Guild Wars 2

Try a bomb/elixir gun build in dungeons. The combos add a nice edge.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIq6Z3yyuF17IyIFf2ECSBgVXfeIXpVbB;TkAg0CnoqxUjoGbNuak1MIA

Something like that. Access to water, light, fire and smoke fields and 5 separate blast finishers with 18, 20, 30, 37 and 180 timers respectively, means you just about always have a field to lay and blast finisher to activate it.

People trying to distract the discussions from the OPness of Mesmer portals and shatters.

So okay, yes Backstab thieves are OP too. That doesn’t mean Mesmers are not. Nerf them both by all means.

Mesmers need portals because they have no swiftness? Then sure, give them some swiftness skill and remove/nerf portals.

Shatter is the only decent build? Then I’m happy for the other builds to get a buff, as long as the OP build gets a substantial nerf.

If running an elixir build, then Elixir H of course.

If not, then Healing Turret. I know it is not popular, but I don’t really use it like a turret. I drop it, wait one tick, then explode it. That gives you the heal, the AoE heal, and a complete condition cleanse on a 20 sec cycle, which is better than an untraited Elixr H and can be done much more quickly in the thick of a fight than medkit.

Wasabi Kitty.8247

This thread is ridiculous.

Every time, in any online game, when something is a little bit too powerful, then the people who play that class/champion/whatever it is in that game, will defend it to the end of time. Most people will swear all day that something isn’t too strong and shouldn’t be nerfed. It’s completely ludicrous.

You can see it in any online game. In LoL people will spend all day defending a champ that they play that’s OP. Hell even when Xin Zhao was released the people who played him insisted that he wasn’t OP. No, he was completely broken.

Thieves give way too much reward for how easy they are to play. And yes, I have a thief. They are too strong, get over it.

I agree. The community does not help as much as it could in describing a balanced game for devs to aim for. There are too many people trying to rationalise/justify OP classes.

It might sound mad, but I think there is an argument for using some more neutral/simplistic guide for who should be nerfed. If the devs applied a rule something to the effect of “Any class played +25% or more above the average should be nerfed.”

It ignores all the subtlties of class analysis and just works purely on the assumption that any class played that much in PvP must be OP. This has been true for EVERY MMO I have ever played. The OP classes always attract a lot of people who want an easy route to success.

Gaile Gray

With all due respect, I trust our Security Team implicitly. If they are recommending this, I’ll take their advice, and I’ll encourage our players to do the same.

Very wise, given that I am just a random GW2 player and you have no reason to place any faith in my knowledge of security.

However, while I am sure your trust in your security advisors is well placed, noone is infallible. It might well be worth taking this question to them explicitly.

If it helps, here is the simplest exaplanation I can give as to why redundant password changing is a security risk.

Assumption – if my GW2 account has been compromised, the hacker will ransack it in such a way that I would know I had been hacked. I’m assuming therefore scenario in question relates to uncompromised accounts.

Risks to my security relating specifically to hackers getting my password:

1) Brute Force
An attacker tries all permutations of valid characters. Eventually the attack will find my password.

Mitigations:
- Most defences against brute force should be server side (i.e. not allow loads of failed log in attempts against my account consequetively in a short space of time.
- Password strength. The GW2 advice on password strength is solid and should be followed.
- Mobile authenticator. This should make brute force attacks so hard as to be effectively impossible.

Impact of changing my password from valid to valid:
- None. I have no way of knowing whether a given new password would be cracked sooner or not because I do not know what they have already tried or what order their algorithm works in.

2) Man in the Middle
A server routing my information from my computer to Anet has been compromised and sniffs my password data.

Impact of changing my password from valid to valid?
None. It is equally probable that they will sniff my new password as my old.

3) Local system infected with key logger
If my machine is infected with a key logger, everything I type can be logged and sent to the hacker, including my password (if I type it!)

Mitigations
- Type my password only when absolutely necessary. Use the “remember my password” option provided by GW2. I should point out that GW2 is one of the very few games offering this feature, making it a more secure game than most.
- Local virus checker and malware detection. Frequent scans.
- Mobile authenticator. This effectively makes key logged passwords useless and protects entirely against this form of attack (unless your phone is also infected by the same hacker).

Impact of changing my password from valid to valid?
WORSE security, because I will have typed my new password when setting it rather than using the “remember my password” option.

I’m going to finish by saying that obviously this is just my personal view and I recommend all players follow the advice from Anet rather than myself. I’m writing this just because it is relevant and perhaps when reviewing it, it can constructively contribute to Anet’s approach.

I linked it and had these issues. I unlinked it and STILL have the disconnections. Very shortly I will BIN GW2 as unplayable if no word comes from Anet about a fix.

Gaile, you may not be aware of this, but unnecessarily changing your password actually marginally REDUCES your account security. I can explain why if you like but it would require quite a detailed step through of risks and mitigations.

I am currently being prompted by the launcher to change my password redundantly. Now, I understand network security well enough not to do so, but thousands of users won’t and will faithfully follow the advice unnecessarily and thus add to the risk to their accounts.

blue.8629

Complaining about choosing to spend your own money? Shock kitten #8230; it’s luck, random. Don’t complain you’re the idiot for buying them and then complaining…

This is a lose-lose argument. You’re saying people should not bother buying the chests if they want to avoid disappointment. So the players get nothing of interest from Halloween and Anet make no money at all? Not a good solution is it?

Surely the solution we are looking for is for players to spend money and feel like they got decent value.

Hi,

Regarding this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/halloween/22-Chests-opened-nothing-unique/first

I have a suggestion. Each BL chest during Halloween should drop a small amount of a special currency (I dunno, “Tiny Vial of Witches Brew” or some such). After X number of chests (I’d say 10 might be a good number, but Anet can work that out) you should have enough of the currency to purchase one of the new skins.

This means that someone spending $20 (or whatever) would be guaranteed a special Halloween treat.

All in favour say “Whoooooooooooo, spooky”

It’s a shame, but I am glad I have not bought any keys yet. This thread has put me off doing so.

Kinda thinking I should never buy gems just in protest. I understand their need to make money, but there’s difference between turning a profit and gouging your loyal customers.

I like the class, compared to the other classes I have tried extensively:

- It’s more interesting than the Thief. Thieves are so OP it is stupid, but they are actually really dull to play unless you get your kicks from easy kills.

- It’s more accessible than the engineer. Okay this is my way of saying I lack skills. Engineer has great potential I think, but it takes a lot of skill juggling.

- It’s more viable than the warrior. Warriors in PvP are sub-par and after playing one a while I started actually getting kinda angry that there are so few decent tools in the box. Had to stop before I had an adrenalin rage IRL.

Necro is not the strongest PvP toon but it is competitive, and it has several quite different builds to keep life interesting.

The only thing I HATE about necro is the lazy minion implementation. Anet should fix that but I bet they won’t for ages (the reason being we’re a pretty good class even without the minion build option).

Daays.4317:

Backstab doesn’t need a damage nerf.

It needs a function nerf.

All abilities of other classes in this game have cooldowns. If you miss your 30 second cooldown, it still goes on cooldown.
All thief abilities use initiative. If you miss with your ability, you still spend the initiative.

Backstab doesn’t require initiative (because it already has a precursor) but it’s spammable. Meaning if you put up a block, I can spam into it as many times as I want. Blind? Just keep spamming.

Stealth should break when you use backstab. There is no reason a thief should get 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 chances to backstab someone. It makes well timed blinds/blocks/dodges pointless.

That’s a really good point, Daays. A CD on BS would help a lot. Or a massive initiative cost.

@Daecollo

I don’t agree, and I think comments like that cloud the waters unhelpfully. PvP is not 1 on 1, so “predicting” what your opponent is going to do is not possible. Even if you do choose to single out a thief and ignore all other considerations just to try to beat him, what if there are two thieves in the match?

Bright Wizards used loads of pseudo-plausible rationalisations to stave off the nerf bat. I sincerely hope thieves are less successful in flannelling the devs.

@aydenunited

I know mate, but the point is, a thief needs no special knowledge beyond his basic weapons set, and tbh not all of that, to kill just about anyone in the game. It’s always some variation of CnD, mug, BS and HS, or shortbow harrassing.

Is it not a bit lopsided that the whole community needs to take a degree course in how to kill thieves and mesmers, but they can just turn up with a basic knowledge and STILL win most fights.

This whole situation is classic class imbalance. Most MMOs with PvP go through this exact thing. It might as well be scripted.

1) Community moans about OP class
2) OP class players say l2p we’re not OP
3) Some of the community reroll as OP class, others leave, others continue complaining.

The future of GW2 depends on what Anet choose step (4) to be. In WAR, step (4) was to ignore balance concerns over Bright Wizards, and step (5) was the game going into a spiral. In The Secret World, step (4) was to ignore the concerns over Assault Rifle and step (5) was TSW becoming practically a PvE-only game.

Interestingly, WoW made Step (4) to address balance concerns by adopting a r-p-s model, which apparently is sustainable but it does rather rely on people not minding that 80% of PvP is decided before you enter the map.

You might be tired of seeing nerf threads, but those are the ones that need to be taken note of. This “advice” thread is not part of the solution, and you know what that means.

Yes, if only there were some way to avoid aoes, like evades or big circles painted on the ground.

The thread needs to be renamed. This is not 7 ways to kill a thief. It is 7 pieces of advice on how not to insta-die to a thief and in some cases it’s bad advice.

I can give you a method to kill a thief that works 50% of the time, which is way better than any of this stuff: roll a thief. You will see from the soaring thief population that more and more people are taking this advice.

If Anet do not do something about thieves soon, it’s going to be Thief Wars.

Without PvP balance, GW2 will gradually lose players. Thieves and Mesmers are currently the biggest things in need of balance, so if they don’t do it it will be bad for the game.

The thief community currently is spreading misinformation about how easy it is to counter thieves. It’s not easy. Dodging has only limited impact and if you have to create you build specifically to mitigate thief OPness, then that’s an admission of imbalance.

Necro doesn’t feel like a broken class to me. I think the main problem that Minion spec is broken, and let’s face it, a lot of people drawn to necros would want to play that. There are other bugs, but if you fixed minions, the other bugs would seem more reasonable.

However, compared to Mesmer (in PvP at least) Necro is going to feel a lot worse. Mesmer is still slightly OP if you ask me, and Necro isn’t.

Tulisin.6945:

Cribbage.2056:

Leaving aside claims of OPness for a moment and all these claims about what actually is and isn’t possible for thieves in a fight, I have a couple of questions:

1) If thieves are not one of the best classes in the game, why is it they are BY FAR the most commonly played class. In sPvP they are almost always the most played class in any given instance and it’s really not uncommon to see 50% or more of the people in a match playing thieves.

2) If thieves are not one of the best classes in the game, why do almost all tPvP teams have them? That’s certainly not true of most other classes.

Thieves are a standard fantasy archetype. You’ll notice the three most popular professions by far in polling are elementalist, warrior, and thief, usually in that order. People feel very comfortable in these professions because they recognize the archetype from other games they’ve played. Furthermore, the hype around thief power, regardless of whether it is justified, has led more people to give thief a go since release, which causes the hype to perpetuate.

I’ve yet to play a single profession that didn’t make me feel like “this is one of the best professions in the game”. It is one of the things GW2 has managed to do very well.

Well you’ve inadvertently strengthened my arguments. It’s true that thief, warrior and elementalist are quite archetypal, but you actually see very, very few warriors or elementalists in sPvP, and they would only get into tPvP as PuG, niche comp or with people who value egalitarianism over winning.

I’d be interested in seeing your build Ruufio. I’ve been thinking hybrid is the way to go, which is partly what got me thinking along this power/bleed line.

Leaving aside claims of OPness for a moment and all these claims about what actually is and isn’t possible for thieves in a fight, I have a couple of questions:

1) If thieves are not one of the best classes in the game, why is it they are BY FAR the most commonly played class. In sPvP they are almost always the most played class in any given instance and it’s really not uncommon to see 50% or more of the people in a match playing thieves.

2) If thieves are not one of the best classes in the game, why do almost all tPvP teams have them? That’s certainly not true of most other classes.

I mean, seriously, before giving a defensive knee-jerk response, give some thought to this.

It’s true that for point (2) there are other standard tPvP classes like guardian, but you don’t see sPvP flooded with those. Thief is the dominant PvP class.

To my mind this can only be down to the strength of the class. All other factors would level out statistically.

Thanks for the info.

My normal power build, I have spec’d for Wells and don’t have a very high crit chance.

It’s 17 hits between siphon and claws. On a 50% crit build that would give 9 crits, which would mean 6 stacks of bleed. That’s in 6 seconds, which probably means it is not as fast as building bleeds from a S/D and Staff Bleed build. It would also have low condition damage.

I think what you would end up with is a decent power build that has the added bonus of stacking a lot of bleeds. I actually don’t know whether that’s a good thing! Will have to try it to find out.

This is a question more than a suggestion, so all comments are welcome. I’d prefer comments based on experience rather than theory, if possible.

I’ve been using a power build in sPvP recently, and having fun with it. I use A/F and D/H and the build is intentionally built around frequent switching. One thing I do as often as I can is apply Life Siphon and Ghastly Claws in quick succession. They are both easy to apply and have decent DPS.

While doing that I wondered whether the 9 hits for siphon and the 8 from claws each have a chance to crit. I believe I read somewhere that they do. Anyone know for sure?

It then occured to me that if they CAN crit, you might be able to stack quite a few crits pretty quickly, and so stack bleeds very quickly. So I made this build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRAnd4YjMap7xbub87JipCZD6RueftieQMjxMA;TwAA2CoogxMjYGrPOYk+sCYUxOgZFA

Anyone have any experience trying something like this or know whether it woud work or not?

NOTE – I have not posted this in the builds thread because this is not a serious suggestion and I don’t actually use it.

dooger.2640:

First Game Ever I have not enjoyed instanced pvp.. Which is weird as I I have enjoyed instanced pvp running in structured teams alot over the last 10 or so years.

we used to even set up team competitions in warhammer, and i held most wins on my server for like a year and a half until I stopped playing.. WoW arena got boring fast after a season (but I still enjoyed the battlegrounds), chasing a druid around a pillar for an hour.. no thanks.

Its not hard, Balance is always on going, as are bug fixes.

It just feels I am playing someone else’s character, I mostly do it to test watered down builds for wvw.

Water combat and downed kinda blow, but its not that, it just get so kitten boring so fast. It jsut does not feel strategic, it feels more pveish, and tracking timers or some gimmick.

I cant totally put my finger on it, anyone else feel same way?

I do wish we could have some additional scenarios we could play our real characters in, to take a break when wvw is slow..

I enjoy sPvP, but I can see where you are coming from. It could be better. Key improvements needed, I would say are:

1) Less claustrophobic maps. Currently there is way too much charging from node to node, which does not have sufficient tactical depth to be really satisfying.

2) More tactically varied maps. Every map at the moment feels more or less the same in terms of tactics. Some capture the item, king of the hill, etc maps would add diversity and keep people thinking a bit more.

I will also say that downed and water combat get more interesting the more you play. They have their own tactics and it takes a fair amount of time to learn enough about them to start enjoying their contribution to the overall game.

Good post, I agree with a lot of it, except:

Downed state is a positve overall I would say. It adds an extra dimension and without it I think combat would be less interesting. It’s not worth comparing downed abilities across classes. You have to compare the classes as a whole. Sure, some are stronger when downed, but then some are stronger when up. I notice Anet have tried to make the downed abilities consistent with the classes (e.g. thief is about evading the finish, guardians heal through it, necros fear and poison).

Having this extra dimension does make the challenge of balancing classes that much harder, mind you.

One additional positive that I personally would add – GW2 combat has avoided the classic heal vs DPS model. In every other game I’ve played the tactics of group PvP have been identical (CC healer, assist train on DPS). The whole self heal thing has gotten away from that, which is a big plus. 10 years of that old heal-dps chestnut was way more than enough for me.

Aga.8641

People trying to defend Necro power builds for PvP…Lol. I’m completely sure I’ve never died to a power Necro in a 1vs1, on any class. All you need to do is dodge or remove the immobilize and you can’t lose, even if you don’t all you need to do is wait and step out of the Wells as soon as possible and then the Necro is left useless.

If you want to run a power build in PvP, don’t play necro, it’s as simple as that. Every other class does it considerably better.

It’s possible you’ve never played against a decent power build. The dagger immob is way too situational so a decent power build doesn’t use it unless he’s confident of pinning you in a the wells.

Whereas, using Axe/Focus he can Chill and Cripple you, on short CDs, severely limiting your mobility, while hitting you with the 600 range Axe DPS. Ghastly Claws is very nice damage. With Axe/Focus, the wells are as much for defence as offence, providing protection, healing and condition clearing. They help with offence, but are not critical to it.

I’ve found both power and condition builds to be okay in PvP.

If you go d/d + wells, you’re looking to immob someone in the well while you auto and drain them. It works pretty well, but you need to be picking people off and avoiding groups where possible.

If you go axe+ you rely more on the retaliation and building DS quickly.

Condition builds also vary, but usually you can be a bit less disciplined about your tactics as they have higher survivability and more flexibility in apply damage.

tOss.9024:

Aga.8641:

No class, whatever spec, should be able to hit just about anyone with 10k+ in 1 hit. It’s just absurd.

What I find really funny is that ANet went on about how they wanted balance, yet they somehow let stuff like assassin signet + backstab into the game, what kind of useless testing did they do before release?

Maybe the envisioned people working together? Ie:peeling the thief or using the revive spells given?

I don’t see how this argument stacks up. If it was your whole team against one thief, then sure (although peeling doesn’t work in GW2 like it does in WoW you will find), but it’s the thief plus his team against your team. You can work together but so can they.

I personally don’t have a problem with burst damage, but my view is that burst damage should take a large chunk out of your pretty quickly, it shouldn’t take you from full health to dead in just a few seconds.

Haven.6531:

All this crying about thief and warriors etc is just stupid because if you want, you can instantly make a warrior or thief with the “overpowered” skill sets. It’s an mmo, balance isn’t going to be perfect. If you want perfect balance, perhaps rock paper scissors is more suited to you.

As you suspected, you are missing something. That something being the end result if people do as you suggest.

If a couple of classes are more powerful than the others in PvP, and if as you suggest people all roll those classes in order to be able to play without getting constantly owned in unfair fights, the game will end up with just 2 classes in PvP. That’s happened to some games in the past, and it makes a very, very dull game.

People talk about “balance” like it is some lofty ideal or deep philosophical point to be debated. That kinda misses the point that in games, a FAIR game is the only one that is enjoyable for all people playing.

It’s everywhere you look in life, if you care to pay attention. You could change your final comment to be “if you want balance, play just about any game in the world.”

Knyx.5926

@ Cribbage
lol @ you using logic. Clearly not, you just repeated the same disproven and failed argument that makes zero sense only showing you do not play thief beyond maybe a few spvp matches, and lack serious knowledge about the class in any form of depth to be considered for an argument based on it.

When you QUOTE someone there is no jumping to conculusions and using ISOLATED figures when i quoted EVERYTHING you said. You are just as bad as the guy who said backstab damage increases when the targets health decreases.

Soooo … quoting me makes it impossible for you to have jumped to a conclusion.

Wow, you must be a professor of logic or something, because personally I see no logical relationship between the fact you quoted me and the validity of your own comments. You really showed me there.

What I was trying to say was logically the problem cannot be buff stacking. It can only be at best buff stacking when applied to backstab or at worst backstab regardless of buff stacking. That’s logically irrefutable. If you don’t know why, it can only be because you do not understand logic.

@Knyx

It’s going to be impossible for us to discuss this helpfully if I use logic and you just quote isolated figures and jump to conclusions from them.

For what you say to be true, Assassin’s Signet would have to be only used by the full BS build thieves. Now I know it is true that they are the main users of it, but any weaponset CAN try to use it (the fact you don’t think it is a great idea does not change that). Similarly, any weaponset can be built around might stacking. Some it would be pointless, but others it would be a valid strategy.

If you nerf might/buff stacking, then any build that is not BS-dependent will get worse. Builds that are not currently overpowered. It should be obvious to anyone, that a general nerf, impacting builds that are not currently OP, would be unfair and would in fact narrow a thief’s choices, not broaden them.

Whereas nerfing the base damage of BS would be a very good way to deal with the problem of buff stacking. When you stack buffs, you amplify the base damage. That means a small nerf to the base damage also gets amplified. So to take a big chunk out of the fully buff AS scenario, you only have to take a small chunk out of the unbuffed BS damage.

A small chunk out of BS damage for MH D build NOT reliant on BS is not going to be a big deal. Some of those builds will be condition based or not reliant on stealth, which will mean BS plays a very minor role.

Zsymon.8457:

The problem is, if they nerf backstab, then it will be really weak in any build other than glass cannon dual dagger. Without going full offense and using a 1min cd signet, backstab really isn’t that powerful at all.

It’s the damage stacking that causes these insane burst numbers, not the ability of backstab itself. I think a solution would be to give assassin’s signet another purpose, and completely remove the +150% damage. Without that signet, no one gets one shotted anymore, and more defensive thief builds can still do damage with backstab then, since they never used the signet in the first place.

I realise you have thought this through very carefully and some others share your opinion, but I do not see how it can be right. In fact I think you kinda have it backwards.

If damage stacking were the problem, it would be a problem on any build, because you can stack buffs with any weapon. And if you nerf the damage stacking you nerf ALL those builds which are not overpowered.

The damage stacking is only a problem when you use backstab. And yes, nerfing backstab will be a small nerf to other builds using MH dagger, but I feel it’s a bit of a reach to claim that’s a reason not to do it. Builds not built around BS are by definition not relying heavily on its DPS, so should not be impacted heavily by a nerf.

Compared to some builds (d/d and p/d particularly) the P/P is not as effective. But it is still a build you can run with for most sPvP and be competitive. I do it sometimes just for fun. P/P is fun.

I think you will find that is NOT the general type of person who posts about nerfs. There are over 20 people in this thread alone supporting the idea that BS is OP and that’s the only one who has mis-quoted the BS skill. So you basically just said that a 1/20 proportion represents the general trend.

That’s the problem with discussions like this. People use posturing and hyperbole to try and badger other users into accepting their points It would be better to let your points stand on their own without all that stuff. People would be much more likely to reach consensus.

I might be slightly off topic here, not sure, but I’ll say it anyway – I hate PvE as a rule. Once I have a max level character I go into PvP-only mode and ignore the raiding or other PvE endamge entirely. I almost never have alts because I can’t face repeating the levelling process.

In GW2 I got to 80, got my story to the point where I would have to do a dungeon to progress it (yuck) and instead of immediately going to JUST PvP I rolled an alt! So now I PvP and level that alt.

I think this all means that GW2 PvE must be more fun than other games!

I agree that no endgame gear treadmill is a MASSIVE plus. Well done Anet for that one.

Really, Kudow, you should go re-read this thread from the start and pay some attention to your own posts.

You have a tendency when someone disagrees with you to call them clueless and acuse them of not reading what you said. That’s a bad sign, and if in the cold light of day you don’t realise why it is a bad sign, that is actually a worse sign.

Try to bear in mind that what people have here are opinions. And those opinions are hinging around such ephemera as how easy it is to execute a given set of moves while other players are executing a given set of counter moves – in a changable context. That’s not an exact science and what you provide the discussion is hardly irrefutable evidence. So people who post arguments counter to your own are not doing it because they are “clueless” or “idiots”.

My opinion is that BS does too much damage for an easily applied skill. They can’t make it harder to apply, since any immob or stun that the target cannot break, even one applied by another player, gives you pretty much a guaranteed BS chain. On top of that, any player whose attention is on one of your team mates rather than you gives you an extremely good BS opportunity. Since these things cannot be changes, the damage needs to be toned down. None of the other stealth attacks have anything like the burst of backstab – why should BS be so special?

Kurow.6973

Yes! When I’m on my thief, I don’t specifically “run backstab”. However, backstab is always there if I have dagger in MH. It’s a weapon skill. People need to stop kittening and get better.

If backstab dependent thieves were so hard to counter, I wouldn’t be killing every single one of them that jumps me.

As for AS, when did I say I don’t use AS? Ofc I use AS when it’s necessary (while running a pure physical damage build for example). It’s a utility skill. Doesn’t make it OP just because I use it. AS is a one time use in most fights. By your logic, every single utility you equip is OP.

People seem to lack serious logic when qqing about classes and skills it seems.

PS: Backstab IS easily countered by GOOD players. Which there’s a serious lack of. However, there’s a huge presence of BAD players. If someone runs backstab and manages to kill BAD players, then bravo for them…there’s a lot of them.
However, this does NOT justify any kind of nerfing

I was just pointing out that you argue both sides of the toss. On the one hand you trash Assassin’s Signet and are at pains to say how easily countered BS is, but on the other hand you use both.

Either you think the skills are bad or they are the ones you like well enough to play. Trashing them but choosing to use them out of all those available to you makes your argument unconvincing.

This is not helped when the main thrust of your argument is that nearly all players are bad at PvP. Clearly, applying basic frequency distribution, the majority players of the game will be AVERAGE. If the majority of players cannot easily counter a backstab thief, that means the average player cannot counter a backstab thief, which means backstab is OP.

The fact that you and a few other thieves have convinced yourselves that all decent players should (a) construct their builds entirely around the need to counter thieves and (b) be prescient in their dodging abilities (i.e. the lol comment of “just dodge as soon as he steals”) doesn’t actually mean thieves are easily countered in practise. It just means they can be countered in theory and that in practise it sometimes works. That’s very different.

Shortbow is a really good weapon for both DPS and utility. I feel like the slightly shorter range is a good penalty for that. You have to put yourself slightly more in harm’s way to use it, which means you have to play with a little skill.

I actually find our long range game perhaps the most satisfying aspect of being a thief. It’s both balanced and interesting, I would say.

So you don’t have Assassin’s Signet on your build then? And you don’t run a backstab build because you find yourself being too easily countered?

Khairos.3890:

http://i.imgur.com/nm1z9.jpg

Thief was the first class I played, and the only class I’ve taken to 80.

The journey was long and fun, I used Death Blossom a majority of the way to dispatch groups of enemies and I don’t know, I guess it wasn’t really the most effective choice, but I had fun with it.

Then I hit 80, picked up a Dungeon Chestpiece so that I could LOOK like a level 80 instead of level 10 (Sorry, I’m also disappointed with the Medium Armor styles >_>), then jumped into my Endgame, World vs. World, with a very dedicated WvW guild.

Soon, I found that my D/D Death Blossom was a not popular Thief strategy for WvW, and I branched out and tried many builds and weapon combinations. I tried the “glass cannon” D/D backstab thing, tried P/D but didn’t feel like I was contributing much, and I bit the bullet and tried S/P but I just didn’t find it very fun at all.

I often feel like I took another class to 80, and I tried with Necromancer and Guardian as you can see in the picture, but I always return to my Thief. I think it’s because I’ve been spoiled by the passive 25% movespeed sigil, and also since it was 80, and that I invested a LOT of time into it, so I might as well make the best of it.

Has anyone else been a similar situation? How did you make playing Thief fun to you again? I’d like to hear something cause I’m not sure if I should continue to commit time to my Thief or just bite the bullet and invest an enormous amount of hours on a new character.

Not quite sure if you are talking about all level 80 end game or just WvW. Personally, I like my thief in WvW. I heartily dislike the D/D BS build, so generally play something else (most of the others are good) but actually rely heavily on my shortbow.

Having said that, I got tired of my thief in sPvP, being a bit samey on most builds and always the spectre of D/D FotM hanging around (if you use it you are lame in my view, but if you don’t use it, you feel kinda irritated when you underperform). So I tried a few other classes.

I settled for the last few days on necromancer. It’s a good all round class and has competitive builds in both sPvP and WvW without being OP. And if you think you’ve been spoiled by the speed signet on thief, consider this – most thieves would say that signet compromises the effectiveness of their builds, whereas a necro can easily make a perma-swiftness build and move noticeably FASTER than a thief without any significant compromise.

If you were going 3/3 armour, why wouldn’t you go 2/2/2 and get an extra +15% bleed duration? It’s krait/centaur/affliction I believe.

Using spear 5 is godlike and with spear 3 it becomes even better. I am wondering whether spear 5 will get nerfed at some point. I’ve had whole groups of players around me getting extremely frustrated at not being able to make any impact on me between them.

A couple of days ago I got really tired of playing my thief in sPvP. It’s a great class, but I really felt it’s a no win class in terms of satisfaction. You can either rule on a FotM build or you can feel a bit stupid playing a less effective build.

I dabbled in a few classes lazily, hoping one would jump out as interesting and effective without being lame. Necro really hit the spot.

I’ve tried a marks/wells build, a power dagger build, a bleed build and other more random combinations and it’s been great fun. On the wells, bleeds or dagger builds I really felt like I had the potential to be competitive (once I got better at playing the class) but also challenging.

There a many classes whose HP and toughness (and cleansing, etc) play a larger role in their survivability than evasion and mobility does.

Have a look through a thief’s utility options. There are relatively few decent escapes and cleanses. That’s why a BS thief is really not that atypical having weak ones.

I’m not saying they make no compromise. They definitely do. But as you almost said yourself – playing BS takes you from squishy to more squishy. Whereas it takes your offence from good to lethal. That lack of symmetry is practically the definition of imbalance in my view.

In sPvP Ambush trap can be a decent weapon. If you don’t run a FotM build, but just go for one of the numerous high DPS, much dodging/evading options, then Ambush can add a chunk of DPS. It’s even better if you get the reduced trap cooldown trait.

That said, summoned thieves die easily and some opponents can neutralise them very quickly.

Tripwire could be a decent part of a backstab build in WvW I reckon, though this is just guessing. If you were roaming and trying to pick people off, a tripwire in a doorway might be a good way to get your chain off.

Actually, that’s not what I was saying. I was saying that all things being equal (the starting point for any comparison, I would have thought), thieves are the most difficult class I encounter.

That’s because other classes can rarely give me an even run, whereas an equally skilled theif will inevitably do so.

I think most of the complaints along the lines of “I can’t beat a thief” are probably dealt with by your comments, Drake.

But the comments about backstab thieves killing people before that person has any option of reacting are where I believe the valid criticisms fall. It’s not every fight be any means but it is common enough for it to be a problem.

In which case you are making a point about the players you’ve faced and not the class itself.

Unless we can expect Iron Wolf to similarly never meet a decent thief, it’s hard to see how your comments can be applied to his question about classes.

Kurow

It’s not abusing, if it’s a build strictly built with no survivability and all offense put into 1 attack. It is a choice! You either choose to run a 1 combo wonder, fail and die against decent/good players, or you don’t and play smart.

Seriously, people in this game give me such a headache with some of their comments.

At what point does a thief start having low survivability exactly? I’m so tired of seeing this claim.

Speccing for BS with huge burst requires no compromise on your ability to evade, dodge, stealth or just plain run away? These things will be the mainstay of your survivability on ANY thief build, and speccing for backstab does not hurt them.

If there are thief builds out there that rely on toughness and HP for survivability more than mobility and evasion, I’m not aware of them.

Well firstly, if you did not mean “low HP/low armour” by squishiest, what did you mean?

Secondly, most thieves will often either be dead or under 25% HP after an opposing thief applies the BS chain. So yes, dying to a HS is quite likely at that point.

Thirdly, if you are not having trouble with opposition thieves, that means all those thieves are having trouble with you – a thief. If it is so easy to counter a thief, why are THEY not countering you? Clearly, the answer can only be in skill level. Against an equally skilled theif, they should have all the same advantages and disadvantages that you have, which means it should at the very least be an even fight and not an easy fight. Arguing anything else is just plain irrational.