What: Ability to gain xp via any means.
Why: A level 1 thief clearly has the same, if not greater powers than a level 80 of any other completely geared class.
I’ll either:
1) Stay with d/d and pick off classes at the edges, it’s high risk but good fun.
2) Spam shortbow poison and cluster bomb.
3) My current favourite – throw my scorpion wire and pull some poor soul into my teammates, or off the wall. Just seeing them fly through the air is so gratifying.
I enjoy being on my thief in zergs than on my warrior. Warrior was a bit to – leap in, spam styles, leap out. Thief is so fragile you have to play far more carefully, which makes it more fun.
You picked a bad class to switch to Brett!
People just hate stealth types in every game, and rangers seem to get lumped in for some reason.
Anet seems to just adore heavies and mesmers.
Last refuge killed me last night..
Standing in my shadow refuge completely visible because last refuge decided to kick in during a fight and then i cancelled it with my next hit.
Such a frustrating skill. Wish they’d change it to having 2 seconds of evade at 25 percent health instead.
Just wow.
Even with the total figure it’s below every other heal in the game right now.
How come most of the other classes heals have a passive component always active and thieves don’t?
They just remade signet of malice, but worse.
Honestly as a thief how many consecutive hits do you land before the other player dodges/teleports/blocks, knocks you away/stuns you. maybe 1 or 2?
What a hilariously badly thought out heal.
Will I drop my heal which makes me invisible, removes 3 conditions and heals me for 5k a time on a 30 sec timer, or a venom which heals me for slightly more as long as I can land all 4 hits on a 45 second timer, and takes 1 second to activate…..
It’s a tough choice!
I’ve neen mulling it over.
It said 5 stacks, so will activate on the next 5 attacks.
Pros:
1) 5 attacks with 5 decent heals can give you some sustain.
2) With venomshare your team gets 5 attacks each giving them a decent sustain in a fight which in a big burst fight could spell victory.
Cons:
1) 45 second cooldown.
2) Venomshare is a top tier ability, and replaces the heal in stealth, which is a superior healing ability solo.
3) Venomshare with healing does nothing if you’re solo.
4) If you can hit someone 5 times consecutively without being evaded/blocked etc, then theres’s a good chance that person will be dead anyway.
5) Anything venom related needs trait points invested for it to be worth taking as other abilities are just far superior. All the other classes heals seem to be independent.
6) If 2 venom strikes take you to full health, unless you’re taking damage, those other 3 are wasted. It’s basically an all or nothing.
7) If you are on low health, would you rather use a healing skill which guarantees a heal, or one which meant you had to stay in combat, with the chance of taking more damage, whilst not being able to land a hit to activate the heal.
Hmmm….more cons, but then again i am jaded.
IF the thief heal skill as advertised is kind of a big deal, then the other classes heal skills are equivalent to the second coming of christ.
wait… wait… back up,
we have a thief dev?
I assume it’s the janitor. Or just some guy on the street they shout down at from the window. Or a magic eight ball they shake.
It’s like the thief dev was asked to give his version of the new heal as all the other devs had spent a good bit of time working on their classes heals.
Since he’d been playing hearthstone all day, off the top of his head he said ‘Umm…heal venom?, yeah, heal venom, that’ll do. It works the same as SoM, but not as good.’
When you look at the full list of heals, it’s absolutely horrible compared to every single other heal out there.
All the other heals have a second component, or do something else amazing.
Our one is a venom, on a 45 second cooldown and lasts 2 attacks.
WUT???!!!
High ranged dps?
Am I missing something here?
Movement speed comes from equipping a signet, which has a crappy active. So you sacrifice a slot for what others get from traits alone.
What justifies ranged attacks to keep hitting for several more seconds once you’ve entered stealth, completely giving away your position/doing damage or necro abilities locking onto you whilst you’re still in stealth. Poor mechanics is what. Works both ways my friend.
Stealth isn’t spammable by the way. You should honestly roll a thief to see how you do. I used to believe thieves were easy mode until i played one post nerfs. It’s a very fragile class and takes 100 times more concentration than my warrior did.
They need more reactive moves like in Daoc.
So if you evade/block, a weapon style becomes available.
Defensive mesmer detected!
Even mesmers in this thread admit to PU being a cheese build, so i’m not exactly sure what you’re trying to get at.
I should have probably written ‘In the last month I have yet to encounter a mesmer…..’
Ahh, you’re Gunnars hold (i’m from deso), that explains why you’re desperate to hold onto cheese builds. You chaps need all the help you can get in WvW.
Really?
Some of you really don’t believe that having basically 100 percent protection uptime is somehow overpowering in a build on a class who is on the medium hitpoint table?
I hit guardians/warriors for more damage than I do mesmers at times.
My friends son started playing gw2 (he’s 11), he started on a guardian and pretty much only does WvW, he switched to play a mesmer after his guardian was soundly thrashed by one. His exact words after playing for a bit in WvW on his GreatSword wielding level 8 mesmer were ’It’s so easy to get kills with a mesmer than a guardian.’
But yeah, clearly it needs a high skill cap to play one well. Also I have yet to encounter a mesmer who isnt running a PU/hybrid PU build.
Thieves are meant to be masters of deceit, assassination and all round get up close and personal. We all know the classic archetype from fantasy novels and their ability to turn the tables on bigger opponents with clever martial arts or moves which disarm/parry larger weapons.
I was thinking of making our F key options a little broader in these terms:
F1 – Steal
F2 – Parry+riposte (if timed before a hit will reflect damage)(lasts 2 seconds on same timer as steal)
F3 – Disguise (Take the appearance of a random npc/mob for 20 seconds/or until you attack).
I just feel (as many others form previous posts) The F key funtions need to be expanded upon.
Next patch is fine for me being a d/d, and not having any initiative traits. It’s actually a buff. Also i’ll find fighting other cheese perma stealth d/p thieves easier to fight.
My main concern is the patch will bring in more guardians (who take painfully long to kill, unless they choose to run, in which case it takes even longer), or more PU mesmer players who are looking for an easymode class to win with.
Also elementalists will be easier to deal with since they cant take perma vigor and elemental atunement now, it has to be one or the other. Which is quite a dent in the d/d playstyle.
PU wouldn’t be such an issue if it didn’t basically have 100 percent protection up time on a class on the medium hp tables.
It’s boring fighting guardians.
As a d/d thief, throw dagger to blow aegis, c+d, backstab, back out as at this point they’ll do the GS spin/lay down a mark. Once their little dps display is over, move back in for some aa,c+d and backstab again.
You’ll have to go through some heals, their invincible ultimate, some more aegis. Yawn….it’s boring to even type.
All their damage is in a small circle around them, so basically duck in and out non stop.
Don’t ever go for one in a zerg, takes way too long to kill.
In WvW classes I see most of (most to least):
1) Guardians
2) Warriors
3) Necromancers
4) Mesmers (all PU)
5) Rangers
6) Thieves
7) Elementalists
8) Engineers.
I was in EB a few days ago, waiting on the cliff above a road looking to gank solos, and you haven’t got much time as there’s not far to reach the keep/guards, so i wanted something I knew I could finish quickly.
In the stream of people which appeared (I kid you not), everyone I clicked on was a guardian. I thought it was some guardian only guild at first. Just crazy.
18-20k and that’s considered power build hps?
I consider my build power with some survivability and i hit 15k hps….
Perma blinds…
You’re aware that a thief has no real ranged dps, no block/parry/shield moves. Lowest hitpoint tables. No CC. No aegis, no protection boons, no reliable regen, no weapon abilities which give swiftness.
Pretty much the only way thieves can avoid damage is with blind and stealth.
You know how i used to avoid damage on my warrior? I didn’t, i soaked it up with my 3500 armour, regened it with my signet and could still dish out 4k earthshakers all awhile having swiftness/fury and might thanks to my elite signet every 30 seconds out of 60 seconds
Or maybe on my engineer i’ll just throw aoes around me all day, I don’t even have to see a player or target one, just spam it at my feet and watch them kill themselves with 15 stacks of confusion.
Apart from looking for good 1v1’s, or 1v2s my favorite activity is as other mentioned finding that last guy in the zerg, the one who is just far enough behind that I can attack him and the people ahead just keep going.
He’s so desperate to keep up with the zerg he’ll hardly retaliate, and the people in front of him pause for a second, look round and begin to move to help, but change their minds when they see the main zerg is moving onwards, leaving their brother in arms to his death, hopefully ignoring his shrill cries on teamspeak like a rabbit in a hawks talons.
Only at the point when he can see his team has abandoned him does he turn around to salvage some dignity by retaliating but by then it’s too late. The last few hits finish him off and I know he’ll be releasing back to the keep, having to make the treacherous journey back to the zerg, having missed a keep take, paying for armor repair and knowing that on his way back alone, there’s a chance i’ll be waiting again, my appetite for destruction unquenchable.
Glorious.
Can you imagine having an almost constant 30 percent damage reduction/aegis everytime we stealth up?
Sounds absolutely ridiculous..I know…
I run d/d, with sb backup.
d/d is so reliant on getting off c+d then backstab, those other 3 buttons are generally a no-no, unless you just want to get off a few heartseekers to finish off.
I rarely switch to the second set in a fight generally. Mainly because it doesn’t benefit me and if I have used up my initiative as i’m on a new bar with just the ability to press the auto attack.
Other classes get a full 4 new abilities (plus auto), to dish out and can activate weapon swap sigils. Being off your main bar for 10 seconds as a thief is generally a very bad thing as a d/d thief.
When i played other classes I would swap every 10 seconds (5 on the warrior) to max out skill rotations.
Playing a d/d thief I can see how it’s completely nescessary to be able to chain c+d’s, or other skills, as without them i’d fall over, but I envy the wide range of skills other classes can pump out.
I just think initiative has made it too hard to balance the thief. Consequently any change you make either op’s it or nerfs it. Since anet don’t seem to want to buff/change the functionality of the thiefs abilities, most changes are nerfs.
I honestly don’t know how you play this build dude. There is SO much condition damage/aoe/aoe damage around in WvW without the condition removal in stealth and extended stealth i’d fall over.
I regard a thieves healing is actually more about just not getting hit/staying in stealth as much as you can, only coming out for two reasons: 1) to hit someone 2) To find a way to go back into stealth.
See this is the isssue.
5 abilities, and you can’t just use all 5.
You can’t even switch weapons and cycle 5 more.
You pretty much become reliant on 2 buttons, and when to use those two buttons (from the main wep bar).
Initiative really dissuades you from using any of the other abilities when running d/d, and it’s completely reliant on using c+d,
Well thats pretty poor.
Why one rule for them and another for us?
Do other classes get the 4 sec immunity to restealthing?
Or is is just us?
Anet just likes thieves more.
Actually the patch was a huge nerf to thieves.
Thieves had their sword line gutted.
Their initiative regen from traits and abilities was drastically reduced.
No more perma stealthing(not a bad thing though.)
Their vigor regen abilities were nerfed.
(if you look at prev patch notes, thieves have pretty much been nerfed every single patch since the start of the game. Any buff they did have was reversed not long afterwards.)
I’d be more concerned about perplexity mesmers and engis than thieves.
As a d/d thief when I face a decent d/d elementalist it’s a tough, long fight and at any point he can disengage and I won’t be able to keep up. If I miss a dodge roll/c+d i’ll probably be dead.
Elementalist is definately one of those classes where there is a huge skill disparity. Bad ele’s just fall over. Good ones are really impressive.
Few points on the mesmer I don’t understand.
1) Why they’re on the medium hitpoint tables when they have amazing range and multiple escapes + more stealth than a thief with bigger burst.
2) When I get backstabbed it hits for 6-7k. When I backstab a mesmer I hit for 2.5-4k.
(I’m pretty sure it’s because they have almost 100 protection up time, and then 3 percent damage reduction for each active illusion). I hit guardians for more.
3) Why does blurred frenzy absolutely dump all over pistol whip/hundred blades.: 2 1/2 second 360 evade which puts out 8*808 damage each time. Yes please!!!
4) Why is blade training (20 percent reduction on timers for swords) a tier one skill?. No one gets the 20 percent skill reduction at level 1. Every other class gets it as a tier 2 option.
It’s like saying, ‘We know how good blurred frenzy is, but yeah the timer is 12 seconds. So here’s an easy to get tier for only 10 points so you can have it quicker without compromising your build too much.
Only way to win against your average mesmer is using cheese perplexity condition builds, which leave you with basically no escapes/stealth/roaming capability. Also hope they don’t decide to run, because you won’t catch anyone who doesn’t stay to fight.
Dude, you’re an engineer. You can stack insane condition damage very quickly and abuse the full potential of perplexity runes all without even needing to target the individual as you can spam aoe’s/interrupts all day.
Condition damage is currently the most op’d nonsense in the game right now and abused left right and center.
You should be embarrassed to post in here as an engineer asking for thief nerfs with your class capabilities.
Why exactly are they getting buffs and thieves getting nerfed?
Ahh ok, when I said ‘no-skill’, i didn’t mean completely brainless, but in comparison to using a d/d build it took far less work and timing. As mentioned the high toughness means you have a lot of room for error, whilst in my d/d power setup one mistimed c+d can mean game over.
I just don’t find the condition setup very rewarding in terms of game play though. The same reason I don’t like playing necro/engineer/guardian or basically any class you just spam aoes and hope people walk into them.
I find nothing more rewarding than landing a c+d on an invisible foe who’s trying to backstab you. HIgh risk high reward!
What he said!!
Basically I ran perplexity, d/d and d/p for the daze.
Dire gear. 30pts in trickery, rest didn’t seem to matter where I put them damage wise. Depends on what extra survivability you want.
Start with daze, switch to d/d spam db and you get the bleeds and the 2nd stack of confusion. I ran caltrops/poison trap utilities (one slot used speed insignia ). elite was grenth or daggers..varied on the foe.
Basically you go all in. Drop caltrops, poison trap, and just load bleeds,confusion and poison quiickly. It took absolutely no skill.
I’ve gone back to power build now. It’s just feels more in control. The perplexity build was just mash buttons and no planning. It did destroy mesmers though..which was fun.
Confusion damage is a too high considering how easy it is to stack it for various classes and the fact it activates on nearly every action.
I was watching my stack hit for 1k per action on some ranger yesterday…that’s more than my auto attacks.
I ran a condition build last night for fun. Just exotics, one ascended amulet.
Perplexity runes, p/d, caltrops and poison trap.
Those runes are just stupid.
I’m going to change the traits tonight, for a little more condition clear, health and try just spamming DB non stop.
Only class who was an issue were warriors who didn’t want to stay and fight as my mobility was awful. I also had no stealth escapes….so better 1v1, but tougher to escape from adds.
I can’t be the only thief who could happily remove this from his bar and be no worse off?
It’s a condition damage skill, in a direct damage based weapon skill set.
It costs 4 initiative, the evade is 1/4 of a second, leaving you open for the 2nd half of the animation.
This skill slot would have been an ideal place to have a more utility ability for d/d.
I’m thinking something along the disguise route, or a decoy, or scorpion wire, a parry manouvere (like warrior sword 5) or shurikens (but somehow making it relate to daggers…). Anything but a 0 damage leap over someones head which gives them a free attack at the end.
Or am I missing something?
(edited by phaeris.7604)
Ha!, i was thinking that just this weekend as i browsed the signets. It’s a terrible active!
Necros get a signet which does 7k damage as an active, and we get one which actually reduces our damage output for 5 attacks.
Really?
Condition damage is becoming pretty crazy tbh, just stacks of it everywhere.
If we didn’t have shadows embrace we’d be falling over in 5 seconds in WvW/anywhere.
A necro popped signet of spite on me the other night, from 1200 range, and I thought i’m pretty safe here, don’t think i’ll stealth, i can just retreat. Only when 1/2 my hps had gone (about 8k), I thought I had better stealth up to avoid dieing.
Just nuts.
to specifically deal with thieves, where’s our version to deal with hammer warriors spamming aoe stuns, or engineers/mesmers stacking 10 stacks of confusion in seconds, or guardians spamming aoes which take off 1/2 your life without even needing to target you….
It’s amazing they invented an ability solely to ruin a thieves day.
You don’t have any sacrifice in your lines. with constant protection/regen/aegis, it’s like hitting a bunker when fighting some mesmers. Yet you can pop blurred frenzy and boom!, there’s your damage.
Someone at Anet really likes mesmers, because browse the mesmer boards and 1v1 no mesmer worries about other classes.
I’d like to know the thief trade off.
Mesmers get burst, stealth mobility, conditions. How ridiculously strong is PU!!!.
Guardians get blocks, blinds, aoe damage and yet are still tanky.
Warriors…well we all know that story.
Necros, tanky and damaging.
Thieves?…our burst is about 1/4 of geared 80s hps. But to get that burst you have to spec as paper.
I don’t understand why other classes don’t have to make that trade off. Which is why I see 60 percent warrior/20 percent mesmer/10 guardian/8 necro/2 everything else.
If I hit one more clone/phantasm and get 4 conditions on me i’ll go crazy.
Yeah, i’m not really looking forward to condition damage being even more damaging.
Yes and yes.
I’d go as far to say you need ascended gear as well.
If you want to be competitive, or solo in any way at all.
When I fight other players I can tell in an instant how well geared they are. Also the thief is very gear dependent. As we’re so squishy, the easier classes to do well with (mesmer, warrior, guardian,necro), will east you alive, even if they’re under geared.
I’d just like to know what Anets vision for the thief is. What exactly was the role they wanted for it.
I don’t understand why they’ve buffed mesmers and guardians in the dec 10 patch, 2 of the most popular and powerful classes yet decide to hurt thieves again.
I still won;t go back to my warrior though, it’s just a ridiculously easy class to play.
Actually you couldn’t beat him if you let him go ooc.
If you beat him he’d be dead and not ooc.
The match was a stalemate.
He came back to try new tactics most likely. Sometimes if you get a bad fight, or miss your 1 c+d the whole match is lost.
during a fight against a decent player/op class, thieves don’t get the luxury of being able to mess up multiple times and still come out ok.
If thieves have stealth removed, they essentially become warriors, with 1/3 of the hp pool and 1/4 of the armour and no health regen and no CC.
But yeah, why not remove it…
No doubt.
I really don’t understand why mesmers are on the high hps table.
If guardians are on the low hps table, mesmers certainly should be.
A mesmer complaining
Possibly the strongest 1v1 class in the game.
On the high hitpoints table despite being a cloth/caster.
Which is getting buffed next patch for some reason.
Anet doesn’t touch PU, which is just insanely strong and requires no effort to use.
In every MMO i’ve played stealth attracts the ‘I want to be able to kill everything 1v1 and not really have to make an effort.’
The GW2 thief is capable of great things, but if you think you can just leap in and spam damage and the guy will drop, you’re going to be sorely dissapointed.
Every class is beatable, but some fights just take longer than others. A good necro will take an age to wear down.