Guild Wars 2

I propose another change, bump the initiative cost of headshot to 9. Its unfair, can’t be countered, nerf it. Now we can all use d/d and spam #3 and say we perma evade till they nerf that and then’ll Ill just use hylek blowgun for the remainder of my days.

Jokes aside, what are we doing here? Reveal on bps?….

Telling anet to nerf themselves? Hmm…. Dunno how that will go but best of luck! The day warrior requires skill to play, is the day Guild wars 2 collapses into a wormhole and we forget everything that once made sense.

Immortal and thief in the same sentence? Same thread? Mer Gerd, what have we here?

If thief is so op, try it out for a week. Share your thoughts, and tell us how you did. Don’t look up some hero build online, make it up to w/e you think would be “op”. You’ll quickly learn their brute dmg is a result of 0 defensive stats, and their reliance on stealth is of upmost importance to stay alive. Otherwise, they just kinda flop over and die. It’s no different from a zerker ele or Mesmer hopping into in with a storm of particle effects and leaving a bunch of dead people in their wake.

Im afraid there are such things as bad questions…. there is no such thing as “best” build, in any game, ever. Even for something as simple as general play, which in this game isn’t so general unless you’re a warrior. Things change, and you should swap weapons when its called for. Thief has no universal build, just gata play with the traits/gear and find what you like/want your thief to do.

Travlane.5948:

if it were to go back to the oldway…. doesnt anyone realize that its weakness is ranged builds? ranger, p/d thief and so on love this matchup ….my engineer LOVES seeing sword thieves. tears right thru them…not to mention they cant stay on point so i dont even have to do much anyway.

Stun breaking and displacement has literally nothing to do with countering ranged. The point was to avoid ground targeted AoE and stun locks, something that IR no longer handles once the pain rolls in.

Other day on my engi build I was dueling a warrior on a point (he wasn’t doin to well) and a teammate joined in, a thief. He popped BV, attacked, and hit hs. And again. And again. At this point I’m thinking to myself," Maybe the warrior was low hp and he was just finishing him off", till I looked at his health (over 50%). Thief hit hs again, and again, and again, and again. About 9-11 HS later the warrior drops, and I walk away with a response in say chat," Hs spam….. im not fighting along side you.."

So many baddies that make thief look like a joke. I suppose the sandbox environment that hotjoin provides is the reason behind this non-sense, because I can’t find good thieves. And in tpvp I don’t see thieves that often, mostly mesmers guards engis ele, warrior strangly. Even a necro pops up here and there but I don’t see that many thieves in tpvp.

Anyway, enough story time. There are good thieves, or atleast enough moderate ones to cause ruckus where people cry “op! TIEF OP!”. Very, and I mean VERY few people give an explanation to their claims, and its always about stealth. If there is 1 thing I agree on with their claims, is that perma stealth is not fun and should be exiled from the plate BUT we need something in compensation for those builds that do that. This is a trade, not a threatening understanding. We lose perma stealth (no stealth lasting longer than X seconds, w/e is “Balanced”), but we deserve something in return for defense. Thieves abusing stealth are more than likely GC, so they are relying on the stealth to stay alive otherwise they would melt. Damage is not an issue, its our sustain that lacks potency.

1) D/p S/D
2) 20/0/0/20/30
3) pvp

Doing events has become less and less rewarding and more of a chore. Waltz in when the timer says its ready, spam 1-2 buttons till its over, move to the next often getting greens and blues alongside that 1 rare. Problem is their mostly so easy, I honestly can’t complain about the loot as much as the experience. There has already been 1 boss themed patch, how about another 1? No holdbacks. Make these things reasonable, unique, fresh. They should not just gain 50,000 stacks of applied fortitude when people start to show up, their mechanics should adapt to the size of the player count.

1. Weak bosses: They still walk about. Some look cool, some look scary, but they do nothing. SB for example, stationary(doesn’t turn), hits weak, real low defenses. Inquest golem same deal, buffing the static field to do its dirty work was a poor band aid that just makes people range it with stability. I think the past living story has given enough incite on what makes a strong zerg-friendly open world boss. Don’t mistake long boss fights for difficult (like fire shaman, shatterer, jormag, Svanir Shaman). Safe spots need to be dealt with, and these bosses need stronger side objectives or more difficult stage advancement.

2. The inconvenient bosses: Like tequatl for example. No pre, it just appears and you have to be organized for it to succeed. How can you prepare for something you don’t have a clue on when it’s arriving? Wait? People don’t like to wait, especially in games. Also some events that are mini dungeons, but it’s just a waste to go through it. Fun for those exploring but sad for those wishing they found treasure. Take the jumping puzzle in the sky above metricia province, long puzzle leading to a easy boss with weak loot (not a surprising combination). Same with the lab in the se corner. Some of those long event chains are somewhat rewarding but not nearly enough.

3. Map hopping events: Nothing like a good hunt, especially for something you REALLY want. Like a chest on the battlefields of wvw, I feel like some bosses should be tracked, and well worth the reward IF killed. Couple ideas for region wide boss hunts.

-Dragon in orr. See them all the time flying above, never once do you fight them, not even in arah dungeon. Every few hours have 1 touch down and start destroying everything, risen, pact, players, you name it. Let them be angry but full of goodies. Pre event being after any temple is cleansed moments later it will drop down in 1 of 3 orr zones.

-Ancient Shark hitting any non-orr map with a body of water touching the ocean. Bloodtide coast, Sparkfly fen, Mount Maelstrom, southsun cove. Story behind it could be simple, its a giant ancient shark that has been eating up pirate ships and treasures for ages. Pre event would be any event in those waters that ends in the death of a large beast near or in the water or just a champion/legendary enemy slain in the water, leading the shark to appear off in the distance and swim towards its location.

-Crystalline Elemental in the shiverpeaks. Those who lose their way in the thick winter storms often leave behind valuables. Only the storm has a beating heart, and has long since been stocking up on the belongings. Random blizzard will roll over a lake in the shiverpeaks, and the elemental will spawn on or near the lake (on if the lake is frozen). Pre event is more so a pre-show for several minutes. The storm will linger for awhile (10-15 minutes) before the elemental spawns.

Nothing like a good hunt for promising loot. I’m sure more region themed boss hunts can be made, even with how few zones we get to explore. Point is open world boss fights should not follow some timer rotation that gets spammed all day, and they should sustain their title as “world events” as in being challenging to some degree. Especially for the harder world bosses, they should only occur every so often, closer to 3-4 times a day, like tequatl, the 3 jungle wurms, events that require a lot of coordination but have real good rewards both coin based and cosmetic based.

jihm.2315:

you are not op, you are broken.

we talking humpty dumpty broken or malfunctioning robot army broken?

I mention humpty dumpty because he is similar to glass and breaks easy.

Dagins.5163:

Carpboy.7145:

People dont often realize daggerstorm reflects. It pretty much entirely shuts down engis, rangers, p/d thieves, and bow warriors. Its also extremely helpful against certain mesmers as well. In addition, its our only access to stability outside of lyssa or boonstealing. And its on half the cooldown of TG. Its a clear choice for me.

Why would I ever go defense with dagger storm giving initiative to an opponent, if I can go full offense, especially as a thief, and instagib them? Waste of elite slot.

TG is very nice, because it gives defense, offense and utility. It can totally put off the track even experienced players. Not to mention it allows you to pretty quickly solo a bunker.

Dagger storm grants 2 things thief doesn’t have outside of it, stability, and reflection. You can end the reflection early and hold onto 8 seconds of stability if you wish, the choice is there. Thief generally doesn’t lack offence, and when the defense aspect of an elite is 50% the cooldown, it’s why some people like dagger storm over TG. It’s alright damage but the effects it grants are far superior, plus the activation time is so quick that you can see a projectile inc and pop it if you wish. You generally don’t need to waste time with Ai to insta-gib someone, thief can do that fairly well as a GC.

Wish thieves guild was a “trick” so trick cd reduction could work on it. Idm their utility even though they are incredibly easy to counter/kill (I just sit on the pistol guy, let the dagger thief run to me, use bps, and aa them). The cooldown is what really pushes them away from my skill bar.

Personally, I don’t think a spammable stun breaker results in skilled play because it has no risks associated with it. Problem with thief nerfs is, they are thief ONLY nerfs. Too much dmg? Lets nerf the source (i.e mug, assassin’s signet). Too much mobility? Lets give IR a cast time. They aren’t looking at the classes that have similar situations/skills because for w/e reason the vast majority of players prefer to have thief as the punching bag.

They should remove the stun break from Mesmer sword, the skill already has built in invulnerable skill and displacement skill. Let it behave like IR before it had a cast time, where it could displace you but cc effects lasted for their intended duration even if you swapped. The stun break on IR was removed because it lead to no risk builds that could just jump in, try w/e they wanted and if things got hairy they’d just port out and try it again. The only nerf I wish they’d reverse is the cast time, I liked having IR to displace myself from heavy burst and AoE ground targeted skills.

Also, why can Mesmer’s dual wield swords and thief can’t? Idgi…is it an inside joke for us to be weaker than mesmers (physically)? Bad enough they do everything we do better, except stealth spam.

Unknownhero.6745:

There is more to the game than just pvp, there are actually players who enjoy simple pve, and some that even enjoy stacking 25 bleed on a pve crowd with a quick blossom spam and stealth for initiative, then goin stealth and watching them drop like flies… nerfing all the thiefs skills for pvp spikes would not impress the pve types
Granted for pve 25 stacks of bleed is usually overkill, and most large crowds are dead by 15, but its still fun to try… and the numbers fly like crazy, even not running full conditions..

How is an evasion and/or buff in damage a nerf to db in any way? Or are you referring to the few people who wish it WAS another spike skill like HS?

Anyway open pve you can literally run w/e you want and its good. Heck pull out powerful banners and beat things to death when it comes crashing down every 90 seconds….

Dungeon pve, fotm mainly, db is bad if we are honestly going to pull pve as a judge of balance. The evade is clunky, and often you still get hit HARD even when you were sure that you were evading. Spam it? Same deal, the aftercast and the duration of the skill mask the evade. As a group and for its effectiveness, you’re 100% better off using s/p to aoe blind at the LoS spot and cleave for 9-15k or w/e numbers you pull off. You’re helping defensively and killing quicker with less risk. Pw hands down beats DB to any pve cleave battle, even a full dire or carrion using DB.

Wvw, neither really works tbh. It’s 10X worse in pvp. DB has a nice spot for a weapon set that lacks evades and AoE but it does neither job efficiently.

Travlane.5948:

few suggestsions that would make thief a better team player. maybe not all but some or mixed few together.

1) make thief medium tier HP base
2) increase condi removal non stealth based
3) Fix P/P set entirely so it has Aoe fire/burn (6 init) and aoe poison(4-5 init)
4) unroot Pistol whip
5) Reverse IR nerf
6) increase base toughness 7-8% in spvp/tpvp only

i have dozens more butall pretty small changes.

What? You were off to a good start and as soon as you hit 3 I lost ya. Pistol whip hits like a truck IF you manage to get the enemy to stand still, which is next to impossible alone without some long cooldowns (DV, BV). Letting someone run at you with a lawn mower would be broken beyond belief.

And thief doesn’t need burn, they just need to bump the pressure we can apply with bleeds and give us more options for poison/torment. Pistol aa just needs to be more obvious in what it wants. If you use p/x for condi, 99% you are p/d, in which case you have CnD, which means stealth, which means sneak attack. Bump the bleed duration from sneak attack (buff for condi p/d), and buff the direct damage of the aa while reducing the aftercast (buff for power p/p). The aa needs to be more clear in what its there for, especially for a hybrid weapon set on the class that least likely works as a hybrid. Condi pistol uses sneak attack and aa and #3, power pistol should use more than unload for its effective dps.

So you don’t mind being trolled by the AI from a Mesmer as they sit in stealth and melt you? Or a warrior tanking 3+ people on their own for a solid + minute on a capture point? Granted the warrior won’t win, the fact that they can sit there and gain near immunity and just run around is bad enough, same with engi and guardian. “T-words” come in various forms, going stealth and running away is the least effective especially when they retry it over and over and never succeed.

Oh and in pvp I’ve gone up against “t-word” warriors who spam conditions all day, and the second they realize they might lose they swap to nike mode and you can never catch them long enough to hurt them. Same with engineers, simply run to the underworld and back when they realize they can’t win. I’d rather have the thief gone and out of my sight than watch my target run away because they can’t fight unless the odds are in their favor. I’ve seen new-coming thieves with bigger cojones than these condi warriors and engineers I keep running into, only difference is they die easier.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Karolis.4261:

Blacksarevok.8104:

- get rid of the bleeds
- buff the direct damage enough to be a viable AOE, but weaker single target than BS
- profit

Weaker D/D single target damage? where do you come from with such ideas.

He’s saying to buff the death blossom’s AoE damage, but ensure that death blossom still does less single target damage than BS, where BS means backstab (although I believe this would extend to the entire backstab combo rather than just backstab itself).

Basically he’s describing a situation where death blossom would provide an overall higher DPS against a group, whereas the typical backstab combos would provide better damage against a single target. That way, you can’t just spam death blossom on a single target to get good DPS, but it would be good against a group… kind of like the engineer’s flamethrower.

I’m not sure how the numbers currently work out with the current death blossom, but it’s possible that might already be the case anyways.

Its not. Deathblossom does next to nothing compared to BS burst. You’re better off blowing up targets 1 by 1 than spamming DB.

sminkiottone.6972:

Only skilled players play thief because is the most difficult and underpowered class… yes yes XD

Lots of bad people play thief, because they watch youtube heroes all day and think its that easy.

You would almost die laughing at how many HS spam or unload spam thieves there are in t/spvp.

I wonder what the logo of such a resturaunt would be…

It strikes me as a spin off of white castle

Goal: to make pets a force on the battlefield, as well as giving them more group utility (combo fields, finishers). Increasing their survivability to withstand large scale battles, such as reduced incoming AoE damage, and reducing some cast times so they can activate their main abilities. Also giving more options to pet skills, as many skills had very similar effects some within the same family (not speaking of the GW1 pets).

Risks: Potential to make BM spec far too strong. Power spec would be near obsolete if BM spec became too good to pass up. Would require balancing the other builds to be on par but could lead to further reworks on pet skills. Pets should be strong period, BM should just make them stronger. Considering pets are not removable and have a % of the total dps a ranger can pull off (and not all pets are there for damage anyways), they should pull their own weight without a full spec.

Pets won’t go, (moderator made that quite clear). So lets make pets a threat like a flesh golem is (something I would actually focus attack in a duel due to its power).

Proposal:

-Reduce aoe damage pets receive by x% (perhaps 25?). Maybe pet AI can be made eventually to see red circles but until then, we need a band aid.

-Buff attribute bonus from traits. (compassion training, expertise training, master’s bond). BM passive stats apply to healing power and condition damage as well.

-Merge “Return to me” with “Attack”.

-(BIG one) Remove pet swap, and replace with an appropriate alternative. This would require reworking the pet swap traits to things along the lines of pet revival as well as changing/adding utility skill(s) in the event that the pet dies. Perhaps pets can still be affected by your healing skills while dead and will re-enter combat once fully healed. Some examples of reworked traits and skills could be

/swap [Natures Wrath] with [Loud Whistle]. [Loud Whistle] Now grants pets 20% incoming healing.
/[Zephyr’s Speed] now grants 6 seconds of quickness when your pet is defeated.
/[Vigorous Training] Now grants nearby allies vigor when the pet uses its main ability (F2). ICD of 20 seconds.
/[Mighty Swap] changed to [Inspiring Might] Pets grant might to nearby allies when they activate a skill (non-AA). 3 stacks for 10 seconds.
/[Search and rescue] cooldown reduced to 70 seconds (150 in pvp) and will revive the pet
/[Signet of the wild] works on a defeated pet to slowly revive them.
/All healing skills work at 20% effect on defeated pets

-Change F3 and F4 to the other 2 pet skills. Option to leave these skills unattended so that the pet can use them on their own terms if the micro managing is not in favor of the player. While “unattended” the player can still activate the skill if they wish assuming it is off cooldown.

-Rework pet skills. For example

/[Bear Family] Increase defy pain duration to 6 seconds; Bite cooldown reduced to 15 seconds.
/[Canine Family]Crippling leap is now a leap finisher
/[Feline Family] Increase bite damage; Increase hits of maul to 7 each applying a 10 second bleed with a 3 second channel time and 1 second activation time
/[Porcine Family] Increase maul damage and apply vulnerability instead of bleed.
/[Devourer Family] Twin shots have 25% chance to poison; reduce activation time of tail lash to .75 seconds; increase evasion time of devourer retreat to 2.25 seconds
/[Drake Family] Increase healing from chomp; Reduce activation time of tail swipe to .75 seconds
/[Moa Family] reduce cooldown of harmonic cry to 35 seconds; add vulnerability to each attack from frenzied attack (total of 6 stacks)
/[Bird Family] Remove vulnerability from swoop and change to evasion for the activation time
/[Jellyfish Family] Reduce cooldown of dark water to 35 seconds
/[Armor fish] Reduce the activation time of stunning rush to 1.75 seconds, increase protect duration to 8 seconds

• Specific*
  /[Jungle Stalker] reduce cast time of mighty roar to 1.5 seconds
  /[Lynx] Reduce cast time of rending pounce to .75 seconds
  /[Salamander Drake] Increase range of flame breathe to 600, increase number of hits to 6
  /[Alpine wolf] Change Chilling howl to grant allies frost aura instead. Cooldown reduction to 25 seconds.
  /[Marsh Drake] Increase number of hits to 7 for insect swarm.
  /[Blue Moa] Increase protection duration to 6 seconds.
  /[White moa] Change to freeze for 2 seconds instead of chill, increase cooldown to 35 seconds.
  /[Pink Moa] Change to a channel daze, applying 1 second daze every hit for 3 seconds. Number of hits 4.
  /[Ice Drake] Increase number of hits to 9, increase cooldown to 30 seconds.
  /[River Drake] Each hit applies vulnerability for 5 seconds.
  /[Murellow] Reduce cooldown to 30 seconds.
  /[Fern hound] Increase base heal to 2k, change to apply a water field for 3 seconds, each pulse applying 5 seconds of regeneration. Increase cooldown to 30 seconds.
  /[Black Bear] Reduce cooldown to 25 seconds.
  /[Polar Bear] Change to drop a frost field on its location. Radius 400. Chill 1 second per pulse. Pulses every second. Field duration 6 seconds.
  /[Arctodus] Remove the bleed, drastically bump the damage.
  /[Whiptail Devourer] Reduce cooldown to 20 seconds.
  /[Lashtail Devourer] Bump to 2 stacks of bleed per hit
  /[Hyena] Increase activation time to 3 seconds. Increase hyena ally damage by 40%
  /[Eagle] Reduce aftercast to .5 seconds
  /[Jungle Spider] Reduce cooldown to 30 seconds.
  /[Reef Drake] Increase confusion duration to 7 seconds.
  /[Warthhog] Change to apply an aoe reveal at its location. Cast time 1.5 seconds. Reveal duration 4 seconds. Radius 450 units. Cooldown 40 seconds.
  /[Siamoth] Change to grant itself protection for 8 seconds. Cast time 1.25 seconds. Cooldown 45 seconds.
  /[Boar] Change to leap and knock back your foe. Cast time 1 second. Cooldown 35 seconds.
  /[Pig] Lower forage cooldown to 30 seconds.

It only takes affect after being in stealth for 3 seconds, and every 3 seconds after. If you enter stealth it wont take immediate affect, if that helps.

For a class that seems to be stuck with a pet (not sure why in 500 years they’ve become permanent but w/e), they don’t really threaten the enemy.

In pvp situations, whether it is pvp or wvw, does ANYONE every focus the pet? I mean basic aoe cleaves either do the trick or they really could care less, once the player dies the pet dies. Also many pet actives are either similar in effect, not all that powerful, easy to avoid, or just plain useless. This comes into an issue with pet swap, which really messes everything up. You can’t buff the pets too much, because then pet swap would be op, and you would never be able to kill the pet if they have a BM spec. I think they need to remove pet swap and present some plausible replacement for the system, so they can fairly buff the pets to be fearful.

Some pets have nice effects, but they are essentially a crutch that you carry along until their F2 is ready and in most cases, is a LONG time. Also the inability to control all 3 pet skills is another crutch. Return should not be an F ability at all, they should merge attack and return into 1 button because the pet is doing 1 or the other, not both. If they were to simply buff pets to be strong without removing pet swap, BM would be unstoppable.

Remove pet swap (still keep 1 separate for water and land), let us control ALL 3 pet abilities(option to set them on passive use if the player wishes to keep them off their mind), buff the pets to survive better (less aoe dmg for starters), and rework some of the pet abilities that are either repeated(pigs-forage for example), and the ones that are not worth the cooldown or cast time (mighty roar, rending maul, etc). So many pets yet so little to really choose from.

Sennis.9604:

Lucky Shot.7650:

Zach.3264:

It’s just not fair. Nerf everything.
Why can’t we all do 1 damage and heal 5 every 15 seconds!!!!111one!one!!one!111one!!one!

No, that solution would be bad for the game.

Instead, they should nerf every class and every spec I don’t use to the point that I will be able to beat them by just autoattacking. That way we could have a nice, balanced and fun game.

Nonono. Give everyone spaghetti noodles as weapons, and 1 hp, first one to hit the other person with the noodle wins.

My god Johnson, we should hire this here fella!

Madjack.4598:

how about giving it a stun breaker? Don’t change anything about it’s damage, range, init cost. But give it an additional utility?

Just a thought.

Last time they let our weapon skill break stun, it was beaten to a pulp over and over even after the stun break was removed.

urdriel.8496:

Saturn.6591:

urdriel.8496:

Saturn.6591:

urdriel.8496:

where i said that initiative need a counter?? what need a counter is stealth…….

There:

urdriel.8496:

what is really OP is no CD skills, and a initiative mechanic that let thieves spam skills.

And there:

urdriel.8496:

No, i said that the “possibility” to spam skills is a design flaw of game mechanic.

This is the first game where a mechanic doesnt have a counter, and one class is able to spam it, and this, is clearly a poor designed mechanic,

You’re welcome. And now excuse me; I need to facepalm really hard.

Learn to read.

where i said that initiative need a counter??? , the mechanic i was talking about was STEALTH, and a thief can spam stealth due to initiative.

Oh sorry, I wasn’t aware that stealth lets you “spam skills” and makes skills have “no CD” and such. Which btw in turn you said it doesn’t have a counter and is bad design. YES YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT INITIATIVE RIGHT THERE, SINCE STEALTH DOES NOT HAVE ANY INFLUENCE ON COOLDOWNS OR SKILL-SPAM AT ALL! Gosh. YOU should learn to read. Seriously. Learn to read what you yourself wrote.

I start to believe that you’re trolling, because you can’t possibly be THAT… uh, I better don’t say the word. You’re not worth getting an infraction.

second post of THIS THREAD

Liza.2758:

it’s just broken in wvw with 99% of ppl running troll stealth ( shadow arts ) and shorter reveal

LEARN TO READ.

Now i will repeat myself, the thief is broken because initiative mechanic is Op due to the fact that this class can spam skills to use a mechanic that doesnt have counter ( stealth).

Just stop udreil, you keep flip flopping and I’m have to call a local mcdonalds and ask if they’re hiring a cook. Stealth isn’t op, its just not at a sweet spot in terms of balance. Take this for example, if you removed stealth altogether what would thief be like? Some people have means of not abusing it, but in some fashion or another, its used. Why? Because thief isn’t beefy, they don’t get protection, or stability, or aegis, or blocks, or high armor, or high health pool, or decent healing power scaling. We evade, we position ourselves, and we break target.

Only people who continue to have problems with stealth are those who absolutely fail to ask questions and learn from mistakes. Try pulling a backstab build off and not abusing stealth at all and let us know how it goes. Initiative isn’t op either despite your claims that you didn’t say it is. Thief condition durations, and damage coefficients are all balanced on being “Spammed”. The fact that thief can pull off 5 digit backstabs is because the stats they chose, none of which are thief exclusive. When they pull off those numbers btw, they die from basic aoe attacks anyways.

Thief is NOT op in any way, people need to just grow up and accept they lost and learn what they did wrong and/or what they were up against. I don’t waltz into tpvp match without some prior experience in dealing with the known builds from each profession.

Oh, and just because we don’t all have a skill like “sic em” to apply reveal, doesn’t mean stealth has no counters. I hope you come out in the light soon so you may see that.

Many thief builds heavily rely on lyssa runes. Between withdraw and BV it makes up for our lack of boons, and it also gives us something we don’t normally have, stability. Sure you can use Dagger storm and dodge roll out of it but that’s a 90 second cooldown for roughly 8 seconds, vs 5 seconds every 45 seconds. Also the added precision ties in nicely, and thief generally lacks effective condi clear when it’s poured on them like gravy. There is no need to touch lyssa runes unless we were given the necessary tools to move outside of it comfortably. I don’t only run lyssa runes but gosh do I miss it when I swap it out.

cheese.4739:

NinjaEd.3946:

cheese.4739:

I think what I’d prefer:

An option to choose how combo fields are prioritised, with the default being “oldest field”.
If you switch away from default, you can create your own order of field priority for your finishers, by ordering a list of field types.

That’d be far to convenient for the player. That’s be like letting thief choose what stolen skill they get each time. A more bland system would do far better job here, like was listed before and maybe some more. Like an ele can create fields for days, so maybe a “self prioritize” + “most recent” or “oldest”. For example, they use burning retreat to escape some damage and immediately switch to water to put down a field to blast, and by accident the field from #4 fire was in the way.

In PvP scenarios, the thief does choose their stolen skill each time, since they only get one per profession.

As for personal field management, that’s pretty easy to do, and if the Ele is casting and blasting their water field over the top of Burning Retreat they’re the one at fault (though this change would help them out, I’ll admit).

What the list of field priority would do is help out in less organised areas, where you can’t really expect players to coordinate their fields – in Solo Queue sPvP, for example, a Warrior’s full Longbow burst will produce a huge fire field (covering more than an entire capture point) that sticks around for several seconds, but which will prevent an Engineer from using their heal effectively (assuming Turret) without leaving the battlefield. In an organised team players can discuss this beforehand and be aware of what their allies are running, but Solo Queue players often can’t do that.
The same is true of PuGs running dungeons, or zergs in WvW that have picked up randoms.

I meant in the sense you steal from anything and you always got to choose what you got. You can’t steal from a thief and get consume ecto. Letting people control every little detail of a system is just too much. It should allow some say in it, like prioritize your fields over others, but not “I want water fields #1, fire #2” etc. I agree, in hotjoin or wvw zergs you can’t really control who puts down what field as much, and there should be some way that you can control how you’re playing, and not have other people override a combo you set up. There should be options at the very least.

urdriel.8496:

Viking Jorun.5413:

urdriel.8496:

what is really OP is no CD skills, and a initiative mechanic that let thieves spam skills.

The thief skills are balanced around being spammable

That is the problem xDDD they can spam bad balanced/designed burst skills due to the initiative system.

PD:Sry if you are a spammer thief but , to say that something is unbalanced != QQ, you dont need to spam burst skills to win, if another class use a skill and miss, he have cd on the skill, if a thief miss a skill he can use same skill one more time (if have init ofc).

So if they have initiative, its OK to spam the skill? I don’t get why people are upset about spamming skills in the first place. Constant Q.Q from sb #3 spam and it does nothing but avoid certain death and even then, you’re initiative deprived meaning NO weapon skills can be used till it recharges. I think our weak heals, lack of stability, and being the lowest health pool all together more than makes up for our “spamming” ability.

Not sure what the point of this thread was. Thief can heal? We knew that already, try to compare a single thief build’s healing capability to not only itself but to the group, and put it up against an engi, or ele, or guardian, or shout warrior. Thief has mostly selfish heals, all of which scale horribly off healing power for some reason. I can understand a group heal being less than a self heal, but in 100% max healing power in spvp and thief heals are hardly increased. It’s not worth investing healing power on thief except for havoc squads in wvw when using venom share builds. Also sigil of blood and omnomberry are not thief related, anyone can use those so I don’t see the why it was mentioned :/

Thief damage coeficients are less than others, and our condi/stun durations are also lower than others for that reason. Spamming doesn’t mean stronger, and if you spam a skill over and over, you’d think the enemy would know what skill they’re gana use next and act accordingly.

PW spam= terrible
HS spam= even more terrible
Death blossom spam = …. uninstall please
Body shot spam= ok… no damage and you are initiative deprived, congrats?
Shadow shot spam= expensive, long aftercast and not worth spamming
Shadow strike spam= non-existent unless against a wall, even then not threatening.
Unload spam= terrible.

I can go on…

I still use d/p in spvp. I don’t spam stealth though or use a single trait in SA. #3 and #4 still offer great utility, you just have to think outside the box. As for S/p, I tried it before and deeply hated it. I also tend to laugh at other thieves who try using it against me, because they often are soo squishy I can just look at them and they drop. Only advice I have for you is try things out, try rune sets that aren’t popular but have what you’re looking for. Also wait 8 more days for the being rune/sigil rework and balance update, you may see some new things that weren’t previously viable.

Bazzoong.7145:

Tao.5096:

Bazzoong.7145:

Could you please leave the stuff that actually works alone, thanks.

I mean it, just because you do not like it because it does not make 5 diggit numbers appear on your screen does not mean it is bad.

you really seem to misunderstand what most players want.

DB isn’t supposed to be a hit-truck skill for us, or give us immortality.
We want to rework it so it’ll be useful, and would allow some combinations in battle.
Because currently it’s better to use Heartseeker on target with 100% hp than DB.

No, I do not misunderstand.

Comparing HS to DB is not legit those are 2 totally different skills with totally different functions and the last thing we need on our skill bars are skills that provide similar effects with different animations.

Dancing Dagger and Death Blossom work, both are situational and provide utility over damage.

What you want, to be frank, is more direct damage which we do not need we have cnd and BS for targets at 30%+ and HS as a gap closing finisher for targets at <30% hp, the other skills provide uique utility and unique combinations due to providing different finishers for combos. No need to change them.

You can’t honestly sit there and defend death blossom, and follow it with situational utility.

Death blossom is weak, both in utility, defensive, and offensive capabilities. Whirl finishers aren’t that great, the bleed and the direct damage are really easy to avoid since DB moves only a few hundred units even w/ swiftness, and the evade is less than 50% of the duration of the skill between the channel and aftercast. Nothing on it is working for the thief aside from experimenting for new players.

I wouldn’t be entirely against a whirl rework, since it’s combo mechanics are pretty lame. If you compare how effective projectile, blast, and leap finishers can be it makes whirl look like futilie. I think if they made whirl finishers, ALL whirl finishers destroy projectiles it could raise the skill ceiling of those skills up into the sky. Some skills have no use other than for a small bump in damage, because holding onto it for the right moment is non-existent (cyclone axe on warrior for instance).

Then fix the role DB is supposed to follow, whether it was dmg(not really needed) or evasion. If it was evasion, it should last the duration of the skill, let the aftercast be what prevents it from being perma-evade. Lastly increase the range it leaps to, so it isn’t so easily kited. That’s just my thoughts on DB, it needs to be good at something. Not great, or incredibly op, just good.

Dancing dagger has nearly no use. Sigils on it can proc off the main hand attacks, the damage is weak, the cripple even on a bounce is hardly noticeable (spamming it is horrible…), and it’s really slow moving making it miss or be obstructed more than it should.

Personally, I don’t see the point of it bouncing, we don’t need bouncy balls on every weapon set and dagger isn’t going to be a cleave set anytime soon so give it a purpose that can be useful. The thief npc’s in ascalonian fractal have the right idea, they don’t bounce but they apply a moderate duration poison. Poison is universal, and due to thief’s low off-hand weapon choice those skills should have some all around utility. CnD does this great, both OH pistol skills are great, Dancing Dagger not so much. Even as a projectile finisher, p/d is better off using body shot to stack a bunch of conditions(and it moves quickly), and d/d is better off using HS through it because leap finishers greatly outweigh projectile finishers, and leaping is a better gap closer than a 3 second cripple. A poison would nicely complement p/d builds for pvp, where thief condi isn’t that special. More than likely a nerf to wvw p/d on the poison duration, because between dire and food buffs condi thief is quite scary at times.

cheese.4739:

I think what I’d prefer:

An option to choose how combo fields are prioritised, with the default being “oldest field”.
If you switch away from default, you can create your own order of field priority for your finishers, by ordering a list of field types.

That’d be far to convenient for the player. That’s be like letting thief choose what stolen skill they get each time. A more bland system would do far better job here, like was listed before and maybe some more. Like an ele can create fields for days, so maybe a “self prioritize” + “most recent” or “oldest”. For example, they use burning retreat to escape some damage and immediately switch to water to put down a field to blast, and by accident the field from #4 fire was in the way.

I wouldn’t be shocked if burnfall started responding to his atl accounts, to throw us off track. You sir, have a 30 in trickery.

Bazzoong.7145:

Could you please leave the stuff that actually works alone, thanks.

I mean it, just because you do not like it because it does not make 5 diggit numbers appear on your screen does not mean it is bad.

More like we see 4-5 digit numbers hit us because the evade is near impossible to work with other than spamming it, which still does next to nothing. Death blossom has a role in d/d, it just fits it poorly.

Alex Behemoth.4952:

You are right. 1 more second for reveal makes no difference that is why you should also support adding 4 second reveal for WvW like in PvP.

Ehh people would cry and moan over it like the last time. I don’t like seeing splits between pvp/pve(wvw) even if it is sometimes necessary simply because they have different standards of what it qualifies to be efficient. But I don’t like walking into a different game mode to find my mechanics have changed, it makes mental awareness that much harder to follow (usually I KNOW when reveal is going to wear off for pve/wvw, but often I mess up and “stealth” while still revealed in pvp.) Not suggesting removing the 4 seconds from pvp, but I don’t like having back of the mind timers scrambled like that especially for a class that is so unforgiving for mess ups.

Only build that is “op” is d/p SA troll builds. Reason I use quotation marks is because it’s only op to those who dunno what to do against them but sit there like a duck and wait for them to pop out. Simple solution that wouldn’t harm thief? Max stealth duration, 15 seconds. Stealth should be tactical, not something you cower in until you’re full hp again. But I can’t entirely blame them for doing so, thief defenses are rather weak outside of SA and in overwhelming odds it’s much more difficult for a thief to survive if they are focused and have no stealth access vs having it.

1 second makes little to no difference in wvw. Pvp maybe, things tend to be close quarters and often quick but wvw is open and unpredictable.

Thief isn’t op, OP. It’s a learning curve that people are either lazy or selfish to learn. When playing against other players there are multiple things to learn.

Too many conditions? Bring condi clear/negation.
Too many stuns? Bring a stun breaker.
Too many evasions? Bring lock-down abilities like immobilize, and cc.
Too much damage? They prolly die in seconds, out smart them.
Too much stealth? WELL, you could, _______ (multiple suggestions, varies by profession and build).

Problem is stealth counters aren’t obvious, they are learned by playing the game. Most people rather just get a 1200 aoe reveal for 20 seconds and call that a fair buff to their class to deal with thieves, because they don’t care to L2P. It’s a sad truth, most people aren’t interested in working on kills. I can bet that atleast 80% or more of main-thieves rarely run into troubles when playing against other thieves. Why? Because they know what to expect and how their things work.

Thief isn’t broken, and stealth isn’t broken (which btw Mesmer has). It’s the ability to ask questions and learn that is absent.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

hunnybun.1380:

Hmm I just tested this in AC with my 20/20/15/0/15 warrior and my 0/30/15/15/10 thief and the thief damage felt much lower.
Two things I approximated from the big numbers:
War GS autoattack ~ Thief pistol whip
War 100 Blades > Thief heartseeker even on bosses with <50% hp

Does thief have to go full zerk to outdps a warrior? Because then I’d have to give up thief style points (ie +1 to stealth, dodge refund, stealth revive)

Oh and I ran with a new player team that didn’t stack much might b/c I didn’t want to join an exp run with my nube thief…

Well… you are comparing two builds that are far outside the meta. If you compared the 30/25/0/0/15 warrior and the 30/30/0/0/10 Thief you will find that the Thief has superior DPS.

And to answer a point from earlier, there are almost no places where you can’t get the flanking/backstab bonuses. And the few places where you can’t? Those are the places where you will be picking up a Fiery Greatsword, which combined with Improvisation trait you will have the top dps in the game, period.

LOL @ improvisation trait. Last thing I’m going to trait for is something I can’t even make on my own.

1. Black powder bomb, 40 second cooldown
2. Black powder shot + HS (the infamous d/p)
3. CnD on contact
4. on steal if traited
5. on rez if traited (poor decision if traited)
6. Shadow refuge if they remain in the aoe for the duration, otherwise they are revealed
7. SB #2 on a smoke field from either smoke screen or bps (assuming no targets are hit)
8. When they hit 25% health, 90 second cooldown (aweful trait though)
9. Hide in shadows healing skill, 30 second cooldown
10. Miscelanous traits such as instinctual response, decent of shadows.
11. Various stolen skills, such as throw tuft/feathers, etc.

Oh and btw stealth =/= invincible. The number of stealth skills we have has 0 relation to our ability to out class others, thief is dangerously overrated it’s just new players and players who are just starting wvw/pvp don’t quite grasp it yet.

Arganthium.5638:

We should make a list of the threads where serious nerfs are, in fact, called for.

For instance:

Steal
Consume Plasma
Whirling Axe
Skull Fear
Throw Gunk
Ice Shard Stab
Mace Head Crack

Stealth
Revealed on miss/block/blind/obstruct/etc

Weapon Skills
Backstab
Black Powder

Weapon Sets
Sword/Dagger (2)

I had no idea throw gunk was op. May the gods frown upon us, for hiding such secrets…

What: Evasion
Why: thief can avoid damage while evading, its not fair.
suggestion: give them wheelchairs, it’s harder to evade in a wheel chair.

Carpboy.7145:

Honestly if they just split it it would be much better. Pre hit PW, IS, PW->IR. youd get way more hits of it in than before.

It has potential if the time frame to activate the flurry was appropriate. You can bypass the stun a lot easier than Infiltrator’s strike, and it lasts longer. Tbph I think a split would be a buff if you were capable of maintaining the split skills.

Dagins.5163:

khadorian.6417:

i think they should just buff it to more bleed. else there is no condition damage build for melee

Thieves have no viable condi build for pvp not because their bleeds cause not enough damage, but because they rely only on bleeds. They have no spammable sets of different condis to cover them, not to mention no access to burn, which is a very powerful damaging condi.

Let’s hope venom (and trap) rework will come soon, so thieves can at last start playing around condis for real.

They just need to add more viable sources of poison for dagger skills. You can trait for DA to apply poison on steal, and you can use dagger aa but it’s just not easily reapplied to do any pressure. Dagger aa poison is almost non-existent for how short it lasts (and you can’t sit there and aa forever), and dagger has 2 useless skills both for power and conditions.

DD is a short cripple, even if against say a ranger and it bounces back to them from their pet, the damage is weak, and it’s slow causing it to miss far too much. DB is predicatable, the evade is near impossible to work with, and it travels to short of a distance to where people can just kite away from you and avoid the hits by natural movement. Poison and bleeds are enough for a thief condi build to be viable, we can cover the rest up with cripples, vulnerability, torment, blind, etc. Thieves don’t need burn to be strong, we just need more efficient ways of applying and reapplying damaging conditions.

Full venom share, you would go 30/x/30/x/x and focus on your survivability. Assuming your small group is good to stay close together or your venoms are being wasted. In larger scale same deal, it comes down to group comp and coordination to work together because venom share has several vulnerabilities such as weaker condi clear, evasion (compared to normal thief builds), and lack of stability. These things need to be in your party, or you will get separated and whither.

If you rather go part venom share and focus on singling targets out, you can try other methods. I’ve found playing thief you can’t dip only 1 foot into a build, you have to dive in with both feet or it’s just not effective enough to be worth the party spot. SOME venoms bring nice utility to the table (like DV BV and Spider) that don’t require such a large investment to do their thing but keep in mind you’ll be playing closely to your allies. If you wana go venom share it isn’t just your skills going out there its your allies, so it adds a bit more multi tasking to take the full advantage of it.

Steal builds can be quote adaptive. You can go more utility, you cango with a condi build or power, the key is you go atleast 30 into trickery.

I only use steal builds in pvp, and my favorite 1 is 20/0/0/20/30. I ran 10/0/15/15/30 before but I strongly dislike the issues LR presents so I went for more damage and passive defenses. Also I dislike using stealth. Ill say its my favorite power build and makes fights rather interesting instead of blowing kittens up or just hiding over and over.

khadorian.6417:

I use it for apply bleed in condition build, is there a better way to add bleeds?

Caltrops from either utility or trait (uncatchable adept in trickery). I’ve used a d/d bleeder build in pvp LONG time ago. It was sad when I killed people, but occasionally I’d meet someone who knew what to do and it took little effort to keep me at bay. D/D bleeding builds are only for pve, it’s terribad everywhere else. For the sake of d/d they should bump the evade duration to .5 seconds, and change dancing dagger to something more useful. In the ascalonian fractal I know the dagger npc’s apply poison on that skill, something that would make p/d and d/d condi builds much better.

Your 2nd build, is closer but you still have some ways to go. For starters, power shots is aweful especially for hybrid. It only increases raw dmg, not the condition effects, which for a bleeder is no bueno. You already have sb, and acrobatics, there is no need for assassin’s retreat ever. Mobility is not something you are lacking, since you’re using withdraw you’re better off with VR for the extra evasion or Power of inertia if you want extra dmg.

Also I’d swap initial strike for uncatchable if you find your initiative pool is doing alright. You have d/x which helps proc it quicker but if your goal is to keep initiative up so you can use death blossom for bleeds, you’re better off getting hard to catch which can proc 4 bleeds in it’s duration. Between your dagger aa and feline grace you should be able to dodge quite often and get both death blossom and uncatchable bleeds stacking real high. Also DB dodge lasts 1/4 seconds, while your normal dodge lasts much longer and offers the same bleed pressure. If you have any issues with conditions, you can always pick up pain response in acrobatics over hard to catch (another bad trait).

Neoheart.2750:

NinjaEd.3946:

13 days left guys, come on now, don’t lose hope so suddenly.

And pve nerfs are not all that important or common. If anything they nerf or buff an encounter, I can’t recall any nerf that was specific to pve for thief.

Yea but the issue people have (someone posted above) which nerf’s is that they are across the board. Take the pistol whip 15% dmg nerf from a while back. That was 15% less damage period. So, because it was considered “OP” against players thieves were left with 15% less damage in dungeons etc. At the time this made thieves less viable and fed the whole “go zerk war or go home” attitude that we all know and love.

Well if it was 15% I’m inclinded to say it was a good move, because I can get my pw in dungeons to cleave for 10-14k and im not even full zerker and it can be built to be near spammable for the duration of an encounter (LoS pulling). Issue is they aren’t nerfing other obvious “op pve skills” but again, pve balance is never going to exist. Their offices just have warriors running around and speed clearing, last time we saw anyone there play a thief he was dead 90% of the video.

Issue I see with this build is it’s a hybrid, and hybrid’s don’t threaten anyone when its a thief doing it. You have 3k attack, and 700 condi dmg. Assassin’s retreat is kitten aweful especially when you choose it over VR or even Power of inertia, p/p is not strong in any form and it’s even weaker when going hybrid.

As far as pve goes, you can really run anything as long as you are aware of the enemy encounters and what to expect in each stage. But don’t expect to be in groups for long running #3 spam of any kind.

13 days left guys, come on now, don’t lose hope so suddenly.

And pve nerfs are not all that important or common. If anything they nerf or buff an encounter, I can’t recall any nerf that was specific to pve for thief.