Guild Wars 2

Eain.7825:

It seems to me that people fear power creep because they’re afraid they might not be able to get those items while others are. I’ll tell you something about these supposed ‘others’: in a game where there’s nothing to do, they don’t exist. Even in my own guild people are pretty much only online when we agree to do a dungeon to give ourselves the illusion we’re still playing this game. It’s dead otherwise. What’s wrong with giving people an incentive to keep playing? Because I promise you that your single item-level gear utopia is going to be a very deserted one.

False. People dislike power creep because it destroys the immersion quality of the world, needlessly gates content, and seriously threatens the polish of the game’s mechanical systems. Moreover, it doesn’t do anything at all good for the game that isn’t 100% illusory and superficial.

Horizontal progress is much, much better than vertical progress. Period.

Grumwulf.9602:

Increasing the level cap has a lot of advantages. Its a reset. We will get our exotics and then have to get our ascended again. More progression but pretty mild in my opinion and fun. I hope the level goes up. I think it will too or else why did ANet make 80 levels in the first place? Because they like levelling thats why and they know the audience they are after does too. I know there are some people that can’t stand the idea of obsolescence but if skins are really enough then there isn’t obsolescence anyway, just fun things to do to get more stats. Skins are your permanence, stats progress.

Sorry, but raising the level cap brings more disadvantages than advantages. Please see the million other threads/videos/etc. about power creep if you don’t understand why.

Actually, the biggest issue is power creep. Secondary issues are gating/obsoleting of content.

Nope. 80 levels is already too much. I understand why they wanted to do more than 20, because the scope of PvE is just so much larger, but it really should have been 40 and not 80.

There’s a common idea in MMOs that in order for the game to stay engaging you have to add new tiers of power, which is blatantly false. Expanding the game in horizontal directions rather than vertical ones is vastly superior.

I’m going to resist going manic and overreacting to the Ascended gear announcement; there is a fairly steep gap between exotic and legendary and it’s going in to support some new content. If the implementation is good, it could maybe even turn into something interesting and add some depth to the game.

However, and this is a big however, I beg you with everything I have to not let this result in an endless stream of WoW-styled power creep that ends up needlessly gating new content and needlessly obsoleting older content. Perpetually escalating numbers do nothing worthwhile for the game and in fact are detrimental to both the immersion factor of the world and the polish of the game’s systems.

The last thing I ever want for this game, ever, is to in a couple of years be at level 120 and hitting baddies for 600k with my tier 5 legendary/ascended/whatever item and running around with 17 million health, all but locked into a tiny, newly released part of the world because it’s the only place I can do anything that matters. It’s just silly, period. Find ways to expand the end-game in horizontal directions, not vertical ones, as per your original manifesto. I implore you. There are great suggestions littering the forums, and I’m sure you already have some things in the works.

Never-ending vertical progression (especially through gear) as a way to keep players engaged is a spectacularly terrible design paradigm, and it needs to die. Sorry OP, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Having said that, if they can manage to make this a one-time thing and we don’t end up at level 100 doing 600,000 damage per hit with our Exalted Greatswords with +700 Power in the next 1-2 years, it won’t dissuade me from enjoying the game.

I love how the world actually has some semblance of realistic scaling (obviously it’ll never be totally realistic), as opposed to a lot of MMOs where a whole world would fit (not just literally, thematically as well) into an area the size of a city in the real world.

I will say two things here, reflecting both sides of the argument:

1. Exponentially increasing numbers/gear treadmills are a terrible, terrible design paradigm. I really have no idea why WoW was as successful as it was because it did so many things wrong. GW1 had much better progression with a low level cap and skill acquisition replacing a constantly raising level cap and an endless gear treadmill.

2. I’m not convinced that ANet is trying to make this a WoW-like gear treadmill, it seems to be that they are simply fleshing the game out more, adding more content and more things to occupy people in the end game. People are overreacting preemptively.

I will say with #2, though, that I do hope they listen to the concern being generated by this change, because the last thing I want GW2 to become is an endless stream of new level caps and new tiers of gear. The genre absolutely without question needs a breath of fresh air in this department. Many of the things that were listed in above posts such as new skills, new weapons/sets, new low level areas, new cosmetic changes, new personal stories, etc. would be vastly superior to throwing on 10 new levels and a new tier or two of gear every time they want to update the content.

If anything, doing it the way WoW does it is world-destroying. It is impossible to maintain a sense of immersion in a game that so obviously revolves around gamist design goals.

There should be, especially considering Kryta’s cultural history/visual style is very Native American influenced.

dirtyklingon.2918:

Einlanzer.1627:

dirtyklingon.2918:

the reason for armour being restricted by class is so that in a nut shell, if i see someone wearing heavy armour, i can deduce they are a warrior or a guardian instantly. if i see someone wearing light armour i know they are an ele necro or mesmer instantly.

there’s actually a reason for it, that is about functionality.

this game lacks visual cues above coupled with a poor ui as is. it doesn’t need the ones it does have removed.

Frankly, I don’t really see this as that valid a point. Why exactly should it be necessary that someone’s profession be visually obvious? You can see someone’s class by clicking on them anyway.

because play the game not the ui.

adnit’s perfectly valid, as it’s the basis for having armour have a visual effect at all. rather than simply playing dress up, which is a fringe side effect of the fundamental reasoning for having different armour types, and different armour in general, have different appearances.

the idea being, that being able to have an idea of what kind of character a player has simply by looking at their avatar, is far better than looking at a ui element and spending more time reading text or deciphering an icon.

this paradigm predates gw2 by over a decade now, and is not specific to mmo’s or even online games.

it is not only completely valid, is it the core reason for having those visuals at all.

Sorry, still disagree. For one, it’s not just about “playing dressup”, it’s about having robust customization/personalization and opening up diverse tactical styles for existing professions.

For two, I still don’t get why you seem to think it’s necessary for it to be visually obvious what class someone is without having to analyze their moves/behavior. There have been plenty of MMOs (ones more rooted in skill mechanics than class mechanics) where it wasn’t, and some would argue that it would be desirable for it to be less obvious.

All classes are somewhat squishy, especially at low levels (the game actually seems to get easier as you get higher level). You have to learn to play them tactically and dodge and move around a lot.

However, the elementalist is certainly due for a few buffs because they are currently even squishier than other classes with inadequate compensatory mechanics. They are still a good class, especially when supporting others, but they are probably the most difficult class to solo with.

dirtyklingon.2918:

the reason for armour being restricted by class is so that in a nut shell, if i see someone wearing heavy armour, i can deduce they are a warrior or a guardian instantly. if i see someone wearing light armour i know they are an ele necro or mesmer instantly.

there’s actually a reason for it, that is about functionality.

this game lacks visual cues above coupled with a poor ui as is. it doesn’t need the ones it does have removed.

Frankly, I don’t really see this as that valid a point. Why exactly should it be necessary that someone’s profession be visually obvious? You can see someone’s class by clicking on them anyway.

I sort of understand why people whine about those zones, and Malchor’s Leap certainly has a couple of areas that really are too rough.

But, the game tells you explicitly that it’s supposed to be done in groups. Orr was sort of designed as a raid area, not a solo explore area.

Polearms will almost certainly return as a land based weapon at some point. Don’t worry about it.

It should especially be done for the OH. While I don’t like being “forced” to dual-wield weapons (or use a 2 hander) with any profession, it particularly bugs me on the thief because they’re so obviously built around it when they shouldn’t be.

Any profession could use any armor type, and the armor types were distinguished not only by armor rating but also by movement speed and endurance regeneration? I.e. you had less armor but moved faster and recovered endurance faster in lighter armor.

It would require some retooling of certain professions/abilities I’m sure, but I think it would be pretty cool to open those tactical options and add diversity.

The main problem with underwater combat is that mobs need to be both more spaced out and have reduced aggro range than on land due to the three dimensional map and reduced visibility of the player. Currently, that doesn’t seem to be the case and it makes underwater exploration/combat more tedious and difficult than it should be.

I will say that I’m not a big fan of the way Norn are designed in the game.

1. They are a bit too tall relative to humans, the size difference should smaller
2. The builds are too exaggerated on the males and not exaggerated enough on the females.
3. They look too much like humans in general. They should look a bit rougher, like sort of a human/giant/ogre hybrid, with maybe slightly modified proportions.

I kind of get where the OP is coming from, but I don’t really have a problem with it mostly because there’s no indication in the game that Norse (or anything resembling it) is their native tongue, it’s just standard English. Thus, it’s more of an easter egg than anything else and should conform to standard Anglicized pronunciations.

A good analogy exists with the word ambience. Sure, ambience has a French origin, and is a recent enough addition to English pop culture that many people still pronounce it “ahm-bee-ahnce”. But, if you check the dictionary, you’ll see it’s been fully integrated into English and the appropriate pronunciation is simply “am-be-uhns”

Yeah, the real problem is that while Norn males are pretty distinctive from human males, the females are not. This also means that there’s too much distinction between norn males and norn females.

I couldn’t stand how in WoW the males of every race had way more exaggerated features than the females. It needs to be one way or the other. I’m with the OP, the female norn need to look less like human females and more like the rugged winter-bitten half-giants they’re supposed to be.

Yeah I didn’t mean they needed to be prioritized over everything else, I was just posting about things I’d like to eventually see.

Teva.2807:

lol, i just put up a thread about crosbows >.<. Anyways, I would add a OH tome for mesmer/guardian, an MH/OH hand aura for necro/mesmer/ele, and brass knuckles for warrior/thief MH/OH, and a polearm for engineer.

Hah, I swear I didn’t see it before posting this one, just an odd coincidence. I kind of prefer the idea of tomes being 2h weapons rather than oh weapons, because really it would take both hands to use it effectively and it could be a full caster alternative to the staff. I also intended to suggest Tomes for Guardians, i edited the post.

I like the idea of knuckes, but they could just be graphical variations of the claw weapon.

Jrunyon.3012:

Id rather have more variations of the current weapons in the game then new ones. The greatsword > other weapon skins concept needs to be looked at too.

I really don’t see why. It isn’t the same thing anyway, one of is purely a matter of aesthetics while the other is technical. There’s no reason not to have both.

I have a pretty robust list of hopes-to-see:

Warrior – 2H – Polearm, Scythe, Greataxe
MH – Flail, Whip

Thief – 2H – Crossbow
MH – Whip, Claw, Boomerang
OH – Claw, Boomerang, Torch

Ranger – 2H – Polearm, Greataxe
MH – Boomerang
OH – Sword, Boomerang

Guardian – 2H – Polearm, Tome
MH – Flail
OH – Warhorn

Elementalist – 2H – Tome

Necromancer – 2H – Tome, Scythe
MH – Claw
OH – Claw

Mesmer – 2H – Crossbow
MH – Flail, Whip

Engineer – Hmm……. Maybe a 4th kit instead of new weapon

In addition to the above, all classes should have a #4 and #5 when no OH is equipped with some bonus stats on the MH weapon. In other words, single-wielding should be viable.

Others?

Pretty much all classes (save Guardian perhaps), but especially the squishier classes, actually have a harder time at lower level when you don’t have as many tools available to you and mobs hit like a truck. There’s something a bit off with the scaling, but you will notice it get less bad as you climb in level and pick up really useful traits and utilities.

Having said that, while the engineer from what I hear is pretty good, thieves are one of the weaker if not the weakest PvE class because they just don’t have effective damage mitigation and don’t really have good enough DPS to compensate.

I vastly prefer the weapon sets having a mixture of direct and condition damage. It would honestly just feel arbitrary and unncecessarily gamist to “force” condition builds to use pistols and force direct damage build to use daggers. No, thanks.

Chakuna.6325:

I have absolutely zero problems with my thief in PvE, 0/30/30/10/0 Sword/Dagger – Shortbow with toughness/vit armor and berserker accessories, all with beryl orbs (power/vit/critdmg).

Although this was intentionally my WvW build, (albeit D/D) it works fine for PvE as well… Stealth/Minor AoE healing with constant Daze and AoE Blind support is pretty good.

I’m sure there are plenty of better builds/class combos you could run with, but this plenty good enough!

The problem though is that PvE is still easier with other professions. You may find little challenge with a really good set-up, but that doesn’t change the fact that thieves still rely more on optimized builds than other professions do. You can’t just experiment with traits and let your armor go 10 levels without updates and still faceroll through PvE the way most professions can. Maybe it’s a problem with the thief class, maybe it’s a problem with other professions, but it’s still a problem.

Thieve’s Guild and Dagger Storm are both pretty solid. Basilisk Venom is terrible oustide of very specific niche applications and the venoms in general need to be redesigned.

There’s no question that thieves are one of the harder profs to level in PvE, but they have this odd issue where they are very weak at the baseline but have some extremely powerful traits and skills. Because of that, they seem ridiculously weak at low level but get substantially better as you get into the mid levels.

Even so, they require a lot more strategy and player skill to be as effective in PvE as other professions and even then their damage output isn’t particularly good relative to their extreme squishiness and they don’t really have amazing tools for damage mitigation, just a few good danger avoidance tools.

Anyone who thinks thieves are elite in PvE is just being prideful and is in denial. They’re playable, yes, but not optimal by any stretch. Guardians are total PvE cheese in comparison.

Here are some of mine:

1. One change to pistol main hand, make Vital Shot cripple in addition to its vulnerability. While aoe would be nice, I don’t really feel it’s necessary (it’s meant to fill a role similar to the warrior’s rifle).

2. One change to pistol off hand – Give Black Powder a short stealth field. This would allow dual-pistols access to stealth for the MH Pistol’s great sneak attack and consequently, along with #1 dramatically improve the set.

3. Stealth rendering needs to be fixed, and stealth duration should be increased to a base of 4 seconds from 3, which will make a big difference in its PvE usability.

4. Make some usability improvements to traps and venoms. Traps just need a bit of generalized buffing, but I can’t help but feel there’s a better way to implement Venoms than the current version. Basilisk is needlessly terrible for an Elite.

5. Keep Haste, but nerf quickness to be a 50% speed buff instead of a 100% speed buff, the latter was an extremely poor judgment call.

6. Make our Downed #1 skill cause bleeding instead of crippling, so that we can get a halfway decent chance for a rally in PvE.

7. Add a Marksman trait that improves range on pistols and shortbow to 1000 ft. 1200 ft is too much.

8. Fix the pathing on Flaking Strike, otherwise it’s a good skill.

9. MAKE SINGLE-WIELDING VIABLE!!!!! Sorry, I couldn’t help but emphasize that because it’s currently such a waste. Apart from the fact that we have a small range of weapon skills already and 3 of them are completely useless, I would just like to play a single sword or dagger wielding thief for crying out loud.

10. Give us at least one more weapon option, I don’t even care what it is.

11. Give us some better support build options.

One issue with thieves is that being a medium armor class with low health and no built in aggro-avoidance for solo play like pets or above average healing , they are very weak at the baseline. However, they have a number of really good traits and utilities that can make a huge difference as you rise in level, so it should get less difficult the higher level you get. That’s not to say it’s ever easy per se, I still die more often on my thief than i do on my other toons (in part because of a near-useless downed set that rarely results in either being able to rally or escape the fight), but it does get less ridiculous.

I did notice that at low levels thieves are very noticeably harder to play than most other professions, I was laughing hysterically about how faceroll the Guardian I just started leveling was in comparison.

ASP.8093:

Einlanzer.1627:

2. Stealth and debuff timers/durations are balanced for PvP, making them inadequate for PvE where longer durations are needed to provide reliable utility and the ability to escape danger and mitigate damage. It’s especially important for the thief class because of how squishy they are and how they have no mechanic like pets to help them avoid or transfer aggro.

I do think stealth isn’t the best thing to be doing in PvE. But I’m not sure I’d call it underpowered per se.

Longer-duration stealth would be… I dunno, not the right direction to go. Three-four seconds of stealth is actually a long time to get away if you supplement it with dodging, Withdraw, and shadowsteps. Based on my experience with other games, I think being able to really run around stealthed would be pretty awful.

Sometimes, when I’m lazy and don’t want to fight random veterans next to a rich ore vein or a skill point commune thingy, I’ll equip Shadow Refuge and get the whole thing while hidden. That feels like plenty of stealth to me.

I didn’t like the downed state much while I was leveling, too. Maxing out Zerk gear magnified my damage so much that it suddenly became very easy to rally, though.

…

I think Jack is absolutely right about “Get wild.” GET WILD! Seriously! A bit of cleverness, a bit of confidence, and some unrelenting aggression will get you super-far in this game.

Just so we’re clear, I’m not talking perma-stealth, which I feel is not a great mechanic and should be avoided. Stealth duration is typically 3 secs, 4 traited, which is good for PvP but it really should be more like 5/6 seconds in PvE so that it can be used either offensively or defensively as the situation demands. Thieves really need better tools for escaping or mitigating damage. IMO, if they fixed the rendering issue it would probably be safe to just extend stealth duration by 2 seconds and have it stay pretty well balanced.

Also, I mistakenly said “debuffs should be last longer” in a very generalized way when I was going for more like “certain debuffs should be retooled to work better in PvE”, like the petrify on Basilisk Venom. Then again, venoms could probably be retooled a bit (as could traps) to make them better. As it stands, tricks and signets are almost always superior to traps and venoms, which is an obvious design flaw that needs to be looked at (although thieves aren’t unique in this regard).

Also, there’s pretty unanimous consensus that Pistols need a buff. That will help too.

I’m leveling a Thief currently, and find myself going back and forth on it. I feel I’m pretty skilled with it, to be honest, and in some situations I find it to be pretty balanced and in others I’m like “wow, thieves really have the short end of the stick”.

I’ve stated this in other threads, but I’ll reiterate here. I think the two biggest problems facing thieves are the following:

1. The initiative system and stealth combine to make them easy-griefers in PvP. Instead of finding ways to counteract only that (like fixing the rendering issue), they are getting nerfed in broad strokes that affect their already rather poor and relatively skill-intensive PvE capabilities.

2. Stealth and debuff timers/durations are balanced for PvP, making them inadequate for PvE where longer durations are needed to provide reliable utility and the ability to escape danger and mitigate damage. It’s especially important for the thief class because of how squishy they are and how they have no mechanic like pets to help them avoid or transfer aggro.

As examples of the second reason, the #3 downed skill which should be a fairly reliable aggro dump is all but entirely useless due to the extremely short stealth duration. This combined with the relative weakness of #1 makes the thief downed set frustratingly terrible in PvE. Another is Basilisk Venom, the 1.5 seconds of petrify is laughable in how trash it is in almost any PvE situation (even with Venom sharing it’s only mediocre) and it’s the only elite available underwater. In short, debuff and stealth durations should be longer in PvE than they are in PvP.

Having said all that, the higher level I get I do find that thieves are not as bad as I originally thought they were. There is definitely a component of L2P involved, and some of their individual traits and skills (like Caltrops) make a huge, huge difference when you obtain them. I would suggest going S/P with Signet of Malice for healing and Caltrops for utility and seeing how that treats you.

The topic of ‘light’ skills has come up a lot, I personally feel that single-wielding needs to be viable in the game. I agree these skills need improvement, and additionally all classes need to get a unique #4 and #5 when they are wielding nothing in their offhand as well as a bonus to stats from the MH weapon.

Additionally, I feel they could use those slots for an updated Steal mechanic and use the Thief’s F slots for something else. Either a baseline stealth move, venoms, or as I just said in another post, thief weapons that will never be added as full weapons, like shurikens, darts, and saps

I like that idea, and Steal would be a good off-hand light ability when they implement single-wielding

Or, they could use the F slots to give thieves some special weapons that aren’t really important or significant enough to be added as full weapons at some point, like shurikens, blowguns/darts, saps, and crossbows.

BabelFish.7234:

To be fair Assassin’s Signet and HS deserved the nerfs. PW was a bad nerf, they should have nerfed haste instead.

This. Even haste would be fine if they nerfed the Quickness buff to 50% instead of 100% speed bonus. I can’t fathom why it wasn’t that way to begin with.

As for weapon options, I’d personally love to get some single-wield love. A stat bonus from single-wielding and reworking the OH light skills. I wouldn’t complain about getting Rifle or OH Sword, but truthfully I think that shields and torches make more sense.

I won’t argue on all of your points, but I to touch on a few. Keep in mind I’m speaking totally in the context of PvE here, as was my original post.

#2. I mean simply being in melee range. During events and large scale fights or fights against tough opponents, thieves are too squishy in most situations to be as effective when trying to fight in melee as they can be by standing at a safer distance and pew pewing.

#4. No, I’m telling you, the downed skills may be good if you’re in PvP or in group PvE, but in solo PvE they are nothing short of terrible. I keep #1 traited so that I have a small chance of being able to rally from spamming it when I go down. The trait helps it a lot but there’s no arguing that #2 and #3 suffer from some basic design issues. The ideal fix would be making #1 apply bleed instead of cripple and making #3 last longer than 2 seconds, at least in PvE.

I don’t think it’s necessary to remove Haste. What I seriously question is the wisdom of the person who decided the Quickness buff should be a 100% increase in speed instead of a 50% increase.

This is unquestionably the fundamental design problem of the thief. The combination of stealth and initiative means easily exploitable burst damage which means PvP brokenness. The entire class revolves around that, and it gets nerfed because it’s broken, and while I do think Anet is competent at analyzing and fixing issues, so far inadequate attention has been given to larger design issues of the class, which are especially pronounced in PvE:

1. Below average DPS
2. A total lack of attrition, forcing thieves to try to keep range during tough fights.
3. Despite being squishy, no very reliable ways to drop aggro, especially when downed.
4. A laughably and frustratingly terrible set of downed skills. #1 doesn’t do enough damage and the cripple is useless, #2 and #3 are designed to get you away from danger but almost never work even when combined.
5. Traps are too situational and not very usable, although Caltrops are a god-send.
6. Basilisk Venom is mostly garbage, and it’s the only elite available underwater.
7. P/P is clearly weaker than it should be
8. OH light skills a useless tack-on when they could be really cool. More of a problem due to a lack of weapon options in general.
9. 900 max range, which is measly for how generally weak thieves are.
10. No true support build options, which again pigeon-holes thief players into damage-focused builds.

I’m sure I could think of more.

Imperator totius Sylvari.9164:

For me I would like to see death blossom, just pure damage, but remove the conditions and put that on unload.

Flanking strike needs attention and our traps.

I see this suggestion a lot, and I have to adamantly disagree. For the sake of both balance and diversity, most weapon sets should have a combination of burst and condition damage. Thieves are already more restricted than other classes in viable options, I absolutely don’t want to be forced to use pistols because I have a condition-focused build or daggers because I have a power-focused build.

Not only that but the bleed on Death Blossom is the only thing that gives Daggers much AoE viability and therefore makes them good in PvE, without out it swords would be altogether superior.

Yes, it’s obvious that the Quickness buff should be 1.5 speed instead of double speed, that would have been a better fix than nerfing Pistol Whip’s damage.

Here are some specifics-

S/D – Great set, only think wrong with it is Flanking Strike’s pathing being completely unreliable. I don’t even think making it a shadowstep is necessary, just fix the pathing.

D/D – No complaints, it’s nearly perfect. I wouldn’t complain too loudly if Dancing Dagger was slightly nerfed to not be so ridiculously good against multiple targets close together.

SB – Great, but I would support a “marksman” trait that improved its range by a modest amount.

P/P – Some overhauls are needed here, it is below average in damage and severely lacking in mobility, control, and utility, and the 900 range is too measly to compensate for both of those problems. Stealth field on Black power would be fantastic. #2 should apply both cripple and vulnerability. #1 and #3 could stand a slight damage boost.

Other – I agree with the above poster that downed #1 should apply bleed and not cripple. As he said, this would make the downed state less good in PvP and make it better in PvE, which it desperately needs.

Thieves really need at least one more weapon option, either for MH or OH. I feel like single-wielding should be viable for at least the Thief if not all professions. This would entail either making a new non-weapon OH item that isn’t visible (like a glove or something) or just giving a stat boost for single wielding and giving every class off-hand light skills for #4 and #5.

Of things that need improvements, pistols and traps definitely top the list. I also think our downed state needs to be looked at, it manages to be a bit too good in PvP while being wretched in PvE.

SoM is clearly better with some setups than with others, which is fine. However, I do feel that HiS is slightly above-average as a default heal skill while SoM is slightly below-average as a Signet/passive heal skill. I tend to feel that the heal/hit on SoM is a little on the low side and that HiS has some hard-to-pass-up utility.

Syn, when was the above screenshot taken?

It’s not bad, but it also would make it less unique and in fact is very similar to adrenaline. I’m pretty content with the way they’re currently designed with only a few irks about specific skills and stealth not lasting long enough in PvE.

One minor but significant change I would definitely make is to go ahead and put shortened cooldowns on their weapon skills. If each weapon skill was on a .5 – 2 second timer I think the thief would feel more balanced. Without really making the thief any weaker, It would help stop the tendency to ability spam in and would prevent the constant issue I at least have with accidental ability queuing, which tends to waste a lot of initiative and screw up my tactics.

OP, while I don’t entirely disagree with the point your post, the above posters are correct in that your analysis is based on a flawed and somewhat short-sighted set of expectations. You are trying to tell other people how they should ‘accept’ the thief of GW2 based on your biased perspective taken from the comparatively simplistic design of the Rogue in WoW. Regardless of how similar the two classes may (or may not) be in concept, the fact remains that GW2 has a very different and much more elaborate class design philosophy than WoW has. Namely, roles, specialties, strengths and weaknesses are based more on builds than they are on the class itself.

All classes have a combination of offensive (melee AND ranged gasp), defensive, and utility skills with various ways of focusing on some over others. As such there’s no reason why all thieves should expect to have serious trouble beating a guardian, and why all squishy classes (or, more accurately, all characters with glass cannon-ish builds) should accept being obliterated by thief openers before they can react.

Thieves no doubt have have a design that benefits them in PvP disproportionately. This means that as they are ‘tweaked’ for balanced PvP they are simultaneously crippled in PvE where their baseline design as front-loaded glass cannons isn’t as advantageous. Consequently, thieves have a lot of issues in PvE that render them clearly inferior to other professions.

- Damage is bursty and front-loaded, which is much more useful in PvP than it is in PvE. Sustained DPS is in line with other classes if not slightly inferior, which is a major issue when combined with their total lack of attrition in any sort of difficult PvE fight.

- Health is too low for a class that is designed to spend a lot of time in melee range. Their squishiness makes them overly reliant on tactics and mobility to do well in PvE. While this doesn’t sound like it’d be a bad thing, “having a higher skill curve” really just means “the player has to be good enough to compensate for profession’s limitations”. The resulting inequality is a problem.

- Stealth was nerfed to suit PvP and is therefore very inadequate in PvE. The problem is most obvious with the downed state, where Smoke Bomb has a typical 3 second duration, which is so hilariously useless that it actually feels like a bug when you vanish for a couple of seconds and the enemy starts to walk away from you then immediately turns around and resumes attacking you. Stealth should have a longer duration in PvE than it does in PvP. Stealth issues, IMO, is one of the major, major contributors to thieves feeling both OP in PvP and UP in PvE and addressing it should be a top priority.

- D/D and Shortbow are very clearly better than other weapon sets. S/P, S/D, and P/D are mediocre sets that can shine occasionally while D/P and P/P don’t even reach mediocre. I feel like Pistol should be a single target DD like the Warrior’s rifle, and that they should get a new weapon (maybe a crossbow) for conditions.

- Their offensive utility is fairly strong, but their defensive utility is pretty bad, which, apart from being another thing contributing to their survivability issues, helps pigeon-hole them into being built as one-trick-ponies.

Now that that rant is over, I will say that thieves seem to have above average traits and skills, which means that as you get higher level PvE gets easier, especially if you build it in ways that exploit strong synergy.

It’s funny how “fight or flight” even extends into the video game world. I agree with the above poster, though, it’s to be expected, not necessarily because someone is stupid, just because they are human and therefore emotional (which can make even the smartest person turn stupid in a moment).

Yes, to echo others, I generally run with S/P and D/D. As others said, S/P with Signet of Malice is a godsend against trying to fight multiple enemies, and I find switching between the two sets as you fight (for good healing/evasion/condition) to be very effective. You can trade in the SB from time to time when you want to work from range, but I would avoid MH pistol, and D/P is decent but I find S/P to be generally more usable. Man, main hand pistol really needs some buffs.

Another thing I’ve found about thieves is that their damage-oriented utlity skills are very good, so grabbing something like Caltrops will also make a huge difference.