Guild Wars 2

Use SB if you want to be in a zerg – spam poison on the enemy melee train, daggerstorm through fields and blast waterfields (or blast whenever the commander says it).
P/P doesn’t really make sense in a zerg as it’s vs single enemies.
The build doesn’t really matter, I play in zergs with all of my thieves zerker, valk, soldier’s. But you have to predict movements of both your and the enemy zerg and position yourself accordingly.
The nice thing about being a “zerg thief” though is you can bait both zergs.
My zerg behind me, unsure what to do, enemy zerg in front of me, unsure what to do.
1111 at enemy zerg, my zerg moves closer behind me, the enemy zerg starts to 111 as well, targetting me – 333 withdraw and blinding powder and both zergs are good to go while I stay behind mine spamming poison and blast.

Edit: Yes, I’m impatient.

I renamed my first folder into screenshots 1 – that was it. My game created a new folder named screenshots and is saving all new screenshots there.

Edit: And yes, 1000 is the maximum number – maybe you stored other files in that order or deleted some which are now being replaced..

Mebaru.4513:

I meant counter-productive if you want to have a good PvP fights reliably and without wasting several hours, not for WvW in general.

With that you’re right, yes. The condi buffs (april ‘14 and june ’15) didn’t make that better.

Puck.9612:

smh….. I even put it in bold and you still missed the point….. I’m done with you.

Good – as I already explained it twice, but you still missed it.

bug fix post bug fix post bug fix post bug fix post bug fix post bug fix post

I use death blossom as a pure power thief.
I would be fine with some more damage added, but I don’t need projectile reflect on it as I hardly DB over a ranger who in that moment pew pews.
It’s really hard to tell what I want or need right now as my main problem is that a lot of the other classes are either OP or borderline OP and I’d like to know/see what and if anything is going to happen with that.

Puck.9612:

Try and look past your bias for rangers and understand the point I am making.
Anet has the ability to quickly fix game breaking bugs so they shouldn’t be left in the live game once they are discovered

I don’t like rangers in general, yes, but I’m still able to see things objectively and if you had read my post without prejudice you would’ve noticed.
Most exploits in this game are in game for a week or more. The ranger hotfix might be the only class related hotfix I know of, but I don’t know why it was that fast and why it isn’t with other things. I wouldn’t take that aimed at rangers, it was likely a coincidence.

Edit: Spelling

Your playing time would be prime time on EU – I don’t think you’d have to worry about night capping at all. You probably would be better off on EU (than NA) if you’re mainly into zerg fights. Roaming is more usual during the rest of the time.
Also: I played from EU on NA and my ping was around 200, from EU on EU it’s ~50. It’s ok for zerg fights but not so much as a solo roamer with little AoE.

The funny thing is that I told my friend who’s into gvg that I liked NA zerg fights a lot better as they weren’t so much “pirate ship” (but alas that has been a while ago) here on the forums it’s always “the pirate ship meta we got from NA” and his guild fought an NA guild the other day and they were a lot more melee than anything he’s ever seen.
So; It’s a lot of pirate ship around here. But if you join one of the higher ranked servers you’re probably good.

Edit: When I was on NA we usually had 24/7 coverage, although we’ve been few – on EU a lot of servers are really dead for a few hours each day. But again that might be different in gold and if you’re playing from 8 pm to 12 am it shouldn’t concern you.

Edit²: You can look up the “English” servers on millenium -the blue flags and I think the main language is also shown in game when you’re in “World selection”.
Our English isn’t perfect, but we mainly communicate in English. With quite a lot of Finnish in between.

rennlc.7346:

But you aren’t differentiating between whether you’re killing players by yourself or killing them by coordinating your burst with the attacks of your teammates. We’re poor at the former, yes, but we’re great at the latter.

You got my point.
And every class is good at +1 – doesn’t have to be a thief.
I think those who still play thief are die hards who know what they’re doing, so you automatically get a good player when you get a thief.

Mebaru.4513:

In my experience solo roaming is counter-productive

Then you haven’t really solo roamed.
I’m going to where I’m needed, so if I see a camp has been flipped and nothing else is up – I go there to flip it back/to see how many enemies are there and so on.
I report if I see enemies on the way, I flip that camp back (and upgrade it, I’m a good girl). If there are enemies I report it in map chat and another solo roamer or roaming group nearby might come to help me. If it’s a zerg/blob we are able to predict their next target. And if our keep or a tower is attacked and we don’t have enough people, I join in, except when killing a yak or capping a camp is more strategical in that situation.

You don’t need a party to do that. A solo roamer might be far more effective (I can cap back all camps on our own borderland within one tick, a group of five can take a keep in that time).
Edit: And I rake in more PPT alone – HAH! (In theory).
Roamers are generally underestimated.

Puck.9612:

Let’s ignore the fact that you completely missed the point. Please take into consideration that rangers have been the bottom of the barrel profession since launch and then offer up the logic behind this comment.

I get that you’re a ranger main but you should try to see things objectively from time to time.
The ranger buff was announced weeks in advance and it took people an hour maybe to figure out how to get their 25 stacks of might – before it even was in game. If the players know these things by just looking at the patch notes the makers should’ve known as well. Still they brought it into the game.
I mained a ranger when I started this game and know that longbow was weak back then but even before LB GS became meta good rangers could wreck me. That was a year ago. They’ve gotten quite a few buffs since then and with the right build they’re nearly unkillable – you should try to see this before you jump on everybody who dares to say rangers are “ok” or “strong”.
Maybe rangers were patched that fast because a patch was coming up anyway or the elites weren’t “hotfixed” because they were in game for only one weekend. But don’t see everything concerning rangers as a personal assault.

Edit: And nothing in this thread was about rangers anyway, you brought the topic up. Weird.

Baldrick.8967:

Actually I ran across a thief last night that kept wiping my mesmer before I could move- always attacking from range, ie 2000…

I’m not a fan of stealthed people being able to move normally or faster than normal, or being able to port while stealthed, or being able to immobilise from range and burst without you being able to do anything.

Mesmers can stealth more easily than thieves, they have their portal and a teleport (with a lower cooldown than thief teleport) they have a range of 1200 wheras thief’s max weapon range is 900. I’m a bit confused that you complain about thieves while playing a mesmer… Learn to play mesmer, I guess.

rennlc.7346:

Arctarius, it seems you aren’t arguing that thief is broken. It seems you’re arguing that thief is broken for how you currently want to try to play it.

That was your original Post and the one I wanted to refer to:

“Welcome to Tomb Raider XII. We added some more mobs. Lara can’t kill anything in this game but we gave her an extra dodge. Enjoy.”

I don’t think people would buy that game actually. Only in Tetris you don’t kill stuff.

meepeY.2867:

I’m afraid I might get falsely banned because anet has a habit of listening to the loudest voices.

I know and that’s what I’m always trying to prevent – no matter the class actually. I often have troubles against opponents but the whole chat rages about this or that other “hacker” and I either hunt them down or bump into them and they are easy kills – it’s a mystery to me.²
You might get a lot of attention actually as it’s the first real thief video on this forum since June.
And like I already said indirectly: I don’t really mind that build although I can also see why people are annoyed by it. Maybe I’m too much thief to be outraged myself (for outsiders: I know that I can run away from this opponent if I want to, I know how to disrupt stealth and I mostly know where thieves are, although with this build it’s rather hard to tell).

ETA: ² I have been to 4 servers and the same stuff happened on all of them. With the exception that my first used me as a thief-detector.

meepeY.2867:

Fair enough, I’ve not played Ghost in like, a weeks or so. Been having fun with other builds and my Ranger

I actually defended you guys – I know it’s a troll build and that the runes (or thief) will be nerfed because of it but most people just saw THIEF AAARGH NERRF!!

Edit: So if I had been serious about killing you I’d built some stealth traps and gotten my necro or engi and ask someone with AC mastery to man an AC. But you didn’t bother me that much.

meepeY.2867:

;-)

Fun duels btw on Friday – If that was you I was testing P/P against.
I’ve only seen one D/D Thief from Gunnars, so I assume that was you.

No, that was another- he’s usually around SM and duels a lot. D/D and P/P last time I checked his weapons. He’s really nice, probably nicer than me ;)
I was around SM and dying to your traps while discussing “THE OUTRAGE” in mapchat ;)

So it was actually you who I met – you caused quite a rage

@ red: Yeah, the past 1,5 years have been fun.
Maybe it was even more fun before, but back then I was on NA (200 ping), a mindless zerg thief and running D/P when roaming.

Edit: @doc:
Before June I never ran away from a 1 vs 1 or 1 vs X which I engaged in (it was different when someone came running into an ongoing fight). Now in most cases I don’t stand a chance anyway and know that beforehand, so I better run.
Edit²: And I fought all classes and all builds. I can’t do that anymore.

Was x/6/6/x/x that much different?

Alright then, all weapons viable in PvE – we’re good then!

We should add sepia effects on these videos “And now you see thief, a class that once has been in game – it was hard to play but a lot of fun”.

And before anyone sees this as whining: I’m laughing actually.

ilMasa.2546:

Wtf is wrong with you!?Seriusly,change attitude man…i wasnt the one telling others to “go level a thief u know nothing” or “grow up some years and come back posting”.

About the SR vs engi scenario…
“Lock on” its not an hidden trait,its not a secret its a possibility…
I didnt said “you scrub” or “go l2p your class”…
I said if you ended up using a SR vs an engi,knowing he got a flamethrower and “lock on” you probably misplayed that particular fight…(“bad positioning maybe”)…was that a terrible thing to say?!come on…

I don’t know what an engi has equipped if he jumps on me – but probably all other thieves can look into the future.

You did say that – reread your words – but it wasn’t meant this way, it’s just “I quit this discussion” as it leads to nowhere. You guys can’t remember what you wrote in your last post, you know nothing about this forum, all you want is to “whine about the whiners” although no one whined – so be it.

Galbedir.9178:

These maybe old, but I recommend watching this guys videos. One of the better thieves I’ve seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRcTKt47ixk

No offense but that video is from 2013. Yishi has long left and only came back briefly as an engi. Post videos from after June 23th ;)

You don’t sound like someone who knows much about thief, so you can post me all screenshots you like (not that I care).

An engi with Lock on and a flame thrower will target my SR – best method to get rid of condis for me – best method for him to “detect” me. I can’t get out of the ring – but thanks for telling me that my positioning is bad – and see that is what I meant and I’m honestly tired of discussing all this and of trying to explain to people how thief works – I’m doing this for 2 years now – I saved countless of enemy thieves from getting “perma banned” because I explained that they weren’t cheating – and some people started to understand thieves actually.

So excuse me, but I think I just leave you “L2P” people to yourselves – yeah you’re right, I’m a scrub and bad and need to learn to play and stuff.

Edit: Grammar

abc.5790:

OMG why did the mods move this from the pvp forum?

So they can forget it probably ;)

Thanks for your efforts though =)

ilMasa.2546:

really the “roll the thief and learn the class!,duh?”thingy…maybe i have a thief but still….is there anything to actually learn….

You can’t tell if you haven’t tried.

Anyway like you said there were already enough counter for thief stealth around. I can dodge a knockback in most cases – I can’t dodge an engis flamethrower and there’s no indictator that my opponent activated any reveal skills.
Edit: And even if I miss my dodge and am pushed out of my SR, I’ll have my wasted SR and 3 secs of reveal instead of 8+

And sorry but, can you grow some years up before you post on forums?

ilMasa.2546:

Stealth is still reliable.You just have to use in a clever way,am i wrong?!

Let me get straight to the point ok?!!I ’ve never seen in any MMORPG in the history of gaming a broken stealth mechanics like the one here on GW2 alright?!

Use heal…get stealth,shadow refuge…get stealth,fall damage…get stealth,swing your dagger….get stealth,use blinding pownder…get stealth,jump in smoke field…get stealth x3,fart…get stealth.Wanna talk about trapper thieves uh?!

Thieves got plenty of ways to enter/re-enter stealth with NO stealth COOLDOWN atall(and trust me stealth cooldown is a reality in the majority of games out there)…and if some classes got stealth removal its not a big deal…simply NOW thieves have to choose wisely when to use stealth to reset,get away…i dont see where is the problem.

Only halfway reliable condi remove when stealthed, burst for D and P mainhand thieves only when stealthed, damage migation only when stealthed, reveal after every hit which lasts self applied 3 (in pve and wvw) 4 seconds in pvp and longer if applied by other players. Our class has been built around stealth, removing stealth with revealed skills destroys our mechanics. There are countless threads on the first pages of this forum which explain this – or you can always roll a thief and learn the class ;)

bliss.4305:

Stealth will always be the bane of horrible players. Unfortunately, when people are bad, not being able to see the opponent is self-assuring reason to point fingers to.

“Wow he completely killed me and there’s nothing I could do — half the time he was invisible. It can’t be that I don’t know what he does at all… it has to be the invisibility. NERF STEALTH qqqqqq”

^ A typical day for anyone I kill in WvW nowadays.

Another thing: I’ve objectively observed that when I roam as a thief I get 3 times more QQ whispers or hate messages. Crazy, right?

Got QQ twice in my 1,5 years as a solo roamer. Most guys who whisper me are really nice – and no I don’t lose all the time ;)- that is weird actually. Makes me feel like a bad player.
But the days when people whispered me to ask for more duels are gone. It’s more about WINNING now.

Edit: I remember a really funny encounter. I was running around in wvw and my gaming mouse was broken, so my thief had the “tourette syndrom” and was spamming 1111 uncontrollably (try to time a backstab with that). A S/D thief ganked me and lost – don’t ask me how, I didn’t stomp him because the whole situation was so bizarre. So I got a salty whisperer “I just lost because blabla” “yeah it’s alright” “I want a rematch” “I can’t really play, my mouse is broken” “you’ll get 50 gold if you win!!” I spammed some more 111 and moved on.

bliss.4305:

Teach your server to stand inside red rings. Meanwhile, all thieves suffer because of a few idiots who can’t play the class normally.

It wasn’t just noobs complaining and I complained back – I’m a big thief defender. I have a chat screenshot from when they called a D/D thief they couldn’t kill (really?) Jesus thief and a hacker – they probably reported him quite a few times. (Edit: He wasn’t cheating – I was excited to see another D/D thief (it was like a unicorn) so I hunted him down).
I still love my server though, but sometimes wvw is scary.

2 of these guys made my whole server cry for thief nerfs.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The clunkiness of DB happens after the skill due to the after-cast delay — now add that delay to the casting time of CnD — it’s not very fluid. By removing the after-cast delay, your CnD’s chances of hitting will greatly improve thus increasing your damage output. The sooner you can follow-up your attacks, the more damage you can output because you’re not being gated by pre-cast and after-cast delays.

In theory you’re right, in reality I cast DB when the opponent is running towards me, so we’re back to back after DB ends and I need to turn around to hit him with CnD – that alltogether is fluid for me.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Think about it, in 12 initiative bar, you can use DB 3x at a cost of 4 init (currently) vs. using DB 4x at a cost of 3init.

Yes, great for hybrid or condi builds. If they can pull that off often enough as DB can be interrupted and most classes have an interrupt.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

However, DB don’t need a cost reduction, just delay reductions. Unload, on the other hand, needs its cost reduced. Shadow Shot deals 1k damage, blind, teleport, instant for 4 init. Unload barely deals 1k damage after 1.75 seconds, no utility, no healing, its stupid and unreasonable for the cost of 5 init.

Not sure about that as a raw unload is really powerful. So people could either use the remaining initative to create a smoke field or spam unload once more, I somehow bet they’d do the latter. And with that they would be even more annoying than rangers.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Not really sure what you’re talking about here.

The problem why thieves’ damage output seems so low is that other’s classes damage output is so high and they’re still tanky. Thief didn’t really gain damage with the June patch, most other classes did, some skills were buffed, some traits were buffed but maybe they forgot to tweak some percentage traits to make tanky classes not more powerful than they should be.

ETA; if you buff thieves damage it would lead to “balance in a vaccum” once again – thieves would one shot each other while they still might only have a slightly better chance against other classes. And with that we would be at pre ferocity again with the difference that soldier’s (and the likes) still isn’t viable cause all other classes have gained a lot more “power”.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I disagree. D/D is the most flexible weapon set. It can close gap using HS and it can create gap by using Dancing Daggers.

Ty, the first who agrees with me (unwillingly).
I still want access to CiS and Shadow Rejuvenation though and Dancing Daggers seem a bit unreliable to me – but maybe that’s me.

Anyway, I agree with the “bigger picture” and for that also the skills of other classes have to be taken into account.
Not so sure how to solve the “damage output problem” and if I understood what you meant and if I agree.
When I use DB it’s usually followed by CnD and BS – the three skills take me less than 2 seconds – I never felt as if DB was clunky. And I was running without trickery before, without infusion of shadows and hardly ever had troubles with my initative – so I don’t think that lowering the initative costs would increase my damage output.
And I think something went terribly wrong when the recalculation of the stats took place and thief got the short end. I’d have to look in all of the classes traits to see which “gain power for x percent of your toughness” should be tweaked. And that would be the bigger picture in my opinion – and I’m too lazy to do that.

SrebX.6498:

No, I have no idea about the class, but that’s just how I see this QQ… You’re welcome to disproof my claims, and honestly you probably can since, again, I know nothing. I just want to know how is it disproved

Others tried, the whole forum is full of it – you can always create a thief and learn the class. So why did you think you needed to say anything if all you had was some youtube video by someone else? Not a good idea, right?
And no, sorry, I’m tired of explaining to people how thief works.
That goes also to Nike.

Edit: Or even better, watch one of brazil’s other thief videos to learn the class chuckle

SrebX.6498:

As I stated in the beginning, I’m by no means experienced with this class or know anything about it, but if you make a counter argument to what I said, please back it up instead of this useless sarcasm

I fought Brazil once (duel) and when he was at 5% health (as an engi about a year ago) his bodyguards stepped in – and that is how I see any advise of him – so it’s not so good to come to a forum, admit that you have no idea what you’re talking about and base your opinion on someone who doesn’t know to play. I still laugh about that fight every time I see his name, sorry.

SrebX.6498:

I’m by no means experienced with the thief class, but I just want to express my opinion here.
I think thieves have gotten so used to running full glass, relying on nothing but stealth keep them alive, that now they can’t get a hold of anything new.
DD basically have the ability to chain evades all day long while still putting out good damage. Brazil even showed in his video once a 100% evade uptime on against a golem. I think you thieves just need to give this whole thing a shot, and start thinking about none stealth reliant builds

We can’t run anything than full glas – that went with the ferocity patch.

But if brazil says so – wait that was that guy who always ran with his two bodyguards, right? Yeah, he sure knows how to fight ;)

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

So what proof is there of all this hopelessness?

We tried hard to convince the devs that thief needs a buff. We explained how unfair the revealed skills are if they’re left like this – we did this since June in an intelligent manner and got a 20% pistol damage buff (and some other buff I can’t remember) – so all of what we said was left unheard.
S/D, P/D and D/P will become halfway viable again with the daredevil line – I don’t see D/D becoming viable. I don’t doubt staff will be viable. And I don’t doubt that most if not all elites will be “OP” at the start – I’m okay with that. I’m not okay with how all of this went down. The change from 2,3 to 3 lines was expected to be bumpy. What I and probably a lot of others didn’t expect was that all of it was left as it was and after 3 months there came some minor tweaks. I don’t really know about how other classes feel but the powercreep and conditions can’t be a problem for only thieves. By handeling this issue like they did I at least feel like “deal with how the game is or move on, they won’t change anything”.

Edit and Edit² added stuff: And I’m not so sure if DD and T or acro really is enough to deal with condis – so SA might still be the best, although not as good as it used to be, way to get rid of condis. With revealed skills… Sure you can survive that once but at least Lock On is pretty “spammable”. There were already tons of options in game to defeat a thief, every class had them, but instead we needed reveal skills and people freak out if they see a thief (they’re rather rare nowadays) but seem to have no problem with mesmers who can stealth easier, who are harder to hit and who can hit harder than thief. This game feels more and more brainless all around.

Edit³: And don’t get me wrong, I would rather not be heard – I’d rather have the developers making choices without listening to players. But stuff like CiS in grandmaster, like the revealed skills (without compensation and discussion), like the nerf of SE, like taking feline grace and moving it to a paid elite…

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Well, what other forum held an in-game funeral for their entire class?

It was justified, I guess, as the reveal skills have never been adressed – and that is “class breaking”.
It’s ok if you think that it was whiny but in the end you listed the very same reasons as “making thief difficult to play” the people had to held a funeral.
We could’ve stripped though and make a thread with nekkid pics to gain some attention for the issue(s).

But to be fair; I promised my buddy one of these pics if thief had gotten a significant buff with the latest patch (I knew I was safe) (pistol doesn’t count as I don’t play pistol). = I can’t do the same for celebration and demonstration.. although I probably could. We should keep that in mind, but I somehow guess that most of the thieves already moved on.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

snip

It’s a bit unfair that you call the thief forum “the whiniest” as most of what is written there (since before June) is exactly what you told us right now in your second passage.
It was just when it became clear shortly before the last patch that we have no hope that anet will reverse some stuff they messed up and that there wasn’t a word on how thieves should manage the reveal skills, that people became a bit salty.

The revealed skills should’ve been adressed from the developers and not just brought into the game.
And the problem with thieves goes a bit farther than just revealed skills, in my opinion.

ResJudicator.7916:

I was really just referring to D/P. The other weapon sets need some tweaking (which I referred to earlier in my post). But D/P has a lot of defensive options outside of stealth for 1v1s via shadowshot. And for offense you can completely lock certain classes (namely necros) out of their heals via interrupts.

Necros don’t have reveal- I was referring to reveal and you were as well.
Everything D/P has costs a lot of initiative – so in theory a D/P thief has got access to a ton of blinds and daze’s – in reality it’s not that simple and at least engis Lock On has got such a low cooldown that you better don’t try to stealth at all. Problem; stealth is still the only reliable condi remove thief has got. Might change with daredevil as well.

We had that in the past and mango explained it as far as I can remember.
It depends on who uses it first, I think. Find a thief and try it?

Jiggawattz.2697:

A couple of things. One I can tell by the way you speak…. that you are not a high rank player, or even anyone with grounds to talk about what is actually balanced in this game. Two, if every class is “faceroll to win” then how does anyone ever lose? Oh that’s right, its because if every class is “faceroll to win” then the game is fairly balanced. Thirdly you being a tool on the forums is not what makes a game better. Respectfully submitting data that you collect… objective, non opinionated, numerical data that is correlated directly to the balance compared to another class could make a difference, if posted in the correct place, but 90% of this post will be brushed off, because a person with a job to do…aka balancing the game, does not have time to listen to everyone whine about their class and why it needs to be stronger than the other classes. They get most of their data from high end competitive tournament play, so the game is more balanced at that level…. and if you look around the game and say this game isn’t anywhere near balanced… then I have bad news for you, you need to practice and probably shouldn’t waste your time on the forums.

The overall gist of it, is that too many people complain for class buffs, instead of figuring out how to play with what they have, and as we have seen in the most recent ESL, thief can be played at a high end competitive level and serve a valuable roll. That is balance, just cause you die to someone does not make the game imbalanced, it makes you bad.

I have my preferred game mode in my signature – I already said that I have no interest in pvp (although I play it from time to time) – so congrats figuring out that I’m not into pvp, Einstein.
Peope lose because they make mistakes or because a +1 comes along.

The balance guys should’ve never listened to anyone – it should’ve been clear to them that by making certain traits unavaillable they’re killing off all but one thief build – but somehow tools like me figure it out and they don’t.

Play some wvw – we’re in to kill not to jump around.

I just explained why thief is in the state it is – I never cried for buffs or anything. Don’t believe me? read what I wrote again.

Zero Day.2594:

Pretty sure people standing still and eating backstabs was always an issue.

Yeah but I once was the master of stealth and that guy stealthed so he should’ve known sobs

Seriously: these guys are so used to faceroll their keyboards and get away with all their stealth, because revealed skills don’t affect them much anyway, that the opinion that stealth has no counter will live on. He probably reported me for cheating.

Yeah, a mesmer failed to lock me down today, I was able to stealth on one of his clones, he stealthed and likely stood still cause you know “he can’t see me, he doesn’t know where I am huehuehue” A nice backstab downed him.
Thieves have become that rare that people don’t know how to handle them and cry for more nerfs.

Zero Day.2594:

From what I’ve noticed in the video, it’s like every ~20 seconds he can do that, since he has to pop a signet to get max adrenaline.

But yeah, I thought we were assassins….

Don’t know too much about warriors but his healing refills his adrenaline as well, so it’s 25 second for that skill and that signet he activates and I have no idea about the traits, pretty sure there are some which let you regain your adrenaline more quickly.

Jiggawattz.2697:

Meh, yes and no… I don’t have hope for anything. It is a game and it is their design. I prefer to look at the game objectively and play what I think is best at the time, between my three preferred classes. I just wish others would do the same or stop kittening about balance.

Why should we stop “kittening about balance”? Isn’t that what makes a game great? And in fact that was what anet said about GW2 before launch “we are going to make this game the best balanced on the market” – long time ago, right? I don’t mind to be the underdog, but this is too much to be still called “ok/balance” – and I do wonder if how and when they’re going to fix all of it – not talking about thief only. Right now most classes are faceroll to win – and that is boring.
And I guess we have explained why the balance for thieves is off, I can’t talk for other classes as I play this game for thief (I have all classes but no interest to play them).

Edit: So I can’t say which specific traits make the classes faceroll everything.

MrForz.1953:

I wonder. What part of this Warrior is derivated from Thief?

The player, I guess

SolarDragon.7063:

I fully agree that the biggest problem right now is the condi meta, but unlike the poster above I don’t see much hope of it going away.

I have no hope

Inflames.8026:

Kind of wrong too. An expansion usually brings a ton of stuff. Higher level. Better gear. More abilities. In gw 2 levels and gear doesnt matter for spvp. Not that we have a higher level cap either. What we get is different. Not better, just different.

Here’s what I wrote and what I meant:

Thief doesn’t have many options to be viable right now as the traits for each spec (except D/P) were nerfed with the June patch.
Feline grace moved from acrobatics (crucial for S/D, the only stealthless build) to the daredevil line which is only accessible when having bought HoT.

Thief is the only class which is build around stealth – without it they’re lootbags. They got no compensation for the revealed skills and probably never will. They’re also the only class without some kind of invulnerability. (Except when traited in SA and when stealthed.. you get the point; without stealth no protection at all (and a lot of other stuff)).

So with all the reveal in game, with the power creep of other classes the only viable option is to go stealthless which would be S/D which needs daredevil = you have to buy HoT to get that line.
Even D/P might want to have DD since SA is just too weak overall and again the reveal skills which make the whole line useless.

Jiggawattz.2697:

snip

Understand the game, accept imbalance, shift your playstyle, and improve… don’t blame the game for your shortcomings when there are alternatives and there is proof that thief CAN be played well and make a huge impact, because we have seen it in tourneys… please… just play the game…

I don’t care about pvp, I want to play wvw. And unfortunately the traits are shared between all game modes. And to be honest, I would not like to be the +1 in a pvp match cause I’m unable to defend myself (other than with stealth which is being destroyed by the revealed skills).

ResJudicator.7916:

A lesser but still noticeable issue behind a lot of thief complaints is that a lot of thief players relied too heavily on stealth and never developed their mechanical skills like timing interrupts, blinds, and dodges. Due to a number of reasons, the “stealth, burst, retreat & repeat” strategy doesn’t work anymore. This means the thief needs to be spot on with his interrupts, blinds, and dodges to survive. This means knowing what your opponent’s skills are so you know what to blind/dodge/interrupt, rather than just random-dodging until your reveal debuff is gone so you can restealth. A thief who knows how to do these things has an advantage over most mesmer builds (especially the portal-PU build used in conquest) while a thief who doesn’t will just get instagibbed.

That’s nice, but tell me what options a thief has got left to be without stealth and to interrupt and dodge?
It has all been nerfed with the June patch.
Only option would’ve been S/D – acrobatics nerfed = not viable anymore.
A decent amount of interrupts and blinds = D/P which needs stealth, SA nerfed + reveal skills = not really viable anymore.
D/D is a stealth build, the weapons alone have no utility, so all has to come from the traits which were heavily nerfed (especially for that weaponset).
P/D got a buff again, but it still relies on stealth and I’m not so sure how good it is without ricochet which was deleted with the June patch.
So it’s nice to hear what you think how thieves should play, the problem is; they can’t.

Maybe with daredevil some of these builds will become viable again and maybe staff will be viable but that would mean that GW2 is becoming a P2W game.