Something I find very annoying about the differences in coverage between servers is that in matches where one server has a strong presence in a different timezone, the match becomes very binary.
I’m on Crystal Desert – most of our WvW score comes during these off-peak hours where we dominate the entire map (depending on which guilds decide to come on). During the rest of the time (especially during NA peak hours), we kind of fight a very fast losing battle and have a bit of our borderlands and stuff.
In effect we are either losing really badly (not fun), or winning with no resistance (not fun either).
Well I’m not really sure what can be done short of matching servers with similar coverage against each other (which leads to other problems), but it is kind of an annoying issue.
My problem is where people aim to bring the OP specs in line. They want them down and they don’t care if the more balanced specs and are screwed over or changed into something completely different to do it.
This is the same with all classes though – for example when they nerfed evasive arcana way back when it always gave a blast finisher, that affected S/D as well, a weapon set that nobody has ever argued is overpowered.
I’m all for balancing only the OP specs, but this happens to everyone, not just thieves.
Well it is possible that thieves are not overpowered, assuming you take the best players and no lag/culling.etc
Thieves are extremely good at preying on people who have low to decent skill level. While the very best players can counter a thief (which may or may not be true, but that’s a different issue from the one below), most can’t.
Is this a problem? Many thieves like to argue that “L2P n00b, if the best players can counter thieves, why can’t you do the same?”
Let’s take a different scenario. I’m a dungeon master – would it be appropriate to raise ALL dungeons to the difficulty of, say, Arah P4? Of course not; just because I can complete a difficult dungeon doesn’t mean that all dungeons should be made equally demanding – the average player needs something to do or they will quickly leave the game. What I’m saying is that the game cannot be balanced around the bestest estest players, same as the way that monsters in fractal lv 1 don’t instantly 100-0 you
WELL JEEZ SINCE PEOPLE CAN DO FRACTALS LV 40 AND NOT DIE I DON’T SEE WHY IT SHOULDN’T BE THAT WAY FROM LV 1. What a valid argument.
Now back to the thief-L2P argument. Is it easy to Steal + CnD + Backstab? Yeah you’d have to be pretty dumb to not pull it off. How about spamming heartseeker? Even easier!
Now how do you counter this thief? Oh you just have to stun him, hope he doesn’t press blinding powder or shadowstep to get out, then do a lot of damage. Of course you need to dodge backstabs from someone you can’t even see. Hit the air and be a mind reader, predicting where the thief went. If they shadow refuge you’d better have some way to forcibly remove them from the circle or they will reset the fight.
Yes, the best players can do that. But can an average player? No. So why should thieves be able to destroy people who suck, even though the thief sucks as bad?
Sure you can argue that the game is balanced around the highest skill levels since it is a competitive PvP game that they are aiming for, and I’d have to agree with you on that point.
However when you see mostly thieves and bunker builds (to survive the thieves) in WvW, it might be a sign that balancing should be done around the masses, preferably in a way that doesn’t affect the top-end viability of thieves (should Anet decide that at the very highest levels of play, thieves are not OP).
TLDR: L2P is not a valid argument – thieves can suck and still dominate.
(edited by Sunflowers.1729)
It doesn’t matter how much of an amazing player I am – short of being a mind reader and following the +50% movespeed, infiltrator-arrow-spamming, dodge-roll-caltrop-deploying thief around hitting him, how are you supposed to kill one?
By using stuns/knockdowns/snares?
1) Glass cannon – this is unlikely as I’m probably already dead or at <50% health. Even the tankier thief builds have decent burst from stealth.
2) Bunker – I stun the thief and burst down a third of his health. He can just disappear and choose not to fight me.
3) Stun him and get your zerg to focus him down in .5 seconds. You just won a 20v1 that nobody can survive anyway. Congratulations (?)
In a massive zerg if we all decided to dogpile onto one poor bunker guardian, she would explode in about a second as well (minus the invuln from elite skill, if she can press it quickly enough). Yet of course this is the ‘proper’ way to counter a thief. Definitely balanced. Of COURSE thieves should be able to run around inside the enemy’s zerg without being killed.
See the problem is that thieves can fight who they want, all the time. Big zerg coming? No problem just shadow refuge and run away (BEFORE they reach you, obviously. If you are stupid enough to wait for them to be on top of you you deserve to run back from spawn).
Exceptionally strong dueling class? (see D/D elementalist, shatter mesmer, another thief.etc) Run away again! Hit your blinding powder and get out of there. Wow so they bursted you down super fast before you could press a button? Why not take some of that good ole thief advice and BUILD MORE TANKY? And before you complain that to instantly burst someone down you can’t devote too many stat points to survivability (which is true), this is a stupid argument because you can now burst them down too – why shouldn’t they be able to do the same in return?
Random low-level character/supporty person running around? I’ll just initiate on to you from somewhere and not stop until you die. I mean after all thieves are SUPPOSED to be 1v1 masters so they shouldn’t be able to escape, right?
Why not massively reduce their mobility while in stealth so it isn’t a free “Restart-this-fight” button? Staying in stealth for >2 seconds cripples you until you leave/get revealed or something along those lines. Mind you this is probably a little too much of a nerf.
And stop with the nonsense about this being what a thief should be able to do. The closest comparison to a thief is the D/D ele in the sense that they can always fight on their own terms, and Anet nerfed RTL.
In my opinion the problem with thieves comes in 2 parts
1) Thieves are just not fun to play against. Say what you want about all the ways to counter stealth, (e.g. attacking the air) – a decent thief will be able to escape most encounters that he is losing. And before you say to snare/cripple.etc him, remember that thieves have the most blinks in the game (Ride the Lightning/Burning speed doesn’t work when immobilized for example)
That’s not to say it isn’t effective – cc is the #1 cause of death when I play my thief. However what happens if you successfully immobilize any other class when they can’t sustain in the fight anymore? They die. Why should thieves be any different?
So basically if I win against a thief, they get away and I get to survive. No loot or anything. If they win I have absolutely 0 chance of getting away short of being a D/D elementalist or a nearby keep/allies. Then run all the way back from the spawn point. Kinda skews the risk/reward ratio doesn’t it? Of course this isn’t a problem in sPvP since the aim is to stand in the circle.
2) Thieves ARE overpowered. With the cheesy D/P build I find myself spamming 5-2-1 5-2-1 over and over again, and it works! Yeah so I have to walk behind the enemy and manage initiative, as well as use Hide in Shadows/Blinding Powder occasionally. Big deal.
Sometimes I come across really amazing players that would have destroyed me on my D/D elementalist or guardian or mesmer, and simply by spamming pistol 5 + heartseeker I can fight on even terms with them. So in my opinion – (at least) this thief build is overpowered. I don’t feel qualified to comment on the other weapon sets/builds as this is the one I use the most frequently.
I will say one thing though – the initiative system is too good for PvP. Being able to use any skill on demand provided you manage initiative properly, AND also being able to frontload damage so severely is really, really good. Yes I know it means you can’t just lolspam everything like an elementalist would, but initiative regens pretty fast anyway.
And to all the people that say thieves are only good in small encounters, this is a blatant lie. Sure you might need to switch out a few utilities (wow that’s so difficult), but the smoke wall is amazing with a low cooldown, cluster bomb is a spammable blast finisher (super high might/healing, anyone?), and of course you can just go behind their zerg and pick people off. Shortbow 4 poisons and leaves poison fields – reducing healing by 33%. Nothing comes close to a well timed Dagger Storm. That’s far from useless.
Also stop saying that 1v1 capability is useless for actually getting points. Something that I like to do is run around killing dolyaks. Nobody – at all – can kill me (unless you bring 5+ people, and even then I’ll probably stealth away) and this has a far greater effect on the score than running around with the massive zerg. Few classes can do this as effectively as the thief by the way.
Being able to delay the trickle of people from their spawn point is excellent for helping your zerg too.
TLDR; Thieves are OP (and I’ll gladly post a picture of my thief if you think I’m just making stuff up)
EDIT: By the way D/D elementalists have some of the same problems, and as you can see Anet nerfed them citing too much mobility with RTL. So don’t use them as an example of why thieves aren’t OP.
(edited by Sunflowers.1729)