Guild Wars 2

BlackBeard.2873:

Unfortunately for many who play thief, this doesn’t fulfill the role they want. IME, many thief players want to be super-stealth uber-gank, lone-wolf Rambo type that kill everyone 1v1, thereby carrying their team all by themselves.

Don’t speak for other players. I just want my favourite class to be able to win 1v1 at least sometimes, what’s wrong with that? I think that is the minimum requirement for a class to even be viable in pvp. There were loads of professions thief struggled against even prior to the big patch and all the changes. Now it struggles against everything. And I’m pretty sure you don’t play thief so your opinion is irrelevant.

Sigh, I’m going to need three different armor sets for raids aren’t I? Ah well, at least the fights should be more interesting than your typical dungeon boss^^

I’m definitely going to main a revenant. I like the playstyle a lot and I appreciate the lore bits behind the legends. I will still play other classes, namely thief and necro, but revenant will surely eat up most of my playtime.

Don’t quit because of thief. Move over to the dark side and make a revenant. You know you want to

But seriously speaking, I understand 100%. I don’t play my thief in pvp anymore because I have no idea what the class is supposed to be good at nowadays. I too have been waiting for the promised buffs since the big patch. Frankly, they might think they can fix the profession with the elite spec without even touching the broken stuff. They really have no excuse when it comes to thief balancing.

Mesmers and cele eles in pvp… You know you have a problem when there’s more than 2-3 of these professions in the opposing team, it happens more often than you might think. Most of the time in my games there’s always at least 1 mesmer and at least 1 ele, usually more. No other professions seem that popular atm.

I too play cele ele quite frequently and I’ve found it one of the most forgiving and easy builds to play. I understand why others pick this profession and this build: in a meta where everyone can hit hard it pays off to be tanky. But I’d never touch cele ele again if they would fix my thief with the buffs that were promised.

For me the matchmaking seems to have been improved when they prevented below r20 from joining ranked matches (that alone says alot about my previous games lol). We’ll see how it works out in the end.

The best course of action for you might be to take a break until HoT release if you really feel like the game has nothing to offer atm. But I’d suggest you still join the beta testing on thief so you can contribute to the feedback for DD spec. Don’t give up

EDIT: I just realised I simply assumed you’ve pre-purchased HoT. Sorry about that.

Terrorsquad.4802:

Engineers with ‘Elixir S’ x 2 + Vamp runes is too much if you ask me.
Not to mention their blocks and stealth/moa :/

A little annoying yes, but if you’re 1v1 on a point, the engi will lose it due to so much invuln and stealth. I don’t think such a build is smart anyway, just demonstrates how bad the engi is. I mean, can he kill anyone with such a defensive build? I highly doubt that.

I understand these complaints, I’ve ran into a few games where both teams were too tanky and the game dragged on forever. It was really dull. However, I think the core of the problem is more about build diversity than anything, the fact that often you can’t beat profession X with profession Y, or you need a specific build to counter profession X. Viable builds are only a few per profession and some professions will always be stuck in a dps role while others have more choices. Burning dmg and how easily you can stack it up on certain professions is also a problem imo.

And while I’m at it, I don’t see what exactly thief is supposed to, or able to counter these days.

Looks awesome to me! Now I can only hope the added mobility will help a scrub like myself survive in pvp…

I don’t think this problem is going to go away. There will always be kids and rude people in pvp though I have to admit lately there’s been too many of them around hotm. I always did think there should be an IQ test before people are allowed to play games with others. But really, I don’t think there’s much Anet can do about it other than ban people who were reported for a reason.

I think 500-0 games are an indication of imbalance between the two teams more than anything. I had one of these a while ago where the other team didn’t manage to kill anyone or capture even one point. We were not a premade either, just had better team composition and probably more experienced players. Two eles, both holding one point while the others (two necros and a mesmer) managed the last point and made most of the kills there.

My best games are probably the close ones that we just barely won or lost, but those are rare.

Attaching yourself to your team’s bunker guard works. He will keep you both alive while holding the point. And he will survive on his own when you have to stealth for a while to heal. It’s like being a parasite. Just find an experienced bunker guard and hold onto him. It’s so sad it’s funny.

Black Frog.9274:

NO. I am the worst PvP thief. And there’s nothing you can say or do to change that. I’ll fight you to my death to prove it!

Oh please, all you’d see is me flailing and panic stealthing to get away before you’re even at 50% health.

The shameful thing is I’ve played thief since day 1… And I haven’t obviously improved enough to keep up with the current state of the profession. At least you have hope!

What was the name of that Critical strikes trait that converted precision to vitality? The one that was removed/changed? Was it Practised tolerance? I’d like to have that back to have some meager survivability without investing points in SA or acro (I know, fat chance lol).

Anyway, I mostly agree with this list. Good job [Teef], now let’s hope Anet will listen

Don’t feel depressed OP. It’s not just you. I used to love playing thief and I did ok on it before the big patch but after it I sucked too. I struggled to survive long enough to down pretty much anyone that isn’t a thief and most of the time I was just running away or hiding in stealth. A really good and experienced thief will adapt, I don’t think I can do that to be quite frank seeing how much easier I get off playing another profession. So now my thief is solely for pve. It’s a shame because I loved playing thief before.

But you should just keep practising and getting better, that’s kind of all there is to it.

I don’t think it’s OP but I do think it’s very strong against certain builds. I got my kitten handed to me by a cele signet necro when I was on my flamethrower engineer. All those burns returned… I was rather mortified when I hit the floor. Really should have seen it coming doh.

I honestly think they’re doing their best trying to balance skills and professions between these two game modes but that’s just it. It’s near impossible. If they buff a skill/profession for pve it might end up being OP in pvp. And if they nerf something for pvp it might end up being useless for pve. I wish they will eventually give in and split skills for pve and pvp, then everyone would be happy.

Not being a wvw player myself, I wonder how the balance works there…

I will main a revenant and Shiro will be my bff… whether he likes it or not

I’ve spent alot of time just trying to make the legends talk. I’m really happy with Shiro’s random comments so far and the occasional roar he does when using Jade winds^^ I wonder who his voice actor is though.

I still use thief for pve stuff and fractals but I quit thief in pvp for now. I mean, why do I have to be 2x better than my opponent in order to win? I don’t have cat-like reflexes so I don’t want to play thief in pvp anymore. It’s not fun knowing you’re the person dragging the entire team down just because you’re too squishy and everyone else is not.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Maris.3164:

Ithilwen.1529:

shatters still take skill to land.

Not really. It takes an experienced player to dodge the shatters is more like it. But trying to get all your clones spread and then using one button is not skillful. Try a thief, the real Leroy of the current game…

Isnt backstab a single button press and completely non-dependant on having clones?

I was actually talking about survival, not being able to land hits. Thief in its current state is a kamikaze profession.

I was kind of expecting them to give wards for eles. But shouts are cool too I guess. I hope the spec is good because the weapon choice is disappointing.

Ithilwen.1529:

shatters still take skill to land.

Not really. It takes an experienced player to dodge the shatters is more like it. But trying to get all your clones spread and then using one button is not skillful. Try a thief, the real Leroy of the current game…

serenke.4806:

I played a lot of different classes/builds since the june 23rd patch and guess what, mesmers don’t one-shot me even on berserker amulet. You guys need to get your head from where it is buried deep and realize that you cannot let a mesmer freecast in team fights. Appoint someone with enough punch to kill it/keep it busy.

1v1 it is even easier, they are extremely predictable.

Of course all of the above would require to actually think and not cry to mommy to help you out with the big bully, which is admittedly easier.

Compare thief and mesmer in their current states. Both have a high burst, both have stealth and blinds. The difference is all the buffs to baseline for mesmer. Mesmer has better defensive mechanics and higher base health. Good ranged weapons, and someone correct me if I’m wrong but atm mesmer stealth lasts longer than thief stealth if traited. And the dazes that seem to last forever.

Granted, their bursts from shatters and illusions are easier to dodge than thieves’ burst (unless the mesmer is bursting from stealth), but they don’t have to risk their health and go melee in order to burst down and kill a target.

Now I don’t want mesmers nerfed to the ground or become useless but it is lame that every game seems to have at least one mesmer, more often it’s 2-4 mesmers. And that’s why I would prefer the Grenadier bug. Not everyone would play engi because of one bug, even when it was going on I still saw engis without grenade kit so my hat off to them.

Cynz.9437:

let’s completely ignore the fact that classes like guardians and eles have multiple heals, protection, invuls and blocks….

thief doesn’t have any of that but hey let’s nerf them even more, the dead horse wasn’t kicked often enough

This.

I’ll be okay with less blinds after they do something about the over the top dps everyone and their mother has and the unfair base health pools as well as take a look at each profession’s defensive mechanics and balance them fairly across all the professions. Atm thief would not survive a second without blinds.

How do you burst down someone who has a higher health pool than you do or more heals and protection as well as blocks and invulnerability, consistent dps as opposed to your single target bursts and conditions that are over the top even without having to specifically trait for them? Why do people insist thief needs nerfs when in the current state of the profession you can barely kill anything aside from other thieves?

FrizzFreston.5290:

Nah. They would need to start over and go to Elementary school.

All this rage on the forum is because we don’t have the warhorn to channel their inner tempest yet. Some people are just a bit wind up, it will most certainly blow over.

Thank you for this, made me laugh^^

Seriously though, people need to wait and see what it’ll be like. I understand warhorn is kind of a lame weapon on the other professions that have it but I doubt it’ll be that bad on ele. My only real problem with it is the boring, awful skins that most warhorns have.

Challenging content or not, the players will eventually come up with the optimal set and build for everything. I just hope it won’t come to “no ranger, no necro, no engi, no thief” as these professions I would see less useful (at this time) in a setting where dps isn’t everything. And I don’t want to see “ele guard war only”. It’s been going on for too long already as it is and this (defective) mentality is just spreading. I can’t imagine what necro and engi mains think having been left out for so long. Getting kicked out of a group based on profession sucks, it used to be like that for thief too so I know how it feels.

If indeed they will bring forth content that isn’t based on the current zerker meta, they better have some pretty solid support ideas for all the professions and not just the usual three professions (ele, war, guard) and the occasional mesmer.

Zero Day.2594:

Going to wait on our elite spec reveal… but yeah, more than likely, cya on the revenant forums boys.

Heavy armor assassin with – more than likely – more health. Oh and did I mention, heavy armor dosn’t have trenchcoats (has their own issues… like iron mini-skirts, last I recall).

Revenant is in the mid tier base health. So yeah… I’ll be insulted if thief elite spec isn’t really really good. And might swap my main from thief to revenant. Have you seen those Devastation traits? To me revenant looks like a thief 2.0 with more survivability.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Health

Kidel.2057:

the energy cost is what you’re not considering. Basilisk venom is free, while Jade winds is traded with the upkeep skill that gives perma quickness. Even if they have different cooldown, those skills take a lot of energy, making you also unable to use the dodges and the healing skill. Not to mention weaponskills lol.

After you use Basilisk venom you can burst with all your initiative, or use every 6-9 skill you want.
Revenant can’t do it. Have you tried last beta? Energy is a serious limitation atm.

Maybe so but I was more bothered by the Devastation trait line. The way I see the Revenant legend skills is very similar to initiative, just on the slot skills instead of weapon skills. I do feel the Assassin legend specific skills look very good and I will have to get my hands on it first before I can really decide what I think of it. But as it is now, there are alot of things on Revenant Devastation trait-line as well as in the Assassin legend that thieves have wanted for a long time. I might change my mind once they release thief elite spec

I kind of feel like most of the Devastation trait line traits as well as some of the Assassin legend skills are something that the thief should have had from the start. I’m really excited for revenant but at the same time I feel a bit fearful for thief.

Jade winds is basically an upgraded Basilisk venom that is by default aoe and you don’t have to swap targets to land it on more than one target as it all happens simultaneously on all targets. Plus Basilisk venom without traiting hits only one target. Minor life siphon on attacks seems like a great way to sustain yourself, again something I wish the thief had. And dps support with Assassin’s presence. How long have thieves waited to get some sort of group support that isn’t stealth?

At this time, without the thief elite spec having been revealed, I feel like Revenant is an upgraded thief without stealth and more build options. Still, I’m very happy with these revenant changes (yay for weapon swap) and the Assassin legend and Devastation trait line. Maybe Revenant will become my new main

So… Buff all the other (or most) professions so they’re up to par with mesmer instead of nerfing one profession? I could see alot of problems as a result. And while mesmer was not as strong before the patch, it wasn’t useless either. I had a great time on my mesmer pre-patch and I didn’t struggle at all.

Personally I would much prefer they first look at individual skills and traits and conditions that are problematic and balance them properly. Then look at the base health of each profession and consider each profession’s defensive mechanics and buff the professions in need of more of them. Or hey, everyone gets the same base health.

Mesmer is now practically a thief with better offensive and defensive skills/traits and higher health (compare zerker mesmer and zerker thief). It’s not okay. And yes, I’m bitter. My favourite profession (thief) now requires me to be 2x better than my opposition in order to win. No mistakes allowed. Learning curve has skyrocketed above my skill level and reaction time so I cannot play thief anymore and I feel I’m being carried when my team wins.

But I agree with the OP on one thing: professions are treated poorly. When something requires tweaking, it usually ends up being nerfed to the ground which results in less and less viable builds. It’s like there’s two ways they go about balance, either something is buffed into god mode or nerfed to the ground. Tbh after the issues of the big patch, I now worry what will happen when the elite specs (and Revenant) arrive.

EDIT: Actually, if they would just split skills between pvp and pve it would solve most if not all of the problems.

Hmm an interesting question. Makes me wish I played warrior so I would be more familiar with Rampage – all I know is that the constant CC is super annoying^^

Assuming both the necro and the warrior were of equal skill I’d say it would be just about 50/50. 1v1, I’d probably place my bets on Rampage, if there were other players around and these two were targeting each other, I’d say Lich wins. Lich has the advantage of range, meaning he can hide and kite away while attacking. But sadly I see too many power necros who stay in Lich form when they get very low on health and then proceed to die when they should have dropped the form to heal or pop DS. I’m not sure if Rampage warriors have similar issues or not but the buffs would suggest they don’t.

Just a guess and not even an educated one since I don’t play war.

I think it’s too soon to criticise ‘the lack of a dps weapon’ since we all know it’s coming later. Same for traits.

My only problem with revenant as it is now is the lack of a weapon swap. I keep imagining doing dungeons/fractals or the sort on a revenant and having to swap between melee and ranged weapon every so often.

One could argue it’s the same for ele but I don’t think it is. They usually have a weapon set they prefer and don’t swap off it. Honestly, has anyone seen ele in a dungeon with mainhand dagger? Their main damage weapon is the staff, which is also ranged, so they have no problem running through multiple different boss fights, be it ranged or melee and they don’t have to stop to change weapon sets. And engis have their kits.

Revenant will have to pause before fights and consider if they want to range or melee the whole fight. This is my only concern atm.

The LoS (bug?) also happens in fractals, for instance the fractal with the hammer and the seals. It looks like a perfectly smooth surface but you just can’t teleport on it. So… I can teleport upwards on a ledge in that fractal but I can’t teleport forwards on a smooth surface. Also, most of the time my initiative is still eaten away even when the teleport is denied.

What can I say… Enjoy while you can. And reroll another profession after the nerfs come (teehee). I won’t be sad if they nerf mesmer to the ground, I’m already bitter about what happened to thief. You mesmer peeps may as well join in my misery.

OR! Anet could make proper balance changes without ruining classes.

BlackTruth.6813:

I heard Ranger in GW1 had spike that took REAL skill to land, so why can’t they bring that into the game as well? Like I don’t know make it so Ranger can actually cast the pet skills by themselves such as the knockdown from the dog (Lone druid style from dota) but cut their evades and give them telegraphed damage?

Ranger in GW1 imo was a lot better and took more effort to play well than in GW2 but I think it’s mostly because of the huge difference in skills and the lack of the pet (because you didn’t need to drag your pet around if you didn’t want to).

I think what makes it better to me is the variety in skills. You had preparations, stances, your arrow attacks all had something unique about them (be it rupts, added burning/poison etc.) And your autoattack didn’t do much dmg in GW1 so… You couldn’t spam 1 1 1 to win, you had to use your skillbar to kill someone. Signets had no passive effects. Actually, there were no passive effects period. If you wanted to take a pet with you, you could decide which pet attack skills to take, if any. Also, dual professions were sometimes useful too.

I still think Anet will continue to add more skills and mechanics into GW2 though so I’m hopeful one day ranger could be elevated back to where it should be. Though looking at this list and comparing it to metabattle’s GW2 ranger builds really makes me miss the old ranger:

http://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/Special:PrefixIndex/Build:R/

I don’t think thief should be that high on the list. Or warrior. And why is necro the only one missing? You have a thief and a ranger above necro in a nerf wish list? I smell biased opinions

baylock.1703:

Problem with Necros is they have not enough aces to stability and stunbreaks making it easy to lock down

Yes, those OP thief stability and stunbreaks… You should be ashamed of yourself, complaining about that on a highly-survivable-in-comparison-necro. You can always save your Death shroud for emergencis. I know I do that on necro^^ Get out of jail free-card (most of the time).

I swapped from a power necro to MM necro after the patch and the difference is huge. It is alot easier to play than power (mainly because of the high survivability) and imo doesn’t take much skill. I feel it’s the best bunker you can get atm. However, the minions are extremely stupid. Sometimes they won’t attack at all, especially so when it requires moving around the corner to do so.

I don’t think it needs to be nerfed, perse. Maybe tweak some traits a little. This is hardly the most OP build/profession out there atm.

You cannot spam Backstab because of revealed. Revealed is the cooldown. To land a Backstab you first need to stealth, then you need to correctly land the hit on the player’s back. This is actually not easy against smart players because the stealth has a limited time. You don’t even need to dodge you know. You can just keep spinning around or run back and forth. There is no risk atm facing a thief because they will die from your random aoe anyway. Two hits.

You people don’t understand what you’re doing here. You’re complaining about a class that is already greatly weakened after the patch. You keep doing this even when every other class is currently way stronger and can one shot the thief. If Anet has any sense they will not listen to your random complaining just because of biased thinking and inexperience.

And lastly, If you get Backstabbed twice in a row, it IS a l2p issue. Anything can one shot a thief now, anything. And honestly, you cannot die to a thief now. At least, you shouldn’t be dying to a thief.

They should just revert everything back to the way it was until they can come up with proper balance and fixes. They already disabled Symbolic avenger for the time being, Teq must have reported it himself since it got more attention than Grenadier and all the other bugs that hurt pvp^^

Looking at the current warhorn skills on ranger, warrior and necromancer, I’m a little worried about ele warhorn. But I wasn’t too happy about mesmers getting a shield either until I saw the actual skills. So maybe ele warhorn will be good? It is an elite specialization after all. It’s just that most warhorn skins are bland and kind of boring

Mrbig.8019:

Maris.3164:

Mrbig.8019:

Maris.3164:

So you guys are okay with mesmers bursting from stealth but not with thief stealth and Shadow Arts line? Interesting.

There are already plenty of threada crying about mesmer.

this is more about stealth spikes and yes, mes is included.

Have you played thief after the patch?

And how does me playing thief relate to top teams stacking stealth and instagibbing people with mes -thief with 0 counterplay ?

Because they’re good at what they do and experienced on their profession. And yes, it’s very much related. You need to try it, any build will do. If you live through one team fight, my hat off to you. If not, you’ll see what I meant. Most thieves I’ve seen after the patch don’t even use stealth and shadow refuge anymore. It doesn’t help. I’d rather they look at exact numbers and do something about the over the top dps than nerf stealth because it isn’t a problem. Thief is too squishy to be a real threat to anyone, aside from another thief.

I can only assume taking advantage of the guardian symbolic avenger bug is considered an exploit. Worth banning people for using it? I don’t know. At least they’re not making profit with it I guess.

Razor.9872:

Relentliss.2170:

MithranArkanere.8957:

When a ‘high risk’ build has no risk because it can defeat anything before they can react, even less if they have a little bit over 200ms latency, that’s not a high risk build. It’s a broken build that must be addressed ASAP.

.

This is the current problem.

Not really. No matter how glassy a build is, it cannot defeat a tanky build before that build can react. Unless 3+ players stunlock the tank build into oblivion, it’s just not possible.

So no, they can’t “defeat anything before they can react”

It is arguably possible for a mesmer from stealth but tbh, if you see the mesmer stealth you should prepare for their incoming burst because it will hit like a truck.

Roe.3679:

Maris.3164:

Rym.1469:

To be honest, everyone got some passives this patch.

Necro got Plague Sending which is pretty much mandatory after they nerfed Consume Conditions. Not to mention if you, bless upon your soul, try to run MoC.

But I believe Eles, Engineers, Warriors all got their own, not to mention other profs.

Design choice.

There’s really nothing passive about thief before or after the patch. You know when pre-patch everyone said 2 thieves in the same team is a certain loss? It’s even worse now when they cannot survive long enough to burst down a target.

Panic strike.

You just wait, it will be nerfed soon like everything else. I actually didn’t even use it pre-patch. Atm though Panic strike or not, makes no difference. The thief is still too squishy and will drag the team down with them in most cases.

Mrbig.8019:

Maris.3164:

So you guys are okay with mesmers bursting from stealth but not with thief stealth and Shadow Arts line? Interesting.

There are already plenty of threada crying about mesmer.

this is more about stealth spikes and yes, mes is included.

Have you played thief after the patch?

Rym.1469:

To be honest, everyone got some passives this patch.

Necro got Plague Sending which is pretty much mandatory after they nerfed Consume Conditions. Not to mention if you, bless upon your soul, try to run MoC.

But I believe Eles, Engineers, Warriors all got their own, not to mention other profs.

Design choice.

There’s really nothing passive about thief before or after the patch. You know when pre-patch everyone said 2 thieves in the same team is a certain loss? It’s even worse now when they cannot survive long enough to burst down a target.

For necro I would have preferred Consume conditions stayed the way it was with no passive traits to take its place but it is what it is. Atm there is nothing OP about Plague sending because it’s simply the best way for a necro to condi cleanse. If a player doesn’t slot condi removal it’s their own fault.

Anet needs to look at all the professions, all the passives, dps/health and balance it fairly, not just nerf this and that profession because people complained about it specifically (mesmer comes to mind). And they need to balance the conditions better, specifically burning which is easy for some professions to stack to high amounts with no skill required. Skill, not profession, should decide if it’s a win or not.

So you guys are okay with mesmers bursting from stealth but not with thief stealth and Shadow Arts line? Interesting.

Actually, I played a minion necro after the patch and no one can kill me solo on my close point. Thief, ranger, warrior, guardian, mesmer, all of these tried with no success. The guard was down before I could even pop Shroud and I was still above 50% health. Most of the time I didn’t even have to swap off staff. Braindead build (time to try power necro again).

Meanwhile in ele land they’re stacking burning with lovely ticks. I was kind of expecting condi necros to be better after the patch

I don’t think staff is as good as D/F for burning stacks at least. This video by WP might help you, I know I found it interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH-aB4mwAOk