Guild Wars 2

• The news goes out and Chef Anet is opening a new restaurant. It’s like the old restaurant only it looks better and has a big 2 beside it’s name.

(I promise this will make sense)

• We learn that this new restaurant won’t have all of the same meals, some of our old “usuals” will be replaced. Ok, this is reasonable. New horizons and all. Still many of us wonder what will become of the old Assassin Burger. Will it be replaced? It was hard to find on the menu anyway and kept changing it’s location.
• Thief sandwich? Ok. It’s like a burger, fills the same role, has similar fillings. The hype hits.
• Some lucky kittens get to try the sandwich first. And oh, is it brilliant. It kicks hunger in the teeth and is such a joy to eat that one minute it is there and the next…gone. Sandwich lovers everywhere are optimistic and trust in Chef Anet runs high.
• But things change, ideas change. Some time after launch of the restaurant, Anet receives complaints about Thief Sandwich, specifically during it’s food competitions. It’s just there and gone, so tasty that the people eating it just won’t stop. The Soup loyalists and pasta die-hards suggest that the sandwich is broken. It must be fixed.
• In response Chef Anet rips out the tomato and lettuce. Ok, we can deal right? That’s not even the main part of the sandwich.
• But the complaints don’t cease and the Chef gets heavy handed, having their own doubts about the meal. Out comes the meat. The kitten kittening meat! (This dramatisation is in no way a reflection on it’s vegetarian author) So we sandwich lovers take a step back and look at our meal. Some of us even get up and walk away from the table or order something else. But not us survivors, no, we persevere. We take our bread and cheese and we grill that kitten! We make grilled cheese, we make the best of a bad situation. And grilled cheese works, against all reason it works. We find our niche. I mean grilled cheese is a staple. No one does cheddar like grilled cheese.
• And then a new wing of the restaurant is announced. We have high hopes but we know everything there is going to be expensive and hidden behind a wall. A wall we have to pay to get around. And holy? All the salad! What is Chef Anet thinking? Didn’t we have enough salad as is? Ok, I can ignore that. I can even ignore all the potted plants and greenery they are adding to the wing. The customisable bar where groups of friends can hang out looks neat. I also hear our meal is going to have some special sides added to it maybe? Maybe some new elite bread? Maybe a long range straw for our cups? I mean seriously, the short utility straw we currently have won’t even reach the bottom.
• And there goes our cheese. What?? Why?! Why Chef Anet? That…. that’s all we had to make us work. Who will order this meal now?
• Oh they… they just gave the new elite Daredevil’s Club Sandwich our cheese.. only they aged it some.
• And a toothpick. They jabbed a stick in it.
• The new wing launches, and it launches with a few sandwich lovers less to be sure. But some of us hopefuls, we pay to get into the special wing. The menu is a jungle of options and it does some to hide the fact that they only added 4 slightly smaller tables to the wing. I can overlook that, though, where is my new sandwich? Oh right pulls the toothpick out useless thing.
• Everywhere people are flocking to the Revenant Sub; hey it has a toothpick too. And the DragonHunter Burger Delux can be found at almost every table. Our table is a bit small, those of us that remain. But we try our bests to find our way around this new meal (Maybe we shouldn’t have tossed the toothpick after-all).
• But ultimately it all just seems so….hollow. The Mesmerising Desert disappears just as easily as our sandwich does. And it tastes so good that it’s like time slows. The burger and the sub both hit hunger harder. And I mean, we have this improved cheese just jumping all over the place in terms of flavour….but where is the rest?

A few facts to point out. When Anet wants to get rid of a game feature, they de-incentivise it, (Dungeons) they basically make you go, “Why bother?” Anet prides it’s self on being “different” And “thief” is about as true and tried a fantasy trope as the holy trinity. Anet has absolutely no problem with retconning things such as how old lore has been changed by current lore canon. And WHEN they retcon, they just give you something they feel is better. Revenant has a melee staff, Mesmer can stealth, and now everyone seems to have improved mobility.
We are the fading. We are the retconned.
This is why Anet won’t address thief flaws and core class issues. They just want us to fade away. Sure we will still be there, on the menu. But now we are just two soggy slices of bread beneath barely readable type.

Here Lies Thief.

But I’m not giving up. I think there is something viable in all this mess, and I will not quietly stealth into the night. I will not dine on some meal I can barely stomach. I will take this toothpick and jab into my enemies eye defiantly. I will keep hotjoining with different builds and gear until that old mantra, “Holy crap, there is a thief on my kitten!” will be heard again.