It’s just you.
This. ^
@Dahkeus.8243: the problem is diamond/legend is it is flooded with revs and any half decent rev will train you all match and won’t let you decap/+1 anything. Bottom line you have to be better than anyone in match (including own team) in most cases to do well. So say you face someone of same skill, you are worthless on thief. This is what is really wrong with this class.
This is a meta full of hard counters. Thieves still wreck necros, even though they wreck scrappers.
Still doesn’t make them “worst class”.
A thief doesn’t wreck a necro. If a necro dies before someone rotates to them that death is on the team
To properly wreck a necro (kill faster than help can arrive) the necro player has to be extremely worse than the thief.
I think you’re still in the same “let’s judge classes based on 1 v 1 duels!” world that the other “thief is bad!” people are in.
It’s like people in this thread don’t realize that you don’t need to engage in duels to be a star player on your team…
Thieves wreck necros because they have limited stab and when their shroud is down, they’re easily burst and spiked so hard that there’s no chance the other team can revive, even if they have a S&R ranger in the same fight.
I definitely like this season better. I breezed through the early games partly because less wins were needed and partly because I only lost maybe 3 legitimate (non-DC teammate) games up until I was halfway through ruby. However, when I hit the end of Ruby, I started getting some really intense, close games.
The reason I prefer this is because it’s taken me a lot less games to get to around the ranks where I should be having difficulty. I was a diamond last season and while I’m not sure if I’ll progress through diamond this season, I at least have enough time to try.
Overall, I’m happy with the matchmaking, even though I think that the class balance still needs work (but again, it’s better than S1 bunker rezzmer hell).
thief is disgustingly op in pve
you just equip your SB and press 1 occasionally tagging 3 mobs with every shot for ton of loot
You’re thinking of open world, not raids/fractals, and guardian staff does the same thing in a huge cone, tagging 5 mobs instead of just 3. DH still wins. =P
DH is better for both.
Both classes bring really strong dps, but a DH will also bring perma protection for melee along with reflects for where they’re needed. Thieves still don’t really have much utility that makes them really shine.
Both will still work just fine and there’s no content you can’t clear with either class, but you’ll have more group options and will generally bring more with a DH.
@Dahkeus.8243: the problem is diamond/legend is it is flooded with revs and any half decent rev will train you all match and won’t let you decap/+1 anything. Bottom line you have to be better than anyone in match (including own team) in most cases to do well. So say you face someone of same skill, you are worthless on thief. This is what is really wrong with this class.
This is a meta full of hard counters. Thieves still wreck necros, even though they wreck scrappers.
Still doesn’t make them “worst class”.
Mortar is great. The other elites are just better.
ermm…it will be hard to kill a mes in 1v1 unless u a thief that can do a high burst, change position fast and evade
It’s 2016. Thieves haven’t been a mesmer counter for a long time. =P
Something else to note:
Thief is particularly strong at +1 against necros. As long as you keep track of shroud, you can easily land clutch impact strikes against them in team fights and spike them before a S&R ranger can even do anything.
There’s definite shortcomings of the profession and again, I won’t argue that thieves need help in certain areas of the game (specifically in competitive league play), but for the vast, vast majority of the player base who solo queues or isn’t at league-level play, the thief profession has all the tools you need to succeed well beyond other professions when used in the right way.
I.e. It’s not the best class in all areas, but it’s certainly not the worst as the title of this thread states.
I’d have to agree with you but for one serious issue. The thief is fine as long as you can outplay the opponent. Meaning you can do fine in any league that has players under your skill level. As soon as people catch up to your level, the thief is at a glaring disadvantage.
I’ve actually tested this with this secondary account. Playing a vanilla thief I can very easily turn matches. Just like I could on my main account up to end Ruby. But beyond that, the average enemy gets better and the speed advantage of a thief isn’t big enough to outweigh the lack of anything substantial during fights. AoE conditions rip a thief to bits, most 1v1 are an uphill battle, much easier on pretty much any class I’ve tried it on.
This can be ‘handled’ by teaming up with friends and playing the thief as a pure group tool. But the question would be, wouldn’t another class be even more deadly used in such a way. I still hope the final answer can be no, but ESL does make one wonder.
I can’t say that I’ve really experienced what you’re talking about.
Now, of course, the ability to carry is much greater when you’re playing people under your skill level, especially since you can do things like 1 v 1 and fully cap (not just decap) undefended points.
However, even once you get past that level of play, there’s still a lot of room to push a team ahead utilizing thief strengths with +1, decap (or forcing enemy away from engaging due to threat of decap), fast to instant stomps with Impact, and things like beast steals.
If you’re at Ruby level or beyond, you really shouldn’t be in AoE range for long enough to take that kind of damage (short bow for AoE pressure, then quick in and out burst with dagger on low hp enemies) and you definitely shouldn’t be engaging in any 1 v 1s. You carry a team by making fights unfair, not by winning fair fights.
Seriously guys, just because you are bad thieves and stuck in emerald/sapphire/ruby doesn’t mean the class is bad and can’t carry.
Look at Sindrenerr or Vallun for example, they know how to carry.
vollun lost 10:1 vs rev on stream pure duel style.
Fortunately, PvP is based on conquest, not duels. Thief wins games by being able to rotate faster than any other class and can often do so undetected.
Winning 1 v 1s is nice for bragging rights, but forcing an enemy to constantly watch home while you assist in mid simply because they know that they’ll get decapped if they try to assist is more valuable.
But here’s the thing. Revs and Mesmers can do that and they can do it better. Its just the belief from the PvP community that it’s a thief only job. NO. It’s not, in fact 2 other classes do it better.
No, revs and mesmers don’t necessarily do it better.
Revs are fast between points with swiftness/super speed and staff, but they’re still generally slower since thieves can port. They also don’t have stealth to rotate unseen.
Mesmers ports are amazing for mobility and make gamebreaking team plays in organized groups and they do have ports for shortcuts, but without portal, a thief will beat them to a point every time.
And yea, it was no surprise that you’re seeing revs/mesmers over thieves in tournament play. Revs provide more team utility and do better in sustained team fights. Mesmers with a coordinated team can make for amazing portal plays.
Thieves, I’d argue, are better for solo queue as long as they’re not stacked on a team since they can drive the rotations instead of having to follow them for team fights. Stealth rotations also go farther against uncoordinated teams who can’t call out the thief location on voice chat. They also don’t rely on teammates who know when and why to take a portal.
There’s definite shortcomings of the profession and again, I won’t argue that thieves need help in certain areas of the game (specifically in competitive league play), but for the vast, vast majority of the player base who solo queues or isn’t at league-level play, the thief profession has all the tools you need to succeed well beyond other professions when used in the right way.
I.e. It’s not the best class in all areas, but it’s certainly not the worst as the title of this thread states.
No
And every other post from every other user in this forum disagrees with you as well, Including pro players points of views on how the league/division system works.
Sorry, gonna prove you wrong with the “every other post from every other user” part, lol.
The matchmaking is actually pretty successful in setting up a rank system where people get bucketted out based on their skill, rather than just how many games they played.
High level players are zooming through the early ranks and many people are simply getting capped out at non-legendary ranks, even after putting in a lot of games.
And high level players aren’t really disputing this.
Now, there are problems with the matchmaking (you can never please all the people all the time):
1) People don’t want to acknowledge that they’re not all legendary, or even not diamond and some people are getting lucky win streaks that gets them stuck in a tier beyond where they should be.
2) Legendary players have really long queues because of fewer legendaries and many people with legendary not being incentivized to play more.
But compared to S1, I’d say that this season is better.
Impressive. Nice job!
1) Idk…I think this treads too much in the realm of power creep.
2) I don’t think stability is really a boon that thieves need. We already have a ton of tools for stomps and stumbreaks and we’re too squishy to tank through any high-CC/damage situation anyways.
3) I’m really not a fan of passive traits, but I guess that would help. However, the problem with the acro line stems from a much deeper issue of it just being an inferior redundancy of the Daredevil line.
4) Instant Reflex should never be strong enough to be worth taking in any really competitive build. There’s enough passive traits as it is. Right now, this skill is a decent set of training wheels for anyone learning the thief class and I don’t think it needs to be anything beyond that.
5) Best suggestion so far. I think the acro trait line needs more focus on being the sword traitline to distinguish itself from the daredevil trait line.
6) I could get on board with this change, even though I’m not sure it would be enough to change the meta D/P build to use this over DD.
7) Yes to resistance, but quickness could be pretty dangerous to add to the skill.
And agreed with your overall point on balance. I think the last balance patch was a big improvement (so glad rezzmer bunkers are gone), but they could still do well to shave down some more of the big post-HoT power creep.
Something like this should work for ya. It’s basically the metabattle D/P Daredevil build, but with the CS line instead of DD and with Basilisk Venom instead of Impact Strike:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoaVl0MhSnY5TwwJw/EHwECvXsd6EBy4TfuNA-TZBEABRcIAA4EAYeZAm2fggnAAA
You should still have some flexibility with utility skills and runes/sigils if you want though.
While you do lose out on some of the dodge utility, there are some benefits that keep this competitive:
- Better condi clear against damaging condis
- Stealth on revive
- Longer stealth
- Damage reduction in stealth
Also, since they buffed Basilisk Venom, it’s more competitive with Impact Strike and works well against Dragonhunters and Scrappers since they have so many blocks.
Seriously guys, just because you are bad thieves and stuck in emerald/sapphire/ruby doesn’t mean the class is bad and can’t carry.
Look at Sindrenerr or Vallun for example, they know how to carry.
vollun lost 10:1 vs rev on stream pure duel style.
Fortunately, PvP is based on conquest, not duels. Thief wins games by being able to rotate faster than any other class and can often do so undetected.
Winning 1 v 1s is nice for bragging rights, but forcing an enemy to constantly watch home while you assist in mid simply because they know that they’ll get decapped if they try to assist is more valuable.
Why ruby?
Because it’s where the majority of the player base ends up in, even though everyone thinks that they deserve to be diamond or legendary.
Take a look around. The vast majority of the PvP forums is people QQing because they think that they are entitled to a higher rank and that they are only held back because of matchmaking and/or bad teammates. =P
Well…you know, you can’t really make a PvP game where everyone wins all the time, even if that’s what you’re looking for in a game.
Sounds like you really need an imbalanced game where the OP build/class is one that you enjoy. Good luck finding that and I send my condolences for when that inevitably gets nerfed, since that’s pretty much how online games work.
I won’t touch on all the specific changes, but I do like the overall direction of most. However, I will say that this (as a thief) is my favorite:
Thorw Gunk(stolen skill): unblockable. [too many reflects, blocks, mitigations to use this skill effectively. especially vs engi…]
I think that this would be a minor, fair change for a skill that’s otherwise pretty lackluster.
Maybe you’re not as strong of a player, relative to the overall playerbase, as you think…
Yea, good luck to anyone who thinks they know how to fix balance. Balancing stuff in this game is such a crap shoot. I mean, sometimes a meta seems obvious as soon as you see the patch notes and sometimes it just ends up completely different.
I think we all saw that warriors were going to still be weak, even after the buffs, but I don’t think many realized just how strong and viable mesmers would be, even after all the nerfs (anyone else remember all the Helseth QQ about how mesmers were dead?).
Still, I wish there was a bit more tweaking to bring warriors up before the season started.
Eh, reveal is fine.
Thief has some weaknesses, but reveal won’t fix any of them. It would be like someone going to the body shop to fix a broken mirror on your car, but instead of fixing the mirror, they give you a new pair of rims.
by far… they only have 2 actually viable builds, which are both highly dependent on what the other team is running. You will either wreck or be wrecked. Honestly, you can be more thiefy with the other classes now.
I’ve been doing some experimenting in damage reduction, and having maxed it out, a thief is still a one hit down to dragonhunters fartbox traps (dutch oven if you will), also shatter mesmers, and rangers will one shot a thief with full toughness, condition cleanse, and 27% additional damage reduction.
It’s my personal feeling that they need to rework the class from the ground up.
If you’re dying to DH traps in 1 hit, you’re doing something very wrong.
There are some tough fights in the current meta and you still don’t want to 1 v 1 a DH (you don’t really want to 1 v 1 much anyways), but I’ll take a DH on the enemy team over a scrapper or tempest any day. They’re 1-trick ponies that are easily burst when their blocks are down.
That’ll depend on your playstyle. I’ve swapped around several professions this season (Scrapper, Chrono, and Herald on meta builds), primarily for the achievements, and I’ve found Thief to be what is best for me to carry a team.
Your mileage may vary depending on your playstyle though…
(edited by Dahkeus.8243)
I didn’t like this ability at first and thought it needed a nerf…
But now that the meta has settled a bit, I’m ok with it. It’s still a very strong skill, but it’s not as strong a rez as bunker rezzmers of the last meta were and druids overall feel strong enough to be competitive without being too strong.
Hey everyone,
Time for another recap and a few questions!
- Most of you like periodic secondary mechanics that remain “secondary” and don’t try to overtake the conquest part of the maps.
- We also would like the secondary to be more of a swing mechanic rather than a snowball mechanic
- Tons of awesome ideas for reworking the Skyhammer to be more of a periodic mechanic and some general ways to improve it.
So because of how the community answered I would like to ask some questions about the treb in Kyhlo. It has been in ranked/competitive rotation since the game has been out, but the treb goes against the answers I got for secondary mechanics on a conquest map.
Questions:
- Kyhlo’s treb:
- Do we consider it a swing mechanic?
- What do we think of it being up all the time?
- Does it need to be reworked to make it fit “periodic secondary mechanics”, and if yes how would you change it?
- Is the treb fine as is, and why?
- Would we want to have secondary mechanics that are up all the time in future maps?
I don’t think Khylo needs to be touched. The trebs are good and easily countered by being destroyed.
If I did get totally nitpicky, then maybe I’d consider trebs that respawn periodically (maybe once on a normal match or twice on a really long one) similar to Stronghold most people don’t find it worthwhile to repair a treb that’s gone down.
However, Khylo is a really solid map that doesn’t need to be changed.
Not much to discuss. Topic is a faulty premise that blatantly oversimplifies reality.
It’s really not much different than it used to be, but if you’ve been gone for a long time and come back to a game that’s changed and play in a new meta, it’s going to seem like some big confusing spam of abilities that seem OP.
I mean, does no one remember hambow, pistol whip, turret engis, etc?
Ok. you got a point with the guards i guess. I’d probably rather have a thief than a guard for ranked. Sooo…there would be two classes effectively worse across all possible pvp scenarios. Can we agree on that?
Sure, I can agree to that.
But really, regardless of where it compares to other classes, thief is in a solid, balanced spot and there’s no reason to believe that playing a thief is any sort of handicap from reaching the PvP rank you want.
i am in diamond tier 1
Sounds like you should have capped out at Ruby, but made it just past to diamond after a spike in wins and are now facing teams above where you should be settled.
Which raises a good question that some people have touched on to some extend already:
Should you be allowed to drop from one tier to another in situations like this?
Or should we just accept that this will happen from time to time?
Alternatively, should people get matched against others of a lower tier if they hit a losing streak? My guess is that while this could resolve this issue, we’d also start seeing tons of “Why am I getting queued against so many people above my rank?!?!” type QQ.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoaVn0MBlPhFOBmOBkmiFYCTLBEAyAzdwTYL0LNcGaDA-TpBEABmXGIijAgBnAAm2fggHAAAHCAA This is what most high level thieves use.
Thanks, I specd that with the mauraders ammulet and different utilis. Won 12 out of 15 games in ranked so far. Pretty stoked with this new daredevil trait line, it’s strong to say the least.
Yea, I still don’t like staff, but the DD line overall is pretty great for D/P. Dash is particularly great with so many necros around spamming chill.
There are some other good utilities that work with this build (I ran Shadows Refuge and Inf Sig for a long time), but once you get back in the flow of things and more used to the build, I’d recommend giving these utilities another look. Once you get used to using them in the right situations, I think you’ll find that they’re pretty good for the current meta.
Ok, this thread is getting ridiculous. People are now just trying to point out any scenario where thieves aren’t ideal instead of talking to the point of the thread.
Thieves are not the worst class. They’re exceptionally strong in solo Q due to the nature of their role, even though you still wouldn’t want to stack them and wouldn’t necessarily take them over something like a rev in an competitive game <- changed this one.
And regardless, they’re still much better than warriors or DH in most if not all scenarios (well, DH are probably better in low tier games for players who aren’t good at playing thieves, I guess).
Rest is very accurate and all that needs to be said!
Fair enough. =P
Or is it us?!
This will sound harsh, but it’s probably you.
And that’s not because you don’t end up with terrible teams. The truth is, everyone ends up with terrible teams. When terrible players end up in a game, it’s not because there’s some line of logic in the matchmaking algorithm that says “There’s Celine and their husband. kitten those two!”.
Everyone ends up with bad teammates. However, you also end up against bad players just like everyone else does. What makes the difference for a win/loss is how much better you make your team when you have bad teammates or how well you outplay the bad players on the other team.
But, honestly, it’s natural for people to notice their teammates making mistakes more than enemy team mistakes because:
1) We tend to think we’re better than we are since that thought is more comforting and encourages us to keep pushing forward.
2) It’s a lot easier to see mistakes from your team since you see team chat as well as your teammates positions on the map at all times.
The more you focus on what you could do better and the less you focus on what other people, who you’ll probably almost never encounter again, should do better, the more you’ll improve.
Ok, this thread is getting ridiculous. People are now just trying to point out any scenario where thieves aren’t ideal instead of talking to the point of the thread.
Thieves are not the worst class. They’re exceptionally strong in solo Q due to the nature of their role, even though you still wouldn’t want to stack them and wouldn’t necessarily take them over something like a rev in an organized group.
And regardless, they’re still much better than warriors or DH in most if not all scenarios (well, DH are probably better in low tier games for players who aren’t good at playing thieves, I guess).
Tell me honestly: would you rather have a thief on a perfect pvp team than a ranger or a guardian?
There is no perfect team in solo Q.
If you’re talking what professions to bring in an organized, pro league team, that’s a whole ’nuther discussion.
But whether thieves fit into that tiny piece of PvP or not hardly has any bearing on whether thief is anywhere near being the ‘worst’.
Thief is easily best carry in soloq if you have any idea how to rotate.
edit: I’d also rate warrior, dh and druid lower than thief in average games too.
Agreed with this.
Honestly, I think a lot of people here are just looking for validation towards their difficulties towards a class with a very different set of strengths and weaknesses.
You both are lol. Thief is not a solo carry. Maybe you both should let everyone in pvp know the secret if you feel otherwise. Can’t wait to see 2 thieves on a team since it is such a strong carry.
Just because it can carry doesn’t mean you want 2 on a team. I mean, that’s like saying that just because sugar tastes great, you’re going to try to bake cookies with extra sugar instead of flour.
If you want to see high level thief solo queues, it’s not hard to find. Sindrenerr is a great example of this (twitch.tv/sindrenerr) since he’s Legendary X3 and solo queues as thief, but there’s plenty of other good streaming thieves as well.
Or you could just stick your head in the ground and keep telling yourself that the thief class is really your excuse…
Thief is easily best carry in soloq if you have any idea how to rotate.
edit: I’d also rate warrior, dh and druid lower than thief in average games too.
Agreed with this. Tanky builds are great for organized groups where you can rely on teammates helping when you get outnumered, but if you end up in a group that’s spread and doesn’t rotate as well, they don’t work nearly as much. A thief can easily jump from fight to fight to contribute just enough to turn the tide, then move to the next fight before the enemy can. If your teammates get tunnel vision, then you can still bail them out with a quick spike to an enemy.
Honestly, I think a lot of people here are just looking for validation towards their difficulties towards a class with a very different set of strengths and weaknesses.
Thief is easily best carry in soloq if you have any idea how to rotate.
edit: I’d also rate warrior, dh and druid lower than thief in average games too.
Agreed with this.
Honestly, I think a lot of people here are just looking for validation towards their difficulties towards a class with a very different set of strengths and weaknesses.
I don’t think SH is a fail, but there’s a couple key problems that keep it from being what it needs to be:
1) There’s only 1 map. Without map variety, you don’t have any prevention of map burnout like you do with Conquest.
*2) Healing, offensive rush premades are too strong. *
Here’s my 2 copper on how to fix #2:
Put a debuff on door breakers so that they receive less healing per nearby ally.
This way, a team can run split with a healer or two escorting door breakers while others defend or go somewhere else while still preventing people from zerg, face rushing everything.
Alternatively:
Buff the treb to do more damage per target it hits
This would be another similar way to get the same result.
Yes. Some people are supposed to get stuck in tiers. We’re not all pros, even if we want to think we are.
Armor doesn’t really mean much. If you’re running utility skills full of DPS skills, then I don’t see how you should expect to be super tanky in the middle of a ton of cleave/condis.
If you follow forum posts, you’ll always think that thief is either wildly OP (people who are new to the game and don’t understand the stealth/burst) or wildly UP (people that try to play a thief like other professions and don’t understand how to engage/disengage wisely).
Thief has been stronger in the past, but it’s still not bad now. I’d definitely put it above warrior.
The learning curve for D/P can be a bit rough since your defense is so active. Blinds, evades, and teleports will allow you to escape just about any fight that’s going badly as long as you can recognize when this is happening quickly enough.
If you’re looking to get a feel for how to play this build well, I suggest watching some of the gameplay from Sindrenerr on his twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/sindrenerr (edit: or see other vids from him here: http://www.dailymotion.com/sindrener)
Ideally, you rotate to fights already in progress, drop in just enough damage to where your teammate will undoubtedly win the fight and then use your superior mobility to do the same somewhere else or decap.
Good thief gameplay is a lot like taking the normal tempo of most other classes gameplay and drastically speeding it up. It may look like a hyper kid with ADHD at first, but each rotation and decision to engage or disengage from a fight should be a calculated choice where the opportunity cost of each outcome is carefully weighed as efficiently as possible.
(edited by Dahkeus.8243)
Unfortunately, Pistol/Pistol is in pretty bad shape. It deals substantially less DPS than other weapon sets and also has less utility.
The animations for Unload (the main DPS skill of Pistol/Pistol) are awesome, so it does feel awesome to run around using this weapon set, but the balance inadequacy pretty much kills it.
Pistol/Dagger, however, is great for PvP. It’s still a melee weapon set, but you do wield a pistol with it at least.
Sadly, GW2 is overall a weak MMO for people who like range DPS play since very few builds can play competitively without spending at least a significant time in melee range.
That being said, I still think GW2 is one of the best MMOs out there overall.
Hopefully that helps. Welcome to the game. =)
Raids were definitely a good idea for GW2. I don’t think Wildstar works as a good comparison since it also relied on the gear treadmill and so much else that really made it too similar to WoW.
Personally, I would have probably quit GW2 and focused primarily on WoW if not for raids. As it is now, I’m still spending a good bit of my time back in WoW (they actually have dungeons, lol), but I’m also sticking around in GW2 for PvP and raids.
Just wanted to chime in here regarding the fall mechanics on this map.
This is probably one of the most controversial aspects of the map since instant-gibs can turn the tides so easily.
I do think that it should still be a bit harder to knock people off on the cannon area so that knock backs are more strategic, but I don’t think you should change fall damage to be non-lethal.
Falling death is really part of what the map was designed around. If you’re set on fixing this map without completely redesigning it to the point where you might as well make another map, there’s no way to remove fall death without making it feel like bowling with those bumpers that kids get to cover the gutters.
Oh, and you still need to revisit the interaction of pull skills (Scorpion Wire, Magnet, Etc.) on this map if you decide to keep in the glass panes. These skills are just weird and glitchy, which doesn’t encourage skillful play.
Also I don’t know why people keep bringing helseth up. Yes he’s good. Kinda. He has never won any tournament though. Go and ask him how he carried his team in the last WTS against Abj. Got Carry Bro?
That’s how viable his suggestion is. His then team had members of Rank 55, who actually won the pro league and put Abj to shame.
Got Carry Bro? Mad?
Anxiously awaiting his carry prowess to be in the last place of pro league again.
He’s the Trump of high tier PvP players. He’s loud, boastful, controversial, and just good enough to be in the pro leagues. Because he’s always grabbing all the attention, people tend not to notice other great players as much.
He also loves to blame ANet for problems, which will always make you friends. Remember how he said that mesmers were dead after the last balance patch?
Well, finding people willing to participate in this should be about as hard as finding college students willing to go through test trials for medical marijuana, lol.
But seriously, I do hope you share your findings here once you do this.
Carry every team? No. Carry enough teams to get a high raking? Yes. And it’s been done.