Guild Wars 2

Straegen.2938:

You don’t have to finish the base attack chain to CnD and BS.

Then, you lose the poison damage from the chain end, plus any associated effects.

As soon as you cloak, BS comes up. A player isn’t loosing CnD/BS, it is being exchanged for additional base attacks over time.

Additional base attacks that on the long run do less damage per second than another C&D+BS combo. Not to mention that those attacks must be timed perfectly in order to squeeze the next C&D, because if the animation for the next base attack in the chain starts, C&D gets queued behind it.

Look, I have no time (nor patience) to draw you a DPS chart, but essentially, the longer the fight, the more DPS thieves end up losing compared to the previous rotation.

Also manually performing the base attacks, I can almost always squeeze in more than one full rotation even before the patch.

The auto-attack chain is already performed at maximum speed by the game’s autopilot. If you manually perform it, you could aspire to match it, at best, but in all probability, you’ll end up doing it slower/less efficiently.

Straegen.2938:

Kyrion.2749:

It’s long enough to totally destroy the usual backstab rotation in PvE.
(C&D >> Backstab >> Autoattack chain >> C&D >>> Backstab)

That extra second makes imposible to use C&D right after finishing the autoattack chain because now you are still revealed. You either have to wait (losing DPS) or insert another attack in the middle (consuming more initiative and exhausting yourself in the process). Either way, you end losing DPS since you cannot longer backstab as often as before.

Nope… it goes from this (base damage):

CnD (500) -> BS (800) -> base attacks (750) -> Repeat

to this:

CnD (500) -> BS (800) -> base attacks (750) -> 1 more round of base attack (750) -> Repeat

No extra initiative needed. Over time damage is going to be minimally impacted and we will still be a spike damage king in WvW.

You said it… Over time. Your calculation doesn’t take into account the time it takes to perform each action.

It takes 3 seconds to perform the Auto-attack Chain. (750 base damage)
in those 3 seconds you could fit the C&D +Backstab combo (500 + 800 base damage)

Do yourself the math, 1300 – 750 = 550 base damage loss, according to your new rotation

Brassnautilus.2941:

death blossom mobility lol

but we dodged a bullet again? weeeeeee

No, it hit the PvE thief behind you… In the head.

@TheKillerAngel:

PvE includes any part of the game where these patch changes actually have an impact.

Everything else is PvP

Joey.3928:

Also, warriors got hit pretty hard with the quickness change. 100 blades wont be AS deadly now.

Yes, I hear them crying from here…

RetroSamus.9860:

wookie.8934:

RetroSamus.9860:

wookie.8934:

stof.9341:

Maybe Mesmers should get a “Revealed” debuff too after any shatter that prevents them from making any new clones for the duration … More time for us to target and damage them.

Because you already didn’t have enough? It’s one second.

One second is a lot in pvp…

Not enough to break the entire class and every build that relies on stealth spam. It’s not as long as you think.

Of course it is not enough to break to class, but one more second of being visible is kinda bad.

It’s long enough to totally destroy the usual backstab rotation in PvE.
(C&D >> Backstab >> Autoattack chain >> C&D >>> Backstab)

That extra second makes imposible to use C&D right after finishing the autoattack chain because now you are still revealed. You either have to wait (losing DPS) or insert another attack in the middle (consuming more initiative and exhausting yourself in the process). Either way, you end losing DPS since you cannot longer backstab as often as before.

Fortunately, we can still change our build to condition damage and use caltrops to…. AAARGGG!!!!

There we go…

Backstab rotation totally destroyed and Caltrops -5 seconds duration. ROFL

Thanks God they buffed Warrior’s banners, otherwise we would lose a ton of DPS XDDDDD

Oh!, and corrosive traps now works with shadow trap to apply vulnerability!!!! Supercool!!!! This way our target now has an indicator that he stepped on the trap and he’s marked XDDDDDD ROFLCOPTER

Panacea.4927:

I think you just withnissed a ranger with his sword leaps and took him for a thief due to his med armor and not carrying a bow, since all rangers need to carry a bow, dont they?

Today I was on WvWvW, when a guy with two daggers jumped on someone that was some meters ahead of me.

After a blast of lightning, the poor fella got launched… Few seconds later earth exploded around him, and a ring of fire engulfed him. Some sparks later, the poor guy was dead.

The evil-doer fled, as my zerg was heading in its direction, and I stopped to rez the poor fella. As son as he gained conciousness, he screamed: “I HATE THOSE FKIN THIFFFFSSSS!!!!”

Now that I think of it, that explains why so many people think that thieves are so OP.

Dasorine.1964:

If the complaint is that some professions are seen as the “best” at a specific thing (warriors best dps, guardians best boon givers etc) then what do you expect? everyone to be equal at everything? then whats the point in different professions?

At least I expect acknowledgment for the class I play, and not be considered a hindrance or dead weight. That consideration is totally subjective, true, but if you can percieve a given trend in the community which believes that thieves are not totally desirable for groups, that may be an early warning signal that something is amiss on that class.

A problem that no MMORPG has managed to solve yet is that everything in-game is based around efficiency. You want to get loot in the most efficient way, travel in the most efficient way, solve fights in the most efficient way… And the most efficient way leaves no room for ‘Jack of all trades’ or ‘Versatile specs’.
If you need damage, you’ll take the most damaging class, if you need healing you’ll take the best healer. As simple as that. A class that can do ‘almost the same’ as another class, at the end, is not the most efficient way of doing things.

But hey look! I can deal decent DPS, have some situational support, and I can bring 1 control skill… Sorry, efficiency demands that the group will take the class that does the best DPS, the class that gives best suppport, and the class that controls the best. Because they key concept in efficiency is ‘specialization’ in your job.

Thus, it’s useless for a thief to specialize in damage if he cannot match a warrior. It’s useless for a thief to specialize in support if he never will be the same as a guardian, and useless for a thief to specialize in control if he’s not able to do the things an Engineer or an Ele do.

That’s why warriors are preferred for straight-mindless dungeons like CoF. They are plain, raw DPS effective. And they don’t need tricks, smoke, mirrors or rabbits as thieves do. They simply are the best designed for that job. They are the most efficient.

Thus, thieves will be wanted for dungeons as soon as they can do things in the most efficient way to end a dungeon. That means that all the content should be rewritten in order to make all classes shine in a given and desirable ‘efficiency’ aspect.

But the problem with the current system is that there are only 3 variables, Damage, Control, and Support. Thus, there’s only room for one class to be the best at Damage, room for one class to be the best at Support, and room for one class to be the best at Control. The other 5 classes will be only ‘alternatives’ or ‘substitutes’, able to do the job, yes, but less efficient than the ‘best’ ones.

If thieves already have to justify their usefulness in a group, it only means that they are in a bad position to begin with.

Sure, you can be very imaginative with thieves and pull some rabbits from your hat… Voilá!!! a venom share!!!, Tah dah!!! a comboblast!! … But at the end, that’s everything they are… White, cute rabbits from a hat.

Curiously, no one mentioned Smoke Screen, which is one of the few skills that actually has a noticeable impact on many bosses. Even so, it pales against the Guardian’s Walls.

teg.1340:

I find stealth stomping far superior compared to stability/mist form/elixir s stomping because all those skills are on huge cooldowns while stealth is not. You’ll eventually miss those skills for your own defence when things go bad. And they take a utility slot while stealth… well not.

That’s why those skills make you immune to several (or all) things, while stealth do not.

Well to be honest, stealth does make the thief immune to one thing … Immune to low-powered brains… Underclocked brains that fail to compute that the thief is still there, even if they cannot see it.

Oxstar.7643:

ensoriki.5789:

It’s 3s of stealth, 4 if traited, not 5. Anyways you might as well count it as a meager class-feature not that it is particularly impactful. As a result of how thief durability, you can just nuke your team-mates body and the thief will then have to pop a utility like everybody else or be downed trying to stomp.

Nukes that could have won another fight around the corner, nice…

Because winning against the stomping thief doesn’t count, right? That should come for free…

Elmuerto.9840:

Porbably should change the name from last Refuge to – Yer Buggeredd.

I prefer ‘Death Sentence’: ‘When things are going bad and you are being spanked, you may recieve a nasty surprise revealed effect which prevents you from using a controlled stealth when you need it most’. Shadow Arts, 5 points.

Honestly, this trait should be spared from the ‘Revealed’ effect, since thieves have no control at all on its activation. It depends entirely on enemy actions. Thieves can’t plan ahead to chain it with other stealth skills, nor calculate when it’s going to trigger.

Fiorrello.8126:

… if the thief was to get a weapon set like this then they would have to give up one of two things.

1. stealth. stealth acts as the safety net for thieves so they don’t have to kite and control an enemy, but instead can re-position and attack. imagine trying to fight a target that can peck at you from max range while at the same time go invisible the moment you turn around to try and fight them. that’s just not happening and is an un-fun idea for everyone involved.

2. damage. the rifle is again a kiting weapon, with the thieves mobility, ability to stealth and damage output, the only thing that is fair about it is that they have to be up close to do it. taking away that disadvantage would pretty much mean that thief would have to be nerfed in some regard and damage would be the most likely place to nerf it. sorry but you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Currently, Shortbows, Dual pistols and Spearguns have absolutely ZERO ways of getting stealth by themselves and Sniper rifle probably won’t be an exception, so deal, we take the damage.

Fiorrello.8126:

… then yeah, thief has just as many weapon options as an engineer does. the king of versatility. are you asking for the same damage nerf that engineers got?

No need, since we already got several damage nerfs. We have enough of those for the moment, but thanks for the interest.

Besides, if you feel that engineers are also very limited in their weapon selections and could use some more, feel free to ask for them in the engineer forums.

More like an advanced anti-gravitational explosive device.

No other thing could move as slowly as clusterbomb on earth-like gravity defying all physics laws, so it clearly stinks of Asuran technology.

Grimwolf.7163:

Clearly we’re Assassins, but someone decided 90% of the way through the design process that they would rather not have the same name as the Guild Wars 1 class, maybe because the lore associates the title with the formal order of assassins in Cantha or something weird like that.
So they arbitrarily landed on Thief instead, because Rogue was too cliche I guess? And they had to randomly throw something in to justify the title, which is why our class ability sucks.

I was about to answer the same, but you did it flawlessly

Sebrent.3625:

… The problem is that many of them are noob and take the same skills they use for their build for PvP (where there is a low skill floor for thieves) and try to use them in PvE (where there is a higher skill floor for thieves)

Given that thief skills mostly don’t change from PvE to PvP (and if they do is for the worse), it only means that most human players are simply easier to deal with than NPCs.

Svarty.8019:

A laughably optimistic perspective, for sure. I wonder what you might consider a buff – perhaps a little buff to defense in exchange for some stealth nerfs, as mentioned above? I expect and hope we’ll see the thief changed into another type of combatant – something I believe that Arenanet desire also, hence the creation of this thread. Current thief gameplay is a big issue.

Actually, the facts back him, for sure.

I’m afraid that alone makes you the laughable optimist instead…

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

Warrior might get better damage but has nowhere near the survivability of a good Thief.

That’s because the warrior actually gets to enter the fractal, while the thief stays at Lion’s Arch, safe from all danger….

SanityAssassin.8795:

Warriors don’t have stealth res. And thieves can easily make it easy to pass trash mobs. Smoke screen can be pretty useful too.

Aaaannd…. That’s all, folks !!!

Also, you can perma-cripple 2 targets simultaneously just using dancing dagger. the dagger will bounce twice between them, so, double damage and double cripple duration.

They will never reach you, and you’ll never run out of inititative. However, damage was nerfed by 50% (waaaay overnerf IMO), so it’ll take a while to kill them with just that skill.

Unfortunately , Blinds not only are useless against bosses, but people tend to do not even notice them…. Most people won’t even realize that their attacks are comboing with blindness. While everyone notices the ‘block’ from the Guardian’s Aegis that just saved them, no one will ever notice that the mob failed to hit him because of your blindness.

Furthermore, experienced groups won’t have any problems at all with trash mobs, so even if they notice your blind contribution, you’ll get a feeling of:
‘Uh… Err… Well… Thanks for your smoke, thiefy… But it wasn’t really necessary… No hards feelings right?

azmodeus.3409:

gw1 assassins were on the right track with shadow step type abilitys, and gw2 would be wise to adjust the stealth skills to a similar coefficient.

Sure! Assassins in GW1 also had 75% perma-block againts attacks… Can thieves get that too while you are at it, Anet?

Indeed, but the stealth change is on schedule behind the Warrior class revamp.

So, be alert, for as soon as you see warriors being rebalanced, stealth comes next.

Actually, ‘thiefs’ is the plural form of ‘theif’.

Silver.4798:

I don’t think the F1 ability is “useless,” esp if you spec for it.

Well, IMO, that’s exactly one of the main problems with the thief class, that everything is pretty useless unless you spec for it.

Sure, Steal may be useful, WHEN you spec for it. But example, a Crit/Shadow/Acro build literally has ONE single trait available to improve steal (and only if you spec 20+ in shadow).

When I play the thief class I always get the feeling that I’m being punished for what I COULD do, rather than for what I can actually do.

For example, because thieves can add an extra stack of venom, and share venoms, the devs balanced venoms taking into account these circumstances… That leave us with venoms that last… 3 seconds… Thanks devs, but what happens to thieves that choose not take those traits? Essentially 4 almost-useless skills, that’s what happens.

The same happens with steal, if you take every available trait to boost it, sure, it can be arguably good, but if you choose to build in other ways, the base Steal ability is pretty lackluster.

teg.1340:

Stability is granted by dagger storm, an extremely OP AOE damage skill granted to a single target damage profession (lol). Not only does it deal extremely high AOE damage in a huge area, ignoring the 5 target cap, it also cripples + reflects projectiles + grants stability.

Stability is EXCLUSIVELY granted to thieves by dagger storm, a well balanced ELITE skill with a 90 seconds cooldown that IS NOT an AOE damage skill, despite the fact that thieves have good AoE capabilities with the Short Bow and the Sword (lol). Instead, Dagger storm throws daggers in random directions, which won’t cause any damage if there’s no target in its way (since its direction is fixed), and will bounce to another target only if the first dagger hits and there’s another target in the near vicinity.

Not only the dagger hits for about just an autoattack, but since it is not an AoE attack, it can be blocked, obstructed by walls, or even reflected back at the thief. If the dagger hits, however, it’ll cripple their target for the staggering and gamebreaking amount of… 2 seconds.

Meanwhile, the thief is spinning during the whole process, unable to use any of their other skills, and extremely vulnerable to melee attacks or any true AoE skill. It happens that in order to maximize the number of hits, the thief has to be right in the middle of the enemy zerg, defenseless against melee or AoE, because if the thief uses Dagger Storm in the zerg’s border, it will only hit one or 2 targets at most.

Ya, mate, fixed it for you.

Kurow has a point in that this game offers a truly unique game experience that actually captures the spirit of a life-like thief.

That is, being insulted, prosecuted, hated, chastised and rejected in general by the rest of the society.

Columba.9730:

That’s why most games don’t allow stealth to lose aggro. The change made great sense, and thieves are still very powerful.

BTW, I bet that mobs reacting more ‘intelligently’ to stealth is only the first step Anet took in improving the AI. Next step will be probably making Mobs actively avoid heavy AoE areas, so let’s see how the community reacts when the problem affects several other classes.
I wonder if the change will also ‘make great sense’ and Eles, rangers and other clases depending on AoE will still be ‘very powerful’

It only confirms my suspicion that ranger pets were smarter than their masters…

Columba.9730:

I thought thieves were asking for stealth not to cause mobs to fully heal. If you don’t want that, it seems logical that you must accept this change. Seems like a l2p issue.

Except mobs keep fully healing when you stealth…
So, no change at all to accept.

Just replace your Berserker Gear with +% Magic Find Gear.

Aggro problems in dungeons solved.

DanH.5879:

the fun thing is that thieves can’t C&D of mobs (stealth for that matter) to reset their health, a good nerf to the wvw thieves
resetting abuse is gone ?, this is why they complain so much, because the cheating era came to an end ?
to me, it is the only patch i agree it is ok, i am not afraid to use SR to stealth all my party during boss encounters (1 dead, 4 ressing him/her)

C&D never reset thieves’ health. On the contrary, it put them ‘on-combat’ with the mob regardless of their stealthed status, so they had to get far from the mob or kill it in order to reset their health.

I guess you can add that to your personal list of: ‘Wrong assumed facts about thieves’.

The change is PvE/dungeon only… And it only hurts the already cuestionable utility of thieves in group/dungeon activities. No impact on PvP at all.

At this point is just semantics, but it is certainly difficult to understand that you are ‘Withdrawing’ from your opponent by rolling towards them

In any case I agree with you, It’s is a designer decision after all (no matter how cuestionable it may be) and we probably will never see changes to this skill.

Rhogall.4179:

Here’s a thought: Anet designed it this way because they didn’t WANT you to dodge in WHATEVER way you want. Wow, crazy eh?
The design is that Withdraw is a roll backward, deal with it. If that doesn’t suit you, consider it … flavor. They wanted to immerse players more with skills like this. Again, it’s designed this way.

If you’re not happy with it, may I suggest you offer your invaluable services and expertise as a game designer to Anet

Well, in that case, people is clearly exploting the skill by using camera turns to Dodge in whatever direction they see fit.

If what you say is truly the designer’s intention, then the skill is bugged and should be fixed to always move you away from your opponents, no matter your relative position, facing or camera angle.

ROFL, this thread still going on… Any meaningful feedback ceased around page 6, however it’s true that this keeps the air fresh in the the thief sub-forum… Anyway, I’m bored enough to waste 2 or 3 minutes…

XII.9401:

Simple fixes:

1.Any damage to a stealthed opponents: reveals the stealthed person..just like every other mmorpg that was, is and ever will be.

It was like this in the betas, and stealth were next to useless… That’s why it’s like now. However, give thieves a 65% passive evasion/dodge for all attacks, just like in every other mmorpg that was, is and ever will be, and sure, you can take their stealth in combat.

Hint: GW2 is not like every other mmorpg that was, is and ever will be.

XII.9401:

2.Any action performed during stealth breaks it.

Not sure what you mean with this, but in-game already is like that. However, since you are interested in comparisons with other mmorpgs, stealth clases on those also have actions (even attacks!) that can be performed in stealth without breaking it.

XII.9401:

3. Stealthing of any sort should cause initiative usage. Enough to prevent restealthing over and over. This isn’t thief wars or hide-and-go-seek.

Any stealthing already causes initiative usage or has a cooldown.

Your knowledge about the class seems lacking, at best. Have you ever played a thief?

Calae.1738:

Yes thank you.

So there actually ARE smart people in this forum.

In reality, everyone thinks like you, since there’s absolutely no logical reason for the skill not to behave like a regular Dodge… However, there will be always people with that mentality of:

“If I was was forced to do it this way, you should too” … or … “I troubled myself with this so you should have troubles too”.

Actually, in certain situations, I drop shadow refuges AWAY from me just to draw enemy fire.

I cloak with C&D, drop the SR into empty zone, run away & extend my stealth with HiS, and if able, teleport away with Shadow Step… When I look back, I see Mesmers, Warriors, Eles and Guardians literally blowing all their skills on the fake refuge… My only thought is: ‘Thanks God I’m not there’.

I admit that I’m in the 90% sector too.

Other people (like Kasama) just happen to be on the 10% left. Nothing wrong with that of course, but those 3 skills dominate thieves’ bars for a reason. Several reasons, actually.

Personally, SoS is in my bar mainly for roaming, changing it for another more situational utility as son as I arrive to my destination…. Scorpion wire to pull defenders from walls, Smoke screen to shield our siege from enemy siege, Caltrops to block choke-points… the usual….

I find venoms rather useless for any build not especifically traited to make them work, Traps are most of the time too situational, or redundant, or weak, or all of it at the same time.

Don’t forget to Scorpion-Wire downed oponents into your zerg, thus granting their ultimate demise and the frustration of their revivers.

- Dancing Dagger: The skill’s effect has been changed to reddish, from previous bluish.
- Cluster Bomb: More sparks added to the proyectile.
- Traps: Now, your character laughs evilly whenever he sets a trap.
- Pistols: Inserted a quick-reload animation between shots, to make the skill’s activation time more consistent with its cooldown. This change is only cosmetic, not affecting current activation time.
- Venoms: Reverted previous change. Now all ‘venom’ skills again use the term ‘poison’

Incurafy.6329:

Is it hard to swap utilities? No, but should you be required to do so? Definitely not

You’re missing the point entirely. If you’re trying to solo a Champion then you generally want to have the best utilities you can for your build and your combat approach. Being required to apply DoT just so that a mob won’t reset when you use a huge part of your classes ability is, in fact, an issue.

As for your snide remark about a stun, I assume you’ve heard of Devourer and Basilisk venoms, considering it’s quite obvious that I was talking about them. :$

Please, do reply, I can’t wait for your next excuse

It’s you who is missing the point entirely, champions mobs are very different between themselves. Some are melee, some are ranged, some are heavy AoE, some are single target… It’s YOU the one who have to adapt your build to every champion in order to defeat them. If a champion needs ‘caltrops’ or ‘smoke screen’ or ‘withdraw’ instead of ‘hide in shadows’ then, it’s ultimately your fault if you obstinate in fighting it with a given build.

Thus, what many people (including you) are saying is: “I want my chosen build to deal with every possible situation in the game”. If you truly think that, the least offensive word to describe your attitude is: ‘naive’.

BTW, a mob doesn’t instantly reset when you go stealth. Actually, the 1st time you go stealth against a mob it ‘lingers’ in the area -without regenerating- for some seconds, allowing you to reposition. It’s from the 2nd time and forth you go stealth when the mob effectively ‘resets’.

I don’t miss a stun, but I surely miss a push/launch. Maybe an expansion could bring us an explosive trap which launches away any foes in the blast… -falls from bed and wakes up-

Personally, I think that shortbow already packs enough power and utility without needing 1200 base range.

However, the ‘Unload’ skill could be specifically buffed to 1200 range. After all, its only purpose is dealing raw damage, without any additional effects. This alone would buff the P/P set without altering in the sligthtest the balance for other sets, thus, making the P/P more attractive in a given situation over the all-dominant shortbows.

I always have it equipped while moving/roaming. As soon as I smell combat, I switch it to another utility.

However, if combat surprises me, it’s always an instant-cast blind. Not specially powerful, but not totally useless either.

They are still useless outside a heavy venom-traited build.

In all honesty, I’d treat water in WvsW like acid.

Almost all of your defensive options cease to work… You lose your mobility… Your skill variety is restricted to venoms and signets… You are unable to deal efficient area damage… Unable to stealth but once every 30 seconds (and only if you have the skill equipped ofc) … Forced to use Basilisk Venom as your only elite choice….

Other than a strong deathwish, I have yet to find a single reason to really consider fighting with thieves underwater.

Pistol Whip may be slightly more effective tan autoattack on stationary targets.
However, a soon as your target begins moving, PW is garbage. That alone restricts its usage for PvE Mobs only. Sure, you can activate utilities to keep your target in place, but this applies for every other skill, not only PW.

With the autoattack chain at least I can keep damaging & following my target at free cost. No initative, no utilities needed.

Definitely sounds not legit, and it will be probably adressed in future patchs.

Columba.9730:

that bow damage is better than ranger bow damage. sorry, perma stealth, best dps and highest run speeds makes this class stupidly overpowered right now.

Yep, it would… If any of those things were actually true.

FYI, thieves don’t have the best DPS, nor permastealth, nor the highest run speed.

Parsee Komeiji.2049:

If people always complain about stealth classes, then stealth classes are never fun.

If stealth classes are never fun, then they are bad game design.

Essentially, you’re arguing stealth should be removed from the game, full stop. I agree.

Contrary to the claims of stealth exploiters, there are viable Thief builds which don’t use stealth, so there’s no need to even rework the class—just a few skills and traits, which they do all the time anyway.

And no, stealth is not the “core mechanic” of the class. Initiative is the core mechanic. Stealth is a tacked on ability which has turned out to be a bad idea.

This would also instantaneously fix the OP burst builds, because thieves would actually have to worry about durability without the practical immortality granted by stealth. They would no longer have the option of going full glass with no consequences.

False assumption.

What people doesn’t really understand is that thieves don’t have even higher burst precisely because they have stealth.

If you remove stealth, sure, you’ll have your consecuence (which is punishing thieves for equipping berserker gear with extreme vulnerability), but the option to equip berseker gear will exist nonetheless… Otherwise Anet would have to put a ‘This gear is not usable by your profession’ tag on berserker gear.

Thus, since thieves would be now severely punished by equipping berserker gear, their burst damage will substantially go up to compensate.

In other words… The more you ask, whine and argue to make thieves more vulnerable… the higher their overall damage will have to go up to compensate.

Be careful what you wish for.