Guild Wars 2

Sergoros.4398:

Hm…now, that i think about it….thiefs are nerfed because stealth is op. But mesmers get double nerfed! Because we not only have stealth….we also have portal! It explains everything!

If that were true, then explain our sword nerfs.

Fay.2357:

NinjaEd.3946:

Mesmer complaining about sword nerfs?

Mesmer complaining about being underpowered in most areas of the game?

Sounds like personal problems.

Signed, thief.

Yes, because thieves are very underpowered in most areas of the game. You only have some of the best ingame damage output for PvE, are more or less required on every competitive tPvP team, and are known as one of the best classes for WvW roaming. The only thing thieves aren’t strong at is WvW group fights.

1. PVE: Not liked in dungeons, aside from blind spam and skipping trash mobs. Most are just dead weight and can’t take a hit. (viable, just not preferred)

2. Pvp: not sure where you get this from. I watched the ToL, very few thieves. The few thieves that were there, had to run almost specific builds just to be acceptable. Not saying Mesmer was plentiful in there, but don’t pretend thief was popular.

3. WVW: ahh yes roaming. I guess Mesmer’s don’t roam. That or I’m imagining it when I run into stealth squads who strangely have a Mesmer with them.

Best potential damage, which comes at a price of also being incredibly squishy. Can you believe that! :O

See above for “requirement” for pvp.

At least we can agree on that.

I’m not saying we are below or above Mesmer in regards to this recent nerf, just saying get used to it. We’ve been getting nerfed far after justification, and then they nerfed those things again for the sake of nerfing. I’d be glad to show you a list of kitten we’ve dealt with but I’m hoping you get the picture at this point.

No intention of starting anger posts here. I’m only shocked at the response to this thread and all others like it(:

Conditions take up bandwidth apparently, which creates lag. Do you really want to experience more lag?

Until conditions become something other than fire and forget they will never fit in this game’s balance.

As long as this set doesn’t enter pvp, I see no problem. Strengthening support roles in pve and wvw is healthy, making bunker builds near invincible would not be.

Mesmer complaining about sword nerfs?

Mesmer complaining about being underpowered in most areas of the game?

Sounds like personal problems.

Signed, thief.

Yup. I’m gana continue to watch this thread plummet.

Thief doesn’t need a rework, it needs number tweaks, something we see once every 6 months. At least they hot fixed strength runes

A full evade with a minimal aftercast would solve it. The random bleeds here and there don’t hurt, its just too clunky on the evasion part to be “useful”.

Engineer shield has a reflect/blast and a block/daze.

Warrior shield has a stun and a really good block.

Guardian shield has protection and an AoE knockback/projectile defense.

Even so, I would agree with a slight buff to the #4 although being fairly new to guardian (only about ~4 months of pvp use). I don’t use any bunker spec though so I can’t say I have used it consistently just yet, but looking at the numbers (including the cooldowns) it seems weak to me. I just love my focus with a 0 cast time shield and the condi clear too much, although I miss torch.

Lévis.5489:

I’d make launch, fear, knockdown, daze/stun cause revealed. Everything needs a hard counter. Stealth have so few of them.

Conditions, chain cc with SS on cooldown, rapid attacks and AoE. Lock In skills like SR (self) static field, ring of warding, traps (marks, traps). Stealth has counter’s, they just aren’t labeled “reveal”.

If you’re using DB “effectively” in a pvp situation then you are at an incredibly low skill floor of a server or meet some stray kittens in hot join. It’s pathetic when spammed, used time to time d/d is a fairly vulnerable weapon set with no built in defense aside from stealth cuz the evade frame of DB isn’t reliable.

DB is only decent against people who can’t do pvp well or in pve. Are you really going to argue its place in the game from the most irrelevant situations possible?

I’ve “t-word”ed in pvp with a DB type build where I would just hop around with caltrops get some aa in and bleed (this took place in hotjoin). The majority of people were dying, but I also looked at their attempts to hit me and it was down right pathetikittenil this guardian showed up. He didn’t need to cleanse my conditions, he knew how to shut me down and after a little harassment it was over for me. I then proceeded to tell the map chat “you should really learn from this guardian”. Few matches in a necro was countering me, then a Mesmer, and the list kept growing. These weren’t any specific builds, they just knew how pathetic DB is and to just side step and the bleeds would miss and to cleanse the bleed stacks when they got high, and not when they were just there.

I’m telling you, DB is a bad weapon skill outside of pve. Number’s wise, it has probably the best bleed stacking I can think of. In practice however its not fluid and very easy to counter. Even if you use it as a side-arm to p/d there is far more utility with SB than d/d, and it can still act as a hybrid set if you wish. Spam it, use it with “skill” doesn’t matter. Only thing we seem to agree on is the time frame should be bumped, then maybe I’d take a fifteenth look at it.

babazhook.6805:

it also much less frustrating taking out siege if you are hybrid.

Wha? Condition damage isn’t factored into structure damage. I’d rather spam cluster bomb or pw than twirl for minimal damage. Besides what does siege removal have anything to do with this conversation?

As for the Orr minon part, I can stack the mobs up and use pw and be just as effective without pulling the mobs away from the stack and looking ridiculous. Those things die so quick anyways that before the bleeds start pumping “good” numbers they’re already dead so again, I still don’t see how you consider it viable.

DB isn’t better than anything at anything. Doesn’t necessarily mean buff it to unreasonable ends so people get new toys to break things with, it just means this skill needs to decide what it can be used for and lean towards that instead of trying to multi task and failing at all three. Sorry but I’m not seeing any place where db is a positive force, even in pve and that’s just sad.

P.S ricochet turns p/d into a somewhat multi target skill, which includes sneak attack. Just sayin, you do have that option to “aoe” bleed and still retain all the goodies that p/d carries with it.

Keep in mind when planning to make a set, trinkets give you the majority of your stats. As such, I got valk armor and mix various trinkets when I need to change up my build.

Why? Because vitality is the best defensive stat for thieves. We have the lowest health pool tier, and are also very susceptible to conditions which only vitality handles. That small bump in defense lets me adjust my damage accordingly through trinkets, maybe get another valk set with different runes but in the end I always keep that small hp bump around so I don’t feel so squishy. Only class I’ve ever owned a full zerker set is warrior (soon after I MF’ed it because I didn’t see the point). Full zerker is pretty dull, I can get similar numbers and rarely die with my thief’s set and I watch other thieves in fractals sometimes die to auto attacks from trash mobs. A dead zerker is far less dps than any other build, so I never really understood the elitism towards it. Even people who act “elite” I let them die and intentionally do not rez them ever in hopes they learn a valuable lesson.

P.S You don’t craft pvp armor, it’s just there. Actually you don’t even need armor on, you just choose the amulet/traits/weapons/sigils/runes. It’s all free in there ^^

Between pack runes and your steal granting fury, I’d focus a lot less on precision. You will almost have perma fury, so 68% crit chance is not that important. I’d get some more valk items so you can keep the high power and ferocity but instead of crit % (you already have enough) get some vitality since it is the better defensive stat for thieves. Toughness is crap on thieves because we don’t have a reliable regen or source of small heals that will ever be worth mentioning to make toughness viable. At least vitality gets us out of the smallest health pool tier and also deals with a very well known thief weakness, conditions.

Babazhook, you’re missing the point. You can’t compare a build’s traits to how effective a weapon set is. Sure you can steal and apply poison weakness and some confusion, then you get a cnd off every now and then for vuln and possibly blind. That has nothing to do with whether or not DB is a good skill or not. It still doesn’t disprove my point that the bleed’s you’re applying and reapplying are prioritized when condi removal comes around. There is a reason d/d condi isn’t popular, and it’s not because its harder or some kitten excuse, it’s because it underperforms against other condi sets in just about every way.

SB has it way easier in applying those 2 conditions, still has a cripple and would have a better evade if it weren’t mega nerfed (hopefully it will be fixed for all soon, rangers have the same crap). P/d may not apply 3x stacks for the longer duration, but keep in mind it’s an aa, and the stealth attack hits hard, and then you can mix in shadow strike if they get close (which is a damaging condition), use body shot right before a CnD to better your chances of hitting them. P/d as a set is far stronger and much more reliable than d/d.

There is no point in including any outside sources like sigils or traits because that has 0 place in this discussion. This isn’t about builds, it’s about DB not having a viable place atm. DB needs to work well in some way whether it moves you further, or becomes a full evade (with a small aftercast to prevent perma evade), or gets some different function like destroy projectiles instead of evading, idk. What we have now simply isn’t attractive aside from being a norn and ballerina dancing around.

Invisible=/=invincible. The only stealth I’ll let you remove is last refuge, but don’t you touch cnd O.o

Read the time stamp people

babazhook.6805:

>>DB for PvE only works in a DB spam build. I don’t think that’s a design decision. No sensible developer would intend you to go and spam one skill over and over.

You would be wrong. There a reason thieves use INI. That is so they can use a same skill several times over. Other classes have cool downs to prevent that.

A condition build that relies on bleeds for its damage needs to see the player apply bleeds over and over again.

The Thief has less sources of these bleeds then does the warrior or necro. Due to the nature of ini it is pointless to give more separate sources of bleeds on his weapon set.

Just take the warrior as example on his bleed set weapon the sword.

There are two bleeds on the AA chain of 8 seconds each. There is a bleed on the immobilize of the burst skill of 8! stacks. There is one on riposte that adds 4 stacks for 12 seconds.

All of those others will go on cool down.

The Thief is not limited by Cool Downs so the thief uses the same skill several times in a row to achieve the same effect. If it PD then it a spam of #1 to apply bleed. It is d/d then it a spam of #3 to apply bleed.

The INI limits both sources even though the P/d source costs no ini by using much lower bleed durations on the auto attack meaning INI has to be used to get a sneak attack off.

The INTENT of the ini system is to allow the choice to spa. It comes with risk but the choice is there. If we went to a cooldown system then in order for conditions to work at all on a thief MORE SOURCES would have to be added.

The reason there only one source on each condi weapon set of bleeds is not because “D?D was intended to be direct damage” it was because only one source is needed for bleeds.

No we have iniatitive to make quick decisions, spamming them comes with little reward. If you think you’re optimal spamming DB then I say dance with the stars. Truth is, your “preference” isn’t viable in about 90% of the game which is where the “useless” part comes from the title. I may enjoy spamming p/p unload for lolz in some pve encounters, doesn’t mean its bad but p/p most certainly isn’t good in a majority of the game.

Applying 1 condition over and over is great, if your target never removes conditions. Again, you’re talking about 1 aspect of the game which has little to no influence on balance. Condi removal prioritized damage conditions, so you can waste all the time in the world reapplying just bleeds, either your target is kitten or you’ll be dead before you reach them.

Bottom line, DB is not an effective skill. As an evade it is far to clunky, as a condition applier it is very short moving and easily avoided and has few cover up conditions, as a power skill it doesn’t hit hard. Comparing DB to vital shot is pointless because p/d is a viable condi set where it matters, d/d is simply not. That is not a preference, it’s a fact proven from the lack of people using it and threads like this.

Don’t use conditions in fractals as a thief. Use Sword/pistol for groups and w/e for bosses (single target ranged p/p, single or multi target melee d/x or s/x). Yes you can toss conditions out but you’ll either die quickly or not put out enough damage (over time) to be useful.

Or be like me and retire from fractals once you realize how unrewarding it really is :/

@ Title, no. I see many fools running it, and failing. Sometimes they get something going but they are often played by awful players, and when focus fired after jumping into a group fight have to run constantly. It’s basically a kid trying to join an adult fight club, just gets chased out. And yes this is from watching more than 1 person run this “sizer” build or whoever the kitten chipped it into stone.

In the right hands, no its still not op. It’s just the person knows how to play the game well so they’d probably be good with any build.

Dee Jay.2460:

It doesn’t necessarily need a re-work.

But it only works well in weapon-sets where ALL skills find common use. Only then is there a true opportunity cost. And without it, Initiative as a resource fails.

Oh, so true.

Initiative doesn’t need a rework, period. It does need some tweaks, but the resource costs on the thief kit is perfect, where quick decisions are needed to compete against others. You have to look at the entire thief before complaining that initiative is a problem, because they are very much different from the other professions in how they sustain, spike, etc. All I see is “power block should effect initiative”, “Chill should effect initiative”, “initiative lets people spam skills, too op”, etc.

1. Initiative is the thief cooldown. If they don’t have it, they can’t use any skill. The issue isn’t power block not effecting initiative, its power block not spending the iniative on a few weapon skills which yes, is unfair but I highly doubt intentional. I believe all skills should spend their initiative the second the server tells your toon to execute that skill, so that actual interruption is rewarded. But putting our skills on cooldown and making them cost initiative? That’s far too punishing.

2. Chill effects thieves differently than others. Yes our initiative is untouched but think of what thieves require to survive. We can’t face tank or power cleanse all conditions, we have to stay mobile and evade whether it’s an actual evade or to stealth and reposition. A thief being chilled or even crippled is very dangerous for them, the only outlier is ele but that has nothing to do with thief anyways so idk why I see ele’s posting that non-sense. I guess they just want to be gods again like they were before the sweeping nerfs.

3. None of our weapon skills have low risk: high reward from spamming them, and none of them can be spammed more than a few times which has multiple risks involved. First off “spamming” means its predictable, which means you should know what skill they’re planning to use next, which means act accordingly. HS, use anything it has no evasion. PW, it’s very costly and quite easy to spot the wind-up. Shadow shot, again very costly. Shadow strike, not spammable unless you’re up against a wall but even then the torment doesn’t last long. Headshot, basically 0 dps and tosses initiative out the door so thieves don’t spam it unless they’re intentionally “t-word”ing. I could go on but the point is, none of the skills are stronger with initiative. They all have lower power coefficients or are very costly or have very low durations because of the way they activate. Initiative actually gives us far weaker skills than anyone else, it’s just we have the flexibility of using them on demand for quick decision making. I don’t think I’d at all like cooldowns on a thief because of how the class behaves, but cooldowns are still better because they all have a role and leave an actual impact when used (heavy spike, or long duration, heavy heal or condi clear, etc.)

Can we stop pointing the finger at thief? The only thing they have to their name is wvw roaming, everywhere else they are less than appreciated. Doesn’t mean they aren’t viable, but there are better options than a thief in many parts of the game so in other words, we are not OP.

Carighan.6758:

Julie Yann.5379:

HS should never have been a fully passive heal. How the kitten would anybody be able to balance that kitten out and how would you make the active part of it ever worth using without making the whole kitten thing crazy OP?

Uh, all signets have passive effects?
But I get what you mean. Maybe it should have been the exact inverse of Healing Surge. Heal passively based on missing adrenaline, active drains all adrenaline and heals according to adrenaline drained.

Neat idea, except thats basically mashing adrenal healing and inverse-healing surge together. They don’t need more adrenaline based effects in those places. Unless they turn the active to a mega heal and take increased damaged while casting it (like gw1) it’s almost impossible to make the active both unique and meaningful. The passive just needs to require investing, right now it takes no effort to make use of HS on any build.

Thaddeus.4891:

I see a bunch of condi and direct dmg in PvP. I don’t think there is much balance needed there? Keep in mind that in sPvP is completely different that PvE. For exemple, sPvP crit dmg wasn’t affected by the crit nerf.

Now if you talk about PvE, then ya some balance need to be done.

Not directly, but since 300 ferocity from traits no longer equaled 30% critical damage, they pumped the zerker amulet with more. It actually buffed critical damage in pvp, since there was less of a reason to trait for it, and the fact that strength runes are broken compared to other dps rune sets.

I thought the goal of the feature pack was to open up more viable rune sets, instead they seemed to of only added a few new choices and nerfed some others. I’d be willing to bet atleast 50% of the runes/sigils are still never taken.

Zach.3264:

Maugetarr.6823:

Zach.3264:

dylan.5409:

The denial is strong in this thread lol
Its a strong ability, too strong imo for an auto target with so many extras (leap finisher, high damage under 25%, gap closer)
Thieves have enough on demand burst, they can be stressful to fight against, they dont need extra burst

I wonder how long it takes for someone to reply now with “if you die to HS you’re bad, I never die to HS because I’m amazing!”

Or something along those lines.

How about something to the effect of HS does less DPS than autoattack above 50% health, about equivalent between 50% and 25% and superior damage only below 25%. This means that if someone is dying to HS at above 25%, they would be dying even faster against just autoattack. Meanwhile, the thieves spamming HS at the higher levels of health could be saving their initiative for more effective uses.

HS should not be changed because above 25% it fills the role of utility with a leap finisher and gap closer. Below that it fills the role of a player finisher. Spamming it outside of these 2 cases us a waste of initiative, but it’s not the role of the game to spoonfeed you that fact, just like it doesn’t stop eles from using blast finishers if they didn’t put down a field to finish. Nerfing this skill just to show newer players how/when to use this skill just nerfs the utility side of it for potentially speeding up someone’s learning curve is a bad idea.

You should be allowed to use it as a leap and a gap closer. I don’t think you should be able to spam it though.
Making it cost slightly more may also put an end to the “perma stealth thieves are op”

Then that’s an issue with stealth, and not HS. HS has more uses than SA thieves roaming in wvw. There is no need to nerf it because of troll builds, and there is no reason to nerf it because bad players are spamming it thinking its effective that way. Let the trolls be annoying in a game mode that they hardly have any place in, and let the bad players figure it out on their own.

Only thing HS could use is less damage at the higher health brackets and more damage (very slightly more) at lower health brackets so those using it for damage correctly are rewarded and those using it for damage because their 1 key is broken are laughed at. It’s a good finisher skill for the dagger kit if used right, but it also has a draw back of locking you in the animation meaning easy counter cc towards it.

Death blossom as a skill is a great design, it just has a serious numbers issue. It is highly telegraphed being quite easy to avoid, and the animation (which you are stuck in) lasts longer than the evade duration which is basically a self cc.

It should either play as a hybrid set, which honestly I think p/d does better, and make it hit more reliable because the bleed stacks/duration are fine, or lower the bleed duration a lot and make it a full evade but still have it move more reliably. D/D could use all the love it can get, since only 2 skills ever have a use while being fairly easy to spot.

No need to exceed 50% critical chance with s/d, you can go with even less if you have access to fury. If you’re using d/x it’s a little different since the primary damage is likely BS which is rather disappointing if it doesn’t crit. In full zerker it can still hit for something but you also are at risk of being breathed on and falling over so careful.

Back stabs not being a crit are like piranha’s without teeth :/

Celestina.2894:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Celestina.2894:

NinjaEd.3946:

It’s only a matter of time before thrill of the crime is complained about. I swear its impossible to take these nerf requests seriously anymore, they’re just grasping for anything they can find no matter how good or bad it is.

You already nerfed disabling shot to oblivion, what else do you want?

“The thief’s ability to wield more then a single 1-handed weapon is just to much along with their totally super god hax damage, the only way for thief to be TRULY balanced is to remove their weapons period!”

I feel that’s the logical conclusion at this rate.

But then fists would be OP.

You’re right.

Chop off the hands!

Stumps will be op then, just turn them into vegetables (no offense to those irl).

I see a lot of people upset when comparing numbers at face value instead of comparing the entire kit that they have. Axe has a nice aa, a meh #2, and the #3 basically has to be coupled with leg specialists to make any real threat with it. It all comes down to the burst skill which is great, although I disagree with having every burst skill being a 10 second cooldown (base). Some burst skills are far better than others for what they do in the time frame or single effect when talking about what the weapon kit offers but I suppose the combination of them is appropriate.

With axe/x its quite hard to land an eviscerate without an outside influence to help such as shield or leg specialists or a physical utility skill, sword you can get a instant cast immobilize (yes if they’re melee it’s kind of hard to predict an effect that takes place before any swings are made, could be a long time bug though), and land that final thrust no problem while also having a much better gap closer. Sword is a hybrid weapon anyways, it shouldn’t have any potential to match eviscerate’s damage despite having a longer cooldown.

On a semi related note, anet mentioned in their Ready up that warrior relies on adrenaline yet I have no problem getting it and with fast hands basically have an endless supply of skills to cycle through. Is this intended or are all burst skills equals, because I’d be willing to bet gs and rifle disagree as a kit.

I’d say nerf ally vision before nerfing HS. I get where you’re coming from, since I see thieves doing this all the time and often dying. Doesn’t mean nerf the skill, its just bad players making bad decisions.

Ozzy Toxin.3074:

so basically you just want to make the other heals just as op or have no drawbacks to using them… ok

I dunno who said that, but mending has a cast time.

It’s also a fairly weak heal atm, making it basically cleansing ire with a heal attatched. I think most would agree to just get a trait and slot HS to get far better sustain.

I honestly think HS should suck without healing power, considering it has no risk to using it. If they wana build tanky, let it heal them for 450 a second as long as they invested a good amount of healing power. 360 forever every second with no cast time is just kitten when talking about viable alternatives.

For example, 280 base with a 0.2 healing power coefficient. Spec for healing power, lose the offense, but become very very durable. Builds with no healing power would basically so nty, and focus more on decisions than playing the role of a rock. But, they gata change mending and adjust defiant stance/healing surge for the offense spec’s or it would just be a flat out nerf across the board. Balance isn’t just flat nerfs :/

I’ll follow a system from a guy who posted here. W= weakness S= strengths

Warrior
S: High spike damage, heavy cc, very durable both to DD and conditions, strong group utility, highest health and armor tier allowing more build choices
W: evasion(self), being kited on certain spec’s, boon stripped(from enemy)

Guardian
S: Heavy group utility, durable, good melee pressure, high condition removal
W: Low health pool, weak mobility, fairly telegraphed skills, weak build diversity

Ranger
S: Ranged dps, evasion, mobility
W: pet, weak melee(self), extremely limited build diversity, weak to constant melee pressure

Engineer
S: Multiple cc, condition application, high sustain, strong versatility.
W: Condition overload, condition transfer(from enemy), slowed (chill, cripple, immobilized), retaliation (on some builds)

Thief
S: Single target dps, dmg negation(evasion, blind, teleport), high mobility, combo finishers (blast, leap, projectile).
W: recovery, condition removal, stun locked, mobility conditions (chill, cripple, immobilized), retaliation (on some builds), low health

Mesmer
S: Burst, kiting, boon access, boon removal(enemy), overall sustain
W: Condition overload, interruption, boon stripping (from enemy), retaliation (on some builds).

Necromancer
S: Condition application, AoE effects (wells, marks), sustain
W: Mobility, stun lock,

Elementalist
S: Versatility, boon access, sustain, combo fields,
W: Locked down (conditions or disables), telegraphed offense skills, low health + light armor.

ArenaNet
S: Making a potentially great pvp experience, sponsoring events from time to time
W: Taking far too long to dish out balance updates, ignoring design flaws, tip toeing around the meta, breeding a toxic environment from lack of communication and the above.

Solution to all:
-Take note of the constantly mentioned topics, act on them if appropriate (meaning a justified reason to change other than Q.Q)

-make more frequent but small changes (atleast once every 2 weeks) towards the above

-more communication to the players (don’t respond to every post or roam in game necessarily, but the dead zones of no content and the lack of response to awful game bugs/designs should be mentioned. Many people have traits/skills that don’t behave appropriately and don’t seem to be addressed, ever).

- Less worry about wac-a-mole, letting things settle in isn’t working, people take a day or 2 to adapt and suddenly the next best thing takes over for months on end. A Lot of this game seems to be about optimal builds rather than build diversity and that makes for a very stale experience which the ToL only backs up. There are a ton of traits and skills to choose from, should look into why people don’t use a majority of them and possible scratch it for something relevant.

It’s only a matter of time before thrill of the crime is complained about. I swear its impossible to take these nerf requests seriously anymore, they’re just grasping for anything they can find no matter how good or bad it is.

You already nerfed disabling shot to oblivion, what else do you want?

Dee Jay.2460:

Most conceptually broken:

• Guardians (I know, not a common choice) – Way too much group support and survivability packed into a single class. Way too many group synergies and boon-spamming. They have become essentially what Monks were in Guild Wars 1. And that’s something we wanted to avoid.

Most numerically overpowered class:

• Warriors – Healing Signet is still too effective and easy, damage is very high, as is survivability. No real weaknesses, just generally too good at everything.

Most overpowered class:

• Engineer – Condition spam is just excessive, especially with all of it being hard to avoid and AoE. Coupled with bunkerish builds it’s incredibly overpowered.

Most overpowered trait:

• Prismatic Understanding – Has made Mesmers ridiculously durable with very little trade-off and resulted in a very unfun play-style.

Most overpowered mechanic:

• Stealth and Shadow Arts – Remove conditions, Blind, Regenerate Health, run faster, invisibility, Might stacking, high-damage openers). Is there ANYTHING stealth doesn’t do?

I.e. there are multiple angles to look at each class. Warriors for example, while being slightly overpowered, can easily be fixed by nerfing Runes of Strength and some of their numbers a little.

Guardians on the other hand need a much more fundamental redesign. They encompass way too much defensive utility and have dominated the meta since day 1. There is a reason they are the most commonly request class for Fractals, Dungeons, WvW and even sPvP. And it’s not because they are balanced.

Agree on the guard, although engineer can pack some good support too, as can ele if played right.

Agree on warrior, their is little risk to playing one. They may not be the “best” class, but its far easier to play warrior good than it is to play any other class as effectively.

Sort of agree with engi, I actually have more of an issue with their cc than their condition application but both are things I tend to run into.

Can’t say I agree, almost every class has an overpowered trait. As far as investing and the result from it goes, I’d say any trait that gives easy vigor (vigorous precision, critical infusion, invigorating speed) since they are easy as kitten to proc and vigor is a strong boon to have.

Can’t have all of that at once. Shadow arts isn’t all that great tbh, it’s only viable place is skipping trash mobs in dungeons or wvw roaming where pvp is a joke to begin with. It’s a strong trait line if you want stealth, but you’re almost guaranteed that a SA thief has atleast shadow’s embrace with rejuvenation, so only 1 other option to choose from. They are fun to chase in a tower/keep in wvw though, considering they do little to no damage these days.

OP, please stop being ridiculous and go to another sub forum. You’re just a beacon of bad feedback.

@ vincecontix,

The video perfectly represented the risk:reward to playing a warrior and still messing up. BTW, I noticed he ran almost 0 condi clear aside from zerker stance, and coincidently he died at the end to conditions. The downed battles were kinda comical

It would be a good video indeed, but nothing past a fantasy. Besides, I think engineer can accomplish this without a total rework.

If I’d make a suggestion on the traps themselves,

Bouncing betty: Sweet idea actually, but I’d add a dual effect like a 1 time blind or daze. Something to spook your foe other than a random slap in the face.

Ambush: Up the health/toughness, make them dodge if they are spiked, give the pistol thief a skill to use (dagger thief uses scorpion wire, so maybe shadow curtain), merge trip wire into this while increasing the cooldown to 50 seconds while increasing the duration of the thief to 30 seconds, and removing the cripple (a lot, I know) . Reason being trip wire alone is pretty easy to avoid but also because when the thief is summoned, there is that short window where they are appearing and doing nothing but soaking up AoE. At least this would have some “oh no” attached to it if used and be worth slotting for a good combo. If need be reduce the knock down duration to 2 seconds.

Trip wire: merged to ambush.

Shadow trap: Remove the cast time on the early release. It’s a pretty good skill but for getting out of a sticky situation its not all that great. Also you can’t really call it a “stun break” when it has a cast time that’s 1.5 seconds (easily interrupted).

Needle trap: Same trigger effects except a persistent effect after the first trigger. For (4?) seconds afterwards , anyone who crosses the trap is immobilized for 1 second and adds their current conditions they are suffering from into the trap application. Basically it’s a diseased trap acting like epidemic for those who cross it, which would work great for group play but also overall giving a purpose to slotting it. In other words, you could safely use it for escaping or in a group fight as opposed to just being annoying.

Good to know I left this conversation asap, this kitten has gotten no where.

@ Zacchary

It still doesn’t suit the thief kit to have a passive condition applicator no matter how short it may be. I’d have to take a good look again because maybe I’m just missing something from your pov but I don’t believe venoms should have a passive counter. The active combo field is a good way to make thief less selfish giving those who prefer thief but want to be group-friendly, however between them and the trait removal you suggested it seems like you want them to be in an near all-in-one kit versus something you invest into to make use of. The nice thing about venomshare is that you can use it on the go, you don’t need your team to hover over the field to make use of it.

The reason deception skills are so popular is because thief already has all the offense they could want from traits weapons and gear (runes/sigils). The thing they lack is defense, and venoms/traps don’t fit that at all. They are really good defenses too, giving you mobility or stealth coincidentally being thief’s’ best defense tools (excluding shadow curtain since its only real application is pve).

I agree with the changes concept but not necessarily the product. Thief needs less punishment in their utility selection but trying to slip that by the thief Q.Q’ers won’t be easy unless there are some even changes. I doubt anyone would agree to multiple trap placements, trip wire alone is not all that great but X3, the Q.Q would be endless. Reduce the duration as compensation, now we’re back where we started. Traps need a complete overhaul, since they just don’t work the way they are now. Ambush and shadow trap are the only 2 with potential but maybe they can blend into a different type of utility.

If they nerf expeditious dodger I’d quit. Not because the trait is godly, but because if they honestly find the justification to nerf it clearly the warrior community has taken over the balance team and its down hill from there.

In a way it seems like venoms would become less of an investment to make use of them, which I say is good however it runs into troubles with risk:reward when theory crafting.

Right now, yes venoms are quite bad even with the invested traits but I feel like its more a numbers issue than a mechanical issue. We have conflicting venoms (ice drake/devourer), we have venoms that need quick thinking but have a cast time (skelk) and we have venoms which are completely useless outside of 1 trait in combination with it (spider with leeching venoms due to max hits).

It follows a similar problem with warrior burst skills, a uniform cooldown with completely different results where some are far better than others. IDK if dev’s just got lazy or they think that all venoms are equal therefore should share the same cooldown but its most certainly not the case. I don’t think treating them like virtue of justice is the way to go, simply because thief isn’t about passive play. They are all about quick decisions, and an effect every x hits just doesn’t fit thematically but venoms and their associated traits do need looking into.

As for traps, no one picks them because their single effects on long cooldowns are hardly worth looking at. However it’d be like saying ranger should have the ability to have 2 pets out. 1 pet pretty much sucks, but 2 just made things complicated. Doubling or tripeling the effect is not the way to go, tbh I’d say they should scrap traps altogether and come up with something different or redo the traps entirely. Shadow trap is the only one worth looking at but it still underperforms as a stun breaker (long cast time on early release making it easy to be interrupted).

That’s just like any heal, there are drawbacks to using it different that just the flat heal. Thief with withdraw, I could use it to heal up after being immobilized and spiked, or I could clear the immobilize and avoid the hit altogether. Guardian I can use the signet and disable the passive condi clear I need or hold onto it and see if I can sustain from other sources of healing.

Warrior isn’t some quick thinking class, they have room for error and obtaining stage 3 adrenaline to then use healing surge isn’t a difficult task. The heal isn’t punishing in any way, you just have to know how to set it up or it won’t be as potent. It’s like saying consume conditions is punishing because a ~5k heal is weak without taking into consideration of how much you heal per condition. It’s a thoughtful healing skill, and there needs to be more of that done to the traits and other skills that are too simple of a design a.k.a HS.

The base heal could use some help on Healing surge but it’s not a bad skill. It’s just not comparable to HS in any way. IMO healing surge on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the most effective) I’d say it’s at about a 7. Healing signet would be cranked to 11 even after it was “nerfed”.

Food buffs, guard stacks, water sigil stacking, exclusive runes/sigils, different stat selections, higher stats overall from ascended and in general, etc.

Wvw is a terrible place to use for balance because everything is overcharged. You don’t see pvp players with 230%+ critical damage, or 2100+ condition damage, +/-40% condi duration food. Wvw is for zerging and roamers who don’t like to zerg. Don’t hate thief, hate the game mode and all its asinine privileges.

I think a memo got around to post thief nerf requests for the forum daily. If you’re getting something other than mystic coins count me in!

Nerf mug

Why?: 2k heal is too much, I can’t interrupt it.

Now I wait…

BurrTheKing.8571:

Xae Isareth.1364:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I disagree with Healing Surge. I think it’s a very versatile heal which can be used both offensively and defensively, which is great.

Want a huge heal? Save your adrenaline.
Want to pump out more damage/stuns/burns/whatever? Sacrifice some healing to do that.

It’s not versatile in the least. Say you get spiked right after using your burst, you’re basically screwed. The rank 1 or 2 heal isn’t enough to keep you alive, I don’t care how good you are there are going to be plenty of situations were you NEED the full healing but there’s no guarantee you’ll have it. Adren gain is no issue if you have CI.

Its a case of resource management. You chose to use up your adrenaline for the burst, which appropriately means you get less heal out of your heal. Action and consequence.

Name one other good heal that forces you to do that, please note that outside of regen banner and Heal Shouts that Warrior lacks smaller heals and boons like Protection that other classes have. If most of them were designed like that I would be more OK with it, but most heals do not require you to do so. When they do have downsideds it’s not normally such a huge difference. The gap between level 0 and level 3 is huge. If you use it on levels 0-1 the amount of healing you get for a 30 second CD is pathetic and Warriors don’t generally need the adrenaline gain as much as they need the healing. I for one can’t justify taking a heal that has such a huge potential drawbacks when the drawback for HS is so much less. While HS still has the huge weakness in the fact that it is very weak if you get bursted, it’s much easier to compensate for in a build.

Consume Conditions, use it with no conditions its meh.
SoM forces a thief to play very offensive with high AoE to make any use of the passive.
Litany of Wrath forces the guardian to immediately pump dps or miss out on any real healing.
etc.

There is a good list of healing skills that are best used under specific conditions and healing surge is no exception. However it has the function of either giving you the offense you needed or to heal you a lot or possibly both if you plan to spend that adrenaline. It’s a well designed heal that requires thought and has the potential to be on par with if we exclude the fact that HS is never removed and never requires risking a cast time (because you don’t use the active). Hs should only work for bunker like spec’s who have some investment into Healing power, it should not have such a good base heal because it makes it impossible for the other healing skills to compete then.

Carpboy.7145:

Bewildering ambush+krait runes

^

Krait runes work best on thief IMO. BA adds a nice cover up for your condi overload so SoH falls behind in that aspect, but the daze helps interrupt specific skills that counter your efforts like consume conditions so Idk if there is a winner between those 2 traits. Which is good, it means the Dev(s) who made this trait actually had diversity in mind.

+1 to removing Last refuge. Even as a major trait, no one would take it. It does more harm than it does good, and the fact that it has a chance to get someone killed should be enough to justify it’s change. Traits are supposed to have only positive effects, especially if it’s a minor trait.

I like some of the suggested changes but some seem a little far fetched. For example, 30% poison damage as an adept trait would be far too broken, although I get the need to make them compete with other traits in their tier.

Also I would not go that route with vital shot. P/X needs a distinction between its sources of damage and simply buffing the aa solves nothing.

Same deal with last refuge, no matter how they look at it, its design is it’s own flaw. You can’t put stealth in any form to be out of your control, it just doesn’t work. Even if they removed reveal for it to proc, you could still have a cluster bomb out there or swing for a CnD revealing yourself after it proc’ed. Idc what anet Dev said they want that to be stealth access, it simply can’t with the way reveal works no matter how they try to manipulate it. The only exception to such a design would be for HtC since you would be porting away from a recent disable but until they discover how pointless swiftness is when you are stunned, it will continue to suck.

The venoms and traps seem OP too. In their current form, multiple traps would be op unless in a zerg where thief shouldn’t be anyways. The issue is the trap effects don’t justify the cooldowns, and the trap traits are spread out and lackluster. They need dual effects (you have some nice ideas there) but the traps themselves need work like making the ambush thief not die so quickly (evade perhaps, use a heal skill, etc), needle trap should persist after it springs to immobilize those who cross it (a thief line of warding if you will), trip wire just needs a rework, shadow trap should have a longer window to port to the enemy who triggered it. Venoms on X attack would be broken especially if they took BV while spamming cluster bomb. Could just be a number tweak though, the field accesss would be nice both for supporting purposes and self-combos (sneak attack + DV active, oh the confusion).

My old post although it is buried to hell:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Improving-thief/first#post3969432

Thief
-Focus-support based, possible AoE stealth or vigor
-OH sword- parry/non-stealth defensive related

Warrior
-Nothing- because they already have so much.

Engineer
-Mace- dirty fighter, high mobility.
-Hammer- Aetherblades got it, bunker related melee with high defenses.

IMO

Healing surge is for offensive builds. They want that bump in adrenaline, they always get adrenaline, the heal is grand at stage 3. It is a good healing skill even with little to no healing power. It fills a purpose.

Defiant stance fits a group build best, turning bright blue (obvious) and turning damage to healing (also obvious) making it easy to counter if people are paying attention. Should remove the cast time and lower the cooldown to 30 seconds. It has a high potential heal but if countered this skill would leave you with just about nothing, which healing skills should not be doing. In a 1v1 or small scale setting, I can’t see this being utilized too well but at least it has a role.

Healing signet should only fit builds who’s main goal is to live. I’d suggest further lowering the HPS base while greatly bumping the scaling off healing power. If a warrior wants to be the meat shield let them but they should have to invest a defensive stat to get there. Right now the base is far too good to pass up, adding the 200 extra healing power from defense (which almost all warriors grab) and it’s just naturally the best option. Also something needs to be done with the active, and if the goal is to fit a face-tank build I’d go with some sort of defensive support to fit the dual function because a small flat heal is meaningless compared to the loss of HPS.

Mending should be an alternative to those who lack sufficient condition removal. It may not be as good as cleansing ire (3 every 10 seconds vs 20 seconds) but it carries the weight having a decent heal attached. Adrenaline per condition removal would be neat but that function is already filled by healing surge as an adrenal supplier. I’d go for something more like reduce the cooldown by 1 second per condition removed, that way it can better compete with cleansing ire, but it wouldn’t be op. The trait Restorative Strength would not affect this skill’s cooldown reduction, or it would be OP. The overall HPS this skill offers is nice but right now it’s easier to get more from cleansing ire + HS.

I actually like the ideas, except the healing surge one. That healing skill has a high skill level in using it, greatly rewarding those who use it at stage 3 adrenaline. If anything it should scale off healing power a little more at each stage (more than it already does, I know it already scales higher each tier) because it is a pretty big heal but on a long cooldown.

Also if someone attacks a warrior who is glowing bright blue and your red numbers are turning green, they deserve to be humiliated. Defiant stance has a pretty obvious counter, I don’t see why it has a cast time but sadly many healing skills tied to older utility subcategories received a strange treatment like skelk venom, litany of wrath, A.E.D.

phaeris.7604:

So the counter to initiative is…..

Oh that’s right, nothing.

There is a laundry list of things that justify initiative not being affected by chill, and it isn’t just feelings. Also a lack of cd doesn’t mean our weapon skills are superior, there are drawbacks to it but you wouldn’t understand.

Splatter Paw.7238:

If your overwhelmed a good general rule, is the flashier the animation the more its gonna hurt. I have no idea for the most part the skill names, but I know what they look like

Not all painful skills have flashy animations, unless you meant flashy as in style then the twirling strike from eviscerate is the winner!

Which reminds me, I’m seeing a lot of people just full on sitting under dragon’s tooth. Are people just unaware of the big molten dripping tooth above them or are they unaware of what it does yet? So many people just drop from it, it’s kind of funny.