Guild Wars 2

Eeshaan.9068:

Sucks that the Ninja class of the game is not appreciated by players these days.

Kageseigi.2150:

I don’t think it’s the players that don’t appreciate the Thief… at least not the Thief players.

I believe it’s the devs that do not appreciate the Thief.

It needs something, that’s for sure. Even as a direct damage weapon, it has serious usability issues and almost no utility.

I have used Staff plenty, and although I want to like it, it’s not very good. Everything it does can be done better by another weapon. You can arguably extend that assessment to just about everything else with the Thief profession right now.

Even if people get a little too negative sometimes, they have legitimate reasons to feel frustrated about the state of the profession. Telling people to “stop whining” is actually even less constructive than the negativity it’s in response to.

Insightful and well written OP. I hope this sees the right eyes… I don’t want to see GW2 go too far in the direction of “that game” either.

It really should be brought back with its own checkbox. Most people could leave it off, and deathmatch enthusiasts could queue with just it on.

Thorns is new but very good for poison builds. Orr, Krait, Mad King, and Afflicted are worth considering as well.

There are a lot of needless aftercasts on weapon skills that’ve been around since launch without getting tweaked (Vital Shot’s always comes to mind, as it strongly hinders the usefulness of MH Pistol). I’d love to see these things fixed, but it probably won’t happen.

Staff is fun but not very good. Its theoretical numbers are high, but maximizing your damage will require perfectly hitting your #2 every time (which is hard because it’s a very finicky skill). Sword/Pistol is better at the same general roles Staff fulfills.

A Daze instead of Cripple on Staff #3 would be nice, and help it to better synergize with its own traitline.

People’ve been asking for a line-shaped field of some kind on Staff #4 since BWE 2. I concur that Staff needs it, as #4 is pretty garbage otherwise. Should be a Dark field rather than Smoke though.

Sad. Barely used Flanking and Trickster BEFORE… never going to now.

I am fine with the wiggle.

Nina.4317:

i don’t know to avoid these attack

I think I’ve identified the problem!

Or just nerf one of the weakest classes because you don’t want to have to adapt, that works too.

Masteries in WvW could be a really neat idea. Perhaps they could replace the current upgrade system with it.

This sort of rank requirement should only be on ranked modes. This is not making it any easier to get reticent friends into trying the game to PvP with me.

Impact.2780:

Make baseline:
- Preparedness (+1)
- Bountiful Theft

And -5 CD on Steal.

It’s amazing what a few traits rolled into baseline could do.

Sure they should’ve. The main endgame of GW2 has always been looking cool, and people who only PvP should haven’t to lose out on that.

Boons are a bigger problem than conditions, although I fear for professions that don’t have adequate condition cleanse (hi Thief).

Guess no one in your guild plays the most powerful and ubiquitous meta build, then?

Ah yes, Thief… the only profession that’s “overpowered” whenever it does its job for a moment, no matter how many times it was blown up in 2 seconds flat in between.

I seem to recall hearing some dev chatter about 4s revealed in PvP potentially being unnecessary these days, but I can’t remember from who.

You unlock the ability to craft them through dumping hero points into your elite spec.

DJSushi.5406:

Spent the first 20 minutes of the expansion autoattacking Moas and loving every second of it.

Would you happen to be the person that was in charge of testing Daredevil?

Christonya.3856:

My opinion is that you’re trolling. Which you are. So no, it is not poorly thought out.

It’s not constructive to label every person you disagree with as a troll. And believe me, i get it, because I disagree with about 90% of what Vincent posts. He’s still not a troll.

It’s good for the game that Vamp runes are getting changed. Still sucks for us, though.

It also will make Thief a lot less attractive of an alt to those who don’t play it as their main. The profession needs more people discussing its real issues, not less.

Unfortunately, Vault would need a range increase and to travel vertically to really compete with Infiltrator’s Arrow. Even then, it would still be perpetuating the same albatross of weapon-based mobility that is currently hindering the profession’s design. Still, at least then Thief would have two secondaries to choose from rather than one…

Both look silly for Thief imo. Nevermore is cool but seems like more of a Druid/Necro staff than Thief.

Fortus.6175:

I keep hearing that thieves are in a bad spot (mostly by thieves players) but they dont seem to realize the strength of basically forcing a 4v5 everywhere by constant decapping threat, or their ability to get out of vitually anything and anyone if so they wish with Sb 5 and stealth.

Thief mains tend to say that the profession is in a bad spot because its current role in SPvP simply isn’t very much fun. Is it an effective role? Absolutely, assuming you can keep yourself moving and decapping undefended points 24/7. It’s still not very fun, if your goal is having satisfying fights against other players. It’s also a lot less effective in solo queue (where you can’t trust the competence or teamwork of your teammates), but that’s neither here or there.

Shortbow #5 is the fulcrum that the entire profession is balanced around in SPvP at the moment. I would very much like to see this change, but it would require a thorough revamping of the Thief profession that I don’t think ArenaNet has the resources or inclination to deliver.

“only” 2000 toughness?

I’m still waiting for Endurance regeneration to scale with max Endurance…

Please stop suggesting that ArenaNet nerf easily counterable gimmick builds that aren’t even usable in SPvP. They are clumsy at best with their balance changes, so any potential nerf would probably further mess up legitimate Thief builds.

A beefed up Shadow Refuge as an elite would actually be kinda awesome, and offer more build options. Right now, it’s pretty much Basilisk or bust

Unfortunately, running Shortbow is non-negotiable. Thief as a profession has a multitude of serious issues even WITH Shortbow. Without it, Thief brings literally nothing to the table that you couldn’t get far better from another profession.

You can try to be a beautiful, unique, meta-defying snowflake all you want, but certain things are meta for a reason. Despite Thief having what is probably the lowest build diversity in the game right now, you can still play some fun oddball stuff that no one else is… but you’re still going to want Shortbow for those builds, trust me. It’s just that essential. I’m not a fan of it either but until ArenaNet revamps Thief, it is what it is.

Josh Davis.6015:

Hmmm, new amulets. Aside from zealots, anything else you folks think would be interesting?

It would be great to regain the ability to also choose your Jewel, rather than just the whole Amulet as it is now. It would allow for a wider variety of builds in what a lot of people feel is a stale meta with not enough options.

It also wouldn’t hurt to take another look at the Runes and Sigils that aren’t usable in SPvP. Perplexity staying restricted is a no brainer, but the others…

Thief would strongly benefit from having multiple “Revealed Plus” traits spread across different lines. Revealed Training in DA is currently the only one, and it’s decent, but it could be improved. Other possible Revealed traits could be gaining Protection for the duration of Revealed or Resistance for the duration of Revealed. Spreading these options as a theme across multiple trait lines is key to improving durability and build diversity.

My preference would be to rework Shadowstep into a short CD (10-15s) core mobility mechanic. The core Shadowstep would be a vanilla ground-targeted blink similar to the current skill version. Different trait lines could bring back some of its old effects (condition removal trait in DA/SA, Stunbreak trait in Acro, etc.)

If implemented along with other changes (like redesigning Acro to be the mobility trait line), this could open up room to tone down the ubiquitous Shortbow and help encourage more weapon and build diversity for Thief.

Generosity is usable in SPvP, yes.

People were talking about Steal being the “reliable” interrupt, not interrupting Steal itself.

Thanks for all the updates, Karl! It’s good to see that so much progress is being made.

Karl McLain.5604:

• Bounding Dodger: In addition to granting access to the Bound dodge ability, the thief will gain 10% bonus physical damage for 4 seconds after dodging.
• Lotus Training: In addition to granting access to the Impaling Lotus dodge ability, the thief will gain 10% bonus condition damage for 4 seconds after dodging.
• Unhindered combatant: In addition to granting the Dash dodge ability, the thief will gain 10% damage reduction against physical and condition damage.

This seems to be your response to the ongoing discussion on whether the dodges are worthy of being Grandmaster traits. While not a bad direction to go in, raising the bonuses to 20% would seal the deal.

Karl McLain.5604:

• Fist Flurry: Reduced cast time by 20%. note: The final strike occurs just prior to 1 second.

Palm Strike seems meaningless as a flip skill: you have a short window to use it, and there isn’t much tactical value to delaying it. Why not have it trigger automatically if you land the last hit of Fist Flurry?

Karl McLain.5604:

• Vault: Reduced aftercast by 80ms. Added a 500ms evade at the start of the ability.

This should solve a lot of issues with Vault! I still have a lot of concerns with the Staff relating to utility and internal synergy (especially on skills #1, #3, and #4), but that’s for another, longer post.

Karl McLain.5604:

• Distracting Daggers: Projectiles from this ability are now counted as 100% projectile finishers.

There are still too many limitations on this skill for it to see real use. Removing the 1s ICD between individual dagger throws would put the skill right about where it should be.

Karl McLain.5604:

• Impairing Daggers: Projectiles from this ability are now counted as 100% projectile finishers.

Impairing Daggers is looking pretty solid! There is some weirdness with landing it from max range and/or near obstructions. A projectile speed increase similar to what Distracting Daggers previously received would help a lot.

Karl McLain.5604:

• Weakening Strikes: This trait now grants 10% damage reduction when being struck by a weakened foe, in addition to weakening foes on critical hit.

While Weakening Strikes is sounding great, I have some serious concerns about diversity of choice in the trait tier it currently occupies. Havoc Master is now focused on fighting up close, which makes it less of a general purpose trait than it previously was. Brawler’s Tenacity is only for builds heavily utilizing Physicals, and of arguable use even then. That leaves Weakening Strikes. It’s looking a lot better with the proposed changes, but the crit requirement locks non-crit builds out of using it. This leaves the tier with no good “fallback” choice that works in any build. For this and other reasons, I suggest changing the Weakening Strikes proc to function on hit. Otherwise, looking good!

P.S. Inexplicably, Escapist’s Absolution is still a major. Merge it with Driven Fortitude

Serious Thought.5394:

People complaining about withdraw, we still only have one good elite. =/

People are complaining about Withdraw because it was listed in a patch as getting an increase, but it didn’t. Even going by ArenaNet’s usual treatment of Thief, that is pretty egregious. I have a hunch that when they do finally address it, the patch note will read “Fixed a tooltip error that caused Withdraw to appear to heal for more than it did.”

See also: Ankle Shots. Their idea for how to deal with it being the last range increasing trait in the game was to remove the range increase without integrating it baseline (unlike just about every other range increasing trait removed in/since June). This leaves Pistol with the same disgustingly short range of 900 and makes an already bad trait useless. To add insult to injury, Ankle Shots still sports a +10% damage bonus in the tooltip that doesn’t actually do anything, meaning the only reason to take it would be for a 60% chance on crit to cripple for 3s with a 10s ICD… which is literally worse than a Sigil.

If you can’t even rely on patch notes or ability descriptions doing what they say, then it’s unlikely any bigger changes are going to happen either. We couldn’t even get a bugfix on Scorpion Wire last patch when they fixed an identical bug with Engineer Magnet…

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Unfortunately, that will give P/D 2 skills that evade back, not an ideal solution.

Indeed. Any change to Pistol #2 affects not just P/P but P/D, and a second “move back” skill would be redundant for P/D in particular.

Personally, I’d like to see Pistol #2 remade into some kind of short-range shotgun blast type ability that could be used for kiting or as a panic button for when someone gets in your face. Off the top of my head, it could look a little something like this:

Shrapnel Blast
4 Initiative, 1/4s Cast
Overload your pistol, discharging a blast of steam and shrapnel that does X damage and Cripples your primary target. Briefly Blind up to 5 enemies in the area around you.

Maybe some day Thief will rise above Genin. Some day…

A Venomshare build is the only potential healing/support build a Thief can really play in PvE, and it has a lot of major problems right now. Fixable problems, but problems nonetheless. It’s a little baffling as to why Eles got their aura range increased in Tuesday’s patch, but Venomous Aura was left untouched.

Shadowstep.6049:

@Amante.8109: so what would it be then? Another warrior?

Higher passive durability would not suddenly turn Thief into Warrior. A better comparison would to look at professions like Ele (which shares the same health pool as Thief) and Mesmer: despite being “squishy” thematically, they have a lot more access to passive durability through traits and other sources than Thief does.

It is my belief that the vast majority of the problems Thief currently faces in PvP are centered around this lack of durability. That ArenaNet thinks we can survive on stealth and evasion alone says a lot about how out of touch they are with the realities of PvP.

Shadowstep.6049:

So let’s assume they nerf sb5, knowing anet it will take them at least year to actually make any changes….

Do you really want to wait so long? You think other will?

Like I said, it would be a bad change to make on its own and I doubt anyone really wants that. It would have to come packaged with other changes or it would be a straight up butchering of the Thief profession.

Shadowstep.6049:

And just out of curiosity, what do you think thief will do after sb5 gets nerfed? Bruiser? They were never ment for it… Bunker? lol….. You want to be another sf ele? I personally don’t.

While I don’t agree with their perspective, ArenaNet seems to think Thieves shouldn’t have access to things nearly every other profession does, like reliable boon generation, condition removal, and the ability to take a hit without exploding when Endurance inevitably runs out. Are you saying you don’t want these things?

Shadowstep.6049:

Sb5 isn’t reason why thieves are in sad state right now, reason is endless qq from players that never touched thief class and devs having 0 interest in this class.

The class was in ok spot before spec patch, nobody cried about sb5…. the real thing what happend is:
devs from other classes went for powercreep
our dev went for balance in vacuum

0 communication in dev team would lead to that.

No disagreement here. Who do you think you’re arguing against, though? Are these people in the room RIGHT NOW?

Shadowstep.6049:

But i guess constant repeated mantra that thieves supposed to be weak because of mobility srsly got branded into some heads. Look around, we are only class with huge opportunity costs and trades off. And we are still sitting here being humble and asking to nerf us for some measy buffs that will place us even worse than where we are???? Wow.

You might want to take a breath and step back, as you’re getting awfully emotional about this. Everyone here wants the Thief profession to be powerful and fun to play, even if some aren’t the best at articulating their thoughts on how this might be accomplished.

And no, I don’t think increases to core Thief durability and versatility would be “measly”. You say Thief isn’t meant to be a bruiser or bunker, yet nearly every other profession has solid enough builds in this department. Why shouldn’t Thief?

Nerfing Shortbow #5 is a bad way to put it, as it would indeed lead to the extinction of Thieves in PvP overnight.

Shortbow #5 does seem to be the design fulcrum we are designed around, though, and seems to be their rationale for not giving us increased durability, boon generation, condition cleansing, etc. I’d gladly lose it if it came packaged with boosts in those areas.

It’s a tossup between Ranger and Thief, depending on your point of view. I think until recently the definitive answer was Ranger, but Irenio—the designer working on Ranger elite—has been making a major effort to address core Ranger issues lately, so I think it’s back to Thief being the weakest (or at the least, most neglected).

meepeY.2867:

From past trends, Anet isn’t giving Thief as much (if any) love as other professions.

For example, Engi’s got their Magnet Pull fixed so that the target will always come to you… Scorpion Wire was ignored and is still buggy as kitten.

Consume Plasma claims to give all boons, but doesn’t give you Resistance and Quickness, two new buffs added in June.

Anet seem to be overlooking Thief at every turn and patch. Professions get QoL changes which Thief should also get, but we don’t.

But they buffed Pistols to a point where the damage is decent enough on Unload to actually use instead of Shortbow for more of a fighter presence. However, the pistol 2 is still not worth touching.

Seems like Anet is playing hard to get, if you get me.

Very true. I had extremely low expectations from the patch on Tuesday and was mostly hoping for bug fixes, but they failed to deliver even that. I don’t need Thief to be the best profession or even in the top 50%, but seeing other professions get bug fixes or QoL changes that could easily be applied to the Thief (but are not) really frustrates me.

They’ve been making a lot of vague or incorrect statements about the raids lately (requiring ascended gear, “not being able to dodge things”, etc). I think it is safe to assume that the Daredevil dodges will be reasonably useful in raids.

But yes, it’s hard to escape the feeling that Acro was gutted in favor of selling us Acro 2.0. What is most frustrating is that the DD “elite mechanic” of an extra dodge is measurably worse on its own than Feline Grace was. I really hope they adjust it so that regen scales with higher base Endurance, as well as Endurance-restoring effects being percentage based instead of flat (as they appear to be but are not). Unfortunately, due to the lack of current engagement from our lead developer, I’m not expecting these things to change.