Guild Wars 2

Traits look at health, not class mechanic.
Necro’s gain a bar of Deathshroud, not a bar of Health.

Traits treat down state as a new/second bar of health.

Chaotic.9742:

T raw.4658:

Chaotic.9742:

Love all the QQ about this patch. I picked up theif upon returning and can absolutely dominate in PvP after two days of learning how to fight other classes intelligently. I sincerely don’t get all of this complaining, adapt to the patch – this isn’t the end of the world.

Many lies are being told. Very evident when reading post history…

Not sure what lies you could be seeing but ok? All I can think of is you interpreted my post as I’ve never played thief before in my life until this patch in which case I apologize for the confusion. But considering I’ve been gone for over a month and just started up again with thief as my main, I’m not struggling in any PvP matches after the first couple of days learning the patch and knocking the rust off. This leads me to believe the forum complaints are being blown WAY out of proportion and thieves remain a valuable asset to any PvP team.

Yet the fact that all thieves play the exact same build already goes to show how terrible this patch is.
The goal and purpose of this patch was to create build diversity. So what’s the result: D/D, S/D, P/P and S/P are all still not competitive. They have entirely missed the intention. Previously you’d have S/D as an at least somewhat viable option, now it’s literally just D/P with DA/SA/TR (ok some people play CS>SA, awesome diversity!)

So even though you can still kick kitten in hotjoins because those people are oblivious, once you get against a somewhat decent player, you’re done for.
You said you’re new, so your experiences are skewed due to a lack of material to compare it with. Most people here have been playing thief for a significant time though and therefor know what’s wrong. I’m not saying this to be an kitten but really… Pretty much everything in this patch involves a Nerf for Thieves in one way or another.

Thanks for returning potential stealthless builds.
While I’m happy to see this potential returned, it’s a low blow to Nerf Acro and then give us this as a version 2.0
Oh well… I’ll still enjoy it, I bet!

Sorry but I wouldn’t trust Anet to do this.
Implementing such features (aside of thrown items) is tough to do. Let alone implementing it without breaking anything…

Rather see them working on proper balancing.

Not sure how I like the 450 range on Dash… I already felt like the 360 range forced me out of combat too much (though I could see the 60 extra range just needing some getting used to).
Curious to try it out, but I fear it’s one of those things that’s only cool in theory and that it’d be better of being a simple 300 range.

And there’s still the matter of the 3 “grandmaster” traits…
Now that we’ve seen the druid, I really cannot agree with the implementation of this.
The dodge-improvements should be baseline for DD and be selectable (I know Shalien.9018 made great suggestions for it back on Page 12 and in a seperate topic on this forum). Why is DD the only Elite Specialization with it’s “new mechanic” locked behind “grandmaster” traits? Sorry, it just doesn’t feel right by me.

Hah, as a Thief Main who learnt to multiclass because of this issue. I don’t see the problem. Something like this can be used as a drive to practice other classes (which I believe every (Thief) Player should do: Play what kills You and Learn from it). You can’t be a good Thief if you don’t have atleast some idea of how the other classes work, play and rotate, in my opinion.
So yeah, I play Thief 90% of the time, but for the other 10% I’m very happy to play any other class. Just got to suck it up sometimes and be the bigger man of the two Thief Players, even though you’ll often end up shouting at your screen for it, it does improve your understanding of the game, rotations, decision making and mechanical skill.

So jump into some unranked, hotjoins and 1v1 servers, git gud and be prepared to reroll. No biggie.

BFMV.3198:

learn to play and fight

Funny to say that when SR is such a crutch in it’s current state allready.

They’re making a pretty overpowered trait more overpowered than it is allready. Unlike the invulnerabilities etc. that Guardians and Warriors and the likes have, this trait makes one quite litterally unbeatable when played well.

The issue with SR is, is that it promotes passive playing quite a bit.
I’d like to see the health regen coming from it heavily reduced. Maybe then we’ll see it being unbanned from the 1v1 arenas and all that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that Thieves get something we’ll recieve more salt and QQ for again.
But to be fair, the trait is most definitly OP, making bad players seem like good players and making good players close to invincible unless they get pretty heavily outnumbered. So yeah, I do understand where all the ranting is coming from.
Besides, it’s not like you need it… I play S/D (2/0/0/6/6), D/P (2/6/0/0/6) and D/D (4/6/4/0/0) and do quite fine provided I don’t do anything stupid. The Condi cleansing (and blinds for D/D survival) is/are great, but the initiative regen and health regen are just… meh. Let alone when they are combined…

Oh well… I supose the update ( in case this stays unchanged) will actually make Thief a newbie friendly class. But I really think that atleast the health regen could do with a bit of a stomp.

Despite the fact that it looked like a change that rewarded skillful gameplay, the ners to vigour make Feline Grace worthless…
I’ll dearly miss you buddy! :’(

Staff and Dagger AA buffs weren’t needed.
I’ll take them, but they sure as hell weren’t needed.

All in all, I think our biggest buff is in the nerfs to other classes.

@Dahkeus they did remove the aftercast on Black Powder! It’s ingame, but not in their notes for some reason.

Due to the Stability change, it’s simply impossible for small groups to be rewarded for skilled gameplay.
Everything is tipping in favour of the zerg, despite the claims of Anet to try and step away from that…

As long as I can stand a fair chance in a 1v1 against an opponent of equal skill on a different class, I’ll be happy enough.

Please, for the sake of further evidence that Thieves need to be nerfed again after all those buffs: Make an uncut video of your Thieving endeavours.
It’ll surely prove exactly whatever point you’re trying to make here!

Do it, make my your day!

P.S. Don’t forget to publicly release it of course, we’re all very excited to see how OP we are, being invisible =/= invincible and all.

Hmm, Vulnerability on Flanking/Larcenous Strike might be too strong (quick edit: This due to it’s relatively low initiative cost which I don’t want to see increased + CnD also applying it. That said, S/D could do with a bit more damage compared to the overtuned Dagger/Staff). But I suppose Torment on Shadow Strike might be a good option since P/D tends to be used as a Condi set most of the time. Not sure though, I never play condi myself and I haven’t fought any decent P/D thieves for a long time either.

But wahey, it looks solid enough to me on paper, worse “tweaks” have made it ingame lol

Traps are terribly balanced as it is (perma stealth trapper says hi), until that one’s figured out, I’d loathe to see anything like that in the game.
That said, if traps are “fixed” and/or your idea implemented in a more clever way… Then sure, why not. Suppose it’d make trapper builds at least remotely interesting for people that don’t just want to troll and grief. I’m pretty much always in for anything involving active play.

Port bugs aside, I just really don’t like how huge of an impact this is.
Opening up the Clocktower like this dumbs down the map and the gamemode in a major way. You can have a clear overview of the entire map, just standing on the middle node and doing nothing special. This has major impact on tactical movement and strategic thinking in itself, but also affects all mobility-reliant classes in ways that should have been predicted.
The update to the extra gate to leave spawn is decent, makes sense. The adjusted jumping puzzle is just lazy, there’s no skill/knowledge required to make this “jump”.

So in short, this update has nothing going for it aside of maybe the extra gate to leave spawn.
Don’t try to fix what isn’t broken, Anet. You got bigger things to worry about and the old map was fine.

As above poster pointed out, there’s metabattle.com/wiki for builds of all classes, just look for ‘Conquest’. Then there is qqmore.net with PvP tips and a fair bit of information can be found on YouTube as well. For YouTube, I’d recommend checking out ‘Denied Guild Wars’ (it’s not the exact name but I can’t remember it, that should get you there though!) who has vids on builds and PvP in general as well as things like locations for shortbow #5 and stuff like that

Lol?
You are not going to kill someone within seconds no.
The strength of that build lies in the fact that it has high sustain while maintaining high pressure.
Don’t know what you were expecting to burst in seconds during a meta were almost everyone has high sustain through passive trait procs and utilities.

Engi/Scrapper’s meta because it fits in with the consistent sustain + dps that everyone but Thief/Warrior has right now.

D/P is superior to Sword builds for many reasons. Out of Combat access to Stealth, relatively instant interrupts, amazing blinds and just more general use for yourself and/or any team you might have with you. It’s also much better able to keep up pressure on characters that have high mobility and/or strong healing (Poison on AA, high damage Gap Closer with Shadow Shot etc).
That said, Sword builds can do quite well in WvW (and moderate success in low-profile PvP) due to the way damage scales with the higher power/precision/ferocity and things like that.
As I’ve seen and tried with some S/D builds, there’s 2 ways to go about it in terms of Traitlines 1) Deadly Arts, Trickery & Daredevil, or 2) Acrobatics, Trickery & Daredevil.
The first having a whole lot more pressure and burst available to it and the second being very kitten sustainable (and rather amazing against condi pressure at that).
For gear you’ll be looking at Marauder, Berserker, Valkyrie or Berserker/Valkyrie. Mix-and-Match to your own liking, though I’d recommend to have around 17K Health.

Other than that… There’s really a lot of personal flavour to it. I personally take either Channeled Vigour or Withdraw depending on PvP or WvW respectively, then Shadowstep and Signet of Agility. The last utility slot and the Elite I constantly mess around with myself and swap it a lot for different situations.
I’d reckon the same works for S/P, but I haven’t tried that too much myself yet as I’m not big of a fan of how the set feels to me.
Hope it helps a bit

Dodging or other forms of evasion work to a minor extent.
Especially against Ele’s and Guard’s Purging flames it’s possible to dodge the ring/line of fire to prevent getting absolutely ridiculous Burn Stacks in a single motion.
Outside of that, there’s nothing aside of long periods of kiting.

I had a Burn Guard getting real mad at me because I wouldn’t come close to him (or his Trap Ranger pug ally).
I had several pugs of my own server die to them in seconds and I couldn’t help them too much outside of Shortbow Kiting. It came down to a stalemate because I wasn’t stupid enough to get killed, while they slowly but surely got worn down up to the point where they backed out of the fight and stooped down to getting all salty (partying to tell me how useless I was and how much of a kitten that I was for not rezzing my pug allies (mind you, my pug allies got cleaved instead of stomped so I’d get instagibbed upon getting close by traps + burn) and so on and so forth).

TL:DR you can beat them though extensive kiting while maintaining ranged pressure. While applicable to WvW, it doesn’t work for PvP really.
Best thing you can do is to take them out in a single burst during a teamfight when they’re low health and out of defensive utilities.
Evading also works to some degree to avoid the first brunt of the assault.

Reading this topic made me realize how much people care about the “lives” of their pixelated alter ego. It’s actually rather worrisome…

I haven’t seen any more toxicity from this change, if anything it’s more reason to take the kitten and just have a laugh with one another, enemies included.
Don’t take everything so serious and be happy they actually find time to give these little victories an extra bit of flavour…

hmm… might end up going from my Berserker/Valkyrie mix to the Marauder one…
See how much of a difference it makes.

Runes don’t look too appealing or interesting.

I don’t normally reply if I haven’t really got much to add, but to this one I feel like I just have to let people know that I fully agree with the statement.

Well, the Risk vs Reward as a thief isn’t really worth it when you look at the same thing for other classes.
Thieves are imo the most fun to play, hence I stick to it, but yeah… You’re making a safer choice going for one of the other classes.

Old Khylo, definitely.
Only thing this “improved” version has going for it, is the third gate out of the base and that’s a very minor thing. I can’t remember ever being spawncamped on Khylo after getting rank 20 some years ago lol.

Roof issue got fixed by a treb shot, which is now easier than ever before, jumping puzzles could be normalized while still retaining the value of “skill”/“knowledge” required to make them.
Now we just got a bland, boring, dumbed down version of a map that I’ll loathe playing on. Quite literally removed several layers of play and nerfed mobility classes in the process. I’m not happy, no.

A classic case of “git gud”, the Warrior vs. Thief matchup will be in the favour of a good Thief for sure. There are however several ways for the warrior to win, as soon as the Thief messes up once. If you can land one well timed stun, they’re done for, provided you set up your follow-up burst right.
Like others said: Play Thief for a while, get used to it’s mechanics so you know how to work with them as well as against them.
At the very least, go duel with a friend who plays Thief and briefly recap what went wrong/right after every fight.
Thieves are far from OP if you play your cards right.

I play either S/D (DA/ACR/TR or DA/CS/TR) or D/P with DA/CS/TR.
I don’t really have issues on D/P. A lot of it boils down to the approach of a fight.
Facing someone bursty? Try to be more aggressive → bursty than they are. Facing something tanky? Kite more, bait out key skills and dodges before bursting in.
People who run SA in WvW solo roam should really just stop playing thief. It was like that pre-patch and even more so post-patch. It’s not like the 300-650 health regen per pulse in stealth is going to last aganst constant pressure by 1-2k+ auto attacks.

I watch ESL if I can’t sleep…
Beats counting sheep, I’m knocked out when I see the team comps.

Invictorum.7643:

Okay, question. How do I not get brutally melted by any thief?

I main a thief and I used to have issues against good mesmer players.
The ones that screwed me over when I played D/P or D/D would make clever use of their Stealth (#4 on torch, Decoy, Mass Invis) and Mobility (Sword #3, Blink) and time their evade on the sword #2 when I had been in stealth for ~2 seconds. Thief Stealth lasts 3 or 4 seconds depending on their traits most of the time (Shadow Refuge or several Heartseekers increases their stealth upime as you know). SInce the Evade on Sword #2 lasts longer than 2 seconds, I’d miss my backstab and be out of stealth before I could do anything useful against them.
As the D/D and D/P players are both rather squishy you can out-damage them. When you played smart on the Stealth and the Mobility, some well-timed burst can really demolish a thief so badly that they’ll be dead at your feet, or forced to pull off (and reset), some of the strongest burst can be achieved by linking the Greatsword’s #4 (Berserker) into #2 (Throw Sword) to finalize it with #3 (the AoE sword popping out of the ground).
Another good thing is to use your GS #5 to knock thieves out of their Shadow Refuge, effectively denying them the Health they’d gain from it and forcing the Revealed effect on them for 4 seconds.

Oh yeah, a S/D player can be beaten in the same way, only the timing of your Sword #2 changes to be used at a moment where your health is getting low (and you need to stall a bit for your heal to get back up).
A well played S/D thief will end up beating you though. Luckily they’re being phased out of the meta quite badly (even Sizer hopped over to D/P it seems) so you won’t be facing too many of those

Out of curiosity, how old was this video you watched?
If it by any chance was Jumper’s video from a few years ago, I regret to tell you that it’s probably not going to be as effective as it used to be. Too many things that those sort of builds relied upon have been nerfed since then.

Still fun to play at times though!

babazhook.6805:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

I find SA/Ac/Trix really good vs condi builds, even PU mesmers.

Hows that build damage wise?

Considering stats have been pulled loose from traitlines, it’s not too shabby.
It’s just really, really passive.

Not my thing.

I’d personally advice to sit in shortbow more against condi classes. Maintain pressure while staying largely out of range if possible. I noticed that especially with DA/CS, the shortbow puts mesmers in a tough spot. Bait out the utilities, dodges and heals on Shortbow, then burst in with S/D (or D/P for that matter).

But yeah, it’s one hell of a matchup.

I really hope they do something about Passives… There’s too much Passive traits and overall Passive play in a game that’s popular for it “action combat”. And perhaps a great surprise would be to see Thief’s Off-Hand Dagger made useful, yet remain flavourful.

To add to the ‘Condition Damage’ discussion going on:
The issue with Conditions is that you can build for high Condition Damage (be honest, you don’t need ‘Expertise’…) without sacrificing Defenses. Just look at sets like Dire and Trailblazer. That’s Damage, Armor, Health and possibly Duration on 1 piece of Equipment. Now if you want Power Damage, you got to have 1) Power 2) Precision 3) Ferocity. You have to make sacrifices with any or all of these 3 components if you want more to be more sustainable.
And that’s just the Equipment side of it. Fact of the matter is that Condi requires a whole lot less effort to apply than Power Damage (Toughness reduces incoming Direct Damage, but not Condi Damage), There’s also less access to other forms of mitigation to Condi than there is to Direct Damage, through Resistance and comparatively high ICD’s on Cond-Cleanses, versus a meriad of Block, Invulns (applied condi keeps ticking) and things like Endure Pain and Signet of Stone.
Not to even begin about all of the passive Direct-Damage-Reducing Effects in the game (Scrapper Runes, Mussels Gnashblade/Lemongrass Musselpasta etc.) that do nothing against Condition Damage.
That’s the problem with Condition Damage. In the PvP/WvW sense that is.

In PvE it’s kitten-easy to apply any form of damage. But for the sake of a healthy PvP/WvW combat environment, Something needs to get changed. Either the effectiveness of Condition’s Damaging component, or the application has to be made more difficult, or Toughness and Active Defenses have to be brought up to par so that both Power and Condi stand an equal chance. Prefferably a properly balanced and well-thought out combination of these.
Now, I’m not one for removing things, but Dire and Traiblazer gear are dispicable creations that should have never been allowed into the game to begin with. (Also remove Trapper Runes, or rather change the 6th Effect so we get rid of those ridiculously pointless trolls that are Perma-Stealth Thieves).

EDIT#1:
Forgot to mention ‘Expertise’ for the Condi Duration…
Well, all fun for PvE. But face it, you don’t need it in a PvP scenario because of how easy and quick it is to apply Condi in GW2.

EDIT#2:
Quick edit to improve readability and some grammar.

It’s a really short daze indeed. Adapt your rotation(s) and/or use a stun break (I wouldn’t recommend using a stun break if you can afford taking a small blow).
You can also of course Block/Evade/Immune it, depending on your class. It’s like a Purple/Pink-ish laser is being shot at you, so between seeing that and the travelling distance that the projectile has to go, it’s quite easy to do that.
You could optionally also quickly stow your weapon to cancel your current cast, this prevents some of the negative effect(s).

Just do what you would do with every other Daze/Stun.

Skill lag, Skill lag everywhere…

That has to do with the fact that they removed stats from traitlines/specializations.
I’ve no idea how to get it back to how it used to be, haven’t looked into it either as it hasn’t really bothered me (yet) :P

just waiting to see what traitline they’ll gut this time before giving it back to us in a “reworked” Acrobatics.

Having mained a Ranger before I played Thief (I switched when I noticed I played Ranger much like a Thief, using a Siamoth for unreliable Stealth…) I know the sound of Rapid Fire.
Now when I roam around on my THief, I immidiatly hit my #3 skill wether it’s on my S/D or on my Shortbow so that I get in an easy Evade as soon as I hear the Rapid Fire coming. Then when I see I’m being hit, I’ll follow up with anything I can to try and evade for ~2.5 seconds ending with ‘Withdraw’ to heal what Health I lost and as a starting Gap Closer, if possible.

After that, I’ll try find some form of cover asap and see if I can use Infiltrator’s strike from behind there (this will be the point where most ganking Rangers will whip out the Knockback). Depending on the ground that needs to be covered, I’ll go in for a Cloak and Dagger pre-cast and flick on Infiltrator’s Signet to get get on his back and give him a good scare. If they’re far away, I’ll go for the Infiltrator’s Signet -> CnD -> Steal during CND animation chain. Most Rangers who gank will really freak out if you close in on them and they can’t see you (they know you’re there so yeah…) and will indeed start dodging around or start wasting cooldowns for the same effect. Wait out that first few dodges of theirs because you’re just likely to waste initiative if you open on them during that phase. Hold back, but stay close for a new CnD when he’s stopped dodging (because you’re visible again).
While you’re waiting in stealth, cast Basilisk Venom so that he’ll be set up and ready for the next part, where you can go rampage on him.
Now you’ll have about 3 seconds left in which you can open up on him, so hit him with that second CnD when you’re visible again, get in position behind him and then hit him with the Sword Sneak Attack to blind and Daze him, and go in for Sword #3 (optionally twice).
With a bit of luck (you could probably go all hardcore and nextlevel and work it out precisely…) he’ll still be blinded and Dazed when he tries to use Rapid Fire on you again (Sword’s Sneak Attack is underappreciated) so you’ll be safe for the second burst and he’ll be all scared and in panic because he’s got nothing left but resorting to Signet of Stone. If Signet of stone is used, you can still CnD, if you got enough initiative for that, to prevent any attempt he might have left to put up a fight and you’re likely to have him down at this point, or he’ll be rotating through all his bullkitten skills to stay alive and will be nothing but an easy to handle kitten for you to play with.

Well, it doesn’t always pan out like that if the Ranger is good, but I’m yet to find more than 3 Rangers who this doesn’t work on (luckily for me, they’re on my side of WvW)
So for TL:DR…
- S/D is incredibly evasive and mobile, make clever use of it (several Evades through more but dodges, 3 different gap closers for a total of 2400 range, untraited)
- Don’t faceroll, play with a bit of insight (psychology is actually pretty important, but it sounds so heavy)
- Stick close to them, GS hits hard but the animations are big giveaways that will allow you plenty of time to get ready for an evade. Against other weapon sets, clever use of sword #2 is a good way to go.

ehm, I hope this helps!

EDIT: Oh yeah, if you got any blinding utilities, you can time it with when they’re likely to use RF (Even Shortbow can come in handy for this, rarely though)

Quickness and Slow used to affect stomping up until the balance patch of January 26, 2016.

Function Gyro is by no means a fast stomp. Function Gyro is in fact a slower stomp than a player stomping (an Engi can preserve their Function Gyro’s stomp by double-tapping ‘stomp’ so that they finish the stomp before their Gyro does). The only benefit that comes from the Function Gyro is it’s range and the fact that you can have a target stomped while focussing on something more important (like another player).
That leaves Thief’s Impact Strike. A chain of three attacks that all need to connect to a target and get timed properly in order to be effective. Impact Strike, Uppercut and Finishing Blow can all be Blocked, Blinded, Interrupted and out-ranged to counterplay.

Honestly, I don’t know what you’re on about.
Could you add some detail to your post as to what you mean by ‘exploit’ and ‘cheating’?

EDIT#1: Added link to the wiki’s page with the balance patch I ment in it.

EDIT#2: Also, neither the Function Gyro nor the Impact Strike is a feasible way to “pin snipe drivers”. The Gyro should get 1) Interrupted and 2) Utterly destroyed by any group with the slightest of brains. A Thief is in no way able to stand the heat that would come of trying to perform a 2.75 second (or even 1.375 seconds with quickness) chain of attacks without getting Killed, Blinded, Interrupted or sneezed to death. That’s not even taking into account the simple fact that the driver would already have to be low on Health and CD’s, because honestly, even in Full Zerk you can play Guard/Warrior/Revenant or other remotely feasible “driver-like” classes/builds without dying in that amount of time without doing anything in return. If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be driving anything.
Again, I’m just trying to understand.

yeah, once I knew about a DH using those traps, I could beat them as S/D daredevil.
Maintain pressure and try to bait some dodges with your SB, then use Flanking Strike and your dodges to trigger the traps while staying as safe as can be (be ready to Shadowstep away instantly if you mess up).
Long fight, taking much more effort that it’s worth spending on them, but it’s doable.

I get hatred, salt and other idiotic comments on a fair number of matches.
I’ve been reported for Botting because I played thief, I’ve had my ingame mail spammed because I played thief and I’ve had people AFK or even completely LEAVE the game because I was playing thief.

Honestly… Thief and Warrior hate is just disgusting right now, the PvP community is toxic enough as it is, but this “meta” really brings out the worst of the worst.

Also, Trap DH is kitten easy to play and even easier to counter… Dodge, we actually got plenty of that on Daredevil.
Or just ask one of the many Bunker Chronomancers for a Precognition Well on point.

I feel disgusted at how easy other professions are.
Way higher reward vs. much lower risk.

I like putting in effort, but it’d be nice if others had to do the same.

Also, hi mate!

Please put Pirate Outfits and Parrots in the Gemstore…
With Coalescence of Ruin in this state, we need some attire to go with the ridiculous meta.

Consider this a bump post and a +1 to the fact that this weapon skill’s coefficients NEED to be toned down.
I actually died earlier in 1 single hit because a Revenant hit his #2 for fun, I was stealthed… 16728 hit, not to mention the times it hits you twice for some stupid reason.

For PvP, WvW or PvE?
For WvW, roaming, zerging, organised guild raids or even GvG?
Also depends a lot on the build you’d run.

In general, I personally always preferred the signet.
I feel like it allows for more creative movement both during a fight and outside of it.
For a backstab build it’s worth taking the Signets of Power into account (backstab → signet makes for high hit potential).
But if you take the trait that adds Condi removal to Tricks (forgot the name…) then that’s obviously great for Roll for Initiative for more defensive/sustain play…

In a long run the signet would theoretically be better, but really…
It comes down to what and how you wish to play.

Darksyze, if you already “no longer laugh at this joke profession” would you mind to just shush entirely? All I see from you is posts that make absolutely no sense at all, they don’t appeal to reason and they add nothing at all to any of the discussions you posted on.

So do yourself a favour and us a favour and just stop visiting this part of the forums?
I’m sure you could spend your time in a better way.

You got to realize that even if these “bugs and exploits”, or “hacks” even (lol?) were to be removed, we could still do the exact same things but with a minor delay or in a different form, right? Besides, ArenaNet wouldn’t have the slightest benefit in removing these things because of the simple fact that they do add more depth to their game wether it’s intended or not. Otherwise we could also qq about how Eles can swap attunement while channeling and other simple stuff like that.

If you do manage to cook up an opinion or have something useful to add to the discussion(s), then feel free to! Otherwise I’d highly recommend and encourage you to stop making a fool out of yourself.

I’d like to see the ‘Revealed’ get a simple timer, either 3 seconds or 4 seconds for both PvP and WvW. Also ‘Shadows Rejuvenation’ is a terrible crutch for newbies to seem competent and what I fear, along with Stealth and the incapability of the majority of players to understand that Invisible does not equal Invincible the reason for many of the hits our class took… I’d happily make a trade where some of the previous nerfs get undone (like the sword #2 return instant, dancing dagger damage etc.) and that trait is nerfed down so that we can’t just keep resetting fights.
It’s just bound to WvW as noone in their right mind would run that deep into SA in PvP, but still.

Anyhow…
Just learning thief won’t cut it I fear. You’ll have to learn about every profession really. What are their strengths ad weaknesses, what attacks hurt the most, how do the animations for those look etc.
The sad fact is, is that as a thief, you’ll really have to outplay the majority of your opponents, both through the use of skills and the way you fight. Other classes have an easier time to get the same effect, atleast most of them do.

The reason why Thief and Mesmer are both is such a relatively bad spot, is because the average player doesn’t understand squat about them. They can blink in and out of sight, they’re all over the place and they can really mess with your head if you don’t know how to fight them.
As the average player is the vast majority of players, the classes they struggle with will be hit the hardest.
That, along with the fact that even despite the continous nerfs, really good players are still pretty much in godmode on those classes, makes it seem as if any nerf to those classes is completely acceptable.

Honestly… The name? Who really cares about that? Who’s going to see it aside of yourself? The logo displayed next to your character will still show you’re a Thief, not a ‘Daredevil’. Heck, we’re not even sure if that’ll be the name (though the datamines do seem to incline it).

If you want to worry or whine about something, wait until the reveal and then start the cries for change.
For all you know it could be a hoax and we get a mace/blackjack idea with a Pickpocket or Burglar for a name, or a Scepter (or Focus) and we get called something like a Nightbade. Heck, maybe WE become the ‘Forge’ and get the kitten hammer. Engi and thief are both Medium armored classes. It was in the Trailer and there’s datamines! It MUST be true!

Just really don’t get the point inall these topics about things that aren’t confirmed in any way or whatsoever yet.
Sorry for the rant mate, I’m just getting really tired with these useless topics taking up front page space from topics that are actually of value to te Thief as is and will (possible) be.

I don’t know whether I should laugh or cry about this…
But yeah, exploitable indeed lol.

It’ll live because it’s simply an enjoyable class/playstyle.
We are however very weak in comparison to all the other classes (mobility keeps us viable, really). While everyone can make fundamental mistakes during a fight, the Thief can not or he/she will simply die. That’s all there’s to it. Our defense is getting gutted even more with HoT up to the point where we really are little more than a Ranger’s pet or something.

It’s doable, but risk vs. reward wise, other classes are currently and likely will remain a better option (sadly).

EDIT: What it comes down to is our lack of out-of-stealth survivability. The only proper defensive line available to the Core Thief is Shadow Arts (which has been nerfed). The effects of Shadow Arts are tied to Stealth. So to keep it simple: Stealth is our survival (Condi cleanse, damage reduction, healing ect.). Now there are getting more and more anti-stealth mechanics in the game, it won’t be long until all classes get mechanics to reveal us. So while our defense can be negated almost completely, that of the other classes can not.

What do we have outside of Defense through Stealth? Evasion.
Sad part is that the core thief spec’s evasion line had it’s make-or-break trait ‘feline graces’ gutted. Sure there’s some nice things in there, but as it stands the Acrobatics traitline is severely lacking.
The other option is gated behind a €50,- paywall. Daredevil certainly has potential, even that is still a massive middle finger to the Thief though. It’s pretty much a properly done Acrobatics, with a mechanic that was claimed to be OP in Acrobatics pre-June 23 (having three dodges instead of two). And comparing that to the other Elite Specs leaves anyone at least a bit salty. The Elite’s mechanic is one single extra dodge. In order to make it somewhat decent we have to pick grandmaster traits for an effect.
Great.

Oh yeah, there’s also upcoming content that will be undodgeable so our defensive traitlines are all getting useless.

Like Cynz said, a good Rev/Herald should beat a Thief with or without Precision Strike being as broken as it is (tracking us even when cast after we stealth).
A Rev/Herald has almost as much to offer as any Thief in terms of mobility, it’s got just as good (burst) damage and it has way more to offer in team support.

Only time a Thief will have the upper hand is when stealth is “needed” and unlikely to be countered, like say… In a WvW/GvG Focus Party. Even then, a Rev/Herald paired up with 1 or 2 thieves is worth experimenting with.

So yes, a Thief can beat a Rev if they got the same skill, but a Rev has the tools to gain and keep the upper hand, al whilst being more useful to the rest of the team if it’s not stealth that you’re after.

As to who needs nerfs… Well, both really. Our Dagger and Staff AA damage is just ridiculous in WvW scenarios and slightly less so in PvP (lower stats in PvP sort of help out). Rev has ridiculous damage and heat-seeking projectiles on Precision Strike and Hammer AA’s that hit as hard as our Dagger/Staff AA’s, but from a safe 1200 range and also seemingly heat-seeking with an ability to round corners and break LoS if the cast starts on time.
That said, we also both need buffs in other departments…

It’s a flip of the coin if both are good players and it always depends on the scenario/situation. But from a fresh-starting 1v1 or teamfight, the Rev is definitely the better pick in most of those scenarios/situations. [/WallOfText]

Since either Season 2 or 3 (would check but I’m on my phone which makes it tedious), there’s no point in queuing with a lower rank partner.
All matches get based of the highest ranking player of the duo.
Time to take off the tinfoil hats lads.

EDIT:
Was actually easier to find than expected.
It’s been since season 2: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/pvp-league-season-two-changes/
It’s also in the patchnotes.

Great to see that you and your team are on top of things, gives the thieves hope
Keep up the great work!

Will edit this post after more extensive play with Daredevil.