Guild Wars 2

It’s just a name… balance changes are more important.

That said, if they go live with it as “Dare Devil” (with the space), that’s kittened

Very unlikely that they’ll suddenly decide to revise whole traitlines in the middle of developing the expansion, no matter how needed it may be. I’ve heard talk of another big trait focused patch shortly before expansion release… if true, that’s our only hope for much needed core changes anytime soon.

There’s some cool stuff in the leaked traits so far, but it really does feel like the pre-nerf Acrobatics line is being sold back to us as an elite. Based on what we know so far, it also seems like we’ll be the only profession not getting a new profession mechanic (an extra 50 endurance hardly counts).

Also, unless they have some big changes planned to core traits and skills, everyone is just going to run the same two lines they were before (Shadow Arts and Trickery) alongside the new one, and very little will change in terms of build diversity.

Disappointing so far, albeit in a predictable way…

spartan.9421:

oh come on people acrobatics isn’t as bad as you make it sound! IMO its better than critical strikes or deadly arts traitlines. But then again neither of those two traitlines fit with my playstyle. my point is even though acrobatics got nerfed it still has some good traits just like all the other traitlines it just depends on your play style

Preferred playstyles aside, Acrobatics is exactly as bad as people make it sound. There’s maybe one build (S/D) that should even consider MAYBE taking it, and even then it’s fine taking CS (the next least good tree) instead.

What, pray tell, is the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique?

I really hope they’re planning to fix a lot of these, now that it’s our time in the elite spec sun.

The Withdraw one still stings, since they used that “increased healing” as part of its justification for raising its CD.

Thief is still also the only profession in game that still has a range increasing trait, without it even being listed on the trait.

ok

F1: Shadowstep to target foe and unlock a random dye for them. Opponent is stunned for <1% gold value of dye> seconds

Clone swapping ala Mesmer Sword #2 would fit Thief well, I think. It could give us another way of getting in, and opponents could kill the clones if they wanted to deny us the initiation (although hopefully they wouldn’t be TOO easy to kill…)

PopeUrban.2578:

To the rifle/1200 range camp:

I see and acknowledge your points on the matter. To me, the question is whether those tradeoffs are worth it; judging by the current state of the profession, I’m not so sure they are. It seems like the combination of initiative, stealth, and mobility ultimately handicaps what can be done with Thief on a design level.

I would easily give up most/all of our stealth—as well as Shortbow #5—if it meant we could have proper ranged weapons and increased durability. Initiative is a little thornier, and probably the bigger sticking point. It is also a large portion of what makes Thief unique, so it’s likely to remain (for better or worse).

Even accounting for initiative, I feel like our weapon choices could be better. A lot of them lack proper initiative dumps, and even within our limited range of engagement, our ranged options are poor (before anyone says Shortbow, keep in mind that it has a SINGLE damaging ability that doesn’t require being at near melee range to use effectively).

Overhauling mainhand Pistol would be a good start. It’s a weapon split between power and condition damage, but that doesn’t succeed at either. Body Shot in particular is just awful… but don’t get me started on how poor our access to Vulnerability is when we should be one of the best at it.

Nike.2631:

Have any of you people begging for a “ranged weapon” for your profession of choice ever PLAYED a ranged class in this game? Ranged damage SUCKS in GW2. That’s a RULE. And they aren’t going to change that rule for Thieves. You see P/P…? THAT is what the Devs feel is a good level of performance from a ranged skill set backed by Thief mechanics. Rifle is not gonna be better than that. It’s just not.

Engi is nothing BUT ranged weapons and they seem to be doing pretty well for themselves… not to mention several other professions having ranged specs that’re a regular part of the SPvP meta.

Still, I get your point. Ranged specs are designed with a lot of drawbacks, and a profession like Thief would probably have even more in theirs, due to the design albatross of initiative and stealth.

Personally, I’d just like to have the OPTION to play ranged without it being so monumentally inferior. P/D feels so close, yet not quite there. P/P, well… you know.

Thief is not Ele. Ele already has 95% of what they need to be an effective class, so Tempest was never going to be anything beyond a “win more” elite spec.

Thieves on the other hand have everything to lose if this elite spec (and/or the uptick in developer attention that comes with it) fails to pan out.

Agreed. I don’t even care about the elite spec at this point… I just want our base stuff to be better

I like the idea of a weapon and/or spec based around shadow clones; something like Mesmer Sword #2 seems like it’d fit the Thief well. Dunno if that’s what we’ll actually get, but here’s to hoping…

At this point, I couldn’t care less about the actual elite spec. I’m hoping more that the announcement means our core stuff will be getting an actual, proper look-see.

All the elite specs in the world won’t fix a rotten foundation.

Thank you for taking the time to put this poll together; it asks the right kind of questions. I filled a response out to help, of course.

I’d like for the revealed trait to give protection during revealed as well.

What is this P/D condi bomb variant?

I really want to try these trap shenanigans! Guess I need to level Leatherworker?

Black Box.9312:

True, but being master of one role is better than being master of zero.

That kind of rationale is the worst type of shallow, sunny side up false optimism. At best, it represents misplaced idealism; at worst, it’s often a statement coming from someone not even representing the marginalized class in question, in an attempt to get them to shut up about their problems. Nothing has ever been solved by not talking about it, so I’m going to pass on that one.

Of course having “a” role is better than none… but it’s also a massive design failure if a class doesn’t have even one potentially viable role in sPvP. Fortunately, NO ONE fits that description, as GW2 is a game designed somewhat competently.

That’s where the chief complaint enters in… if other all the other classes can excel in 3-5 roles with a variety of trait and weapon choices, why should Thieves be forced into one role with one viable weapon choice? What is the silver lining in the cloud of the class that has the least diversity and build options in the game? We should be happy because things could somehow theoretically be worse for some other, even more worse off class that doesn’t actually exist? Get real.

I like the idea of changing hands, thematically. D/P and P/D are already existing sets that complement in each-other in interesting ways in a “changing hands” scenario.

Unfortunately, they’d also have to overhaul/redesign a lot of stuff, and fix certain weapons having narrowly defined stat niches… so unlikely.

P/x builds are in an awkward spot where they don’t quite do enough physical OR condition damage to compete with other weapon choices. Pistol mainhand really needs a redesign in particular, although I do like a lot of P/D as it is now.

I meant tank as a generic descriptor of more durable builds. While Thief shouldn’t be able to melee tank like some heavy armor wearing professions, Thief SHOULD have higher durability options available. Right now defensive stats seem to add about .5 seconds longer to the “getting blown up” timer in sPvP, and your damage craters as a result.

No other profession can run into the meat grinder faster than Thief can!

Like most in this forum, I’m not concerned with “doing fine” in a single preordained role. GW2 is ostensibly designed around player choice; I’d rather have more than one option on how to play my Thief (e.g., the tank, support, and/or condi builds that every other profession has).

While I agree with your rationale—and think some kind of Spellthief Elite would be awesome—it wouldn’t be the worst thing if they chose Rifle. As of HoT, Thief is the only profession in the game without a 1200 range option, after all. Even Guardian has one!

Like Shiro, the Mallyx playstyle with Revenant could’ve been a Thief Daredevil thing. But you know… is Revenant instead.

On the other hand, a 2H means they can just throw five skills on there and not worry about how a 1H weapon would combine with others in terms of balance, dual skills, etc. Replace Steal with some half-baked mechanic and you’re done!

Yeah, except having to constantly avoid fighting in a mode based around PvP combat is not very satisfying for most people, especially when it’s the only role your profession can perform for an extended period of time. Hence a forum full of these kind of posts…

Yeah, Steal hasn’t held up so well over the last three years. You could keep bits of it (the shadowstepping), but it should be overhauled into something different as a profession mechanic.

Black Box.9312:

I feel bad for you guys. The Karl McLain bulldozer has already smashed Guardian and Ele players into the ground. You’re next.

Nice try, but we’re already in the ground.

In all seriousness, I know those elite specs seem pretty underwhelming so far, but they’re also on professions that are already fairly complete in their non-elite forms (especially Ele). Thieves are struggling just to get their profession to function on a basic level in more than one extremely narrow, over-emphasized niche.

Thief is a profession in vital need of higher base Vitality and Toughness.

Celestial sucks on Thief (poor heal scaling, miniscule durability regardless of stats). Sinister is cool if you like a condition-heavy playstyle, but it’s a hard stat package to get as a new player; most of it is on account-bound crafted gear.

Try Rampager in the meantime if generic Berserker isn’t your thing, though.

IGN: Delano Darkspur
Thief Type: Artisan/Johnny
Server: Maguuma
Experience with Thief: As a card-carrying rogue in pretty much every game I play, 95% of my GW2 time has been with Thief. I look forward to commiserating with some Thiefbros!

It’s still not entirely clear if Thief is getting physicals or not. They went more into the Warrior Elite Spec today, and it has rage attacks that are “like physicals” according to the article… guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Daendur.2357:

Can someone explain me what it is?
It seems like a thief with no offhand teleporting through targets.

That’s Revenant’s Sword #3.

Understandable mixup, as it is rather Thief-like in flavor. Revenant Shiro stuff feels a lot like what Thief SHOULD be, honestly…

There are plenty of ways to revitalize thieves without making them “OP again” (which they arguably never were). Very few people in this subforum are asking for things like more damage, as obviously we have plenty of that already.

Personally, all I want is the ability to be viable in more than one build and role… you know, like literally every other profession in the game.

That’s the way the game is played. Marginalize a group for years at a time, then censure them when they have the audacity to speak up about it with anything but the most polite of language.

But hey, it just means we need to be on point and pickier about our rhetoric. But don’t stop posting… never stop posting.

No UI mods is a good thing for sure, as it incentivizes the developer to make a clean and workable UI instead of offloading the job to players like in WoW.

That said, it would be nice to see some more profession-specific UI cues, like some kind of stealth GUI for Thieves. As the OP noted, it’s rather clunky to have to mouseover your tiny stealth buff to see the exact duration (and it’s often so short that by the time you mouseover, it’s already ending/over).

It’s fine as is, but no reason it couldn’t be better. I really like the idea of ninja nurse being a legit support role, personally.

Positivity can only go so far. Patience and pragmatism, on the other hand…

reinforever.8902:

I agree on a power variation for the runes though, very much needed Anet!

It’d be great if we could just choose the stat/set bonuses we want in SPvP ala carte, but that’s an expansion or two away I’m sure

I don’t have a lot to add other than “agreed!”, as this is all fairly well thought out stuff.

Say what you will about Blizzard, but they did a great job with their patch/expansion trailers, which were always narrated by characters involved in the plot (usually the antagonist of the moment, but not always).

A little harder to do that in GW2 with Scarlet gone and the Dragons a somewhat “faceless” threat, but something worth considering regardless.

Lots of good suggestions for competitive SPvP there. No reason these proposed changes would need to affect anything else.

They messed up a lot of teleport pathing in a big patch a few months back. The idea was stop people from using teleports to get to places they shouldn’t be, but Shortbow #5 and Shadowstep are now horribly unreliable as a result (especially in the outside world)

I’ve noticed a real lack of developer representation for rogue archetypes in nearly every class-based MMO I’ve played, and it continues to baffle me. Why is it so hard to find a single senior developer passionate about the Thief’s unique brand of agility and dark pragmatism?

I loved Illusionary Weaponry in GW1 myself! Maybe Mesmer will get some kind of Spellthief build as their eventual second Elite Specialization, if we’re lucky.

For some strange reason, Thief is lacking access to conditions that should be profession defining. At a glance:

[Bleed]
All Thief sources of Bleed are either insufficient or incentivized strangely. D/D #3 puts on a good amount of stacks, but the skill itself sucks and you have to give up doing non-Condition damage (i.e., the focus of the rest of the weapon set) to do it. Pistol #1 puts stacks on, but the amount is arguably subpar even WITH Superior Sigil of Earth and full condition damage. See other professions for a guideline on how to provide Bleed properly. Thieves should really be a lot better at this one…

[Torment]
The newest damaging Condition on the block and the biggest missed opportunity. Due to Thief’s focus on mobility, Torment should be our bread and butter. Instead, one weaponskill applies a solid amount but is stuck on a bad weaponset, and the only other source is from one of the bad (i.e., not Spider or Basilisk) Venoms. More Torment, please?

[Vulnerability]
This seems like another missed opportunity. We’re Thieves, we strike at vulnerable targets (and/or make them vulnerable), so why are we so bad at this? Watching Shiro Revenants reach 20-25 steady stacks of Vulnerability by autoattacking faster than a Thief can (very briefly) get it that high through spamming Pistol #2 and wasting ALL THEIR INITIATIVE makes this painfully obvious.

[Blind]
We have a solid amount of Blind, although still overrated in my opinion. Black Powder is used more for stomps and restealths than it is actually avoiding damage, leaving the other main source D/P #3. Our Blind access is okay, but could be better… or we could just get some actual survivability, which would work too.

[Poison]
In my opinion, the only damaging condition Thieves have good access to. Dagger #1, Shortbow #4, Spider Venom (the only remotely useful one), the Deadly Arts trait (which competes with Mug…). It does feel like that trait should be for all weapons instead of just Dagger, though.

There’s other stuff, but those are the ones that really jump out at me.

Yeah, that sword trait really reads as something that should work with any weapon.