Guild Wars 2

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Jana.6831:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Oh, you’re still trying to beat them using d/d I take it? Bad idea. Again, you lose out on gap closing, blinds and interrupts. I usually don’t have too much difficulty when facing them using d/p, although they have gotten tougher recently.

So what? rangers have gotten tougher or rangers are so poor they need a buff?

They used to need a buff, but I think they’re in a decent place right now…at least as far as 1v1s are concerned. They can’t bring as much group support to the table as another profession, even if that other prof is as good at 1v1s as the ranger is.

Honestly, the major issue with thief right now is condition cleanse. With a little bit of that they’d be fine.

Then why do you say rangers have got it worse than thieves?
And no, nearly all classes can hit harder than thief, just that thief has got no defense.
You can only dodge that often.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Oh, you’re still trying to beat them using d/d I take it? Bad idea. Again, you lose out on gap closing, blinds and interrupts. I usually don’t have too much difficulty when facing them using d/p, although they have gotten tougher recently.

So what? rangers have gotten tougher or rangers are so poor they need a buff?

Unholy Pillager.3791:

WvW is 1/3 of the game, and even there staff elementalists and well necromancers are more desirable in zergs. I’m really not sure about roaming. However, on top of that rangers aren’t welcome and have never been welcome in meta dungeon groups. They are pretty strong in open-world PvE, but that just happens to be the least important aspect of the game; everyone does fine there. They were the only class not present at the last World Tournament Series. The. Only. One. That right there tells you their PvP viability: pros would rather stack two warriors (who are, themselves, considered weak right now) than take a ranger.

I guess what has been and what is buffed for rangers is their personal survival and not group play, I face them while roaming.
So make a thread in the ranger forum and demand more group play utilities? fine by me.
And I already spoke about pvp, maybe pvp and rangers just don’t work together. You can also demand that anet redesigns pvp so it would fit ranged classes more or tell every ranger who’s into pvp to only play melee – I don’t care, just from my personal roaming wvw experience: rangers don’t need a buff.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Edit: But seriously, don’t compare yourselves to rangers here. At its worst ever, thief got MVP at the WTS, while ranger was the only profession not played. Thief has had a place in high-end dungeons and PvP since the game started, while rangers have never been in the meta. Rangers needed something like Druid far more desperately than any other profession in the game. Hopefully it will give them a place in dungeons, raids and tourneys…because they’ve been waiting for a long time.

Rangers are really strong right now. I have no idea of pvp, maybe they just don’t fit into the scheme wheras thieves can always stealh (mesmers do it better). Maybe pvp just isn’t build for rangers, but that doesn’t mean they need buff after buff cause I have to face them in wvw as well, and believe me; they’re doing good in wvw.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

But you admit that the main purpose of this weapon is for I-Arrow.

No, I don’t. I guess that it’s the main purpose in pvp, but I’m a world versus world player and in fact I use all SB skills in that game mode.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

It would definitely be out of combat. Shortbow is used for it’s travel utility, as I’m sure you know, but no other weapon comes even close to matching it.

I use it to “travel” but also to cap camps, weaken those with healing signets, evading necros and keeping the downed downed.

Kocoff.7582:

^^ So much truth. Don’t let those tyrants win. I main a Thief, last time I rerolled, I made another Thief.

Lol – same here ;)

Doggie.3184:

Running away while crying is my specialty but I wanna look sexy while I do it.

The Gemshop has got some outfits?!

Kocoff.7582:

If on Tuesday the patch is a complete fail in our eyes, I suggest we organize the Spiritual Funeral of the Thief on Thursday a day before the patch.

Everybody gets naked with their favorite weapon set and like the started hood, and with broken dreams of course.
I suggest we walk from Lion’s Arch to some random cemetery while, cluster bombing everything in our path.

In the meantime we can finally meet, and just QQ some more.

I am not even joking gentlemen. this is for real.

for realz.

How should I clusterbomb with D/D?
And I think a lot of the thieves already left.
I’m pro this though, I know it doesn’t sound like it – but honestly; I don’t care anymore – The only things I will miss is my old thief and my bat kitten crazy server.

Zero Day.2594:

Thief isn’t underpowered or a lootbag, it’s just a hard class to master….

Yeah, I’ll tell my brother that he never even got into any highscore of any game we had because the games were just too easy. I was good at the games because they were too easy ;)

But at least they’ve buffed ranger – it’snot that they already were really strong to start with. And necros – but alas I see it from the viewpoint of a loot bag.
I probably should L2P.

It doesn’t matter whether or not they nerf us more, we’re lootbags anyway.

Zero Day.2594:

Easy there Adam, Eve is the jealous type.

Nah, it should be fine

Kocoff.7582:

When & where, what do we wear? we should just come naked, with our favorite weapons equipped.

But my main has got terrible blue boxershorts -and no one wants to see a sylvari male “naked” (I tried).

Edit: see?

Cynz.9437:

It is actually very simple: “our” dev went for balance, other devs went for powercreep/cool stuff + they don’t communicate apprently. So here we go, got short end of the balance stick so to say.

Just that I feel Thief has got everything nerfed as a base and then given it back in special trait lines/elites. So thief is basically 60% as strong as before June patch.

Zero Day.2594:

…. to run away with….

difficult if you can’t get cripple off..

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

Not like it can get any worse right?

Yeah, but it sure won’t get any better.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

Cmon guys…it’s not over. When HoT rolls around and we haven’t changed, then we can have our funeral…but for now let’s just see what happens.

:D :D :D :D

sorry

:D :D

The walking Teefs would be great!

Edit: And I am about to quit – lost every 1 vs 1 today, no matter how good I played – thought it was me until I saw a fellow thief losing every 1 vs 1 at SM. And sorry, but I don’t think that is right.

I’m in.

D/D thief or nothing.

First thing I would do is revert SA (you guys guessed that, I know)!
Then I would have a long talk to the other balance team members and adjust the damage output and passive invulnerabilities all classes have got. With that thief healthpool should be okayish again as currently most classes hit harder but have their invulnerabilities, their health regen, their higher health pool, their longer stealth…

That would be the start to make thief at least half playable again.
Then I would think about buffing SB poison duration again, maybe add blind to CnD, interrupt to Dancing Dagger – but with that CiS might be obsolete, so I’d have to think about new traits. I would also revert a lot of what has been nerfed because new traits buffed it (stolen items, poison) as all thieves need it but only few have access to “its former” power.
I would change SE to either how it has been or make a priority of what is cleansed first (most damaging condition or most stacks) and maybe add a trait that removes immobilized and fear on stealth, like former SE did.

The reveal stuff is a tough one, even if a thief still gets everything he can from SR (it heals too) and SA and still maintains his 100% crit on the next hit (if traited), he still is visible, so I would give him some sort of invulnerability since a huge part of thief’s defense is that the enemy can’t see where he’s exactly at.

And I would grant signet of shadows a 33% passive speed boost and stealth+ blind when activated – that would be something for me!

Again, written from my point of view, I know there’s a lot of stuff wrong with thief right now and that other builds need a lot more than what I listed.

I still want to be an underdog (I would quit thief if it were “Mesmer-Op”), but I want to have a chance.

Edit: Spelling

SirWarriant.2319:

+1, really the only place I see this causing problems is in WvW honestly which could be solved by simply making shadowsteps/teleports invalid on walls and a few other surfaces.

It makes my blood boil in all game modes – so it’s a problem for me in general.
And I guess every shadowstep of every class can port up a hill to a target. It would be boring if not.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Those mesmer traits grant protection, not invulnerability. And yes, i know, why they are easier now – not because of their mechanics.

Warrior isn’t the most op class right now, so even if he doesn’t need the knowledge against thief, he might need it against mesmer or ele (Actually i think, thief has an easier time than warrior against mesmer, at least at “pro level”).

The point of this thread was “hard to play classes should be stronger than easy classes”. I said, this won’t work, because stronger classes would be automatically easier.

Ok, so it’s invulnerability to white damage, better? And it’s still passively applied and every mesmer seems to have it now which they hadn’t before.
I took warrior as an example and I don’t think that anyone has got an easy time against mesmers right now, cause mesmers are the most OP class right now, still a lot of other classes have got so much passive stuff applied that they are pretty much faceroll as well.
Yeah, that is the point: A squishy class has got a hard time to land a hit, so it should hit harder, otherwise the easier to play class is “OP” and the harder to play class doesn’t have a chance.

Illusionary membrane, Chaotic dampening – but that’s probably not what I mean, maybe I should play mesmer myself to see how they get it.
And I explained to you why they’re now easy ;)
And if a warrior is interested in learning other classes’ mechanics that’s great – he doesn’t have to though because his mechanics are strong enough to allow himself the one or other mistake. And yes “if they were stronger” was the point of this thread ;)

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Mechanics determine, how easy or hard a class is to learn. But once you know all mechanics and tricks and whatsoever about your class, those mechanics are not what makes your class hard or easy. It depends more on how good/effective (in a specific situation) your class is in comparison to other classes. Just take mesmer – they were considered a “hard-to-play” class very often. Now, after they got buffed, but still have the same mechanics, the are considered “easymode”.

Also if a warrior (or another “easy” class) doesn’t need as much knowledge as a thief to win a fight or whatever he wants to achieve, this does not say, a warrior can’t has as much or even more knowledge as the thief. And maybe he needs it in an other situation.

A warrior at his max level will still have his heavy armor, still have the same adrenaline and health regen, still have his passive buffs reapplied – that is what I mean with “can’t change mechanics”.
And that’s why a warrior doesn’t need the knowledge because his class is easier to play to start with..
Mesmers are nowadays easymode because they’re ranged, have their clones, have stealth (more than thief) and have passive applied invulnerability. Before the patch they hadn’t even half of that, so they had to be careful about what they did – that is “hardmode”. Still the mechanics were there and a good mesmer was really powerful (but hard to play).

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Your edit was still bad. A thief has 2 weapons at a time not just one like ele. So short bow and something else was expected not just short bow or one dagger.

As for my assumption I must disagree. I said “I personally always seek what is more fun to play and it’s almost never what is easy” and that my point was “don’t assume all of them would make that choice”. I for one would not and I know I would not be alone.

So an ele has got 4 attunements and can heal himself with water, a thief can’t. an ele also has got invulnerability which a thief hasn’t.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Why? Because it would meant that, if we accept your opinion (which I certainly do not) of thieves and engi being the profession who would have the highest potential because of their highest skill floor, all pro players would invariably seek to play them because they ultimately lead to the best potential. Nothing in competition but thieves and engi? Really? That sux. I’m sorry but that is the mother of all bad ideas.

So you didn’t say that, I’m sorry.

Edit: Lets just agree to disagree, I hope those who are able to remember their own words and know wvw/pvp get my point.
And btw: There was some kind of balance before the june patch – the classes and weapon sets the hardest to play usually hit the hardest as well, with a few exceptions and without taking condi builds into account. Now nearly every class is face roll. That again isn’t directed to you just my final statement on this matter.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

For your first point, how many players with 2 weapon slots do you know that uses only one? Your reply is as ridiculous as me saying I play my ele with a focus only.

Now for your other point, I did not assume nobody would go for what is easier. I know many will. I said not everyone think in these terms. If there is a flaw in my thinking about this it wasn’t what you say I said as opposed to what I actually said.

I already edited it, so I don’t really see your point, sorry.
No, you assumed that people would play what’s the most fun for them and for some that would be the easier option (= class), so make harder to play classes equally rewarding and a lot of players will go for the easier class – as seen with mesmer, for example – so your point that if you make harder to play classes more rewarding would lead to an imbalance is wrong in my opinion and I explained in now three posts why.

Edit: Grammar

Let me copy and paste your name in blood.

Edit: Alright, someone was faster than me… …

apharma.3741:

You’re on my server, I don’t mind if you kill them =P

Well thanks, I will remember that the next time I’m hit with tons of aoe, taunted out of my SR and outrun (for whatever reason, I don’t get why everybody is faster than me). =P

Edit: I have the license to kill earnest nod

apharma.3741:

The enemy can’t run as you’re faster and setting themselves up for a backstab. Can’t fight as they’ll just be blowing cool downs. Well that’s what I do when I’m a thief in stealth, I sit and wait to see what people do. I let them waste cool downs, keep extending stealth, then when they try to run, hit them. They weren’t outplayed, they weren’t some noob, they were just destroyed by a mechanic they had no way to really counter other than hit thin air an hope.

I will cry myself to sleep after this – those poor guys!!

dancingmonkey.4902:

I believe others get your point. I know what I don’t get, is how you assume your subjective opinion is fact, in your argument. For example, I find thief to be one of, if not the easiest profession to play. Yet you post with the assumption that everyone agrees with you as to which professions have specific skill floors or ceilings. Of coarse, your not the only one in this thread working under that same inaccurate assumption.

I think I included “in my opinion” everywhere -mind to quote me where I didn’t? ;)

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Really? Because I can tell you right here and now that no matter the thief I play they all have it infinitely easier than I do at solo roaming while on my zerk staff ele. On a cele d/d ele tho that is extremely different I agree. But the point remain that the context and build determine what is harder not the profession alone. There are contexts where the zerk staff will enjoy a far easier time than pretty much any thief but not when dueling or roaming for sure I can tell you that.

Yes, try to play thief with only dagger mainhand and compare that to staff ele.
Edit: Or maybe more accurate: SB thief vs Staff ele.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

My point is, don’t assume all of them would make that choice. Specially not if they desperately are the kind who want to prove they are the best… that ego is such a kitten… If the builds are all overall equivalent in potency, logic won’t be the factor to decide what is good or not based on a profession, which will bring diversity.

You assume they wouldn’t. My best friend in this game started out as a main thief and switched to guard because it’s easier – and he wasn’t bad by any means.
And you can’t change the mechanics of the classes- take a warrior, easy to play,no matter what build, harder to master, still he can allow himself a mistake against an equally skilled opponent, no matter the class and he doesn’t have to know all the classes’ mechanics in comparison to a thief.

Again: My point was to show you the flaws in your thinking, I don’t have an opinion (yet) on the OP.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Jana.6831:

-snip-

I’m glad you’re not a dev.

I am too, but you guys obviously failed to understand my point.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

From my experience with all professions, depending on the context you are speaking of, all professions have easy builds and harder ones. Sure, not all equally hard to master but the judgement about what is or not the most difficult is so dependent on context and players preferences of play and past habits that it really becomes a futile argument.

I also have all classes and in my opinion most of them are really easy to play, no matter the setup – if you chose only useless traits then it becomes harder, sure, but compare that to a thief with only useless traits, oh wait..
And no, my perception is that all classes but engi, thief and guard (because I don’t understand it at all) are easy to play. From what I see when facing these classes the perception stays the same. With the difference that guard looks pretty easy.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

If all classes are equal at pro level than they would all be played because they would ultimately all be equally viable. Only the time required to reach that level would differ. If your argument is that players would always go for what is easier it says a lot about you I think. I personally always seek what is more fun to play and it’s almost never what is easy.

Hey, I quoted a psychologist who gives me a free analysis, isn’t that great?
That was basically your own argument from the different point of view, to show you the flaws – and yes a lot of people chose what is easier to play, even though they could chose the harder to play class (skill wise).

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Apart from the fact it makes no sense whatsoever to me to say a profession has a high or low skill floor in itself (a build yes, not a profession)

With that perception you’re wrong, there are classes which are easier to play, no matter what weapons you chose.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

I do not agree it would be a good idea to clearly make a profession, regardless of how tricky it can be to master with it’s hardest builds, potentially inherently better.

I didn’t quote the rest of what you wrote but I refer to it:
If you make all classes equal at pro level, then again some classes wouldn’t be played, such as thief or engineer who are a lot harder to master than others.

And how many really good players are there anyway, so would it make a difference when all of them chose to be an engi or thief?

Just a flaw in your reasoning, I don’t really have an opinion on that as I can see why lower skilled players might be afraid of both classes and maybe that isn’t right. The approach anet took though, to make both classes basically unviable isn’t right either.

I’m a bit bored as I didn’t invite anyone for quite a bit.
Come on, give me some copy and paste to do.

ArchonWing.9480:

I think there are a number of issues with this topic.

First off, skill cap isn’t really defined; what makes it inherently that Thieves and Engineers take more skill to play? Plus the situations are too broad. For example, consider the difference between a d/d glass thief and a p/d dire condi roamer even just factoring this “risk and reward” thing. Likewise with an SD zerker engineer vs a condi double S engineer.

The risk reward with P/D dire and D/D zerker thief should be about equal right now as the condis availlable to thief have been nerfed with the patch.

PopeUrban.2578:

oh I’m not saying our condition removal is up to par, but i know how anet like to toe the “everybody’s got a weakness” line, so my thinking is if damaging conditions are supposed to be our weakness for some reason, why not ramp up the white damage resistance and cc resistance to compensate?

Personally I’d be happy if our squish level stayed where it is and we just got better condi removal and some sort of additional defensive gimme while revealed if we spec in to SA. Stability maybe? IDK.

Thing is, what kills me is cleave and condis – come to think of it, my thief is that squishy that it’s really hard to tell what exactly kills me and even more: HOW THE HELL I STILL KILL PEOPLE
So yeah, I wouldn’t play thief if it was OP – I don’t want stuff to be applied to me passively, that’s why I said that thief should be redesigned from scratch to create mechanics against opponent mechanics that destroy our only real mechanic that is stealth.
But, since I’ve been around for a while: 1,5 years ago I have been able to run in the midst of a zerg, that was gone with the introduction of ferocity for whatever reason, I’ve been too new to thief at that time, I relearned running with the zerg about a year ago and the June patch made it close to impossible. I’d like to be able to be a proper zerg thief again. Just the option to do that. No idea how that would work but It would be great if thieves had the opportunity to not be squishy for once.

PopeUrban.2578:

Or, less blatantly overpowered, how about just getting a SA trait that grants damage resistance when revealed? Not the protection boon, but straight up DR so it doesn’t get hate/stripped This means we’d still be a bit weak to conditions, would still have to camp in stealth for much of the clear, and still be vulnerable to CC as we’re back to supersquish once revealed ends, but it would give some much needed cover and help to counterbalance all the revealed. Maybe not DR as strong as protection, but something?

I don’t like the condi removal availlable to thief right now, I don’t like how OP condis have already been in wvw and how ridiculous they’ve become after the latest patch.
I think I got what you mean and that would be the “cheap” answer to the “cheesy” implementation of reveal. But as long as it’s not clear what and if anet plans to do anything about conditions/ the ways to remove them, I can’t say that I would agree with that.

Right now playing thief or even playing D/D thief is suicidal, so making things worse than they are now would take some effort.

Not so sure if the “upon entering stealth” thingy would work as right now we have to “sit in stealth” to benefit from it – you can make it a lasting buff – that would work. But still; one of our main defenses is that the enemy doesn’t know where we are, thus might or might not attack us. That falls away with all the revealed stuff. How about: Invulnerable but revealed? ;) I would love that actually, makes everybody think twice about using these skills.

apharma.3741:

And before a thief main comes and says “but thief doesn’t have a bunker” not yet, let’s wait on daredevil though as it’s clear everything with the specialisation patch was balanced initially against the elite specs.

Now it makes sense, now I understand why thief in its current state is so weak – and all other classes are that strong, it’s because their elites will drag them down, power wise, right?

Maugetarr.6823:

How about we just change all of our “while in stealth” traits to “when you are revealed” instead. So SRej becomes “gain 1200 health and 2 initiative when you leave stealth or are revealed.” SE becomes “lose 2 conditions when you leave stealth or gain revealed.” The leaving stealth part is there so that if it expires naturally, you still gain benefit from it.

With that my condi cleanse, burst etc would be out of my hand as I would have to find means to reveal myself to get my condis off. So, I’m playing against a condi mesmer, he shatters all his clones on me, I pop SR, he stealthes – and just has to wait until I’m dead – but to be fair: this sounds like something that would be in game soon.

Edit: It’s pretty hard to find a compromise actually. I think the best really would be to redesign Thief from scratch. As I’m not so sure if something like “remove conditions if you’re either stealthed or revealed, your next attack after being revealed has got a 100% crit chance” would be what people want. In the end there’s way too much tied to stealth and I’d love to have some of it put into other trait lines or as a thief base.

T raw.4658:

Fast Paced Gameplay that requires you to be fast on the controls. Being in control of my skills

The one time I really agree with you ;)

Agemnon.4608:

Why would you if you never do enough damage to draw the aggro.

You don’t really know dungeons or thieves, do you? ;)

Agemnon.4608:

The problem is you’re so squishy on thief you’ll eventually need it.

I almost never use stealth on myself in dungeons/fractals, just like I never use water on myself as an ele.

For those of you who don’t know it:

Edit: And I think I’m going to frame this:

Arctarius.2649:

you can play thief 2.0 otherwise known as Mesmer. They basically do our job now with about a quarter of the effort, triple our burst and double our stealth, OH and they are ranged.

Arlowslol.1974:

I guess you dont play SPVP, lol

I actually put how I play into my signature so that people know what I’m referring to when I say something on the forums.

Arlowslol.1974:

If you played S/D b4, you will understand the biggest problem with S/D is the SA d/p thief and PU mes.

I killed all but 2 S/D thieves I’ve ever met, as a D/D thief – so not so sure if D/P really was the biggest problem for them, guess not.
And, I used to kill all mesmers I came across, no matter whether condi or power – in fact they’ve been my favourite enemies. The fights felt like chess and my biggest advantage was CnD which S/D thieves also can.

Arlowslol.1974:

stealth is the biggest problem with the unstealth build.

if DareDevil cant have a 50% chance VS Shadow Arts, and it will be useless

Don’t get what you mean, to be honest.

Berzal.7294:

For example in Asura Fotm full meta/zerker party kill boss less then 20 sec.Thief not strong in pve.He helps to skip mobs or doing dredges ,but he dont give anything to party and his dps =like warrior,but warrior give banners,re-stack might,give 150 power etc.

I think everybody who knows me would disagree – Stealth is a powerful tool in pve, not just to skip mobs.

Showbiz.9725:

Ok I know Elementalist is OP right now but will they get nerfed any time in the next few months? It would be pretty rough to get to lvl 80 then get nerfed a week later.

How do Elementalist and Thief compare to each other in PvE?

So? The odds thief gets a buff is about 0 (they’ve received 2 in the 1,5 years I’m maining mine).
If you’re a good player in general and want to just play PvE you can roll a thief though in Dungeons they’re about equally good, I guess. And if you’re fast you’ll have no problems in any PvE content with a thief.

If you’re into pvp/wvw go ele.