It just does nothing (except the process takes 100% of one core), and then maybe 1 minute later I get “Download failed! Please check your internet connection and try again”.

I have of course tried the usual tricks like running it as administrator and disabling firewall. I also notice that it has created some files in AppData\Local\Temp (gw2.exe and 0 size gw2.tmp and gw2.dat).

All in all, a major bummer!