Guild Wars 2

crouze i applaud your enthusiasm but you have a few problems in your test hypothesis. cnd+bs is relative to opponent being mobile vs rooted.

also 25 stacks of might is very hard to maintain so i know you cant do many tests and keep that up for more than a few secs…thief can only get 22 might stacks max by self and not sure about warrior.

.4% dmg difference is less than 1% dmg difference and not worth mentioning unless you mean something else like 4% or idk.

IDEAS:

do 10 auto attack chains for each with full zerk gear no buffs. if each class has the same buffs the dmg goes up accordingly. average out the dmg per hit. hits per kill. pick a MOB in WVW or PVE so both dmgs can be correlated/compared.

drop all buffs. they are not needed as if the classes have the same base stats the dmg will be increased accordingly. %’s is what matters not total dmg.

Also using traits like 20% more dmg under 50% is one that each class has but in diff ways. just keep that out of it as it is a dmg modifier and isnt directly related to BASE dmg. base dmg tells you whom really does more dmg.

You use a thief combo to mix in your results and not a warrior combo like SOR and the 2 KDs plus the 2 whirls i always see them do. since you did not do this you will have skewed results and must start over.

most importantly you must do more than theory craft. i had a guy in my guild claim i was doing 20k backstabs in my video on a naked person. so then i made another video of a naked person and i was doing 67.5k dmg. sore loser he was but anyway.

anyway point is:

STEP 1—-Ask a Question
STEP 2—-Do Background Research
STEP 3—-Construct a Hypothesis
STEP 4—-Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
STEP 5—-Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
STEP 6—-Communicate Your Results

EDIT: also test more than once.

if you are HS spamming then you might like executioner better….or if maybe you are a duo roamer then yes. or if u are rampagers gear with rampagers accs and precision runes you with sigil of accuracy on and signet of agility equiped

winning is not about killing blows. if ur playing one kind of a build over another it requires certain skills. hidden killer will always outdmg executioner on a backstab build. if you are on a sword build not using big strikes then id say ur right. factoring in heals….. and all you will get more overall dmg in a fight from hidden killer…GRANTED you are using a backstab build.

yeah this happens alot. any roll skill on thief does this. both i should say. also they are BOTH 50% underwater now incase anyone noticed the shortened distance on them! wtf….only withdraw was in the notes. kitten anet

build is great but sucks against aoe classes and needs more condi removal. take out mug for condi removal in SA

is this 0 in trickery? srry to ask but hate when people put 4/5 traitlines for a build. hard to read when quicklyu skimming. just a thought.

need more stealth option and stunbreak. no need for venoms as they suck here unless u r dueling then you want poison venom.

they should all happen regardless of choosing a target. they also might let it be like a shadowstep so wehn u steal you just go forward 900-1500 in any direction.

frans.8092:

Travlane.5948:

frans.8092:

Zerbo.5381:

Travlane, you’re the first player I’ve ever heard of who not only likes this trait, but also regularly uses it in his build.

It happens, I’ve never been bugged by Last Refuge

well…challenge me to a fight on any non thief player…ull see then (only reason non thief is bc itll be a draw otherwise if 2 good players.)_

Why? You like Hard-To-Catch, I have not been bugged by Last Refuge and other people dislike both. What’s there to prove with a challenge? You like them, or you don’t.

true but he was using it in the wrong way. d/d condi evade is amazing build. just not amazing in wvw. every build/skill has better areas of use. everyone who has used my build LOVES this trait. now thakittens on 30 secs it;ll save life even more

i tried sb for all its worth yesterday in wvw again.. (and i made a dreamer ages ago bc i LOVE shortbow as it was FAIR and BALANCED even though anet is dum dums :P) but i could NOT make it work. just too short ranged to be able to say “yep i need that on my 2ndary weapon” . i mean yeah you can use it in 3 v 3 or less but thats not common enough to say this is worth taking. that range helped keep larger groups at bay. anet you fail. people are quitting :/ im close

PS sword/dagger is ONLY good for high direct dmg

hence why 0 0 30 30 10 builds are more like p/d condi builds or MAYBE a d/d condi evade build.

p/d is only good for direct dmg now bc of poison nerf

d/d is the only build that can kinda play both although the condi build for it sux bc its owned by any AOE player and non direct condi appliers.

yeah….itll be mediocre bc of ur direct dmg. unfortunately ANET hasnt done whakittens said yet “increasing base dmg of thief and increasing its mobility” yet they have nerfed both. they want to increase our base dmg bc of this problem u just stated….. bc thief direct dmg is so directly related to trait point allocation. i know ur prolly waiting for some good player to make a build for you “what it sounds like” but the fact is 99.9% of all theoretical builds have been tested and is why you havent heard of them….bc they suck.

if you put all zerk gear on with zerk accs and zerk runes and zerk jewels and zerk weapons AND you have 30 30 0 0 10 for highest max dmg traits in game (my personal build for highest possible backstab) then lets say you deal X damage per hit on average.

now lets keep all the same armor weapons etc all zerk zerk zerk etc etc and lets trade the points to 0 0 10 30 30 and now we are doing only 45-50% of what X was on our original build above.

so 50% of our dmg is literally coming from traits….. i have done hypothesis tested and proven for this by taking 2 videos showing each and averaging 10 coyote kills per build and averaged them out to hits per kill per build and dmg per hit per build. its literally double from the difference in traits.

what does this mean? this means as a thief we cannot afford to go more than 10 here and there in the defensive/condition lines unless we want a HUGE cut in overal dmg. unfortunately they put steal/stun stuff in condi line which is kinda useless as nobody in condi needs stuns….. direct dmg likes/needs stuns so we can do more direct dmg. but who is going to sacrifice 50% dmg for an extra 1-2 sec stun and 7 seconds off steal recharge and maybe a few free boons? do you think that will add up to the 50% dmg you lost? NO. but you will get 3k extra hp or so roughly but again no matter how you are armroed that HP will only help you last a lil…not put down your enemy. you have lil chance of beating a heal ranger/guardian/ele with this build and a necro would own it too most likely but hey….might be good in a asupport group? idk prolly not.

hope this helps.

@draygo….with old shadow return or shadowstep or steal yes….inclucding infil strike

frans.8092:

Zerbo.5381:

Travlane, you’re the first player I’ve ever heard of who not only likes this trait, but also regularly uses it in his build.

It happens, I’ve never been bugged by Last Refuge

well…challenge me to a fight on any non thief player…ull see then (only reason non thief is bc itll be a draw otherwise if 2 good players.)_

Grimwolf.7163:

They should change it to just a very short range shadowstep + stealth. Like Mesmer downed state short.

wont work …still will be in the local AOE effects.

JakobGW.5730:

Stompy.1387:

almost every player you played against was extremely bad. Just as an example, take a look at the first two players you killed. Did neither of them even have a stunbreak?

Archon.6481:

Anyways, you probably shouldn’t put the 1v1s where you insta gib people who don’t know what they’re doing. Anyone can kill a bad player who walks into pvp without a stunbreak.

First, S/D doesn’t “insta gib”, you should know that as a backstab D/D thief, Archon. :P
Second, the video is for fun, it’s not to show how skilled I may be or how bad my enemies are. The quick kills are in the video to simply run with the theme of the video and the song that’s playing at the beginning. The longer fights are later. Maybe someone will watch the video and pick up a part of my play style that they integrate into theirs.

purgatoryz.6038:

Post that build/gear!

You’re correct. I run 0/30/0/0/30 with the remaining 10 points placed wherever I feel like that day. Sometimes I trait Mug, sometimes I reduce the cool downs on my deception skills. What’s important are the traits that make up the heart of the build: First Strikes, Executioner, Lead Attacks and Hastened Replenishment.

I don’t have health regeneration, nor do I have endurance replenishment. The build focuses on constant movement and position manipulation, with the ability to be where I want to be at any given time.

Armor is mostly berserker with some valkyrie mixed in.

Travlane.5948:

lyssa runes =are horrible
until they make them 10 secs long.

As to this discussion: I use either divinity runes or lyssa runes depending on how I feel that day. You’ll see that I use both sets in the video. Lyssa runes don’t just give you every single boon for 5 seconds. They actually accomplish a lot more than that.
1. They increase your critical chance by approximately 6%.
2. They increase your condition duration by 10%, which combined with 10 points in DA, equals 20%. With my utility set up and my constant Infiltrator Strikes, this bonus is very helpful for all my immobilizes.
3. I get a random boon for 10 seconds every time I use my heal which is on a 15 second cool down. The only boon that doesn’t help a ton is might, and I love it when I get 10 seconds of either stability, fury, retaliation, or protection.
4. It’s extremely beneficial to have stability for 5 seconds when I use Basilisk Venom just before using Infiltrator Strike. This ensures I don’t get dazed, stunned or knocked down right after porting to my target. (You’ll notice the very first victim in the video has a pet that attempts to knock me down but is unsuccessful due to the stability/aegis buffs from Lyssa.)
5. Basilisk Venom also becomes a complete condition remover on a 45 second cool down.

Simply looking at the 6th bonus of gaining all boons for 5 seconds ignores all the other benefits they bring. I like using them on occasion to change things up.

runes of the ogre will outdo lyssa all day long. rockdog will crap all over the tiny tickle extra you getfrom lyssa. the best thing u get from lyssa is aegis :P. u COULD get lucky with the random boon on heal tho …maybe protection/stability…..10 secs aint bad for that. but the elite one es no bueno maaaaaain! lol. i run condi removal on a stick for all my builds unless im over 20k base then i have other options but still :P

oh and btw tripwire/immob trap do hit more than 1 person im pretty sure. ill double check to make sure tho

charges…meaning tripwire can trip up to 3 times if triggered 3 separate times? i would like to see that. could def make them viable. traps are fine bythemselves but just need a few charges each. or 20 sec cooldowns.

Dagraan.2854:

bobross.5034:

whelp the original post here is a bit out of date since the latest nerf. So again, QQers rest easy…the thief is finally squashed….

My favorite complaint about thieves is how they always get away…and it’s not fair, they should just die when they’re supposed to. Nevermind that base health is 10k, and the armor is paper. Never mind that 2 hits from your tanky build brought that thief down to 20%, it should’ve stuck around for that third hit, and since it didn’t it’s OP.

As Craig pointed out, other classes can be quite survivable as well, even when specc’d glass. The difference is that if you go against a guardian and can’t bring him down to 80%, after a while, you give up and decide wow, that was a good match. If you go against a decent thief, you may land a few blows on them, but if you bring them down to 20% and get away, you say…aww, I should’ve won that one and the OP’d thief got away!

So the issue here is really psychology. In one case you hit the guy 20 times and barely do a dent, so he must be a good player. In the second case you hit the guy 5 times, nearly kill him and then he gets away, so that’s unfair.

The whole reason thieves have such low health is because we have so many survival skills, it’s the reason you can be outplayed by thief, and still feel like you should’ve won. Just remember, if the thief isn’t downed, or running away from you, you haven’t won.

i know you’re not using theifs low hp and medium armor as a argument strategy, have you forgotten the 1 class thats even weaker? its called an elementalist, lowest base hp and armor, but do they still have their mobility despite how they’re even weaker than theives? do theives have a boot in their kitten punishing them for using the shortbow 5 without hitting something or heartseeker not hitting something? no, it doesnt use double initiative, it isnt put on a CD, its range wasn’t nerfed.

don’t try to bring up the bunker build either because theives have the same thing they have bunker builds to, with the same escapability except when a compentent group comes the theif isnt dead he just pops SR and goes halfway across the map before he finally reappears, if an ele tries that some theif can easily catch up to him.
and there will be no stop to QQ until pistol fives blind field no longer applies stealth.
why it hasn’t happened yet is beyond me.

oh god. TRADE me any day all your ele buffs/skills for medium armor. lol horrible HORRIBLE argument here.

ELE:
earths embrace : armor of earth (automatic trigger 50% HP)
protection 4-5 seconds everytime u gain an aura
cantrips = regen/vigor.
remove condi per attunement switch water
arcane shield around you at 25% hp
when attuning gain 1 might/swift/protection/regen
create blind or churning earth or flame blast or cleansing wave every dodge
Attunement bonuses linger for 5 seconds.
Regenerate health while attuned to water.
Heal nearby allies when attuning to water.(including self)
Gain 1 toughness per level while attuned to earth. =80

0 0 20 30 30 build. full zerk armor. more toughness and armor AND heals and pretty good dmg too. thief cant compare man :P this isnt even the best build just a random one i pulled up quick

heres others i didnt put in:

Gain regeneration for 10 seconds when you are attacked while under 25% health.
Gain toughness while using a channeled skill.
Grant stability (2s) to nearby allies when attuning to earth.
Dodge rolling removes burning and chilled. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)
Take 50% less damage from falling. Create a spell when you take falling damage, based on your attunement.
Fire: Ring of Fire
Water: Cleansing Wave
Air: Static Field
Earth: Earthquake
Mist Form, Frost Bow, and Signet of Water grant 6 seconds of regeneration. Damage and inflict chill and vulnerability to nearby foes while in mist or vapor form.
Remove a condition when granting regeneration to yourself or an ally.

all options within the same build…… also eles have all this on a stick …meaning they do it alot throughout a short period of time. thieves only have one decent heal and thats the trait in grandmaster SA line. just not a comparison….armor of earth….acane armor …protection….33% less dmg is basically turning a ele into a guardian. thief has no defensive boons…ele has stability protection on demand pretty much. god forbid they use lyssa runes etc.

trade me any day

Master of Timespace.2548:

Travlane.5948:

Dagraan.2854:

Incurafy.6329:

Craig.2403:

Alex.6940:

Do damage numbers appear in your combat log if you hit someone in stealth?

No, but if it is a chain attack, you will notice the chain progress. Also, if the skill has a visual effect that takes place on the target (most noticeable is ranger’s entangle, which leaves binding roots on the target) it will appear where the thief is, letting you know where the thief was when that skill hit the thief.

99.9999% sure that they do show up in the combat log.

hits don’t show up in the combat log when you hit a stealthed enemy, iv’e tried it before when trying to fight some perma stealth thief, and no standing in the blind field will not get you hit by their heartseeker, especially if they have the speed signet and the trait to give 50% more speed in stealth and since heartseeker is a leap its affected by it.
they’ll just jump right past you and not to mention the mobility they have means you’ll need another theif just to have a chance to get to the blind field in time, and even if he does hit you all he has to do is evade and pop shadow refuge or the heartseeker spam over the blind field again.

i have 6 accounts including a thief and i have never, ever hit something mid leap with the heartseeker, and the middle of the blind field is “mid leap”

when its said you hit somebody mid leap…. i think its when you jump from point a to point b there is a guy right between them even tho you jump past him you still hit him as you land on point b. this is quite common and happens to me all the time. if i stand in BPS you will break their invis withing 2.5 seconds guaranteed unless they use a heal/utility. also swing wildly inside of it :P

It doesn’t hit. I have played d/p enough to tell you can fairly easily avoid hitting someone who stands in the field, even if it slighlty slows down the stealth chaining process. And I’m not a very good d/p thief. Anyway, often I just backstab those who stand in the blind field.

hrm you can try avoid it if ur start the jump close to him but if hes half way or more thru your jump and in line u will hit him i could make a video of it :P

Sarrow.2785:

Deniara Devious.3948:

Two conditions got buffed in the last patch: namely weakness and blind.

Thanks for elaborating, though I disagree.

I would argue that those two effects on the shortbow getting buffed, don’t result in an overall improvement to the weapon. For starters, the blind on #5 simply isn’t actively used – not defensively or offensively. You don’t want to waste 6 ini getting into melee range with a ranged weapon, and when escaping, you want to shadowstep away from your enemy, gaining ground, not across him, losing ground. Further to this, often the blind only seems to trigger on the end point of your #5, at least in my experience.

As for weakness, the nerf to Lotus Poison leaves clusterbomb is the only means to consistently generate it. This by itself is a nerf as you now need to waste more ini to stack weakness whereas previously a choking gas+AA did a great job of this with the bouncing arrows. Combine this with the range nerf on cluster and the fact that blast fields cannot overlap in group combat and this is even harder to do reliably. Previously, simply laying choking gas would generate good amounts of weakness, despite any other fields in the way. When the field timed out you simply dropped another one. Now with the lotus poison nerf, all enemies will get a 20 second immunity to your weakness.

Finally, your comment about the clusterbomb range nerf: putting weaponset range comparisons aside, as we can only guess about this, frankly I don’t care what kind of obsessive-compulsive person nerfs a weapon set so all the abilities have exactly the same range. At the end of the day, Anet made a rarely mained weaponset even less viable. This was after the nerf to z-axis shadowsteps, which severely reduced the viability of the secondary mobility shortbow also. If a weaponset is balanced in how it performs practically in game, you don’t fiddle around with the aesthetics of its range.

i agree. the only real buff we got (excluding traits) was to steal. the rest of the buffs to skills utilities or weapons are just irrelevant/hurtful/nonsense…..we only got one helpful buff and thats to steal. (some cool trait stuff but nothing gr8)(

Sarrow.2785:

Deniara Devious.3948:

Unlike most people on these forums I can see the logic behind the cluster bomb range nerf,

Would you mind elaborating on that?

I agree that SB could use some changes. Suprise shot has always been great in shortbows role as a support/secondary weaponset but vulnerability would help set up burst. My feeling is shortbow needs some better condi damage. Cover condis are all well and good, but without geomancy swap sigils, it doesnt out anything out worth cleansing.

Travlane.5948:

very close but p/d is a lil higher. its a VERY good build.

You know, I’d love to get more observations on weaponsets, ie from tpvp or other servers. I like P/D too but I jusy dont see many about. It’s tempting to give it another go after this update. But Last Refuge! OMG…

when i go into a duel with p/d (against non thieves / troll builds) i always end up betting most of the time i will win with 90% hp or more….elite or no elite used. i win 90% of these bets. guy today ended up switchinhg from guardian to necro to engineer to find a way to beat me. just had no chance. p/d is very underrated but only bc it draws against d/p bc of its supreme condi removal. any other class that is running a supreme condi removal has 0 chance of beating 90% of the builds out there so dont have to worry about that as you can literally just run away without using 1 skill bc they wont have enough dmg to touch you (i run near 23k hp) if somebody is using a build to win and not just troll p/d is amazing. if u trait / run it well weapons armor accs etc.

this is a really good skill. n ot great but really really good. more so in pve/wvw as there is more room and you can get its total use. ok so when a zerg comes up usually the first thing they do to a thief is disable you bc running/escaping is kind of our forte so to speak. (spelling?) this skill has saved me so many times i cant count on my p/d bleed build. especially on those kitten ed 3 sec knockdowns or stuns etc. for every 10 times it saves me 1 time it will cause a port on a stomp but thats bc i was stunned anyway…either way it costs me 2 seconds of time max and is usually not a huge deal bc i invis for stomps and aoe blind etc. just not using it in the right builds/places. if u bring this in spvp you prolly dont have the right build and bc of its distance you cant capitalize on its value. also breaks your targets target so they have to reclick you. again …run this in wvw/pve you will love it espeically paired with stealth or Shad Step or inf strike or shadow returns or infil signet etc etc. really helps you get around. have fun.

@dpkwan. i think what the OP is saying is much different than what you are talking about. you may have seen some neat tricks/bugs in your day but obv havent seen a hacker thief. so the OP is either the greatest of nub thieves in the world or he met a hacker. they are far and few between. i have only seend like 6 maybe 7 since release….atleast of this type of hacker. they dont blink out and go far or infil strik you. they blink 20x in 8 seconds in a circle around you or in a line or a zig zag…..however they wish. they dont strike you much …more of a troll hack. they had more of these back in the earlier stages of gw2 when orbs were in play. back then they would use this same hack to teleport with the orb all the way to the north to place it….. instantly with out using a WP. so again ud have to say the OP is a nub/tard/noob etc or he saw a hacker.

@stooperdale. that would be a cool aspect. wouldnt be OP ….i mean vvvvvvvvvery few places you can aggro more than a couple at a time and they dont hit that hard/fast anyway. even if it did work u would face them too if u lost stealth within range. very dodgeable and bringing monsters to an enemy is actually helping them so i wouldnt recomend it at all lol. its an easy rally for them or basically lets them take a beating on ground while dealing dmg to your HP total then getting revived upon monster kill and getting +25% hp or 33% whatever it is. wouldnt recomend it :P

Yamsandjams.3267:

I believe I’ve seen some sort of hack where a person will just blink short distances while running. No skill uses or anything, they’re just constantly teleporting short distances while running.

Now if a thief went into stealth, they could do this while not being observed.

However, unless you were specifically seeing them blink around without using skills, then it probably wasn’t a hack. some thieves can be built for perma stealth and mobility quite well.

this is another one. ive seen this on a lvl 10 thief lol. blinks like a mesmer and spams it 100x in a row.

eh. PW is still garbage. PVE is kinda useable. not enough dmg tho really. i mean yeah you can hit 8k but you can hit 8k in 1/8th of the time with d/d so whats the point? PW is garbage. the increase is barely noticeable too.

lyssa runes are actually reallllllly bad. :P i mean the elite boons buff for 5 secs is basically 1 hit and u rarely get teh block from aegis used :P better using any number of others.

yeah . guardian is my 2ndary. amazing support in zergs. DMG boons heals KDS aegis. guardians are teh best glass overall in the game. period.

Clumsy.6257:

thats hardly a hack, its called d/p, incredibly easy to maintain perma stealth (unless some1 stands in your black powder) and simply shadow step away and steal to an ambient and boom 1.8k to 2.4k distance away in less than 1 second

not an idiot lol. if u dont see the small red circle for BPS or see them do a hand movement to initiate stealth then its almost assuredly a hack. its rare to see this but i see it maybe once a month.

i like how he says roaming bc if i zerg i use my guardian. ahha plz read this anet. this is what thief does and nothign else :/ fix us.

are we complaining abuot 5 precision?

pretty much covers the roughest points.

forgot a few key ones i think are important:

distance on cluster bomb

stun break on shadow return

withdraw/RFI underwater distance (key to staying alive)

lyssa runes =are horrible
until they make them 10 secs long.

99,999,999 to 1 its a hack. it seems like anet gets ahold of these players bc i never see them more than once each so i guess they get banned fast.

if u are a good/great thief and u cannot do what they did then its a hack. ive seen it before. they blink in stealth withouth making any movements. CND BP BPS-HS HIS SR Shadow Trap….these all have animations. so the only way its not a hack is if all of your computers are slow as kitten and couldnt stop lagging to see the animations.

DUAL pistols you mean* @ OP

the trap CAN be strong…WHEN it actually works right. but i can risk dropping something that works 100% for osmething thats 50% on a good day. too risky.

well its like saying body shot got buffed….kinda but not really. if u get something a 1 sec buff from 10 secs to 11 …technically its a buff…but relaly its not. onlythign that got buffed is death blossom and steal related stuff. and a few traits. onlything major was steal.

yeah we just reek of cheees in pve :P

OIIIIIO.7825:

I will say I read OP and skipped all the rest so pardon if this has been said.

SB did get nerfed, however it came with several trap buffs

Corrosive Traps – Trait (longer Vulnerability)
Shadow Trap – Really good. I suggest using it as a long range Stunbreker/ Teleport

I also played in the SOAC Tournament yesterday with Shadow Trap in sPvP and I will assure you of how wonderful it is

vulnerability sux for thief :P ….wpould u really take out shadow refuge for corrosive trap?

shadow trap rarely has worked right once for me on uses that have objects in way or elevations. would u really take out blinding powder (offensive and defensive utitlity) for this?

no to both of them. srry its a fail. VERY good concept on shadow trap. but since they nerfed the pathing on all shadow steps its a fail. my shadow step cannot like 1 step on a set of stairs infront of me. tahts pathetic.

Yasi.9065:

Just remembering this guardian chain-dieing while lecturing the rest of the group on the evils of zerker gear.

You dont survive “a couple of hits” with thief anyway. The difference is about one hit. Yes, I actually tried this because people kept on telling me how I need defensive gear and build to survive warriors in asca fractal. Total nonesense. I died just about as fast as with zerker gear, until I started using my skills correctly, then I didnt die with zerker gear.

yup. u can use knights or carrion. u will basically only survive 2 MAYBE 3 hits more in pvp but in pve dungeons etc its only saving you 1-2 seconds of life if that. thief doenst matter what armor/traits you have they go down fast. which makes me wonder why more people dont go offensive in pvp. so many bunkers…and outlasting with boon hate and stealth is a game we accel at but only in very small scenarios.

effective thieves squabble on the outskirts of fights being annoying and taking out wounded sheep/weak players in wvw. in spvp its too early to say how bad/good s/d still is bc its only been short of 2 days. generally our only effectiveness is in 2 v 2 or 1 v 1 fights. anything larger and we move back and kind of wait for our fight …which is cool in the assassin sense but at the same time we are getting nerfed bc of it even tho it has an extremely small effect on the game. so im asking for a written explanation of where/how we are effective outside of 1 v 1.

this guy here has a decent build….exemplifying the best of what anet buffed and its a build that is very good 1 on 1 bc i personally ran a variation of it and did extremely well excluding against 1 certain build but thats bound to happen.

95% of the time this is what happens in wvw/spvp. notice how this video DOES NOT cut and only choose the 1 out of 8 fights he did well in. most of the time the thief goes down fast. i have had strectches were i have downed 8+ players in a row several times but when its 3 v 3 theres way to much incidental contact for squishy thieves with you defense. excuse me extremely low defense.

hate to offer a stealth fix on my own thread thats more about direction/purpose of nerfs but what about a 2 sec max stealth but a 100% total mobility/speed buff. so you are running 2x faster than normal out of combat running but only while in stealth for 2 secs max (3 if traited) and then you have to wait 5 seconds to reenter stealth (4 secs if traited) and you also got a 1 sec cripple condition when leaving. i mean its an idea. they could do things like this easily then we could maybe get our dmg back up a lil or mobility back up.

sorrow.2364:

Shemsu.8721:

So either have fun playing the class who’s style you like or be effective? Is it really so wrong to actually want all classes to be effective, so we can play the ones we like? I have to disagree with you both, i want to have fun and be effective, not choose one or the other

Point is that thief is effective.
People still fear thieves and they still have tough times against.
There are also some people left who still think that thief is still OP.

What is your source to saying thief is not effective?

Your experience?
What people say in the forums?

i dont mind if u wanna troll or hate on thieves or say that the new QQers on nerfs are wrong . but when u say something just like elaborate a lil.

thief is effective you say? go on explain? how and where? to what effect? keep in mind the goals/point of each mode (PVE TPVP SPVP and WVW) basically id like to hear this explaination outside of a roaming sense.

my thoughts: thief are VERY ineffective. we had a role as bunker busters but now that init cost is higher on LS….which i guess i cant totally argue with…although i think its kitten backwards bc FS is 3 which does little and LS is 2 which does ALOT more effect. and also lost stun break so even tho thats major we can still function in a 1 on 1 …not as well but soon as 3+ come that s/d build is in trouble.

@kyrion i never thought of that. u sure it works like that? ive never seen it.

Huygens.4075:

Authority.6145:

Would be nice if someone posted changes with S/D, preferably for TPvP.

I listened to Jumper discussing the patch notes on Blu’s stream. It sounded like his build was staying pretty much the same.

the stun break loss is killing the build. calling it now. 1 v 1 u can still kinda get by but anything too big you lose alot of mobility bc ur stun in a certain place. eles/warriors/guardians can all knock u down/back and mesmers pull/push too. so all these things really hurt when u lose your main stunbreak.

yeah i wish anet would make a video or adress some of the common concerns as they are about to be losing a % of player base. if they dont like thief fine just say so ….then their actions will match their verbal claims. so many of these nerfs are just a joke. i mean there MAY be stuff we dont know like adding in rifle to thief arsenal but prolly not so chacnes are they just hate they way they made us. i mean most of these just dont make sense like 50% distance on our 2 evade utilities underwater? welll ho about you add stealth on them instead? we die and suck and die and did i mention suck underwater?

Bull Zooker.1672:

have you got an effective p/d build lonewolfe? thats what I play on my thief just to be annoying and have fun.

annoying and have fun? i challenge any warrior…ranger…. just these 2 alone i will bet 100g i beat them with 90% hp or more. the rest can be done too with p/d. the only nemesis is another thief running the same or p/d bc of the invis condi removal which makes for a draw at worst. p/d owns :P its not just fun and annoying. i kill d/d eles (of the best sort) even those annoying heal rangers/guardians go down everytime.

sorrow.2364:

“Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.”

Design concept of thieves according to ANet. (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012/first#post999247)

I can’t see where ArenaNet said that Thief is supposed to be good at long range.
In that topic there are also listed which professions are supposed to be effective at long range but, as you can see, thief is not one of those.

They aren’t supposed to be a Cluster Bomb turrets. If you want to get free badges when attacking or defending a castle, either build and use an Arrowcart, or change profession to another which is supposed to do the WvWvW turret, like Elementalist, Ranger, Necro or Engineer.
If all the professions should have all the same capabilities, why can’t I roam with my Necro as I do with my Thief?

Arkham Creed.7358:

To Sorrow: I wasn’t demanding anything. I was merely making a polite exit, and attempting to say goodbye to a subsection of the Guild Wars 2 community I’ve been with since beta, and who have given me tons of advice and words of encouragement over the last several months. But by your posts I can see the subtleties of tact, diplomacy, and manners are beyond you.

Well, to me, your topic sounds more like another rant than a goodbye.
If you wanted it to look like a goodbye, you should have wrote a different OP.

@sorrow just as much as you complain about thieves…..we people whom actually main thieves have the same right to complain to anet and give our feedback. anet actually wants forum threads like this so they understand what/how we feel and why. so when you say to stop complaining or ranting or QQing about a class who has 4x the amount of nerfs as everyone else…especially when 50% of them are for no seen reason… or even if people just want to say goodbye to thief profession/game let them. its their right.

also…….. anet says :

Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.

they kind of go against their goal…..we have had only 1 buff to mobility and a dozen nerfs to mobility :P….stealth got a debuff in spvp and so did our single target dmg which is now ranked 3rd total. we cant help thru traps or flanks…..venoms kinda but thats a click tthe venoms and might as well watch the fight.

so basically the only thing they said with any merit is venoms….and in combat mobility even tho we have more nerfs to it than anything which contradicts what they said about increasing our mobility.

evilapprentice.6379:

Travlane.5948:

d/p if played perfect will never lose to s/d…… and d/p has blinds for group play which is better than what sword does…..s/d doesnt do anything for group play other than being able to hit more than 1 target if they group up. p/d does the most for group play when running condi hp build.

S/D strips boon and splits attention – you either ignore the S/D thief teleporting around and stealing protection/stability/vigor/regen while doing solid DPS, or you attempt to engage, at which point the S/D thief teleports away/plays evasively effectively making that player waste his time. Bonus points if you become annoying enough to garner the attention of 2 or more players and waste their time.

D/P takes advantage of surprise and burst, S/D takes advantage of making players waste a disproportionate amount of resources attempting to deal with them.

i agree def but theres one thing you failed to mention….everything u said is in 2 v 2 or 1 v 1 or MAYBE 3 v 3. anythign larger and the aoe dmg/ccs/stuns own you espeically with that tiny bit of life with the high vulnerability squishiness. yes it works but if its 5 v 5 you are going to have an ele or necro or a hammer user etc. it will happen. now that we lost our stun break s/d is going to die unless you bring stealth as backup.