Thief Doesn't needs BUFFS

I can't believe people are asking for thief buffs. Pffft the class is so obviously EZ mode. The cooldown on Backstab was a necessary addition and its still too powerful. Thief should get nerfed more, then it would be a fair match to everyone I face. You want build diversity? Pfft every thief set is EZ WIN GG MODE. Yeah listen to me talk highly about myself. Listen to me try to make my self sound like I don't have any frustrations in dueling. I have to post things on here like I am number 1 because even though i sacrifice the class I like to play... i have to pretend that thief is balanced or OP because id rather cast an illusion like a Mesmer than admit the truth.

You people should just learn how to play circus acrobat shadow steppy nibble run nibble thief like I do, Then you wouldn't complain. Just accept the transformation of the class from being an assassin to now being a circus acrobat with shadow teleport magic. Pffft if thief was an assassin he would be to OP.

@Cobrakon.3108 said:I can't believe people are asking for thief buffs. Pffft the class is so obviously EZ mode. The cooldown on Backstab was a necessary addition and its still too powerful. Thief should get nerfed more, then it would be a fair match to everyone I face. You want build diversity? Pfft every thief set is EZ WIN GG MODE. Yeah listen to me talk highly about myself. Listen to me try to make my self sound like I don't have any frustrations in dueling. I have to post things on here like I am number 1 because even though i sacrifice the class I like to play... i have to pretend that thief is balanced or OP because id rather cast an illusion like a Mesmer than admit the truth.

You people should just learn how to play circus acrobat shadow steppy nibble run nibble thief like I do, Then you wouldn't complain. Just accept the transformation of the class from being an assassin to now being a circus acrobat with shadow teleport magic. Pffft if thief was an assassin he would be to OP.

u sound mad.what class u play that has trouble with thief? cus i cant see which class cant hold it self against a thief.

i mean i hate guardians and warriors so they are OP to one of em just constantly heals other 1 is perma invul or blocking my shit while having constant healing tick that is insane high + does dmg of a fucking thief, but instead of crying i just figured out how to drop them by playing one my self for few weeks :) easy to find weakness from classes when u play one ur self for a while.

thief again isnt OP said many times now, u guys cant handle thiefs mobility ask a friend or a good thief to duel you and not use his mobility he will just die like a npcmobility on thief is equal to sustain on other classes.

is mobility OP? no its not aslong u got zero sustain :)is the dmg OP not really if u ask me when u see what kind of dmg guardians slam in my face with hammer or warriors with constant 7k++ crits or rangers who just track me thru stealth nearly taking me down or mesmer who can 1 hit me aswell or ele's who have been buffed today and wreck me like its nothing if i used my mobility skills

should i go on? i know your mad pro but life of thief isnt so great as you think its.unless u play thief your self and u 1 bang everything you touch but i doubt it :p

Obvious bait is obvious.

/15char

@TheSwede.9512 said:Obvious bait is obvious.

/15char

Okay a little bit baitish but really I am ranting about how some thieve mains will say that thief doesn't need buffs or they need nerfs in attempt to preserve their egos.. I feel that Thief is weak with the exception of the main nibble tele nibble mechanic that has been forced onto the class ever since the june patch pre HoT. Thief has gone away from the stealth/assassin model so much that now it is a acrobat circus freak class that bears little resemblance to a true stealth class.

And I read the forums and its funny how some people will knock every single buff idea... I think its really about stroking their egos though. I retired my thief a couple years ago. I can do the whole nibbly mechanic but it doesn't feel fun for me. I hate Shortbow, Shadowshot, shadowstep, etc. I do realize that this is what makes thief anywhere near viable given all the trash abilities in the game.

I personally would give up all the mobility in the world to play stealth backstab thief without all the trash abilities.

If you're playing WvW you should really try CS 322 SA 322 DE 111 with rifle D/P on full valk (I have a mara rifle and enough zerk pieces to get 20% crit chance before traits and buffs, that's the sweet spot for me). It's a proper assassin spec since you can one shot a good amount of players given malice buildup, it doesn't rely on ports, shadow shot or shortbow and it's what people are largely complaining about at the moment.

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:If you're playing WvW you should really try CS 322 SA 322 DE 111 with rifle D/P on full valk (I have a mara rifle and enough zerk pieces to get 20% crit chance before traits and buffs, that's the sweet spot for me). It's a proper assassin spec since you can one shot a good amount of players given malice buildup, it doesn't rely on ports, shadow shot or shortbow and it's what people are largely complaining about at the moment.

I'd like to add that this is also the build that we Thief mains are advocating nerfs for. Not Thief as a whole. DE + SA is over performing with little effort, very much like how S/D condi DrD was before the poison nerfs. Little effort for a huge effect.

The DE+SA overperforming issues sound too familiar with DrD+Acro overperforming issues.

hopefully they will nerf thief enough so it's completely useless and we can get enough intelligent and vocal players to get it out of this +1/mobility slump that really does not apply as much enough anymore to warrant such a sentence

@Crab Fear.1624 said:hopefully they will nerf thief enough so it's completely useless and we can get enough intelligent and vocal players to get it out of this +1/mobility slump that really does not apply as much enough anymore to warrant such a sentence

+1 mobility is a big excuse they use to not adjust thief to a more duelist type of class.

I've been back to maining thief for a bit more than a year now and to make it clear, I don't consider myself a good thief. Not at all. I will leave DE aside, becasue it does not interest me at all and I don't care if it's over or under performing, so whatever I say about thief at this point, does not apply to DE.

With that said, I do think thief is underperforming, but that's really what attracts me to the class in the first place. The fact that I have to completely outplay Mirages, Spellbreakers, Soulbeasts, Holosmiths and others to win a fight against them is what is making me log in with thief every evening and I'd rather have it underperforming than overperforming, because as soon as thief starts overperforming people will flock to it, suddenly all the easy-win seeking weaklings will run around on thief and that's the point where I swap to some other "underdog" class.

As one of those Thief Mains who's against the majority of "buff ideas". I'd like to put some emphasis on the fact that other classes should receive some nerfs instead of buffing Thief.Thief's toolset is one of the fairest and most balanced in the game.So instead of adding more powercreep (by buffing Thief), they should remove some of it instead (nerfing other professions).

Nerfs to others are pretty much buffs for us.

@"Vornollo.5182" said:As one of those Thief Mains who's against the majority of "buff ideas". I'd like to put some emphasis on the fact that other classes should receive some nerfs instead of buffing Thief.Thief's toolset is one of the fairest and most balanced in the game.So instead of adding more powercreep (by buffing Thief), they should remove some of it instead (nerfing other professions).

Nerfs to others are pretty much buffs for us.But that's not always the case. Some issues can't be solved through nerfs and require a buff in order to be resolved. Also, buffing only leads to powercreep if the endresult outperforms the established task related standard.

@"Vornollo.5182" said:As one of those Thief Mains who's against the majority of "buff ideas". I'd like to put some emphasis on the fact that other classes should receive some nerfs instead of buffing Thief.Thief's toolset is one of the fairest and most balanced in the game.So instead of adding more powercreep (by buffing Thief), they should remove some of it instead (nerfing other professions).

Nerfs to others are pretty much buffs for us.

Nerfing only in PvP is fine, but nerfing across the board is problematic. Nerfing in PvE is not just nerfing a skill, it also means that they have to go through every content to make sure that the nerfed skill is still useable. This is why I am against nerfs for the sake of PvP or WvW because it ruins the game in PvE. This applies the same way if the nerf happen for the sake of PvE and it's not necessary for PvP or WvW. This is when the skill split becomes necessary, but it seems Anet don't like that path at all.

On the contrary, a buff in PvP is always a positive in either PvE or WvW and will not necessarily break any encounters in PvE. Yes it's a power creep, but no it's not always a bad thing.

The overarching design of things should be catered towards PvP play - the "what" the skills do.

Then numbers can be balanced between the PvP/WvW and PvE modes respectively.

Monster/Boss AI does not care about the "what" you're doing and however anti-fun a given play pattern is. Or things like tells. Players do.And maybe if they adjusted PvE encounters to reflect how PvP ones go, we'd see more people agreeing with why the current game is failing the competitive modes, as well as making more well-rounded builds more viable.

The thief is numerically fine. The imbalances and unhealthy mechanics are more conceptual-level and are restricted to PvP encounters where the dominant builds perform well by denying agency to their opponents with very little impressive play or insight necessary to find success.

thief spec should just get deleted, cancer to the whole game.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:The imbalances and unhealthy mechanics are more conceptual-level and are restricted to PvP encounters where the dominant builds perform well by denying agency to their opponents with very little impressive play or insight necessary to find success.

what do you consider impressive play?many people seem to consider a 'difficult' sequence of skills as impressive wich mostly boils down to keys pressed per minute. that cool but not that important in gw2.gw2s pvp modes are all teammodes. in teammodes allways tactic and insight will win over a skill rotation.1vs1 encounters is not what this game is balanced around, altho in its pvp modes 1 vs 1 fights do happen. those fights itself dont have to be balanced, in fact if they are balanced they are tactically often not worth it in such a mode. in spvp this becomes more obvious, you allways try to outnumber the opponent in at least 2 points, its not about fair, balanced encounters. in conquest and in theory in WvW aswell its allways best to be at as many positions as possible but at each position in a favourable situation. if you manage to rotate like that, then you win so that should be the skill of value to the players, that should be impressive.but here is the issue. people value taking risks within an encounter more, then choosing the correct setup for the encounter. with that many will choose a bad setup so they can take more risks to be more 'impressive'. but gw2 wont reward them for that.that is an issue within many games if the players value something higher than what is actually needed to win (usually its some commonly referred as 'cheesy' tactic and not a difficult to execute sequences of input). now if you think something makes you a good player that doesnt make you win, then you can quickly feel like this or that being unhealthy and unfair. thats problematic as it drags down the mood, the fun a game is about. not just yours but also from the ones that play it competitive. its just more fun to win, if your opponent also had fun. another very big issue is that the ones valueing the wrong skill often are certain that they play competitive aswell.

so unhealthy and 'imbalanced' is often what players think is not fair. especially when this game is about creating unfair encounters. then one looking only for fair encounters to test his skills to win them, will find many things to be unhealthy. the most unhealthy thing in gw2 would then be the advantage one gets with superior numbers, yet for some reason thats obvious enough for many to understand, having an advantageous build or team comp based on the envoirement when the numbers are even is a thing that people have a hard time accepting as tactical skill, thats just 'cheesy'.

i think the most unhealthy thing in this game is what players think makes them good at gw2 and expecting this leading them to winning. not some profession/build concepts.

Impressive and insightful play is capitalizing on cooldown timers, periods of weakness or strength, smart use of LoS and positioning, and forcing a circumstance on your opponent by choking out win conditions, or creating said win conditions and escaping being forced into a bad situation through a combination of smart game sense and fast reflexes to incoming stimuli.

A rotation is not impressive. I do not care how many keys it is; if I macro can be programmed to do something, the gameplay is not skilled. The entire reason I chose to play the thief - and largely GW2 to begin with - was because ANet in their early dev posts said the game would never be based around rotations, which is also a huge premise behind combo fields/finishers coming from multiple players. Which for the record, most early kits save the elementalist did not have regular or even sufficient access to both a valuable field and a finisher.

Impressive play is doing things like using the Dark field on Shadow Refuge to get Life Steal from P/P thief into a very low HP Warrior with Endure Pain in order to gain the siphon procs to kill it through its invuln, because siphon damage can't be negated this way.

Unhealthy game design doesn't even need to be strong; it just needs to remove elements of fun or agency from other players engaged in the game, often referred to as "counterplay." People will not play a game for long where they are not in control, unless it's caused by an addiction (see: gambling, and why these patterns are defined as being unhealthy). Which causes communities to crumble as a whole because friends stop playing, and the domino effect ensues.

GW2's dominant builds showcasing unhealthy design is the result of ANet not addressing these unhealthy and gimmicky patterns that underlie a number of their professions and weapon kit designs.

It's why something like S/D, despite putting up only mediocre numbers, was so dominant for a while, and why SA as a trait line has been imbalanced (being OP or UP) since the game launched thanks to stacked stealth.

The other professions are just as guilty - some even moreso than the thief since PoF - but it still does not excuse the current state of the thief.

Creating false-equivalencies is how we got here to begin with, frankly. Two wrongs don't make a right.

@"DeceiverX.8361" said:A rotation is not impressive. I do not care how many keys it is; if I macro can be programmed to do something, the gameplay is not skilled. The entire reason I chose to play the thief - and largely GW2 to begin with - was because ANet in their early dev posts said the game would never be based around rotations, which is also a huge premise behind combo fields/finishers coming from multiple players. Which for the record, most early kits save the elementalist did not have regular or even sufficient access to both a valuable field and a finisher.groupfights are not won by a rotation, but 1vs1 fights are often won by a rotation now.Unhealthy game design doesn't even need to be strong; it just needs to remove elements of fun or agency from other players engaged in the game, often referred to as "counterplay." People will not play a game for long where they are not in control, unless it's caused by an addiction (see: gambling, and why these patterns are defined as being unhealthy). Which causes communities to crumble as a whole because friends stop playing, and the domino effect ensues.

i think there is mostly enough counterplay in this game for its PvP modes. in both modes most points are generated through controlling areas and in both a group will face another group. so the most basic group tactic to win is divide and conquer as said above. sent people to as many areas as possible while keep remaining in an numerous advantage. if that is the very basic tactic both groups follow, then most counterplay is on this level. and balance will be done to give each profession options to be relevant on a certain groupsize. does that mean you need for every move in a 1 vs 1 a counterplay when it is not even efficient to go for a 1 vs 1 unless you know that you have an adavantage in it. too much counterplay here would help people to win, that have failed on the overall tactical level to create advantagous encounters. and we have that alot in WvW roaming, it works because of difference in experience, doesnt change the fact that a solo roaming necro or warrior for example have failed on the basic tactical level. should they be granted enough counterplay options to overcome that fail fully?

No, because if your "tactics" and "advantageous encounters" consist of ganking and outnumbering them, they shouldn't have direct answers to everything, because that mathematically makes no sense. If one player has an answer to many players at once and can still provide kill pressure, there's either a massive skill disparity or what they're playing is OP. In the former case, the isolated player won by being a magnitude better than the group - most likely because the group was terrible, given how theoretical performance/skill curve of video games with fixed inputs tends to almost always be logarithmic. In the latter case, the build needs to be downright nerfed. 1v1 and XvX are your target balance environments. Nothing should be balanced to 1vX and win or net-zero. Because it's impossible to then balance and make interactive; you end up with either the situation where it becomes dominant by stacking (Scourge) or wins via removing agency from its opponent to sustain (SA DE) which is blatantly not fun to play against, which hurts the health of the game.

And even then, what really are tactics in WvW these days? Ganking outnumbering your enemy isn't skillful. Blobbing is determined solely by builds and numbers and there is very little requirement for players as far as positioning goes with basically everything being a tank/front-/mid-range caster. Most zergs either just tickle each other and then get bored and engage, or immediately ram their faces into each other in a big check to see whose members can press more buttons at the same time. In all legitimacy, I haven't seen actual tactics employed in small-scale or large-scale since 2013 where there was a very definitive line between the front and back lines, and support was restricted to blasting water fields which are immobile. I ran with guilds that ran 3 or 4 portals per fight to invert the lines, feint engages, and so on. That doesn't happen anymore because it's pointless. And with roaming... well... the actual competition and potent havoc guilds and small-scale almost entirely quit with HoT thanks to powercreep, the DBL, and guild buff lockout, and the newer builds being less-and-less fun to play against.

There should never exist a situation where all agency is removed from the opposing player. There should always be some magnitude of counterplay. It doesn't need to be hard-countering, like applying Revealed to core thief - it just needs to be in existence, like applying an AoE field as soon as the thief uses stealth to deny its engage, etc.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:No, because if your "tactics" and "advantageous encounters" consist of ganking and outnumbering them, they shouldn't have direct answers to everything, because that mathematically makes no sense. If one player has an answer to many players at once and can still provide kill pressure, there's either a massive skill disparity or what they're playing is OP. In the former case, the isolated player won by being a magnitude better than the group - most likely because the group was terrible, given how theoretical performance/skill curve of video games with fixed inputs tends to almost always be logarithmic. In the latter case, the build needs to be downright nerfed. 1v1 and XvX are your target balance environments. Nothing should be balanced to 1vX and win or net-zero. Because it's impossible to then balance and make interactive; you end up with either the situation where it becomes dominant by stacking (Scourge) or wins via removing agency from its opponent to sustain (SA DE) which is blatantly not fun to play against, which hurts the health of the game.but nothing is balanced to win 1 vs X or outnumbered in general. there needs to be professions that do stack for larger groupsizes. if everyone of a profession you bring more than just 1 each would be inefficient, then there wouldnt be a reason to get groups over the size of 9 if anet wants larger groups they will allow for classes to stack better like FB, scourge, rev etc. as for SA DE, they can avoid larger groups yes, but they are not in any position to win 1 vs X. finishing people while outnumbered is probably the most difficult thing for a deadeye and requires his opponents to make mistakes, sure the deadeye can bait those mistakes but thats all that he can do.@DeceiverX.8361 said:And even then, what really are tactics in WvW these days? Ganking outnumbering your enemy isn't skillful. Blobbing is determined solely by builds and numbers and there is very little requirement for players as far as positioning goes with basically everything being a tank/front-/mid-range caster.

but exactly that is the issue, because the mode design suggest ganking and outnumbering to win. so in theory you would be needing to move on the map in a way that you only fight when you win. wich then would require some skill in avoiding and baiting your enemy into fights that they will lose. the fights itself indeed would be very onesided etc. this design does work in spvp pretty well because you are mostly 5 vs 5. in WvW however the numbers are not balanced, wich is probably nearly impossible in a 7 days match without endless queues, with that trying to get your opponent to a fight he will lose etc. is pretty simple. one side simply has a groupsize that the opposing team cant compete and moves freely around the map with it. the opposing team then would need to dodge fights all day wich is too boring for most and as winning the match is not rewarded, noone would bother doing it.

Thief needs a major overhaul. The class is just hit, run and hide, then come back and hit again. With pretty much permanent stealth it's pretty easy to play thief right now. If you want to keep your mobility at least get rid of 90% of the stealth abilities. And that could really go for every other stealthing profession as well.

If anything needs changing it's stealth on dodge. Deal with that and everything else just sorts itself out.

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:If anything needs changing it's stealth on dodge. Deal with that and everything else just sorts itself out.

i am not so sure about that.unless they find another way to make us use endurance for stealth. because if they just put it back into some cooldown system, we will have more dodges for actually evading attacks and not just for stealth, this can make it seem like we can evade even more then.for example f3 ' hold your breath' 1/4s cast uses 50 endurance to gain stealth for 3 seconds. then it is interruptable and you still cant use that endurance to dodge an attack, make it slower and it wont be used to enter/weave stealth just to remain in it cause of the cost. the + side for the deadeye is, it is faster than a current dodge and doesnt move the deadeye so you can again snipe better from an edge. but when i come out of stealth i then am attackable for the full 3s, now just a little over 2s. (+1 in spvp)

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:If anything needs changing it's stealth on dodge. Deal with that and everything else just sorts itself out.

Beofre Stealth on Dodge was the Flavor of the day there was as many and more topics started about thiefs ports and dodges as OP needing curtailment. Even now when a thief given an option outisde dodge/stealth in order to survive an attack (4 seconds on a 90 second cooldown) topics started that it OP. Remove stealth on dodge and other mitigation measures needed and those same complaints will keep coming through.

To the DE in particular. It the DD spec that has extra dodges so it unlikely removing stealth access via dodge to DE will be made up for with more dodges. DE just does not have as many dodges as the DD spec and can not or the DD spec has no value. If it not high access to stealth what other mitigation measures are being suggested for a class with 11k hps base? More Invulns? More Ports? Either of those and there just more complaints.

@Rufo.3716 said:Thief needs a major overhaul. The class is just hit, run and hide, then come back and hit again. With pretty much permanent stealth it's pretty easy to play thief right now. If you want to keep your mobility at least get rid of 90% of the stealth abilities. And that could really go for every other stealthing profession as well.

Hit and run is how the class is designed and is what the class intended to do. It is not designed to stick in a fight and swap blows with classes that were designed to do that.