Guild Wars 2

Fade.7658:

Come Dec. 10th, it’s going to be the same song and dance. Any time I see posts from devs touting improvements, my stomach sinks. Mark my words, what you see listed now as changes will make it live in December.

It’s happened every time they tell us, or we get a leak. Mark Jacobs needs to get Camelot rolling asap imo.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview/page/29

About 2/3 of the way down… The Devs are listening.

sierras.6297:

However, I think the rest of this patch is a general improvement for thieves.

This is a balancing patch… Critical Haste and Sundering Strikes got improved, all the other traits effected are either not used or had their effectiveness reduced. Even Practiced Tolerance got a boost to 7% while other classes had attribute synergy boosted across multiple traits by upto 10%… And the other classes had survivability improvements… (guardians don’t really count, they got a damage buff).

So pass w/e you’re smokin around

Depending on how familiar you are with the skills might want to try 0/30/0/15/25. Usually play it with S/D, SB but like Heizero has said its good to have P/P for backup. Knowing the fights is key, as I’d generally run w/o trickery VII and use flanking strikes… Switch to VII if the mobs or boss have frequent boons though. Well see how fun sword is though after the Dec 10th. Mostly use Valk gear, sig agility, shadow step, haste… depends on the fight. My two cents

JonPeters.5630:

Dekk.3459:

JonPeters.5630:

Here is a summary of the changes we have made thus far based on feedback we have read. This is not necessarily the end of adjustments, but where we stand currently. There were a lot of good suggestions, and some of them may not be able to make it due to time constraints on testing and implementation. Please continue to give feedback over the course of the next few days. We will continue to monitor that feedback and take it into account in changes we make for this patch and for the future.

ELEMENTALIST

• Arcane Resurrection is going up to master tier instead of Renewing Stamina.
• Windborne Dagger is going to function outside of combat.
• Soothing Disruption is moving to master tier.
• Cantrip Mastery is moving to adept tier.
• Soothing Wave redesign: Gain Regeneration(3s) on incmoing critical hits. 10s recharge.

ENGINEER

• Power Shoes is going to function outside of combat.

MESMER

• Confounding Suggestions – We will merge the old functionality with the new functionality. It will now have 50% change to stun on daze and increase daze duration by 25%.

THIEF

• Vigorous Recovery: Vigor duration will be 5 seconds instead of 4.
• Bountiful Theft will come down to a 10s Vigor instead of 8s.

WARRIOR

• Combustive Shot. To clarify this change, the damage is normalized to about 15% less physical damage than it used to do at all adrenaline levels, but that the damage per pulse is the same regardless of adrenaline level.

Reminder, we will be locking this thread near the end of the week.

Thanks,

Jon

Good to see progress is being made. There has be a lot of versatility added to classes. And I know I am tired of saying this but where is the versatility for thief? There have been the across the boards attribute transitions for example %tough -> precision. Looking at thief you’ve buffed initiative base gain, and slashed trait initiative gain, and reduced mobility.

Don’t really see any versatility improvements for thief, you know, compared to balance of other class traits.

And engineer Transmute change, I applaud, it needs a longer ICD like 30s. If it was just removes a condition, then fine 15s… It converts a condition to a boon. So Transmute needs a longer ICD.

Versatility for thief. We are giving every single thief build 33% more initiative to work with. We have said this a number of times, but clearly it needs to be said again. If any other profession was getting a patch note that said: Decreased cooldown of all weapon skills by 25%, that would be considered a huge buff. The way initiative works is obfuscating how powerful this change it, but please consider the value of this change when weighing thief changes in this patch.

Right, I understand it will improve generally. The problem is with thief it is all weapons, not weapon skills. The weapon CD traits for other classes is not being effect, thats 5 or 10 skills.

The versatility of other class changes comes from their traits, more regen, condi removal, retaliation, etc. Thief is not getting any love for its survivability… that is the versatility I’m trying to relate. Add another boon steal, condition removal, change trap master to instant w/ cd reduction… some option other than weapons focus, please.

Elementalist is getting an attunement revamp and trait buffs. Mesmer is getting their illusion CD for 15traits… So maybe initiative will be balancing. But not the overall class versatility.

And thank you for sorting through all these posts.

Heizero.9183:

JonPeters.5630:

I said it in he other thread but this trait has to get hit hard because it is breaking the profession. We need to push the effectiveness of this trait into base thief functionality. If any other profession had a trait that reduced weapon cooldown by 30% for all weapons as a 15 point minor we would have to balance around that. A single trait shouldn’t be holding thief balance hostage so we will steal from this trait, no pun intended, and impart the savings on to every build via base initiative regeneration.

Jon

You can’t really compare it to another profession’s cooldown reduction like that though because all of our skills share the same resource, including onw eapon swap. we don’t have any way to renew our “cooldowns” for example like a warrior would by swapping to his next set and using what is available there.

It would be comparable if you said “Reduces cooldowns on all weapon sets by 30% but all skills share that that cooldown.” Which i am sure nobody would appreciate.

EDIT: for example if i ever wished to fire down through all of the abilities on a weapon set consecutively (D/P for example) i cannot afford to do that. i simply do not have enough initiative. Other classes can, and that really just makes this entire situation incomparable.

{sarcasm} Thief is not meant to have a unique mechanic. Thief is a short range ranger, wimpy warrior, whiny guardian, and a 180 sec cooldown mesmer. All rolled into one! Why can’t you see that.{/sarcasm}

Yeah initiative provides for burst… NO MORE BURST /slapshand bad thief.

So base mechanics from the GW2 website:
“Thief
Experts at stealth and surprise, thieves can move through the shadows, vanish into thin air, or steal items from their opponents and use them as weapons. Thieves practice an agile, acrobatic fighting style, which can make them very hard to hit.”

Why reduce mobility? Where are the stunbreakers for ‘vanishing into thin air’? Stealing… so more boon siphoning? What is the strength of a thief supposed to be? It certainly wont be burst anymore. P/D condition? Considering all the condition removal available to others classes you have to be joking. And you’re giving a traitable 25% movement speed to other classes and not the thief. Better condition removal, more regeneration, longer retaliation, and no survivability options for thief. The answer being, “Hey thieves take that random chance Hard to Catch will put you in an even worse position while you sit there on your back, you’re gonna be there soon anyway.” -ArenaNet

You know why thieves steal?? Because everyone else has something better

This is the worst balancing across classes I’ve seen to date

JonPeters.5630:

Here is a summary of the changes we have made thus far based on feedback we have read. This is not necessarily the end of adjustments, but where we stand currently. There were a lot of good suggestions, and some of them may not be able to make it due to time constraints on testing and implementation. Please continue to give feedback over the course of the next few days. We will continue to monitor that feedback and take it into account in changes we make for this patch and for the future.

ELEMENTALIST

• Arcane Resurrection is going up to master tier instead of Renewing Stamina.
• Windborne Dagger is going to function outside of combat.
• Soothing Disruption is moving to master tier.
• Cantrip Mastery is moving to adept tier.
• Soothing Wave redesign: Gain Regeneration(3s) on incmoing critical hits. 10s recharge.

ENGINEER

• Power Shoes is going to function outside of combat.

MESMER

• Confounding Suggestions – We will merge the old functionality with the new functionality. It will now have 50% change to stun on daze and increase daze duration by 25%.

THIEF

• Vigorous Recovery: Vigor duration will be 5 seconds instead of 4.
• Bountiful Theft will come down to a 10s Vigor instead of 8s.

WARRIOR

• Combustive Shot. To clarify this change, the damage is normalized to about 15% less physical damage than it used to do at all adrenaline levels, but that the damage per pulse is the same regardless of adrenaline level.

Reminder, we will be locking this thread near the end of the week.

Thanks,

Jon

Good to see progress is being made. There has be a lot of versatility added to classes. And I know I am tired of saying this but where is the versatility for thief? There have been the across the boards attribute transitions for example %tough -> precision. Looking at thief you’ve buffed initiative base gain, and slashed trait initiative gain, and reduced mobility.

Don’t really see any versatility improvements for thief, you know, compared to balance of other class traits.

And engineer Transmute change, I applaud, it needs a longer ICD like 30s. If it was just removes a condition, then fine 15s… It converts a condition to a boon. So Transmute needs a longer ICD.

JonPeters.5630:

Let’s break down this thief change a bit more so we can dispel any notions that this is going to ruin thieves.

We are increasing base regen by 33%. This is basically equivalent to a patch notes that says: “Warrior: Cooldown on all weapon skills has been reduced by 25%.”

It is an incredible buff to this profession and should not be treated lightly. To counter this imagine we took a few weapons and took away the cooldown portion of their trait. They would still be 5% better but other weapons would be 25% better.

Among the changes that is basically what it amounts to, with the exception of one change which I’ll talk about next.

Opportunist
This trait was wildly overpowered. I there was a 15 point minor for any other profession that basically read: "Reduce cooldown of all weapon skills by 33%, it would basically be impossible to run that profession without putting 15 points into that line. Because of this every thief build that is effective uses this line, which improves crit and crit damage. This pigeonholes this profession in a way that makes it frustrating for players and developers. This trait has to be closer to an 8% increase if we expect people to consider not taking 15 point in critical strikes.

By reducing this trait and improving base regen we are giving non-crit thieves 15-30 trait points back to spend where they want to. There are a lot of good traits that simply will never see play until we make this change.

Hopefully this explains, in more detail, what we hope to accomplish here.

TLDR; Thieves with 15+ in critical strikes and no other initiative traits will be slightly less efficient. All other thieves will be equally or more efficient.

Jon

Here is the issue Jon. Initiative is unique… Besides engineer and ele any other class can use 10 weapon skills and has to wait for a CD. Where thief gets to burst skills from one of two weapons and with the current initiative cost of skills it does not amount to 10 skills. So while I am sure you have a good grasp on how it works when you compare this system to another class it is not the same at all. The reason people are pigeonholed into critical strikes is to improve their damage not for initiative regen…

BTW using warrior as an example isn’t helping your case with the proposed mobility issues the will be facing with the originally listed changes. Thief is not a warrior. Thief has the least amount of defensive options in the game. So while you are trying to accommodate versatility there is not much available you should really add more options to the thief class (traits) or you will ruin it.

JonPeters.5630:

No, I am saying that I don’t want the balance of the thief held hostage by a 15 point minor in critical strikes so we need to take that initiative away from there and put it into the base class mechanics, which is exactly what we are doing.

Jon

Others have asked what the vision is for the role of thief with these changes. Are you expecting them to try wearing soldiers gear? What do you see as the base mechanics of the thief class? What is the vision for role of thief?

AutoAttack FTW!!! Thats 1 strike, 1 dodge, a scream, run that way, now this way, ill swing again, dodge, nope downed FML

I saw a hammer/gs warrior down 8 players trying to take a tower in about 10s, yesterday. They were all bunched on the gate… Probably expecting him to run inside. Ooops, guess warriors are not OP.

seriously

So Deadly Arts I Back Fighting is getting a 200% damage buff scaling of both power and condition damage? Still not going to play a thief if these changes are made

The changes are unjustified. There are what 4 common builds now for thief? And they all revolve around damage, the only thing a thief can do well. Not top dps but well.

With these changes venoms are out of the question, no cc protection. Traps take to long and no type of trait support. There go half the utilities… Sword will be severely hampered, p/p still doesnt work and sb will be nerfed in January. Guess that leaves one weapon set, the big gulp!

So again Ill ask the devs where is the versatility for thief?

Kaizer.7135:

IS/SR needed a nerf, it acted as a stun break and a condition cleanse with no cooldown and 1200 range.

Warrior is my second main but he doesn’t even have a third of the play time I have on my Thief because they’re so easy to play. Which makes it really boring imo.

GTFO of thief forums. Most S/D builds dont use SA so there is not another condi removal you would trait or take opposed to many other builds. So again GTFO

I am sure there a plenty of ingenious improvements that could be made. Here are a few I came up with to add a bit of diversity to thief.

Some change possibilities.
Add another buff to traits that give vigor, for example, vigorous recovery vigor X sec, stability X sec; Bountiful Theft vigor X sec, aegis or protection and steal two boons. Add a steal boon or transfer condition to kleptomaniac.
Add transfer condition to some other ability, really any condition removal (low hp pool might be fun for a guardian).
Other thoughts:
Deadly Arts
Throw out DA X, move DA XII Residual Venom to X and move SA XII Venomous Aura to DA XII. That or make DA X damage increase for skill 3 of dual wields.
DA VII Improvisation – Transfer condition on steal

Critical Strikes
Opportunist (dec10) with ICD of 4s

Shadow Arts
SA XII Shadow Sieve – attack after stealth transfer two conditions to target icd 10s

Acrobatics
A III Vigorous Recovery – gain vigor 4s and stability 2s
*A IV Change to Swashbuckler – Sword #2 is instant cast, or 25% speed w/ melee
A V Master Trapper – traps are instant and recharge quicker
Swap A VII Fleet of Foot with improved A V Master Trapper
A XI Hard to Catch – Turn to mist/smoke 2s & gain swiftness on disable (sorry but shadowstep skills are buggy with current terrain models and a class that uses positioning to survive… random movement is not conducive)

Trickery
T Adept Kleptomaniac – reduce ini 3 to 2, steal one boon
T VII Bountiful Theft – Grants Protection and Vigor, steal 2 boons

Basilisk Venom: gives target herpes, next 3 attacks (anyones) cannot be dodged, blocked, or evaded (at this point its only used for Rune set actives… Elite not so much)

Increase dps of sword overall by 5%, atleast give thief sword autoattack…
Increase speed of shortbow #5

Zerbo.5381:

I am one of those thieves who already mains s/d and uses d/p as a second weapon set, mainly for finishing off opponents and securing a stomp. If you follow through with the changes to sword 2, I can assure you that you pretty much kill sword specs. It’s already hard enough trying to keep up with some other professions in the game’s current state because of their abilities to mindlessly toss out cond’s, ai, and/or stun spamming aoe while having plenty of defensive abilities.

It does require a utility by the way in addition to infiltrator’s return using a great deal of initiative and a little skill to secure a stomp in this way. How is this ANY worse than many other classes just popping STABILITY which takes hardly any (if any) active skill on a player’s part to secure a stomp? Also, using blackpowder, I pull off stomps far easier, using almost the same initiative and don’t even have to use a utility. So why exactly are you changing Infiltrator’s Return based on this supposed “more impactful” use? Your guys’ reasoning sometimes really escapes me.

Yeah I got a laugh out of that reasoning too

JonPeters.5630:

Thief:
_One of the issues
… We have also somewhat reduced the effectiveness of high evasion thieves by reducing vigor up time and adding some cast time to the Shadow Return skill on the sword. This prevents these thieves from evading too much and too easily dealing with being disabled (stun, daze, fear, knockdown, etc.). Also we are trying to improve the survivability of thieves in the Acrobatics line through easier access to the Hard to Catch trait and increased effectiveness of the Assassin’s Reward trait. This will reward thieves who are actively engaged in the fight rather than those who are just dodging over and over again. …

Here is the issue, these changes are supposed to be balancing. I am going to compare Thief and Mesmer as I believe the playstyles are similar for most people. (Sidenote: ive been running a mantra mesmer since March and have never seen condition removal as an issue, so w/e to the complaining.)

Generally the changes seem to be addressed for pvp and two of the most annoying builds are thief stealthing/evading and mesmer stealth/blink. So they are similar, avoid damage by your enemy not being able to see or hit you. However this ‘balance’ seems more about spinning plates than actually synergy. And here is the kicker Mesmers get close to permanent vigor for 5 trait points, have access to protection (remember that issue months ago), and regeneration on positioning. Thief gets vigor and regen w/ condition and … Not so balancing IMO

Hard to Catch and Assassins Reward are close to the least used traits in acrobatics. Hard to Catch, as stated by many others, is buggy and more times than not the results are negative. I feel like an engineer from months back, time to toss the dice and see how this game is gonna screw me. Assassins Reward is healing, in a current game setup where healing does not scale well, its not worth 20 points (and i have a set of magis gear).

Without evasion and positioning they are sitting ducks.

Need revamped traits not some shell game. Can you keep the thief fun to play?

So are there any plans to actually allow theif a chance in a toe-to-toe, since that is apparently the point?

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Oghier.7419:

D/D didn’t get nerfed. Increasing base initiative gain by 33% is a pretty big deal.

It’s more than a big deal. It’s a MASSSSSSSSSIVE buff to all thief specs.

Initiative allows for burst… So the nerfs to sustain sword damage… I dont see the massive here, sorry.

Grimwolf.7163:

They gave 33% increase in base regen rate, but they dropped regen from traits by 50% across the board.
They also dropped Vigor up time by half.

They don’t want Thieves Stealthing, don’t want them dodging… WTF?
I care so little about this game at this point, I don’t know why I even wasted my time posting this…

^^
I want to play a subpar class so that all those elite dungeon runners can say you’re not a warrior or sword guardian so gtfo /booted

Yeah with the thief positioning and evades nerf lets try another test. Reset health scaling to match the thief class across all classes. See how long every class lasts… Oh the rest of the classes have access to all those other buffs, no problem i guess.

Rafahil.2857:

The only thing I see what the initiative regen buff did was that p/p #3-Unload can be better spammed now.

Not with the changes to opportunist it wont be. That is the ‘passive’ crit trait to give more initiative and plays a significant role in P/P unload…

jmatb.6307:

Thief

• Less effective stealth and evade spam. THANK YOU.
• Some thieves are freaking out about this, but even their chart analyses show that Thieves are getting buffed not nerfed
• The haste on crit looks interesting, IAS is always strong, but especially on a class that can pop up from nowhere and gank you.

Yeah perma stealth was over the top. Evade is the thiefs’ only damage mitigation however no buffs outside of vigor for defense, low hp pool. Seems like it will go from a fair shooting game with moving targets to the pick up the duck and read the number.
They are freaking out about Opportunist changes. IMO an ICD is a good idea but should be 3 or 4 s instead of 5. I really dont see many of these thief changes having been actually tested.
Maybe try playing a thief… they have had the haste on crit trait forever

IMO thief already had a high skill cap since youre not only looking for skill powerups but dealing with any lag issues for the timing. If they are going to screw with positioning and evades there should be some other form of damage mitigation. Or at the very least give all thieves pompoms cuz mediocre players are gonna be sidelined.

ENGINEER
I know engineer needs some love. Isn’t a 100% condition convert every 15s a bit OP? Wait for only 15 trait points?? Needs longer ICD IMO

THIEF
Please, seriously take another look at thief damage mitigation. Low hp pool, minimal condition removal and buffs. Now the plan is to take vigor and nerf sword positioning and cond removal? I for one am not playing at some LAN party, lag can be an issue. Reconsider these changes or revamp the whole thief mechanic in 2014 cuz the number of thief players is going to drop.

Some change possibilities. Add another buff to traits that give vigor, for example, vigorous recovery vigor X sec, stability X sec; Bountiful Theft vigor X sec, aegis or protection and steal two boons. Add a steal boon or transfer condition to kleptomaniac. Add transfer condition to some other ability, really any condition removal (low hp pool might be fun for a guardian).

Other thoughts:
Deadly Arts
Throw out DA X, move DA XII Residual Venom to X and move SA XII Venomous Aura to DA XII. That or make DA X damage increase for skill 3 of dual wields.
DA VII Improvisation – Transfer condition on steal
Critical Strikes
Opportunist (dec10) with ICD of 4s
Shadow Arts
SA XII Shadow Sieve – attack after stealth transfer two conditions to target icd 10s
Acrobatics
A III Vigorous Recovery – gain vigor 4s and stability 2s
*A IV Change to Swashbuckler – Sword #2 is instant cast, or 25% speed w/ melee
A V Master Trapper – traps are instant and recharge quicker
Swap A VII Fleet of Foot with improved A V Master Trapper
A XI Hard to Catch – Turn to mist/smoke 2s & gain swiftness on disable (sorry but shadowstep skills are buggy with current terrain models and a class that uses positioning to survive… random movement is not conducive)
Trickery
T Adept Kleptomaniac – reduce ini 3 to 2, steal one boon
T VII Bountiful Theft – Grants Protection and Vigor, steal 2 boons
Basilisk Venom: gives target herpes, next 3 attacks (anyones) cannot be dodged, blocked, or evaded (at this point its only used for Rune set actives… Elite not so much)
Increase dps of sword overall by 5%, atleast give thief sword autoattack…
Increase speed of shortbow #5

Dec 10 preliminary-

Lag in large wvw battles significantly reduces usefulness of weapon dodging abilities because of timing and short evade windows. (Shortbow 3 works pretty consistently) Please increase evade windows.

Or do not take away vigor. Since there are no other apparent plans for a thief survivability increase.

evilapprentice.6379:

Hard to catch will be useless without a redesign – I don’t need any effect teleporting me without my explicit input. There’s too many scenario’s where it’ll be detrimental for me to ever even considering slotting it.

Exactly. I dont want to be the only class with no condition removal, subpar conditions, subpar dps, no damage mitigation and have to deal with positioning. Im not a masochist after all… this is a game, games are fun.

Real problem is with my thiefs’ current hp pool the hits to avoidance with no mention of a different damage mitigation or promise of stable 25ms connection… this shaving ‘nick’ is gonna kill me

I do not understand the term being used by Anet as shaving. I mean are you talking 5 o’clock shadow or ZZ Top beard shaving??? Im leaning to the latter with this proposed update. If youre going to ruin thieves damage avoidance then provide another way to make them melee viable * Please *

Please get your facts straight… Here is a quote:
“We did this by shaving a significant amount of initiative gain from these traits while simultaneously boosting the generic rate of initiative gain by 33%…

…Increased the base rate of initiative gain from .75/second to 1/second."
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview

This statement truly does explain to me how this game is getting more screwed up. That is only a 25% bump not 33%…

PS: Hard to Catch (Acrobatics XI) is subject to the same issues as other shadowstep/teleport skills and is next to useless. Sorry for the bad news.

Good bye Mantra of Resolve. Just need Mantra of Recovery… toooo easy. Mantras FTW

Cuteypie.7835:

Your breakdown is highly subjective and does not take account for all different parts of the game or builds. If you are looking for non-biased commentary on the Thief proposed changes. Dont read this one

Fact is other classes got buffs for condition removal and now it seems the only viable one for thief is Shadow Arts and the only damage mitigation thief has, avoidance, is significantly reduced with melee weapons.

Say hello to ranged kitten thief

Basically I get the idea being you have to pistol/x or shortbow since the only real opposition to damage (with the dps meta was) for the thief class was avoidance. I mean really the lack of buffs available to thief is amazing considering ALL the other classes, even necro has decent damage mitigation specced right IF that giant health pool doesn’t do the trick.

And I totally agree with the additional condi removal of other classes (so much for dire sets). Thief sword #2 is gonna be close to useless with all the stuns and knockbacks in this game, so p/d for SA. I mean really SA or go home for condi removal, so sad.

Pixels.6532:

queue mini-rant
I don’t really get this. The thief is a fairly unique class for an MMO, and I really like the feel of it from the initiative system to the dependency on avoiding damage by not being there when the damage hits either through evasion, dodges or shadow-stepping. Thieves are highly dependent on positioning both to mitigate damage and to deal it (Backstab, Tactical Strike, Side Strike, etc.), so anytime you’re going to affect a thieves mobility, it’s a big deal.

Not too long ago, the term “shaving” was being thrown around. I have news for you, a 50% reduction is not a shave.

If you go the route of removing more and more of the thief classes’ access to damage avoidance via dodging and evading and stealthing, etc., then you have to give them other means of condi-cleanse and damage mitigation… go too far and you’ll have a class that isn’t much difference from a Warrior or a Ranger… just with less health and in the case of the Warrior, less armor.

end mini rant

… Please edit end of paragraph 1 to “it’s a HUGE deal”

Note: I’m not an extraordinary thief player. It just seems like a huge push away from melee/aoe to ranged. If these changes happen I might as well delete my thief as it just won’t be fun to play.

I mean really well thought out…

“This will reward thieves who are actively engaged in the fight rather than those who are just dodging over and over again. "

Lets make Hard to Catch easier to pick up that way thieves can ‘stay in the fight’ after they shadow step away. Since the timing of our champion abilities is known to lengthen the farther away someone is and 1/2s cast to sword 2 will do wonders.

Sanduskel.1850:

Thieves don’t have the least survivability. NOt even close.

Feel free to explain that bearing in mind the current dps meta… Fewest buffs and lowest hp…

I get trying to make dungeons harder and content more of a challenge.

This is just r e kitten e d. One skill with stability, no protection and Anet thinks the answer is to nerf mobility… WTF are they thinking??? Have they even played thief?

“Hey lets take the class with the least survivability and force them to be the revive dummies for our daily achievements.” -some Anet kitten

Good thing my thief has unlimited harvesting tools cuz thats about all hes gonna be good for now.

Practice…

Learn the timing of skills, both yours and other classes. Dodge is quicker than #3… Sometimes its easier to dodge the skill power up not the damage.

goosfraba

Have to be very aware of your surroundings as a thief. Check options for the quickview behind yourself is my suggestion.

p.s.
And CnD then stun lock that annoying ranger

BlueDragoon.1632:

Exquisite ruby jewels give 25 power, 15 precision, 3% crit damage, though. So you lose off on only 15 power in exchange for the crit damage loss (Which is hard enough to get on its own) and the precision. And no, you shouldn’t be at 100% crit chance, even with fury. 55% is plenty and anymore is pretty much overkill.

Talking runes so only orbs work…

Traveller’s nets an extra utility as most run with 25% speed signet (better for wvw imo or centaurs)
Divinity like you said adds some survivability and has crit% (note: there are more classes than thief where this rune pays off)
Scholar 10% damage is better than ruby if you avoid damage