Guild Wars 2

Auto attack:

Nuisance (1 second): Does damage and stacks confusion on opponents. Also creates a very annoying honking noise.

Attack 2 (CD: 8 seconds):

Call of the Wild Mesmer: Spawns a phantasm that appears as a crazed version of your character. Instakill if attack hits.

Attack 3(Channeled: 10 seconds)(CD: 10 seconds):

Call to Illusions: Spawns an illusion that runs up to enemies and Mind Wracks in front of them every half second for ten seconds.

It works perfectly!!!

Tellah.8073:

cool story bro

but im not biased because i play most classes, and i play mediocre somewhat gimmicky specs and switch often instead of playing the top tier copypasta specs for months straight. the only thing i wont play is fotm specs.

and even after all your statistical observations (which in the end had nothing to do with the main subject), that doesnt change the fact that condi builds have flooded the meta because they have large inherent advantages and gives forward motion to the faceroll win-monkeys who just wanna run around in ezmode

But you see, your entire post shows the real problem.

For one thing, you could be biased but not willing to accept it (we all are, to some degree), but I don’t have the ability to say that. What I can say is that the math shows that power is far superior to precision, and that’s why the meta is wrong, even though in the post right before your last one you stated that you couldn’t believe that the meta was wrong, that it was unrealistic.

(Before I should continue, I should mention that I don’t use statistics… And that I don’t have to. But it’s an option, albeit a tedious one)

You have to understand that my observations are entirely relevant. The only reason you believe that condi builds are so OP, as you’ve mentioned, is because they’re part of the meta. You don’t know why they’re part of the meta though, even though I’ve been the one providing tons of factual evidence within this thread to dispel any ideas that they’re as powerful as they’re considered to be. You can choose to believe that the meta is powerful, or open your horizons greatly and believe that we only think that the meta is powerful.

Mackapacka.9462:

The dmg is low and stealth debuff need to get reverted to 3 sec again. The 4 sec debuff screws our rotation. Thief got no support thats good/better then other professions. And our dmg is now lower then most professions by a large margien, on top of that we are one of the harder pve professions to play and can easily get 1 shotted in some exp mode dungs. Why bring a theif instead of a warr?

Sadly if u wanna be able to play this game in non noob grps its time to reroll warr or mesm…..

If you mean “non noob grps” as in non-Backstab builds, then you’re wrong. There are many, many builds that have not been hurt (or, if they have, only very, very little) by the new debuff.

Another thing- most people use the phrase “group support” to mean “giving your group lotsa lotsa boons”. Unfortunately, they fail to realize that slashing individual enemies to pieces faster than any other profession while the rest of the group deals with the tougher part of the fight, being able to rez allies easily because of stealth and SR, and being able to become a major one-person army that can fight groups of enemies and distract them while the rest of the group goes onwards can also be considered “group support”.

Our damage is not, by any measure, lower than most other professions. In fact, apart from (some) warriors, thieves are the hardest-hitting class in the game.

One of the harder PvE professions to play? With stealth, we can do many more things than a lot of other professions can. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been soloing PvE and, instead of fighting a huge group of enemies just so I can get a skill point, I simply stealthed and communed with a place of power to get my SP.

If you’re getting 1-shotted in dungeons, you’re playing the wrong build, or you’re talking about champ enemies that 1-shot everybody, regardless of profession.

You would take a thief over a warr for Stealth, mobility, versatility, distraction, rez’ing allies, distracting enemies, pulling enemies, mitigation via blinds, and conditions.

So… Uh…

Have you actually done the math on how “strong” crits are?

Because many of the issues we brought up to them haven’t been addressed to this day (or took forever to be addressed, like the sPvP reward issues), because ANet uses whack-a-mole balance and prefers revolutionary balance over evolutionary balance, because many of their promises to different classes have yet to be fulfilled (the one that sticks in my head is the Thief P/P buffs that ANet promised in May), because ANet uses some extremely obscure and vague methods of balancing that virtually nobody in the sPvP community understands, and then implies that we’re incompetent because our theorycrafting has no bearing on reality when in reality it predicts the effects of different balance changes.

nicknamenick.2437:

Furajir.3815:

Final Thrust is great for power builds, quit being silly.

How is it great above 50% health in power/crit build?

Because

1: final thrust is only useful in power/crit build

2: its only useful below 50% health

3: above 50% you deal more doing just auto attack (like I posted it)

Some thieves (in fact, the vast majority of thieves) go 30 points into a single trait line just to get 20% extra damage when their opponents are under 50% health; this individual skill deals 100% more damage when your opponent is under 50% health.

The damage difference there is absolutely insane; under 50% health you’re doing 25% more damage with that skill by itself than a thief’s well-prepared Backstab would do.

Also, looking at the skill coefficients, you don’t necessarily do more damage just by auto-attacking at over 50% health. Furthermore, because of how much damage the skill does with such a high coefficient, under 50% health it’s still going to be an extremely powerful skill even if you run a condi build, and especially if you run Carrion (which has been shown over and over again to be, generally, the mathematically superior amulet).

I made my own warrior build, now I’m invincible.

No, seriously though. BS’d something, and I can’t tell you how much better I’m doing on a class I’ve played for an hour versus a class that I’ve played for 1000 hours.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Lordrosicky.5813:

What I am saying is poison on a burst heal will hit the whole heal. Poison cannot be timed to be put on a warrior when they would want to heal. So poison has an effect but it is very minor vs such a passive heal because the heal is spread out over time.

minor? are you sure?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Poison
Deals damage every second; heal potency decreased by 33%; stacks duration.

healing signet 392 × 0.64 = 250.88 per second
adrenal health 360 × 0.64 = 230.40 per 3 seconds

poison basically neuters healing signet to 250 health per second.

minor?

You’re missing the point. For instance, over a 15 second period, if I have poison on a HealSig for 5 of those seconds, then I’ll reduce the equivalent of 1/3*1/3 = 1/9 of my opponent’s total healing. On the other hand, if I use poison on a burst heal, I’ll instantaneously reduce its effectiveness by 33%. The difference is that, against HealSig, we need to have a constant uptime of poison in order to reduce its average effectiveness to that 250.88 health per second. On the other hand, against burst healing, we only need to keep up, for example, a second of poison in order to counter one.

And either way, Cleansing Ire is one of the best if not the best condi cleanse in the game anyways, which makes the poison “counter” even more futile.

Vanthian.9267:

Arganthium.5638:

And yet you still have not mentioned a single measure of how something is “OP”. In other words, you don’t have one.

So, my question then would be this- what is “OP” about being invulnerable, in and of itself? What would change if BF didn’t have the evasion on it, and somebody tried to use it on top of you?

Sigh, I have been ignoring you because it is not worth answering someone who wants to be… do not know how to put it a nice way… a “intelligent and philosophically minded individual”. It is not worth my time to actually present things to, even though someone already has including myself, and is already present in the definition in the word. Common sense can explain the meaning of term “over powered”. If you do not understand the phase/term, then please use the internet to look it up and then adjust the meaning of the word into a video game format. I have already explained it once and I will not repeat myself.

You’re very assuming for a person who knows nothing about me. Do you really want to gamble on my stupidity?

Also, the grammatically correct term would be “an intelligent and philosophically minded individual”. I also believe there would be a hyphen between “philosophically” and “minded”.

Now, to continue. Yes, I know what the definition of the word is. However, the definition also requires some unit of measurement. For example, if I said “my kitten is better” without referring to any past statement, my sentence would make no sense. That’s because “better” is defined as, in this sense, “of a more excellent or effective type or quality”. “More” is also a relative term; it means an increased quantity. Increased from what? You get the idea. Thus, my sentence that “my kitten is better” makes no sense. On the other hand, if I said that “my kitten is better than your kitten”, then I would be referring to another comparable object as a unit of measurement for my kitten being “better”.

So, again, I’ll ask: what unit of measurement do you use to decide whether or not something is overpowered, since it is a relative term? What makes your unit of measurement any more correct than any other unit of measurement? Finally, why should we use your unit of measurement anyways?

ensoriki.5789:

Unload is lethal if you get a glass cannon who sits still doesn’t use any skills, and has no teammates helping him.

Headshot is also a particularly dangerous skill when used in this regard.

NERF TEH PIZTOL

I’m not a guardian player, so don’t take what I say too seriously, but my view would be that Guardians (being a melee-oriented class) have access to a decent bit of AoE via hammer (as mentioned by Zen) and the Greatsword. Other options are the staff (which I think is a kittening fun weapon for guards, although it doesn’t do well with range, unfortunately) or Smite on Scepter.

The other thing is that Guardians can (and should) be staying right on top of mesmers with their abilities. I know that, as a thief, one of the best ways to counter mes is to get right up in their face and blow their brains out. That’s really the best method I could give you for countering mes. A good mes will be able to escape from you, but even then they’ll be under immense pressure. Don’t get me wrong, mes has good melee options, but… Not as good as a guard.

Your disadvantages are going to be in your lack of range and the fact that you aren’t quite as mobile as mes, so you’ll have to make up for that. If you run a meditation build with Judge’s Intervention, you can stay on top of the mes by teleporting to them. With sword, #2 is a great way to keep up with the mes. GS 3 and 5 either drag the mesmer to you, or you to it. Hammer 5 locks them up (but be careful, because mes can teleport out of the circle. I’ve done this more than enough times on my thief). Scepter 3 also helps lock down opponents.

tl;dr: stay on top of the mes with whatever mobility you can muster; don’t let them out from underneath you hulking greatsword (or whatever). Doing this will put a ton of pressure on them, making the mes more susceptible to mistakes. This isn’t a formula for auto-win, but it’s definitely a very, very powerful strategy.

Personally, if we get Mug nerfed for enhanced mobility, then I support this patch with every ounce of my un-soul.

Burnfall.9573:

Yeah ok!!

I’m a vet of guild wars for 7 years, i’’m a vet of guild wars 2 since beta, yet i’m Bullkitten

Seriously, you have to do better than that.

Once again , playing the BLAME GAME is the solution of fixing this class and the game

You claim to be a thief, so why not publicly confess that thief is in PERFECT condition than?.

In other word, all thief players who see a problem with their class, are liars than, and you are the only one who is telling the truth.

I would like to remind you, i belong to a thief guild, consists of 150 + active members and it took me a long time to see their class weakness because i was in-denial and how i was blinded by my own ignorance of refusing to understand their class.

I also give many credit to the thieves here as well, for being patient and understanding of me; and they deserve it!

There are many good hearted sincere thief players here. as well, who will do whatever it take, in helping other to know the truth of their class situations.

And also, there are troublemakers, rule-breakers who will do whatever it take to humiliate and belittle anyone who dare question the truth or reveal the truth of their class brokenness.

“so to make a long story short”, as the saying goes, “Blaming without understanding the truth get you nowhere, only leave you in your own cloud of ignorance and stupidity”

Stop blaming, and accept the truth!

Stop blaming sincere thieves for exposing the truth of their class brokenness!

Stop being in-denial of the truth!

Thief class is broken, and it is not their fault for being this way.

If you care for thief class, accept the truth and encourage Arena.net to fix your class; i prefer a thief reboot.

-Nerfing thief class will not fix their problems; infact it will make them worse; you will see~

Thief class must be re-designed from the ground up, and to be able to survive on their own, instead of being enslaved to a stealth mechanic that hinders them of taken full advantage of their class potential.

so getting back to you, if you still want to play the blame game and continue to refuse your class brokenness, i encourage you take it to the one who is responsible for thief class…

Arena.net

-Case Closed-

Christ, aren’t you annoying.

Perhaps I should start by stating how I understand this game far better than you do, and far better than many, if not most, of the self-proclaimed “professionals” do. I could also mention how many of the ideas coming from people like you are based on ill-conceived ideas that were created with no thought behind them.

On the other hand, Burnfall, your main source of authority comes from apparently having played GW1 for years, and having played GW2 since beta. I’ve played GW2 since beta as well, and- sorry to say it- your experience in GW1 is absolutely irrelevant to this game. Also, if you think that the thieves here on these forums were being “patient” with you, then you’re completely delusional.

Now, let’s look at what your Truest Truth™ has to support it… Basically, just the words of people like Sanduskel who have practically been laughed out of this community anyways. Why is the mechanic broken? How are the methods of countering stealth faulty? These are just a couple of questions left completely unanswered by you and the majority of the community that complains about thieves, which, ironically, consists mostly of warriors- in my experience, anyways.

I do not say any of this because I am some kind of perma-stealth “lol so OP” thief. In fact, since the original changes to the weaponset, I have been an ardent supporter of the Sword/Dagger play style.

My last question to you would be- why do you give credibility to people like Sanduskel, and yet completely ignore others who, like me, have no interest in nerfing stealth, and have little or nothing to gain from being so?

EDIT: also, I don’t suppose you were opposed to the ridiculously OP Spirit Ranger before it got nerfed, were you?

Zinwrath.2049:

your ego overlooked the main point of my post. Vitality doesn’t lower the damage taken from conditions. Because attrition is very real in fights with heals/regens/deathshroud etc. The fight is not about who started with the highest HP, its about who can out last.

Vitality does NOT help you against conditions more than it helps you against direct damage. Fact. You seem to think this variable only applies to condition damage…it doesn’t. Vitality is simply the HP you start out with. But a guardian or necro who constantly knocks you off your feet while regening and lowering a huge portion of the incoming damage…may start the battle with half your HP, but end up taking FAR more damage over the course of the battle due to their ability to absorb damage and heal themselves.

You know this, you just dodged the main point cause…well…your ego couldn’t handle being proven wrong. Sorry, its a fact. Vitality does NOT lower the damage of inc condition damage anymore than it lowers the damage from direct damage…infact it lowers neither, simply allows you to see a bigger number at the start of a fight…does not mean you will have been able to take more damage by the end of the fight.

Fights in this game are a battle of attrition, perhaps you blinded yourself to that.

You’re lucky that I even decided to bother reading the rest of your post after the first sentence.

I’m not here to argue with somebody who’s going to try to pull the “you’re stupid, therefore I’m right” argument.

Saint.4876:

Thieves need a form of defense other than stealth!!!

“Yeah, like evasion! The community would be totally okay if thieves could use evasion instead of stealth as their sole defensive mechanic!” Oh wait.

I have played an AC ever since the release of GW2, and I have to say- my AC friends and I have been through a lot together. For one thing, we have some of the worst mobility in the game. Also, we can’t regenerate health. Furthermore, ANet has been heavily biased against us in that they have refused to make a forum for the AC profession, in spite of all of the times that I and others have asked for one. And now look at all of these people asking for us to be nerfed! I can’t even move, or buff my allies! And I can’t spawn all of those extremely confusing illusions that mesmers spawn that I usually destroy anyways.

If anything, I think we’re underpowered. Please buff.

Yes, it can work.

I never, EVER run SRefuge, because it Reveals you so easily and generally just sits on your bar doing nothing.

Personally, I think that silver/silverish-bluish Electromagnetic cultural armor that is the T3 Asura’s heavy cultural armor looks epic.

JETWING.2759:

Tetsuyja.7805:

JETWING.2759:

The problem is that reflect projectile.

lol?! first all complain about WA is OP and does too much damage and now u want that u can make damage with range weapon after u get told how too “avoid” WA ?!

serious?

take the advices u can read in the previous posts und wait 3,5 secs or kill the thief with melee weapons – thieves often have less than 14k hp.

Not soldier thieves.

Yeah, and meanwhile, Warriors can be even more survivable while dealing about 300% more damage with Zerker’s amulet. There’s a reason why thieves simply can’t run Soldier’s amulet- it’s because it turns us into stupidly underpowered warrior copies.

HELLruler.4820:

- Thieves have the worst defense
- Warriors have the best defense
- Warriors have stomping attacks since they can invest in power freely without losing defense

In general, Warriors are supposed to do a lot better in PvE than thieves. I know, that’s unfair, but it happens. ANet still tries to balance PvE PvP and WvW together

They have good defense.

Guards have the best defense.

Harper.4173:

Great evidence – a battle between a decent warrior and the world’s worst necromancer.
I like how it takes him a full FOUR ( 4 ) Seconds to dodge out or walk out of the warrior’s F1 longbow fire field at minute 1.

I love how these 1 v 1s are always proof that warrior is OP – especially when the person he’s fighting has absolutely NO idea what they’re doing.

Yes, because the entirety of my argument was hinged upon that video, and your discrediting it has completely blown every piece of my argument to pieces. I must now hide my face away from society in the shadows, while you stand on top of the intellectual pyramid looking down upon hordes of fanatical peasants.

On a more serious note, the warrior did virtually nothing as well. Even if the necro didn’t play well, you’d figure that he’d at least be able to have +3k damage on the warrior at one point during the fight, given that the minions were obviously doing damage. I mean- even in a fight between a complete noob and a pro player, unless the pro is either super tanky or insanely bursty (the warrior here obviously didn’t build to be extremely tanky, and he clearly wasn’t extremely bursty either), you’d figure that you’d at least be able to deal 3k damage to the opponent. Does it really take 8 noobs (assuming no or minimal diminishing marginal returns) to kill one warrior?

Also, since I’m addressing you here, I should address your point about HealSig. Do you know how long it takes for HealSig to outheal thief’s Withdraw, for example? On average, 11.08 seconds maximum. With Endure Pain, 18k base health, heavy armor, Cleansing Ire, and Adrenal Health, you should be able to last at least this long unless you spend the first 3-5 seconds of the fight just standing in place, in which case the thief would still be lucky to kill you anyways. It’s not like warriors have some insane weakness to burst, especially when some of their most fundamental mechanics to their builds hard-counter burst and direct damage in general anyways.

glaphen.5230:

Yes, no other class has damage that high but every other class has skills that do comparable damage and are easier to hit with.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Jump_Shot
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fire_Grab
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Backstab
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mind_Wrack
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Swordsman
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Maul_%28ranger_greatsword_skill%29
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Whirling_Wrath
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Whirling_Axe_%28stolen_skill%29
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pry_Bar
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Smite
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zealot%27s_Defense
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_Suffering
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deathly_Claws
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lava_Font
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Meteor_Shower
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Churning_Earth

Wanna know what they all have in common? Mobility, range, AoE, area denial and of course non obvious animations. If a Warrior uses axe all you have to do is stay 301 range away from him and he will never hit you. The only ways he can possibly get close is by using his other weapon set as sword or greatsword. If he uses those he has no cc besides possibly using Bull’s Charge or Tremor mace off hand which both have obvious animations. So all you have to do is be ready to dodge when he switches to axe since sword and greatsword don’t do very good damage besides one or two skills. Sword doesn’t do much besides Final Thrust which has a 3/4 second cast time and he will only use it when you are at 50% hp or less. Greatsword does 0 damage unless you stand in Hundred Blades or the stars align and Rush hits a target.

LMAO WTF

Jump Shot: longest hang time in the air known to humanity, plus it still has a lower coefficient than the the level 2 and 3 Eviscerates (coef of 2.07).

Fire Grab: has an extremely long cast time and an insanely long CD, and it only does more damage than a level 2 Eviscerate if your opponent has burning on him/her (still does less than level 3). Also an extremely hard skill to land.

Backstab: really? Does less damage than a level 2 or level 3 Eviscerate.

Mind Wrack: not even close, even with three illusions (still far away if you have Illusionary Persona).

Illusionary Swordsman: phantasm has one of the most obvious cast times and animations in the game. Also attacks on a pattern. Still significantly less than a level 2 eviscerate.

Maul: are you kidding? Again, extremely obvious animation (massive bear in your face) and still is echelons below a level 2 eviscerate (in fact, it does less damage than a level 1 eviscerate).

Whirling Wrath: yeah, given that usually only three of the 9 projectiles hits your opponent (if you’re lucky) and has a long and obvious animation, don’t know where you’re pulling this out of.

Whirling Axe: unless you just stand in place, this isn’t going to do much damage to you. Even if you do stand in place, most of the attacks don’t hit you anyways.

Pry Bar: not even close, don’t even try.

Smite: really?

Zealot’s Defense: have you ever used this skill before?

Well of Suffering: just a small AoE pulse on a 1 sec interval… And it’s a utility w/ a much longer CD than Eviscerate.

Deathly Claws: it’s an elite skill… On an extremely long CD… That makes you the largest target in the game… That has an insanely large animation… Seriously?

Lava Font/Meteor Strike: just stop trying please.

Churning Earth: literally the most obvious cast in the game with an extremely predictable follow-up and strike time.

Here’s how I think it can be fixed:

Pixels.6532:

I would like to propose the following change:

Hard to Catch

Renamed to Hard to Understand. Updated trait description to read as follows: We aren’t quite sure what this does, gl & hf!!!!!1!!!

Swagg.9236:

Stogzlol.4795 isn’t necessarily trying to argue whether or not the Thief skills in that list are poorly cued (even though they are). The reason why Arganthium.5638’s list of attacks with a damage coefficient above 1.3 is a poor argument is because the vast majority of the skills listed there are very well cued (aside from a few notable exceptions that should be nerfed in their own respective ways) to the point where if you’re hit by something like [Ice Spike], [Big Ol’ Bomb] or Ranger greatsword [Counterattack], you mostly deserve it. Those skills earn their damage coefficients. Most Thief skills don’t deserve high damage coefficients since they don’t have long cast-times, are typically poorly cued and don’t possess any post-cast delays.

There are two things critically wrong with this statement. First of all, thief skills do have long cast-times, especially when you take after casts into account (or “post-cast delays”, whichever you prefer). We’ve already had this discussion before. I presented you empirical evidence regarding these casts, and in return you presented me a single trial which was highly biased towards its result without any real analysis performed in its conclusion. A “true” instant-cast skill with zero after cast might be Elementalist’s Lightning Flash or Blinding Flash, thief’s Signet of Shadows and Shadowstep, Guardian’s Judge’s Intervention, Warrior Stances, and so on. There are very, very few weapon skills in the game with extremely short cast times, and even fewer with zero after cast.

As for the skills that you say “deserve their damage coefficients”, that’s another matter entirely. While it may be true in the context of that individual skill, it may not be so in the context of combos performed with other weapon skills during the casting time. For instance, if I use Phoenix on you on my Ele, you could very well evade into a Fire Grab. These types of skills are long-term investments; they might not provide you with damage right now, but they could in the near but unclear future. There are other considerations as well to take into account, of course. For example, you might not be immobilized now, but you could be immobilized when the skill hits. You might have 50% Endurance Regeneration right now, but you might have 0% when that skill hits because you just dodged an Eviscerate. You could have 20% Endurance right now, and judge that by the time the skill lands, you’ll just barely have enough Endurance to dodge, but that doesn’t account for the possibility that you might have weakness, which is a factor that you can’t really control much (and even if you can control it, half a second of weakness might just be enough to get you killed). You could have a condi clear ready and an evade, but then get stunned and are unable to counter that. The net result is that while these skills, by themselves, do represent a pretty heavy and often worthless investment, in the context of all of the other skills that they are accompanied by, it is very, very difficult to simply write off these skills as “deserving their damage coefficients” just because of their delays between casting and damage. Not to mention- another ally of yours might step in at just the wrong moment (perhaps he was pushed back, or portaled, or used some kind of mobility skill) and just barely managed to get hit by the skill. That’s a possibility as well.

Darkothe.1253:

The really funny thing about GoM is that if we get riled up enough…we’re dangerous. Keep kicking the hornets nest. We’ll rebound. We’ll regroup. We’re having fun, learning things and adapting. I think this week has been a great lesson for us. If anything, it’s showed us that we need to get hungry again, start recruiting, adjusting our tactics and play past all of the nay sayers and trolls.

It’s all good. Turn your backs on poor, little GoM. We promise we’re not going to be a threat. Really…

Want a cookie?

Being ex-GoM, I just want to say… You guys are great. Your server includes some of the friendliest people ever, and some really great commanders (CUBES FTW!). You guys are well-organized, and I look forward to seeing you guys leap up in the rankings some day.

Vanthian.9267:

Not a lair nor do I intend to hurt. I am merely posting the truth of what the Mesmer class. It is truly a different world when playing a Mesmer than a Warrior. The amount of ease is staggering. I would suggest playing another class like Warrior as it would help you see how hard other professions have to try.

It’s liar. Just sayin’.

So, tell me then- what makes mes so much easier, apart from your claims that mes just “is” easier? And please, I’ve played every profession. Thief is my main, with mes as my secondary. I’ve played S/D eles a ton before. I played heavy regeneration rangers before they were cool. I’ve looked at the nooby bread-and-butter mechanics that the heavy armored professions have. They’re easy to learn, relative to other professions. I’ve tried a necro before, dabbing my toe in all sorts of different builds in that world. And I’ve definitely tried engi before… Eh. Kinda dull.

Other professions are actually easier than mes, in my experience.

Reevz.2617:

yep, not just s/d though s/p even— sword mainhand teleport is kinda kittened. on demand instant gap closer that also immobilizes and you can teleport back with it? you can pre cast pistol whip and teleport. but in all honesty thiefs in general right now are too powerful they fill their niche role, and only thiefs can counter thiefs ;/

Seriously? I used to have some pretty major respect for you as a player, not sure about that any more after this post though.

The immobilize is extremely short (1s), especially compared to immobilizes of other classes. I’d be okay with removing the immobilize on #2, but only if every other class had the vast majority of their immobilizes reduced by at least 1s as well.

Also, IS is not an instant gap closer. In fact, overall, the entirety of its animation (from activation to damage to being able to use your next skill) is quite long, empirically speaking. It’s not skill-breakingly long, but it’s certainly more than you seem to be saying. Also, the teleportation back is a double-edged blade. As long as it’s up (which is a fairly long time) you’re unable to use IS again, and using it prematurely (or at all) can cause you to get off-point. It is also the an expression of the single defining characteristic of S/X builds- mobility. Without it, our mobility is practically zero, and all skillful play involving high levels of positioning and tactics go right out the window.

There are only two realistic ways to pre-cast PW and teleport to your target (Steal and Infi Signet), and if you’re any good at reading casts, you should be able to see these coming. If not, you can still stunbreak out of them with minimal damage dealt to you.

I can kill just about any thief with any class right now (the exception being non-Spirit Rangers, and possibly elementalist). I can counter them because I understand how their cast times work, how their aftercasts work, and how their general strategies work. Hell, I don’t even have to run the “strong meta” builds against them, I just run my own builds. I can easily crush a thief with my 0/20/30/20/0 S/F + GS Lockdown Mesmer, or with my 20/20/0/20/10 Rifle + EG Elixir engi. I can give thieves a taste of their own medicine with my 0/30/30/5/5 Sw/Sh + St Guardian build, or I can beat them positionally with my 0/0/20/30/20 Ele Area Control build. It’s not any type of challenge, it’s simple knowledge of how to counter thief, and then implementation of that knowledge.

Big Tower.5423:

Dont go solider armor get valkyrie armor, you loose very much dps by going pvt (loss of critdamage, which is the main dps factor) go valkyrie armor rest berserker, almost all builds uses this combo. becuse its super effecient at thief.

If you haven’t done the math, then don’t speak out about which stats are better than others.

Ehehehe.

“So sick of the lack of stability.”

Ehehehe.

And then. Like. Thieves.

You’re funny.

I’d support as 10s, maybe 15s CD increase. It’s an extremely powerful utility for its CD.

Amins.3710:

I love the class, I love people who play the class in a group setting, I just don’t like the Stealth Mechanics of this game… there is ~no~ downside to Stealth: Movement isn’t impaired while stealthed, there’s no chance to see / reveal based on proximity & the re-stealth timer is ridiculously low.

Every mechanic in every MMO, which made stealth ~not~ OP, was removed and no counter was added: there’s no ability that allows people to see stealth (boon/ability) or reveal stealth (on dmg) etc.

That’s the gripe.

Not the damage.

The downside is lower survivability. Ever hit a thief who wasn’t stealthed before? Exactly. Although, being a guardian, your DPS is probably low anyways, soooo…

There are a lot of tricks for pulling people out of stealth, primarily consisting of pushes and pulls. Also, you can hit thieves in stealth easily, particularly when they have only just entered stealth. Most of our stealths don’t last very long either, like the BP+HS combo.

What’s even OP about stealth? You say at the end of your post that it isn’t the damage… So what? The running away? Because that’s what it sounds like from your other posts. Recall, then, that PvP/WvW isn’t based on killing enemies, it’s based on capping objectives. As soon as a thief flees, you’ve won. If they stay and fight, then stealth can’t be OP because you can damage them very easily even when they’re in stealth. Or, when they Reveal, just burst them into oblivion. Unfortunately, we don’t have perma-stealth, kiddo. Eventually we run out of initiative or stealth utilities, and then it’s just a flat-out skirmish until you can bring up stealth again.

alamore.1974:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Kargath.6598:

Ostricheggs.3742:

I’ve come to the conclusion that arena-net just doesn’t give a kitten anymore. There isn’t any excuse. Something should have been done over a month ago. Instead we have red posts talking about buffing the active on healing signet before nerfing the passive. There are so many reasons why heal sig is the best heal in the game by far and there’s talk of a buff before a nerf can happen?

Guys, your game is dying. Players are quitting left and right. People are kittening sick of this and you need to get it through your head that we’ve been dealing with healing signet and it’s meta-destroying effects for months. Further inactivity only makes us lose more faith in this game.

I’m at my wits end

No. whats happening is people got used to warrior being a giant pinata that they nuked from 1200-1500 range or loaded up with conditions to get a player kill and win easy matches. Now you have to DRUM ROLL PLEASE!!! – PLAY AND USE ALL OF YOUR SKILLS AND UTILITIES TO WIN AGAINST SOME ONE!!!

This response is expected from a typical warrior player. They don’t realize how incredibly ez-mode that class is. Playing warrior requires perhaps 20% the skill required to play anything else in this game. You literally need to be like 5x better than the person playing warrior in order to down him/her.

Yeah, Ostricheggs! You need to lrn2play! What do you think you are, one of the best engies in the game!?!?

…owait -

Coming from some.one who plays a mesmer lol. Talk about easy mode. He is right what it comes down to is people are not use to having to actualy use skill to defeat warriors. Here try this exercise. Wright down all the classes and how much % they beat u and why
Ill give u a example.

Warriors – 50% – stunns
Thieves- 65% – stealth
Ele – 45% – steady dps
Gaurd – 55% – boons
Mesmer – 60% – clones
Ranger – 50% – kite (65% to spirit rangers
Necro – 50% – fear/hvy condi pressure
Engi – 60% – boons

Answer the truth and u will realize that warriors are not as elite as you think.

Elementalist- 5%- Burst
Engineer- 50%- Area Control and Conditions
Guardian- 10%- Good High-Damage Guards
Necro- 30%- That kittening Signet of Spite
Mesmer- 40%- High Damage
Ranger- 5%- They’re those annoying as kitten Spirit Rangers.
Thieves- 20%- they get the drop on me and I can’t recover quickly enough for whatever reason
Warrior- 50%- insane lengths/numbers of stuns, immobilize/bleed from LB 5, and heavy tankiness from HealSig, heavy armor, and the high base health of warriors

The only reason why Warrior isn’t higher up is because most of the people that play it are just downright awful in general, mostly because Warrior is the easiest class in the game to play and get into.

Also, I doubt the above numbers are entirely correct, but I certainly don’t think that I have a loss rate of above 50% against any of those classes. I based this off of XvX fights where both sides had equal numbers. I can certainly say that some of those classes, like Guard, Ele, and Ranger, are probably extremely close to the listed percentages as a result of class design being faulty (though guardian less so than the other two; it’s only so low because there aren’t a ton of people that run DPS guards).

So all that aside, not sure what your point is, except that you’re clearly a godawful player at worst and a mediocre one at best if all of your percentages are that high.

Daecollo.9578:

Total Armor: Light=920 Medium=1064 Heavy=1211
The difference between Light/Medium/Heavy Armor is about 150 Toughness per tier, less then you get with a Signet buff.

Please don’t type on these forums unless you know what your talking about, thank you

150 toughness is not even 5% damage reduction, 300 won’t be 16%.

Toughness facts
Heavy armor classes get +36% armor by adding 798 toughness
Medium armor classes +39% armor by adding 798 toughness
Cloth classes +42% armor by adding 798 toughness

Y’know, I’m okay with people being an kitten to me about subjective ideas, but when it comes to mathematics, you’re really screwing with the wrong guy here.

For a medium armor class, adding 150 toughness results in:

(1980)/(1980+150) = 1980/2130 = ~92.96% of the damage you would’ve taken originally, or about 7% damage reduction.

Also, I stated that 300 toughness from the base for a light-armored class is about 14% reduction in damage, not 16%, but nonetheless:

(1836)/(1836+300)= 1836/2136 = 85.96% damage from previously, or about 14.04% damage reduction from base (I said 14.2% originally because of a slight error in the amount of armor I thought that lightly armored classes have. Nonetheless, the difference is only extremely small, about .16%).

Of course, you didn’t even factor in kittening base toughness into your numbers, which is hugely problematic. Grow the hell up.

Where the hell are your kitten equations? Don’t spit in the face of half a year of research into the game when your pebble-sized brain can’t even comprehend basic division.

First, assuming English isn’t your native language, you speak quite well.

Now, for the TP. Is it easy to use? Is it convenient? Certainly. But it’s not always your best route. Personally, I like crafting my own stuff, because I feel more… Er… “Fulfilled” that way. As if I’ve actually accomplished something. I also like crafting because it’s necessary for forging legendary weapons (I believe), if that’s your thing. It’s also cool to use Transmutation Stones on armor that you’ve made to make some really sweet-looking armor.

Sometimes, however, it’s completely necessary. For example: gathering materials. Seriously, you do not want to be gathering hundreds of globs of ectoplasm by yourself to make the best gear. You’ll kill yourself somewhere along the way.

Another thing is that- especially with specific markets- you won’t want to buy your own weapons and gear. When the highest buying price is, say, 230 silver, and the highest sell price is 300+ silver, then you know the market’s in disequilibrium, and you’d be better off going somewhere else to get your gear.

One last thing: think of it this way. Instead of playing to get loot (items, gold, etc), you’re just playing to get gold. Sometimes, you get gold in different forms; maybe in, say, Crystalline Dust, or Heavy Bones. However, really, all of those things are just the equivalent of gold. Now, the Trading Post allows you to trade that gold (things that you don’t want) for things that you do want (weapons, armor, etc). That makes the game way more fun. It means that you don’t have to spend hundreds of hours just to forge one piece of armor, for example.

And it’s not like you’re cheating or anything. You’re using your gold that you earned to buy items that you want. You’re just trading, is all.

Relentless.7023:

Why do the worst thieves end up being the ones puking bullcrap about the state of their class on the forums?

I guess they need to be carried by Sword 2 to get carried by their teammates. Pathetic

It’s funny that people like you say this, because there have been many “top” thieves- such as Jumper and Caed- that have complained about the balance of the thief or the balance of the game in general.

It’s also amusing because your stereotype means that thieves should never, ever be buffed, i.e. the ones asking for buffs are just “bad thieves” and should be ignored.

PvE Builds

~D/D~

Hybrid Crit/Condition Build (Mandraecgore)

~S/P~

10/30/0/0/30 S/P Burst/High-Damage PvE Build (Amadeus)

Queen’s Jubilee- 0/30/0/30/10 S/P, S/P Build, Deadeye Farming (Heizero)

0/30/0/20/20 D/P, D/D Aggression (Emissary)

~Guides~

Guide of Shadows: The Thief Handbook (Geiir) (NEW PLAYERS GO HERE!!! Great guide)

Thief forum Build Thread

Yishi’s “Outnumbered” Commentaries

GW2DB’s Compendium of Thief Builds

Silver’s Guide to Thief Leveling

Dungeon Meta Guide

~Tricks~

How to Withdraw forward (Menzies the Heretic)

[Work in progress, any additional links would be much appreciated]

Oh please. As an S/D thief, I can confidently say that you people have no idea what you’re talking about. First of all, I’d hardly classify evasion as “active defense”- pressing a single button to evade a huge number of attacks really isn’t that active. Secondly, you people have access to active defense in many, many more ways than you seem to be stating. Sword #2, Distortion, various combinations of traits and clone play- all of those give you an entire kitten nal to choose from.

For example, on my S/F + GS Lockdown mesmer, I can interrupt via Wave or Curtain, I can reflect via Curtain or iWarden, I can create a miniature bunker by using iWarden and then getting Protection and Regeneration from Phantasmal Healing + Illusionary Membrane, I can evade a large number of attacks by using Sword #2, I can hop out of an area using Portal, I can give myself Stability and an instant stunbreak on-demand, I can temporarily negate my opponent’s abilities with Moa, and I can get all sorts of boons while locking down my opponent with Bountiful Interruption and Chaotic Interruption. On the other hand, with my 10/0/0/30/30 thief, I can try to spam 3 on S/D (with an interval between each FS) or on SB (while doing virtually no damage and typically going in the direction I don’t want to go), I can flee using IR or IArrow, I can evade some more with Withdraw and RfInitiative, I can hop out using Shadowstep, I can very occasionally stealth, I can get a small amount of healing from Assassin’s Reward, and I can just try to evade as much as possible. There’s a very significant difference between these two. Mesmers get many more ways to defend, whereas almost all of my thief’s defense relies on evasion, and most of the remainder of my defense relies on mobility (which has very large connections to evasion anyways). I’m not saying that Mesmers are OP or anything, but seriously, stop QQ’ing.

As it is right now, Mesmers can get almost constant vigor uptime with an almost nonexistent, 5-point investment into a trait line they were probably going to go already. The only real argument against this nerf is the fact that Deceptive Evasion is one of the most significant sources of clone generation, but you can still get a huge number of clones without evading all of the time. Anyways, 10 points into Inspiration can buy you vigor on-demand for both yourself and your teammates anyways, so it’s really not like you can’t maintain permanent vigor uptime after this nerf.

It’s not my problem or anybody else’s problem if you’re going full-damage and are able to survive easily with permanent vigor uptime, and thus your vigor is getting nerfed. If you’re able to survive consistently while dealing insane amounts of damage because of a minor 5-point investment, then you’re hardly any better than the warriors that can do the same but with base stats and a high amount of healing instead.

Fortus.6175:

yet no need to be in stealth when the enemies are dead, so please, YOu tell me you are being sarcastic

1. Stealth
2. Assume opponent is completely unweary
3. ???
4. Everybody on opponent’s team is dead.
5. Profit

Yup.

I’m actually… Going to agree with this. I’ll leave the builds in my sig open for all to see (if they want to), but I’m not releasing any more information about my builds, personally. I created a very nice build recently that I’m absolutely loving… Don’t plan on sharing it, though. Not with some of these crowds.

Why the hell are you even interested in this idea? What empirical evidence do you have to back up the idea that this little scheme of yours would be good for the game? Why should having to split what was originally condition damage into three different stats be considered a “good idea”? And where the hell did you pick those numbers from? Did you throw darts at a board or something?

JonPeters.5630:

I was simply stating that the problem is we are not going to address the issues that the passive sustain is creating until we make the active use have a place in combat so even if it is not THE PROBLEM, it is the blocking issue.

Jon

Nerf the passive to 280 HPS (putting it on par with most heals) and buff the active to 4480 (224 HPS). That way the active is worth an instant 16s (80% of 20s) of the healing you’d get from the passive, and the passive benefits are enough to make up for the weaker active healing so that you get just a bit more health by investing your time, and you can take advantage of the time between when the active goes off CD and you use the active again.

It’s not that difficult…

For the questions earlier in the comments for the difference between BLSK salvages and MSK salvages, here was a confidence interval I calculated back on Geo’s statistics post about the two:

Arganthium.5638:

Here’s additional information:

Difference between average numbers of ectos produced by MLKs and BLSKs.
Confidence Level: 95%
Interval:(.17386, .53614)

Anyways, Geo: major respect for you! First it was the statistics, now it’s this… Keep up the good work, please. Thank you for all of this!

For crying out loud, you people… Helseth is a terrible Mesmer/person anyways, so it’s not like I care that much. I’ve played a thief since the beginning, and I can easily defeat them with my Mesmer. They’re not UP but Mesmers are easily on the same level as they are.

Ghostwolf.9863:

Fortus.6175:

How in the world is…………

12.5k health Staff Elementalist. Free kill.

I edited it for more accuracy.

None of them. There’s no requirement for having at least one “OP” class at all times in GW2.

Darko.5873:

Arganthium.5638:

Not only is this an unconvincing attempt to make us believe that you actually play thief, but if you’re talking about evasion (and I can’t imagine any other mechanic that would cause you to hate S/D so much)- that’s a mechanic that every profession has, friend.

Except for Necromancer, Engineer and Guardian.
TIL – two thirds of something is all of it.

Sorry, I guess I forgot that Necro, Engi, and Guard don’t have evasion bars.

Steb.2571:

You guys misunderstand, it’s dead in the sense that everyone and their mom can play it with braindead skill level. It’s not dead in the practical sense, it can still be run, but it’s more in line with what it should be. You should have to hit a flip skill to actually flip it. If anything, it allows you to trolololol evade spam your kitten in the opposite direction if your under fire. People are just mad that braindead spec’s get nerfed.

Signet of agility is overpowered when paired with acrobatics, and it makes it impossible to accurately count dodges. It allows for very little counter-play because pretty much any and all predictability is gone, and you just have to play entirely reactionary. That’s dumb, and this just aids in killing that. Agility needs to follow suit, I would rather it turn into either a heavier condi clear, or a disable of some kind to allow for cleaner setup and burst landing.

Acrobatics alone is fine, but when you combine feline, with vigor, with signet, it gets a bit kittened. DD needs a buff, PP needs a buff, Celestial and Engi’s / eles / necro / warrior need a nerf, etc,etc,etc. There’s too much sustain at the moment, and it makes thieves less valuable by contrast, but having kittened kitten on thief doesn’t help solve the problem, it just adds to the joke that is Spvp balance right now.

S/D is Viable, it’s just not broken…..It just feels weak because of how insanely overpowered many meta build / classes are right now, and gives a really skewed perception.

[last part highlighted for emphasis]

Though I think, as braindead as S/D is (which, to be fair, is partially because two of the five skills on the weapon set are absolutely horrible and useless for 98% of situations), it still requires a marginal amount of more thought than turret engis/scepter mesmers and, from what I’ve been hearing lately, power rangers.

VIDAR die Axt.2136:

Dear GW2 team.

PLEASE DO NOT NERF THE WARRIOR HAMMER BUILD!

Earthshaker is THE ONLY cool skill the hamwarrior has

Because the issue isn’t about balance any more, it’s about making your skills look cool.

Norjena.5172:

Healing Signet alone is ok, it´s only better then adrenalin surge if

These were all of the words I needed to see to know that you are hopelessly wrong and know nothing about the game.