Make the Thief Great Again!

Seriously, the thief has been pooped on long enough! Dead Eyes perma stealth needs to be nerfed and everything else, but staff, brought back up. Let's take a brief look as to what the rest of the professions compared to thief.

Rev: arguably is better thief in nearly every way but stealth. In fact many high level thief streamers say that the only reason thief is even played over rev in pvp is because thief has higher mobility.

Ele: can do it all. Heal, tank, burst, massive dps, blink, stun you on backstab, and mist form.

Engi (holomancer) This class is just insanely broken. They are the true MASTER OF EVERYTHING.

Warrior: Multiple life saving invulnerability, blocks, hp regen, stuns, FULL COUNTER.

Necro: I honest think is in a pretty good spot.

Guardian great damage, blocks, invulnerability, healing, great burning damage.

Mesmer: What can't the mesmer do?

TLDR: Thief has been constantly shit on by Anet and I think I've had enough of them doing it. They take what makes the thief unique and give it to everyone else. Our steal is the only thing left and WHO CARES about steal? The stealing abilities/blink to target is a dam joke compared to Engis utility slots, Eles ability to change her spec, Mesmers clones, Warriors constant regen and damage, Necros two health bars, Guardians 3 great skill boosters, or rangers pets. Anets balancing team needs to take a serious look at what the hell they are doing to what is honestly the only class I enjoy playing.

I have no idea what you're talking about. But nah.

What rating are you? Bronze 3?

@TanksK.4795 said:What rating are you? Bronze 3?

MAD bro? Thief's damage comes (outside of rifle) comes from backstab which is already hard enough to land unless the person you're fighting is a potato. Oh and if you miss there's a three second CD? Other professions have multiple ways to burst. Hell mesmer can do it to a group if they are in a tight spot while thief can only do it to ONE person. Instead of attacking the person attack the argument. Frankly all your comment does is show just how childish you really are.

@Tashigi.3159 said:I have no idea what you're talking about. But nah.

What point do you disagree with?

you didn't answer my question tho. What's your rating?Anyway, if thief can burst like Mesmer with that mobility It would be op.

Mesmer have good mobility but long cd portal, aka slower than thief.Thief is not suppose to waste time fighting anyone 1v1.I can agree that Mesmer is better than thief cause it can 1v1 anyone but that up to people's preference. Mobility or fighting ability.

Nerf Mesmer not buff thief.

@TanksK.4795 said:you didn't answer my question tho. What's your rating?Anyway, if thief can burst like Mesmer with that mobility It would be op.

Mesmer have good mobility but long cd portal, aka slower than thief.Thief is not suppose to waste time fighting anyone 1v1.I can agree that Mesmer is better than thief cause it can 1v1 anyone but that up to people's preference. Mobility or fighting ability.

Nerf Mesmer not buff thief.

When it comes to strait line mobility pretty sure mirage/holo can beat thief but the only saving grace is shortbow #5 x/y also lets not forget that thief will burn all initiative so it's in no position to fight where as the other w classes have full weapon sets ready

@TanksK.4795 said:Thief is not suppose to waste time fighting anyone 1v1.

This is conditioned thinking. It only exists because Anet has nerfed the Thief into this position. It was originally designed as a duelist.

Anyway, if thief can burst like Mesmer with that mobility It would be op.

The Thief is an assassin class. That's exactly what it should be doing. Glass cannon. As it stands, it is too fragile in relation to the effective damage it can do. It's like a very large bumble bee. It hurts, but it's just a bee. You swat it and smash it. The only way it's lethal is if you're allergic... but the bee will still be dead.

@Mintyfreshsmell.1568 said:Seriously, the thief has been pooped on long enough! Dead Eyes perma stealth needs to be nerfed and everything else, but staff, brought back up. Let's take a brief look as to what the rest of the professions compared to thief.

You're absolutely correct with everything except Deadeye's perma-Stealth. With Deadeye 2.0, they pretty much solved the problem in PvP. WvW is another matter, but even it's questionable.

In PvP, there's barely any advantage to bring a Thief anymore. Other professions have been given too much mobility, sustain, and damage output to make the Thief a clear choice. Once again, if you delete Shortbow 5, you delete Thief viability as a whole. A Thief player has to outplay and out think the opposition as well as avoid a single mistake just to avoid being a hindrance to the team. If the opponents do the same, it's game over.

If one team has a Thief and the other doesn't, it is an automatic 4.5v5 matchup. The Thief player has to make up for the .5 deficit. A Mesmer's Portal or a mobile Ranger can literally nullify a Thief on several maps.

I said "if" that means if they buff damage to Mesmer level.If they design thief to be duelist then buff damage and nerf mobility.

@"TanksK.4795" said:Mobility or fighting ability.

This is a false choice. In fact, it's not a choice at all. Mobility comes down to Shortbow 5. But the Thief is designed to use one weapon set for fighting, and another for mobility. So the Shortbow is nearly always glued to the second weapon set. So the Thief is left to choose this... be mobile or not be mobile... choosing a second weapon set does not make you more lethal, it only makes you less viable. If the Thief lost the weapon-swap cooldown or even gained a second initiative pool for the second weapon set, then there would be more combat potential, but it can't. So the Shortbow is always assumed because mobility is the ONLY thing the Thief brings to the table. There's no choice that can bring fighting ability even close to the loss of mobility.

I said "if" that means if they buff damage to Mesmer level.If they design thief to be duelist then buff damage and nerf mobility.

Why is that? The Mesmer brings more combat defense than the Thief. The Thief has little combat defense. The Thief can run away and it can hide. It can't absorb damage and it can't evade enough damage while maintaining enough pressure. Other professions have been given way too much sustain for a fragile Thief to even have a shot in an equal matchup... even in an ambush scenario, the Thief can't gain enough advantage in most situations.

The Thief has to work harder, play smarter, and prepare more than other professions just to have a shot. Its passive defenses are nearly nil, and its offenses are too easily negated.

The only thing the Thief brings to combat is single-target damage. That's it. No team-fight capability. Yet the single-target damage output is mediocre at best. To balance it out, it needs higher damage output or more combat defense. It needs to be a duelist where it can be a threat on the side-nodes because it dies immediately in Mid fights.

Mobility does not make up for the lack of combat ability. It's like putting a Sherman tank up against Tiger tank. There's no balance there. It's not even fair. In the current game, mobility is only good for running away from a fight or to an empty point. Turning a 1v1 into a 1.5v1 is a rather pathetic purpose for mobility... especially when there's a 3v4 going on somewhere else.

As I said, nerf Mesmer. Thief is balanced where it is.

@TanksK.4795 said:As I said, nerf Mesmer. Thief is balanced where it is.

Compared to what? Sure, the Mesmer may be overperforming. But the Thief is underperforming compared to the other 7 professions also... unless it brings a gun to a Necro fight.

Warrior, Ranger, Engi, Eevenant is a lot slower than thiefGuardian, necro have a mobility of a 200 years old hag.

Ele…. yeah that class need a buff totally useless.

@TanksK.4795 said:Warrior, Ranger, Engi, Eevenant is a lot slower than thief

Warriors, Guardians, Rangers, and Engineers are like Tiger tanks. Mobility is as effective against them as running head-first into a brick wall.

Rangers and Engineers can move like greased lightening. Both have Stealth as well.

Rangers have range and can provide support on Mid while protecting their Home on several maps.

Necros are the one foe that ranged Thieves can directly counter. But good luck if you're a melee Thief.

@Mintyfreshsmell.1568 said:What point do you disagree with?

Try all of the above.Everything you mentioned does not apply to any of those classes.

Other than the weird choices regarding Exposed Weakness & Blinding Powder from the July 10th patch and the arguable ICD on Stealth-Attacks (I really don't like being forced to use Initiative on those few times I miss a hit, but do need to keep up pressure on a target). Thief is in a good spot.I'm still irritated about them nerfing Acro pre-HoT, to pretty much re-package it in Daredevil, as well as a plethora of other things... But overall, Thief is fine., so please Anet, don't fix what isn't broken, like 'Exposed Weakness' (for which we actually received a nerf to the Dagger Main-hand) and Blinding Powder...

Tone down other classes, tone down the powercreep (many classes can do too many things too well and often, do all of it at the same time)... Make this game in it's entirety more enjoyable... That'd be good for everyone.

@"Vornollo.5182" said:Thief is in a good spot.This is just objectively wrong, there are maybe one or two builds which are doing "fine" at what there supposed to be doing but thief as a whole is nothing but a dumpster fire. Shortbow is rip aside from weapon skill 5. P/P isn't just to weak to be vialbe vs. skilled opponents it's also compleatly outclassed by rifle in pretty much every way. Traps are a joke and the list goes on.

@Tails.9372 said:

@"Vornollo.5182" said:Thief is in a good spot.This is just objectively wrong, there are maybe one or two builds which are doing "fine" at what there supposed to be doing but thief as a whole is nothing but a dumpster fire. Shortbow is rip aside from weapon skill 5. P/P isn't just to weak to be vialbe vs. skilled opponents it's also compleatly outclassed by rifle in pretty much every way. Traps are a joke and the list goes on.

We're viable in high-end PvE with a combination of builds, both Condi and Power and with both Elite specsWe're viable in high end sPvP with several builds, most prominently with Power, but considering how bad the playerbase is, even Condi works. Even Core Thief still has a rather solid spot due to S/D's synergy with Acro (Swindler's Equilibrium was OP, now it's good).We're definitely still viable in WvW, regardless of build or Elite spec. We can still play Focus Party Roles, we can still play with Havoc groups, we are still kings at solo roaming due to our disengage potential and so on and so forth. Heck, even Staff Daredevil can be played in the frontline of a blob v blob fight if you're not a complete idiot about your positioning...We're doing far, far better in terms of viability and diversity than most other professions. So no, we haven't got anything to complain about just yet.

Let our buffs be in the nerfs to other classes.Arguing in favor of things that'd add more sillyness and powercreep... Now that's 'wrong'.

EDIT:I'll just reiterate that I didn't say Thief is just peachy and perfect.I pointed out several gripes of mine and also mentioned that there's plenty of things that need fixing.But wahey, go on and keep on cherry picking certain aspects just to top up your salt.

Define "we" and stop with the faulty generalizations, many builds play so different from each other that they might as well be different "classes". A profession is nothing but a collection of builds with some common aspects (like traits) anyways. Build X "doing fine" says nothing about how the rest is doing.

P/P has lower DPS than even power necro and everyone always "complains" about them being "too weak". Not that is matters much because "certain builds from other classes not doing well" is beside the point to begin with. "Let our buffs be in the nerfs to other classes." is just a bad way to tackle these problems since (ignoring the fact that you don't seem to have any idea just how much you would have to hammer down "the rest" to bring various stuff on par with everything else (at least I hope you don't cause otherwise you're essentially asking for the vast majority of the playerbase to ragequit)) it's not going to fix gamplay realated issues with skills like cluster bomb.

Also, are you even listening to yourself? If one plays a P/P build then these "certain aspects" profoundly affected the entirety of the gameplay. Maybe you should stop being such a hypocrite and stop "cherry picking" certain builds to attack valid critism of the things that actually should to be adressed.

It's an MMO. You'll have to accept the fact that nothing will ever be equally viable and balanced. Even if it were possible, it'd be boring. It'd be amazing to strive for it, true enough, but it simply doesn't work that way. There's always something, or someone, who is able to do better and get more out of any kind of situation than others. That's how meta's are pretty much created, if bluntly put.There's not a single profession who is viable with every single thinkable combination of gear, weapons traits and so on and so forth. So in that sense it's "balanced", we're definitely not pulling on the shortest end of the stick in terms of actual viable options.Also, "We" is rather clearly indicating 'Thief' as a profession. Considering the forum we're in, the nature of the discussion, and the overall direction of both the topic and the post(s).Unless you took a wrong turn on the forum somewhere, I'm pretty sure that we can generalize the Thief profession as just that, Thief .

Also, what's this thing about P/P..? Yeah it sucks that it's weaker than a Power Necro. Yeah it's a damn shame that we still have no Ricochet reborn. But you cannot genuinely think that we should always be the best at everything. Besides, Shortbow is very underutilized by most people and P/P DE is actually doing rather good against Scourges and DH's and the like. It's got it's niche use and situations to shine, that's actually nice.

And again, I never said there were no issues at all, or that there was nothing to address.

I'm still irritated about them nerfing Acro pre-HoT, to pretty much re-package it in Daredevil, as well as a plethora of other things... But overall, Thief is fineThe only conclusion you could take from my post(s) would be that, in the grand scheme of Guild Wars 2, Thief is right now, definitely in a rather good spot.There's 8 other professions that also got their problems across all gamemodes and most of those are doing far worse in terms of viable builds, options and their overall place.

So no, it's not perfect. No arguing that. There's plenty of stuff to be fixed, no arguing there either. But we've got options (multiple) for most situations, so yes; we're still in better health than most other professions right now. Which can also, not genuinely, be argued against.Or we could just go for the good old "everything is OP except so buff and nerf everything else" sort of mindset... But I don't enjoy being OP and it makes up for poor discussion.

At any rate, we'll probably have to end up on agreeing to disagree.Can't really see this going anywhere in a public environment, but feel free to send a message to me if you want to keep it going.

@Kageseigi.2150 said:

The Thief is an assassin class. That's exactly what it should be doing. Glass cannon. As it stands, it is too fragile in relation to the effective damage it can do. It's like a very large bumble bee. It hurts, but it's just a bee. You swat it and smash it. The only way it's lethal is if you're allergic... but the bee will still be dead.I loved your analogy. Think I might have to dye my thief yellow/black now. :)

@TanksK.4795 said:Warrior, Ranger, Engi, Eevenant is a lot slower than thiefGuardian, necro have a mobility of a 200 years old kitten.

Ele…. yeah that class need a buff totally useless.

Guardian has low mobility? What? xd, maybe support fb is slow but if u are a dps guardian u are far from slow

The only way Thief wil lget great again is, if Anet finalyl makes the strenthsof a real Thief stand out muhc better in this game .

• Stealth must become again a Thief's superior Gameplay Aspect, not that of an Engineer/Scrapper or even that of a Mesmer
• Absolute Mobility must become again the superiority of the Thief, no stupid Warrior in heavy armor should be able to outrun a Thief!! For this must they fix finally also finally the shadow stepping of the thief, that you don't get always as crucial important moment this bushit, that you can't shadowstep to where you want to get to, because of something invisible in your line of sight, or the map textures being somehow broken, that you cant target this way the spot you want to shadowstep to.
• Thieves must receive finalyl Trap Control Abilities amogn their Skills and Traits to give them unique group support and to make them immune to trap effects as a counterplay to trapper builds
• Thieves need to become able to see other stealthed enemies as a Stealth Counterplay that is more of a stronger Thief unique Stealth Hard Counter than Reveal and to stop silly eternal stealth battles between thieves thats more of an annoying cat and mouse play... between who stealths first and can stealth longer, than the other. zzzzz.
• Thieves need to get all of their Healing, utility and Elite Skilsl reworked, merged where possible and created gaps refilled with new skills
• Deadeye should get completely removed and partwise integraded into Core Thief by making Rifle a Thief's baselined Core Class Weapon, by finally merging Rifle together with Harpoon Gun to remove this total obsolete Weapon Type from the game, because this way seen woudl have had the Thief baselien the Rifle already from begin on, and there woudl have never been the need to have a stupid unfitting Deadeye Spec at all and the Class could receive instead a much better fitting silent Rogue Spec that uses Longbows instead ... to give the Thief this way over the baselined Rifle then an alternative long range weapon, which is SILENT.
• Daredevil needs to get removed and reintegrated into Core Thief to bring Agility back finally to the state, how useful and good this Traitline was, before Anet butchered it to death, just to give Daredil a reason for existance!! Staff becomes baseline core weapon together with Offline Sword beign lastly added as wel too.Daredevil as Spec gets replaced then with the Saboteur and Spec Weapon becomes either the Mace or Torch, or it gets replaced by the Stalker, and Focus replaces the Staff as new Spec Weapon for this Spec to get this way finally some kind of much more shadow magic focused thief gameplay which can then make also reusage of the deadeye utility skills..asked myself from the first moment on, what ANet was thinking by giving a wannabe sniper some kind of shadow magic utility skills >.> /facepalm.
• The Initiative System must get reworked into a Shadow Instinct System to allow the Thief persorming special unique abilities (F3 to F5) for the cost of temporarely reducing their maximum Initiative Pool, kind of like some kind of "exhaustion" to the Initiative, like exhaustion worked in GW1, by temporarely reducing your maximum energy. Fior this to work must get that trait, which increases maximum initiative finalyl baseline ..this is so overdue to be done finally, its unbelieveable, that it hasn't been done within 6 years ...
• Venoms need to get completely reworked to become a much better and stronger group support
• Traps need to get reworked, they are all as they are there completely useless and have seen only some good time, when it was possible to play with them ghost Thief, until it got nerfed. Compared to the Ranger and DH Traps are the Thief ones total unbearable trash!!
• Dodge Styles need to get integrated into the general core gameplay design of the Thief and become part of the Agility Traits or become part of the general Thief Skilsl and shouldnt be handled as Grandmaster Traits of a Spec, so that all other Thief Specs can profitate from those changed Dodge Styles as well to make the Thief in the way how this class can dodge more unique over all other classes, which don#t have ways to change their dodge styles. thats definetely somethign that should be used to diversify the Thief Class more from the other Classes in their gameplay style as the highly mobile, agile and most evasive class of all, as a master of shadows, assasination, deception and evasion, which uses its combat skills to deliever lethal precise strikes, or to perform if been brought into the situation deathful unblockable counterattacks from parrying enemy attacks with the help of using various venoms with that thieves take over control of their enemies, due to theur neurotoxins stunning, and paralyzign their enenmies nerve systems to blind their foes, to poison them, to weaken them and that not only by makign them inable to deal critical hits, but also by directly reducing the stats of their enemy wirth direct Stat Debuffs, like Banners for example provide direct Stat buffs for those thast stand in their range, should by venom hit foes receive direct Stat Debuffs ... like for example beign hit by Skale venom, shoudl not let the enemy suffer only on Torment, but it should temporarely reduce the hit targets Toughness and Precision by say up to 180 Points on Level 80, just like a Banner can buff up to 180 points plus to Stats when you stand in their range.

TTheres many ways to make the Thief great again, but these listed up points woukld be my main points I can think off, that are kind of important to me, which I think needs the thief, to become really great and FUN to play again, as thats all aspects I personally EXPECT from a trustworthy thief class to be able to do to be realistical and close to historical facts/lore of what Assassins are like, which were kind of the Thief's ancestors of GW1.So i kind of espect from a Thief to be miuch more assassinlike in its gameplay, except one thing, that should#t return, because it fits not into the combat system of GW2 - combo skills, which force you to use specific skilsl in a specific row, just to maximise your dps rotation.. that maybe worked for GW1 combat and class7skill design, but here not ...

@Vornollo.5182 said:But you cannot genuinely think that we should always be the best at everything.

But I at least want the Thief to be the best at SOMETHING... specifically in PvP combat. At least make it a high-damage dealing (relative to others) assassin that can ambush/duel on side-nodes. Even if it takes something extreme like an automatic 50% health/endurance/damage-output reduction as soon as a second opponent (or even an ally) comes within 1,500 units of it, at least let it be able to go head-to-head against a lone, isolated target without an inherent disadvantage. Yeah, a lot of changes would have to be made in order to accomplish that, but being a +1/decapper (and not even a good one without Shortbow 5) is extremely lacking in both ambition and motivation.

@"Orpheal.8263" said:The only way Thief wil lget great again is, if Anet finalyl makes the strenthsof a real Thief stand out muhc better in this game .

Let's just do what should have been done in the first place, and rename the Thief to Rogue. If you want to specialize as a Thief/Bandit, then go ahead, but you also have the justification to be a true assassin.

Thieves need to become able to see other stealthed enemies as a Stealth Counterplay that is more of a stronger Thief unique Stealth Hard Counter than Reveal and to stop silly eternal stealth battles between thieves thats more of an annoying cat and mouse play... between who stealths first and can stealth longer, than the other. zzzzz.

I cannot express how much I want to experience indefinite "invisible" duels! Even if a Thief can only see Stealthed enemies while they are also in Stealth, it would be great. Once again, I suggest that if a Thief hits a Stealthed opponent, then instead of being Revealed, the Thief will gain extra time in Stealth. This would reward aggressive play, and would allow a Stealth duel to be extended as well as keep the duel isolated between the two combatants.

INSERT THIEF TRAITLINES HERE need to get integrated into the general core gameplay design of the Thief ... as well to make the Thief in the way how this class can INSERT THIEF SKILL HERE more unique over all other classes

This is a huge issue. The Thief has no defining characteristics. The only things every Thief has are Steal and initiative. That's it... unless you count low health and medium armor. A Thief without traits gets the exact number of dodges as a Mesmer, Guardian, Necromancer, etc., etc., etc. A Thief has the exact same speed as any other profession. A Thief has the same number of weapon/utility skills as anyone else. A Thief even has fewer Function skills than several professions. Thieves, I believe, have the fewest number of weapon choices. And while Thieves may have "dual wield" skills, they are still limited to 5 weapon skills... just like everybody else. Thieves don't even have universal Stealth/Camouflage access without building for it.

What is a Thief without speed? What is a Thief without evasion? What is a Thief without Stealth?

Thieves rely way too much on specialization, and there are only certain builds that are even usable because all Thieves require certain things, yet there's not enough customization "slots" to cover them all.

That's why we end up with skills like Shadow Step being required. That's why a trait liked Shadow's Embrace was required. And why a weapon like Shortbow is required. The Thief would be a lot better off if it got the Engineering Kit's functionality. Put the Shortbow on the utility bar, and be done with it.

@TanksK.4795 said:Warrior, Ranger, Engi, Eevenant is a lot slower than thiefGuardian, necro have a mobility of a 200 years old kitten.

Ele…. yeah that class need a buff totally useless.

How wrong can you get? I am pretty sure if we was to have a drag race in a strait line holo will win hands down or mirage then dare devil then warrior but they are only using a few skills l, We just burnt up all initiative and are in no position to fight at all, they still have pretty much 2 full weapon sets ready to go. (Excluding their leaps).