Guild Wars 2

Distaste.4801:

evilapprentice.6379:

From a PvP perspective, 5% is an absolute joke.

Let’s pretend that between base HP and various healing, it takes 30,000 points of damage to drop your target. That means you could potentially heal a maximum of 1500 health, if every single one of your attacks were crits. At 70% crit (Full GC with SoA, Lyssa, and Accuracy), you’ll see an average healing of closer to ~1100. 1100 health for a glass cannon for a grand master trait. That would be underpowered even if the trait wasn’t competing with Hidden Killer (which can define a build) and Executioner (Thief’s best damage trait for GC’s). Considering it is competing with those traits, I can’t imagine this trait being worth slotting.

PW vs AI builds (since you’re not getting 3 targets with brains to sit in a full PW) and SB detonate spamming make the numbers work a bit more favorable, but it still compares extremely poorly to executioner. A GM trait that reads “Works well with Detonate spam” isn’t very attractive.

Yeah this is an incredibly poor attempt at giving thieves some sustain out of stealth. 5% is just so low considering you give up executioner, which even if you had it would still provide poor healing at only 5%. I mean assuming you crit a 10k backstab you’re only healing for 500hp, which is ~1.36 seconds of healing signet. Even if you built a build around this with all the healing traits, sigils, runes, etc it’s not going to compare to the survivability of stealth. I’m sure some ultra-annoying troll builds will come out this that focus on stealth and healing but for normal play I just don’t see this trait doing anything.

What I don’t understand is how this made it through QA. I learned about these new traits literally 20 minutes before I posted. It took 1 minute to do the math to figure out how bad this trait is, independent of the fact that it competes with Hidden Killer and Executioner.

Even with 0 knowledge of the CS line, it took 1 minute to point out just how bad this trait is. When you take into account the other GM options in CS, it downright insulting. Why does it exist? Why are the developers pretending like it’s something useful? Don’t kitten on my leg and tell me it’s raining.

From a PvP perspective, 5% is an absolute joke.

Let’s pretend that between base HP and various healing, it takes 30,000 points of damage to drop your target. That means you could potentially heal a maximum of 1500 health, if every single one of your attacks were crits. At 70% crit (Full GC with SoA, Lyssa, and Accuracy), you’ll see an average healing of closer to ~1100. 1100 health for a glass cannon for a grand master trait. That would be underpowered even if the trait wasn’t competing with Hidden Killer (which can define a build) and Executioner (Thief’s best damage trait for GC’s). Considering it is competing with those traits, I can’t imagine this trait being worth slotting.

PW vs AI builds (since you’re not getting 3 targets with brains to sit in a full PW) and SB detonate spamming make the numbers work a bit more favorable, but it still compares extremely poorly to executioner. A GM trait that reads “Works well with Detonate spam” isn’t very attractive.

Whit.2385:

evilapprentice.6379:

EnRohbi.2187:

evilapprentice.6379:

infantrydiv.1620:

No. No PvP patches until April.

You better watch yourself sir or you will get an infraction with posts like this.

Arenanet has had just about enough with trolls like you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

Since I have no idea if you’re being serious or not, I’ll just say I was honestly under the impression the patch was supposed to be today. Was that the case, and then it was pushed back? Or was I entirely mistaken?

Both. Kind of.

The patch is on the 18th (Next Tuesday), not today. So you were mistaken on that part.
But the patch next week is only a maintenance patch (See last post). As Anet said some ambiguous things that lead the community to believe the 18th was the feature patch. When they came out and said it was, in fact, not the feature patch people got kittened.

Thanks for the information.

The development time for patches in this game is frankly the worst I’ve ever experienced or witnessed.

Agreed, but careful. Criticism is not tolerated here.

While the logical side of me can’t imagine how my observation might be considered infraction worthy, I know you’re correct.

It’s not as if it matters though. It’s impossible to be interested or invested in a game where you can measure it’s patch schedule in years. There are issues that have gone unaddressed since launch, and then of course the issues that have plagued the game over the last 9-10 months.

If the players can expect 1-3 major patches a year for PvP, I just don’t see this game surviving, especially considering the stiff competition cropping up.

EnRohbi.2187:

evilapprentice.6379:

infantrydiv.1620:

No. No PvP patches until April.

You better watch yourself sir or you will get an infraction with posts like this.

Arenanet has had just about enough with trolls like you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

Since I have no idea if you’re being serious or not, I’ll just say I was honestly under the impression the patch was supposed to be today. Was that the case, and then it was pushed back? Or was I entirely mistaken?

Both. Kind of.

The patch is on the 18th (Next Tuesday), not today. So you were mistaken on that part.
But the patch next week is only a maintenance patch (See last post). As Anet said some ambiguous things that lead the community to believe the 18th was the feature patch. When they came out and said it was, in fact, not the feature patch people got kittened.

Thanks for the information.

The development time for patches in this game is frankly the worst I’ve ever experienced or witnessed.

infantrydiv.1620:

No. No PvP patches until April.

You better watch yourself sir or you will get an infraction with posts like this.

Arenanet has had just about enough with trolls like you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

Since I have no idea if you’re being serious or not, I’ll just say I was honestly under the impression the patch was supposed to be today. Was that the case, and then it was pushed back? Or was I entirely mistaken?

Wasn’t there supposed to be one?

I stopped paying attention for the most part about 2 weeks ago, so I’m unaware if there were any changes, but wasn’t there supposed to be a big patch today?

RyuDragnier.9476:

McFribble.2349:

The only thing that is “broken” about stealth is how much health regen Thieves get inside it. Thats pretty much it. Take out the Health Regen trait for something else, and stealth is completely balanced.

Shadow’s Rejuvenation: Remove and swap with something different (something like reviving players at twice the speed while in stealth)

Shadow Protector: Only apply to allies instead of allies and self. Almost every Thief skill that grants stealth offers some form of protection/healing ALREADY. (Blind is the best defensive skill in the game).

This is all that really should be changed (but not needed). Stealth is REALLY good, but not OP.

No, access to stealth through D/P is broken right now. Offhand Dagger is easy to deal with because they have to get close. Yes there are gap closers, but every class has some form of AoE they can toss on their own position to utterly devastate any thief who dares to get that close.

But being able to stealth from 600+ range easily without needing a target and having maybe 6-10 second cooldown for this sort of thing with just 2 weapon skills? That’s overpowered. I know somebody will try and say it’s the same thing with Smokescreen, but that has a 30 second cooldown on it, and you have to waste a utility slot for it.

This is the problem with public forums. Absolutely anyone can express their opinion, regardless of its accuracy.

If you’re having trouble with stealth access that costs 60/75% of a thief’s cooldown pool (Across BOTH weapons, mind you), there’s honestly not much I can offer to you.

Most people see “Learn to play” on the thief boards as a put-down. Certainly some people mean it as such, but it’s generally an honest assessment. Learn to play the game, and stealth won’t seem such a daunting foe.

BlackBeard.2873:

Whirling axe is great damage vs. warriors, but gets really strong when combined with all the shadow-steps

And denies the class reliant on both Evasion and stealth for survivability both evasion and stealth. This also ignores the fact that you can literally run away from the skill faster than the thief can follow – if a thief is blowing Inf sig or SS (Since they already used steal, remember?) to connect another 1k damage on Whirling axe, you can consider that a big win – blowing a useful utility to have 2 more swings of a whirling axe connect is kittening laughable. The fact that you thought it a convincing argument says a lot about your understanding of the game in general, and why your opinion does not carry much weight.

Healing Seed (ranger) is pretty crazy when combined with shortbow spammable blasts

A good skill, “pretty crazy” is an exaggeration however.

Skull fear is very strong for cc-ing and damaging necros, who are terribad vs. cc.

But have plenty of CC to use on the thief during the super obvious cast animation.

Ice shard stab DESTROYS eles if they can’t cleanse it

Which would be no Ele’s ever – they always insta-cleanse it, unless the thief is running some awful condi spec, in which case the spec itself makes up for any power the steal might bring. Comparing anything to ele’s is moot atm anyway, since Ele’s are so clearly in need of some buffs.

Blinding tuft gives a significant advantage vs. other thieves as it is a free backstab opportunity.

Assuming you’re wielding a dagger, and the opposing thief somehow plays his class without understanding how to avoid a backstab – seriously, you watch players avoid your backstab for 2 games and you quickly learn how to not get backstabbed yourself. Oh, and of course this is ignoring the possibility they have their own tuft from stealing from you

FTFY. You’re always welcome.

Eiland.1405:

“…thieves don´t have a thing like healing signet you don´t lose anything to waiting”
thieves have one the shortest heals in the game – withdraw , a 15sec CD so a 3.5 second is like 1/4 of the heal CD so yeah I do lose something as he gets much closer to hes next heal.

Which healing signet still beats in HPS, and is more resilient to Poison, so you’re still winning there.

But I realy don’t mind about this skill being use defensively, thats is actually a good play imo.

To @evilapprentice I really don’t care how many of the thieves skill are being called OP, I play a warrior and we get that every day.

Most of the “Warrior’s are OP” comments are centered around a handful of skills, not every single skill they get. Let me put it in warrior terms for you – you’ve basically come to the boards and said “Killshot is OP!” – that’s how silly “Whirling Axe is OP!” sounds to a thief player.

But be honest you have to admit that the stolen skill from warrior is much much stronger then all the other stolen skills:
How many times have u won a 1v1 becasue of throw gunk? or is it ‘consume plasma’ that saved you and killed that mesmer? How many times have have you even tried to land ‘head crack’ on a guardian vs the times you just throw it away to ready the next steal?
All I am saying guys is look at fights, and tell me other stolen skill can effect the battle so much as the whirling axe on the warrior does.

I’ve never won a fight thanks to whirling axe – if the player was inexperienced enough to let Whirling Axe damage wreck them, I was winning that fight regardless. Whirling Axe is Average at best – both of a warriors ranged options have ways around it (Rifle Butt, Both of LB’s AoE’s) AND most popular warrior builds have a five second swap via traits, so it’s hard to even call it “Strong”.

I’m sorry to tell you guys if you think that this skill does not allow you to faceroll warrior – you are doing it wrong.
And If you still thing that this skill is useless anyhow then you shouldn’t mind it being nerf, at least the damage part.

This is awful, awful, awful logic. There is no way to constructively criticize it – it’s just 100% wrong in every single way. If you’re having trouble with whirling axe, you need more experience.

One of the complaints about condition immunity is the fact that in addition to mitigating the damage, it also neutralizes a lot of spec’s defenses that are based around soft control. Instead of being immune to all conditions, why don’t we re-work condition immunities to only target the “killer” conditions?

Limit things like AR, Diamond skin and Zerker stance to immunity from Burn, Bleed, Torment, Confusion, Immobilize, Chill, and Fear.

Those skills will no longer grant immunity to Poison, Cripple, Weakness, Blind and Vulnerability.

This would allow Soft CC based defenses to still function, and most importantly, for certain classes to no longer completely mitigate the heal debuff aspect of poison.

Eurantien.4632:

Coming into this game where build there is supposed to be “build diversity” it’s hard to play a spec that gets utterly out competed by single skills. That is why I brought up power rangers getting demolished by pistol whip. Understandably, the counterargument that condition ranger is better than condi thief is clear. However, condi thief can kill a ranger relatively easy (you drop caltrops and keep the ranger and the pet inside of it, unless the ranger is good) by killing his pet with condi overload on both the ranger and the pet with bleeds. The only thing condi thief is lacking imo is access to burning. On the flip side, you have power ranger that gets completely countered by things like, shadow shot (unblockable blind = useless GS), pistol whip = evades frames = useless GS, mobility = useless GS (you can actually trigger the counterattack and strafe around the ranger preventing the attack from hitting you). Sure, you don’t NEED to use a great sword to play a power ranger but if you don’t then you’re stuck with longbow s/x and the DPS loss when swapping to sword is massive making you a worthless DPS for 10 seconds. The issue is not that things are stronger than other things, it is that there is poor mechanistic design to all classes and how they deal/sustain damage. No one, should do damage while doing evade frames. Condi ranger included.

You’re pointing out known issues with Power Rangers – I don’t disagree, but I think ranger needs some buffs/fixes before we can use it as a comparison point for anything. I’m also not saying thief is in a perfect state. I personally dislike pistol whip; why the developers decided to design the skills to root the thief (which necessitated the evasion, or else it’d be a self-kill) is beyond me. When they split the skill, perhaps it’ll be in a better place.

I’m all for adjustments and more importantly, build diversity. I just think the attitudes and suggestions of most of the posters in this particular thread (and in most “Thief is gamebreakingly OP” threads) are misinformed and exaggerated. Every class needs some work, thief included.

Jackums.3496:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Jackums.3496:

That’s the cost of playing passive AI builds. Working as intended.

It’s clearly not working as intended, it’s a bug. If necromancers had a skill that instantly vaporized all mesmer clones, there would be an uproar from the community.

Nope. I’d be fine with Moa Morph destroying my illusions if used on me. It’s a skill that can be blocked, dodged, and has a 180 second cooldown.

Whether or not you’re fine with it is irrelevant. It’s an acknowledged bug – it should be fixed.

Thedenofsin.7340:

I checked your signature. Your theorycrafting is a bit off.

Yeah, it probably isn’t. You’re going to have to prove that – I’ve seen a mountain of Arg’s theory-crafting explanations on the boards, I’ve never seen a single one from you. Doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but you’re going to have to back up your claims.

You say thieves do ‘a little more’ damage and mesmers have ‘a ton’ of AoE. That is simply not the case. Thieves can beserker thieves can crit continuously for 4-5k,

This is called Misinformation. There’s no thief spec that Continuously crits for 4-5k. If you’d like to refute me, by all means link me a spec capably of critting that high continuously.

far greater mobility

It’s kind of what thieves do, so that’s not much of a surprise.

far greater access to stealth, and longer duration stealth

Pretty sure base stealth duration is the same or very similar (not much room for variation on 3s stealth)- PU matches meld with shadows (higher tier slotted trait, more powerful), the only “longer duration stealth” a thief gets is SR. It’s also worth noting that while a thief has greater access to stealth, a Mesmer has greater range of a motion. A stealthed Dagger thief is trying to get behind you. A stealthed Mesmer…well, he’s probably somewhere withing 900 range of you – good luck guessing exactly where though.

far more access to evades and vigor

Mesmer has an Immunity skill, access to protection, trait that reduces damage based on number of clones/phantasms in play, clones/phantasms to do damage for you while evading/in stealth

shorter ability recharge times

Subjective based on utilities, as far as common utilities I don’t believe this is true.

more access to Lyssa 6-piece proc

Mesmer’s have strong boon stripping

access to Consume Plasma

Mesmer has access to shatter, if we’re going to bring class mechanics into the discussion.

better auto-attack damage

Mesmer has higher base HP

long-range teleports on shorter cooldowns

You already covered this with “greater mobility” – if you have to rename your own points to have a convincing enough list, you don’t have a strong argument.

Aveneo.2068:

evilapprentice.6379:

Snip

You are correct that I am fed up with the Thief class and how they (or I) can just instagib any other (ranged) class whenever they (or I) want.

Profession Balance forums can be tricky – I only talk PvP. What thief does in WvW doesn’t factor into anything I talk about, because I’m talking strictly PvP here. Just something to be aware of.
Having said that, what ranged class doesn’t have tools to open up gaps? Melee has gap closers, range has gap openers – that’s how things work. Just off the top of my head I can’t think of a single ranged weapon that doesn’t have at least 1 skill that knocks back/immobilzes/cripples/evades away/grants swiftness etc etc etc. I admit this is off the top of my head, but at minimum the vast majority of ranged weapons have gap-opening tools on the weapon itself – many classes ALSO have utilities that can be used to open a gap (and yes, thief also has a utility that can close a gap)

As I saw another thread regarding gapclosers, I felt that they all need to be brought in line. After all, they are gapclosers and should not allow you to jump halfway across a football field. Hence my suggestion for the reduced range on Steal. A melee oriented character needs to work a little harder at getting into melee range when faced with a ranged character and not simply push a button and done.

900 is less than the max range of every classes ranged weapon (minus thieves). Not many players run long reach – it’s not nearly as generally useful as thrill of the crime (Remember, I’m talking PvP, not WvW, I have 0 wvw knowledge). Even if you assume the thief is running long range, realize theif’s Niche is mobility – other classes can do burst, other classes can do stealth (admittedly not as well, but theres access), sticking to their target is what thieves do. Realize that it comes at a cost (notice how thieves don’t get stability?)

At any rate, while I appreciate your reasoning for providing an objective view when posting, you have to admit that ‘clearly you don’t play a thief’ is not objective. And pointless blanket statements like that is what I had an issue with as I have gotten such remarks too much already when trying to have any discussion concerning the Thief class. So often I see ‘You don’t play Thief’ or ‘L2P’ as if that immediately invalidates any post; almost giving the impression that this is all the Thief players know how to post.

I appreciate you’re willingness to discuss. Please realize, 95% of players who come here to kitten about thief are not willing to discuss anything – their opinion is rock solid, and they’re just interested in convincing others to agree with them, not in a discussion. I’m not going to spend 10 minutes elaborating my opinion when 19 out of 20 times the response is “Doesn’t matter, don’t care, thief is broken” without any discussion. I apologize for treating you as such, but it’s just the safe bet at this point. Everyone thinks they know exactly how to fix thief (Most of them having never actually played the class), and it’s usually by nerfing them into a free kill – no offense intended, but your suggested steal range is insultingly bad, and it’s hard to believe you play a thief and think that it’s a completely fair and viable change.

Thief is broken and requires (a lot of) attention. And with attention I do not mean nerfs. They are certainly in need of a lot of improvement too, next to toning a few things down. That is my (objective/subjective) view on the matter. They should be more the sneaky/evading ‘Scout’. So kinda more Assassin than Thief (ridiculous why they invented a new ‘class’ when they could have taken Assassin directly from GW1 imo).

I continue to disagree that thief is “broken”, for the reasons listed above. Recall, thieves used to be great assassin’s, until the community complained about how much spike they did (I’m not judging that choice, just stating a fact). Thief’s current state is a direct consequence of players not liking being insta-gibbed by spike damage – which is fine, but realize if you take a class that was designed to do great spike damage with low survivability, then limit it’s damage, you’re going to need to give it tools to stick to its target and survive until the target is dead, or else they’re just free kills.

You’re advocating a complete overhaul of the class (a thief that can’t close gaps is a free kill) – Anet doesn’t have a great track record with minor/moderate changes, and their time frames for those minor/moderate changes are insanely long – it’s fair to assume thief isn’t going to be completely overhauled any time soon.

Aveneo.2068:

Longest range any class has for a weapon attack is 1500 (Ranger with LB and trait), and aThief can just use a Steal-C&D/BS macro to instagib anyone. That’s my issue!

Thief is just a ridiculous class with all their stealth and instant teleports. Next to Warrior they require no skill at all to play.

Gapclosers in general should all be in the range of 450-600; so I was being generous with giving 900 to a traited variant.

But I am done with this. At this stage it would have been better if the Thief class had never existed in my opinion. Any attempt at suggesting changes just gets all the Thief players into posting those pointless ‘You never played a thief’, ‘L2P’ and other demeaning comments because they cba to actually post something meaningful. So instead they ridicule others.

The Thief class could be so much more if it did not have to rely on all these cheap tricks. But people just don’t want to see it. So I apparently fell into the trap of trying to offer something to a brick wall.

My mistake, won’t happen again.

It sounds like you’re just not a fan of the thief playstyle. That’s fine of course, but it makes you a very poor candidate for offering balance suggestions concerning the class.
Just because you don’t like something doesn’t make it “cheap” or “easy”. If you had more experience with the class, I probably wouldn’t need to point all of this out to you – this is why most thieves are sick of the forums.

It’s not that thief players in general are unwilling to discuss changes to the class, they just need to be good ones, proposed by experienced players, not ones from players with a poor understanding of thief mechanics and a grudge against the playstyle in general. We deal with those ad infinitum on these forums, and the players never understand why “Stealth should break on damage!” (and others like that) is an awful, awful suggestion which would require completely redesigning the thief.

I personally hate fighting PU mesmers, but that doesn’t make them cheap or easy to play. I keep my mouth shut about them on the forums because A; I’m not experienced enough with one to offer truly relevant insights, and B; even if I was experienced it would be hard not to let my dislike of the playstyle in general bleed into my (what should be objective) comments.

Aveneo.2068:

Just drop the condescending attitude; I am done here as you clearly want to keep your ridiculous teleports and won’t listen to reason. So you just act all high and mighty.

Have a nice life

Please tell me why you disagree with my assessment.

Aveneo.2068:

evilapprentice.6379:

Aveneo.2068:

If ANet is ever going to look at this I would also prefer the range on Steal in general to be reduced. 900 range instant teleport with a trait for 1500 range is a little ridiculous in my opinion.

450 range (900 with trait) sounds more reasonable to me.

Of course it does, you’ve clearly never played a thief.

What is with you people making pointless blanket statements instead of actually stating why they believe otherwise?

Check my sig. That’s one level 80 for every single class. So as a matter of fact I clearly play a thief.

Now tell me why you disagree with my suggestion or offer one of your own in return. But I get real tired with people that offer absolutely nothing of constructive value.

Oh, I apologize.

You apparently have no idea how thief functions, despite playing one. I hope that’s more clear.

My reasoning is you suggested steal be cut to 450 range.

The only class without a 1200 range weapon, the only class without an immunity or block skill, the only class with no in-class access to stability or protection. In the lowest HP pool, medium armor, relies on evades (Which move you around) for damage mitigation.

Our only functioning ranges weapon is an AoE/utility weapon, not designed for DPS (Shortbow) – Pistol MH is currently a poorly designed mess.

But you should have known all that, you play a thief. It just get’s old having to explain the absolute basics of a class to people who make suggestions for said class.

Aveneo.2068:

If ANet is ever going to look at this I would also prefer the range on Steal in general to be reduced. 900 range instant teleport with a trait for 1500 range is a little ridiculous in my opinion.

450 range (900 with trait) sounds more reasonable to me.

Of course it does, you’ve clearly never played a thief.

Eurantien.4632:

Go play a power ranger. Get hit by pistol whip. Go re roll a thief.

“Go play a condition thief in TPvP. Struggle and fail to be the least bit effective, regardless what class it is you’re actually fighting. Go Re-roll a ranger”

It’s not a compelling argument when you make it a point to compare a functioning spec for a particular class to a dysfunctional spec of another class.

Azukas.1426:

I can’t believe I just read a thread to nerf Mug/CnD

it’s to the point I might have to roll a thief to see why ppl are screaming to nerf EVERY aspect of it

Be prepared to be disappointed.

Not that thief is a bad class – it isn’t. But if your expectations have been built on how people on these forums describe thieves… hoo boy.

ens.9854:

Edit: to fix it OP suggests we need a way to make glass v glass fights last longer without making us useless vs tanks. So you either nerf the stickiness of thieves (tons of teleports/homing/evades) or you alter the functionality of their ‘burst’ skills to spread the damage out.

/endsynopsis

I’m not against some changes to thieves, but the above reads as “Let’s turn thieves into warriors with less HP, lower armor, and less sustain”. I’m all for lowering burst and spreading that damage out to other skills, so thieves hit consistently harder with less spike, but if you remove the teleports and evades on top of that, why wouldn’t you just roll a warrior?

There was a suggestion recently (I think it might have been linked in this thread) to change thief damage from frontloaded to backloaded. Instead of big burst skills from stealth followed by cleanup damage, redesign thieves to do more damage as the fight goes on – that way other glass specs aren’t being mauled without affecting a thieves ability to take down tougher builds.

frans.8092:

Bazzoong.7145:

One point is to make CnD useful for non-power/crit builds not just P/D also S/D would profit.

Who said P/D is non-power only?

Common sense did.

Stop suggesting changes on things you don’t know enough about.

I don’t agree with OP, but let’s not pretend Power/crit P/D is something viable. All it does is muddy up the conversation.

Your suggestion isn’t taking PvP into account – I can tell you’re basing this suggestion on your WvW experience because you claim CnD can hit for 3.5k non-crit.

CnD does 33% less damage in sPvP – removing it’s ability to crit (which limits more than just damage, mind you – think of all the traits/runes that rely on crits) and having it still cost 6 init would be insane – 3s of protection would be nice, but not really worth it, since it’s insanely easy to guess where a D/D thief who just used CnD might be moving to.

Vuh.1328:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Jackums.3496:

That’s the cost of playing passive AI builds. Working as intended.

It’s clearly not working as intended, it’s a bug. If necromancers had a skill that instantly vaporized all mesmer clones, there would be an uproar from the community.

Epidemic on target with condis up, any AOE all “vaporize” clones(super squishy) squishy if they are not spread apart in a big big area compared to minions who are fairly tanky actually.

I’m actually fine with this bug since AI builds like minion master shouldn’t exist in pvp at all.
People don’t use moa in s/tpvp anyway .

Though i don’t think it’s fine they just poof when you enter water since that is lame for PvE where people should be allowed to run whatever they like.

This is literally the worst opinion you could possibly have.

Regardless whether you feel a build is fair, fun, high skill, etc, you should be interested in things working correctly. If you want to make the case that MM shouldn’t exist in PvP, do it in another thread. You should not be ok with class-gimping bugs just because you don’t like the spec – this is a perfect example of one of this games biggest issues that can’t be solved by the dev team – the players who don’t care if things work until it affects them negatively.

If you’re not interested in a functioning game for all, you’re not interested in a good game – go play something else, you’re making GW2 worse.

Honestly?

The very next comment?

Do you have no shame?

There’s no question as to whether or not it’s a bug; that would have been clear had you read the posts you decided to comment on. If you don’t like MM, have that discussion elsewhere – this isn’t a feedback thread, it’s a “Fix this spec destroying bug please” thread – your opinion on the spec is immaterial.

There’s also no value in describing how someone can “play around” a bug – it’s a non-conversation. Players shouldn’t be altering their playstyle to accommodate a bug, bugs should be fixed.

It’s nice seeing so much of the community “Show their true colors”, so to speak.

Despite proof from the dev’s that the issue is a bug and clearly unintended, so many of you are completely cool with it because of the spec in question. “It’s braindead”, or “It’s too easy”, or you find it annoying to fight. So let’s just ignore a bug that completely shuts down the spec (because they deserve it, right?) It’s laughable that so many of you feel you’re qualified to suggest balance changes when this is your attitude concerning an improperly functioning interaction with such a strong effect.

If you don’t like MM, take that conversation elsewhere – not liking a spec is no reason to ignore a bug that 100% completely kills it.

Phantaram.1265:

Shadow Refuge has a 60 second cooldown and is arguably one of the strongest utilities in the game.

Please make your argument as to why it’s one of the strongest utilities in the game. Without a supporting argument, all you’ve done is assemble a committee of words.

Shadow Refuge is similar to other profession rez utilities like Necro and Mesmers resurrects and those utilities were nerfed very hard a long time ago. I would say these utilities are on longer cooldowns than shadow refuge and probably succeed less.

…How is it similar? Do these utilities drop an unmistakable, highly visible AoE that you can drop AoE/CC/Knockbacks into to counter the res? Does there still need to be a body locked on top of the downed player ressing? Does poison/cleave damage effect them in the same way? Tangentially related, but does the thief have a huge base health pool or immunity skills to help mitigate the damage he’ll be eating (Due to the highly visible AoE which screams “I’m attempting a Res”)?

I see a whole lot of hearsay here (“I think”, “probably”, “I would say”,etc etc etc), which is fine, your opinion is your own, but you’re not really making any good arguments that reinforce your point. Your comparisons aren’t very strong, and your anecdotal evidence isn’t very convincing.

Sanduskel.1850:

bwillb.2165:

Fortus.6175:

two of the most ‘famous’ pro players (highly regarded as civilized, open minded and reasonable man) quit their mesmer class in a rather ‘ragey’ way over their channels and rerolled to thieves due to the amount of unbalances and apparent favoritisim towards certain classes such as warriors and thieves. They are now rolling thieves themselves.

If they think that there is favoritism towards thieves, the one class that has been nerfed by community request nearly every single patch, which has had nearly no buffs to offset these nerfs… They are clearly not pro or reasonable. The pros are the ones who continue rocking thief despite hundreds of nerfs.

Fortus.6175:

HECK, even devs themselves admitted in a stream that thieves were driving away mesmers and elementalists from this meta.

Was this the same stream where the dev tried to play a spammy thief build and died horribly because they’ve never tried a thief before and had no idea how fragile they are?

I play a thief, and those so called nerfs were just facades. Perma stealth is still possible, as is massive burst and continual high burst while stealthed.

Prove it.

You’re constantly expressing your (incorrect) opinion as fact; you’ve been asked to prove it repeatedly, and fail to do so every time.

Either prove it or stop lying, please.

This isn’t intended to be rude, but why are we waiting 3 months in between balance/feature patches? That’s a very long time for even a long list of great changes… and the current patch preview isn’t very long or great looking (from a balance standpoint)

Avead.5760:

evilapprentice.6379:

Oh Look, a thief using all of his init on a skill with a low coefficient and a utility to dodge a bunch – I’m sure the 2-3k total damage he would have done there while using every point of initiative and a utility would have been game breaking – If only his weaponset summoned another thief that could just automatically do damage for him while he was dodging or sitting in stealth (Stealth not pictured).
I similarly lol’d, but for other reasons.

Wait a sec ..are you implying that you should be able to also do damage while being practically invulnerable for ages?? :P

No, just pointing out that a thief who spends all his initiative dodging wont’ have any left for, you know, anything else at all. Other classes get blocks and evades, and it doesn’t cost them all of their offensive power on both of their weaponsets to do so – 4 disabling shots in a row evades 1 seconds longer than blurred frenzy, costs 16 initaitve (more than the max even with preparedness, meaning its only really possible with 30 trickery specs) as opposed to 1 skill out of 10, and the positioning can bite you in the kitten as much as it helps – try holding down a node while evading with disabling shot.

The thing is that initiative isnt that hard to recover

You’re going to have to qualify this statement. In what way is it not hard to recover? By standing around and waiting? That’s pretty much instant death.

It’s not like and that all the damage the thief is soaking up at that time plus all the distance he gets(dodge and evade skills come with mobility if you havent notice) make up for a pretty easy escape.

This isn’t WvW – escaping has some value, but spending all of your init/endurance/ a utility to do so drastically lowers it. It’d be just as easy to escape with SS and Inf Arrow, it’s what thief does. As for dodging damage…don’t spam CD’s while they’re dodging? AoE fields also do wonders.

At worst case he gets a reset while doing some damage and reliefing some pressure for his team by forcing enemy to blow cds

Why exactly was the enemy forced to blow CD’s? That was the point of mentioning the awful damage distracting shot did (which isn’t a complaint, just a fact) – if a thief is evade spamming, what are you blowing CD’s for?

..And then he stays at range applying some more damage and poison and all that..

How is he using choking gas? He just spent all his initiative dodging.

You cant catch them,you cant punish them..and after you are done blowing cds they ll stick to you till the end of the world and they ll punish you hard.

Again, if you blow all your CD’s against a dodge-spamming opponent, that’s on you.

Theres no need for defence stats on the thief and thats why..evades ,insane mobility(seriously it makes positioning a non issue while it should be)

Mobility and positioning are what a thief does. Their burst isn’t any better than any other burst class atm, each class has its role (or should, anyway)

stealth

Stealth And Evasion are mutually exclusive – no effective spec uses both, it’s 1 or the other. As for mobility and positioning, it’s significantly worse with “Stealth” (D/P).

..togethter with high damage
..Dont you think there should be a tradeoff? Dont you think other classes (i dont mean mesmer ) should be able to roll gc builds without being shut down by this..thing ?? :O

Learn to time things? I will agree that disabling shot probably needs a short aftercast so you can time attacks in between it, but it’s not some gamebreakingly OP issue – it doesn’t do enough damage to threaten even a GC, and escaping is roughly equal to losing (showing up at another fight missing init/endurance/utilities after having failed to cap/decap a point isn’t as strong as you’re making it out to be). Best case scenario, they spent 15-30s not helping their team win the game.

Its so badly designed.Its bringing a whole game down even at times were thieves dont have strong impact on meta.Its not really a matter of power and effectiveness how disgustingly this class operates.

So it doesn’t have a strong impact on the meta, people just don’t like fighting it. I guess they’ll have to learn to play?

Oh Look, a thief using all of his init on a skill with a low coefficient and a utility to dodge a bunch – I’m sure the 2-3k total damage he would have done there while using every point of initiative and a utility would have been game breaking – If only his weaponset summoned another thief that could just automatically do damage for him while he was dodging or sitting in stealth (Stealth not pictured).
I similarly lol’d, but for other reasons.

gesho.9468:

yes, this should be done in hotjoins too, waitlist and only allow even join on both sides

Let’s not bring hotjoin into this – players can jump into hotjoin any time they want, and it’s not intended to be a competitive environment, and isn’t limited by the current matchmaking system.

I understand that with the way Anet currently does matchmaking, it’s not easy to force-fill a 4v5 roster with a single extra player.

I’m here to suggest something that should be easy to implement with the way matchmaking is currently being done, and will result in a happier playerbase/fairer fights.

In the situation of a game starting as a 4v5, force another 20 second timer once the initial countdown is complete and force one player to sit out the game. Allow players to volunteer to sit out (so teams can preserve their composition), and viola, you have a fair 4v4. Reward them appropriately for sitting out (this part might be hard – do you grant them an auto-win, or will that incentivize sitting out of the game?).

It’s a band-aid fix and not perfect – mid-game DC’s and players sitting in spawn will still be an issue, but I’d much rather kitten off 1 player per game rather than 4 while also vastly increasing the number of even games that are played, even with a smaller playerbase.

Xaylin.1860:

evilapprentice.6379:

How does turning stealth into a boon in any way effect how often it can be used? It’s a mechanics change, not an availability change. He also mentioned not changing revealed timers (except for the case where his proposed stealth ‘boon’ was stripped), resulting in the exact same availability and restrictions to stealth.

I also mentioned not changing the revealed timers. I was solely talking about the stealth version of weapon skill #1. Not sure why you think I’d want revealed to be changed.

Revealed timers are there primarily there to limit stealth attack options – they affect SA traits as well, but every thief has stealth attack options, spending points in SA is not universal. Adding a CD to Backstab is the same as messing with the revealed timer, from a DPS standpoint.

Making it a boon is quite a huge change since you can expect stealth being high on the priority list. You might underestimate boon stripping. Mesmers could Nullfield you. Or Mind Blast you with their GS. Or use Sword AA. Guardians could remove it by using AE burns. Necros could corrupt it with their Well. Engineers could run Elixirs and throw them at you. Throw Mines also works. And, of course, those sweet Sigils with boon stripping. Just got to spam area attacks.

Still doesn’t mess with the stealth/revealed timers, which is the big deal.

evilapprentice.6379:

His suggestion of taking damage away from backstab was balanced by a suggestion (albeit a vague one) to compensate with DPS boosters for the prolonged fight – I’m fine with backstab doing less up front damage if it enables damage later (like say via large stacks of vulnerability) – it’s about not kittening up overall damage. Lowering the frequency is a bad change, switching the frontloaded damage into escalating damage is a good one.

As said earlier, reducing the frequency could come with compensating changes.

The compensating changes would have to be big damage boosts, which is the opposite direction of Mon’s suggestions. His version keeps the pace of stealth/stealth attacks the same, upping sustained DPS and dropping burst. Your suggestion would have to up burst, because you’re imposing a second artificial limit on BS (since we already have revealed), and isn’t necessary.

evilapprentice.6379:

evilapprentice.6379:

If you take venomous aura, but dont take at minimum leeching venoms and quick venoms, your build is bad (again, in PvP). Once you’re at that level of investment, it only makes sense to also go 30 DA for Residual, and take venomous might.
It’s my opinion that venoms suck in general – it’s a fact that venoms suck in tPvP and sPvP, which is what this discussion is about.

While Quick Venoms is advisable you are in no way forced to take Residual. Yes, it could be fused with a different trait, but you don’t need it. I also don’t like Venomous Might. I personally prefer Mug and go 20/0/30/0/20. If you don’t like the extra Initiative and Vigor you are free to go 30/0/30/0/10.

No one’s forced to do anything – if you’re going to spec venoms/support however, you’re going to have 3 traits at minimum (Aura, Quick Ven, Leeching), and as many venoms as you can cram onto your bar (likely Skelk, 2 utilities and BV) – at this point, not taking residual venoms is silly because you’re gimping your own support spec – 1 additional trigger per venom per target – assuming you share venoms with 2 players (since the goal is support, I Dont think that’s a wild assumption), you’re talking about 12 additional venom triggers – that’s a huge difference.

Of course, this isn’t the best set up when getting into a 1vs1 situation while roaming in in hotjoin PvP. But we are talking about support. It is pretty nice when fighting side by side with an ally. And even solo you should not underestimate it when you bring Ambush and Thieves Guild. I like it. But I’m rather unconventional when it comes to builds anyway.

Ambush and thieves guild is the “Solo” version of this, and you won’t be running it in tPvP. As far as hotjoin…who cares? It’s hotjoin, a specs effectiveness in hotjoin means basically nothing.

While mentioning Venom indeed was a bit off topic, please, let’s not argue about sPvP and tPvP. People rarely go for support heavy builds there because the builds have to be able to sustain on their own. Even on classes which are way more support focussed by class design. If you’re lucky you might find bunker builds with support capabilities.

Alrighty.

Xaylin.1860:

evilapprentice.6379:

This is an awful, awful suggestion that keeps cropping up on the forums in various forms. Backstab is already balanced around the current stealth timers – if you want a CD imposed on backstab, be prepared for a big damage increase (which is completely counter-productive). On top of all that, I don’t see how Mon advocated less stealth – his suggestion leaves stealth where it is for the most past.

From my point of view, Backstab is not sufficiently balanced by stealth timers. While I don’t think denying Thieves to go back into stealth is the right thing to do, I feel that the frequency of applying Backstabs is too high. Thus, damage is too stealth dependend. Lowering the frequency by introducing a cooldown doesn’t necessarily mean that the damage of Backstab has to increase. If needed, out of stealth weapon skills could be adjusted or it could apply Vulnerability as mentioned above. It advocates the same idea like Mon mentioned, making Backstab an opener.

Mon did also advocate less stealth through taking damage away from skills like Backstab. His rework of making stealth a boon results in a totally different stealth. Not sure how you assume this would leave stealth where it is.

How does turning stealth into a boon in any way effect how often it can be used? It’s a mechanics change, not an availability change. He also mentioned not changing revealed timers (except for the case where his proposed stealth ‘boon’ was stripped), resulting in the exact same availability and restrictions to stealth.

His suggestion of taking damage away from backstab was balanced by a suggestion (albeit a vague one) to compensate with DPS boosters for the prolonged fight – I’m fine with backstab doing less up front damage if it enables damage later (like say via large stacks of vulnerability) – it’s about not kittening up overall damage. Lowering the frequency is a bad change, switching the frontloaded damage into escalating damage is a good one.

evilapprentice.6379:

Venoms are awful – to be of any use, they the entirety of your spec dedicated to them (60 points and 5 traits), and even then they’re Meh – they’re a utility line with a long CD with no stunbreaker in the line, and their use is all PBAOE and instant, making coordination significantly harder for the benefits you receive than other classes support options.

I said they needed tweaking. But they far from useless. I personally enjoy using them in PvE.

We are talking PvP

It’s also not true that you have to get all traits at once, only Venom Aura is mandatory. If their range was increased and a stunbreak was introduced to them they might make for a nice supportive low stealth build in WvW or hotjoin PvP. tPvP not so much but that doesn’t mean they suck in general.

If you take venomous aura, but dont take at minimum leeching venoms and quick venoms, your build is bad (again, in PvP). Once you’re at that level of investment, it only makes sense to also go 30 DA for Residual, and take venomous might.
It’s my opinion that venoms suck in general – it’s a fact that venoms suck in tPvP and sPvP, which is what this discussion is about.

evilapprentice.6379:

Shadow refuge has 1 real use – stomp prevention. Mind you, that’s a really good use.

Well… everyone is entitled to their opinion I guess? I personally value it.

I wasn’t disagreeing – Shadow refuge is basically a must in tPvP, because it’s ability to counter stability/invuln stomp is tremendous.

Xaylin.1860:

Stealth
Stealth certainly has its issues in GW2. In DAoC, for example, going back into stealth after attacking was a lot harder or even impossible. However, implementing your changes would make Shadow Arts totally useless. I personally would make going into stealth less attractive in general. Or just more difficult.

But stealth in this game has been entirely designed around short duration/reapplication. I Didn’t play DAoC, but of the games I have played with stealth in them (WAR, Wow, Rift to name a few), initial stealth was either permanent, or long lasting (30s+), making setting up a stealth attack a breeze – those games all had options for 1 in-combat stealth as well. Their stealth openers were also designed with this in mind, making them much more powerful.

One idea which has been posted several times is changing the combo field of Blinding Powder into a dark field. I really like this suggestion. Blinding Powder could still blind on hit but the pulsing Blind could be removed. Leap stealthing would be prohibited. The original poster also suggested making dark fields stealth on projectile finishers. I disagree with that part of the suggestion. It would just move the perma-stealth issue from D/P to P/P. It would also be hard to control due to 20% projectile finishers and probably just cause unintentend reveals.

Please stop saying “Perma-stealth” – it no longer exists in sPvP. The Dec 10th change rendered long-duration stealth impossible without the use of utilities, which Anet is fine with (and is fine from a balance standpoint) – thieves in sPvP can no longer stealth indefinitely.

One shot wonders
I partly disagree here. There should be a way of playing the Thief in an Assassin style way. However, there got to be a bigger risk like in DAoC where you can’t get back into stealth after you used your backstab. As said earlier, I don’t think limiting stealth is the right solution here. However, Backstab and the other weapon#1 stealth skills could get a cooldown and only become available after this cooldown is done. As a result, Thieves won’t be able to burst that frequently. It also makes hiding in stealth less appealing because you can’t reapply your Backstab that frequently. Conclusively, Thieves might actually stay out of stealth longer to deal damage and use stealth more defensively.

This is an awful, awful suggestion that keeps cropping up on the forums in various forms. Backstab is already balanced around the current stealth timers – if you want a CD imposed on backstab, be prepared for a big damage increase (which is completely counter-productive). On top of all that, I don’t see how Mon advocated less stealth – his suggestion leaves stealth where it is for the most past.

caveman.5840:

every class but the thief has team support skills!

Got to disagree. Thieves do have support skills but most Thief players just don’t like them because they favour a different play style. Venoms are pretty nice for your group while they indeed might need some more tweaking. Smoke Screen and Shadow Refuge on the other hand are just plain great. They also provide great combo fields which you state Thieves do not have.

Venoms are awful – to be of any use, they the entirety of your spec dedicated to them (60 points and 5 traits), and even then they’re Meh – they’re a utility line with a long CD with no stunbreaker in the line, and their use is all PBAOE and instant, making coordination significantly harder for the benefits you receive than other classes support options.

Shadow refuge has 1 real use – stomp prevention. Mind you, that’s a really good use.

ManCaptain.3154:

bwillb.2165:

Burnfall.9573:

All problems would be gone if our Parents; Arena.net, didn’t play FAVORITISM

Ah yes, the favoritism of a major nerf nearly every patch… even though thieves were never considered OP in beta and received no buffs after that point before the nerfs started…

Right…. thieves never got any buffs whatsoever amirite guise?

Go search the thief forums a while back (~3 months?) there were 2 posts; one listing all the nerfs thief has seen since launch, and the other listing all buffs (of which I am the author) – feel free to compare the 2 and see how much more severe the nerfs were.

bwillb.2165:

bwillb.2165:

The even introduced a cheap purchasable WvW item that completely disables stealth in an area, but yeah, definitely favoring thieves.

The fact that they needed to introduce a stealth counter consumable is more than enough indication how ridiculous this class is.

We’re talking sPvP – WvW has nothing to do with sPvP in terms of stealth (capture point format makes stealth extremely weak)

MonMalthias.4763:

The problem with Thief is that it’s a little too good against other Glass cannons, hence pushing them out of the meta (Elementalist, Mesmer), whilst being only middling or outright inferior against tougher builds like Condi-bunkers or just Bunkers in general.

• Part, but not _all of the problem can be traced back to Critical Damage. Most GC builds run little to no toughness, so getting hit by a Thief hurts. A lot. You can easily start a fight at 50% HP as a GC against a Thief, and then you’ve got small windows of opportunity to turn the fight around. Against D/P, you have to interrupt/CC the re-Stealth. Against S/D, you have to hit a clutch CC, or wait for when they try to burst, then counter.

• Outside of these windows of vulnerability; there is little opportunity for other Glass Cannons to counter-engage. Stealth remains difficult to counterplay for some classes, laughably easy for others. The solution is to build tanky DPS so you live longer to see more windows. But that leads to the original problem – other glass cannons are out-competed.

The solution is not going to be easy, but it’s going to involve the following:

• Moving some of the utility Thieves get from Stealth into other areas. Condition cleanse, Crit chance, that sort of thing.
• Making Stealth a Boon; thus giving skills with Boon Hate additional utility against Stealth. Mesmers in particular would have their matchups improved markedly by this one change.
  • Most importantly removing Stealth as a Boon should not inflict Revealed. With counterplay must come counter-counterplay – the Thief should be able to re-stealth after hitting Boon Hate. Obviously things like hitting people while Stealthed should still inflict Revealed.

• As for things like Backstab, the whole Stealth Opener thing should be revised to be just that: an Opener. Damage should not be frontloaded into Backstab. Instead, large (I’m talking 5, 10, 15 stacks) of Vulnerability should be inflicted. Snares like Cripple or Immobilise optional. (maybe through Traits)
  • Thief weapon sets should then be rebalanced to put more damage into the other skills. Overall damage output over time should be increased. Thief shouldn’t be a one-shot wonder, but something that hits harder and harder the more you can’t get them off your back.
  • This has the effect of making Thief less effective against other Glass Cannons as the window of counter-engagement has now increased. This also makes Thief more effective against Tanky DPS builds (assuming damage output over time is also increased)

Too many weapon sets rely on only 2-3 out of the 5 possible attacks because too much has been loaded into 1 skill whilst others are left weak because buffing them would make the weapon set OP.

• Underutilised skills should be reworked to provide Thief with more sustain i.e. Life Steal is an underlooked mechanic on Thief, but as a Protection/Toughness ignoring source of damage, Life Steal on Thief can be looked at as a way for Thief to counter bunkers.
• The aim is to enable Thief to stay engaged with an enemy for longer while being less dependant on, but no less assisted by, clutch Blinds/Dodges

TL:DR: The aim should be to:

• Make Thieves less time-starved, or “one shot wonders”. Thieves should be dealing damage, but it should not be all frontloaded from Stealth.
• Make Thieves less dependant on Stealth overall to deal their damage. Thieves should deal their damage just like everyone else – Revealed. They just require the tools to be able to do so like everyone else instead of using Stealth as a crutch.
• Clutch Blinds and Evades should still be an outstanding feature of the class, but must promote a skill floor like being conditional on dodging actual attacks, or actually hitting, or dealing bonus damage to target after target misses attack due to Blind.
• Squishy GCs should have their window of counter-engagement against Thieves extended, whilst Tanky DPS or Bunkers have theirs decreased i.e. through Vulnerability stacking or Toughness ignoring damage i.e. Life Steal.

This is one of the best suggestions for thief I’ve heard in a long time – well thought out and articulated. What’s even more shocking, you’re talking about thief on the forums but not exaggerating or crying for nerfs,and it’s clear your familiar with how the class works! I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

What’s ultimately depressing is that these suggestions aren’t easy to implement – If we ever see them (and I doubt it), it’ll be 6+ months at minimum into the future.

You sir. You’ve gone above and beyond.

While thieves usually have to deal with alot of exageration, lies and hyperbole when non-thief players talk about their abilities, you’ve distinguished yourself.

Fortus.6175:

Backstabs, without any kind of interaction on the taker other than bending over and taking it regardless of skillfully blocking it, blinding or evading the attack.

If you’re still puzzling over how to counter backstab, you’re just not trying. Stealth is UP in sPvP – it lasts 3 seconds (4 if you’ve got points in SA, which competitive thief builds dont). Here’s a simple counter – move away from where you last saw the thief – with 3 seconds, he’s going to have a hard time connecting that backstab. If you’d like more info, feel free to look it up.

Blinds, which reapply on literally every second

If you stand in a Black powders field (which would be a strange choice, seeing as you can melee the thief from outside the field)

and then there is the fact that every ranged skill on thieves (except autoattack) applies a blind through this field.

A…are you throwing P/P in with the “Thieves are OP” rant? You’re flirting with disqualification Sir. Unload is only a 20% chance anyway, and Trick shot (20%), cluster bomb and choking gas also don’t apply blind through the field, so it would be more accurate
to say “Spec’s you’ll never see in tPvP because they’re awfully suited for it have alot of ways to apply blind through BP’s field”. Let’s also note any setup that includes P/P is a joke in any PvP format- if you were unaware of this, you’re probably not qualified to comment on thief.

Teleports that cure conditions and break stuns, rendering any form of CC, soft or hard, useless.

Lets see here… IR cures 1 condition and doesn’t break stun… SS breaks stun but doesn’t cure conditions…Inf sig breaks stun with a targeted teleport….IA does neither….Shadow Return does break stuns and cure 3 conditions, so you should have used the singular form, “Teleport”

On top of not only having one, or 2, or 3, or 4 , or 5……. just as many as initiative permit, on top of 2 freebies on low CD.

5 Infiltrators returns would cost 15 total init (cause you know, you have to Inf strike first), and would leave you with 0 initiative for…you know….anything else at all. I don’t know if I’d call a class mechanic a “freebie” (it’s not as if thieves were 100% complete and a dev said “I know, lets give em the steal mechanic on top of all that!”), and you have to actually Slot infiltrators signet to use it.

Suggestions: Please roll a thief and make some video’s of you using the “incredibly overpowered everything” you listed above to absolutely obliterate your competition in any form of tPvP – if you can’t prove these allegations, they’re just ridiculous exaggerations, misunderstanding, and outright lies.

FeelsAlright.5860:

The problem with counterplaying entering stealth is (as always) the D/P weapon set. There is no counterplay to stopping the thief from entering stealth.

Except of course hard cc (and daze) – if you cc them mid-HS they just spent 9 init (that’s alot) for almost nothing, it skews the fight heavily in your favor.

Eh, OP has a point – it’s possible to counter every stomp avoidance mechanic besides the elementalist’s – it really should be fixed…at some point.

Ele currently has too many problems to set aside time to specifically nerf them, even if the nerf is deserved (This is conjecture, I’m not stating that as fact). Once elementalist is in a more well built, viable place, this can be addressed (though I’m unsure how it would be addressed tbh).

Carighan.6758:

Phaeton.9582:

Beyond that, more runes should provide alternate solutions for dealing with highly spread condi burst, without sacrificing viability in other areas.

If they don’t sacrifice anything, they’re factually superior. Just saying.

Lyssa runes sacrifice alot.
Precision is a very low value stat for direct damage (where you see Lyssa’s the most on War/Thief) they’d almost always gain much much more from power.
10% condition duration is nigh worthless
a random boon on heal is just that – random. You can’t rely on RNG, so it’s not something you want to count on for competitive matches.

The only strong effect on Lyssa’s is the 6 piece – compare that to say Ogre, where every single set bonus is strong And 5/6 of these good bonuses have 100% uptime, as compared to Lyssa’s strong effect with 5 second uptime.

Thedenofsin.7340:

evilapprentice.6379:

Thedenofsin.7340:

IN MY OPINION, it’s overpowered in today’s game.

Oh, that’s much different.

I disagree.

I’ll even go so far as to give you a reason.

Steal is a thief’s F1 class mechanic – If you’re going to complain how powerful it is, go ahead and compare it to attunements, burst skills, shatter, etc etc etc.

I’ll go so far as to argue your reason has no merit.

If ANet changed Steal to 1 Shot Infinite Range Insta-Kill you’d argue it was not overpowered because it’s the thief’s F1 class mechanic.

Your reason holds no water..

Sigh.

Following my logic above, if you compared a 1 shot infinite range insta-kill to shatter, burst, etc, you’d conclude that it was wildly overpowered.

If you compare consume plasma (its effect, its availability) to shatter, burst, etc, you’d conclude that it’s not as powerful – which is fine, there are other components to steal. When you compare steal in its entirety to other f1 mechanics, you’d conclude that it’s not OP.

So you see it was your mistake in following my logic, not my logic, that caused the misunderstanding.

stale.9785:

Paulo – I had a thief, and yeah, they suck diseased moose wang in PvE. You know how many deaths I had while roaming in WvW? Less than 1. Were I to re-roll a thief, use a instant 20 scroll, and go back to WvW, I guarantee I could level to 80 with no deaths while roaming.

There is absolutely zero risk to a class that cannot be tracked, and has the ability to spam 2 skills till someone is dead, and if there’s any chance of failing, reset the fight and flee.

Anyone who dies to mindless skill spam deserved it (Either due to inexperience or being depleted from a recent fight) – it’s just as simple as that.

As far as WvW goes, as far as I’m concerned delete the class – I do not care about WvW – sPvP is what I care about and argue for (because that’s where balance should be centered on), and stealth is not OP in sPvP (it’s possibly slightly UP, but it’s not worth discussing).

It’s impossible to balance for both because of their myriad differences – stealth has a high cost in capture point PvP (not capping/defending points, which is the entire goal). In addition, the gear ranges in WvW are much wider, and there’s no guarantee of even footing.

hihey.1075:

No. Good players already know how to counter stealth. If you can’t, then either you’re not equipped for it, or you’re not a good player.
Cheers.

This.

Thedenofsin.7340:

IN MY OPINION, it’s overpowered in today’s game.

Oh, that’s much different.

I disagree.

I’ll even go so far as to give you a reason.

Steal is a thief’s F1 class mechanic – If you’re going to complain how powerful it is, go ahead and compare it to attunements, burst skills, shatter, etc etc etc.

Thedenofsin.7340:

The bottom line remains – it’s overpowered in today’s game.

You’ll have to prove that – just saying it doesn’t make it so.

Example: The bottom line remains – it’s not overpowered in today’s game

While that may be my opinion, I can’t really state it as fact without attempting to prove why.

juno.1840:

evilapprentice.6379:

Thank you for inching us 1 skill closer to the “Every single skill/ability/trait associated with thief is OP” singularity.

Honestly, just please, stop coming to the boards every time strike you as unfair on paper. Go, roll a thief, and then tell me how consume plasma turns you into an unstoppable killing machine.

If you were meant to have all boons in competitive play, don’t you think you’d be given an option other than stealing against a mesmer?

Except there is an option for getting it in competitive play – by stealing it from a mesmer. The existence of the skill your saying shouldn’t exist defeats your entire “argument”.

Just because you have it via steal doesn’t make it correct or desired.

False – that’s exactly what it means. The “From player” steals were specifically designed and balanced for sPvP, it’s specifically desired by the developers that thieves get consume plasma when stealing from a mesmer, it’s not random.

If it is a “desired” mechanic , then I would imagine thieves everywhere would be screaming “I need Consume Plasma when fighting every profession, not just mesmers!”. I’m sure you can guess the response you’d get to that…

This section is absolutely devoid of logic, I can’t really comment in any way that would be constructive or helpful.

Thank you for inching us 1 skill closer to the “Every single skill/ability/trait associated with thief is OP” singularity.

Honestly, just please, stop coming to the boards every time something strikes you as unfair on paper. Go, roll a thief, and then tell me how consume plasma turns you into an unstoppable killing machine.