Guild Wars 2

dps guard.

15 chars

Blackjack.5621:

The reason why people complain about thieves is their high mobility paired with high damage and high surviveability while they got some broken mechanics like steal which works without line of sight and rips stability before it interrupts, so there is no counterplay to it and you can´t cover your heal or any important spell. Another broken mechanic is perma vigor + feline grace which allows them to evade permanently. All classes except thieves have cooldowns on their abilities, so you just gonna waste too much stuff if you try to hit a thief.

Atm thieves are the reason why there is no other zerker class set in the meta game, they are just faster so you cant run from them and they get away on will so they survive better and get the most decaps while still doing crazy damage, which comes from air and fire sigil. Those sigils allow thief to spec defensively and still do an absurd amount of damage each time he hits you after dodging around waiting for sigils to recharge.

Trickery is the reason other zerkers are out of the meta it’s on such a low cool down you’re almost guaranteed to interrupt the heal. Bountiful theft and sleight of hand are both overpowered. They completely negate other classes chances to heal/their traits (see ether renewal + rock solid elementalist). There is a reason that our elite skill is a stun. Steal being on that low of a cool down also makes the stolen abilities way overpowered (50% uptime on chill on elementalist, chain dazing guards for 8 seconds). But those skills are no where near as powerful when you have the default 35 second steal timer. Trickery really needs sleight of hand to be split from its cool down reduction and bountiful theft to stop prioritizing stab. Then we can see some actual balance.

For your other points about spec defensively and doing damage, every class does this now. 0/2/0/6/6 elementalist, hambow specs defensively 0/0/6/2/6, dps guard generally goes in the bottom 3 trait lines as well. It’s something anet needs to fix on all classes not just thief.

MightyMicah.7451:

NeXeD.3042:

So instead of seeing a little variety of theives they will now all be s/d.

This. I’m laughing at everyone who thinks thief is getting in any ways, “Nerfed.” Thieves will be just fine and just as bursty as before. The only change you’ll see is that builds with stealth become less viable. Considering S/D is all about evading and shadow stepping, nothing is going to change.

Until they nerf it from all the qq on this forum about s/d.

Lux.7169:

I also really like that revealed debuffs are becoming more easily accessible. I hope we see more classes with access to revealing.

I feel like they should’ve made it more difficult to achieve stealth rather than having a 1 button push that neutralizes a class’ entire defense system.

Really feel like thief will be pushed out of this next meta. They seem to be buffing skills that give revealed. Engy will be even more of a hard counter to thief than it was before. If they nerf sword main hand or s/d because of the qq of this current meta the class will be dead in spvp.

Edit: Also feel like they should be making it harder to enter stealth, not completely neutralizing the class by pressing 1 button to defeat all their defenses. More abilities that apply revealed is directly a result of getting free stealths from the d/p black powder heartseeker combo which should have been made harder to achieve a long time ago.

Hello,

I like to think I’m a pretty good s/d thief and have played it since Jumper’s time. I can also play an average bunker guardian.
I am the most experienced at thief though.

http://www.gw2score.com/PvP/player/FeelsAlright5860

I am available to play most nights.

Vipassana

I’ve always been in favor of making rng items (sigils procs, burning on crit etc) behave like thief venoms. Both sides can see the icon on the target and if the player misses the attack the chance for it to activate goes away until the cool down is up. Gives some counterplay to the rng factor.

cooldumbname.8594:

I love how people still defend S/D thief as if it isnt broken.

Fire + air sigils are broken not s/d

Drafigo.4690:

Tested this with my engi and rifle. This doesn’t seem to work. Is it only some classes? I would be interested to see a warrior of similar build but human and see if its just Asuran.

Probably because rifle is mainly projectiles, projectiles in general behave much differently than melee or beam attacks.

gg. I think anet will only fix it if everyone abuses it. Can’t wait for the full asuran teams in TOL.

Mrbig.8019:

Elxdark.9702:

Dude I don’t want to sound rude but How long till you get good at this game?

Like really, every I mean EVERY kittening thread/post from you is about whining, nerf this nerf that buff this buff that, balance these balance those STOP already.

And why people still think S/D is broken, IT DOESN’T.

What brought back S/D again into the meta? new runes/sigils.

Do you want to see when S/D was OP? let me find some random video from Jumper when s/d was beyond op when 2 was a stunbreak and had not cd when FS stole 2 buffs instead of 1.

In those times S/D was broken, OP, strong, or w/e you want to name it. S/D is good in this meta only for the buffs to runes/sigils.

EDIT: The only thing I will nerf would be Feline Grace.

S/D is not good in this meta, it’s literally broken.

I know perfectly that the main problem are runes and sigils, point is they need to be addressed fast cuz thief is literally removing 80% of build diversity in PvP: basically current meta has nothing to do with “right comps, good meshing” and kittenz, current meta is “everything that doesn’t get instagibbed by a thief” with the sole exception of mesmer and only because portal too stronk.

S/D thief currently cannot fail against anyone, he can even over extend for such absurds amount of times there’s no point even in building a team strategy, just play it like if you were in solo q.

Thief shouldn’t have high damage, high survivability and the best mobility: it’s broken.

You’re contradicting yourself so hard. You know well that it’s runes and sigils but then you blame the thief. If you know it’s the sigils combo why don’t you make a qq post about that? Instead of hurr durr thief2stronk4me.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I can confirm I am working on PvP features <3
No more details than that, though!

#evanLeshForCEO2015

Design flaw. There’s way too many things for them to balance. There’s too much rng integrated into traits/sigils/runes (air, fire, burning on crit, etc) for a game that is supposed to be focused around dodging. They tried to design the game around each profession being able to do everything instead of around that profession’s specific role.

Just que dodge them. Or yolo que it.

They really should remove stow weapon when in combat. It’s 100% an exploit and making things perform differently than intended.

TheThiefMaster.3812:

And D/P DOES counter S/D in 1 v 1 as the black powder combined with shadow shot literally shut you down when you are melee ( media guards not included ) , so as an S/D thief fighting a D/P thief you have to constantly try to stay out of the BP radius in order for your attacks to land which is hard as kitten given how fast paced thief V thief fights are.

A well played d/p thief will completely shut down an S/D thief as chances are he will be constantly blinding you making you miss your steals , cnds etc….

I find that staying out of the field is easy, but the self combo blind on the bullet is what gets me. If it hits you, you really have no chance of interrupting heart seeker. I’ve taken to double spamming dancing dagger to clear the blind and hope the cripple will through them off their game so I can kite long enough. I feel like shadow shot may hit a little too hard as well.

this is what i ran into the other day turrets are kittening great:

http://www.twitch.tv/feelsalright/c/4656100

Darnis.4056:

Sizer.2654:

Nerfing air/fire sigils would actually buff sd thiefs lol atm these sigils give u guys extra burst to pressure us , hf trying to kill us without them

Sizer knows for a fact that if Sigils were nerfed the sustain/burst damage on Thief would take a big hit.
Don’t let his cool demeanor fool you.

Do Sigils effect both parties? Yes, does it effect the Thief who is evading most of the damage in between his own proc CD’s more so ? Yes it does.

Do The 7k Larcenous strikes hurt? Yes they do, Do they hurt more with a 4k(double) proc and 3k steal? Yes.

Ls can only hit for 7k with 25 might + executioner + 15% signet on a zerker. Most of the time it’s 2500-3500 in a 2/0/0/6/6 build.

Is there any way we could see what the skills are when we look at this? I.e. Hover over the skill and get a description of what it does, what class and weapon uses it, so you don’t have to /wiki it. I think it would help new players and even experienced ones because even with over 1000 games there are still some skills I don’t understand.

Sizer.2654:

Nerfing air/fire sigils would actually buff sd thiefs lol atm these sigils give u guys extra burst to pressure us , hf trying to kill us without them

It may or may not. Would you still be willing to take trickery without fire/air procs? I’m not sure I would personally.

#evanleshforprez

I still think bird will still be a decent choice in this meta. It still evades attacks so it will be better than the other summons. The rune itself still buffs might which goes well with the celestial builds that used it. It must won’t be over the top now.

Kolly.9872:

FeelsAlright.5860:

Without fire + air there’d be no damage.

without damage there’d be no thief

wut?

We’d have to invest back into our damage tree (Critical strikes).

Fraelin.7409:

Though I completely agree that Sizer’s S/D thief build is a cancer to PvP, I don’t believe the weapon set is the problem.

The problems with Sizer’s 20066 S/D thief build:

My main problem with this S/D build is the damage it can put out when it has 0 points in critical strikes. This is ALL due to “Sigil of Air” and “Sigil of Fire” as well as a 20s cooldown on “Steal” allowing the thief to never run out of initiative (Stealing Grants 2 initiative). The build is obviously meant to be a bunker thief so i have no problem with its sustain.

My ideal fix for the situation:
1) Don’t let “Sigil of Air” and “Sigil of Fire” stack or increase the proc cooldown to 8 seconds for both Sigils. Currently these two Sigils ruin nearly every Zerker vs Zerker fight with RNG and carry builds with little damage and high sustain, to suddenly have high damage and high sustain.
2) Increase the cooldown of “Steal” from 20s to 30s ATLEAST. There will be problems with this, I will address them below. or add some counter play so “Steal” can be dodged.
3) Huge damage reduction in “Flanking strike”, as this is an evade not a offensive skill. I suggest a base damage of around 200 rather than the 500 as it is currently. “Larcenous strike” already deals enough damage, it doesn’t need the extra damage of “Flanking strike”. “Larcenous strike” also has telegraphed animations so can be dodged.

Problems with increasing “Steal” cooldown:
This will hurt every thief build a lot more than S/D so the other thief builds must be given some sustain changes in order to keep them viable as D/P and S/P thieves need the steal to help with sustaining themselves, however these sustain changes must not be able to be used by S/D thieves as they already have enough sustain.

FYI: Any S/D thief that considers these changes to be too harsh, Sizer actually gave me most of the input on them. The main one being the Steal cooldown increase.

Gl with you post Misha, I hope the developers will take it seriously.

Frae

I’ve said this for the past year Frae., but no one has listened to me. Trickery is what’s kept thief on top of zerkers for so long. Sleight of Hand needs to be split into two different grandmasters. One for the stun and one for the 20% reduction. Possibly even change bountiful theft to not prioritize stability, it completely negates a lot of builds (think rock solid + ether renewal).

Fix fire + air + might, not thief. S/d is no where near as strong without trickery and these random damage procs. With trickery and random procs, we can burst you down and interrupt any heal because of how OP steal is when fully traited and still be tanky through evades (ie this meta of tanky damage). Without fire + air there’d be no damage.

I don’t know why the wurms don’t do 9999999999999 damage so you die right away…

NeXeD.3042:

Erm…. shows 149 for me too lol

Same website doesn’t seem to show Anton anywhere… maybe it’s broked.

rekt.

but anton is eu. It shows highest soloq ~500, highest team que ~300.

Stealth is really fine. Maybe shadow arts needs some nerfing, but the main problem is counter play to entering stealth. CnD you can block/evade/invuln/blind the attack to prevent them from entering stealth which is a good balance.

I don’t know much about mesmer stealthing so I won’t comment on it, but for thief the only real problems I see are:

Shadow arts possibly being a little too strong, but if you take shadow arts you lose a lot of offense that you could have from trickery or another line.

Free stealths from black powder → heartseeker combo, which doesn’t have much of the traditional counterplay like an attack such as CnD has. I know you can interrupt heartseeker, but it is extremely difficult to do it quickly because of blackpowder being a self combo (you get blinded by the bullet, even if you aren’t in the aoe). So you have to clear the blind then cast your stun, which is usually not quick enough before heartseeker goes through.

I can’t take the AI anymore. I can’t take the fire and air procs anymore. I can’t take the pirate runes anymore. I can’t take soldiers amulet hitting me for 8k+ anymore.

PLEASE.

SkiTz.4590:

FeelsAlright.5860:

Liewec.2896:

its been 8 months since the last noticeable balance update (november)
why are you counting days? just join the rest of us and accept that anet don’t care.

How was April 15th not a noticeable update? Completely shifted metas.

wot? they added some useless traits and spiced up some of the lackluster runes

meta shift? every game i join i see hambow warriors, decap engis, PU mesmers, perma stealth thieves, spirit rangers , MM necros lol.

D/D eles got a huge buff thx to the power of the new strenth runes, so majority of the eles I see now are all running that build lol.

Hardly a meta shifting patch… it added some interesting things but it didn’t even come close to shaking up the meta…

So everyone shifting to power classes/strength runes/fire + air combo, ele’s entering the meta, celestial builds entering the meta is meaningless? Turret engineers which were no where are now everywhere. Rarely see any D/P thieves anymore, all are S/D (and they’re not even classic 2/6/0/6/0 s/d they’re all sizer’s new build) We also see Axe mainhand warriors.

Sigils and runes have a huge impact on builds and balance. It was a huge change.

Liewec.2896:

its been 8 months since the last noticeable balance update (november)
why are you counting days? just join the rest of us and accept that anet don’t care.

How was April 15th not a noticeable update? Completely shifted metas.

The patch just increased more rng and more ai. Fire + air + turrets hitting me before i even know i’m out of stealth

When was the last update? 4/15?

laquito.5269:

FeelsAlright.5860:

Yes fire and air is stupid. Without those procs you really don’t do enough damage. I think maybe toning down trickery would help (splitting sleight of hand into 2 traits, decreasing vigour uptime if you took the daze, and decreasing offense if you took the cooldown).

Do people even read what they write? Let me outline your argumentation:

(Double) Sigil Procs are OP (for all classes) so lets nerf trickery (thief only). SERIOUSLY? :’D

It’s a seperate issue. Even before the double procs trickery was an issue. I was tlaking about the vigour uptime. I’ll edit my post so there’s a line break between the sentences to make it easier to understand for you.

Yes fire and air is stupid. Without those procs you really don’t do enough damage.

I think maybe toning down trickery would help with the vigour uptime and general pressure of the thief(splitting sleight of hand into 2 traits, decreasing vigour uptime if you took the daze, and decreasing offense if you took the cooldown).

OIIIIIO.7825:

Let me provide a third rune to consider.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Pack

I would suggest away from runes of rage primarily because that rune doesn’t have any power. Runes of the Pack will give you the same fury proc’s as rage, still give you power and the down side is slightly less fury duration. GL mate!

Unbuffed stats with Pack runes:

Power: 2113
Precision (w/o SoA): 1684 ( 41% crit chance)
Precision (w/SoA): 1864 ( 49% crit chance)
Ferocity: 447 (180% crit damage)

Beep! Beep! I’m a Jeep!

I do think I am lacking fury when I play something without thrill of the crime (2/6/0/6/0). Do you think the 175 power is more damage than the +5% from rage?

should be master tier or higher, way too strong at the adept level. it’s way too hard to predict because of the cluster kitten that is 8000 turrets + pirate bird, you can’t even see when they’re going to die

Hi all I was wondering what your thoughts on the two runes are. Currently I’m playing Sizers S/D build with Strength (2/0/0/6/6), I played Jumper’s for a long time before that.

With Rage runes you can keep perma fury on your character as long as you run Thrill of the Crime + Sleight of hand, permanently keeping your crit chance at either 63% or 55% (Depending on sigil of agility). With perma fury you will have permanent +5% damage (from the rune) and 11% more crit damage.

How much of a damage difference do you think the two are?

Unbuffed stats with Strength Runes:

Power: 2,113
Precision (without SoA): 1,559 (35% crit chance)
Precision (with SoA): 1,739 (43% crit chance)
Ferocity: 447 (180% crit damage)

Unbuffed stats with Rage runes:

Power: 1,938
Precision(without SoA): 1,559 (35% crit chance)
Precision (with SoA): 1,739 (43% crit chance)
Ferocity: 622 (191% crit damage)

brannigan.9831:

A filter system is not feasible for solo queue. It would increase queue times and mess up matchmaking. A quick vote pre-match is the only answer.

Maybe, but the majority would choose no skyhammer and the que times would be the same hopefully.

lololololololololol

Evan Lesh.3295:

Would this work as a pre-match filter for matchmaking, or as a map vote system?

Just add check marks next to the maps on the pvp screen… it will only give you maps that are checked. Should only be solo q though

Olba.5376:

“this” being something that they can pull off once every 60 seconds by spending a ton of time not trying to kill their enemy.

And that still assumes that the Thief is not knocked out of Refuge or hit by AoE or cleave while they are in it. Or hit by cleave or aoe afterwards.

It’s entirely too forgiving. I used to play d/d full shadow arts, even if you play badly, eat all of the cleave/condis, don’t use your dodges while inside, you can still self rez or outheal the damage.

Olba.5376:

Shadow Refuge lasts for 15 seconds at most. Shadow’s Rejuvenation heals for a base 293 for every second. That amounts to 4,395 healed. A level 80 Thief has 10,805 hp. For them to heal from 1 HP to 10,805 within 25 seconds, they need to heal 720.27 hp/s. For Shadow’s Rejuvenation to do that, they need 4,273 Healing Power.

How about you show me a build that has 4,273 Healing Power?

Your math is wrong. It heals for 323 with 6 in Shadow Arts (what you need to get the trait). Refuge is 19 seconds of stealth in this case (4 of it ticking, 15 after it fades away). Which amounts to 6,137 healed just from the trait, plus 2,045 from the refuge, for a grand total of 8,182 healed and more than likely the thief’s cooldown on their heal will be up after this time allowing them to heal to max while their opponent won’t be able to do the same.

So a level 80 thief will heal 75.72% of their hp from this.

This needs a hard cap. The amount of bad thieves that survive from Shadow Refuge full stealth regen is way too high. Maximum 3 seconds of regen in stealth.

Slininstien.7546:

You said you were a bunker guardian? Well the first time you fight it might catch you off guard but if you can, save your aegis virtue, your focus or shield 5 renewed focus, also yime your dodges with your sigils of energyand the dodges it gives. If youbhabe a necro/thief/mesmer that can boon strip it then you can CC the heck out of it. Additionally a team that is coordinated should focus the hell out of them especially the zerker ones where you can 3 shot em.

I did save all of those, and managed to escape the first 10 seconds… he hit me 1 time and it procced 11k damage…

Roe.3679:

Moa, boon strips and CC, blinds, reflections, just leaving and coming back 30 seconds later. You can just focus it down with damage too, a lich can hit hard but it really isn’t all that tough.

I feel like most counters are so situational. Even with all my blinds and blocks on guard, I got hit 1 time and was insta-downed. I feel like the best answer is thief stealing stab and cc’ing because every team has a trickery thief, but it needs to be done very quickly or you’re guaranteed to lose a player.

It completely decimates team fights. And the deathly claws + spinal shivers + fire proc + air proc is insane. I was playing bunker guard (clerics, virtues, 2926 armor) and managed to blind/block/dodge most of the attacks, but he hit me 1 time and it all proced for 11k.

The only solutions I’ve seen is to 1. have thief steal the stability and then have your team CC the lich to death (this is if your team isn’t tunnel visioned and can react quickly). or 2. just run.

Anyone else have any other ideas?

It’s really getting out of hand with people who think they’re “bunkering” home point. All you’re doing is making your team out numbered in every single fight.

I’ve always thought they should’ve implemented the capture points like SW:ToR did. Where you have to channel something to get a point. That way if you’re squishy you can kite and hit them when they are trying to channel (much like Tranquility). But it would probably open up another whole can of worms for ANet.

I only noticed the stealing not working in WvW. I’ll steal, they’ll get basi’d, its on cooldown etc, except i’m in the same spot. Doesn’t happen when I PvP though.