Guild Wars 2

This is significant. Some sorely needed buffs in there, so thanks for recognising that.

It would be nice if Dust Strike could be changed to a smoke combo field though, for a couple of reasons:
1. Lack of access to stealth otherwise.
2. Hard to blind enemies around you, using an attack that only hits 3 things in a line.
3. Initiative cost of 4 is too high for effect. By comparison, Black Powder is 6, spawns a field for 4 seconds, and blinds enemies multiple times.

Chips.7968:

The new classes have been very frustrating to play against and not actually killed any of them at the moment. Whilst I’m not the worlds best thief by any stretch, didn’t think I was that bad.

It’s not you, it’s them. Like, every elite I tested out except for Daredevil and maybe Berserker (did not test Ele’s at all) seems to have been designed in a vacuum. Balance was abandoned in favour of going to town. Reaper does kittened damage. Scrapper has kittened sustain and really good damage. It’s impossible to die as a Druid (ok, so you’re not helping with doing damage – but nobody in your vicinity can die either soooo).

It does really seem like, if you don’t buy HoT, you are going to get wrecked. Apart from situational ones like Druid, most of these elites are just straight upgrades and will be part of almost every build.

I did something like this, only using Pistol/Dagger. Gives more ability to apply torment and bleeds in big bursts, at the expense of poison. Didn’t think to try D/D.

But yeah, just grab everything that either causes or buffs conditions and dodges, using Lotus combined with Caltrops to dish out some serious bleed stacks. It was really amusing in PvE to take 0 damage and destroy things in seconds.

This is really important, if you change nothing else about the dodges:

Bound needs a lot of work. It’s in a really weird spot.

On one hand, as a dodge it doesn’t take you very far at all, and has no defensive value – Dash is simply a better defensive option by giving better distance, and removing conditions/providing boons.

As an attack, it’s so hard to aim that it’s just a total waste to think about using it offensively. If I’m already in melee, 99% of the time the damage is going to miss because I’ll leap over the thing I’m trying to hit with it. I don’t even know what to do with it, tbh. Maybe it should just deal damage to everything in a line between your starting point and your landing point?

Damage feels better now, but there’s still a lack of survivability in general. Compared to other elites, which have a wealth of conditions and buffs that increase their longevity, we’re still reliant on a very short weakness and a very short blind. Both of which prevent us doing damage by eating our initiative.

Bound dodge feels terrible. It’s just really weird to have this offensive dodge that is extremely hard to hit with, when you’re a melee class. Like, unless the mob is massive, you just miss by over-shooting the hitbox of the thing you’re fighting.

Really don’t like the physical skills, apart from the thrown daggers and Bandit’s Defence. The elite is just awful, doesn’t do enough damage and leaves you wide open. For it to actually kill somebody, they need to be basically dead already. Pointless. It needs to either do a_TON_more damage, or something else. Fist Flurry/Palm Strike is really hard to land. If a mob oversteps you as you use it, it’s wasted. If someone backpedals away from you during it, it’s wasted. Channeled Vigor is too slow, leaves you open.

Staff lacks combo fields. Staff #4, Dust Strike, really needs to be a smoke field. Opens up access to stealth, and gives more reliable blinds to enemies around us.

Staff #3 should have a flip to re-engage with a leap or something. Similar to ranger sword skill. Really weird to have a skill that disengages on a melee weapon that’s all about being in the fight.

Some of the traits are just awful this time. Springing to mind is the staff damage increase when endurance isn’t full – should just be an increase, regardless of weapon. Else it’s useless to other sets. Also the damage buff after dodging trait, 2 seconds isn’t long enough to deliver any decent strength ability. Return to either next attack, or increase duration.

Acrobatics feels useless when specced DD too. Should probably overhaul Acro to do something of its own, instead of being a kittenty version of Daredevil.

BobbyT.7192:

this is pretty big guys, the first thief op thread in a long time….i predict a 25% nerf to pistols in the future.

Thieves can no longer attack somebody who is already fighting another player.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

be·hoove
it is a duty or responsibility for someone to do something; it is incumbent on.

Taking a little bit of time to use a search engine is a useful skill to have.

kitten kitten .

I know what the word means, I just don’t understand the part about picking up their slack. Are we supposed to do their jobs for them, or what? There appears to be plenty of feedback. That feedback goes ignored. People are justified to be mad at this point. 2badsosad if that hurts the developers’ feelings. They should have made more of an effort.

Here’s my Thief. RIP.

yolo swaggins.2570:

So it would behoove everyone if someone picked up anet’s slack.

The kitten does this even mean?

yolo swaggins.2570:

Then your focus should be to get them on here. Instead of asking to fix the profession, ask them to get on so they can see the reasons why and then ask them to fix it.

Are you saying it’s our job to get the people who are designing the class to come and actually participate in a dialog with the players of the class they’re designing?

LMAO.

Maybe we should just riot in other profession forums until they start taking notice.

Helicity.3416:

I should have had to use the cleanse I needed to counter the OTHER condi thief’s opener already, right?

So two thieves attacked you in quick succession, you burnt your cleanses on one of them and then got decked by a second thief.

Your complaint is a condi Thief did a lot of damage when your counters were down.

And this is a problem?

Yeah, looking at this and the mess that is Daredevil, I am no longer happy with pre-purchasing HoT. I suggest you all do the same, or don’t buy it if you haven’t yet. Just rerolling means they can ignore the situation indefinitely. What do they care if Thief & DD is kitten at that point? They already got your money.

Amante.8109:

A number of people have already gotten refunds through sending a support ticket.

Thanks, I’ll do that. At first I was really hyped, but now I’m not so happy handing them £50 or whatever if my favourite class is just getting trashed.

I really hope they do something about Thief general squishiness, tbh. If DD is meant to stay in the fight, I can’t keep getting 2 hit by normal attacks. Stealth with a regular dagger build, or even a sword build, solves this problem by allowing us to shrug aggro and burst things down quickly. I found that any time I used Vault, I got absolutely destroyed. Anytime I didn’t have enough initiative to keep applying blinds and weaknesses, I got destroyed… and not only that, but while spending initiative keeping up survival conditions, I wasn’t doing any damage. For DD to be the “stay in the fight” spec, it needs more base survival and more damage across skills that aren’t Vault. Right now I think any regular sword build does a better job of surviving and dealing damage than DD does.

Can anyone tell me if it’s possible to get a refund for this expansion? The more I read, the less I’m confident that my Thief will actually be any fun to play. Maybe it’s best to just wait and see what happens after launch at this point.

Also getting this. Just logged off in anger. Getting 4 second delays on every skill, and after 3 deaths to the same mob because all my skills are flashing waiting to fire but not actually going off… yeah, no.

As with the above, it’s not my hardware or my connection.

UK, lag typically starts after 19:00 if that helps any.