Guild Wars 2

Hype.8032:

Atherakhia.4086:

Uh no…

You build the thief class up. You give it more health like the Ranger or you give it access to tools to help it remain viable outside of stealth. Things like protection, stability, etc. We already know ANet is considering boosting the Thief’s auto attack damage to help with the sustained fight.

So your solution is to make the thief more like a guardian? All these ‘fixes’ just make the game more bland. Keep unique classes unique. Also, back to the original topic, no one uses shadow protector because the other traits like 2 init on stealth, blind on stealth, or remove condition on stealth are so much more powerful. So he’s crying about a trait no one uses…? With only shadow rejuvenation my thief heals for 342/s….. hardly impressive for 30 points.

I forgot to add that a lot of the other professions can heal as well, such as Guardian, Ranger, Ele… the difference with them is they can also attack while they receive that passive healing… Thief is just helping the opponent recharge his cooldowns in the same situation.

Giving a boon to one class that is already given to another doesn’t somehow make the game more bland or the one clkitten unique. It’s simply a tool. The playstyle of the Thief class is already quite unique. If anything, your complaint should have been that making the thief remain visible so often would make it more like a Warrior.

The end result regardless of approach should be a balanced game. Having played tons of MMO’s in my lifetime, I have to say that GW2 has probably the absolute worst implementation of the ‘stealth fighter’ I’ve ever seen. And it shows by the number of complaints aimed at the class. And they’re not random crying from uninformed players. The people are right… this class can be overpowered. People who play it know that simply nerfing what they want nerfed will leave the class useless though.

Far better to fix the issue akittens source and improve the class as needed rather than nibble at the fringes until you really do have a boring, one note class.

Blankverse.4927:

style.6173:

In WvW, the gameplay is all about zergs. A thief is NOT very good at that. So, what you will see are thieves roaming and looking for people who are out of place (away from their zerg) and have no clue what to do in WvW.

I disagree about the zerg-part. WvW is a pvp/pve territory with different objectives. Zergs fighting each other are a part of it. But there are also camps to capture, dolyaks to kill – tasks that can be done single players – as well as lone players or small groups exploring this world and looking for small-scale fights.
These players are also important and they have a right to play WvW the way they like, not as a part of the zerg. No clue what to do in WvW? Hell, no. They just have different preferences then the zerg-kind of players, thats all.

Sometimes i roam as a ranger, sometimes as a thief.
My ranger doesn’t have problems with 7 of 8 classes. However with my build i have extreme problems to face thives, i admit it. But do i really have to change my build which is effective against 7 classes just to be able to kill one class?

My thief is pathetic and unskilled, although while roaming i still get a satisfying number of kills. Maybe 7 of 10 1vs1 fights. Maybe more.
If my ranger was so bad like my thief is, i would win exactly 0 of 10 fights. Zero. Null. Nada.
If this isn’t a proof that this class is pretty unbalanced, than i don’t know what is.

My biggest complaint with what you said, and you’re 100% right don’t get me wrong, is that no class should be useless at specific parts of a game. And the current meta in WvW and sPvP really doesn’t have a place for the thief class right now.

The trick is giving them a purpose in these areas without further throwing things out of whack in the small scale combat (because the thief is quite strong at roaming and people often use the whole ‘well I suck in zergs so I should be an OP roamer’ argument).

But you’re right… there is more involved in WvW than just killing badguys enmass. Problem is it’s not enjoyable or rewarded very highly so most don’t want to do it.

randomfightfan.4091:

Atherakhia.4086:

No, the problem with the thief class is a direct result of the initiative system and the skills/traits that increase the initiative cap and its regen and this is the area that needs to be fixed. Nothing else.

Remove the skills and traits that increase the initiative cap or grant free initiative for stealthing/criting/etc. so all specs of the thief class are the same at their base. Then build the class up.

And in order to balance around that, all cool downs from all other classes are tripled. That would be the effect of a nerf like that.

Uh no…

You build the thief class up. You give it more health like the Ranger or you give it access to tools to help it remain viable outside of stealth. Things like protection, stability, etc. We already know ANet is considering boosting the Thief’s auto attack damage to help with the sustained fight.

evilapprentice.6379:

Atherakhia.4086:

evilapprentice.6379:

Atherakhia.4086:

Arganthium.5638:

Atherakhia.4086:

Arganthium.5638:

Atherakhia.4086:

Larcenous strike should put a debuff on the target so they can’t gain new boons for 4 seconds. Then we wouldn’t need to spam it so often.

But you are right about one thing… the only legitimate complaint about thieves is how initiative regen is not balanced.

No.

Calculate the numbers for how much initiative we gain per second, and how much that benefits us, then compare with what other classes gain per second on their skills. Then tell me that it “isn’t balanced”.

The amount of time a thief can be stealthed and access to stealth isn’t balanced. Doesn’t mean the class has the tools to survive if it’s changed, because it doesn’t. But stealth in this game has got to be the dumbest implementation of it I’ve ever seen.

Just stop. Your post was about initiative regeneration, not stealth, and that’s what I replied to. Furthermore, stealth is almost detrimental to teams in PvP, and is easily countered in both WvW and PvP by practically just swinging your sword around and spamming AoE while running in random directions. It works.

The problem with stealth is the initiative regen you [censored].

So…you’re kittening about patience? The SA trait no thief takes because it’s kittening awful, pointless, and clearly inferior to any player who’s ever spent an hour on a thief in PvP?

I mean…that’s the only thing you could possibly be kittening about, because otherwise you’re kittening about the initiative system in general, which is an old, tired, debunked argument to begin with.

Debunked? Since when… it’s plain as day that the initiative system isn’t designed well and the fact that there are a dozen different skills and traits to regen initiative is the main issue behind the whole class. The simple fact is there probably shouldn’t be any.

Real quick!
Since you’re obviously intimately experienced with thief mechanics!
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides KB/KD/Blowout
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides daze over .5s
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides fear
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides Daze over .5
- Name every single thief weapon skill that provides immobilize over 1s.

That list looking a little light? I wonder why?.

I’m completely lost as I can’t make the connection between what you’re saying and what I said.

Are you somehow under the impression I think Thieves should have the initiative system gutted and nothing changed? I could have sworn I specifically said they’d have to rebuild the whole class to compensate for it.

The point I’m making is look where people complain most about the thief class..

Burst
Regen/Condi removal
Stealth

They’re all legitimate concerns but the root of all of them is the initiative system and nothing else.

Remove the initiative regen/cap increase from all skills and traits and then either give this class ranger level health or give it tools to compete. Things like what were on your list. This in addition to the sustained damage increase discussed in one of the prior state of the games and this class would be fairly well built where they could consider adding more fun things to flesh it out and increase its worth to group PvP and zergs.

Rest of the classes sucked.

6 years as a Warlock in WoW made me not want to play a Necro. The ele has no real burst so doesn’t play like the typical mages I’m used to. I didn’t want a guardian. I have an 80 of every other class and the thief is the most fun of them all. If Rangers weren’t so built around their pet I’d probably of stuck with it over the thief, but Rangers are probably the most boring class to play in this game right now.

What I wish the skill did was actually act as a ‘wall’. So in a zerg vs. zerg battle the thieves could stand a few feet infront of their zerg and start spinning so that way all projectiles thrown into your zerg were reflected back at their source.

But yea, unfortunately the main reason I use this skill is for the stability and snare and not so much the range reflection.

Nope.

Why would you think regen while stealth is the problem instead of the amount of time a thief can remain stealthed? You said it yourself… half a fight a thief is in stealth. Condition removal and healing while stealthed are things you have to trait for and not everyone gets them. I’d wager most don’t infact.

No, the problem with the thief class is a direct result of the initiative system and the skills/traits that increase the initiative cap and its regen and this is the area that needs to be fixed. Nothing else.

Remove the skills and traits that increase the initiative cap or grant free initiative for stealthing/criting/etc. so all specs of the thief class are the same at their base. Then build the class up.

While this class may offer the highest burst, in the current meta that burst doesn’t account for [censored] against anyone but uplevels and glass cannons. 9 times out of 10 the only people you legitimately kill with your burst (ie 3 hit kills) are other thieves.

Do what they said in the state of the game interview several months ago and increase auto damage as burst has already been toned down enough. Increase the thiefs health to be on par with the ranger class, or provide it additional tools to survive in a game where instead of 25% of the time a thief is visible to about 75% of the time.

evilapprentice.6379:

Atherakhia.4086:

Arganthium.5638:

Atherakhia.4086:

Arganthium.5638:

Atherakhia.4086:

Larcenous strike should put a debuff on the target so they can’t gain new boons for 4 seconds. Then we wouldn’t need to spam it so often.

But you are right about one thing… the only legitimate complaint about thieves is how initiative regen is not balanced.

No.

Calculate the numbers for how much initiative we gain per second, and how much that benefits us, then compare with what other classes gain per second on their skills. Then tell me that it “isn’t balanced”.

The amount of time a thief can be stealthed and access to stealth isn’t balanced. Doesn’t mean the class has the tools to survive if it’s changed, because it doesn’t. But stealth in this game has got to be the dumbest implementation of it I’ve ever seen.

Just stop. Your post was about initiative regeneration, not stealth, and that’s what I replied to. Furthermore, stealth is almost detrimental to teams in PvP, and is easily countered in both WvW and PvP by practically just swinging your sword around and spamming AoE while running in random directions. It works.

The problem with stealth is the initiative regen you [censored].

So…you’re kittening about patience? The SA trait no thief takes because it’s kittening awful, pointless, and clearly inferior to any player who’s ever spent an hour on a thief in PvP?

I mean…that’s the only thing you could possibly be kittening about, because otherwise you’re kittening about the initiative system in general, which is an old, tired, debunked argument to begin with.

Debunked? Since when… it’s plain as day that the initiative system isn’t designed well and the fact that there are a dozen different skills and traits to regen initiative is the main issue behind the whole class. The simple fact is there probably shouldn’t be any.

Arganthium.5638:

Atherakhia.4086:

Arganthium.5638:

Atherakhia.4086:

Larcenous strike should put a debuff on the target so they can’t gain new boons for 4 seconds. Then we wouldn’t need to spam it so often.

But you are right about one thing… the only legitimate complaint about thieves is how initiative regen is not balanced.

No.

Calculate the numbers for how much initiative we gain per second, and how much that benefits us, then compare with what other classes gain per second on their skills. Then tell me that it “isn’t balanced”.

The amount of time a thief can be stealthed and access to stealth isn’t balanced. Doesn’t mean the class has the tools to survive if it’s changed, because it doesn’t. But stealth in this game has got to be the dumbest implementation of it I’ve ever seen.

Just stop. Your post was about initiative regeneration, not stealth, and that’s what I replied to. Furthermore, stealth is almost detrimental to teams in PvP, and is easily countered in both WvW and PvP by practically just swinging your sword around and spamming AoE while running in random directions. It works.

The problem with stealth is the initiative regen you [censored].

Arganthium.5638:

Atherakhia.4086:

Larcenous strike should put a debuff on the target so they can’t gain new boons for 4 seconds. Then we wouldn’t need to spam it so often.

But you are right about one thing… the only legitimate complaint about thieves is how initiative regen is not balanced.

No.

Calculate the numbers for how much initiative we gain per second, and how much that benefits us, then compare with what other classes gain per second on their skills. Then tell me that it “isn’t balanced”.

The amount of time a thief can be stealthed and access to stealth isn’t balanced. Doesn’t mean the class has the tools to survive if it’s changed, because it doesn’t. But stealth in this game has got to be the dumbest implementation of it I’ve ever seen.

Larcenous strike should put a debuff on the target so they can’t gain new boons for 4 seconds. Then we wouldn’t need to spam it so often.

But you are right about one thing… the only legitimate complaint about thieves is how initiative regen is not balanced.

Step #1: Introduce a skill you channel for 10 seconds and if you do so without being hit or interrupted in any fashion, you stealth. It’s permanent until you reveal/attack.

Step #2: Remove the initiative regen from all skills and traits.

Step #3: Remove the stealth from combo field finishers.

That’s all it takes.

The only reason stealth is overpowered is because there’s so much initiative regen you can use CnD every 4 seconds. The only reason D/P is so powerful is because initiative regen is so high that you don’t lose that much damage from using the defense oriented pistol offhand. The main detractor from Thieves in WvW zerg fights is that you can always see them coming.

You can then worry about improving thief survivability since they’ll clearly be suffering with the now limited health regen, lack of condition removal, greater visibility uptime and the lack of stability/protection.

Hide: Remove yourself from site. Channeled 8 seconds. Channeling interrupted on damage or movement.

Stealth: Requires hide to be active. Allows you to move while hidden.

No other ways to get in stealth other than a skill on a one minute cooldown.

Of course if you do this, you’ll need to give Thieves ranger level health (+5k) and dramatically increase their damage because their burst ability has been removed entirely. At which point you’re probably better off just removing all the traits and abilities that increase initiative regen in any way and calling it a day.

Stealth isn’t the issue in this game. It’s initiative regen.

Tekyn.5376:

DevonCarver.5370:

We included the laurel cost to prevent the economy from suddenly being blown out and to not invalidate the ways PvE players can get ascended items already. This system means that it is faster to get them in WvW, especially for players who already have badges, without being so much faster that everyone only gets them in this manner. As for the difficulty of acquiring laurels in WvW, we have taken steps to address that, including the fact that there will always be 3 daily achievements that are WvW specific. Speaking personally, I’ve been able to achieve my dailies in WvW even without that change, but this should make it even easier.

I have three level 80’s and 7 sets of gear. It will take me over 12 months to get the 490 laurels I need. Is that how you intended the system to work? Should I go play another MMO while I grind out my dailies?

Have you played any other MMO before? How did it work there…

Gear is never just going to be handed to you. It will require effort. If you want to exclude various parts of the game, you’re not going to get things as quickly as those who don’t ignore them.

If you want gear faster than what 40 laurels a month can provide, you’ll have to put forth the effort to get the gear faster. So decide if you want to join a guild to do commendations, if you want to start running fractals, or prioritize the type of gear you want.

ANet is jumping through hoops to make the gear as accessible as possible. It’s up to you to decide how you get it and how quickly, but you will have to earn it.

As a side note, have they fixed the guild bug where you have to relog a dozen times to finally see your guild roster?

Junkpile.7439:

Atherakhia.4086:

Junkpile.7439:

Atherakhia.4086:

LotuS.4378:

Terkov.4138:

Huh? What’s wrong? It’s FASTER than getting them in PvE. You need to do dailies (less than in pve), and they can be done in WvW easily.

Ppl will always cry lol.

WOW!

10 fractals = asc ring + posi from daily. vs 25 days

You get the possibilty for a ring from world xp too.

The only thing a WvWer doesn’t get is the ability to cash out 10 pristine fractals for a ring of their choice. In exchange for this, your items come at a discount in laurels.

The only other legitimate arugment anyone has is the backpiece, and since those can be crafted, you’re going to have a tough time winning that argument.

What you people need to realize is that you’re not entitled to anything. You shouldn’t be forgotten when the time comes to hand out loot, but you shouldn’t get it for free either.

PvE’rs now have a method to get ascended gear.
PvP’rs now have a method to get ascended gear.

While these 2 overlap slightly, you can still get your gear strictly from one way or the other in the next patch. If you want to get the gear at a reasonable pace, you’ll have to work for it. It’s not going to be handed to you.

You kill mobs in fractal and get rings (lot’s of them). I kill enemies in www and won’t get rings. Doesn’t sound fair to me.

You haven’t run fractals I imagine.

I kill a ton of mobs for a chance at a ring once a day.
You kill a ton of players for a chance at a ring once a day.

As I said… the only legitimate complaint anyone has in this thread is the fact that PvE’rs can cash in 10 pristine fractals for a ring of their choice. On the flip side, if you choose to use laurels for the same gear, you get a sizable discount for doing it in WvW.

The only other complaint you have is the backpiece which you can craft, so I’m not even sure you have a legitimate point there.

Why players whine that they have too many ascended rings if those are hard to get? I saw screenshot where some player got 70 rings in bank.

So if you don’t have a clue how it works why are you commenting on it at all?

Fractals give you rings for your daily from levels 10+ as well as the pristine relic.
The daily only has a small chance to give you a ring but 100% chance to give the relic.
The rings aren’t unique (only unique equipped) so you can get the same one again.
On top of this, there are about 50 rings because each type has an offensive, defensive, and utility version of it.
10 relics lets you choose the ring you want from a vendor much in the same way laurels work.

When you see screenshots of hundreds of rings, there’s a reason they’re all in the guys bank or on alts… because they’re duplicates or ones he didn’t want or need.

[edit…] Oh I forgot, you can also do multiple dailys a day for every 10 fractals. Post below reminded me. 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, etc.

Junkpile.7439:

Atherakhia.4086:

LotuS.4378:

Terkov.4138:

Huh? What’s wrong? It’s FASTER than getting them in PvE. You need to do dailies (less than in pve), and they can be done in WvW easily.

Ppl will always cry lol.

WOW!

10 fractals = asc ring + posi from daily. vs 25 days

You get the possibilty for a ring from world xp too.

The only thing a WvWer doesn’t get is the ability to cash out 10 pristine fractals for a ring of their choice. In exchange for this, your items come at a discount in laurels.

The only other legitimate arugment anyone has is the backpiece, and since those can be crafted, you’re going to have a tough time winning that argument.

What you people need to realize is that you’re not entitled to anything. You shouldn’t be forgotten when the time comes to hand out loot, but you shouldn’t get it for free either.

PvE’rs now have a method to get ascended gear.
PvP’rs now have a method to get ascended gear.

While these 2 overlap slightly, you can still get your gear strictly from one way or the other in the next patch. If you want to get the gear at a reasonable pace, you’ll have to work for it. It’s not going to be handed to you.

You kill mobs in fractal and get rings (lot’s of them). I kill enemies in www and won’t get rings. Doesn’t sound fair to me.

You haven’t run fractals I imagine.

I kill a ton of mobs for a chance at a ring once a day.
You kill a ton of players for a chance at a ring once a day.

As I said… the only legitimate complaint anyone has in this thread is the fact that PvE’rs can cash in 10 pristine fractals for a ring of their choice. On the flip side, if you choose to use laurels for the same gear, you get a sizable discount for doing it in WvW.

The only other complaint you have is the backpiece which you can craft, so I’m not even sure you have a legitimate point there.

LotuS.4378:

Terkov.4138:

Huh? What’s wrong? It’s FASTER than getting them in PvE. You need to do dailies (less than in pve), and they can be done in WvW easily.

Ppl will always cry lol.

WOW!

10 fractals = asc ring + posi from daily. vs 25 days

You get the possibilty for a ring from world xp too.

The only thing a WvWer doesn’t get is the ability to cash out 10 pristine fractals for a ring of their choice. In exchange for this, your items come at a discount in laurels.

The only other legitimate arugment anyone has is the backpiece, and since those can be crafted, you’re going to have a tough time winning that argument.

What you people need to realize is that you’re not entitled to anything. You shouldn’t be forgotten when the time comes to hand out loot, but you shouldn’t get it for free either.

PvE’rs now have a method to get ascended gear.
PvP’rs now have a method to get ascended gear.

While these 2 overlap slightly, you can still get your gear strictly from one way or the other in the next patch. If you want to get the gear at a reasonable pace, you’ll have to work for it. It’s not going to be handed to you.

LilMcGinley.3890:

VOLKON.1290:

LilMcGinley.3890:

VOLKON.1290:

LilMcGinley.3890:

I believe the issue with laurels is that WvW’ers feel like we should FINALLY be rewarded with Ascended items after being ignored for so long, and now that we have been, we have to wait ANOTHER 2-3 months to outfit ONE character for WvW.

On the other hand, PvE’ers have been running fractals, stashing laurels and globs away for such items for many months.

I finished on my mesmer a couple months ago. What’s the hold up? I’m predominantly WvW, btw.

The hold up is that I don’t want to run fractals or spend laurels to gear my characters. I have a token from killing people that should reward me better than it currently does.

Ah, so you admit that the hold up is a conscious choice you’re making which is interfering with you gearing your character with ascended gear that, at best, only gives a slight boost to stats and no notable advantage? Good, we’re getting somewhere.

Here’s the weird part… if you’re WvWing so much, where are your laurels? I’ve had more dailies complete by accident in WvW than I can count, and it usually take a few minutes when I’m done in WvW for the night to finish off the daily through some easy means, such as crafting food for WvW, gathering mats for superior siege, making superior siege, etc.

If you’re not mostly geared by now on one character that you’ve played regularly for any period of time the fault is not with ANet.

You are missing the point. Laurels are for PvE’ers to use. Badges are for WvW’ers to use. Might as well remove badges as after a stack they are pointless.

No…

Badges are for PvE’rs to use. Every dungeon in the game comes with its own currency.

Laurels are something that anyone can get. Even if you want to pull the WvW card, you’d still have 75% of the Laurels of someone who did every daily/monthly ever as most could be done entirely within a borderland. I know because the only time I left a borderland to do my daily was for the ambient creature slaying because I could kill 100 frogs in 30 seconds in the swamp as opposed to hunting racoons for 20mins. Aside from that, I did all my daily achievements in borderlands and if you didn’t, that was an error on your part. No one elses.

their range makes them stand outside of the zerg and their damage is predominately single target, non-burst, and quite low.

Siege within a structure being used to siege other structures.
Overall class balance
-Things like AE not being handed out evenly between the classes.
-About half the classes having no use in the current zerg meta.
-Some classes being exceptionally strong at roaming being justification for them being awful at everything else.
Poor map design encouraging nothing but zerg play.
No real depth to the WvW, PvP, or class systems.
Sieging is boring.
WvW is boring.
No new meaningful content in 8 months.

Don’t need more maps, just more objectives on each map.

If you couldn’t capture an enemy tower on their side of the map unless you controlled all of your own towers on your map for example. This would require the enemy zerg to split up because they’d need to leave some at the keep they want to attack while sending others to retake something they lost. If they did it as one giant zerg they’d just lose another tower before they got back to the one thye were taking.

Warlord.9074:

I heard a Rumor that in the sometime near future anet is going to merge some servers. IDK if HoD is on that list or not.

They’d have to remove a whole tier. But it seems natural to merge servers if they’re not very populated.

Fergusson’s Crossing offers everything they offer! Come to us instead

I’d like to see tower hardpoints added. They would only take like 30 supply to build so only a few defenders could build up things. When they start to build they can choose for an arrow cart, cannon, catapult, or balista to be built there. Now these hard points have the advantage of being cheap, but the disadvantage of being easily destroyed.

Raf.1078:

Thieves can’t fight unless stealthed? Rangers and Engies manage okay….besides its only 30 seconds.

Are you proposing giving thieves 4k additional base hitpoints, access to protection, 1200 yard ranged attacks, a 1200 yard snare, a 1200 yard stun, out of stealth regen, a pet, and/or 20 redesigned traits and skills that don’t rely on stealth anymore?

Because if you are, I’m on board!

Rezzet.3614:

Evilek.5690:

Rezzet.3614:

Evilek.5690:

Rezzet.3614:

so thiefs say they got nerfed bad hmm lets see what it takes to kill people :

sword/pistol- #2 shadowstep-#3 9xhits(i hit for 9ks with only 62% crit)-#5-#3-#2-#2-#5-#3-#5-#3.

yup thief definetly is a hard to play class lol.

Thief vs Warrior dmg.
7719 vs 15743

ProTip: If you are going to compare something make it on equal standards no kitten the warrior did more damage he was buffed to oblivion and the thief wasnt.

i ll go do this next Buffed Thief test and post screens of damage myself

also you missed my point No Cooldown on thief #2 is a shadowstep/teleport away skill
# 3 does massive damage and has no cooldown

5 Perma blind so that warrior wont even tickle a thief.

No CD ??? First time learn Thief mechanism.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Initiative

Hundred Blades 8 sec CD Pistol Wip 6.65 sec CD WoW

Thief using the maximum 1x shadow step and 2x Pistol Wip(15438 DMG) =One Hundred Blades(15743 DMG) and what now ? Zero initiative and Thief can not use any other spells.

now note this was in PVP in wvw y ou can pretty much double that ridiculous damage as you can climb crit damage up to 110%+ and 100% crit rate

No one is running 100/100.

And didn’t the thief community do tests with pistol whip and determined it’s actually a DPS decrease over auto attack?

slingblade.1437:

Regarding Ranger pets triggering the traps, I’m gonna assume you don’t trigger a trap unless you are in a condition to trigger it, i.e., in stealth or carrying supplies. Otherwise the reveal trap would hardly seem worth it and would constantly be getting tripped by people not in stealth and wasted.

The supply-stripping trap should make for some more lengthy sieges, especially at the keeps, where you have to break through outer and inner gates/walls. I can see the traps really kittening up a zerg’s plans. Will be interesting to learn if you can place traps while in stealth.

I highly doubt this. I’m sure they’re triggered by anyone. If it was conditional like you’re suggesting it wouldn’t have a 1200 yard affected range.

Good for thief vs thief duels. First one to stealth and drop a trap wins.

What would be cool now is if they allowed Rangers and Thieves to see traps so they could disarm them like any sensible game would have done to begin with.

Attacking a keep should be complicated and time consuming. Now I don’t think buffing the arrow carts the way they did was the most ideal option, but it’s certainly better than the way things were.

All they need to do now is make it so siege built within a structure can’t harm surrounding structures and 2 of my fairly easy to fix complaints about WvW would have been fixed.

Clearly none of you have played a game with actual guild value in it.

If they’re seriously going to introduce guild housing, and guild events, and guild s/tPvP, how is the guild going to pay for it? Taxes… just like numerous MMO’s that came befor this one.

zTales.4392:

Pixels.6532:

How long can Anet continue to ignore these tears? I see only one solution to this thief epidemic:

1. Steal – no longer makes you invisible, instead makes you become 2x larger and expands your hit box by 100%. All enemy players within a 1,200 radius automatically target you and their projectiles become heat-seeking with 100% chance to crit and projectile finish.

2. Shadow Stepping – changed to Hide in Plain Sight, all shadow stepping skills now turn you into an ambient creature. Good Luck and DON’T MAKE ANY SUDDEN MOVEMENTS! Think bunny thoughts!

3. Steal – can no longer heal you or do damage to your opponent, instead you steal up to 2% of your opponent’s gold (note, on person, not in bank), but they get it back if they down you.

4. Thieves Guild – summon two thieves who immediately hide and wait for you to die. Once you’re dead, they riffle through your pockets looking for loose change.

5. Dagger Storm – changed to Spin to Win, summon Pat Sajak and a giant wheel. Spin the wheel while shouting “Come on big money!”

6. Hide in Shadows – goes on full CD if you are not in an actual shadow when you use this skill.
——————————————————————————-

That should do it…

I lol’d.

In all seriousness, though, I’d take away 0.5-1 second from each stealth skill. For example, I’d change the 3 second stealths to 2-2.5 second stealths.

Duration of stealth isn’t the issue. Amount of stealth is.

Again, it’s an initative regen problem and nothing more. Change some/all the traits that reward additional initiative or initiative on crit/stealth and you’d resolve 99.9% of the complaints in this thread.

Of course you then completely destroy the class and it would need to be redesigned from the ground up, but that’s also what most in this thread are advocating.

What should happen is a guild can introduce a tax and a percent of the gold you loot actually goes to the guild bank.

I only see 2 legitimate problems with the thief class: Initiative Regen and the ability to enter stealth repeatedly.

The worst thing ANet did with the thief design was balance it around 10 initiative points and then introduce a dozen ways to increase the total amount of initiative, the amount you regen, how you regen it, etc. If the class was properly balanced around the iniative mechanic a lof the complaints in this thread would be resolved.

The problem is the class would have to be nearly completely redesigned to function at all if they change it at this point. And considering the class currently doesn’t offer much of anything anywhere I think it’s a lost cause to expect ANet to change anything.

Just make siege controllable by anyone. People will start to clean it up when they leave because otherwise the enemy will just use it to get right back in.

Thus why stealth should give 1 second of endure pain when cast. Or at the very least protection…

I can’t agree with a lot of what I see here.

4s Stealth: I haven’t played the thief long, and when I started playing it the 4s change was already in place. But having the 3s reveal now I can see why people wanted it changed back because the class is far more fluid now. I would argue that if the 3s is here to stay in PvE/WvW then it should be reverted back in sPvP too because it’s simply too difficult getting used to the difference if you play both systems.

Shadow Refuge: Also strongly disagree with you here. I’m of the opinion this class should have legitimate perma stealth as it is. If you’re out of combat, you should be able to channel a long spell (10s for example) to stealth you and you remain stealthed until you’re hit or attack. Stealth loses much of its value when a target sees you stealth 1000yards away and can anticipate your attack.

Healing and Condi Removal: Also strongly disagree with this. Right now the Thief class has almost no mitigation available to it whatsoever. Its only chance at staying alive is avoidance. And since stealth doesn’t drop target properly and all spells in transit still hit, the regen is there to help marginalize this. But healing for the thief class is one of the weakest in the game.

I simply don’t understand why people who think stealth is overpowered keep trying to nerf stealth directly. It’s blatantly obvious that the reason stealth is so powerful for this class is because how often we can use it. We can only use it so often because initiative regen is so high. If you want to balance stealth useage (and conversly nerf healing, condition removal, burst, etc) then the target should be initiative regen.

Keep in mind though that this class is designed very badly. Even minor adjustments to the avoidance spells would require ENORMOUS boosts to mitigation factors and auto-attack damage.

Why? Because this class has such low auto-attack damage because it’s burst is so high. If you drop burst, you need to increase sustained damage to compensate for it because the class can’t stand toe to toe with anyone. If you drop burst by reducing the amount of times a thief can stealth, you then need to adjust for the fact that the thief is visible longer and thus need to increase mitigation since avoidance was reduced.

This class is just too poorly designed I think to try and make any sweeping changes to it. Even just the 4s revealed was too much for the class to cope.

They’re pretty small.. I’m not sure I’d notice them filling up unless I staired right at them. Be more useful to just have a timer in the corner of the screen that counted up to 10seconds repeatedly.

When I push the dodge button I dodge. I’ve never noticed a delay. but I’ve certainly noticed the delay in HS, Withdraw, Evasive Shot, BP, etc. It’s quite aggrivating when you use these moves 2 times because you just assumed the first click didn’t register kitten you $10 keyboard!).

evilapprentice.6379:

Atherakhia.4086:

Make dancing dagger provide aegis. Idea being it threw the enemy off target so their next attack can be countered easily.

Make CnD’s stealth provide endure pain.

That CnD change you’ve proposed is a bit over the top, don’t you think?

As for the DD change, I don’t see it as overpowered as much as not in line with the skills intended purpose. They designed DD as a ranged snare for a reason – it should function as one. It should either be a reliable ranged snare (through faster projectile time and either cheaper cost or no cast time), or a hybrid skill that does decent damage and snares your target, to justify the slow flight time, the wind up, and the cost.

I don’t feel a brief immunity to direct damage to be overpowered, no. Especially when you consider stealth doesn’t break target logically so all projectiles in path still hit. But if 4 seconds is too much, make it 2 seconds.

DD already snares. I also highly doubt we’ll see any damage on any skills increased for this class since they clearly don’t like the burst potential of this class. Anything that can be initiative dumped into a target will never be increased in damage.

What this class needs right now more than anything is longevity in battle. Any changes suggested should focus on this imo.

Make dancing dagger provide aegis. Idea being it threw the enemy off target so their next attack can be countered easily.

Make CnD’s stealth provide endure pain.

rchu.8945:

Atherakhia.4086:

You guys are just oblivious to what it is to be a thief in this game and that’s why most people don’t take a lot of what’s being discussed here seriously. The thief is powerful (hardly overpowered) in its own little niche, but that niche has no real role to offer to WvW. If people actually played the thief class and were actually honest with themselves, they’d see just how pitiful the class really is. Saying you played a thief and all you did was camp an entrance and gank uplevels is not being honest.

please stop playing the “we dont have a defined role in wvw” card, it’s really getting old. Most thieves didnt play the class to be a zerg support, most play for the ease of roaming, ganging, and high damage. Those three qualities offer many benefits for the thief class in WvW. To say thief is a pitiful class is a blatant lie, and you know it.

weeee lets play an mmo where I want to offer nothing to a group and play by myself all day! wweeeee1!!

This is a group game… each class should have a defined role. If you’re satisfied with your role being that of roaming in a game without any roamers and bringing nothing but blast finishers to a group, grats to you. Every modern mmo has had thieves in them and none of the others I’ve seen has had that class provide nothing in them.

The niche this class falls into no longer exists in this game. A new niche needs to be found. Too bad the class wasn’t given the tools to find/do it.

If the thief class were overpowered (which I don’t think it is. Not even remotely close), the problem would be related to initiative regen and not stealth, or burst damage, or condi removal, etc.

If initiative regen were nerfed, thief burst damage would be dramatically reduced. Their time in stealth would be dramatically reduced. Their regen and condition removal would be dramatically reduced. All the things people are complaining about.

But can you justify changing anything for a class that currently has nothing to offer to the current WvW meta? That is one of the more difficult classes to level? Has next to no value in PvE/Dungeons? Is fighting a battle to the death with Warriors for last place in s/tPvP?

The only thing the Thief is currently good at is killing other thieves or people in berserker gear. If you’re dying to a thief and you don’t have 2500+ armor and 17k+ health, you’re to blame… not the thief.

I’d be all for toning down thief burst in favor of enormous buffs to their auto-attack damage and actual mitigation (please recognize the difference between avoidance and mitigation if you’re going to continue in this thread). But why tone down Thief burst when it’s already not that great? How much more can it be nerfed?

I’d be all for toning down thief stealth in favor of enormous buffs to their actual mitigation and battle longevity. But is stealth really an issue? Or is it the amount of times a thief can stealth? Considering the health point handicap the thief class has, you’d have to give them much more access to condition removal if you change it.

You guys are just oblivious to what it is to be a thief in this game and that’s why most people don’t take a lot of what’s being discussed here seriously. The thief is powerful (hardly overpowered) in its own little niche, but that niche has no real role to offer to WvW. If people actually played the thief class and were actually honest with themselves, they’d see just how pitiful the class really is. Saying you played a thief and all you did was camp an entrance and gank uplevels is not being honest.

I have target assist and auto-attack turned off. I can’t say I’ve noticed anything really.

You know what would be a far better suggestion…. not allowing backstab to be blocked or evaded. Seems like a far more reasonable solution to this problem.

I don’t think so. Is Team Fortress 2 considered an eSport? I just don’t find the combat system in this game complex enough to really show off player skill. The current combat mode also doesn’t really show up group coordination that well either. And then you factor in the current bunker meta and there’s just nothing this game has that’s all that impressive.

Once bunkers are dealt with, classes are actually balanced to the point they’re each viable, and there was more to trait toward than just damage and mitigation I would say this game had potential of being a contender.

But how long are we going to wait for a new combat mode, bunkers not being the only option, and classes each offering something vital to the group?

What class are you that you’re being burst down by a Thief? Because the only classes that are burst down by thieves are either in full berserker or are other thieves. If you refuse to wear toughness then you kind of lose any right to complain when you’re killed by burst regardless of the class it’s coming from.

For PvE? Doesn’t make much of a difference from my experience. Most everyone just runs full berserkers for everything that I’ve come across.

WvW I shoot for 3000 armor if it’s possible. For a Warrior, 3000 is a piece of cake. For a thief, getting that much means my health is too low and conditions start to become a problem. I try to shoot for 17khp and 2.7k armor.

Not sure how you came to the conclusion that the class is the golden child of GW2 given its current status in the game.

Leveling: One of the more difficult classes.
PvE: Offers nothing.
Dungeons: Offers nothing.
WvW: Offers nothing in the current meta and is only good at roaming and ganking scrubs.
PvP: In a fight to the death with Warriors for the most dysfunctional class award.

Really, unless you’re running around in full berserkers gear and/or playing a thief, you shouldn’t be having issues against Thieves.

Ferg’s Crossing has a few Brits and Aussies who play late at night into the early morning. Not enough apparently as we’re stuck in T8 almost exlusively because of the lack of night time coverage. But they’re on the community teamspeak each night if you want to swing by and say hello.

Just guest on the server and speak to anyone in TTA, SS, or WZ and they can get you the community teamspeak information for you to check it out.