Guild Wars 2

Smackjack.5071:

Red Falcon.8257:

Pradton.8576:

So Anet does the same blunder every other game with a stealth class does? They are “squishy” but can basically kill you in one or two hits. Why oh why did they not learn from the past?

They cannot kill you in a few hits if you stack armor.
Read my post above.

o please stop being so naft. So what you are suggesting is that everyone gives up their DPS in order to balance out the thief as a class.

Thief’s either spam 1 key 3 times or one shot.
Non glass canon thief’s need to spam 1 key 2 or 3 times (any other class capable of this is still considered a glass canon , go figure)

They work on a system completely different from all the other classes in the game
There is the problem right there

anet isnt just gonna scrap initiative cuz you think its broken. and the only spec for thieves that one shots is not the standard for thieves, everyone knows, even most thieves, that that spec needs addressing

at most you will see adjustments to the ini system but i wouldnt hold my breath on it ever leaving.

Daendur.2357:

ok, so remove the combo field part of the skill.
it is really useless like that.

im sorry “hypreventilates” i am. but you suggested probably the worse thing i could ever imagine.

it is our only dark field generator. you know wha tyou can do with that?

put it down, take out shortbow, shot thru it, now your arrows are healing you! put in cluster bomb, area blindness, you just blinded every enemy player in that radius.

HS thru it and blind a target, or cast dagger storm and all those daggers start healing you.

the skill isnt meant for you to really sit in it and be like “hur hur you cant find meh” you can use it to gain some quick stealth and a little heal, stealth and heal teamates, prevent stomping, aide in rezzing. you really shouldnt be standing in it doing nothing for its full duration.

moderator edit: This post has been edited to remove a violation of the forum code of conduct.

Isabis.9561:

When I saw how thiefs play at start, I thought “ehh, this looks like an alpha or beta of the final product, this profession must have something more than spamming one ability like all these thiefs do, I doubt this is all the profession has to offer” and then I tried one. I quickly realized it’s actually all I’ve got to do basically, spam the strongest ability most of the time.
Didn’t developers realize at some point while making the profession that this is clearly broken? If I was in a dev team personally, I’d immediately suggest to remake the profession playstyle if I saw this happening, wouldn’t everyone with common sense?

I’ve shown GW2 to a friend today and the first thing he noticed is how stupid the thief prof is designed, he said: “is this all? I just spam this strongest ability all the time and that’s the most effective way of dealing dmg, this is stupid”, I answered “yea, basically that’s it, u have this if u wanna stealth but it’s hard to hit, yadayada, but yea that’s basically it”.

I just can’t understand how did thief go live in this state, prof is so dull… Rangers aren’t much better either.

the idea is that because of our ini system our other abilities are used situationally as utility. i think D/D is a bit thin but D/P (and S/P) have head shot and black powder, two GREAT utility skills that i use quite often.

you know what happens when i face a thief that just “spams” there damage move on me? they die, every freaking time. even the backstab thieves with that stupid glass cannon build. they whif it and i laugh, cuz my reaction time is good enough to put down that black powder before they hit me with there teleport+backstab combo

it does have some issues, at face value its easy to spam

but honestly most classes are NOT the wonderous testaments to skill. sure things like elemental and some engineers have a good learning curve but a lot of classes its just cycling thru there best damaging abilities at the time, maybe hitting a bility that will buff the next one (oh wait thieves do that too lol)

thieves may have a low starting floor, but most classes arent much better, they just have Cds instead of ini.

now once you actually learn a thief, learn its weapon specs utility, outfit your utility skills with actual utility skills and not sigils. and you learn how to activate your own combo fields (poison, smoke, and dark) suddenly the “skill” required to play a thief shoots up. my weapon set has great utility and i have 4 different combo finishers (shortbow auto, shortbow blast, HS leap, and daggerstorm whirl) that i can use.

im not saying combo fields and finishers are exclusive to thieves, but i think they can create a combo and execute a finisher more readily then most classes, and it spices things up nicely.

Xhaiden.3891:

They really don’t require skill. I wish they did. They might be interesting then. There’s a glimmer of potential in them that could make for a very skillful class if it leaned more towards utility, position and deception. But as is they’re stupid easy to play and achieve success with. Anyone that says otherwise is frankly fooling themselves. Even without haste you can hit stupidly hard for little effort on your part and any trade off in squishiness is easily mitigated with stealth.

that last part, i keep seeing it. i admit, it can be mitigated with proper traits in the stealth line.

however just stealth itself (especially when its bugs/rendering issue are fixed) i just dont see it. it only works vs people with no awareness who tunnel (90% of hotjoin it seems), or people who think that cuz the target has dropped they ahve no non targetting attacks, or they specced such a way to give htem only single target abilities cuz they think they dont need any CC/aoe at all.

in which case it is the players choices that are at fault

now you could argue since apparently so many have these issues, that a nerf is needed to aid the lowest common denominator, but imo tha twill just turn this game into what wow is right now, no real individuality or choice.

you see the complaining about thieves having it? people acting like it shouldnt exist just cuz its different from the rest?

other classes are not even balanced for it, would require some serious changes.

Isabis.9561:

Also, speaking about downed state, rezzing is too powerful atm. Rezzing is way too fast and restores too much hp imo. You get that tanky guy down and you needed almost a minute to do it, then comes someone with stability and rezzes him in less than 5sec with almost half hp.
Actually, he doesn’t even need stability, one interrupt is enough to get him a rezz.

did they change something since i last was online? because a downed friendly takes a good bit more then 5 seconds for me to rez on my own…, 5 seconds might get me 1/4-1/3 of the rez

Oni.6841:

The problem with the thief, is that their backstab numbers are so ridiculous, they feel the shortbow is inadaquate.

This whole “once our combo is gone, we are screwed” is nonsense. You get a pew pew shortbow that is probably better than the rangers shortbow.

I like the whole “I have no mobility”…. you know.. except for that spammable teleport on your shortbow….

im sorry but shortbow is ok, but its not a no brainer weapon. its main damage attack is very slow and easily avoided, its autoattack does low damage (assuming to make up for hte fact it can bounce between targets). it is however a good kiting set, and our only real aoe option.

but good to know we HAVE to have that shortbow, what about players that dont use it? i do, id love not to feel i have to, but i do. also how spammable it is greatly depends on spec, i can use it twice and then have to wait, all my ini regen is from crits and stealth (balanced backstab build here, i dont do the crazy numbers people complain about)

@harmadda, firstly, 2 seconds is enough time to react, and halfway thru your post it goes from 2 seconds to 1 second whats with that?

but more constructively, lets school you a bit (havent read other replies sorry if its been said already)

what you witnessed is a very specific glass cannon backstab build. It has zero survivability traits/skills other then the heal. They pop all there cd’s right before they steal or preload CnD>steal.

they pop all there cd’s

no survival traits/skills/gear

this means they get to kill someone like you were killed once every 45 seconds, the rest of that time they are a detriment to there team, the only thing holding them up is stealth being bugged.

is it overpowered? absolutly even if its possibly the worst team oriented spec in the game as many can kill more often then that.

you brought up a good point partway thru your post, its not thieves precisely that is overpowered, but a combination of skills/traits that offer simply too much.

thief glass cannon backstab build was the other side of hte coin to things like bunker guardians and defensive elementalists pre nerfs.

i also think that all classes skills should be the same too, afterall, its not fair.

but honestly, i think it just needs some tweaking and it wouldnt be that bad.

Zeta Reticuli.9203:

are the main source of cheese/troll tactic builds?

First it was heartseeker spam. Nerf that?
They figure out the pistol whip spam with haste. Nerf that?
They figure out the 2 shot C&D/Steal + backstab build.
Nerf that? What’s next then? Hasted Unload builds that crit over 15k?

Is it the intention of ArenaNet to always have at least one gibby thief build?

These are the same type of players that use aimbots and wallhacks in FPS to feel superior over others with no actual skill invested. Can’t kill that bunker guardian legit? Gib em! Too slow too fight that mesmer in a real fight because you CBA to figure out the real mesmer in between your pistol whip/hs spam? Gib em!

Sure you’re useless for another minute, but who cares?! You just totally pwnd that n00b!

stop shoving so much into other players mouths please.

you keep saying spam, key hint here, thieves only have 1 real damage move per spec (2 if you count dagger/pistol mainhands in stealth). so if we want to do damage, we are gonna hit that freaking move, stop calling it spamming, we dont even have a choice.

second, HS did too much damage above 25%, its been fixed

second, i disagree with how they nerfed pistol whip, nerfing haste would have been a better idea

thirdly, the backstab build that people complain about is basically 1 build, there isnt really any variance to it, it has no survivability (outside of bugged stealth which needs fixing), and little armor/hp. in fact it uses all its Cd’s to kill one target, then hides or dies for 45 seconds until it can do it again. this doesnt change that the damage is too much, but it means the nerf needs to be on that specs traits/utilities not on backstab itself.

4th, i like how you conveniently left out shatter phantasm mesmers (oh wait it was just addressed along with PW, and HS ahs already been). bunker guardians, defensive elementalists (both been nerfed recently) shortbow rangers (oh wait, indirectly nerfed) 100b warriors, and im sure theres more.

ya, thieves got all the cheese /rolleyes

but do you play guardian/mesmers? the only two classes tha tmajority of people said had a spec/s that perform better then thieves and impact the game harder, and its hte only two you mentioned getting owned by thiefs.

cant fight bunker guardian fair? no, nobody could, thats why it was nerfed.

mesmers? i think the nerf was a bit much, but still…bad examples mate.

steal doesnt do that

by which i mean use there combo fields nad abuse there finishers.

too many times i just see a thief run into the fight and backstab someone then run away. or just plink people with trick shot then infi arrow away.

lets get some flair up in here!

there are mainly 3 “finisher” types for thieves that i find useful, blinding, leeching, and poisoning.

the type of finishing move you do determines what type of blinding/leeching/poisoning you get.

why would you just trickshot away at the enemy when you can put down a poison field and give people 33% healing reduction, or put down black powder or smokescreen and start sending out blinding arrows? put down a shadow refuge and you can having leeching which while weak on itsa own, the fact that trick can hit up to 4 times/targets means its actually noticeable.

hell people dont abuse shortbows area stealth combo, you dont HAVE to switch to D/D and CnD

of course its not just shortbow. HS can apply weakness to a single target if you create your poison field (useful for the incoming damage).

and teh big daddy of combos, daggerstorm, so many people are caught up with thieves guild (which is very powerful and arguably better for roaming). a epic strategy is to lay down a black powder/smoke screen and then click daggerstorm. now not only are you reflecting projectiles while doing damage, your chain blinding targets alla round you. of course you can also heal/poison with other combo fields.

cant tell you how many times ive been called on for hacking by abusing these things, and it adds great complexity to the class.

/shrug, between my minor trait in critical strikes, and two majors in shadow arts i dont run out of initiative, tho i also dont spam BP>HS for backstabs either.

how does D/P not do as much damage as D/D? they both have access to backstab, a way to stealth.

also keep in mind that yes we are supposed to be bursty, but that doesnt mean the burst we do right now is where anet wants us either.

while i agree that the way they nerfed PW was incorrect, i disagree that its a useless weapon set.

P/P struggles cuz its auto/sneak are at odds with unload and bodyshot sucks

D/P is a amazing support build that excels in 1v1 and group interruption. and blackpowder+HS=stealth if you want to backstab someone.

Some people swear by S/D, tho its not a playstyle i understand, flanking needs attention

P/D a lot of people swear by it for a safer condition damage thief

D/D glass cannon build isnt a good build from a competitive standpoint anyways

Meikun.4531:

@Webley

I happen to play tournaments and they don’t magically take away the very real OP problems with thieves. Nerfing PW was a good start. Fixing the stealth issues would be the next logical and needed step.

BTW, this is hardly a matter of L2P. Even burst damage should not result in a 3 second death in a game that is supposed to be fair and competitive. A thief has to suffer from choice and consequence, where the choice is to gamble a burst assault and suffer from retaliation. However, retaliation is seriously hampered by bugged stealth and over the top condition removal, quickness/haste, evade. You name it. 2v1 with a thief among them is a death sentence since you will completely use up your entire defensive arsenal on that one alone. Even if you manage to down both or even one of them, you’ll just be shredded by the downed attacks.

But yeah, i do understand why people would like to argue in favour of a cheesy profession. After all, who would like to get their nukes taken from them? Mesmers and Guardians have taken a huge hit recently. And those profession weren’t nearly as much under criticism.

you exaggerate, you talk of the mythical 30/30/30/30/30 traited thief with lots of condition damage as well as power and crit.

and over the top condition removal? most of the other classes can do it better, now a thief could make a specific build (ive made it before) to maximize condition removal, it also has very little damage (again, you use the fabled 30/30/30/30/30 traited thief).

however i do agree with you on points, stealth needs the bugs fixed, PW was nerfed in a way that was detrimental to PVE (unless PW thieves were doing much more damage then they should have in pve).

yes the current glass cannon build backstab thief (not every backstab thief runs this build, but its most popular) needs to be addressed.

however ive said it once and ill say it again, nerfing backstab base damage will just further push thieves into glass cannon builds because a normal build will do such low damage vs its survivability as to be not worth it.

you wanna nerf this one hit wonder spec that only works evey 45 seconds on one target? take a look at the traits that make it so powerful, and assassins signet.

actually bunker guardians and phantasm mesmers were much stronger in pvp then a backstab thief. a backstab thief owns someone outright once every 45 seconds, a bunker guardian can survive against a entire team, and a phantasm mesmer can kill more often then a backstab thief.

its hyperbole honestly, people are complaining about a build that arguably has the least effect on pvp then any other spec in the game. a spec that kills once every 45 seconds. if you cant kill them or survive them when they have absolutly no defensive traits/utility skills outside there heal then you suck. they dont have infi dodges (has 2 actually), they have low armor and low hp, half the time the build doesnt even have a stunbreaker!

now yes its damage is out of line, and needs addressed as its a dumb build in general. but to say its effective in group pvp is not true.

fractal.7039:

@Wolfe

Body Shot and CnD both cause stacking vulnerability, which causes you BS to hit harder.

Bleed is awesome when you need to kite or stay ranged. Caltrops + stealth pistol shot + auto attack = 15+ bleed stacks

P/D and D/P is about controlling your positioning and keeping the enemy guessing…

i guess the things that worry me is how much damage does bodyshot+CnD really give?

how much damage do you really do with bleeds in a power build?

caltrops are indeed nice tho i hesitate to give up my utility skills atm (shadow refuge, smoke screen, shadowstep)

Why? Any reason beside “i want it that way”? Because of the skill involved using it? Their are elementalist and engi combos for example that do less damage and are way harder to pull of.

the difficulty of landing a backstab is directly proportional to the skill/awareness of the player your trying to backstab.

if he stands there focusing on someone even tho he saw you stealth…his fault.

ive played against smart players that once i go into stealth they do things like pop defensive skills, speed bosts, dodgeing, blanket aoes/cc, etc. even with stealth being bugged its very difficult to land that backstab, and i mean VERY difficult.

do these eng/ele combos do soley damage? do they have any other effect? this matters as well.

Majiger.9763:

So I’m not an expert or even good at the game but I just happened to fight my first few pvp games against a bunch of thieves.

All I can say is what the hell is going on? I see a thief, then he is gone, then I am dead.
It’s just way too confusing to fight. There is a flurry of movement from every direction and I don’t even know which way to dodge.

I am using a Hammer + Mace/Mace support warrior but even skill 5 on hammer didn’t stop me from dying because I just don’t know where the hell the thief is coming from.

I don’t know how insane their damage is but I am pretty sure I was just one comboed every time…kinda a kitteny feeling if anything.

if your new to the game to any degree any class can seem confusing, the key is to learn about them and there animations either by playing them or just thru time. people complained in beginning of wow that pvp was confusing cuz they didnt know what the other guy was doing, you dont hear that now cuz the players have been at it for so long.

but its a backstab burst build. he has no survivability traits/skills.

he went invisible either with a talent that makes steal (steal teleports to you and “steals” a item that is predetermined by your class, that they can then use later) and go invisible or they cast CnD (has a cast time) and cast steal (doesnt interrupt the cast) to land it, putting them in stealth.

at this point they hit assassins signet, they move to your side/behind you, and they hit backstab.

if backstab was gonna crit for 4k its now probably more like 7k, if it was 8k now its probably somewhere around 13k or more etc.

now that thief, is spent, it has at least 45 seconds until it can do this again. in which time the only thing thats really keeping it alive is the stealth bug.

its dumb and needs addressing, but a good rule of thumb is dont stand still and dont give them your back.

Levetty.1279:

Ashanor.5319

Better get used to PvP being considered first and foremost buddy. This isn’t WoW.

Enjoy watching the support for the game dry up when all the PvE players leave to go to games made by companies that actually value their customers

good riddance, annoying people who mess up pvp for the sake of pve

Firstly, stealth is bugged in favor of the thief, this needs addressed before a stealth based nerf can be rightfully done.

secondly, nerfing backstab itself is NOT the way to go. just nerfing backstab would indeed result in lowered burst, but it would create and reinforce a existing issue with thieves (especially backstab thieves) that the only viable way to play is to go glass cannon. you nerf backstab, they still go glass cannon because non glass cannon builds would do such low damage as to be unplayable. No, what needs to be done is a nerf to specific traits/utility skills that cause backstab to get so high in the first place. things like power signets (5 stack of might when you use a signet, 5 sec duration), and most notably assassins signet (150% damage on next attack)

lets say he can get a 10k backstab crit, for no other reason then ease of math. with assassins signet its 15k! moreso with power signets and other traits.

thirdly, what Lumines said is incorrect, this build is more fragile then S/P builds and is much weaker in between its Cd’s. not too mention its Cd’s on which are reliant all have to be popped which means its a one hit wonder spec. gets the kill and is if anything a detriment to the gruop for the other 45 seconds of its existance.

S/P players do NOT have to rely on haste, tho it is one Cd they can abuse effectively. things like preloading PW+steal, devourer venom, haste, even basilisk venom also. basically a backstab build uses all/most its Cd’s for one kill while a S/P thief only has to use 1 at a time paired with P/W

so let me recap, fix stelath bugs, then fix the specific traits/utility skills that cause backstab to get such high damage. if this is done, then i think people will stop complaining about it so much.

@fractal, im assuming you dont really use P/D/s auto or sneak attack much? and why body shot? seems like such a waste for what it offers. aesthetically i loved the idea of using D/P+P/D. But i find P/D focus on bleeds to make that difficult for me.

you mean 5x of ANY class could possibly be OP? you dont say…

@chrysalis, maybe so, but you cant state “oh well it was bad anyways” as justification. and if they take the same approach to other abilities this could turn into a pretty bad situation

They need to nerf backstab if anything, that build is a lot more deadly than pw, and will be the new fotm very soon. Mesmer nerf doesn’t even effect shantasm/shatter build which all the good mesmers run, this was basically a nerf to hotjoin players. Mesmers and thieves are still a huge problem in tpvp.

you know nothing, your own personal perception and bias makes you innacurate. PW has a much higher impact on pvp fights then the glass cannon backstab build. that build is effective once every 45 seconds at best, and its crap the rest.

meahwhile a PW thief has better group support, survival, and higher avg damage over the course of time. in the time it can take a PW thief to kill 4 people a backstab thief killed maybe 1 and is waiting on his CD’s

i agree backstab (specifically that glass cannon build) needs to be addressed, but dont state falsehoods sir.

no im not gonna sit here and talk about how it wasnt needed in pvp or how it wasnt enough.

rather what worries me is the PVE implications. I know that dungeons are the traditional fair and damage isnt paramount for them. I know S/P will still probably be able to solo fine. but it seems like a dangerous thing to tread.

yes thieves have no CD’s, and in pvp the ini system can seem unfair to people. but in PVE with damage spread out over longer periods of time a thieves damage evens out and tends to be around what other classes are (sometimes lower).

again i know that damage isnt all there is for endgame, but at what point is nerfing damage gonna hurt a classes pve performance too much? i dont have that answer, but hte PW change has me concerned about it.

but as far as pvp goes, either anet is feeling out thieves, or they really dont feel thieves are as OP as the forum goers feel. I just hope they dont nerf backstab in the same way (would create more problems with thief class then it would solve). and if you cant figure out why, you dont know thief

basically nerfing backstabs base damage would solve the too much burst issue, but would force thieves with dagger mainhand ever harder into more glass cannon like builds as the damage when not specced that way would be so underpar as to be not worth it. thus the only viable spec for dagger mainhand thieves would be glass cannon builds. this is why nerfs to traits and utility skills would be better imo.

blink.4239:

Joric.5376:

Thieves got stupid burst? Well… if you really believe that, roll one, make a full dps build and join tournaments. Two things will happen:

1. you will be able to kill some players which are new to the game, unaware of the combat situation, already low on health (add more reasons…) and even pump out some high damage numbers

2. you will die often to the more experienced players and will notice, that your “burst” is laughable compared to the ability-chains other classes can use. If you are out of initiative —> no burst. Think of it.

Just another “OP” thread. Move along… nothing to see here.

I wouldn’t know about sPVP because I don’t play that garbage. I have full exotic gear with a health dose of toughness and was 3-shotted by a thief using backstab. It is absolutely kitten just how little skill that requires.

so what do you play? anet said they will not balance around wvwvw

Wolf.4739:

Been running 8v8 spvp all weekend. Average game had 6-9 thieves out of 16 players. Is that enough meta to know something needs to be fixed?

I run a elementalist with 30 points in toughness but still get burnt down in less than a second. The record was 1 hit for 10500 damage.

i dislike that your name is similar to mine lmao.

its well documented that there are bugs and fixes needed for a thief. what we dont need is OMG THIEVES SO OP NERF!!!11!!

stealth needs its bugs fixed

things like assassins signet (backstab builds) and haste (pistol whip builds) need to be adjusted.

those changes alone would fix issues people are having with thieves stealth (and mesmers too) as well as the over the top burst said two builds posess.

after those changes we can then take a better and clearer constructive look at thieves.

the heal on stealth goes a long way to help with survival tho.

but honestly i feel a bit disgusted that someone felt they could come in here and admit to using HS spam build and that they are “bored” with it.

have you no shame OP?

Irascible.8210:

This isn’t a 1v1 game. There are a lot more factors and variables than health pools.

wasnt meant to be a universal fix

Flappy.2837:

So you think condition Necromancers a problem but you say you chose to not run with a healing skill that has more controlled healing and removes conditions, and you have teamates removing conditions and you have a another condition removal… i don’t see how the condition necro can be a problem.

its amazing you can make this an argument yet when people tell others to run stunbreakers or defense skills they reply “i shouldnt have to spec to avoid one class!”

talking about thief of course.

Hype.9361:

Not sure if anyone has brought this up yet, as I skipped 90% of the flame posts in this thread. But…. Has anyone mentioned the new 1 shot thief build? It’s been going around in WvW lately and it’s immensely annoying. The hardest I’ve been his is 12k as someone who specs toughness and survivability. However, I have friends that have been hit as hard as 19k. That’s 19k in one hit. If that isn’t unreasonable I don’t know what is. I don’t care about any other thief spec out there. They all have counters. But any class that can do over 25k damage in a matter of 2 seconds is over power in my book.

its very well documented adn even thieves think its stupid. its more of a problem with certain traits/utility skills tho rather then base damage

Lawbringer.1956:

Thieves are a mess in the game right now, alot of people complained about stealth and thought gw2 was the savior because it features short bursts of stealth, but it ended up being even more OP than WoW rogues because you can fight WHILL stealthed and 3 shot people whill being untargetable and its the most pathetic balancing ive ever seen in a game ever

It really IS killing the game and pvp, because no one is playing 7 of the 8 classes in pvp, thieves are just too OP and easy to play atm

Nerf thieves before the game dies please

this right here is a PERFECT example of a nerf wanting crybaby who doesnt take th time to figure out things before he posts.

because if he did he would know that stealth has both rendering issues and some bugs that favor the thief. thus making life more difficult for players then it should be. right now thieves are not usually visible for the full 3 seconds, but more like 1 cuz of rendering/lag.

i fully expect this person to reply with a who cares comment and proceed to say even if it was fixed itd be overpowered anyways cuz he has some kind of ability to see the future.

good day gentlemen

first i honestly never expected any class to be hard to master. years of gaming plus watching the gaming industry change led me to this tho.

secondly ill make the rest of my replies in regards to thief. (dont worry, ill be polite!)

First you say multiple times we autoattack too much, why is this a problem? only time i autoattack a lot is if i dont want to abuse initiative for utility/backstab. and it does a good job. autoattack is a big part of this game in fact.

dancing dagger has its uses, it does great damage vs 2 enemies (bounce between them) and there are plenty of times you want a slow (tho imo it lasts too short, maybe 3 seconds instead of 2). you can argue it doesnt pair well with the D/D set maybe?

CnD and backstab spammers? you do realize if your power build dagger mainhand then backstab is your main form of burst damage? if your not using it, your playing the weapon spec wrong, and could be why you feel it autoattacks too much.

i agree assassins signet is a issue tho.

problem with pistol/pistol is body shot is rather useless, and unload doesnt pair well with its autoattack and sneak attack. imo make it more centered on single target bleeds and the build could shine.

sword/dagger needs its pathing fixed on flanking

ill let other people decide on sword/pistol. never a spec i liked even when i tried it.

what do you mean by stack? i imagine one would proc, then later the other would proc.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#cckzMc0MzMFCaoMFCaoaxx9MczaqVaq8kiG7kij7khV707khA7kNb70m7kGL7ofD

i call this my disruption or “combo” build.

With this build you can perform every finisher.

with black powder/smoke screen you have: blinding projectiles with bow auto, blinding with HS, area stealth with shortbows blast finisher, and blinding bolts with daggerstorm

with shortbows poison field: area weakness with blast finisher, weakness with HS, Poison with shortbow auto, and poison bolts with dagger storm.

with shadow refuge: area blindness with shortbow blast finisher, blindness with HS, lifestealing with shortbow auto, leeching bolts (lifesteal) from daggerstorm.

thats 12 combos you can perform yourself. abusing this knowledge is key. too many players dont abuse combos when some can be quite powerful tho some need buffed.

for example from what i read (havent looked ingame yet) the leeching bolts only heal about 66 hp per hit at 80..but the bows trick shot hits up to 4 targets, potentially healing for 264.

but even without combos this build has great disruption just with black powder, shadows refuge, and smoke screen. all of which add to survivability, as well as daggerstorm when used right. daggerstorm+smoke=blinding bolts=your immune to ranged and melee!

This build has given me a reason to switch to shortbow for more then just infiltrators arrow or some clusterbomb spam. on demand areas stealth, blinding/leeching/poison arrows.

this build is sickly fun once you get the hang of it

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#cckzM9mMFCaoMFCaoaxx9MczaqVaq

i have a hard time figuring out this site (used a diff one before was easier for me)

my gear would be runes of scholar

weapon sigils would be rage and the 5% crit one.

id have roughly 19k hp, 2880AP, 49% crit

id use dagger/pistol+shortbow

the idea of the build is to take advantage of combo fields and caus ea lot of group combat disruption. shadow refuge offers a lot of utility, and smoke screen can negate all enemy ranged attacks in a area for its duration. black powder is a great utility move as well and daggerstorm+smoke combo field=blinding bolts.

could use a bit of touch up on traits. mug is mainly preference based. shadows rejuvination i find very helpful for survivability. so i really feel like 30 points in both crit and shadow as nescessary but ill listen to anyone who wants to make there case for something else.

I think the spec could be quite good. a real active support build.

a thief goes invisible, your target should drop.

Seether.7285:

Knyx.5926:

I agree somewhat. I think there needs to be more catering to middle-ground builds. The fact for example Vitality, scales differently by class it really skews the system. If a thief for example wants to build for a balanced build, they are still only gonna truck around 15k maybe 16k hp. Where an 80% offensive (glass) Warrior build can have 20-21k if not a few thousand more……
seems kind of silly

Vitality doesn’t scale differently by class. 100 vitality = 1000 hps for any class.

i think he meant base hp

from PoV of a long time thief. i honestly think pistol whip needs changed, not nerfed per say, but changed. right now because of its self root and dependancy on stuns/haste a thief simply has more options to land the hit then the average player (specced appropriately) has escapes.

yes you can dodge, walk away, stun break, etc. but a pistol whip build has 2 gap closers they can pair it with, a haste option, a immobilize, and maybe ven a stoneform if they take it. thats 5 (most will probably have 3-4) ways to ensure that pistol whip lands.

its a very black and white ability. it either hits and devestates or misses/hits partially and does hardly anything.

i do think it needs adjusting, but i dont know in what way.

@braxxus, HS does NOT provide any evasion whatsoever during its leap animation or any other part of it.

stealth should cause target dropping, i mean..you cant see him anymore, you cant target him.

and again 3-4x is straight up wrong whether you have a case of grass is greener or not. damage avoidance=/=mitigation.

as for 20 points in acro, then they arent that many points in stealth, and if they are, then they arent a glass cannon thief, in fact would be kinda low in damage. also it gives you one more dodge after two dodges. not two (the minor trait 15 points into acro)

20 points in acro…means a lot for a build. a lot for what it will and wont be able to do. but im curious what builds (complete builds, if youve seen 20 poitns in acro youve seen the rest of the build) you face often in tpvp? ill illustrate there strengths and weaknesses for you. since you must not know much about thieves if you think HS has evasion and feline grace allows 2 dodges instead of its 1.

that brings up another thought etherfreeze, damage of ranged vs melee…its not as cut and dry since percieved ranged calsses and percieved melee classes have melee.ranged options.

should melee do more damage then ranged? should it be even? how big should the gap be?

i honestly think glass cannon vs glass cannon should be a very twitch, fast paced thing. will punish people for speccing glass cannon until they get it thru there thick heads to spec more balancewise.

tho there are still things out of line regardless

djtool.8372:

maybe when everyone becomes less obsessed with ZOMG single target damage and more interested in aoe builds that end up layering over other peoples aoe builds we’ll start worrying less about clones, thieves guilds, and stealthed people.

but there spec must be perfect they shouldnt have to adjust it!

3-4x? thats straight up wrong.

we have evasion tied to certain attacks, depending on weapon spec and build. not all.

perma vigor is a very specific spec that does mainly condition damage. msot thieves get about 3 dodges

i wish i could find these fabled 30/30/30/30/30 thieves people talk about.

but yes if thise were changed mitigation for each class would also need looking at.

stability stomp>stealth stomp

cry me ar iver

in a game where you can have a 10k hp elementalist build and a 28k hp warrior build, balancing burst can be kinda difficult.

that 6k burst on the elementalist is devestating while the warrior just shrugs and keeps on trucking.

Now i do think that if you spec glass cannon you should be at risk for twitch kills. but perhaps not to such a degree.

i propose a sort of soft standardization of health pools in pvp. not straight equalization, but simply a tuning. maybe a glass cannon elementalist has 15k hp instead for example.

obviously some damage needs to be tuned, but it will be quite hard with such a wide hp gap in this game.

just at hought, feel free to disagree

not really sure how im supposed to give names when i have a guild i havent gotten to know very well yet, and 2 RL friends that play the game. i dont take the time to remember names of my enemies, let alone my teamates in hotjoin.

I think one thing that should be done for pvp is standardize hp pools to a degree. trying to balance glass cannon vs regular builds is difficult when you can have a 10k hp elementalist and 28k hp warrior. that 8k backstab is redic vs the elementalist, and merely good vs the warrior (ill say its good anyways)

but once stealth bugs are fixed, i really think the squishiness of thieves will become more apparent, that and smarter players.

you cant take a glass cannon spec with no aoe/non targetting CC and expect to not die when a glass cannon thief gets the drop from stealth, or uses stealth defensively, this is poor spec design that people are being inflexible about. I dont use the one dimensional builds many thieves use cuz they ahve the same issue, working vs x, failing vs y and z.

fix the stealth bugs before you start spouting drivel about nerfs. seriously, its like complaining about having a dirty hand cuz you didnt take the time to take out the toilet paper first.

i dont downplay sir i rationalize, you on the otherhand overexaggerate to a large degree!

and i only condescend when the person themself im replying to condescend, so pot meet kettle.

i personally enjoy the downed state for pvp, it adds another layer of tactics, if they can balance it.

also just cuz hes downed, doesnt mean hes defeated, your using mentality from different games to justify your thinking.

2 more seconds can make the difference in a coordinated team fight, but dont expect dedicated rezzing in hotjoin pvp.

and i agree downed state needs further balancing

the 45 second argument is for a specific backstab build the majority of players are complaining about. it has no real mobility ot survivability, every single one of its ablities and traits are dedicated to damage and upping that backstab. in other words, its crap outside of its big CD’s. it has nothing to do with condition removal

but on condition removal, pain response is a 45 second internal Cd (probably why you thought iw as talking about it) and is uncontrollabvle, if you go to 75% hp with no conditions its waisted, not nearly as powerful as you make out. tho useful

the biggest offender in 1v1 would probably be the ability to remove a condition once every 3 seconds while in stealth (so once per stealth). but again in a group setting it ammounts to a drop in a bucket.

in order for a thief to have decent condition removal they ned to spec survival, not damage (and nobody has complained about a survival thief yet, because theres hardly any out there)

I made a survival build with the xact intention of condition removal and self healing and stealth. it does very low damage but is very hard to stop as well. even with the best of available traits and skills for condition removal, in a group setting conditions still can plague you. but if one person tries to apply long duration conditions of a single type, dont complain if they get removed, many classes do it much more effectively then a thief.

the size of a nerf herd isnt exactly proportional to the severety of the need for balance. rather even if one thing is slightly over the top of anyone else you will get floods of QQ, its the mmo generation, videogames in general.

hell in borderlands 2 with no competitive nature whatsoever people call for nerfs because its “unfair”

stealth needs its bugs fixed

skills that support the high damage backstab build needs looked at

thief (or other players) downed state needs re-adjusting

pistol whip needs a redo as it is right now its gonna either be OP or worthless

and maybe death blossom builds need looking at, tho they are imo easily countered.