Guild Wars 2

As a long time Thief aficionado, some criticisms I have for the class would be:

• Steal: I don’t really see the Steal mechanic as successful in terms of gameplay; it’s powerful in usage, without a doubt. However, it’s used as a mobility & set-up tool more than anything; the actual stealing portion of the ability (acquiring the single use item/skill from your target) is probably the last reason anyone uses Steal. For a mechanic that’s supposed to define the class, it really fails to deliver when it comes to a rewarding gameplay experience.

The mechanic works well in when playing alone or in small-scale PvE excursions, but in larger-scale PvE, as well as sPvP, tPvP, and WvW, the entire concept behind mechanic is completely lost.

My two cents: I believe it would make more sense if Steal worked more along the lines of “stealing” a unique buff/boon from your target, based on what they are, rather than an item or skill. It would be more universally useful for its intended purposes in all gameplay outlets, easier to balance, and probably more fun for the player, while not necessarily being any more or less powerful in gameplay.

• Venom: Venoms, with the exception of Basilisk Venom, are all pretty lackluster outside being used to give yourself Might stacks via Venomous Strength. The conditions they cause are usually just overridden by classes who are more apt at applying conditions (or in the case of Spider’s Venom, the Thief itself) and their effect goes unnoticed. As result, they’re not very fun in usage for the Thief and not very useful in multiplayer situations. On top of this, they lack any animations whatsoever.

My two cents: Venoms suffer in functionality as well as failing to grant a rewarding gameplay experience to the player. Perhaps Venoms should be unique debuffs or effects that work better in the presence of other conditions, or entirely new mechanics.

Ex: This venom makes your target more susceptible to poison. Poison causes an additional X% damage to the afflicted target for Y seconds.

Perhaps changing or adding a trait to include endurance on weapon swap could fix this problem. That would be “Thief” like, a welcomed and reasonable fix for Thieves, as well as not being too ground breaking for anyone else.

They’re not going to balance the game around WvW; that wouldn’t really make much sense, since it’s not really a controlled environment.

Think about it, how could that Thief possibly be the reason why you lost in WvW. You’re tilting out of aggravation. One person doesn’t do anything in WvW.

Same with the Whisper’s Medium Boots. Ugly red daggers throwing off my Thief’s swag. Simply cannot have this.

When I first obtained my Whispers Boots a few months ago, they had three dye-able slots; the boot itself, the boot straps, and the daggers attached to each side of the boot.

As of now, only the boot and the boot straps are dye-able, and the daggers are permanently bright red.

Any idea on when this will be fixed/reverted back? It’s really throwing off my Thief’s color scheme.

That’s what I’m saying. If mob health was reduced down to where killing them was just as fast as skipping them or at least closer to that time frame, we would have a more fulfilling experience, even with limited time. The dungeons themselves are all pretty short; it’s just not uncommon to spend 10 minutes attacking a single mob. Which is a bit excessive.

To put it bluntly, I believe the dungeon experience could be greatly enhanced if mob health was drastically reduced, their attack damage was increased, their attack speed was reduced, and if their swing/delay animation timers were slowed.

Why? Most dungeons aren’t worth clearing because of how long it takes to clear elite mobs. When it comes to champion/legendary mobs in random events, they’re certainly not time efficient and tend to drag on far past the point of being a rewarding experience.

If mob health was drastically reduced (maybe 33% or so), players would be more motivated to actually kill trash and complete side quests/random events. By increasing their damage (~20%) while slowing their attack speed (~15%) and animations (~0.75 second global delay, players would be challenged to more actively participate in combat; dodging, using skills/abilities tactfully, etc.

And that’s more fun, in my opinion at least. Guild Wars has a very fulfilling combat system so it’s a shame that time efficiency tempts players to skip content.