Guild Wars 2

They’re strong vince but lack killing power vs tankier targets or just defensively played chars. The same thing applies to Amonatory’s spec and 10/0/30/0/30 SD/DP that I play atm. Everything is cool and smooth untill you meet 20k HP 3k armour war, dire pd, pu mes, tankier ele etc. Things will be even harder after April 15.
I was thinking about moving Condition Duration from Deadly Arts to Critical Strikes; Prowess (crt dmg) to Trickery and Condition Damage to Deadly Arts (originally in trickery) as this would encourage hybrids and break the "since-release-meta’ of 30 in CS.

If Pistol MH had slightly higher dmg on AA chain it would make the perfect hybrid set Now, even though strong in power specs, is shifted slightly towards cond.

If it’s duo roaming I would say that another thief or mesmer are perfect. My usual roaming buddy is an ele and he gets focused a lot during 2v4+ because of class’s inability to break target. But I feel that every prof can be amazing as long as you have good communication with your friend.

And I still wonder why is that people who are actually good at this game love fighting other thieves (if they’re thieves) or just thieves in general. Going to tell you why – roughly 9 out of 10 thieves that I meet in WvW are free kills and I’m sure that other competent people in this subforum will back me up on it. Now, only few of those remaining thieves actually put up a good fight and and not just ‘try to survive and stall you’.
People who come to this forum and cry that stealth is what makes a thief OP will not notice the difference between a bad thief and a good thief – they just turn ‘Teef OP’ mode when they see one.
If you’re ever vs Desolation I offer rookie-school for nubs on ‘How-to-handle-average thieves’.
WvW dueling is not about what class you play but how good you’re in general, imo. Outplayed many and got outplayed by many.

Actually, Valkyrie will receive a really heavy nerf (cookie-cutter Hidden Killer backstab spec). Ferocity change decreases the damage of a single critical hit by 15-20% (did the maths in the topic of mine) that after incorporating into overall DPS (critical and non-critical hits together) gives 8-12% loss in damage.

Let’s consider 0/30/30/10/0 DD spec – typical rotation is CnD followed by backstab and AA chain where backstab will most likely deal 1/2 of the damage of that combo; CnD and AA might crit and shift it to like 3/8 of the damage but it doesn’t really matter. Point is, backstab is a key here.
Now, e.g. 10/30/0/0/30 S/P or 10/0/30/0/30 PD/SD; those specs dont rely on a one big hit but on the contrary their DPS is spread among critical and non-critical hits. Hence, even though each consecutive crit will be nerfed as hard as in DD spec the overall damage loss will not be that noticable.
At least, that’s just my opinion on the Ferocity-DD-Hidden Killer and Valkyrie’s viability.

Dee Jay.2460:

I agree with that Condition builds need some fixes.

1. You’re right about the food. +40% duration on all conditions is ridiculously overpowered. Make people chose what type of condition they want to focus on.

2. Countering conditions is mostly down to traits and class mechanics, not active play. Unlike direct damage dodging and active combat won’t help you much against conditions. How well you deal with them is almost entirely down to your build. There is no active mitigation.

3. Most condition dumps are very poorly telegraphed. A single Engineer auto-attack can apply 5 different conditions at times. Signet of Spite has a barely visible animation and no projectile you could actively dodge.

4. Lack of trade-offs: Condition builds allow you to stack insane survivability and avoidance with high damage. It’s not a very compelling play-style and rarely involves acting or reacting to your enemies moves.

In general the condition play-style goes entirely against the whole “active combat” ideal ANet established for Guild Wars 2.

This is 100% what I was going to say. Also, fighting cond specs is not a battle of attrition they can burst almost as heavily as power specs.

I support this idea. The only thing that would need some reword would be Shadow’s Rejuvenation. In the new system it would be too weak. It would need a buff that doesn’t make it OP. I’m thinking about making it heal for 1k (random number!) on 5-7s ICD. Compared to current 330-ish per second.

Loved it.

And then such people qq in the forums :P

Actually, eotm is everything that I don’t want WvW to be. It promotes massive zerging over everything; too powerful vets for duos to take down in a moderate amount of time; cannons in the west part; buffs that make people invulnerable/ give them dmg redcution (looking at you 10% armour of koda).
Also, combining servers counters the whole idea of guilds playing together since atm it’s already pugging in overflows in eotm.
I’d rather have borderlands copy in the form overflows rather than eotm.

To the guy who said that they left Blacktide because of polish-speaking people and how that was their fault. Blacktide is a dedicated Polish server just like there are dedicated French (5 servers), German (7 servers) and one Spanish server.

ANET could limit overall server population as this would to some extent make people migrate to lower tier servers.atm t1-2 WvW servers are also the most stacked PvE servers (Deso, VzSqr, Elona, Sfr’sR). Spreading the players could be a fix to it, however implementation might be difficult as you cannot force people off their servers.

I am aware that we don’t know everything yet but what do you guys think of Lyssa’s and Divinity’s runes viability after patch?

Divinity’s Runes are now widly used (in WvW) thanks to the +12% crtd bonus but unless they compensate the stats it will be merely 4% after ferocity change. While Lyssa’s Runes are getting it’s 6/6 nerfed to “convert 5 conditions to boons”?

What do you think?

Hidden Killer is bugged again that is does not always produce a critical strike. No weakness involved and triple checked trait setup each time it happened. Happens on different targets.

Zacchary.6183:

McFribble.2349:

Zacchary.6183:

Read this and you’ll understand why.

This article has to be one of the most misused articles to be posted. If the general complaint were people refusing to play stealth characters and whining about losing, then it would have more merit.

However, the argument is wither stealth classes are balanced and in need of changes. Sorry, but an article about players putting themselves at a disadvantage due to personal in game morals means Jack all for balance issues.

I use Sirlin references because the thief QQ usually follows a specific template:

OP: OMFG THEEF KIL ME N 2 HITZ NERF STELF!!!1!!one

Thief 1: You can easily survive and counter that by doing X, Y and Z.

OP: BUT HEALING/CONDITION REMOVAL/CAN’T TARGET/BLINDSPAM/PERMASTEALTH!!!

Thief 1: Yes but in reality > educated response.

Thief 2: If thieves are so overly powerful, why are you not playing one?

Fail Troll: I have 5 thiefs and I don’t permastelf.

OP: Becoz thif no skil 2 play and chezy az kitten

Zacchary (or some equally annoying person): http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/intermediates-guide.html

Random player 1: Someone else thinks thefz are OP. Therefore they are OP.

Random player 2: Thieves are free kills for me. Lol.

Everyone repeats themselves with ignorant hearsay and grammatically subpar flaming.

So yeah it is very relevant.

Loved it. Also, SA is the only option to sustain yourself in 1vX. 10/30/0/30/0 SD and 10/30/0/0/30 DP (or many other non-SA specs) are amazing in 1v1s but give hardly any sustain when where there are plethora of random cleaves or AoE.

Alternatively, you could allow eles and engies to have second weapon set but put it on a long cooldown (30-45-60 sec). This way you allow them to have access to multiple sigils without abusing their ability to trigger procs at will( so to speak). Idea might need some tweaking but it is a solution, kind of.

Hi, I wonder if a dev could reply to this. Will the new wardrobe system allow me to use the skins that I owned in the past or only those that I will have/aquire once the patch is live.

Example: I had Mystic Pistol but I salvaged it. I want to use Mystic Pistol skin with the wardrobe featuer. Plausible?

I can see the potential of D/D and Sigil of Intelligence combo, but the point of many people is, I presume, that this combo will be so poor compared to it’s current state that it won’t even be worth using. Because what are you going to do afterwards? Tickle people with 2k cnds and 5k backstabs, granteed that you even hit them?
D/X will most likely be terribad vs anyone whohas any idea how to play.

Numbers based on my spec.
Sample backstab on 0/30/30/10/0 against 2300 armour target with foods deals 7412 damage (excluding might and trait bonuses that are based on the amount of ini or hp of attacker/ foe). After ferocity nerf, the very same backstab will hit for merely 6349. It’s almost 15% nerf on burst.
I am aware that overall DPS nerf might be equal to that 8-10% that has been mentioned, however dealing with cond specs will be impossible from WvW perspective. After April 15 it will be either Perplexity P/D or cheesing on 10/0/30/0/30 D/P.
How does it promote build variety?

Also, SA still won’t be viable in tPvP and apparently no Last Refuge fix (I hope that I am wrong on this one).

Mordecai.6318:

and then the inevitable group of people that jump on my corpse afterwards…

Yeah, it’s always pretty hilarious when they down you with X people and then jump and laugh as if had been thanks to their “skill”. Cheers.

Recently, I’ve been experimenting with DP but I’ve missed my good ol’ CnD. As a result I came up with what I call Dagger-Pagger (wink). Best of both worlds. Funzies.

Put me right if I’m wrong but somebody did the maths of old ini+traits vs new ini+traits and it came out that we actually have lower rate of overall recharge.

yski.7642:

Once upon a time I went 1v4 in WvW as a glass cannon. They simply iqnored me and revived each other every time I killed one.

This is the major issue. Downed state is a broken mechanic in general as it encourages bad-plays. It’s not only revival speed but also rally mechanic. Going down should be a punishment and not a free second chance. PvE parties would be more cautious if it wasn’t for banner rez. WvW would be more about spreading and avoiding death instead of blobbing into other blobs and hoping for the rally regardless of whether off the players or mobs.
I feel that downed mechanic was introduced together with the ‘casual friendly’ approach preached before the release.

1) SD/DD
2) 0/30/30/10/0 or 10/0/30/0/30
3) WvW

1) SP/SB
2) 10/30/0/0/30
3) PvP

We meet with skill floor problem again, imo. PW is too strong when played by nabs vs nabs since spamming 3 is really rewarding in these scenarios (and I mean it, I’ve tested 25/30/0/0/15 ogre runes in hotjoin and melting 3 people at once using PW+Haste wasn’t rare). However, at higher levels it feels balanced as people know how to counter it and S/P in general puts less pressure on the target than D/P, imo. Also, the aftercast of flurry-part is still deadly.

EDIT: Stun-flurry split into 2 skills and I might swap my SD/DD for SP/DD in WvW.

No worries since hopefully, in this case, you’re all wrong
There will be no ICD on the same type of sigil e.g. Battle/Energy/Geomancy etc.. However, if you have e.g. Energy on Hammer and Energy on Greatsword the ICD from the first sigil of energy will put the second one on ICD as well.
On the other hand, if you have energy on Hammer and Battle on Greatsword – yeah, you get one of the procs every time you swap.

TLDR; No global cooldown for the same TYPE of proc; global cooldown for the same sigil.

PW does less dmg than AA chain so everyone that says that it ‘does too much dmg’ is blatantly wrong.
The stun lasts long enough to deal 2-3 strikes after which you’re free to go away from it.
This is the price for the evade. Spamming 3 is not the greatest idea and dying to it is poor gameplay and not OP PW.
Also, it is less spammable than it used to be pre ini-regen change because ratio of trait nerfs vs sheer ini regen is lower than pre-change – it’s spammed LESS.

What it should use is Stun-Flurry split that Cynz has mentioned in the first page (with reduced precast on Flurry part) at the same time the cost might be increased to 6 and split in 2-4 ratio. This would give S/P both higher skill floor and ceiling.
Cheers!

Power specs are already inferior to their cond counterparts in small-scale WvW. If I ever see a new tier of gear I will insta leave the game. Even the thing that we got ascended gear (instead of gw1-like infusions) to protect from agony is pretty crazy. It’s the same lazy approach that gave us Living Story instead of permanent expansion and new zones.

DP is cheesy only in 1v1s and only if DP-user decides to abuse BP+HS*x once gets beaten to low HP. As long as DP is played ‘as it was designed’ it’s a well-balanced and competitive set. In ordinary WvW-ing DP is nothing to worry about as there are many counterplays to it unlike in 1v1s e.g. Obisdian Sanctum or OP’s eng fight – these situations are perfect example of why people cry that DP is cheesy aka ‘HP low? Gonna BPHSHSHS and reset lawl’.

I agree that it should work like Blinding Powder (insta cast + break action) but am 100% against splitting skill behaviour between game modes.
Changing values like Damage, number of Vulnerability stacks, Power/Hpwr scaling is fine but not behaviour.
Take PvX player for instance. You get used to certain skills and when you change game mode they act differently and alter your gaming performance as a result.
I know dozens of people that are mostly WvWers but like to hop into Team/Solo Queue as well as do PvE to get some gold/skins.

TLDR; Number-split YES, Behaviour-split NO.

I really enjoyed watching your dueling clips <3

You’ve already mentioned DD, /D could use some love in general.
Dancing Dagger could stay as it is if it had higher power scaling and faster projectile speed (somewhere in between pre-ner and now).

Death Blossom could also use better power scaling so that it has any purpose in power specs, also make its evasion frame equal to the animation frame cause as it is now it’s completely unreliable as an evade.

CnD should have increased damage in PvP (not as much as pre-nerf) and apply 5 stacks of vulnerability instead of current 3 and these should last longer.

Tactical strike could use some dmg boost since changing daze into stun would be too OP (this change from WvW perspective).

Larcenous Strike should deal less dmg, imo, but steal 2 boons like pre-nerf. Make it more of a control spec and not lawl-nope-evade.

DP and SP are fine now, imo

AA on P/ should shoot faster (both cond PD and power specs benefit from it).

SB range back to 1200 and 1/4 sec aftercast on Disabling Shot.

Improvisation should refresh skill (not of type, just skill):
- if 1 skill is on CD -> 0
- if 2-3 -> 1
- more than 3 -> 2
Includes heal (and elite?). ICD of 30-35 sec or maybe even more so that it’s not abused with Sleight of Hand.

Panic Strike changed into some sort of signet mastery. Signet Actives now affect your allies (radius 130-150; melee range in general). PvE Support thief: SoS, Sig of Agility, SR. See SoS change below.

Shadow Rejuvenation should heal you when you enter stealth (say 650-700 HP) and not proc every second while in stealth (no more perma stealthing in WvW with DP as it would have no use. This would encourage more frequent restealths while, thus more active combat approach – /D in mind).

Shadow Protector might give 4 sec of protection when you enter stealth on 10-15 sec ICD.

Last Refuge’d behave like Blinding Powder, that is interrupt current action.

CS, Acro, and Trickery are fine, imo.

Signet of Shadows could use 3-4 sec stability on top of blind and break stun instead of Shadow Trap. It would give us a reliable stability source and work great with the new signet mastery. CD might be increased to 40-45sec.

My 2 cents. I have no clue how to make PP and Venoms viable without breaking them, though.
Quick suggestion, how about swapping boon duration in Acro with HPwr in SA? Assassin’s Reward could use it and atm boon duration in Acro affects Felina Grace, Power of Inertia and possibly meta runes of lyssa.

It’s WvW/tPvP/PvE oriented opinion with emphasis on WvW.

Karolis.4261:

Emm this is basic everyday d/p build just with tanky gear- solely based on hidden killer and backstab crits. And you act like you uncovered some deep hidden secret or smth lol.

So much this.
However, what’s the deal with linking other people’s specs?! First Amonatory’s and now this. None of these specs is something new but I am pretty sure that if they wanted to precisely give them to others – they would do so themselves. Thief community is shooting itself in the foot.

Carpboy.7145:

Sw/P for trash, D/D for bosses. 25/30/0/15/0 is much more forgiving than 25/30/0/0/15, the true max DPS build. So basically dont waste dodges. Use PW as an evade if you do waste them

^Basically this. You can also add 10/30/0/0/30 Trickery spec that has slightly more support for the cost of some DPS. I opt for 15 in trickery instead of acro cause Feline Grace is overrated in PvE, imo.

It’s a L2P issue.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magnet
^if this is what we’re talking about. For the whole duration of the channel there’s a semi-transparent grayish sway/line between you and engineer. Once you see it, count one second and dodge – no ‘spam random dodges’ involved’.
If you get hit you can still stunbreak before you reach that engineer and avoid getting hit.
I would be concern about more intelligent players that bait out your dodge with tool kit stow just to do it 5 seconds later.

Karolis.4261:

Just another google powered copy paste d/p build. Moving along.

I agree. Why hardly anyone plays SD/DD or SD/PD?

To the OP; Drop some crit% <40, 45> is enough since you run Hidden Killer. Get more toughness cause once anyone semi-competent notices that you’re that glassy they will just bait out your Shadow Step and burst you down in one combo.
Invest into ascended accessories since they’re really easy to get and make significant stat difference.

I would go with Bask Venom with traited venom cd and 1 more application in Deadly Arts for more cheese! Also, ini on weapon swap in acro to pull one more HS through DP.

Arganthium.5638:

Where the hell is this “perma-blind” nonsense coming from, anyways? I have never been “perma-blinded” before on any class by any other player in any game mode before. Ever. Absolutely absurd.

You main a thief and don’t know 30/30/30/30/30 spec that procs blind every 1/4 sec, has perma evade, perma stealth without reveal on hit, regens 1k HP/sec in stealth and 1 shots bunkers? Oh, and has stun breaks with no CDs.

That’s a very far-going idea but how about making rangers a little bit more like sorcerers? Make pet’s stats scale together with yours; give them ‘simultaneous dodge’ – when ranger dodges pet gets evasion frame for that duration; give each pet two skills (F1 and F2) that affect it directly e.g might, fear, stronger attack and two skills (F3 and F4) that affect ranger and/or allies e.g. cleanse, regen. Alternatively, you could dumb down pets and treat them like mobile banners (don’t do damage and don’t die) and give ranger F1-4 skills that are tied to the type of pet.

What Reikou said. Trickery DP is viable in WvW, however where it shines is 1v1 and not 1vX, imo, as it lacks sustain. Still, don’t listen to people who tell you to give up trickery.

So SB #3 is your perma evade skill? LMAO, there’re 3 viable tpvp specs for a thief (4 if we include Argh’s version). 10/30/0/0/30 DP, 10/30/0/30/0 SD, 10/30/0/0/30 SP and Argh’s 10/0/0/30/30 – each of these specs is quite potent itself but if it wasn’t for the Shadow Refuge’s utility that adds to the aforementioned potency, literally, no one will take a thief into a competitive team because warrior atm can in ALMOST every situation outperfom a thief. I got off the topic a bit.

Class is balanced when for the number of classes you can defeat, there’s an equal number of classes that can defeat you (given that players are of equal skill levels). It’s not the case for the warriors. Instead of arguing whether warrior is over the top (where vast majority of players from the top of the ladder agree that it is) we should focus on tonning it down in such a way that:
1) skill floor and ceiling rise
2) class is still viable in tPvP and small scale wvw roaming

EDIT: Situation that you’ve mentioned is either hotjoin heros, yoloq or zerg trolls and not something that posses any threat to anyone who has half a brain and is semi competent. It’s getting too personal so I won’t post anymore in this thread. My 2 cents are several posts above.

Introp.8465:

Here, for comparison thief build, since you all like to compare warrior to NOTHING
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fIEQNAseSjkOtwBPGPMxBE0DNsK4iThxT9wO2w4A-j0CBYfCiEEg0yQkFA5mKrZnCiVNFRjVbDT5SQW7KpGcASBY1WA-w
You get near unlimited dodges if you wish (bunny hopping), 13 with withdraw and 0.5s upime to next combo ( cooldown to next heal to set initiative and gain vigor)
You get boost steal, with lots of boon and boon ripping
You get lost if invisibility on top of that, 2 stun breakers, team invisibility and poison/smoke shield for team.

stat difference compared to war build ( in spvp, where eveyone is equal on items and no foods)
power – 2839 to 2944
crit chance 43% to 47%
armor – 2180 to 2768
Hp – 16095 to 21662
Boon duration % 20 to 0
crit damage% 20 to 50

So stats are lower, biggest difference is in hp – 5,5k and armor
in return for UNLIMITED evades, high uptime easy accesible stealth on top of that, good condi removal ( only needed vs full condi specs, power onces wont be able to touch you)

To sum up – evey class is UNIQUE
Warrior is easy to pick up and play, other classes has higher learning curves
putting random builds and numbers into mid air proves nothing
Guild wars 2 is about avoiding the damage, not only doing damage

And for the love of jeebus, 4s invulnerability to phys damage every 1 min? just dont hit warrior for 4s, is that too hard? apply conditions, immob, slow him, run around for 4 seconds.

The link is incorrect. But it’s acro S/D I presume. You couldn’t have brought any worse argument here that is giving thief spec to a thief (as I main one since release). I have good understanding of warrior mechanics as well as every other class since it’s mandatory to pvp/wvw effectively. After nerfed Infiltrator’s Return, S/D is hard countered by warriors whereas trickery D/P has higher chance of fighting toe-to-toe.
The whole trick to fighting S/D is using your key skills during afte Flanking Strike(mediocre aftercast) or during Larcenous Strike(long animation and key skill hence it’s vital for a thief to complete it). But that’s not the point. The key factor to warrior OPness atm is having all the tools at your disposal as I’ve already said.

PS Perma evade doesn’t exist. Also, if by any chance the spec you wanted to link is super trollish SB/SB or Trickery S/P – your agument is invalid as those specs (despite having strong sides) are nowhere near as capable as warrior is.

Going to leave this here…
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIEQNAseSjkOtwBPGPMxBE0DNsK4iThxT9wO2w4A-j0CBYfCiEEg0yQkFA5mKrZnCiVNFRjVbDT5SQW7KpGcASBY1WA-w

Look at the stats of that spec (change to exotics if you wish to, but it won’t change much). Huge HP pool, remarkable amount of toughness, high power, crit% and critdmg. Now what it can achieve: AoE CC on relatively short CDs, blocks, passive regen, good cond cleanse, gap closers/opener, high DPS with hammer and burst potential with Final Thrust. You don’t have range dmg but that’s where infamous HamBow shines, doesn’kitten

I don’t want warrior to be hard nerfed but adjusted. Shatter mesmer, D/P trickery thief are great examples of high risk/high reward specs. You need to know your opponents and act accordingly to their actions, not just mash buttons. Warrior is just too EZ, imo.

TLDR; You can build a warrior in such a way that it has not a single weaknesss while still being plain sailing to play effectively.

Kontrolle.3514:

Aegael.6938:

If thieves cry that stealth is their only defense since they don’t have protection, then give them protection in return for reworking stealth. What a useless argument.

Its even more useless because thieves have the best mobility, teleporting skills, evades, evadeskills, blindspells and even stunbreakers without CD. Coupled with The shortest CD on elites which are abused like no tomorrov with lyssa runes.

Stealth is a gamekiller since release. Im the last one off app. 20 people that started together with gw2. Most of them left because of the broken stealth madness.

You sir, proved to have no knowledge of the thief at all. Thief has no stunbreak with no cd. With the last nerf ANET gave inf return cast time and with the previous one removed its stunbreak component.

Ideas in this thread mostly nerf D/P to the ground in terms of its stealth options. Reduction from 3 to 2 seconds upon leap finisher? How about dp thieves that don’t HS multiple times? Blast finisher nerf? Cluster bomb comboing is one of our few group utilities.

Stacking stealth with DP has never been trully OP, but a l2p issue. However with nerfing in mind, you could limit comb field on Black Powder to 1.5-2 seconds (current 4) while keeping blinding pulses duration as they’re now. This way DP will work as it does now and will put no one but stealth stacking thieves at disadvantage.

Not the conditions itself is a problem, but the other thing OP mentioned – condition specs are extremely tanky, because they need only 1 stat to get maximum efficiency as compared to power specs (power, precision, crtdmg aka ferocity). I agree with the idea that conditions should matter once you get them – each of them should have more impact by itself. However, with this some really serious balancing will have to take place. Imagine P/X engineer 20/10/x/x/x with perplexity runes, upon using Poison Volley he has a chance to inflict poison, bleeding, poison and confusion. Each of those would be deadly individually after suggested revamp.

Another idea is to make cond dmg a secondary stat on all sets so as to make condies additional source of dmg and not the main one – tanky natue of those specs will have some sense then “outlast them with dots and tankiness”.

I don’t want to bash the idea in the very first sentence so let’s concentrate on the pros of the suggestion.
1) X/D sets get some survivability boost.
Cons:
2) Dire P/D becomes unkillable roaming spec.
3) S/D builds based on Tactical Strike (WvW) and not Larcenous Strike now deal no damage whatsoever since CnD is the main source of damage in those specs.
4) D/D becomes useless in WvW/tPvP/PvE as about 1/3 of the DPS on this comes from CnD. In WvW, it’s already quite difficult to pull successful backstabs on people that are at any decent skill level and this change will render thief even more of an one-trick pony. In tPvP, D/D had burst and then nerf to CnD came and everyone dropped D/D (not to mention later Mug dmg nerf). In PvE, we are able to outdps warriors in single target DPS cycling CnD and BS. After dmg nerf, literally, no one will take a thief into the group.
5) Contrary to what you say, D/D will have less sustain. In order to kill people you will have to go more glassy to maintain decent dmg output.

Your suggestion will effectively limit thief to 3-4 weapon sets – S/P, D/P. SB and P/D (WvW).

ANET should focus on things that really matter. DB has no use in power specs whatsoever, X/D could use some sort of hard CC on Dancing Dagger so that P/D and D/D have that option at all. I could give you more useless traits/skills but that ain’t the topic of the dicussion.

Since our almighty, undisputed Prince Valentin is challenging people for duels himself I can see two outcomes:
1) ‘I made you wipe the floor off! Told you are a skill-less scrub!’
2) “You defeated me with your disgraceful thief-tricks that are, obviously, unfair and I stood no chance to win whatsoever! Hence, I treat it as a proof that my argument is valid!”

Put me right if I’m wrong but you say that you can wipe any thief and any decent player can do so, but you find fighting them ‘annoying’ so you want thieves nerfed to the ground?

And honest advice here: look how some streamers bind keys to improve efficiency Default ones are really hard to reach most of the time and result in bad reaction time.

I think that whoever claims that thieves are superuberextraop should post a clip, showing how they got owned despite being as good players as they claim they are and doing their utmost. From what I can see, everyone in this forum is a pro that never gets outplayed.

It’s the ‘trolliest’ troll thread I have ever seen.
‘I know good thieves in tpvp, blah, blah, they’re my buddies.’ -> ‘Thief is worthless in tpvp and only some can play it well.’
I assume that only your buddies can play a thief well in tpvp?
‘Stealth OP!’ -> ‘I beat thieves in 1v1 ones all the time. 90% of thieves are baddies that I always kill’
So is it OP or UP?
Make up your mind since across 9 pages you contradcit yourself over and over again. Also, I am shocked that noone from NA has offered to duel you in PvP/WvW yet.

And to add to what Geiir said. D/P thieves are easily countered in WvW. Unlike on DD they give huge indicator to their stealth skills. Also, you can just run away from them (not flee from the fight itself) – they cannot follow you and maintain stealth because the amount of ini does’t allow it. Pro tip for the end: grow some balls and take a backstab to the back from time to time. With mediocre toughness it will be about 6k and you can cnd of them afterwards.

EDIT: Before someone says that dp thief can disengage at will. All the classes but necro are capable of doing it.

Stogzlol.4795:

Mesmers similar ability has half the stealth duration and it’s their elite. It also doesn’t keep you in stealth for ~20 seconds.

Mass Invis also has 1200 stealthing and doesn’t require you to stay in a small radius to get all the benefits. I don’t want to compare those two skill at all, tbh though. They are given to different classes and serve different purpose in the mechanics of each class. On the one hand you have entire Shadow Arts tree with a plethora of stealthing skills and on the other, clones, phantasms, shatters + a handful of stealth

I see nothing but QQ from OP – first S/D too powerful (even though the topic was created after both Larcenous Strike and Infiltrator’s Return nerfs) and now Shadow Refuge. It wasn’t too powerful for you for approx. 17+- months (excluding beta)? People who posted before me have already mentioned that most of the time refuge is a death sentence. Unlike any other stealth skill in the game refuge has 2-3 factors that allow you to counterplay it.
1) Freaking huge red circle that shouts hammer-stun-me! / drop those marks/nades/bombs on me! / unload that phoenix+ l.strike+arcane blast + ring of fire combo on me!
2) Even though refuge is capable of stealthing you for quite long a time, it requires you to stay in it for that 5 sec, which you obviously know. Plenty of time to knock or fear out. But hey! It isn’t that you don’t get longer stealth because I knocked you back – you’re revealed for those 4 secs as well.
2.5-3) Unlike Mass Invis, you have to stay in it to get full duration.
You’d know from experience that Refuge on the downed person is an aoe magnet.

There are many utilities that are stronger than others and yet some of them don’t have direct counter (already mentioned Armour of Earth, since tell me how warrior/ranger/another ele supposed to strip those boons?).

TLDR; Rage topic without solid arguments to back up QQ.

There are so many ranger specs that allow you to fight thieves forever in 1v1 if you’re on equal skill level. S/D + GS power regen, A/T +S/D cond-eveasion this one in particular has a lot of variations (traps, signets, spirits). It looks as if you need to get a hang on fighting vs thieves as decap eng, hambow and necro counter any ranger spec in tPvP a lot harder than a thief.
Also, thief doesn’t have sustained on dp but has burst whereas it lacks burst on sd while having sustained. Mesmer (shatter and/ or PU) has comparable amount of stealth while having HIGHER burst.
Giving ranger more revealing skills won’t change a thing, however utility would. Ranger is strong when on his but lacks in party scenarios. Traps/survival skills/ shouts could use some alteration to affect allies as well.

On the side note, this game could use some class education. 99% of rangers in WvW are glass bearbows that go cry on the forums when thief kills them and I would say that 90% of those thieves are just punching bags that anyone with half a brain could pwn.

So OP, I agree that ranger is in a weak spot when it comes to utility and could use some buffs. However, giving it more reveal skills is not the way to go as comps will just give up on thieves or stick to sd and you will end up with useless reveal skills in the end.