Guild Wars 2

The key to the death blossom condition build is the evades and the dodges (along with specs to heal when using initiative/add might, etc when dodging).

IMHO, this is just as viable as glass cannon because you have to factor in survivability as well.

I would love to play a sniper rifle thief. But with all of our existing movement bonuses, it would be imbalanced — very easy to maintain range. The only way you could make this work would be to remove the initiative system for the rifle.

Seether.7285:

jalikar.1385:

Elementalist is best suited for WvW – think of them as a very squishy AoE ranged class.

Lol, that is nothing like what they are in the hands of serious players in TPvP. Eles are very very strong in the right hands either as DPS or support, check out players like Phantaram (Team Paradigm, scepter/dag), Prince (Imperial, d/d) and Mianhe (Team Legacy, staff).

I don’t doubt there are some good 1 v 1 players or that there are exceptions to every rule. But right now elementalists’ comparative advantage is in WvW, IMO.

Elementalist is best suited for WvW – think of them as a very squishy AoE ranged class.

Increasing the initiative cost of deathblossom would be a disaster. Playing a thief would consist almost entirely of autoattacks when running D/D…

If you are D/D, use deathblossom and condition/evasion builds. If you are using S/P, use pistol whip.

I’m struggling a bit to contribute to larger battles in WvW except when I use my shortbow, and even then the range is limited. Theoretically I could focus on targets of opportunity (with low health) and finish them off, but typically the amount of AoE used in large battles restrict this option. Is it better for thieves not to participate in large battles at all and just focus on supply/roaming?

The nerf isn’t terrible, all things considered. But it does leave a non death blossom thief with limited options. I’d prefer that they just increase the initiative cost of heartseeker and move it to the 4 or 5 slot. But that may be difficult given the main hand/offhand distinction.

Alternately, heartseeker could activate after 2 or 3 initial attacks — in other words, activate it only when initative is low (as a finisher)

My point was simply that: a) thieves skills are currently suited for 1 v 1 fights. b) other classes also possess skills suited for large fights, c) if you want to limit thieves’ strength at 1v1, they need to be compensated with skills that allow them to fulfill a broader role.

That doesn’t entail that classes don’t have strengths and that all classes shouldn’t be viable =)

I’ve seen a lot of threads advocating that thieves should be toned down. There may be perfectly legitimate reasons to do this (and Anet has already taken action by reducing the effectiveness of heartseeker). But it is not valid to demand a nerf solely because a thief was able to beat you in 1 versus 1 combat.

Why? That’s the thief’s defined role. They are intended to be glass cannons capable of beating even ‘tank’ classes when they are able to surprise them in an alley or corner them 1 on 1. Thieves have no viable crowd control, are very squishy, severely lack AoE abilities, and are fairly worthless in large fights.

So when posters are recommending that classes be nerfed (and this goes beyond just thieves), keep in mind that the class still needs to have a viable role/niche… just because a class is good at what it is meant to excel at does not mean you should start clamoring for the nerf bat.