Serious Question to Anet

To all the people at Arenanet

I have one question. Just one. Why do you feel the constant need to nerf any and all thief specs into the ground! Like please, share some insight as to why thief never gets any buffs and just constantly gets nerfed. I seriously want to understand your thought process because as it stands, all I can think of is you hate the class and would rather you never made it.

Everytime I see updates and profession changes, I am like here we go, what is next?

Deadeye was by and far my favorite thing about thief and the most fun apart from the good old days of xv1 P/D thief back in 2013 I have ever had.

All you do is nerf thief specs, and this 1 second on dodge has made the trait so useless it is actually laughable. Where is the compensation for all the nerfs you do!

And why is three-round-burst 6 initiative! 5 would have been fairer but it was fine at 4 but I'd be fine with 5 but 6 is stupid!

Forget your thief, lets play engi, guardian, rev or ranger, you won't have any problem. Thief is broken since the beginning and the target of all raging players.

@BFMV.3198 said:To all the people at Arenanet

I have one question. Just one. Why do you feel the constant need to nerf any and all thief specs into the ground! Like please, share some insight as to why thief never gets any buffs and just constantly gets nerfed. I seriously want to understand your thought process because as it stands, all I can think of is you hate the class and would rather you never made it.

Everytime I see updates and profession changes, I am like here we go, what is next?

Deadeye was by and far my favorite thing about thief and the most fun apart from the good old days of xv1 P/D thief back in 2013 I have ever had.

All you do is nerf thief specs, and this 1 second on dodge has made the trait so useless it is actually laughable. Where is the compensation for all the nerfs you do!

And why is three-round-burst 6 initiative! 5 would have been fairer but it was fine at 4 but I'd be fine with 5 but 6 is stupid!

Don't expect ANET to ever help thieves. There has been so many questions directed towards ANET, and no answers.

Don't be Harsh, thief had plenty of buff like S/D, acro, damage on auto ... (well, buff then nerf).

But yes Anet is pro to nerf non-meta build like deadeye rifle, P/P and long ago S/P (other exemple on other prof too)

@VydoLL.8714 said:Forget your thief, lets play engi, guardian, rev or ranger, you won't have any problem. Thief is broken since the beginning and the target of all raging players.

This is exactly it,due to the archetype of the class and it’s mechanics it’s one of the classes that non thief players cry about the most and in arenet fashion and clearly showing they have little clue of how to balance thief and to make the larger majority of people happy they’ve slowly killed it. It will never change either,the fact that thief is in such a weak spot right now as a whole and yet people still cry it’s op is proof of that so just do yourself a favor and reroll a different spec

Anet should just make thief like Assassin from Gw1

Delete thief, and make Assassin and focus on things like shadow form, flashing blades and evasion and almost no stealth! Would be much better imho!

@BFMV.3198 said:Anet should just make thief like Assassin from Gw1

Delete thief, and make Assassin and focus on things like shadow form, flashing blades and evasion and almost no stealth! Would be much better imho!

As an elite spec? Sure. But... no. Don't delete my thief.

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

@BFMV.3198 said:Anet should just make thief like Assassin from Gw1

Delete thief, and make Assassin and focus on things like shadow form, flashing blades and evasion and almost no stealth! Would be much better imho!

The whole point of thief is to be high risk high reward. But Anet took most of the reward away, now you're all risk no reward and midiocre dmg unless you spam vault or rifle 3. lol

@xZombieTaco.5809 said:The whole point of thief is to be high risk high reward. But Anet took most of the reward away, now you're all risk no reward and midiocre dmg unless you spam vault or rifle 3. lol

PS... They made it so you can't vault and shadow step at the same time... Something no one complained about, and was difficult to pull off.

But yeah. Noody made it clear in the past. Anet hates thief, and the class is no longer what it uses to be.

I can explain it. To borrow from Extra Credits: It is important that a mechanic be fun for both the person doing it, and the person receiving it.

This is the ultimate issue with thief: It's not fun to be attacked by a thief. Being pistol-stunned to death isn't fun. Being bled dry by a Ghost Thief isn't fun. Being one-shot by a Backstab or a Death's Judgement from stealth isn't fun. It isn't fun to be harassed endlessly by an enemy that can always disengage and run away. This forces Anet into a big dilemma. They've essentially made a profession who's theme is unfun for every other profession to play against. Having stealth, high burst damage, and high mobility puts thieves in a precarious position, where the game can easily be ruined by letting thieves become powerful.

Take the mobility for example. Being the most mobile class in the game means that the thief must be one of the weakest in a direct engagement. If they aren't, and there's another class that loses to the thief in a straight up brawl, then that other class can't be played, for it will forever be slow moving prey for the thief. Likewise, the burst can't be too high, because otherwise the class that can't take the burst could never be played, for it will forever be slow moving prey for the thief. Etc. and so on.

This is why thieves always get nerfs for PVP and WvW. Having thief be too weak means that thief players will be angry. But, having thief be too strong means that all of the other professions will be angry, due to all of the traits that the thief has.

Classes like mesmer,ranger etc due to mobility creep almost have as much mobility as thief these days but triple the sustain/burst and sustained damage. In wvw now that there’s mounts it’s even less an advantage. By high burst u mean malicious backstab from stealth? All other thief burst are garbage compared most classes that have way more sustain and more damage,yeah u can disengage if u make one mistake but chances are if it’s half the classes they have a chance to catch u,the slower ones u can keep trying but that’s fun gameplay for both sides lol. Theirs damage ratio is not inline with its sustain and its mobility is losing its edge each yr the game exists all while third keeps getting shaved.gues thiefs having one burst one one weapon set with a stealth set up from behind is enough for it in the large community that hates the class lol

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:Classes like mesmer,ranger etc due to mobility creep almost have as much mobility as thief these days but triple the sustain/burst and sustained damage. In wvw now that there’s mounts it’s even less an advantage. By high burst u mean malicious backstab from stealth? All other thief burst are garbage compared most classes that have way more sustain and more damage,yeah u can disengage if u make one mistake but chances are if it’s half the classes they have a chance to catch u,the slower ones u can keep trying but that’s fun gameplay for both sides lol. Theirs damage ratio is not inline with its sustain and its mobility is losing its edge each yr the game exists all while third keeps getting shaved.gues thiefs having one burst one one weapon set with a stealth set up from behind is enough for it in the large community that hates the class lol

Knowing history is necessary to have perspective lol

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:I can explain it. To borrow from Extra Credits: It is important that a mechanic be fun for both the person doing it, and the person receiving it.

This is the ultimate issue with thief: It's not fun to be attacked by a thief. Being pistol-stunned to death isn't fun. Being bled dry by a Ghost Thief isn't fun. Being one-shot by a Backstab or a Death's Judgement from stealth isn't fun. It isn't fun to be harassed endlessly by an enemy that can always disengage and run away. This forces Anet into a big dilemma. They've essentially made a profession who's theme is unfun for every other profession to play against. Having stealth, high burst damage, and high mobility puts thieves in a precarious position, where the game can easily be ruined by letting thieves become powerful.

Take the mobility for example. Being the most mobile class in the game means that the thief must be one of the weakest in a direct engagement. If they aren't, and there's another class that loses to the thief in a straight up brawl, then that other class can't be played, for it will forever be slow moving prey for the thief. Likewise, the burst can't be too high, because otherwise the class that can't take the burst could never be played, for it will forever be slow moving prey for the thief. Etc. and so on.

This is why thieves always get nerfs for PVP and WvW. Having thief be too weak means that thief players will be angry. But, having thief be too strong means that all of the other professions will be angry, due to all of the traits that the thief has.

Its not fun to be weak for absolutely no reason. Thief traded his defenses for a high risk high reward.gameplay there were very simple fixes that thry could have done to prevent this without harming thief to such an extreme level. But they decided to do a dental cleaning with a jackhammer every time.

Being one shotted by a guardian who has a relatively high defensive build is not fun.Hitting a Weaver multiple times but your damage got you no where compared to what he does to you because he regens shields like crazy is not fun and exciting gameplay.Having to fight a condi Mirage and use a rediculous amount of mechanical skill in comparison to what the mirage outputs is not fun gameplay

This crap goes both ways.

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:I can explain it. To borrow from Extra Credits: It is important that a mechanic be fun for both the person doing it, and the person receiving it.

This is the ultimate issue with thief: It's not fun to be attacked by a thief. Being pistol-stunned to death isn't fun. Being bled dry by a Ghost Thief isn't fun. Being one-shot by a Backstab or a Death's Judgement from stealth isn't fun. It isn't fun to be harassed endlessly by an enemy that can always disengage and run away. This forces Anet into a big dilemma. They've essentially made a profession who's theme is unfun for every other profession to play against. Having stealth, high burst damage, and high mobility puts thieves in a precarious position, where the game can easily be ruined by letting thieves become powerful.

Take the mobility for example. Being the most mobile class in the game means that the thief must be one of the weakest in a direct engagement. If they aren't, and there's another class that loses to the thief in a straight up brawl, then that other class can't be played, for it will forever be slow moving prey for the thief. Likewise, the burst can't be too high, because otherwise the class that can't take the burst could never be played, for it will forever be slow moving prey for the thief. Etc. and so on.

This is why thieves always get nerfs for PVP and WvW. Having thief be too weak means that thief players will be angry. But, having thief be too strong means that all of the other professions will be angry, due to all of the traits that the thief has.

It's not for no reason. It's for very good reasons. The issue is that no, the thief didn't trade their defenses for high risk high reward gameplay. Thieves use stealth, which makes them one of the safest classes to make a glass cannon build out of. Stealth is so powerful that it had to be nerfed over and over again through the years. That's the mechanic that is unfair, because stealth allows one player to attack the other with almost no practical counter-play.

Saying that weaver's have good shields isn't on the same level as the dark triad (invisible, most mobile, high burst). You can still see a weaver coming. You can still see the weaver's skills. You can still outrun the weaver. You can adjust your tactics as you see fit. If you're winning, you can still finish the weaver off. Most of these comparisons fail, because they do not understand the problem that the dark triad presents. Keep a wide perspective here; when you look at the abilities a class has, don't just look at it from the perspective of a thief main. Consider all other classes; those shields and barriers may seem insurmountable to a squishy thief, but to a bulky warrior they're just cute. But given a class that can unload a boat load of damage from stealth with no warning... it doesn't matter who you are.

This issue isn't unique to thieves, either. Mesmers have been nerfed in similar ways throughout history, to deal with the exact same problem.

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:I can explain it. To borrow from Extra Credits: It is important that a mechanic be fun for both the person doing it, and the person receiving it.

This is the ultimate issue with thief: It's not fun to be attacked by a thief. Being pistol-stunned to death isn't fun. Being bled dry by a Ghost Thief isn't fun. Being one-shot by a Backstab or a Death's Judgement from stealth isn't fun. It isn't fun to be harassed endlessly by an enemy that can always disengage and run away. This forces Anet into a big dilemma. They've essentially made a profession who's theme is unfun for every other profession to play against. Having stealth, high burst damage, and high mobility puts thieves in a precarious position, where the game can easily be ruined by letting thieves become powerful.

Take the mobility for example. Being the most mobile class in the game means that the thief must be one of the weakest in a direct engagement. If they aren't, and there's another class that loses to the thief in a straight up brawl, then that other class can't be played, for it will forever be slow moving prey for the thief. Likewise, the burst can't be too high, because otherwise the class that can't take the burst could never be played, for it will forever be slow moving prey for the thief. Etc. and so on.

This is why thieves always get nerfs for PVP and WvW. Having thief be too weak means that thief players will be angry. But, having thief be too strong means that all of the other professions will be angry, due to all of the traits that the thief has.

but is it a problem to begin with? i mean sure if we had a 1 vs 1 deathsmatch maybe.

the weavers ability to sustain visibly is alot stronger than the thieves ability to sustain in stealth or by running away in spvp just because of how conquest and the nodes work. you cannot just look here at their skills while ignoring the context of the encounter.stealth only helps you to apply the opening burst, where other professions have powefull CC in the place and then it might help again after longer periods of restealth. but with current levels of facetanking and recovery a burst is only relevant if it does finish the opponent or if you can apply sustained pressure too, where stealth doesnt help. i think the main issue with stealth is that people overrate its balance value, because neither spvp nor WvW actually have a focus on killing the other players. its more tactical about holding positions. but people feel it very unbalanced if you can avoid dying, regardless of your contribution.

in WvW the role of a thief is mostly being a scout (or some refer to it as roaming): flipping minor objectives/dolyaks, killing players off position and being a distraction to force a numbers advantage elsewhere. its not about fair fights to begin with. but if you nerf the 'dark triad' as you call it, you will make the thief unable to operate efficiently in that role as they either wont be a threat to cause a distraction/sabotage or be killed too easily so they wont even try. and he surely is not designed for large scale encounters.to play to this role in WvW i felt like the game pushed us more and more into heavy stealth abuse over the years just to nerf it then again, so i feel like thief especially in WvW has lost its role, you can do it as good as a thief with most other professions now - if not even better.

@"MUDse.7623" said:

but is it a problem to begin with? i mean sure if we had a 1 vs 1 deathsmatch maybe.

the weavers ability to sustain visibly is alot stronger than the thieves ability to sustain in stealth or by running away in spvp just because of how conquest and the nodes work. you cannot just look here at their skills while ignoring the context of the encounter.stealth only helps you to apply the opening burst, where other professions have powefull CC in the place and then it might help again after longer periods of restealth. but with current levels of facetanking and recovery a burst is only relevant if it does finish the opponent or if you can apply sustained pressure too, where stealth doesnt help. i think the main issue with stealth is that people overrate its balance value, because neither spvp nor WvW actually have a focus on killing the other players. its more tactical about holding positions. but people feel it very unbalanced if you can avoid dying, regardless of your contribution.

in WvW the role of a thief is mostly being a scout (or some refer to it as roaming): flipping minor objectives/dolyaks, killing players off position and being a distraction to force a numbers advantage elsewhere. its not about fair fights to begin with. but if you nerf the 'dark triad' as you call it, you will make the thief unable to operate efficiently in that role as they either wont be a threat to cause a distraction/sabotage or be killed too easily so they wont even try. and he surely is not designed for large scale encounters.to play to this role in WvW i felt like the game pushed us more and more into heavy stealth abuse over the years just to nerf it then again, so i feel like thief especially in WvW has lost its role, you can do it as good as a thief with most other professions now - if not even better.

That's what is meant by "precarious position." The weakness of the current thief is the culmination of all the balance decisions to curb their strength. It wasn't always like this, though. I still remember the evasion spamming sword builds that could reliably 1v1 anyone in the game, and I also remember the pistol whip build that would win through stun locking and blind spam. But, these builds were nerfed, partly because they could also use stealth while doing all of this. The thief's current roles are decided by these nerfs, and they would change if thieves received buffs.

A good way to think of stealth is as a static stealth reduction on the enemy. While a normal fight without stealth is just your health + sustain vs. your opponents, the thief gives you an immediate handi-cap by bursting away some of the health. If a thief can open a fight with an 8k hit, this means that the fight is now essentially your health -8k + sustain vs. your opponents. Throughout the fight, stealth allows the thief to constantly disengage and re-ingage, hammering you over and over again with that 8k hit. There's more counterplay once you're in the midst of a fight, but after awhile that damage can really add up. It's like, every 4 seconds, another 8k of your health will be taken away. It is for this reason that Silent Scope was nerfed.

The ability to win 1v1 engagements generally valuable. If it wasn't, then mirages wouldn't keep being nerfed.

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@"MUDse.7623" said:

but is it a problem to begin with? i mean sure if we had a 1 vs 1 deathsmatch maybe.

the weavers ability to sustain visibly is alot stronger than the thieves ability to sustain in stealth or by running away in spvp just because of how conquest and the nodes work. you cannot just look here at their skills while ignoring the context of the encounter.stealth only helps you to apply the opening burst, where other professions have powefull CC in the place and then it might help again after longer periods of restealth. but with current levels of facetanking and recovery a burst is only relevant if it does finish the opponent or if you can apply sustained pressure too, where stealth doesnt help. i think the main issue with stealth is that people overrate its balance value, because neither spvp nor WvW actually have a focus on killing the other players. its more tactical about holding positions. but people feel it very unbalanced if you can avoid dying, regardless of your contribution.

in WvW the role of a thief is mostly being a scout (or some refer to it as roaming): flipping minor objectives/dolyaks, killing players off position and being a distraction to force a numbers advantage elsewhere. its not about fair fights to begin with. but if you nerf the 'dark triad' as you call it, you will make the thief unable to operate efficiently in that role as they either wont be a threat to cause a distraction/sabotage or be killed too easily so they wont even try. and he surely is not designed for large scale encounters.to play to this role in WvW i felt like the game pushed us more and more into heavy stealth abuse over the years just to nerf it then again, so i feel like thief especially in WvW has lost its role, you can do it as good as a thief with most other professions now - if not even better.

All this nonsense about thief needing to be weak due to stealth is nonsense. Is ranger,mirage and holo weak? All can stealth,scrapper too. The meta build for thief is s/d no stealth unless utility slots taken and that’s great for avoiding or disengagement woohoo. If swords,daggers and pistol actually did reasonable damage than the stealth backstab spam wouldn’t exist and thief wouldn’t be a bore after half hr. I hate stealth reliance so if I play thief I have to play perfect and avoid almost all hits and hit my opponent 4 times the amount he hits me and if I get hit twice I’m forced to dissengage,that’s fun.no class should be ballanced around a one trick pony mechanic. Arenanet need to wake up and buff sword,dagger and pistol damage across all skills and reduce damage from mechanics like malicious backstab etc and maybe at a condition or soft cc to them so thier worth doing but not high burst high dps promoting actual skilled fighting and not mechanics like backstab spam.A thief should be fast,fragile and HIT hard(how games normally do it) and not only hit hard in one type of attach per weapon,doesn’t even have that lol

thief wasnt nerfed. only this de abomination which deserved it.

@Safandula.8723 said:thief wasnt nerfed. only this de abomination which deserved it.

It’s been continually nerfed since 2015,de brought more nerfs to core as well all patches before most recent.u been playing long?thief is far from its initial iteration all while other classes save fore Eli we’re powercrept

@Safandula.8723 said:thief wasnt nerfed. only this de abomination which deserved it.

deadeye is a part of thief.in WvW every thief build utilizing stealth was nerfed a while back with marked changes and more reveal skills/traits getting into common used builds. and now rifle deadeyes stealth got nerfed and other thief builds OOC mobitlity advantage got removed.its simply a trend of removing thieves role/identity in the mode. there is now little reason to pick thief over another profession.

It’s gotten to the point that even tho thief’s flavour is the most appealing to me the class as a whole is garbage these days in comparison to other classes so I end up playing other classes while the class I’ve done the most content in the past with just sits there. It’s pretty bad that I mostly have been roaming for 2 months on Engie and scrapper and at first was surprised at the skill variety and most importantly my damage to sustain was great ,even better since patch and we all kno scrappers dps isn’t its strong suit lmao but compared to thief(if ur not backstabbing from stealth) it’s great :)

@MUDse.7623 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@MUDse.7623 said:

but is it a problem to begin with? i mean sure if we had a 1 vs 1 deathsmatch maybe.

the weavers ability to sustain visibly is alot stronger than the thieves ability to sustain in stealth or by running away in spvp just because of how conquest and the nodes work. you cannot just look here at their skills while ignoring the context of the encounter.stealth only helps you to apply the opening burst, where other professions have powefull CC in the place and then it might help again after longer periods of restealth. but with current levels of facetanking and recovery a burst is only relevant if it does finish the opponent or if you can apply sustained pressure too, where stealth doesnt help. i think the main issue with stealth is that people overrate its balance value, because neither spvp nor WvW actually have a focus on killing the other players. its more tactical about holding positions. but people feel it very unbalanced if you can avoid dying, regardless of your contribution.

in WvW the role of a thief is mostly being a scout (or some refer to it as roaming): flipping minor objectives/dolyaks, killing players off position and being a distraction to force a numbers advantage elsewhere. its not about fair fights to begin with. but if you nerf the 'dark triad' as you call it, you will make the thief unable to operate efficiently in that role as they either wont be a threat to cause a distraction/sabotage or be killed too easily so they wont even try. and he surely is not designed for large scale encounters.to play to this role in WvW i felt like the game pushed us more and more into heavy stealth abuse over the years just to nerf it then again, so i feel like thief especially in WvW has lost its role, you can do it as good as a thief with most other professions now - if not even better.

Getting stealth is reallyy easy for the thief. Thieves use initiative, so their weapon skills can all be spammed.

You can complain all you want about how strong you think the other professions are, but that is irrelevant to the issue at hand. So long as thieves are invisible, highly mobile, and have high burst, they will have to be the weakest class in the game overall.. Crawling over every other profession's individual strengths and weaknesses is a meaningless exercise, because it does not negate this dilemma in any way.. It doesn't matterhow they're stronger, only that they are.

Seriously, think about this for a moment. For the sake of argument, lets say that the thief now magically has access to all the sustain, evades, barriers, blocks, boons, and DPS skills that the weaver gets, but also doesn't lose any mobility, stealth, or burst damage. What becomes of the weaver then? How will they get played, when there's another class that will always hunt them down and kill them with no warning, no realistic chance of winning, and no hope of escape? It seems ridiculous, but for many years that is exactly the problem we had. For the longest time, the underdog class wasn't the thief. It was the mesmer. Why? Because in PVP the thief could do basically everything the mesmer could, except harder, faster, and safer. I still remember the video where Helseth, a famous PVP mesmer main, decided to switch to thief because it was just a better mesmer, and mesmers just got ganked by thieves. What I am saying here isn't speculation: it's history.

To have a fair game, you need to have a chance to fight back. It would be stupid to design a game otherwise. Despite your insistence Crowd Control is not unfair. You can still see it coming. You can still counter-interrupt them. You can still dodge them. You can still use positioning to avoid it. You can still block it. Every class has a plethora of stun breaks at their beck and call. You can't do that with a thief. Positioning doesn't matter because thieves teleport around. You can't interrupt, dodge, or block them because you can't see them coming and thus won't know when to do it. Reveal skills are rare and they're trash.

Yea initiative is great for something but has a trade off,once enough is used both weaponsets can do nothing.fair trade off but in no way does initiative mean weakening of a class is needed