Losing faith in Thief...

I just broke 1k hours, so I'm not new to the class, and have to say it has been a blast up until the past few months. Class feels like it's straight up trash and i'm getting steamrolled in 9/10 fights in WvW with any non thief. I usually play power D/D, which is know isn't great in its current state, but I've also been feeling the heat with other weapon sets. It requires so many skills to set up good bursts, but other classes can use less abilities and get better or the same damage. I could play Mesmer (which can do everything a thief can and more) but Thief has been the only class I really enjoyed playing mechanically.

Alright i'm done with the crybaby rant, so what are some of the fun/op builds you guys are running right now? Not including steath+malice stack deadeye. Shit's lame yo.

In WvW? I've only done one stint, but played with full Zerker, wurm runes, and critical strikes/trickery/acrobatics. I use withdraw and RFI for extra dodges and utility, and plenty of on-evade procs, then usually signet of agility for higher crit % and haste because why not at that point (also easy access to fury and quickness).

But then again I have less than 100 hours in the game. Probably less than 50. So I just sort of tried to copy my pvp build and use that.

most opponents in WvW are really bad so it doesnt matter which thief build you play, you shouldnt have problems. the thieves i encounter are mostly still d/p DD tho more of them play now with bound and the amount of condi evade spamm thieves has also increased i feel. reading this forum i assume there are also a few s/d thieves core or DD but i rarely run into one.

you dont want my current build as i do have fun with deadeye, tho i do think most other thief builds are stronger just pick one.

I am not running anything special, D/P mostly, Staff is my Main but not when I want to get Serious, D/D Power when I wanna have challenging fun, S/P just for the fun and banter.

About your topic though, as you mentioned, past few months I really felt the weight of this absolutely unsubstantiated attention Thief got. However I can put up with that, always was up for a challenge, but what I really can't stand anymore is the insane hate it generates and supports.Everywhere I go I feel hated. PvE players hate Thief, WvW hates Thief, PvP despises Thief. Deleted from any usefulness, hell people don't even want us as Scouts anymore. All because of the Nerfs that were based on salty whines rather than actual constructive criticism.

@Alatar.7364 said:I am not running anything special, D/P mostly, Staff is my Main but not when I want to get Serious, D/D Power when I wanna have challenging fun, S/P just for the fun and banter.

About your topic though, as you mentioned, past few months I really felt the weight of this absolutely unsubstantiated attention Thief got. However I can put up with that, always was up for a challenge, but what I really can't stand anymore is the insane hate it generates and supports.Everywhere I go I feel hated. PvE players hate Thief, WvW hates Thief, PvP despises Thief. Deleted from any usefulness, hell people don't even want us as Scouts anymore. All because of the Nerfs that were based on salty whines rather than actual constructive criticism.

The hate is not because of the nerfs thieves got, but because it's a class with cheap mentality & gameplay.

@Sasajoe.1509 said:

@Alatar.7364 said:I am not running anything special, D/P mostly, Staff is my Main but not when I want to get Serious, D/D Power when I wanna have challenging fun, S/P just for the fun and banter.

About your topic though, as you mentioned, past few months I really felt the weight of this absolutely unsubstantiated attention Thief got. However I can put up with that, always was up for a challenge, but what I really can't stand anymore is the insane hate it generates and supports.Everywhere I go I feel hated. PvE players hate Thief, WvW hates Thief, PvP despises Thief. Deleted from any usefulness, hell people don't even want us as Scouts anymore. All because of the Nerfs that were based on salty whines rather than actual constructive criticism.

I said it got Nerfs out of Hate, not Hate because of Nerfs.

Full zerk core s/d. Give it a shot.

@Alatar.7364 said:All because of the Nerfs that were based on salty whines rather than actual constructive criticism.

Not really, I mean look at permastealth condi thief, people "whined" about that in WvW for years, Anet did nothing, it only got nerfed because one soloed a raid boss and showed up what a joke their "challenging PvE content" is.

For the most part thief got nerfed because for the first 3 years of this game they balanced virtually entirely around PvP, and for the duration of that there was a thief on nearly every PvP team and was the only class that was permameta, so of course it got nerfs, nothing to do with whining. (and newsflash it is not the only class that has had many nerfs)

@zinkz.7045 said:

@Alatar.7364 said:All because of the Nerfs that were based on salty whines rather than actual constructive criticism.

Not one of this is an argument to blow Thief out Everything... Logical reaction is to tone things down not make them entirely "not viable".Also the past three or four Nerfs were entirely based on unsubstantiated whines. If you check the Forums, you will see very few posts complaining about Thief and Millions about Scourge, meanwhile Scourge gets buffed? That's why I think that past few Nerfs were based on whines of inexperienced people. I get flamed every day for being OP just because I kill a newbie who was at zerk Ele/Ranger with no stunbreaks or single attempt to dodge... "Experienced feed back" by those people I guess...I got in to way too many arguments about Thief balance, so I really don't want to ruin this Thread by continuing to whine too much after this =DSorry to the OP.

Just go either full zerker of full condi and pin necromancers, revs and rangers with Spotters Shot all day.

In any stand-up fight, it sucks... But as a gimmick, it's great fun, and I can only imagine how pissed the scourges and reapers are when they can't get within range with anything, or catch up with anything.

@TwiceDead.1963 said:Just go either full zerker of full condi and pin necromancers, revs and rangers with Spotters Shot all day.

In any stand-up fight, it sucks... But as a gimmick, it's great fun, and I can only imagine how pissed the scourges and reapers are when they can't get within range with anything, or catch up with anything.

...and then the ranger takes out a longbow and presses 2 buttons and you're dead.

@Alatar.7364 said:Not one of this is an argument to blow Thief out Everything... Logical reaction is to tone things down not make them entirely "not viable".

Actually the logical reaction to thief would be to redesign certain things about it (same goes for certain aspects of some other classes), because there are things about it that make it impossible to balance (and also make it difficult to add other roles to thief without it being broken OP), or to redesign the trait/wepaon/skill system to be much more restrictive, but of course those would involve time and effort...

@Alatar.7364 said:Also the past three or four Nerfs were entirely based on unsubstantiated whines.

You realize the above is an 'unsubstantiated whine' as is your argument in general that nerfs were based on "whines".

Thief was perma meta for 3 years and in virtually every team in the game mode they balanced the game on, not sure why you would think that they would not get nerfs given that, and I hate to break it to you, but the players they listened to most were not "inexperienced people" they were the players in some of the PvP teams who were all pally with some of the devs or in the early days those who were on the test server.

If you check the Forums, you will see very few posts complaining about Thief and Millions about Scourge, meanwhile Scourge gets buffed?

Which disproves your own argument, if classes were merely nerfed based on "whining" then Scourges would have got wrecked last patch, but they didn't.

I roll with core d/p in pvp for the fun of it. I am sick and tired of DD and constant nerfs and DE is just not my thing (beside being useless in pvp, imo). Not to mention it gives you greater pleasure when you kill HoT/PoF specs with core :D Ironically i feel like core can deal with scourge/mirage better than DD and revs are pretty underused so there is not much to oppress core build

I'm playing as D/P Daredevil (little different than the meta build) but I think everything with gap closers and escapes is viable. S/D and Staff work pretty well too especially in WvW. I found P/P was viable in PvP if there's no mobile thief (like D/P) in the match since they can reck you pretty hard (you aren't too mobile and since thief heavily relies on mobility you'll lose against a "good" D/P thief 9/10). Also be aware of mirrors, you can kill yourself pretty quickly if someone sets up a reflect.

Especially for WvW keep in mind that you can also use buff food and enhancements and also infusions with stats.And for sPvP keep in mind that thief has two very specific tasks which are decapping and +1 teamfights. Thief is not supposed to 1v1 (altough I can 1v1 a lot of classes pretty viable)

@edit: I don't want to say that thief is good in any way, we are in an incredibly bad state right now but at least thief is still somewhat playable. Hope things will get better in the future. (yes I have hopes, thieves were in a bad state before too and got buffed before last season - things just go very slow at Anet :P)

@Asur.9178 said:

@TwiceDead.1963 said:Just go either full zerker of full condi and pin necromancers, revs and rangers with Spotters Shot all day.

In any stand-up fight, it sucks... But as a gimmick, it's great fun, and I can only imagine how pissed the scourges and reapers are when they can't get within range with anything, or catch up with anything.

Speaking from personal experience? If so, step up your game, bruv...Snark aside, yeah in a stand-up fight against anyone competent in zerkers, you will die, and you deserve to, so you've got two options:

• Perma-stealth and run away~ (As thieves do) and you may live... But you may also die.
• Stay and die.

Full trailblazers though?Good luck dyin~

I don't recommend doing this in sPvP unless you want to troll your team.

@TwiceDead.1963 said:

@Asur.9178 said:

@TwiceDead.1963 said:Just go either full zerker of full condi and pin necromancers, revs and rangers with Spotters Shot all day.

In any stand-up fight, it sucks... But as a gimmick, it's great fun, and I can only imagine how pissed the scourges and reapers are when they can't get within range with anything, or catch up with anything.

• Perma-stealth and run away~ (As thieves do) and you may live... But you may also die.
• Stay and die.

That's why, as a thief, you always, ALWAYS initiate the fight.

@KonateTheGreat.2549 said:

@TwiceDead.1963 said:

@Asur.9178 said:

@TwiceDead.1963 said:Just go either full zerker of full condi and pin necromancers, revs and rangers with Spotters Shot all day.

In any stand-up fight, it sucks... But as a gimmick, it's great fun, and I can only imagine how pissed the scourges and reapers are when they can't get within range with anything, or catch up with anything.

• Perma-stealth and run away~ (As thieves do) and you may live... But you may also die.
• Stay and die.

Even then, a kill isn't guaranteed.

I'll probably start rolling more core builds, but it feels rough in wvw with less dodges. Still a D/D fanatic so ill try it with acro/sa. Helps to know i'm not the only one thinking Thief isn't in the best spot right now though.

@CreedOfGod.9764 said:Helps to know i'm not the only one thinking Thief isn't in the best spot right now though.I think 99.9% of all (at least competitive) thief players think thief is in a relatively bad spot rn (and not just after UC nerf)

@DoomNexus.5324 said:

@CreedOfGod.9764 said:Helps to know i'm not the only one thinking Thief isn't in the best spot right now though.I think 99.9% of all (at least competitive) thief players think thief is in a relatively bad spot rn (and not just after UC nerf)

no its not

@DoomNexus.5324 said:

@CreedOfGod.9764 said:Helps to know i'm not the only one thinking Thief isn't in the best spot right now though.I think 99.9% of all (at least competitive) thief players think thief is in a relatively bad spot rn (and not just after UC nerf)

Depends.It's place in a Team is not in a Bad spot, which is really important.But It's Thief's Combat capabilities compared to Other Professions that did not deserved to end up like they did.

@CreedOfGod.9764 said:I'll probably start rolling more core builds, but it feels rough in wvw with less dodges. Still a D/D fanatic so ill try it with acro/sa. Helps to know i'm not the only one thinking Thief isn't in the best spot right now though.

I use CritS/Trickery/Acro with D/P and SB. It's fun :)

If all you enjoy doing is +1-ing (that's not actually a role, no matter what people want to believe) and running around de-capping in sPvP, then it's fine. Beyond that, it's garbage compared to what other classes bring.

I don't even allow people to bring thief to my raids any more, except maybe 2/3 bosses...just like necro. Fractals? Forget about it...I'm kicking you the instant I see you bring a thief to 100 cm.

@TwiceDead.1963 said:Speaking from personal experience?

I am; I kill deadeyes all the time. I can't even recall the last time a deadeye managed to land a DJ on me outside of an outnumbered fight against me, where I would have died either way.

Do you realize how hard and fast you can burst as a power soulbeast? A simple 4-2 (especially with quickness) is enough to kill people even in full marauders.

@Asur.9178 said:

@TwiceDead.1963 said:Speaking from personal experience?

Ugh... Death's Judgement is a waste of initiative. Your initiative is better spent pinning people down.

I've been on the receiving end of those Ranger bursts on occasion, but they don't kill me outright. You just gotta stay on your toes after the knockback's all (In other words, Shadowstep and Stealth up)... But sure, if you just take it like a scrub, it's bound to kill you.

Deadeye is gimmicky af, though. Had a lot more success running Core S/D, but atleast I get a good laugh when I can single out Necro's, Rangers and Revs from a zerg and leave them immobile and hapless.

All the other classes though? Fuckit, don't bother with spotter shot. Your boonstrips are pretty great though...

@bluri.2653 said:

@DoomNexus.5324 said:

@CreedOfGod.9764 said:Helps to know i'm not the only one thinking Thief isn't in the best spot right now though.I think 99.9% of all (at least competitive) thief players think thief is in a relatively bad spot rn (and not just after UC nerf)

Actually i disagree with you here. Given current state of the game thief IS in kind of bad spot overall.+1/decap can do anyone really, other classes got plenty of mobility buffs for it, not to mention combat wise most of them bring more to the team. But yes, with decent team you can still make good plays with thief.PvE/WvW is different story. You bring absolutely nothing to the group. Neither in raids nor in wvw people want you, simple as it is.Maybe you don't have as much as issue due to riding the fame pony but for rest of the thief players reality looks different.