Guild Wars 2

Burnfall.9573:

I’m finally able to take some time to carefully examine thief class conditions, including the suggested nerfs in this thread.

So lately, I’ve resided in requesting thief overall class re-design, instead of nerfs.

Why so?

As i had already posted, nerfing thief class will not fix ‘break’ this class, not a bit because of 2 reasons; stealth and invincibility.

You can not separate them at all, and unfortunately, this is what i believe Arena.net is trying to do; and it will not work.. ever!

It’s like trying to separate your brain from your head and say that you’re alive".

Seriously,

who can live without a brain?

My wishlist for thief class, is to redesign the class from the ground up.

As the saying goes, “if you can not make something new, replace it with a new on”

(We are extremely, severely, miserably tired and frustrated of the broken, out-of-control, total-wreck thief; it is time to bring out the new, well-loved, humble, caring thief).

thief 2.0

I agree. Thieves are completely broken and need a serious revamp.
[/sanduskel response]

I bet the cost of the items plays a part in drop rate.

I figured that if that was true that anything above 1g would never drop for me.

The point of that thread was to get the brain juices flowing and pose new ideas that could make thief combat fun again. If anet paid any attention to it (which i know they didn’t) the idea wouldn’t be as insane as it is and ha;f the mechancs would most definitely be nerfed, however I would at least hope anet kept the sniper feel to it.

It’s the concept of it that’s important.

Sanduskel.1850:

Lol, so you know I don’t log into the game? Hahaha. Do you have cameras in my house? Lol. Ok. I am sorry that you are having problems with your thief. It’s ok, it takes some experience to know how to dominate as a roaming thief in wvw. On the other hand, this class isn’t for everyone. You could play a warrior. Hmm didn’t you claim that you left your thief to play a warrior? Maybe the thief class just isn’t for you?

Can you prove you have “experience”?

RyuDragnier.9476:

Auto-attacks from the enemy do nothing while I’m in stealth. Want to know where I’m at whenever I stealth? I’m usually running at the enemy, dodge-rolling through them with Uncatchable on,

I can do that without stealth. Same effect.

They want thieves to be free loot bags so all the baddies would stop complaining.

Astralporing.1957:

You know how your opponent’s profession is played, and the opponent knows how your profession is played. But you can see him, and he can’t see you. Don’t you think that “reading your opponent” is really uneven in that situation? Your opponent does not only need to outread you – he needs to do it by a huge margin.

Have you ever played chess?

Sanduskel.1850:

Wrong. I play thieves. I can admit that they are wayyyyy op in this game, lol.

What about all those challenges thief players sent your way? Since you claim thieves are OP and that you are a better thief than every other thief who complains about nerfs, you should have no problem fighting the other 30+ thieves who’ve asked to duel you in sPvP.

I actually have made my own rifle suggestion in the thief forums. Some thieves like it.

Maugetarr.6823:

Sanduskel.1850:

Spec D/D and don’t listen to the negative nancies. the class is great in wvw and going to get better in a week. if you rely on cheesy perma stealth builds too bad though.

…or swords, or vigor. You know, those other things I provided in a list directly from the balance patch preview notes. If you were low crit chance+low hit rate you’ll see a minor buff to initiative regen. If you were medium crit rate+medium hit rate, you’ll see a neutral effect, and high crit rate + high hit rates (S/P and P/P) will see a net loss. The other areas were straight up nerfs. Explain how things are going to get better in a week?

He can’t and won’t because he has never played a thief and knows that this forum will rip him apart if he does.

Sons.5493:

Do you remember when thiefs were considered top tier in escape/chase escenarios?

Sanduskel.1850:

I agree. this was an excellent way to nerf that hated perma stealth spec without wrecking all other specs.

Now if only you knew what you were talking about.

Dee Jay.2460:

Arganthium.5638:

Dee Jay.2460:

Imagi.4561:

Sanduskel.1850:

his math was…..flawed.

If the math is flawed, then by all means redo it and post your calculations. I’d be very interested to see them.

The math may be correct, but it doesn’t relate to game-play.

Most theorycrafting assume some sort of tank and spank scenario because real game-play has too many variables. But guess what, more so than in any other MMO you are constantly moving and dodging in GW2.

Especially in PvP which seems to be the biggest concern for most. And that’s where we will end up with equal or more Initiative to blow. And for every Dodge we lose because of the Vigor nerf we gain an extra Lancerous Strike.

So it’s really not as a cut & dry as people are making it out to be.

So you’re one of those people.

My first request would be for you to identify one of the “too many variables” that you identified, and then justify how theorycrafting cannot practically identify its effects.

Quite simple.

Someone calculates that we have less effective Initative now, due to the “Initiative on Crit” nerf. This is assuming we are standing still and constantly attacking a target.

Thus they conclude this is a nerf.

In practice however a S/D Thief for example might only have 50% DPS time on a target, maybe even less. The rest of the time is spent dodging, shadowstepping and stealthing.

Even in PvE I never sit and hit for longer than a few seconds at a time. So the theorycrafting doesn’t really apply. It’s not that it’s wrong, it just makes too broad assumptions.

I’m convinced we will have a much more comfortable Initiative cushion, especially in sPvP, than prior. In PvE it will be slightly less noticeable and probably feel more or less the same.

I don’t think we will actually find ourselves with less Initiative, exception being D/P.

You forget to take into account all of the other traits thieves have. Most of them are not worth slotting because most of them do not noticeably affect our overall gameplay. And I explained this to the devs before… “Thieves choose initiative regen because every other trait is either situational or useless.”

However, they are cutting initiative gain by half while increasing regen back to 1/sec from .75/sec. A 33% increase in exchange for a 50% decrease. And this update only positively affects builds that don’t use much initiative (p/d mainly) which tend to be sub-par. The buff is just slight, however, and somewhat negligible.

Regardless what anyone thinks, they’ve effectively nerfed this profession into the ground is those initiative traits go through. Every degree of thief theorycrafter knew this.

Phy.2913:

Magic find shouldn’t be a mechanic. Boost drop rates to be reasonable and get rid of it completely.

WereDragon.6083:

Running a 100% evasion build as a thief is extremely easy, just cause they’re reducing this effectiveness a bit doesn’t mean the sky is falling.

Also, since when did Sword/X become the ONLY theif build?

Since everything else sucked.

You are thinking WAY too deeply into it. Of course, you can’t tell exactly where he is going, however you can pinpoint where he will eventually end up by monitoring him until he stealths.

By playing a thief, you understand their options and make an educated guess on their next move.

Julie Yann.5379:

Zacchary.6183:

Wintel.4873:

Rogues in WoW supposedly pulled the same reasons to claim they weren’t overpowered because stealth didn’t make them invulnerable.
But that didn’t stop the very MECHANIC making them one of the strongest PvP classes for around ~8 years in a row (while all other classes went though a rollercoaster ride of balance). They probably still are, I haven’t played for a while.

Face it, stealth classes in MMO’s are impossible to balance. Any class which has the ability to reset the fight at will holds the advantage.

No the strongest thing in PvP is, and have always been, good players. Good players know how to read others and determine the best action to take on the fly. Good players know how build their characters to compliment their playstyle and get the most optimum balance of survivability and damage based upon it.

In fact, most of the time the people who have a serious problem with stealth are those who have almost no knowledge about the profession.

The visual effect is psychological and requires more mental agility than normal to do anything with. Dealing with stealth has always been a L2P issue.

and that is why stealth has always been so broken, how can you effectively read someone who is invisible 90% of the time?

By knowing how the profession is played.

Venoms suck. That’s what they do.

You couldn’t prove that.

Sanduskel.1850:

People are making a mountain out of a molehill.

Because they understand the profession. In fact, I remember someone already doing the math and the DEC 10th changes will actually give thieves less ini/second overall. The only ones who will benefit are sub-par builds.

However, if you have total faith in Anet’s update, then you’ll have no problem fighting my warrior.

Wintel.4873:

Rogues in WoW supposedly pulled the same reasons to claim they weren’t overpowered because stealth didn’t make them invulnerable.
But that didn’t stop the very MECHANIC making them one of the strongest PvP classes for around ~8 years in a row (while all other classes went though a rollercoaster ride of balance). They probably still are, I haven’t played for a while.

Face it, stealth classes in MMO’s are impossible to balance. Any class which has the ability to reset the fight at will holds the advantage.

No the strongest thing in PvP is, and have always been, good players. Good players know how to read others and determine the best action to take on the fly. Good players know how build their characters to compliment their playstyle and get the most optimum balance of survivability and damage based upon it.

In fact, most of the time the people who have a serious problem with stealth are those who have almost no knowledge about the profession.

The visual effect is psychological and requires more mental agility than normal to do anything with. Dealing with stealth has always been a L2P issue.

Oh, believe me, I see. However, Anet has their plans and they are not changing them.

Rolling a warrior is less of a hassle.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Zero Day.2594:

Excalibur.9748:

The build is dead, time to move on after Dec.10.

Time to bust out my re-roll-warrior build. OP!

I’m working on a warrior right now…it’s too simple and boring for me to play it longer than 2 hours. It requires the least thought and strategy out of all the GW2 classes.

Try killing things 5-7 levels above you. You’ll have more fun leveling it.

Sanduskel.1850:

Zacchary.6183:

Sanduskel.1850:

Geiir.7603:

Yeah, burnfall again….

They’re working on nerfing the perma stealth. ANet said that they think it’s wrong use of abilities, so they’re going to nerf certain traits and change the initiative regeneration so that it will be impossible to do it using only weapons. They find it ok to perma stealth for longer periods of time if this requires you to sacrifice traits and utility skills to do so. And I agree with them. D/P needed a nerf, and now they get it.

They’re also ruining sword. The only reason for most people to play it was the fact that they could teleport a lot. From 10th of december you’ll see thieves using Infiltrator’s Strike – getting stun-locked and unable to use Shadow Return. In other words, they’ll appear and be insta-killed. W2G ANet.

I disagree that they are ruining sword. They are opening other options now. Thieves who get insta killed are glass cannon specced and may need to put some effort into survivability, just as other classes must do.

Yeah, it really opens up options when everything sucks. Bring down the remaining 1.5 viable builds to be on par with the less viable ones and BOOM… you have a selection of suck to choose from.

you just haven’t discovered them yet. keep working on it though.

I have. You havn’t. Try again.

Sanduskel.1850:

Zacchary.6183:

LordByron.8369:

I think you should post this in thief forum and ask them …. good thief players (those you can t kill) will explain you are wrong.
Expecially for www some called this build a paraphrase of “beginner friendly”.

It isn’t beginner friendly. The low HP and Armor means that the player does not have any room for mistakes. Most of their traits and stat allocation will be focused on damage so they wont have very many survivability traits, if at all.

Since thieves lack decent healing and condition removal, killing them is a matter of who hits the hardest first. A little bit of situation awareness and timing will go a long way.

I simply disagree. It is beginner friendly. I have found the perma stealth thief to be laughably opd, able to troll 5+ enemies without any trouble. It’s the worst mechanic I have ever experienced, even though I’ve benefitted from it.

No it isn’t. S/P, D/D evasion/conditions and P/D are more user friendly and each of them are able to kill GC BS thieves. Most of all, none of them need stealth to do so.

But the best one vs. GC BS thieves is D/D conditions because not only will the constant bleed stacks melt the thief but D/D is the best set for chasing. Heartseeker for gap closers and Dancing Dagger/Caltrops/Uncatchable/Dagger Storm for near permanent Cripple will make the thief’s 50% running speed in stealth useless.

Most of all d/d conditions requires no set up, no stealth and has a decent evade uptime.

As a theorycrafter who has played the thief profession for over a year, I would recommend D/D conditions over GC BS anyday. In fact, I would suggest you use D/D conditions when you finally decide to take up one of the 30+ challenges made to you on the thief forums. You will have a much easier time with them.

Sanduskel.1850:

Geiir.7603:

Yeah, burnfall again….

They’re working on nerfing the perma stealth. ANet said that they think it’s wrong use of abilities, so they’re going to nerf certain traits and change the initiative regeneration so that it will be impossible to do it using only weapons. They find it ok to perma stealth for longer periods of time if this requires you to sacrifice traits and utility skills to do so. And I agree with them. D/P needed a nerf, and now they get it.

They’re also ruining sword. The only reason for most people to play it was the fact that they could teleport a lot. From 10th of december you’ll see thieves using Infiltrator’s Strike – getting stun-locked and unable to use Shadow Return. In other words, they’ll appear and be insta-killed. W2G ANet.

I disagree that they are ruining sword. They are opening other options now. Thieves who get insta killed are glass cannon specced and may need to put some effort into survivability, just as other classes must do.

Yeah, it really opens up options when everything sucks. Bring down the remaining 1.5 viable builds to be on par with the less viable ones and BOOM… you have a selection of suck to choose from.

Eloquence.5207:

Zacchary.6183:

LordByron.8369:

I think you should post this in thief forum and ask them …. good thief players (those you can t kill) will explain you are wrong.
Expecially for www some called this build a paraphrase of “beginner friendly”.

It isn’t beginner friendly. The low HP and Armor means that the player does not have any room for mistakes. Most of their traits and stat allocation will be focused on damage so they wont have very many survivability traits, if at all.

Since thieves lack decent healing and condition removal, killing them is a matter of who hits the hardest first. A little bit of situation awareness and timing will go a long way.

Pop stealth. Create separation. Healing + condition removal.

Who is going to spot you, let alone chase you?

Decent players.

If you are really having a problem with GC thieves, pin them and kill faster.

Warrior Elite

“BLARGHFHQERP!” – Shout.
Place nearby enemies in Defeated State.
Heal: 50k.
Radius: 10k
Cooldown: 10s

:D

LordByron.8369:

I think you should post this in thief forum and ask them …. good thief players (those you can t kill) will explain you are wrong.
Expecially for www some called this build a paraphrase of “beginner friendly”.

It isn’t beginner friendly. The low HP and Armor means that the player does not have any room for mistakes. Most of their traits and stat allocation will be focused on damage so they wont have very many survivability traits, if at all.

Since thieves lack decent healing and condition removal, killing them is a matter of who hits the hardest first. A little bit of situation awareness and timing will go a long way.

What: Sword Auto
Why: BECUZ SWORD OHPEE

AlexEBT.7240:

Burnfall.9573:

As the saying goes, “when one violate the rule of balance, so shall their end be violated”

I’m pretty sure that warrants an infraction for the sexual assault “undertones” present in the quote.

:C Don’t infractucate him! Burnfall my favorite troll…. better than sandy anyways.

Turn Venoms into Contacts that summon other thieves that do kitten for you. Then make Contactshare. :3

Auesis.7301:

[&BxJVAAA=]

For those not at home:

Venom. Your next few attacks heal you.

Number of Attacks: 4
Healing: 1300 (total)

EDIT: Pasted the wrong code, it was the new Ele heal. Fixed now.

There are supportive builds, however you’ll have to give up damage for it….

NINJA NURSE!

Roll warrior, guardian or necro.

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

You(The players) asked for harder content.

You(The players) will now deal with what you get.

i remember people saying “challenging”. There is a big difference between “Challenging” and “Harder” content.

You only get Piles of Vile Essence if your birth sign is Cancer.

Fact.

scratch that…

Its a three-way. There is nothing against the rule of the game that says ganging up = cheating.

Zacchary.6183:

Fortus.6175:

Simple question really, do seeing a person with a legendary make you go like; “Ohhh!”, are you indifferent, or another reaction?

Nope.

Fortus.6175:

Is there any reputation on getting one?

Nope.

Fortus.6175:

Would you go for it for the reputation or for the looks?

Nope.

Fortus.6175:

If it became harder/easier would you appreciate it more/less?

Nope.

Fortus.6175:

If you do appreciate something from legendaries or its users, what is it?

Nope.

EDIT: I just wanna remind everyone…. **** legendaries.

WTB thread backstab pls.

EDIT: A thread Eviscerate or Killshot would be nice too.

Golem – is – the – optimal – choice – for – next – playable – race.

All of this is OP because it benefits the thief.

Logan runs away and Scarlet starts laughing her kitten off. She begins choking on her spit and then dies from suffocation.

Glorious.

Cripple and immobilize.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAS5ejkOpu1OyOMxBAkir4yo4HiUPmru2A-jECBYfCyEBBiKAO5pIasFXFRjVXDT5iIq2cuIa1A-w

Level 1 RNG
Base item drop rate – Item has an x% chance to drop.

Level 2 RNG
Magic Find Modifier – Magic find level multiplies drop rate percentage. ex. With 100% magic find and a drop rate of 1%, drop rate becomes 2%.

Level 3 RNG
Magic Find Compensation – More magic find gradually reduces the base chance you’ll even get a rare drop.

Level 4 RNG
Character Lottery – When you log on to your account for the first time a number is rolled for each of your characters. That number is then placed in a formula and the end result modifies the drop rate of rare and exotic items in all instances of chance. The closer your character’s resulting number is to the randomly generated parameters the more unmodified your drop chance is.

Level 5 RNG
Account Lottery – Like Character Lottery sept it deals with your account!

Level 6 RNG
Server Lottery – Like Account Lottery sept it deals with your server!

Level 7 RNG
Lottery Forgivness – Another number is rolled for Account Lottery that loosely modifies it’s number for the better.

Now that you have a firm understanding of what magic find does, happy treasure hunting!

Cygnus.6903:

I’d say just improving some of the items you can steal right now is enough. Steal becomes incredibly potent with some trait investment (just like most F abilities of other classes need investment also). Right now, just the elementalist and engineer items are bordering useless. All other items range from ok to great.

That’s another thing that kitten es me off about it. You can trait heavily for it and it becomes this 1 button that does everything. Its like signets and venoms: they suck because they don’t do much by themselves, but holy kitten if you use every trait for it!

Food is a crutch. You should feel bad you are using it.

Actually you cant overlap them and get all of the effects. The last one placed is the one you get I believe.

Another thing you need to understand that to get all 4 attunements you have to steal as the ele cycles through the attunements. Same this with everything else. You can’t steal it if they don’t have it on them.

Well my second argument still stands. No matter what anyone suggests, players will kitten about it and complain that it’s OP when there are warriors that have access to 50% crit chance, plenty of 10%+ damage traits, good stat increasing traits and have utilities up the * that have WAY more use than what thieves have.

Fact is: Everyone wants thieves to stay still so they can 1-hit them. And because of it anything that would give thieves any form of viability will be called OP.

So no offense, I really don’t care if you think it’s OP unless you think you have a better idea.

There. I clarified everything. You guys happy now?

I am sad nobody picked me yet.

You all make me sad.