Guild Wars 2

That would constitute a “buff”. Thieves don’t get “buffs”, they get “nerfs” or “bugfixes”.

Jana.6831:

Dakarius.3284:

I’m just as stupid as you playing d/d. It’s sad, I can barely afford to stay in a fight long enough to CnD in melee, let alone having it actually connect.

Yay, someone who suffers with me
Even defeating the noobiest ranger feels like a gigantic success.

Anyway, what I forgot to say in my last post: It might as well be that my thief will stay dead even after the next balance patch, then it’s another 1/4 to 1/2 years to hope – and that is really hard to be honest. I’d rather have some minor tweaks here and there and things not settled but “This seems off, we try to nerf/buff it, lets see how it goes, if it’s too weak we’ll buff it again, if it’s too strong, we’ll nerf it.” Rather a constant flow than “shake to the core” – I get that this is exciting to a lot of people who also like to play always different classes, but most people I know stick to their main.

I don’t really have any confidence in arenanet buffing d/d. They don’t seem to care if multiple weapon sets aren’t viable as long as there is one viable one. Never mind it’s easy as hell to buff just the under performing weapon sets without affecting overall game balance.

thief is okish in pve and playable I guess in wvw. In spvp…. yeah.

Jana.6831:

Yes, it sounds as if it’s meant to make classes OP and other classes Up just for the sake of “an interesting core shake”.
And I agree that the elites need to somewhat settle a bit.
But I disagree on how things have been handeled since June. More frequent balance patches would’ve been needed as from my point of view that what has happened is that we’ve had a massive power creep which is only survived by those who have enough invulnerabilities = less skill needed. It’s ok when this happens but it’s not ok to leave it in game for that long so people get used to it.
My poor D/D thief has been completely and utterly destroyed in June, so he will be dead for half a year when the next balance patch hits. Not sure if enough people are as stupid as me and stick around for that long. Balance is the core of competitive play.

I’m just as stupid as you playing d/d. It’s sad, I can barely afford to stay in a fight long enough to CnD in melee, let alone having it actually connect.

runeblade.7514:

This is how traps should work.

If you fall for a trap, you die. Simple as that.

If only thief traps worked like that. You can literally trip all of a thieves traps and only take a few thousand in damage.

I know most people are running shield, but I really like the axe, has anyone had any luck with it?

You’ve only yourself to blame. The proper response to encountering a DH as a thief is to shadowstep away and run in the opposite direction as fast as you can.

Thunderbird.4298:

I think this guy isn’t very good at thief, through a solider ammy on and dodge crit runes on and flip around landing 7k crits while being untouchable lol

You are not going to be getting 7k crits on thief with soldier ammy.

you can get some serious air jump dodging with bounding dodger.

It needs to proc on dodge or evade (still a 1 sec cd).

The problem with thief is our survivability, we can’t stay in melee for more than a couple of seconds before we’re downed.

Thieves have always lacked staying power, but in the past it was balanced by our powerful burst and escape abilities. Now our staying power is even less than before and our burst is nothing spectacular compared to other classes. On top of that pretty much every other class can negate our burst multiple times in a fight. So you end up with a class with mediocre burst that occasionally hits in return for the ability to move around the map quickly, which we’ve always had.

The nerfs over the years plus the power creep of the other classes has made thieve in to a 2nd class citizen. Before the June patch we were in an ok spot. After the June patch we lost a lot of viable specs but had at least 1 ok spec. Now I don’t think there’s any reason to take a thief over mesmer or revenant for the +1 ability. They can do what we can do a little slower, but at least they’re useful in a team fight.

turn 180 degrees and walk away.

Finally had a close match. Won vs a premade, I’ve got to be at the bottom of the pvp barrel by now.

I’ve been playing all night trying to finish off this Halloween track and it has been terrible. out of 20 or so games I’ve won maybe 4 times. The times I’ve won weren’t even fun since my team completely dominated the other teams. When I lose it’s usually by 200+ points with our teams top scorer out scored by their lowest.

I’ve gone from a 68+% win rate to a 46% win rate and it’s making me really upset.

All I see are a bunch of people being trolled by a disgruntled thief.

Yeah, thieves are so OP, they should just be removed from the game. Their traps can oneshot you if stacked, they have a kitten ton of blocks/invulnerabilities/blinds. They’re also almost impossible to cc with all of their stability. Thieves are just way to good. Did you know a group of 4 thieves and 1 ele won an ESL tournament? That shows just how OP they are. Hell, I’m always jelous when the other team has more than one thief. A guaranteed win that one is.

Ok, I’ve been trying really hard to enjoy myself on my d/d thief, but since HoT it has become impossible. So hear is my rant about the problems with d/d.

First and foremost, its in combat mobility is lacking when compared to the competition. Every other weapon set thieves have is more mobile sans p/p which has the luxury of fighting at range. This is used to be an acceptable trade off when it was king of burst, but now it’s just another sad note.

Next, it used to have easy access to stealth via #5. This skill was balanced, it did superb damage and wasn’t impossible to land, and missing was only a big deal if it happened twice. Now it does kitten damage for its cost and it is far harder to land given the number of blocks, invulnerabilities, dazes, stuns, blinds, and dodges that exist. If you do manage to connect, you deal meh damage and got 3-4 seconds to line up a backstab.

Backstab, it used to do phenomenal damage, but now merely does acceptable damage(thanks ferocity patch). I used to get 8k+ crits now 4-6k is the norm. Did you know that Dragon hunter bow #2 does more damage on a 2 second cd?

Then there’s the #3 skill, it’s a kittening condition damage skill on a power set. At least they buffed the evade back up to .5s, but still, it’s almost a waste of ini.

number 2 has no complaints from me, I miss the old 66 and 33% damage thresholds, but w/e

number 4 kitten this skill, it used to do decent damage and had a decent cripple. Now it does kitten damage with a kitten cripple. Oh the part where it almost almost never lands at range is still an issue.

Then there’s 2 trait changes in particular that really hurt this spec: The mug nerf and moving CiS to grandmaster.

the mug nerf removed a lot of burst this spec had, but at least they gave us a decent heal in return.

The CiS change, however, is just pants on head kittened. kitten you arenanet. There was no call for making this trait, which used to be adept grand master. It didn’t even help the meta thief build d/p, only p/d and d/d used this trait, and it helped make us viable. Arenanet logic: let’s combine a Master trait and a Grand master trait to make a new Grand master trait: Shadow’s Embrace. Let’s Combine an adept trait with an adept trait to make a new Grand Master trait: CiS.

d/d used to have 3 different viable play styles: condition, attrition, and burst. CiS and Shadow’s Rejuvenation allowed us to whittle opponents down at the expense of damage, but we still had decent burst. After the June patch we lost this option.

Now with all of the new elite specs, d/d burst is gone. I don’t consider this a viable option at all. It’s gone from not meta to bad. There are far to many ways of flat out denying the burst, denying stealth, and locking this build down for it to work. Not to mention that other classes can burst harder while maintaining greater survivability. DD is a nice addition, but it’s not enough to save this weapon set on the power side.

Thanks Anet for slowly rendering my favorite weapon set useless. kitten you.

Thieves need more nerfs, I can still occasionally kill a player who’s not paying attention.

apparently the bounding dodger trait’s activation is longer than the dodge. Consequently I’ve found myself being interrupted multiple times mid dodge. Please fix this.

melts to conditions..

Spartacus.3192:

Morwath.9817:

Spartacus.3192:

Morwath.9817:

Spartacus.3192:

Im still amazed at the number of scrubs that see my DH standing on point and they all run to attack me in melee range.

Sorry but they deserve to die if they do that.

Pro Tip. If you see a DH standing in the middle of a point just shooting at you from range with his longbow DO NOT RUN ONTO THE POINT.

Do you even understand what you’ve said?
If a Ranger would write such stuff people would just eat him alive…

im pretty sure i understand what i wrote or i wouldnt have written it. Back when Turret Engies were OP or DD Cele Ele was OP you had to bring a spec that could fight them. If you played right into their strengths you’re gonna die.

And thats because they were OP, if DH follows same pattern, its also OP and requires fixing?

I didnt say DH wasnt strong. I do think its strong, however, there are counters. If you recall that Turret Engie and DD Cele Ele were OP for MONTHS!!!. It was only a few days before the tears started to flow and QQ started on DH and nerfs were brought in.

Considering that ended back in 2013 I’m over it. I would just like to be able to have a fair chance against more than 2 classes in a 1v1 scenario. Being able to do it as my preferred, obsolete (as of the june patch) d/d would be a further boon.

Spartacus.3192:

Im still amazed at the number of scrubs that see my DH standing on point and they all run to attack me in melee range.

Sorry but they deserve to die if they do that.

Pro Tip. If you see a DH standing in the middle of a point just shooting at you from range with his longbow DO NOT RUN ONTO THE POINT.

And what am I supposed to do as a thief? His ranged damage is far greater than mine. Oh that’s right, thieves aren’t allowed to 1v1. Never mind, carry on.

xXBurningEmberXx.6085:

That is literally the exact same as what we have right now… transparency wouldn’t add anything except for aesthetic appeal…

lol, you’re kidding right? Reveal right now shuts down an entire trait line and denies us access to our stealth skills.

honestly they should just change it to randomly recharge one of your utility skills meaning one of the spots on the bar. 20% chance for each slot, but always useful.

or is it just the other class so better than thief atm….

bingo

Revenant. Thief will always be my main, but revenant for pvp.

I 100% agree with sinject. These buffs will help all weapon sets without making any single set op. Viable pvp d/d is my dream. The only addition I’d add is give sb#2 a 25% faster travel time.

considering the nerf side has been winning for the past three years…

hell, thieves even get stuff nerfed that no one saw as a problem (/d #4 and CiS anyone?)

arenta.2953:

Nightstorm.8024:

Just wondering because I was running with a necro-condi build fighting off mobs.. took about 10 seconds to kill 1.

Oh look, here comes a Rev… 1 shots it.

Makes me feel like I should just roll rev and drop the condi’s.

rev is REALLY squishy.

its offense capability is great.

but its weaknesses are rather weak heals with long cooldowns.
stun breaks that cost ALOT to use and are very few (you lose like 30-50 charge per use. and they are limited to ~1 per legend. so 10 sec cooldown between that)

and their condition removers are also limited. far as i know u have 2 condition removal skills. once again on different legends.

so in short. a rev has 2 legends for stun breaks. 2 for condition removal.
long cooldowns and cost for both
and because u limited to 2 legends. you have either 1 stun break and 2 condition removal. or 2 stun breaks and 1 condition removal.

traits give u a 3rd stun break. but overall, rev is very hard to customize to survival.

so think of it as a theif with more hp, more armor. but less speed, less heal(stealth heal thief overkill), and FAR less condition removal(stealth condition removal. stealth spam meta~)

oh. and its ranged capability is REALLY limited. 1 weapon, and while its a good weapon. its not devestating like Ele staff or theif pistols/shortbow or ranger longbow.

the Rev 2h hammer is predictable. but capable.

Rev squishy? Only if you build squishy. You have so many options for hp recovery it’s not even funny. And yes, our heals are a little weaker, but that’s because we get two of them. As for stun breaks, we have the stun breaks inherent in our legends, but we also break stuns when switching. I don’t think any other class has this many stun breaks. Not to mention the amount of stability we get to reduce the need to even use them. The only real weakness I see with revenant is conditions.

Berserker/Marauder Rev is basically a tank when compared to my thief.

Gabriell.4856:

Nocta.5274:

I think a damage buff to Backstab and Larcenous Strike would be a good start to put the power thief build into a better spot.

Increase the front damage to 2.4 coef and the backstab to 4.8. Also, revert Mug back so it can crit. Revert CnD and Dancing Dagger damage to what it was at release.

This won’t address the sustain issue but it will address the 1v1 issue. It also bring back D/D.

CiS would also need to be moved to master tier, that would go a long way to fixing d/d.

ReaperJr.5967:

Wait, people are still complaining about daredevil? I would’ve expected these ‘thief mains’ to know what they are talking about. Thief is far from dead, it has been tremendously buffed with daredevil, at least back to 2014 level. Survibility and damage are at an all time high atm. I’m honestly baffled.

I agree 100% daredevil is at 2014 levels of power. The problem is all other classes have experienced a massive amounts of power creep since then. It’s like the dev who designed daredevil carefully took his time planning daredevil to make sure it was balanced for the meta while the other devs just went for what would be fun.

These descriptions of how to “properly” play the “balanced” thief are kittening hilarious. They amount to avoid all combat unless the target is already losing and make sure to go back cap where other people aren’t. Never mind that you can’t contest a point if any other class is on it. And they claim this is a balanced roll.

I’ve dropped my main, a thief, which I’ve been playing since beta. Learning revenant so I can actually have fun in pvp again. I look forward to the day when thief is viable again, but for now, it’s just not worth it.

Considering “bruiser” specs deal as much damage as my zerker speced thief while having about 4 times as much survivability… yeah, I’d say screw thief.

What attacks are unblockable other than pulmonary impact?

So I’d say about 75% of the time my Dreamer doesn’t make its special sound then it will make it for 10 or so shots in a row, then it will go back to standard boring sounds.

PS: revert the sound back to how it was before, it sounded better.

Randomly revealed every 2-3 seconds? No.

Inflames.8026:

Another poster with another post. First, if you played more then 1000 matches as thief and still cant win, you are doing something horribly wrong.
To be clear people, thief is viable, and you need to adapt and work for your kill. Stop blaming the game and improve your reflexes. Know what the enemy is running, find their weaknesses and take advantage of em. Keep in mind you will have some natural counters just like every other class.

Prepatch I could confidently engage with most classes. Condi wars, Guardians, Some Engis and Condi mesmers gave me problems, but the rest I felt I had fair ground against.

Now after the patch the only classes I feel I can take on with confidence are power rangers and other thieves. I did not suddenly get worse. It also doesn’t help that my spec of choice d/d got nerfed into oblivion.

witcher.3197:

You do realize that if you want dmg or sustain buff then nerfs to mobility and stealth have to happen, righ?

You do realize when the patch hit all other classes got Damage buffs and sustain buffs while thief damage stayed about the same and sustain went down right? There’s a reason the number of threads started by thieves complaining about the class has skyrocketed since the patch.

Oh and let’s not forget about the addition of all the new reveal stuff that’s happening.

Well something needs to be done. As is d/d is inferior to d/p in every conceivable way. d/d used to have much greater burst potential but several nerfs to its damage has neutered that.

So d/d isn’t particularly viable in pvp, yet it’s really fun to play. Part of its problem is damage mitigation. CnD is a skill that could use some love, its had its damage nerfed multiple times to the point where d/p does nearly the same damage as d/d without the drawbacks. In order to bring d/d back up to par I recommend giving CnD a 1/2 second evade as it’s being cast.

This change give’s d/d thieves a few things. First, it gives a reliable, instant, and effective evade allowing d/d to make better use of DD and have higher sustain. Second it helps d/d get into stealth. CnD could still be blinded or dodged, but the thief wont be totally vulnerable since the evade would stop interrupts.

I don’t feel this would be overpowered seeing as how it takes 6 ini and doesn’t do too much damage as is.

Other changes that would put d/d back into viability is making CiS adept tier, and fixing the evade frames/time on DB.

Please make my favorite weapon set viable anet!

Vertical mobility is only really prominent in spvp. Elsewhere it can be used, but it requires you to know the various situations where you will have a valid path.

I’ve been thinking CnD needs a lower ini cost ever since the patch. Two reasons: 1st, the damage has been nerfed several times. Second, it would help /d in pvp since hitting a CnD is so critical, this would alleviate some of the pain of missing.

Having two thieves shouldn’t be an autoloss since thief is fine. I mean it’s not like thieves are good at only 1 thing and having extra just hurts your team… oh.

A big problem a lot of classes have with our stealthing is how we like to sit in it. Another big problem is how revealed completely shuts down thieves. In order to fix this problem I suggest we make all of our traits activate upon entering stealth, and upon getting revealed.

A few examples of how this could work:

Shadows Embrace: Remove 1 condition whenever you enter stealth or whenever you get revealed.

Shadows rejuvenation: Heals for 2 seconds worth of current regen when you enter stealth and when you get revealed 1 initiative when you enter stealth and when you get revealed.

etc.

This promotes a more active dancing in and out of stealth type of gameplay and can help keep an entire traitline from getting shut down due to revealed..

>Yes, yes I did absolutely nothing. That kinda happens with Basilisk venom and dazesteal, doesn’kitten

It’s called shadowstep. It’s a stunbreak and a condi clear.

>I should have had to use the cleanse I needed to counter the OTHER condi thief’s opener already, right?

I should hope you have more than 1 condi clear. I would also hope you don’t expect to have an equal chance 2v1.

>Combined with perma stealth.
> Cloak and Dagger

Yeah, considering there is no perma stealth with /d.. I’d say this is a clear case of l2p.

OP it depends on how you play and how long. If you really focus on it 3-4 months of grinding dungeons and events will get you it. If you’re more casual but play more than 5 or so hours a week its doable in a years time. I’m really lazy with my approach, I just invest in weapon skins/dyes/w/e and sell them later for massive profit. I’m about to get my second legend in 3 years (I’ve not played much this past year).

d/d is obviously a direct damage set, however its #3 skill is condition focused. As it is, power d/d never uses its #3 and is hampered as a result. I suggest that #3 have its direct damage buffed to account for 80-90% of an above 50% heart seeker, as well as to have better power scaling, and to have it’s evade frame increased to .5 seconds.

The increase in evade frame brings it inline with other evade skills theives have and actually makes it useful for evading. As it is currently the skill animation is so out of whack with the evade frames that it is 100% useless as an evade. this will give d/d a much needed survivability boost as well as allowing d/d to synchronize better with DD.

The increase in damage is needed for it to be used period. It needs to deal less damage than HS so it’s not spammed (unless in an aoe appropriate environment), but enough extra damage that you don’t feel like you’re totally gimping your damage to add a little survivability.

The bleed can be left on as this is inconsequential damage to power thieves and it allows those few condi d/d thieves to still enjoy their build

Cloaked in shadow is simply not a grandmaster level trait. On top of that it hurts /d build forcing them to choose between it and Shadows Rejuvenation.

My Suggestion: Move Cloaked in shadow to Master Level, and move Shadow Protector to grand master. In addition, let shadow protector grant 3 seconds of protection. Remove the rejuvenation if necessary.

Suddenly I can play my d/d build again without feeling totally kitten.

Oh, and revert the nerf to Shadows embrace. That’s all.

Drop the vuln from CnD add blind, done. X/D suddenly 100% more viable. buff /d #4 to deal 50% more damage and you just about fixed the whole off dagger thing.

Oh, we’re still viable, just only as d/d or d/p burst. Non burst bui;lds really just can’t hack it.