Guild Wars 2

Rayya.2591:

Archonis.7249:

Rayya.2591:

Lucky.4263:

“you must find an player without condition removal , stunbreaker , invulnerability / mobility skills.”..
we have to do all of that to match one ability. (im a S/P user i do not spam HS and any skilled thief wuldnt, its not very effective until 35% health)

i am sorry but what you say is irelevant , i got arround 700-800 hours on thief , all the time played in wvw , i lvl’ed in 12 h with crafting + map explore.
You know that in order to counter steal C/d backstab combo from an glass cannon thief ( with basilik vennom or daze on steal) you must have 1-2 dodge rolls Up , 1 stun breaker and – 1 movement ability available to use or 1 area disable -
So in order to counter thieves we must do all that ?
but still is not enough cause if thief is pistol /dagger we must have an very good condition removal and blinds as well.
So were is your point – if you want to counter an specific class build vs it.
If you want to be strong in zerg vs zerg build for zerg vs zerg.

If you are seriously going to try to PvP, then yes you should have some CC, Stunbreaker and know when to dodge. If not, then you get owned by everyone. Not just by Thieves.

Only bads run around with no utility, that includes Thief. Once those bad Thieves with no CC, Stun Breaks and good dodging skills run into someone with CC, Stuns, good timing and Roots. They pop like an overfilled water balloon easily.

you know my post was an replay to lucky’s post regarding "we have to use all that to counter 1 combo "

Could also just press v.

Atticus.7194:

Korrtz.3510:

oellph.9450:

My first 80 was a thief but I currently spend most of my time playing my 80 Guardian and I have to say I’ve seen the problem from the other side. Many times our group was getting harassed by a lone thief who was just uncatchable. He wasn’t able to kill anyone but it was frustrating not being able to lay some consistent damage down before he disappeared again.

I really want to see the thief be a viable class which isn’t nerfed to obscurity but something needs changing, if only culling.

Wait, so in WvW you are being harassed, not killed, by a lone thief and want to nerf the class so a group to which the thief poses no real threat, has an easier time catching and killing? Do I have that right? It’s no longer about balance, it’s about the annoyance factor? If that is the case then I for one have a laundry list of things classes do that I think are annoying and want nerfed too.

The thief is supposed to be a slippery class, otherwise the class wouldn’t be called thief. The name implies some sort of getting away with it, thieves that get caught all the time are called convicts.

Lets don’t bring Roleplaying generalizations into this please, just because a thief is called a thief doesn’t mean he should be able to break into your characters bank and steal your stuff?

Also I think the point that was being made is that no other class has so much control over when they enter and leave combat as a thief and that alone is fairly game breaking. Stealth and culling allow a thief to constantly attack and harass without ever having to think about the consequences of entering combat like every single other class in the game, that’s the problem. Combat should never be so one sided that one class has access to a skill that doesn’t have a hard counter, and in an open world a thief simply trying to escape with stealth is almost impossible to stop (yea yea, AoE… the likelihood that catches them is extraordinarily low).

Enough with thieves being able to enter and leave combat at their leisure, by their choice, if they enter combat with someone then they need to go through the same arduous process of leaving it as every other class, kill, run away (not stealth away) or die.

They can do that, if they have a stupid person standing around picking there nose while he CnDs him over and over.

If your ally is letting the thief do such and for example its 1v3, it might as well be 2v2, because your “ally” is helping the thief more then anyone else by being an idiot.

No other class in the game punishes people as much as the thief for being bad.

However, Thief against people who have a brain, thief is actually not that good of a class, we just have POWERFUL abusive abilities, but if you miss or block or invul, or mistform or dodge or use trait or load up on protection or do anything that prevents CnD from being hit, you win the fight.

For example, lets play an elementalist, which is annoying and abusive, but they have so many defensive abilities they don’t need stealth, HOWEVER, they also don’t need to have stupid players around to do what they do, they don’t need to be in melee range CnDing the targets over and over.

Because of this fact, Stealth thieves, especially P/D Thieves, are one of the most skilled classes in the game, because they must be actively hitting the target to win, one screw up and you have to run away or risk being killed by good players.

I tried Pistol Dagger Thief myself, and I admit, I can’t do it. I don’t have the skill to constantly watch the revealed timer and hit someone with CnD that fast, i’m a bit too paranoid and I usually miss my CnD a lot.

Against Stealth thieves, fighting them, I find it easier killing them 1v1 then anything, 2v1 usually HELPs them win, 3v1, I usually run away because the 2 other players kill me by letting the thief CnD them and then the thief, knowing i’m actually damaging him fires at ME.

Elementalists get a trait that lets them use the active AND keep the passive signet bonuses…

I understand your a good thief, but your views are too linear, because you only seem to have one play style, and your balance changes effect the other play styles more negatively and they are the ones that need help the most.

Fix non-stealth thief weapon sets to be significantly stronger damage. (P/P, S/P.)

The Stealth is fine, but culling bug is whats killing everyone.

If changes go as you suggest, they may just have to scrap the class and redesign it, for thieves have little to no access to the boons needed to survive if you nerf stealth. (Protection/Vigor.) and they would also need more access to (Fury/Swiftness.).

Having less healing but more access to vigor would benefit the thief to where its more skilled dodge rolls and damage prevention then just healing it up.

Having protection but less stealth means the thief is seen more, but hes harder to kill, which seems to be what everyone wants anyways.

Tulisin.6945:

Daecollo.9578:

The high hit volume setups (Unload for example…) are the builds that need the most help…

Four words:
Unlimited shotgun cluster bomb.

Unload isn’t particularly good, but there are lots of ways for thieves to achieve high hit volume, especially in AE situations.

Unlimited shotgun cluster bomb.
So basicly Sword Autoattack with a bleeding sigil? LOL.

Tulisin.6945:

The 1 second CD on Opportunist is a build equalizer. Removing it while decreasing the trigger chance makes Opportunist weaker for low hit volume setups and insanely strong for high hit volume setups. As-is it strikes a good balance of being useful for everyone without getting out of hand.

The high hit volume setups (Unload for example…) are the builds that need the most help…

And hitting someone 10 times with retaliation isn’t good, you do more damage to yourself then you do your target… lol thats the penalty for high hit volumes, you don’t need a second one.

The Limit is stupid, its such a low chance already, it needs no limit as well, the high volume hits are the only ones that really benefir from it and they get screwed by the 1 second cooldown.

It should be raised to 60% chance or the 1 second needs removed.

Foss.4830:

Seriously its not. I was just running with a guild group. 3 of us came across an enemy thief that was running pistol/dagger. We could NOT kill him. the 3 of us running hammer warriors along with a hammer guard pug that was running around with us. Everytime we got some solid hits on him he would stealth and reappear about 2 seconds later with FULL health. Someone explain to me how this is possible? I know there is a trait that makes you regen or something when you go stealth but does it really heal you that much? 4 of us could not kill him. Spamming roots/cripple/knockback/stuns/knockdowns everytime we got on him he would disappear and reappear a few steps away with full health. Either he was hacking or this is a build that seriously needs to be investigated.

If anyone can explain to me how he pulls this off?

Was he using a pistol or dagger in his main hand?

Fleet is only 8% faster then SoS, and 0% faster then swiftness.

selan.8354:

Wicked.5479:

stealth is not working fine… at all…
i am annoyed when my whole team gets killed by the same few thiefs abusing the kitten out of rendering issues and keep wiping us.
this D/P build is getting out of hand and you all know it.
90% invisible, over 15 stacks of bleeding, stealth finish, the list goes on and on.
and l2p wont work on me either, that just means you are out of usefull comments.
im at the point where i dont even care if they remove the ffing class entirely.
but then we will have sad panda’s who cant spam the same 3 attacks over and over again.

I feel your anger and had many moments like this.
We had a similar situation with one of those thieves. he was guaring the supply camp. WE were 6 players and the moment we came closer he attacked us 1 by 1 .my friend tried to knock him off me and couldnt, i used my aoe, which is kinda limited as a mesmer, i managed to deal some damage to him but not nearly enough to kill him as he would go right back into stealth. he ended up killing all 6 of us and dont get me wrong, we are good players. we neded 10 to overrrun him finally. how is that not OP? and its not just culling, if a thief is invisible due to culling my clones will react and i can kill those easily but the ones that backstab all the time…..

Wait, so your all terrible?

Thieves are easy to kill 1v1 if you know how to kill them, but each bad player around magnifies the thieves power, so 6 bad players = instant win.

If I was playing backstab and one player out of the 6 were just standing still, he was HELPING win the fight, so its more like 2 vs 5, if 2 players stand still, its 3v3, each bad player is punishing your party, thieves are vampires of bad players.

Deadly Arts
Combined Training – Dual skills deal 15% more damage. (It should be a significant increase since its only one skill, nobody is going to take it when theres a “5% DAGGER damage” right next to it which does the same thing, except affects everything!)

Critical Strikes
Combo Critical Chance – Gain 15 seconds of “Fury” when using a dual skill. (30 second cool-down.) (Theres no reason to get 5% critical damage with one skill, when there is a 7% critical right by it.)

Opportunist:
Critical hits have a 15% chance to restore one initiative. (Thief attacks are all fast, the 1 second cd makes it stupid.)

Initial Strike:
Attacks with the first weapon-skill slot have a 25% chance to regain 1 initiative. (7% is … wow.. lol.)

Long Reach:
Increases the Range of Stealing and Pistol Attacks by 300.

Pistol Mastery:
Increases Pistol Damage by 10%, Pistol Attacks now Pierce.

Richochet:
25% Chance for your Pistol attacks to explode, the explosion deals 25% of that attacks damage in area, but sets the targets on fire for 1s.

(Example: If I did a pistol attack that hit for 100, it would hit all targets in the area around that target for 25 and set them on fire for 1 second.)

Karolis.4261:

yea the speed cap is probablly the reason, , couse when I use signet of shadows i can barelly feel that speed increase, its clearly visible only w/o signet, but even w/o it and in combat where speed is slower, I dont feel that speed increase when using signet of shadows ( speed increasing effects doesnt stack i think), so thats rly not 50 % …

It feels like I get 8% speed increase while stealth, not 25%. (I use SoS.)

Therefore, it seems to be capped at 33%.

The 50% movement speed while stealth doesn’t work at all, in stealth your movement speed seems to be lowered, it takes the same time as SoS (25%) to get to one area to the next with stealth (50% speed.).

it seems to have the same speed as SoS, so if you have SoS, the trait is worthless.

DarnDevil IV.2143:

Daecollo.9578:

I’d rather have 80% critical chance and my attacks hit for 80 and a 20% chance for my attacks to hit for 20, rather then 60% critical chance and my attacks hitting for 100, but a 40% chance for my attacks to hit for 20.

Notice that achieving 400% critical damage is not possible. Reasonable way to count it would be 200% or 250%

The amount of power gained from weapons and armors are equal but you need about 21 precision for 1% critical chanse at level 80. Let’s assume you basic attacks with warrior on axe do 1k dmg. If you calculate the power scailing for axe the avarage scailing for one full chain is 1,63 so let’s use that as the scailing for a hit just to simplify things.

So 80% chanse for a 2k ( or 2,5k ) and 20 % chanse for a 1k hit over 10 hits this is 18k damage or 22k with 250% critical damage as total if it would obey perfectly the crit chance

If we drop our critical hit chanse with 20 % that equals to 420 precision and so it equals 420 add to power. So earlier we did hit 1k dmg on non crit and the additional damage we do is 1,63 times 420 = 684 if we round it down ( as I don’t know if the game uses normal round rules or math floor or roof so let’s assume the worst case scenario ) so total damage is now 1684 on normal hit

So 60% chanse of hitting 3368 ( or 4210 ) and 40% chanse of hitting 1684 over 10 hits this is 26 944 dmg or 31 996 damage with 250% crit damage. So even with 200% critical damage and 60% crit chance the axe would do on avarage more damage than with 250% critical damage and 80% crit chance

Note that these are just simplified attacks and not too accurate calculations. In practice it depends a lot which of the attacks in the chain crit and which do not. this is just more like a guide line and crits do not obey the chanse so strictly, but the basic idea is that the bigger powerscaling your weapon has, the better it is to invest in power.

( You can calculate the power scaling for weapons in the mists with steady weapons. I found the power scaling for axe on warrior from the warrior theeads. Do a x,y coordinate thingy where you have the damage on y axis and power on x axis, get few results with different power levels, draw a line and calculate the change rate of y compared to x ( the change of y divided by the change of x, u know what I mean ) )

What about “Procs on Criticals?”.

You could get “Sigil of Strength 1 sec1 10% / 20% / 30% chance to apply might for 5 / 7 / 10 seconds on critical.”,

Every time you critical, 30% chance to apply might for 10 seconds. (1 second cooldown.)

Combine that with getting might when dodging and fury becomes so much better of a statistic, especially at 80% critical chance.

Having more predictable damage over high chances of lots of damage always wins out for playstyles.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

You don’t have to hit anything to get the buffs off the steal to pop.

You do have to make the steal skill trigger to get the buffs but you don’t have to hit anything to make steal trigger. You will be on the long cool down when it triggers.

Steal traited to get the buff with swiftness, superior centuar rune to give swiftness on heal, and running along a warrior using horn, I was able to steal and heal while the warrior blew their horn and I had swiftness stacked to 1 minute. Didn’t steal from anything, just making it trigger is all. I never got any kind of item in my steal box either when I just triggered it. Just a long cool down.

Yeah, except it doesn’t work, because I just tested it in SPVP.

Wilow.3061:

DarnDevil IV.2143:

EDIT: notice that if you pick Thrill of the Crime ( 10 points in trickery )and use it when selecting a target that is not in your steal range you can stack endless amounts of fury and swiftness as you will gain 10 seconds of fury every 5 seconds making this give you net fury of 5 seconds per cycle. This way you can have 30 seconds of fury when you finally go in ( if you move into the range on the fifth time, this takes ofcourse a while to stack up so I would suggest going for 20 seconds of fury as it will take only 10 sec to build up, in other words go in with third steal so you have 20 sec of fury and swifness and 5 seconds of 2 stack might fading for 1 stack for another 5 sec ). This can be very effective if you are playing i.e. DD condition build with sigil of superior earth. Specially because you propably are going for trickery anyway with DD condition build.

If you don’t believe this is possible read the chapter above the list of stolen skills from here or test it yourself.

This isn’t possible, and I would suggest testing this out yourself before posting. Yes stealing outside steals range puts it on a very short cd, but you also don’t gain any of the buffs.

Your right, you don’t get the buff less you actually hit someone.

Negated.4105:

imo the roll is better than signet of malice

it is kind of dumb that the roll heals more/cures conditions and is a DODGE and is instantly activated.

DarnDevil IV.2143:

Daecollo.9578:

Yeah, but then again your comparing stat points, Power isn’t as valuable as Precision is unless you have 100% critical chance.

Condition Damage isn’t valuable unless you have condition duration.

It just depends, if you are specced for Both Condition Damage/Power/Precision, its amazing, but anyone stacking this should not be playing in anything, because a stiff breeze would kill them.

20% FLAT Critical Chance is pretty dang nice, its too bad we have access to so little of it.

As long as I have seen when people are making builds for direct damage they prefer offensive stats in this kind of order : power>precision>critical damage

As critical hits do damage your critical damage multiplier times your power. Stacking precision won’t do so much damage as power increases your over all dps and will make those crits even bigger.

I want you all to notice that the lack of fury is not a bug it is intended. Fury is designed mostly for warriors to have and give out ( as stealth is for thieves ) but engineers and rangers have moderate access to gain fury as well. I think you should not be complaing about it as necromancers have only one way to gain fury if teaited in to condition damage, if you do not count runes, as you can see from here.

If you want to have fury as a thief you should get at least the superior runes of the Citadel or Rage

I’d rather have 80% critical chance and my attacks hit for 80 and a 20% chance for my attacks to hit for 20, rather then 60% critical chance and my attacks hitting for 100, but a 40% chance for my attacks to hit for 20.

Tulisin.6945:

Daecollo.9578:

Might isn’t worthless, but its one of the worst boons in the game, Thieves need more access to FURY/Protection/Regeneration (fix our bug please…) if your going to nerf our damage skills.

(I think the fury boon is equal to having 30 stacks of might… lol.)

While I’d also like to see more access to boons for thieves, saying Might is one of the worst boons is like saying Bleed is one of the worst conditions. Their strengths lie in easy stackability and . Although each individual stack is weak, they’re the most resistant to removal since they can be easily reapplied.

As far as relative power, Fury gives the equivalent of 420 stat points, whereas each Might stack gives the equivalent of 70 stat points. Therefore, they give equal benefit (as far as amount of bonus stats) at 6 stacks of Might. Even if you ignore half of Might’s benefit because you don’t utilize both offensive stats Might would equal Fury at 12 stacks. If 30 stacks of Might were indeed achievable, the statistical benefit would be 2100 stat points compared to Fury’s 420.

Yeah, but then again your comparing stat points, Power isn’t as valuable as Precision is unless you have 100% critical chance.

Condition Damage isn’t valuable unless you have condition duration.

It just depends, if you are specced for Both Condition Damage/Power/Precision, its amazing, but anyone stacking this should not be playing in anything, because a stiff breeze would kill them.

20% FLAT Critical Chance is pretty dang nice, its too bad we have access to so little of it.

DarnDevil IV.2143:

Daecollo.9578:

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

shochinhwa.1648:

Wilow.3061:

tagnut.8621:

And just to continue a theme – ANET please nerf the thief down to normal levels so I don’t have to learn how they play like 99% of the population people I know want.

Fixed it for ya.

You’re welcome.

Nerf thieves so they can actually learn how to play.

Best quote in this thread. Thiefs = kill people even if they are not skilled.

Other 7 profs = if you don’t play well, you’ll die fast.

That alone imo is unfair.

Not really, what I notice is people who are unable to play thieves whine about them being overpowered, because its harder then they thought when they actually PLAYED it, but they still get beat on there mains.

I find the other 7 classes much easier then thief in comparison, miss a cooldown? whatevs I got 9 more I can use! Miss a Thief skill? … FF——.. There goes half my initiative!

I just see players who try thief and do nothing but spam 2-2-2-, get killed and come on here and whine, an actual backstab combo is hard to pull off when your enemy knows what hes doing, to be honest I don’t see many backstab thieves at all anymore in spvp, although I still see lolheartspammers.

Elementalists have a high skill ceiling, shove on 100% critical sigils when switching attunement and bloodlust sigil, spec for attunements/critical damage, go full bunker, then proceed to roll your face across the aoes, hit everyone and get all boons by mashing f1-f4!

I literally see videos of them facerolling and killing everything with massive aoe damage, able to outheal everyone with 5-6 permament buffs.

You know how many boons thief has usually? 0, why? because we have some of the worst traits in the entire game, and limited weapon sets as well.

I don’t know what classes you have played but if you play any other class with glass cannon build missing one skill can mean death for you. Specially if it has a 10 sec cooldown ( on cc skill ) as even 5 seconds can make the difference in pvp and you cannot be invisible ( except mesmers ). I wouldn’t say thieves are in an unfair position as their initiative system let’s you try again if you miss an important skill and after missing those 2 cloack and daggers you can always hide in shadows and make an escape and recharge as thieves have the highest mobility in game together with dd elementalists, with the exception that they have access to stealth ( which is amaizing when doing jukes ). I don’t say it shouldn’t be this way but I don’t understand why you see them under powered. As long as I have played thief I have liked the initiative system as it let’s you choose which skill to use and when. As long as you have initiative you can always use the best skill for the moment or burn your initiative on 1 skill ( mainly cloak and dagger for me as pistol dagger rocks ) and I think that is what makes the profession together with mobility and stealth. You can just go in and out and repeat that.

What comes to boons, you can always make your dodge to give you boons, make it cost less and you can trait your steal to steal boons and to give them to allies. Ofcourse this will make you more of an support and won’t serve solo roaming.

Thieves are not meant to counter dd eles. Actually I think ( bunker ) dd elementalists counter thieves in general pretty hard as they have quite nice cc and aoe skills and cannot be bursted down. On the other hand, confusion mesmers and condition/boon manipulation ( tanky ) necros counter bunker dd elementalists imo. This is a game where there is always another build to counter yours. If you are a thief why do you even choose to fight a guy if you have hard time killing him/her. You are a thief, you choose when fights occur and where.

I don’t go GLASS cannon on any class, because its NOT worth it, if you don’t have toughness or vitality or some kind of defense then you deserve to die.

SPVPs berserker set gives you a lot of vitality, which needs removed, if they didn’t have that vitality and went full glass, you know how quickly people would be killed?

IF anyone in WvWvW runs around in full zerkers gear, they deserve to be destroyed by whatever stiff breeze knocks them down, NOT having access to toughness or at least 17k HP is almost instant death. This includes thieves too, you know how many Thieves I’ve killed just because I know how to play one and survived there initial burst by just teleporting around, and then melting them because they are glass?

Might isn’t worthless, but its one of the worst boons in the game, Thieves need more access to FURY/Protection/Regeneration (fix our bug please…) if your going to nerf our damage skills.

(I think the fury boon is equal to having 30 stacks of might… lol.)

Einlanzer.1627:

I think Ricochet makes more sense than Piercing, it just still needs a bit of a boost to be useful. I think instead of being a flat 20% it should be 75/50/25. The same is true of Dancing Dagger, I really don’t know what their thinking is here.

Ricochet is more for condition damage users, it should be a 33% chance for pistol shots to explode, dealing 25% of that attacks damage and setting all targets around it on fire for 1s.

Pistol Mastery should improve damage by 10% and add piercing shots, but a critical pistols person would not go for ricochet because they would have little to no condition damage.

People seem to forget that the POWER part of pistol attacks is almost negated if you don’t use critical bonus/precision gear, while the bleeding part is negated if you don’t have condition gear.

Its perfectly acceptable to have both good power/good condition damage on one attack, because you can only really have one or the other.

Javik.9086:

The 50% speed bonus (highest among all classes) is very good on paper, because it means as a thief, you can keep your foe in melee range and land tactical strike or backstab more easily.

However, during testing, I found that the trait doesn’t give me any speed boost over the already equipped 25% speed bonus (signet of shadow) in combat. After landing a CnD, and a foe starts to run, I CANNOT catch him if he has any sort of speed buff.

Is this a known bug to the developer? Is there some sort of global speed cap in combat?

The trait currently does not work, its been bugged.

Only the tool tip seems to have been upgraded.

Vital Shot, Increase base damage to 165, increase refire rate by 25%. (from 134. +31 damage.)
Body shot, Increase base damage to 457, increase refire rate by 25%. (from 168. +289 damage.)
Unload, Increase base damage to 1060, increase refire rate by 25%. (from 808, +252 damage.)
Head Shot, Increase base damage to 507, increase refire rate by 25%. (from 87, +420 damage.)
Black Powder, Increase base damage to 256, increase refire rate by 25%. (from 87, +169 damage.)

Black Powder should do at least 25% more damage then autoattack, but mostly a utility skill.

Head Shot should do decent damage, it costs a lot of initiative.

Body Shot now does 15% less damage then heartseeker, but has a little more range then it as well.

Unload does 12% less damage then warrior’s volley.

P/P is fixed, it now actually hurts people instead of being a nerf gun like all other weapons in the game.

Head Shot/Bodyshot/Black Powder not dealing damage is stupid, your shooting someone with a gun, it should hurt, and its not like they have much range difference between Infiltrator’s Strike and Heartseeker.

Black Powder is pretty much a melee attack, but has 87 damage? What are you smoking, you know how much it hurts blasting someone point blank with a gun, filled with black EXPLOSIVE powder?

Fun Fact:
Warrior Rifle has a 0.50 Refire Rate.
Pistol has a 0.75 Refire Rate.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

shochinhwa.1648:

Wilow.3061:

tagnut.8621:

And just to continue a theme – ANET please nerf the thief down to normal levels so I don’t have to learn how they play like 99% of the population people I know want.

Fixed it for ya.

You’re welcome.

Nerf thieves so they can actually learn how to play.

Best quote in this thread. Thiefs = kill people even if they are not skilled.

Other 7 profs = if you don’t play well, you’ll die fast.

That alone imo is unfair.

Not really, what I notice is people who are unable to play thieves whine about them being overpowered, because its harder then they thought when they actually PLAYED it, but they still get beat on there mains.

I find the other 7 classes much easier then thief in comparison, miss a cooldown? whatevs I got 9 more I can use! Miss a Thief skill? … FF——.. There goes half my initiative!

I just see players who try thief and do nothing but spam 2-2-2-, get killed and come on here and whine, an actual backstab combo is hard to pull off when your enemy knows what hes doing, to be honest I don’t see many backstab thieves at all anymore in spvp, although I still see lolheartspammers.

Elementalists have a high skill ceiling, shove on 100% critical sigils when switching attunement and bloodlust sigil, spec for attunements/critical damage, go full bunker, then proceed to roll your face across the aoes, hit everyone and get all boons by mashing f1-f4!

I literally see videos of them facerolling and killing everything with massive aoe damage, able to outheal everyone with 5-6 permament buffs.

You know how many boons thief has usually? 0, why? because we have some of the worst traits in the entire game, and limited weapon sets as well.

I agree, but I play a warrior!

25 power, 30 critical, 15 trickery.

A stiff breeze will kill you.

emanius.9851:

but p/p is fun to use
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibLOfRnkmrk&feature=youtu.be

Yeah, so I can do 1200 less damage then sword autoattack and spend 5 initative!

Actually, I believe Pistols Refire or Reuse or Recast should be reduced Significantly, which would improve both skills.

But I also believe that Unload/Body Shot/Vital Shot ontop of that needs a damage increase.

Engineers attacks may be as slow as thieves, but kitten, they hurt like the rifles.

Einlanzer.1627:

Daecollo.9578:

Its not the firing rate, Pistol Channel time IS actually 1/2 second, just like daggers, its the “refire rate.”

Thief Pistols have a 0.75 second REFIRE rate, so after they fire that 1/2 channel attack, they have to wait 0.75 seconds to fire again.

Warrior Rifles have a 3/4 channel attack, but they only have to wait 0.50 seconds to fire again.

This is why Rifle/Pistol fire at almost the same rate. (rifles seem to be 0.1 seconds faster.)

Actually, the refire rate for rifle might be even faster then that, maybe even 0.30-0.40 seconds.

Yes, I realize that. That’s why it’s obvious that it isn’t working as intended. The pistol was obviously meant to fire faster than the rifle but due to the difference in the recovery period between the two it doesn’t.

Because Vital Shot’s damage and bleed duration were calibrated under the assumption that its recast would be about 30-40% faster than it actually is, it is currently an extremely gimpy autoattack and is the main reason that Pistols just feel weak. I actually think this problem is weapon based rather than profession based, as Engineer pistol is the same way, and Longbows for both Rangers and Warriors fire very slowly and thus have weaker-than-expected #1 skills. Curiously, only rifles seem about right.

Come to think of it, the Thief’s Shortbow, while being a solid weapon in general, has weaker than expected damage on the #1 as well.

Well, we use “2” for short bows damage, if Pistol had a decent “2” attack we would probably use that as well.

Before you nerf anything, you need to fix.

- Pistol Refire Rate, Damage
- Venom Utility to not be worthless.
- Useless Traps.
- Dual Skill Traits (to not be worthless, change them to traits like: Right-Hand Strength – Critical-hit chance with one-handed weapons is increased by 15%, Blademaster – Increases your critical-hit chance with a sword by 10%..)

Why pick a dual skill trait when theres a SAME trait right next to it that buffs damage by the same amount?!

Combined Training – Dual skills deal 5% more damage.
Change to: Swashbuckler Training – Sword and Spear Damage is increased by 10%.

Combo Critical Chance – Dual skills have a +5% chance to critical hit.
Change to: Duelist – Increases Sword And Spear Critical Chance is increased by 15%.

Its not the firing rate, Pistol Channel time IS actually 1/2 second, just like daggers, its the “refire rate.”

Thief Pistols have a 0.75 second REFIRE rate, so after they fire that 1/2 channel attack, they have to wait 0.75 seconds to fire again.

Warrior Rifles have a 3/4 channel attack, but they only have to wait 0.50 seconds to fire again.

This is why Rifle/Pistol fire at almost the same rate. (rifles seem to be 0.1 seconds faster.)

Actually, the refire rate for rifle might be even faster then that, maybe even 0.30-0.40 seconds.

CrazyAce.3842:

Daecollo.9578:

That only works when you hit the target, if you are talking about PvE where the target does not move then that is very nice, but in PvP CnD is usually missed a lot, due to players knowing that if you get into melee they are kittened, so players usually avoid cloak and dagger now.

Cloak and Dagger is very slow, the slowest melee attack in the game and has a easy to see animation.

It’s called practice. If you don’t want to practice, that’s fine, but it works great for me.

I use pistols at range and use CnD + Dagger 1 or Sword 1 when people close in. if someone is trying to melee me, they make themselves a target for my CnD. If they’re at range, I pull out my pistols again. I don’t try to chase them down with melee. (Why would I?)

Because melee does more damage?

CrazyAce.3842:

Daecollo.9578:

D/D can have blind as well, but also do lots of burst damage…
S/P can have blind as well, but also do lots of passive damage…
D/P can have blind (AND STEALTH) as well, but also do lots of passive damage…
P/D can blind (AND STEALTH) as well, and do lots of burst damage…
P/P has blind, but does little to NO damage after they use it…

Please think a little.

I am. It’s you who’s not thinking.

If you’re using pistols, you should trait for it. As long as it’s traited, they hit hard and refill your initiative on critical hits.

Blinding is a defensive skill. Not an offensive one.

When I blind combo field I can typically get 2 bursts out of Pistol 3 if I get lucky with my crits. Even better if I stealth with Blinding Power in the combo field, followed by the stealth burst of Pistol 1, followed by another Pistol 5.

I only have issues with that strategy if I get stunned/dazed at beyond 900 range, or stacked with confusion.

Typically though I can get away with just spamming Pistol 3. Unless I get confusion stacks or the person has retaliation, they go down fast.

P/P has it’s weaknesses, but no more than any other weapon set from any other class. Anything else is just people complaining. You just need to use them right, with the right traits and Sigils.

Um, that trait only procs every second, are you still in beta? that trait/skill is kind of useless due to the fact that it has a 1 second GCD… where pistols fire VERY fast.

Look at the trait “Cloaked in Shadow.” it makes D/D Burst Thief Amazing… and gives constant blinds to the opponent.

Would you rather have Blinds/Lots of damage, or blinds and no damage?

You do realize that blind only works if your opponent is attacking, and most people can only attack once per second…

The blind combo field is nice, but its VERY short and at most your only preventing 1-3 attacks…

Blinding someone over/over is really nice, except for the nice fact that blinds don’t stack on eachother, and your attacks are faster… so if you blind someone 5 times in a row, you may only prevent ONE attack…

CrazyAce.3842:

Daecollo.9578:

CrazyAce.3842:

Daecollo.9578:

Sounds like your fighting PvE mobs who don’t move.

Try using P/P against a mesmer who uses confusion or a guardian/warrior who abuses retaliation, you will kill yourself faster then he can kill you.

Those are very few and far between.

I don’t do sPVP much with anything but my warrior.

In WvW, people melt under my pistol barrages. If a player has lots of retaliation, I don’t shoot them. Duh. You shouldn’t be attacking someone with retaliation up unless you can strip the boon first. Or unless you know you can afford to eat the damage that will be reflected back at you.

Same with confusion. You should be running or stealthing if you’ve got confusion until it wears off, unless you can cleanse it. (Thief DOES have weapon abilities and utilities for that.)

Does no one use their brain when fighting? Or do you all just spam your favorite attacks?

P/P does not have access to a lot of stealth, this thread isn’t about daggers, and I know you run D/D and P/P, so this really doesn’t apply to that tactic.

Please stay on topic.

This thread would not of been made if there was not a problem with Pistols.

I am on topic. You can’t discuss pistols’ supposed weaknesses by ignoring traits, other weapons, and utilities. No weapon set exists in a vacuum.

Unless you don’t run with a second weapon set. Only pistols? No Dagger/Dagger or Sword/Dagger to compensate for lack of stealth or condition removal (respectively)? Not very wise.

Pistol’s are about DPS and blinding field combos, not stealthing. That’s what utilities are for. If you’re not using stealth to its fullest, then you shouldn’t be running as a glass cannon with pistols. That’s just asking to die painfully.

Pistols hit hard and can blind but have the TRADEOFF of not stealthing you. It’s about choice, not about having a single weapon set that does absolutely everything.

D/D can have blind (AND STEALTH) as well, but also do lots of burst damage…
S/D can have blind (AND STEALTH) as well, but also do lots of passive damage…
S/P can have blind as well, but also do lots of passive damage…
D/P can have blind (AND STEALTH) as well, but also do lots of passive damage…
P/D can blind (AND STEALTH) as well, and do lots of burst damage…
P/P has blind, but does little to NO damage after they use it… because the autoattack does next to nothing and they need unload to do damage, which does less damage then sword/dagger autoattack.

Please think a little.

CrazyAce.3842:

Daecollo.9578:

Sounds like your fighting PvE mobs who don’t move.

Try using P/P against a mesmer who uses confusion or a guardian/warrior who abuses retaliation, you will kill yourself faster then he can kill you.

Those are very few and far between.

I don’t do sPVP much with anything but my warrior.

In WvW, people melt under my pistol barrages. If a player has lots of retaliation, I don’t shoot them. Duh. You shouldn’t be attacking someone with retaliation up unless you can strip the boon first. Or unless you know you can afford to eat the damage that will be reflected back at you.

Same with confusion. You should be running or stealthing if you’ve got confusion until it wears off, unless you can cleanse it. (Thief DOES have weapon abilities and utilities for that.)

Does no one use their brain when fighting? Or do you all just spam your favorite attacks?

P/P does not have access to a lot of stealth, this thread isn’t about daggers, and I know you run D/D and P/P, so this really doesn’t apply to that tactic.

Please stay on topic.

This thread would not of been made if there was not a problem with Pistols.

CrazyAce.3842:

Maugetarr.6823:

A question out of line with the current state of this thread, but infusion of shadows seems to far outshine patience. What is the point of this ability since it seems like stacking both abilities would be redundant.

No, I use both. It ensures that I have full initiative when I’m using my Dagger 1/Dagger 5 melee combo. Getting refunded 2 initiative with CnD (or gaining it when I use any stealthing utility) is incredibly useful, for my build at least, since I sacrifice my toughness and HP pool for the ability to heal in stealth while still being able to hit hard. (I have about 13k HP when I trait Practiced Tolerance, about 11.5k without it.)

I use a 0/30/30/0/10 stealthy build, and without both Infusion of Shadows and Patience, I would be in serious trouble. I’ve tried playing with different traits in that line, but my survivability plummets. For my playstyle that involves frequent stealthing when the stealth debuff ends, if I didn’t use both of those traits I would run out of initiative really fast.

And as any thief should know, when you run out of initiative you die.

That only works when you hit the target, if you are talking about PvE where the target does not move then that is very nice, but in PvP CnD is usually missed a lot, due to players knowing that if you get into melee they are kittened, so players usually avoid cloak and dagger now.

Cloak and Dagger is very slow, the slowest melee attack in the game and has a easy to see animation.

stof.9341:

Well, Basilisk Venom ignores Defiant and it’s the shortest CD elite in the game which synergies rather well with a full Lyssa set of runes.

except you lose 12% Critical/60+ to all stats… Thieves NEED critical bonus more then anyone else.

Sounds like your fighting PvE mobs who don’t move.

Try using P/P against a mesmer who uses confusion or a guardian/warrior who abuses retaliation, you will kill yourself faster then he can kill you.

I’m rezzing this thread.

I play both a level 80 Thief/Level 80 Warrior, both are glass Cannony.
Volley/Unload.
Volley has an 8 second cooldown if traited.
Unload has no cooldown, but uses 5 initative, which means you have to wait 8 seconds to use it again, which pretty much means it has an 8 second cooldown, since 5 × 1.6 is 8.

Volley has more Range, costs nothing but a cooldown, you can use other abilities after you use unload, like the knock back, blind and vulnerability.
Unload can be used 3 times, but after this you must wait, and you cannot use any other abilities.

Volley does 755 more damage. (we have near identical stats, same gear as my thief on my warrior.) has more range, and a bigger advantage because you are not stuck using 1 skill for damage.

Bleeding Shot vs Vital Shot.
Same Cast/Channal time, regardless of what it says.
Vital Shot does 50 less damage in power, and 298 less damage in bleeds, this means Vital Shot does 348 less hypothetical damage.

Bleeding Shot and Volley have 100% chance to pierce, meaning they are AOE Attacks.
Again, this is using traits/gear I use for both, meaning its similar but not, but from the way I see it the math is skrewed because they have different traits/different builds, but the numbers don’t lie.

Rifle Shot/Volley are much better, Unload should be brought in line with Volleys damage, infact it should do more damage since its less range.
Vital Shot either needs a speed boost, or damage should be increased by 25-33%.
Global Cooldown for Vital Shot should be decreased by 33%, it should be firing 33% faster then it currently does.

Theoretically, Both Unload/Volley share the same cooldown (8 seconds.)
Volley does almost 30-40% more damage, AND has longer range…
Bleeding Shot/Vital Shot share the same cooldown/gcd, regardless of what it says, and Bleeding Shot does 30-40% more damage, AND has longer range…
And… its all AOE!

Pistol Damage is horrible, and the speed after you use an attack seems to be the same speed as warrior hammer.

Pistol/Pistol will never be viable unless they reduce the reuse from using pistol attacks from 0.75 to 0.25, the same speed as daggers reuse, currently Warrior RIFLES have a 0.5 speed reuse, which is why Vital Shot and Bleeding Shot are the same speed even know the Pistol has a shorter channel time.

(Retaliation/Confusion also slaughters P/P…)

Adding more damage to pistol attacks, all of them buffed to 50-60%.

Siva Mira.3546:

^
XXX: Sorry, we don’t make this game for Thief to stay at the top. We think Warrior Rifle need more Buff while P/P is fine as it is right now.

You made me laugh, I love reading your posts. Rifle warriors need more dps! Pistols should be nerfed so it does less damage then a nerf gun.

I made this a long time ago when I thought people cared:

I play both a level 80 Thief/Level 80 Warrior, both are glass Cannony.

Volley/Unload.
Volley has an 8 second cooldown if traited.
Unload has no cooldown, but uses 5 initative, which means you have to wait 8 seconds to use it again, which pretty much means it has an 8 second cooldown, since 5 × 1.6 is 8.
Volley has more Range, costs nothing but a cooldown, you can use other abilities after you use unload, like the knock back, blind and vulnerability.
Unload can be used 3 times, but after this you must wait, and you cannot use any other abilities. (you must wait 24 seconds to get your initiative back.)

Volley does 755 more damage. (we have near identical stats, same gear as my thief on my warrior.) has more range, and a bigger advantage because you are not stuck using 1 skill for damage.

Bleeding Shot vs Vital Shot.
Same Cast/Channal time, regardless of what it says.
Vital Shot does 50 less damage in power, and 298 less damage in bleeds, this means Vital Shot does 348 less hypothetical damage.

Bleeding Shot and Volley have 100% chance to pierce, meaning they are AOE Attacks.
Again, this is using traits/gear I use for both, meaning its similar but not, but from the way I see it the math is skrewed because they have different traits/different builds, but the numbers don’t lie.

Rifle Shot/Volley are much better, Unload should be brought in line with Volleys damage, infact it should do more damage since its less range.
Vital Shot either needs a speed boost, or damage should be increased by 25-33%.
Global Cooldown for Vital Shot should be decreased by 33%, it should be firing 33% faster then it currently does.
Theoretically, Both Unload/Volley share the same cooldown (8 seconds.)

Volley does almost 30-40% more damage, AND has longer range…
Bleeding Shot/Vital Shot share the same cooldown/gcd, regardless of what it says, and Bleeding Shot does 30-40% more damage, AND has longer range…
And… its all AOE!

Melee Vs Range Argument is silly for thieves, because it doesn’t really matter if thief is in melee or range, because we have the most gap closers of any class.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Steal – Always have it.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infiltrator%27s_Strike – Sword.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Heartseeker – Dagger.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadowstep
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infiltrator%27s_Signet

Trust me, range does not really matter to us at all, we have so much of it we can stuff our melee weapons down our enemies throats.

Pistols deserve decent damage, they lack ONE thing that makes thief not squishy… STEALTH.

Stealth drops on damage, cool-down on stealth abilities needs to drop by 75%, initiative recharge needs to double as well, and all traits need redesigned.

Lorath.2504:

Daecollo.9578:

Autoattack/Unload need about a 40-50% damage increase.

That would make p/p deal more damage than thief melee weapons… Not going to happen. Ever.

No it would not, melee weapons swing faster, Pistols fire as slow as rifles do.

And honestly? thief melee weapons ARE ranged weapons.

We have more gap closers then any other class (Infiltrator’s Strike alone makes sword a ranged weapon.), and stealth on our melee weapons, but P/P has no stealth nore damage.

Well, mesmers have all these dirty tricks thieves do, but they ALSO have amazing utility to sideline this.

Nobody wants a pve group with a thief, because VENOMS/Traps/Most of our utility is worthless.

Mesmers have more HP, Better Utility, and EVERYONE needs a mesmer portal in pve AND spvp.

I will agree to this, as long as initiative recharge rate is decreased to 1 second.

DigitalMaster.4870:

I main a thief, and i can easily say we are like one of the weakest classes right now.

Everywhere i go i feel so insignificant.
Low health pool
Low condition removal
Low direct damage
Low AoEs

Other than our 2 attacks (backstab, heartseeker).
There is not one class out there that can’t out-perform us.
Yet we get all off the kittenstorm because we have one OP combo that apparently kitten everyone, everytime.
Since release it’s been downhill for the thief. Nerf after nerf after nerf. And i chose this class because i was sick of my ele being squishy as hell.

Now i could be going around and giving suggestions, but i have never noticed any suggestion put into the game at all. I’m not even going to put effort into it.

Everyone is probably going to try proving me otherwise and tell me to L2P, but i’m not giving up on thief, i’m just saying to lay down the kittenstorm.

This is all true, unless you are fighting an idiot.

If you are fighting an idiot, this following is true:
Low Health Pool
Best Condition Removal. (your targets letting you CnD him over and over, a BIG mistake…)
Best Direct Damage. (your target is not moving around and you can get his back easilly.)
Low AOEs.

HAMMER/Mace, that is the anti-thief weapon.

Avoid D/D Eles unless you are a D/D backstabber who can kill them before they can get 5-6 boons up.

Autoattack/Unload need about a 40-50% damage increase.

kenshinakh.3672:

You can’t spam stealth. It costs 6 ini to do CnD, and missing just one right after you attack someone can really make you vulnerable. The key to beating thieves is timing your dodge, and timing their stealth. If you learn to count 3s without thinking about it, and FEEL the flow of the battle, thieves are easy to beat.

CnD only stealths you if your hitting the target, which you have to be in melee range to do, not very wise if your at low health and trying to get away, unless your fighting stupids.