Guild Wars 2

Against the mesmer in the mists. Changed to hidden killer instead of executioner.
You can see the drop off in effectiveness against a more heavily armored target and not that his staggering blow does more damage back to me than my backstab did to him.

That will in fact work. This was with no bloodlust, and runes of the eagle. I would suggest trying it against the NPCs though as its a better representation of what you can expect.

When you figure it out, you can tell us! Not sarcasm, just with the normalization of the PvP amulets I’ve never been able to hit with the numbers you linked. Playing against burst thieves in a recent match, it took 2 of them focusing me to make the burst part effective and even then each one was only hitting for 3k with mug. My thoughts on the original screenshot is that the player had a staff guardian or 2 using empower. Or maybe might stacking himself with might on dodge. You might try 25/30/0/15/0 using executioner and power of inertia while leaving everything else the same. Use sigil of bloodlust and force. Maybe runes of the infiltraitor or eagle. Get full stacks of bloodlust, then steal + CnD after dodging 3 times to get 3 stacks of might. Use the power signet and maybe another in conjunction with the trait that gives you 5 stacks of might for 5 seconds on use if a signet. You could stack 13 stacks of might + 250 power from bloodlust (for a total of 744 additional power) +60% (20% executioner, 10% runes of the infiltraitor, 10% for them having a condition, 5% sigil of force, 15% might signet activated) more damage once they drop under 50% health if I’m remembering and adding everything up properly.

Setup- dodge 3 times,
Activate 2 signets
Steal
CnD
Backstab

(In practice against other people, you should use CnD first then steal immediately after to shadowstep during the CnD as it can be hard to land against people with decent reflexes)

Edit: I have never tried this particular build myself and am not really ure if it will work. Tell us how it ends up.

I have the inverse setup of you. Knights armor and zerker trinkets (so I can eventually get ascened trinkets to replace them) 0/20/30/20/0. + crit chance and faster signet recharge on crit strikes, remove conditions, gain health, gain 2 initiative on stealth in shadow arts, and gain vigor an gain 2 initiative every 10 seconds in acrobatics. Right now I’m running D/D + P/P pretty effectively (zerker weapons). Withdraw, shadowstep, infiltrators signet, shadow refuge, for utilities, sometimes switching in blinding powder as needed. With D/D and SB, you have access to every combo finisher and the ability to spam themand as long as you’re using DB over 3+ targets, its a pretty good use of the initiative. With P/P you have a different set of utility skills. I would consider them just about equal when looking at more than direct damage. Used mosly in HOTW, AC, and COE at this point and works effectively in both. Used S/D instead of D/D for a long time too to great effect. I’ll probably switch back when I get tired of the more sporadic playstyle of D/D. Try out the statline though to be a dodging machine.

EasymodeX.4062:

Pretty sure this thread has just seen a half dozen posts on the same topic of X poster comparing the value of a guaranteed crit to a non-crit with 15% damage bonus in a context where guaranteed non-crits don’t exist.

At first I rolled my eyes and made a jocular and facetious post to indirectly point out the folly. However, at this point it’s more like a trainwreck as new posters keep chiming in with the same track of irrelevant tangents.

Guaranteed crits outside of the ele ability don’t exist either. Roughly speaking (not entirely accurate or encompassing, but decent for bracketing) there is a 1% that a thief with a 60% crit chance will not crit any of those hits while there is a 7.7% chance to land all crits during that. For large sample sizes, the estimate should hold.

As to making a one liner and not expecting a response on the internet?

…….

EasymodeX.4062:

He’s talking about crit chance related to damage. But he’s talking about too much crit chance for what the ability actually does in comparison.

Same mistake many, many players / novice mathcrafters make. It’s all completely irrelevant though because the numbers were already posted.

Pretty sure he’s talking about just crit damage here, comparing the 15% increase in damage to the base 50% increase in damage from a crit without any additional crit damage(from traits/gear). For their outputs to be (almost) equal, the thief would have to have a little more than 60% crit chance in combination with the signet to equal the guaranteed damage output of having 5 crits.

bhagwad.4281:

Maugetarr.6823:

Well by that logic bunker eles, guardians, and even some engi builds definately need rebalancing.

If that’s what it takes, then yes. Two players should always beat one player with ease in every possible way. A glass cannon should never be able to dish out enough damage to kill two people. A bunker should never have enough health to outlast two people.

A glass cannon should dish out more than a balanced player – enough to kill them. A bunker should be able to hold out against one player.

But never against two. No matter what profession, race, weapon set or traits, two (or more than two) people should never be troubled by one player in any way.

The game would simply turn into a numbers game then. Whoever brings more wins. No picking weapons and traits that synergize well so you can take on more than one player, especially if you are skilled in your profession. If the game were balanced so that 1 person could never give 2 trouble, people would just go glass in order to take down people faster. What’s the point in more defense when it would just extend the fight and leave it to chance whose teammates could get there faster to decide the victor.

bhagwad.4281:

Yuujin.1067:

oellph.9450:

I have a level 80 Thief, Mesmer and Guardian. I’ve seen things from both sides of the fight and I’ve seen more than enough examples of entire groups being unable to take down a thief and for that thief to either escape or come back to harass the group. AOE isn’t a viable counter. It’s positively infuriating to fight against a thief who stealths every 4-5 seconds. It takes a few seconds just to get sight of him again, target him and try to land a couple skills, by which time he vanishes again. Some say ignore the thief. But the truth is you can’t.

I would like to see thief stealth skills brought in line with those of the Mesmer. Short duration, longer cool down. Effective but not overpowered. But in doing so other aspects of the class will need a careful boost because, as others have said, the Mesmer also has clones.

No, the truth is you can just ignore him. If he is stealthing as much as you claim he is, he’s gone into the SA tree and most if not all of his utility is for stealthing purposes. I’m going to wager he didn’t kill a single person during this entire skirmish and just frustrated you enough to make you feel like you deserved to be able to kill him.

He can’t deal damage by stealthing like you can by blowing up clones. He also doesn’t have a decoy that he can pop while he stealths that can completely misdirect most enemies or get blown up in their face to cause a status effect.

I’m amazed at how kitten people are about being distracted by a thief. There is a reason your Commander yells in all caps “IGNORE THE THIEF” when people start chasing stealth thieves. It is because they can’t do anything but stealth. One trick pony that cost them all their utility and a great deal of damage.

It’s a basic tenet of balance – one player should never be able to trouble two players (in any way). Never mind more than two.

Well by that logic bunker eles, guardians, and even some engi builds definately need rebalancing.

Daecollo.9578:

Mug should just do 35% max health damage, percent based to any mob or player!

Thieves will be wanted in instances!

Deep wound stacking in intensity.

Animi.4617:

I liked that Idea if you miss the attack from stealth then you come out of stealth. Maybe you shouldn’t come out but if you missed backstab or any stealth skill then that skill have a 10 second CD. Then thiefs will really wait for the right moment not to miss an attack.

There really isn’t time to wait for the right time to attack from stealth in the 3-4 second duration, especially when people simply continue to walk away (people underestimate the value of dodging forward then continuing to run away). Additionally this would punish the thieves twice since it would blow half of their initiative limiting their available attacks already and putting the thief’s primary defensive/offensive on cooldown, ensuring that if a thief misses a single attack, they will simply have to run away.

MrForz.1953:

I’m not going to go by 36 ways.

You want a useful change? Force revelation from stealth when struck or taking damage. I don’t mind ANYTHING else as Thieves are fightable and good Thieves can get to bypass this change, it’s just that stealth as it is right now gets you to be forgiven of alot of errors you’d make.

Then they would have to have stealth break channeling moves and provide half a second of invulnerability to counteract the melee swing that we usually take while stealthing. If not, the thief would never be able to stealth as it would be popped out immediately.

Daecollo.9578:

Nerfs:
Reduce Mug damage by 50%.
Reduce Backstab damage by 35%, front damage improved by 35%.
Heart-seeker increased to 4 initiative from 3, its damage has been reduced by 15%.
Combined Training has been removed.
Combo Critical Chance has been removed.
Sundering Strikes has been removed.

Buffs:
Initiative Recharges at 1.0 per second instead of 1.6.
Steal cooldown has been reduced from 45 to 25.
Double Strike, Wild Strike, Lotus Strike has had a small base damage increase.
Shadowed Protector now grants Protection instead of Regeneration.
Expeditious Dodger now grants Vigor instead of Swiftness.
Opportunist no longer has an internal cooldown.
Keen Observer now grants critical chance over 50% Health instead of 90%.
Assassin’s Retreat now additionally gives Stability.
Last Refuge now removes and ignores “revealed” when it triggers.
Hidden Thief now removes and ignores “revealed” when it triggers.
Instinctual Response now removes and ignores “revealed” when it triggers.
Blinding Tuft (Stolen skill.) now removes and ignores “revealed” when it triggers.
Throw Feathers (Stolen skill.) now removes and ignores “revealed” when it triggers.
Deadly Arts [X] Fierce Brigand: Sword and Spear damage is increased by 10%.
Critical Strikes [IX] Swashbuckler: Increases your critical-hit chance with a Sword and Pistol by 10%.
Deadly Arts [VI] Weakening Strikes: Whenever you apply Weakness to a foe, you also steal 15 endurance from them.

This would improve the class over all.

Could be interesting. I think it possibly takes too much burst out of the thief and hits to balanced builds harder, but unlike other suggestions I’ve seen, it returns survivability for longer combat and doesn’t push people in to a burst class like suggestions about limiting stealth do. If heartseeker got changed to 4 initiative, I think the damage brackets should be returned to the original 66%/33%. The mug nerf might be excessive because anything that’s not absolute glass will hit for 1 to 2 k only, easily made up for by less than half of an autoattack chain. I tend to think that something on a 45 second cooldown should hit like a truck, especially since an axe warrior can hit with eviscerate 4-5 times in that same time period. It would have to be accompanied by the reduction in steal cooldown that you mentioned, but I have a feeling people would start complaining about how often thieves get a free shadowstep to them (or a bunny in Wvw), especially when traited into trickery. That being said, you’d probably see a lot more support/boon oriented thieves running around using bountiful theft and thrill of the crime due to the increased uptime. I could take or leave these changes, but at least its the first set of changes that rebalanced the thief without gutting it. We might even see sleight of hand used.

frans.8092:

Infiltrator’s strike would hit and give you the revealed debuff, hardly something you’d like.

Assuming you’re in range. If you aren’t, it would still shadowstep you closer to the target without actually hitting them. In any case though, the shadow step backward would stealth you creating a powerful escape mechanic (stunbreak, stealth, condition cure all in one)

Isn’t hidden thief specific to stealing? If it’s activating on shadowsteps, not just stealing, S/* would become very powerful combined with infusion of shadow to basically enter and exit combat for a total of 1 initiative.

Don’t mesmers have a reflect CC as well?

Edit: (found the trait): http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mirror_of_Anguish

You probably couldn’t re-post it since it was deleted. It would probably be considered targeting a player or not a constuctive discussion by the moderators and become locked/deleted itself.

Kasama.8941:

They are two different archetypes. The Assassin waits in the shadows until his target least expects it, and then he strikes in one swift move, and then runs back into the shadows. A Thief waits for the right target as well, but once he is revealed, he uses cunning and movement to get away. So basically, an Assassin is someone who strikes quickly, while being mostly unseen, and is about death and dark magic. A Thief is someone who strikes quickly, but by using movement, and is about cunning and tricks.

The Thief was made to be played around movement, but has involved into playing like an Assassin, because ArenaNet hasn’t kept stealth in check. Thief players saw a greater potential in stealth, and learned to chain stealth together into a next to permanent playstyle. Revealed was put in to stop ‘stealth skills’ from being used too rapidly, but nothing has been added to prevent stealth skills from being used in the same way. It’s a mechanic that change from being a tool to utilize movement, to now being about avoiding combat completely. Thieves have gone from having an “agile, acrobatic fighting style, which can make them hard to hit” into having an “agile, invisible fighting style, which mostly makes them impossible to hit”.

Okay, deception was not the best choice of word there. What I meant is that, unlike with the Mesmer, playing against a Thief should not be a guessing game. Stealth for the Mesmer is about deceiving opponents, like an extension of their illusions. Stealth for the Thief is about avoiding opponents, like an extension of their many movement skills. But having so much stealth, means finding the Thief feels like a guessing game. It changes the archetype of the Thief.

I totally disagree with your last paragraph. As explained above, the Thief is a thief in more ways then just using Steal. Try playing a Thief without using any stealth skills, and you’’ll see the difference. The Thief is quite playable without any use of stealth at all. Of curse, that means you have to get over the fact that you can’t escape the majority of fights. But that is what fair play feels like-

The thief is somewhat playable other ways without using stealth as demonstrated with D/D unicorn spec or S/P builds. Without the armor or damage mitigating/reflecting/blocking boons, stealth is necessary for other builds. Maybe I didn’t properly convey my point though in my last paragraph, but the use of the name thief was an inclusive name to expand the archetype past a simple assassin to include other playstyles beyond the standard definition of assassin to include brigands, bandits, mauraders, pirates, rouges, assassins, desparados, butchers, guerillas or any other disreputable character. The thief title was used as one of inclusion. All of these can be represented in different playstyles and weapon sets available to the thief. In fact the only weapon they didn’t include that would have rounded out the class in terms of fluff/lore is a rifle which would have allowed for a hitman/bounty hunter/sniper feel as well. It is possible to play the thief simply around movement, but that is not the only way it was meant to be played.

As to guessing games, playing against a good mesmer (one who stands there auto attacking until they see you have committed to a clone) is just as much a guessing game as determining where a thief will pop out of stealth next.

Look at it this way, each trait tree show a different type of thief you can be (or any combination of 2 rather). There are deadly thieves who better fit the definition of assassins. They hit hard and melt away into the shadows after killing someone with a backstab. There are agile thieves who rely on on their physical prowess to dodge through the enemy crowds in spectacular fasion like a 40k harlequin. Then you have those that teleport from target to target and fade in and out of stealth making a combat scene reminiscent of nightcrawler. Thieves should not be pigeonholed into one particular role that you feel fits the definition better than another. The devs said in their latest live cast that there were professions that had a lot of different ways that they could be played (I took this to be thieves, warriors guardians, mesmers, and to some extent eles) but there were others that only had 1 or 2 competitive builds (necro, engineer, and ranger) so they were going to try to bring these up to par rather than bringing the others down.

Thobek.1730:

Dual.8953:

Moddo.7105:

swinsk.6410:

Exactly what Dual said… If you hit someone in stealth with auto you will do a combo.

L2P maybe ?

I have ever class at 80(except Guardian) and play them all, Thief/Eng more than others
I know how to play a thief. And maybe you should L2P other classes before you ever use L2P again. Because not all classes have a combo in the auto attack chain. So to you I say L2NotoveruseL2P replies like every other poser on the forums.

They do all have combat logs though. In any case, when a melee thief stealths, his or her ideal target is your back, so common sense dictates, ready yourself to react to surprise back attacks. When a P/D stealths, be ready to evade, you’ll avoid most of the sneak attack, and then you can kite them to avoid letting them CnD again.

What a horrible design, so while trying to combat a thief you’re supposed to keep looking at your combat log on the off chance you’ll hit him? That’s just silly. Sure it works but its a silly design.

When I play a scepter dagger build on my elementalist my auto attacks need a target and I can’t swtich once the thief engages. So basically I’m screwed.

So I have to sit there and wait until he hits me, he won’t unstealth unless he causes damage then I can autoattack for the few seconds he is revealed. My damaging spell ‘Arc lightning’ builds up in damage so it tickles him before he re-stealths and unleashes another 3k hit.

with blackpowder +heartseeker they can restealth every 6 seconds. So really they can perma stealth has much as they like.

gg Anet, nice class design. Perhaps they expect every elementalist to go D/D? that’s boring.

Air autoattack with the scepter lasts most of the duration of stealth and will point out the location of the thief. With a dagger offhand, you could use this indication for upstart or any if the other control skills or be set up to hit the thief as soon as he comes out of stealth. Chipping away at the P/D using arc lightning will infuriate thieves more than you know as it negates their primary defensive mechanic while damaging them in the process.

Thobek.1730:

Now there is a new build out there they works of heartseeking through a smokebomb to stealth you. That’s every 6 seconds. Its called the perma stealth build and it basically means you are fighting an invisible enemy you can’t target.

Anet really needs to look into this. Its not like nearly every GW2 forum is filled with thief hate already, and for good reason to.

That’s not a new build, but requires a thief to go at least 20 into acrobatics and 10 into shadow arts to maintain the initiative to do so (the combo costs 8 in total I believe, 2/3 of our total pool) effectively taking a lot of burst out of the thief. As to what you were originally commenting on, a lot if people say that thieves abuse stealth/culling and are in fact holding players accountable for a problem that they had no control over, especially if they wanted to play a certain way (not S/P or unicorn bleed). It should be understandable that thieves would be defensive about ourselves especially when we are simply using the abilities available to us.

From my history after I couldn’t find it in a search, YouTube came up with “this video removed by user. : /”. I’ll let you speculate as to the reason(s) why.

Kasama.8941:

I’m sorry, but that’s just not true. The main part of the Thief is burst damage, that’s why initiative was created; to allow the Thief a better burst potential then other professions. Stealth is a part of the Thief, in the same way movement is. But that is the exact problem; players think stealth is the main factor of the Thief, because the Thief has too much of it! The Thief is not an Assassin, there’s difference there (or was at least). Stealth was originally build to be a tool that allowed the Thief to move while avoiding damage. It was not made to be a deception tool like clones are, and neither was it used like it when the Thief was first released. Problem is that ArenaNet haven’t been balancing the stealth for the Thief over time, and players have taken advantage of this, leaving us with the result we have today, where players are running around in close to permanent stealth. Stealth for the Thief needs to be pulled back to what it originally was; a movement tool.

The Thief has shadow stepping (free on steal) and superior movement, which means distance is not a problem at all. If you gave the Thief 1200 range, on top of all the shadow stepping and stealth, it would be completely overpowered. Dagger Storm gives the Thief stability (perfect to use when you are low on initiative), movement in a combination with stealth is all the invulnerability you need as a Thief (beats the hell out of distortion), the shortbow has better AoE then the Mesmer could ever hope to have (just the #1 skill alone kills clones ridiculously fast), the Mesmer doesn’t have any protection skills other then Chaos Storm (which is random).

I would like to know how you came to the conclusion that a thief is not supposed to be an assassin based on your own explanations here. The (D/D) thief highlights burst which the original assassin from GW 1 did. One of the differences though is that the 1-2-3 setup would not have translated to GW2 well. Instead, skills dependant on setup (I.e. stealth) with a 3-4 second window for burst damage was implemented. In exchange for stealth, thieves lost the great protection skills that assassins in GW1 had (see critical defenses, flashing blades, and a couple of others I forgot). As to stealth not being used as it was originally introduced, in design work across all industries your first concept is rarely your last so this really is a moot point. To further highlight that the thief is the logical progression of the GW1 assassin, they share a lot of the same GW1 ability names (see twisting fangs, shadow refuge, the trait trees, the ability to “shadowstep”, etc….). Assassins could face tank in GW1 if they wanted to, which is really only possible in the unicorn build now (which utilizes evade almost as much as the GW1 assassin, but not passively like it did). If thieves had been designed as the GW1 sin was, every encounter with one would be like fighting them underwater currently is, and with the addition of dodging, thieves would be almost untouchable.

As for stealth not supposed to be a tool used for deception as a mesmer uses clones for deception, shadow refuge and blinding powder would not be known as deception skills (as well as smoke wall, but you have to leap across or use a blast finisher to gain stealth from that). The first major trait in shadow arts is even called master of deception which reduces recharge on the utilities that stealth the thief.

The main reason a thief is not called an assassin now is that they broadened the just the stereotype of assassin by giving it steal (and allowed for builds that resembled other disreputable professions). Maybe ninja would have been a better name for the profession, but that’s simply quibbling over a name. The thing is that the thief is just not being played the way you think it should be played, but I think that at this point, it’s working as intended.

With that health, maybe 10/30/0/30/0 when not traiting into stealth/toughness. To get that toughness though, he’s probably in full knights armor and knights trinkets along with taking the 5% precision to vitality trait. His 100% chance is probably referring to the 30 point trait that only makes the next hit after stealthing crit. At 3k armor and 16k health, he’s not the burst you keep complaining about, he’s a bunker (about as much of a bunker as thieves can go).

EasymodeX.4062:

Well maybe you would prefer me comparing it to riposte. 4 stacks of bleed and a block on top of that, with an easy way to extend bleeds 50% longer and a 33% chance to cause bleeding on a crit.

Riposte. Right. A weapon skill that takes a half second to take effect then another half second to activate as a defensive counter. I thought we were talking about Mug, not Flanking Strike?

That makes tons of sense. Let’s compare it randomly to D/D 3, or Pistol Whip.

Or let’s bring in random Elite skills to compare it to for no apparent reason.

Got a better idea: let’s stick to damage that results from traits that is instant.

All this doesn’t even include the autoattack chain bleed damage which puts a single bleed on 2/3 hits for 8 seconds each.

Autoattack chain.

This is an excellent comparison to … Dagger1?

I thought we were talking about Mug? What?

I will state again 5 stacks of 5 second bleed in a traitline unrelated to condition damage, on a 45 second (39 ish if we keep with the assumption of 15 in trickery) would be severely underwhelming.

That’s nice. How about you read my post before responding next time. I suggested a 50% power damage nerf, leaving it at ~1.5-2k (3-4k crits) with the 5 stacks of bleed on top. E.g. 3k-5.5k for both power and condition builds.

All this for a 10 point trait. Seems a lot more sensible than the lulz trait it is now.

Edit:

Better yet, instead of the bleeds, have it apply 3 stacks of Confuse for 5 seconds.

You misunderstood my point. 5 stacks of bleeds is nothing, especially to a GC build which is going to put minimal points into condtion builds. If you read through the rest of the thread, the “lulz trait” you are talking about is just decent in non-glass builds which is probably why it has not been nerfed at this point. And yes, I will compare it to weapon skills to demonstrate how meaningless 5 stack of bleed is for a profession mechanic when said weapon skills can easily outclass the suggested “fix” with no effort and double the availability to use.

Edit: I would also like to point out that my original comparison was between F1 skills which you rejected because of channel time. Furthermore the quotes you cherrypicked were to demonstrate the availability of bleed. I will stand behind the original comparison though with the warrior sword burst since the snare makes up for any channel time and it can be used 4-5 times in the amount if time mug can be used once.

Divinity.8041:

Whatever, just give me what top thiefs are running, need to know meta.

Whichever fits your playstyle the best. There are a lot of different successful builds. I happen to like S/D + SB the most. Tons of stunbreak and immobilize negation makes it extremely difficult for CC builds to kill. It also eats medium to glassy builds, but has trouble with tanky opponents. This is steady damage though with control and not a burst. D/P has burst and good defense with reliable access to stealth. It can engage multiple opponents in close combat. D/D unicorn bleed builds are sucessful against opponents who haven’t seen it before and can kill people trying to defend a point pretty quickly. D/D backstab is decent against people without blocks, stunbreakers, blind, or the ability to dodge. P/D is a little harder to counter, but people can walk away from it. You will be most succesful after trying all the builds and seeing which matches you the best.

EasymodeX.4062:

Bad comparison.

Steal is an instant ability and can deal damage simultaneous to your normal abilities.

Sword burst is a hilarious example, because it takes what, 1.5s or 2s or so to channel?

Perhaps you would like to refer to some instant traited damage proc from another class, such as the Mesmer damage-on-interrupt trait that deals up to 600 damage in a glass cannon build.

Edit:

Generally speaking, the power-based damage of Mug should be reduced by 50%, and Mug should apply 5 stacks of bleeding for 5s. This way the ability could be tuned to either build path with effective results (a power-based GC build would still net ~1400 damage from the bleeds, along with the benefit of a condition buffer).

Well maybe you would prefer me comparing it to riposte. 4 stacks of bleed and a block on top of that, with an easy way to extend bleeds 50% longer and a 33% chance to cause bleeding on a crit. Not even to mention that condition damage is tied to the accuracy trait meaninig that it synergizes with the traitline in a way mug wouldn’t if it were changed. It would be 1250 damage in total ((42.5+(150*.05))*5*5) traited 15 into condition damage with 5 stacks of bleed for 5 seconds. The warrior with the same condition damage using riposte, untraited in bleed duration, would deal 2400 damage. Yeah, there are a few more skills I could have compared it to like elementalist arcane spells, but I thought comparing an F1 ability would be a more fair comparison. Yes the warrior skill has a channel time, but it has a snare attached to it as well, and if traited so can be used every 8 seconds stacking up to 12 bleed at full adrenaline, not including the additional bleed stacks from the crit chance. All this doesn’t even include the autoattack chain bleed damage which puts a single bleed on 2/3 hits for 8 seconds each. I will state again 5 stacks of 5 second bleed in a traitline unrelated to condition damage, on a 45 second (39 ish if we keep with the assumption of 15 in trickery) would be severely underwhelming.

Daecollo.9578:

Pretty much, but “2. To threaten or assault (a person) with the intent to rob: arrested the thief who mugged the tourists.”

Thats the description of the mug, which basicly means to punch them in the face as you rob them, making it anything else besides damage is pointless, if its bleeding, then it can be just simply cured off by the many condition removals the classes we have a hard time taking down would just be made harder to take down.

Well then everything should be left as is. I think there has been a mixup along the lines here. As far as I can recall, TotC gives you might, swiftness, and fury, but I’m not at my computer to double check. Your original suggestion would have duplicated it, but for a longer time.

Daecollo.9578:

Maugetarr.6823:

Daecollo.9578:

If it gave 30 seconds of fury and swiftness instead I wouldn’t mind.

See: Thrill of the Crime (Trickery V).

Thrill of the crime has might doesn’t it, why would Mug apply even more might?

based on the other ideas here, mine makes sense.

Thrill of the Crime can do damage instead.

….wouldn’t we just be switching mug and thrill of the crime then from their respective trees into each other’s?

Daecollo.9578:

If it gave 30 seconds of fury and swiftness instead I wouldn’t mind.

See: Thrill of the Crime (Trickery V).
Edit: (Maybe that should be buffed instead)

As a balanced build, 5.8k IS my crit (when I decide to run Dagger main hand every once in a while).

Void.4239:

it was never the meaning for mug ( a 10 traits point add) to do more then 2k added dps on an already uber mechanic, the 5-6 k hits you can build to is something that needs a fix , read my post above if you want to know why its to much for the
mechanics of steal.
3 stacks of might for 15secs woud be alot more balanced then the huge spike it can bring now , steal realy doesnt need to do dps at all its just to much for 1 skill to have plain and simple

really wondering what is taking the devs so long to realize this. its an easy fix that doesn’t harm the class at all

You could turn that right around though and say that’s exactly how it’s meant to be used since it is in the 10 point tier. As of now, any builds not specializing in burst have access to it, but they won’t do near the damage that a GC burst will. If they had put it at 20 or even 30 they would have been saying that it was only intended for burst builds. Changing the tier doesn’t translate to how useful a trait is. For instance, I think most of the useful traits in the shadow arts tree are located in the first tier. Moving mug to a later one would have limited available builds (maybe not significantly, but as least a little) and assured that every time it was used it would hit hard (instead of the wide range in damage from it you now). People tend to remember when they got hit by that huge 6k crit at the beginning of a fight a BS thief used, but they don’t remember the 2-3.5k hit a S/D thief threw in at the end as they started to run away.

3 stacks of might every 45 seconds would be virtually nothing also as a GS waste can get might on every crit or a vanilla warrior can get might on every block, not to mention fury and 3 stacks of might every 30 seconds for 30 seconds (or less of traited). A S/D ele can stack 6 area might using nothing but fire attunement and more with utilities. A SB thief comboing with any fire field can stack an insane amount of area might. A thief can also trait to gain might on the use of a signet, which can, in turn, also be traited to have a shorter CD. 3 stacks of might would be underpowered.

Assuming that it’s on a GC build since you mentioned it being part of the onstage combo, let’s look at it this way: the thief, would have 100 condition damage only from the trickery traitline (since GC is mainly 30/30///* and has no reason to take condition armor/trinkets), which would add 5 damage per tick to the base bleed. With 5 stacks, that’s about 237 DPS, which would be less than one double strike of the autoattack chain which also has a good likelihood to crit on a GC thief, rendering it fairly useless. Comparatively speaking, a warrior stacks 8 bleeds with its sword burst + immobilizes the target for anywhere between 2-4 seconds. 5 points in deadly arts already gets you poison which has a base damage of 84 DPS, meaning it’s mainly useful for their healing being less effective on a GC build. This would simply shift mug to a condition build which would be SA>mug>C&D>SA (on a P/D build) allowing thieves to stack 15 bleed (just on par with ableed spec warrior) and just change which build is complained about the most. Like someone else mentioned though, this would hurt non-GC builds more like S/D where mug is only hitting for 2-5k every 45 seconds being primarily used as a finisher. Compare this with eviscerate on a GC warrior who could use it at full power every 10 seconds realistically and crit for 8k (conservatively speaking) that has a gap closer also built in (yes I know it’s only 300 range, but the warrior would already be in combat with you, had easy access to 30 second swiftness and can easily cripple/immobilize you with an axe)

Has anyone tried to FS since the update more successfully? If they fixed the glitch where the auto attack chain screwed up a dodge, I wonder if that would inadvertently fix the timing with FS.

Kasama.8941:

No, Thieves probably wouldn’t be played a lot for a while. But a new set of Thieves would come forward eventually. Gameplay doesn’t change much by removing Cloak and Dagger, though. The tactic is the same, you are just using movement a lot more. So instead of dealing damage, and then going into stealth to change position, you deal damage and then dodge/leap/shadow step/stealth away to change position. Basically, you wouldn’t be able to rely on using stealth every time you had to gain distance, meaning you’d have to think about when to use a dodge and when to use stealth, depending on different situations.

I don’t know that the Thief would need more base vitality, as you would still be very efficient at avoiding damage. But Thief skills in general lacks impact in the game, meaning that players feel forced into a damage roll. It has been said ever since beta, that the Thief needs more support skills, but the support options that the Thief has are still miniscule. So yeah, that is another issue besides the current stealth generation.

That is exactly how I play with my Mesmer in WvW combat. Stay back firing ranged attacks, then I find a target that’s a bit off the others, I then pull him to me using focus, or go into stealth to get close to him and start making those illusions for damage. Then when that player is dead, or I’m low on health, I use stealth to get back behind my allies, and start shooting ranged attacks again.

The Thief have more uses in WvW then just dealing damage, though. In a zerg, Blinding Powder and Shadow Refuge can be incredibly useful when moving behind enemy lines. Especially when you are moving golems from a spawn to a gate. Pulling down foes from walls with Scorpion Wire is always fun, I do it all the time on my Mesmer with the focus pull skill. Other then that, Thieves are the absolute perfect scouts. There are a lot of times in WvW where players need to know what’s going on at a tower or keep, and whether or not it’s being attacked. And no one can get around faster then a Thief who’s build for movement (no, not even an Elementalist). I fact, after maxing out my Mesmer in WvW, I plan to make exactly such a Thief build. Grab shortbow, Blinding Powder, Shadow Refuge, and Shadowstep. Then trait 15 points into Acrobatics, Shadow Arts, and Trickery, and you got yourself a very fast build.

You will discover very quickly that the thief is not a mesmer. Thieves don’t have nearly the range of a mesmer or the utility at range that a mesmer does. The shortbow is a medium range weapon at best. Also scorpion wire will be obstructed more than half the time when trying to pull a single target off the wall. Also have fun with the wet noodles you’ll be attacking with in close combat unless you spec full zerker armor and trinkets. Just as one more question, how do you suppose you’ll stealth yourself without blowing your support utilities if C&D didn’t exist? You are probably going to go with a DB spam. since you linked a video. Try it out, you might have some success until you run across someone who has seen it before and simply roots you and attacks from a distance. Roll it in sPvP to test it and get back to us. This is not sarcasm, but I think you are far overestimating the capabilities of the thief, especially if you foo against an opponent who has seen it before.

ZLE said it right, but at least for now when we discuss thieves with non-thieves and they say there’s no counter to stealth, you can point out that a long channelled ability will track us and hurt us pretty much negating the point of stealth in the first place. Look at it as a balancing measure.

Kasama.8941:

(snip)
…..
A simply way to balance stealth is to remove it completely from weapon (Cloak and Dagger) and healing (Hide in Shadows) skills. Thereby only making stealth a utility and elite based skill effect. This would mean the Thief would actually have to think about when to use stealth, and when to save it.
…..
(/snip)

This is what I was talking about when I was talking about sweeping changes to the thief. AN has already shown that offhand dagger is for utility rather than damage though a few nerfs to damage. Removing the major utility from half of our offhand weapon sets would be a sweeping change.

Svarty.8019:

How do we counter their stealth with area effects or large stacks of conditions when we can’t see the thief to do so?

Stand in your own AoE/trap and use a block or swing a melee weapon.

You might not feel gimped, but as someone who plays an S/D thief main, I would feel extremely gimped. I run a mix of knight’s, zerker and p/v/hp, for a support type build. C&D is used to get me into stealth while blinding powder and shadow refuge are used to help teammates. While attacks aren’t very strong, the ability to stealth and daze makes up for it. Please don’t suggest sweeping changes because you don’t play that way our because there are other ways like the DB spam. AN keeps saying thieves thieves are masters of stealth, so why limit them to the same usability as mesmers?

skinnyb.5920:

I think that Rangers should be given an ability or a pet than can reveal stealth. It would make them more “ranger-y” and make them a much more valuable addition to WvW than they are now.

How about thieves reveal stealth since they are matters of stealth? /sarcasm

In all seriousness though, adding rock paper scissors to the game wouldn’t be constructive.

Destroyer invasion of the shiverpeaks and maybe the opening of the ring of fire 80 zone? No dragons or Cantha there.

Edit: skritt involvement in the story line already points to the destroyers pushing up from the deep.

I think that the devs are trying to balance group dynamic in this game and in addition to opportunity cost, risk versus reward. It’s a lot easier to sit on top of a wall in WvW and spam AoE than have to travel into the fray to do your damage. That being said, if they reduce any damage, an increase/removal of the number of players that can be hit should accompany it. This would punish Zergs for grouping up and at the same time make it less useful on single targets. For D/D eles for instance, I would think everything would remain around the same for abilities that center on the character as they would have to walk into the enemy zerg for them to be useful in the first place, but maybe the ranged ones like cluster bomb on a thief could have a reduction in damage but an increase in the number that they hit since its much safer to sit and plink from a distance.
The problem that I see right now isn’t necessarily in WvW right now though, it may be in participation of dungeons for single target classes like the thief or dagger necro. The reward versus risk of a D/D thief is almost nothing as the huge heathpools of mobs negate any burst they may bring to the table. It would be impossible to raise single target damage at this point also be cause it really would break WvW. Sustained damage from the warrior or an AoE is much more useful to the makeup of the group. Since they said they would also be nerfing dungeon encounters (probably though mob health), i think the overall goal from here on out is to make it be able to be playable any way you want to.
If they are going to be looking at all AoE abilities though, I hope they buff some of the necro’s AoE either by upping the number of targets that can be hit or reducing cooldowns on their utility skills.

Let’s wait and see what they do first though. As a thief, I have seen a number of nerfs (most warranted except maybe Dancing Dagger) and most of the time they aren’t sweeping.

Columba.9730:

How is it that with 3k armor I take 5 k, 10k shots from thieves, yet thieves have weak dps? That makes no sense. I have that armor and 24k health and I still die in 1-2 seconds of rom completely invisible thieves, so I don’t understand your point. Try a ranger if you want to complain about weak dps. At least with warriors, I can see them and avoid their damage.

Thieves have strong burst and weak sustained DPS in a backstab build. They have weak burst but decent sustained damage while visible with a sword main hand weapon. Assuming that you are a warrior or guardian with that amount of armor, there ate a great number of skill that can mitigate all the damage a backstab thief can throw at you in that 1 to 2 seconds. This game is not based around passive defence. My thief only has a total of 2.5k armor, but I have yet to get hit by one of these amazing 10k backstabs. That is not to say I haven’t gotten hit by the mug C&D combo, but my dodge is bound to my mouse, so the backstab portion rarely hits.

In dungeons I switch off between S/D and D/P. I usually run with a warrior, guardian, and necro. Keeping up with the multi target sustained DPS that all of them can put its near impossible. S/* can slightly keep up with the 2k, 2k, 4k auto attack chain, but the utility those builds bring its a much better reason to bring them. Blind tanking certain mobs, or knocking off all the CC immunity stacks of a boss so the hammer warrior can stun them is very effective. I use the S/D for stopping mobs from chasing the other people and boon removal from tougher opponents (NPCs are easier to hit with FS since they don’t move as much). The thief brings quite a lot of support that is often overlooked since seeing single big number attacks is satisfying. SB also has one of the best blast finishers in the game which works extremely well with guardian light fields. Basilisk venom works on bosses regardless of defiance stacks which can help in a bind. Don’t pigeonhole yourself into pure DPS, thieves can be so much more.

Rayya.2591:

seriously 2 dodges on C&D in row , will make me use C&D on mobs , wich is independent of your will
And how you counter that?
A-net did not intend to make 1 mechanism without counter.. and that is C&D currently in WvWvW.

Situational and positional awareness. If you are fighting in a location with mobs of animals, withdraw to a place that doesn’t. You wouldn’t fight an engineer in the middle of his supply drop or fight a necro while standing in their blind well. Similarly, withdraw (don’t run away) to a point where the thief will not be able to stealth off of an animal and land a backstab or tactical strike without blowing a utility to get to you.

Agreed with Daecollo above. Something else would have to be buffed in order to make up for the loss. The other 2 classes that have similar health pools have access to a great number of boons with a good deal of up time as well as knockdown/knockback paired with massive healing. To compete with that, tankier thieves can heal upon stealth. A lot of arguments and posts I have read through want to reduce stealth and offer more dodge/evade/block abilities. The unintended consequence to this I see though is that it will become like fighting thieves underwater where there is a block or evade tied to 3 of the 5 abilities, and we all know how much people love fighting thieves underwater. As it is right now, at least when a thief sets up an ability with stealth, there are at least a couple of seconds of pressure off of you. When set up with a crit/power build, a S/* can dish out the 7k damage you’d get with a backstab just through the autoattack chain. Limiting stealth and rebalancing the class around around being a dodge tank would probably lead to the same amount of complaints as now. As a thief main, I have to say the class I fear engaging the least is other thieves. Blind them and dodge the C&D and your chances of winning are pretty good. Good bunker D/D eles or guardians though are a nightmare to go through as a thief. This may not be the case for everyone, but as someone who takes a balanced approach with S/D as my main, this has been my experience so far in wvw and sPvP. Like it or not there is some level of rock paper scissors in this game, at least to an extent that creates an imbalance in some fights. An example being I have a necro friend that absolutely melts bunker builds, but can hardly touch my S/D build. Those same bunkers stand at least a decent chance of beating me in 1v1 (fights last > than 3 min and often stalemate). Not saying learn to play here, I’m just saying that each class/build has its foil and if will be far more difficult for you to be effective against it. You can take my anecdotal argument or not of you want to, but I have found that there are a great number of players who have no problems combating stealth. In the end, stealth may be changed, but think about the buffs the thief would have to receive to make up for changing the combat dynamic of a class.

Love seeing thieves kill thieves, since thieves are unkillable (sarcasm). What happens when an unstoppable force hits an immovable object (by everyone’s outside assessment of thieves).

brunohstein.9038:

In the moment you hit C&D, yes, you would be partially visible. But two steps backward and you are not anymore. I think it would stop with the easy mode and the thief class would be way more interesting to play.

Shadow Refuge would be seriously nerfed with this, this is true, but not a class breaker, and could be easily solved by removing the giant house of the skill animation.

So they would have even more information on your bearing and speed which would destroy the ability to hit and change direction to surprise them or effectively fight in a 2v1 by using 1 person for C&D then engaging the other who may be a bigger threat or target you can eliminate more quickly. Also as a matter of strategy that I forgot to mention before, it would effectively nerf S/D which relies on sitting in stealth behind an opponent waiting to use tactical strike (aptly named) during a heal. As it stands, stealth is more balanced than most people care to admit in either direction. It does nothing to mitigate damage and doesn’t break a channeled ability. A fair number of thieves consider this a design flaw that makes stealth underpowered, but in my opinion is the built in balance to stealth. Channelled abilities can help you locate a thief while still damaging them. Implementing semi visible stealth would also be giving the opponent a second chance on a mistake they already made. Since C&D has a long, distinct animation with a predictable setup, it should be dodge/block-able. If a thief can land it on a more experienced player, they deserve to be rewarded with more damage or an interrupt (especially after having a positional requirement tacked on top of that). Yes a thief can steal in the middle of a C&D to make sure it hits, but the ability shouldn’t be changed based on a 45 second combo.

brunohstein.9038:

You would be visible all the time to your friend and that’s not the idea.

Well it is effectively the same since you have to be in melee range to use C&D, you world still be visible, and if you used shadow refuge, they would have a big target that says walk in here to see me. The only thing left that would truly hide you is blinding powder (40 sec cooldown), or comboing with a smoke field (BPS + heartseeker @ 8 initiative or the smoke wall+heartseeker). Since you would be in close combat using your thief and the idea is to see the thief when he is close to you, it is at least a decent measure off how implementing a visible stealth mechanic would affect thief gameplay.

To those thinking it would be a good idea to make the thief slightly visible while in stealth, I would suggest talking your thief to sPvP with a friend, joining a party with them, then joining an empty server and playing 1v1 with them. They will see you the way you see yourself in stealth and you’ll learn just how useless stealth becomes… Also with a balanced build(0/20/30/20/0, mix of berzerkers armor and knights jewelry), backstab damage is nothing special and crits at just over 4k max on everthing that’s not a green up arrow.

Guardians are great as others have stated, but combo-ing with a mesmer is incredibly powerful also. Not to mention also that between the illusions and thieves guild you can summon a small army.