Follow Up to my Original Post, "The Death of Thief"

[darren.1064]

The original post if you happened to miss it: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/103453/the-death-of-thief/p1

Honestly. I'm not even going to say much because obviously if ANet has no intentions to fix the current balance then why should I even waste my time honestly. Since I first posted the original thread, thief got a buff in the condi department and now has a nearly unstoppable condi build. Which I don't really care for-- it is absolutely brain dead and should be nerfed to the ground. Power thief has never been in a worse state however. The only thing saving daredevil right now is dash and shadowsteps. Aside from that, thief is without the worst class in PvP as it cannot team fight or 1v1. In either category of fights, thief does 300-700 damage autoattacks and not much better for skills that cost initiative as other classes with more health, armor and overall survivability (ranger, all necromancers, holosmith) do umpteen times more damage. The class has gone from high-risk, high-reward to high-risk no reward. Aside from decapping (and the condi build) it's a dead class that has had every good build scrubbed. And please don't mention mobility as every class has found shadowsteps/high mobility onto it's meta utilities, so the excuse of "thief can't be good because of it's incredible mobility" needs to be dead.

Moving on, thief isn't my only complaint. Many builds need to be buffed and many builds need to be nerfed. Holosmith should not rule PvP; Warrior shouldn't be a forbidden class in PvP. This support/bunker meta sucks and caters to certain professions like Necromancer, elementalist, guardians, while other professions fitting specific niches were absolutely destroyed. Warrior and power thief are two classes in particular that were absolutely wrecked as their damage was dismantled. Soulbeast however can still dominate 1v1s with their cheesy power builds, and do nearly as much damage as pre-February. Don't get me started on reaper and holosmith.

In short, I guess this is a rant post and as somebody that has played since launch: I think I'm done with Guild Wars. I dedicated my time to crafting 10 legendaries and being top 100-250 every season, but this game isn't even worth the headaches I get from games anymore. I think I can safely say that not only is thief dead, but Guild Wars 2 PvP is dead unless necessary balance patches occur. At this point, I don't think I see the necessary patches occurring.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

I don't blame you. I us-to main thief and looking at the damage they do now makes me wonder why people still want this class nerfed. I stopped maining Thief 2 years ago.

The problem is that Anet does not have a sound balance philosophy...It was flawed to the very core from the beginning of this games inception, and it has culminated into taking the most drastic measures, measures in which are built and still based on something that is still fundamentally flawed.

Me and a few other people saw this coming months before the February patch, and we discussed it...I remember the fanfare when the patch dropped...

"We love you CMC this is the best patch ever!"

I can understand...People were sick of the powercreep meta as well. So was I...But what they were given was a trade...to trade of one evil for another evil under the guise of a truce. Nobody could really understand that this nerf meta philosophy was just as bad as the power-creep meta philosophy, and it's now gotten to a point where it's so bad that it's just depressing to even play this game.

[Dantheman.3589]

Thief damage is actually good right now- it’s just front loaded into certain skills- heart seeker, sword 3, sd 5, vault and rifle 2 to name a few. I personally don’t like it as it didn’t used to be a skillful way to play and kindof killed S/d becuz front loading the weapon damage into the back line skills reduces the actual pressure of the build, but that doesn’t mean thief players are less skilled for using new builds that take advantage of this- that’s just adapting to a new meta.

[Wrain.6792]

Its a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE class...PERIOD. I quit this game years ago decided to come back. Thief STILL BORING, no dmg, total chore to use; was just like man this game still sucks. So somehow I finally just said screw it i'll roll a new class. Went guardian. NOT EVEN A COMPARISON. I can WvW, I can PVE, I can PvP...the game is actually fun. The thief class is BROKEN, NO DMG, and just POINTLESS in WvW unless you want to "scout" and run..and why the hell do that when you can just kill. Reroll, trust me, you will NEVER go back.
P.S. Good Job Anet, you got me to blow $100.00 bucks for the new class. (although I should NOT have had to do this)

[Leonidrex.5649]

thief is taking its sweet ass time dying, at this rate it might take a year, give or take 15 years.The class has gone from high-risk, high-reward to high-risk no reward.excuse me what ? thief is NO risk medicore reward, thief was never in my time ( little over a year ) had ANY risk built into it.

[silklash.6154]

Oh yes thief is dead.

So dead that every conquest game must have two - one on each team.

So dead that every MT winner and most AT winners have one thief.

So dead that just by existing, a person who has never played thief but can just decap and not fight at all can potentially salvage a game if the enemy team doesn’t have a thief.

Yea, thief isn’t meant to 1v1. If you want to duel, don’t play the class. But don’t say thief has no rewards, it’s ROLE in conquest is still broken. It has no risk of dying with shadow arts. It’s the only class that can have impact without FIGHTING the whole game.

Not to mention that’s sure, it has no roles in a wvw Zerg, but it’s just one of the best roamers who literally can’t die. Can’t unless you’re being dumb.

Where is this high risk with shadow arts?

[masterofdisaster.4591]

u are delusional

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:I don't blame you. I us-to main thief and looking at the damage they do now makes me wonder why people still want this class nerfed. I stopped maining Thief 2 years ago.

The problem is that Anet does not have a sound balance philosophy...It was flawed to the very core from the beginning of this games inception, and it has culminated into taking the most drastic measures, measures in which are built and still based on something that is still fundamentally flawed.

Me and a few other people saw this coming months before the February patch, and we discussed it...I remember the fanfare when the patch dropped...

"We love you CMC this is the best patch ever!"

I can understand...People were sick of the powercreep meta as well. So was I...But what they were given was a trade...to trade of one evil for another evil under the guise of a truce. Nobody could really understand that this nerf meta philosophy was just as bad as the power-creep meta philosophy, and it's now gotten to a point where it's so bad that it's just depressing to even play this game.

Cuz the players in this game like the low population and love that the pvp is dying. They want all classes but their own nerf hammered so they can feel far more skilled than they actually are on their loaded class. It's no different than the pve scene, gw2 is literally braindead easy,even HOT yet people complained it's to hard. Then u get to pvp and the players want tons of passives, spammy low risk high reward play and any time they have issues with a class they spam nerf threads. Gw2 pvp population is not the type of population that enjoys challenge nor do the find it enjoyable to learn how to fight certain classes, its oh I got killed 3 times by this class its OP pls nerf. I remember post feb patch probobly a week after there was a thread thief BS is still doing 4k pls nerf more lmao, perfect example of the pvp community when most the heavier classes were bursting 10k+.The balance and the games own pvp community drove most players off. Gl to the game but doubt even expacs gonna save it except maybe few month people will return to try out the new specs then leave again cuz in the end the expac wont fix any underlining issues that plague the game, actually may make it worse.

[UNOwen.7132]

First of all, power thief is better than condi thief. Condi thief is a bad meme build. Second, the truth is as long as thief has the highest mobility, it in fact cannot be allowed to be good at 1v1s or teamfights, nor allowed to have good damage. Thats just how it is. Maybe if another class could come close to matching shortbow 5, but no class can, at least not in sPvP and its maps. But thats what thief has been like for years.

[Ragebru.1397]

@UNOwen.7132 said:First of all, power thief is better than condi thief. Condi thief is a bad meme build. Second, the truth is as long as thief has the highest mobility, it in fact cannot be allowed to be good at 1v1s or teamfights, nor allowed to have good damage. Thats just how it is. Maybe if another class could come close to matching shortbow 5, but no class can, at least not in sPvP and its maps. But thats what thief has been like for years.

shortbow 5 doesn't offer that much mobility tbh.. rangers have some pretty insane mobility. Soulbeast with a bird, and it's on a pretty short CD. Pair that with warhorn for swiftness and sword for leap and you're hauling kitten across the map. I can usually outrun thieves on my warrior as well. Sword leap, gs charge can get me away pretty easily.

edit: the biggest perk of sb 5 is the vertical aspect of it, and being able to quickly move to higher ground. Although there's only a few maps where that would really benefit you.

[KrHome.1920]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:Cuz the players in this game like the low population and love that the pvp is dying.PvP would actually be a better place if the thief class did not exist. Its mechanic reduces the whole combat mechanic to absurdity.

That's why I stopped playing it. It is an outlier in the game. Playing it feels like it doesn't belong there because it can control every single fight. And this does not mean win every fight, but determine the reward for the opponent.

People started to tell to themself they won when the thief runs away to keep the frustration low. That sums up how ridiculously dumb this class is.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:Cuz the players in this game like the low population and love that the pvp is dying.PvP would actually be a better place if the thief class did not exist. Its mechanic reduces the whole combat mechanic to absurdity.

That's why I stopped playing it. It is an outlier in the game. Playing it feels like it doesn't belong there because it can control every single fight. And this does not mean win every fight, but determine the reward for the opponent.

People started to tell to themself they won when the thief runs away to keep the frustration low. That sums up how ridiculously dumb this class is.

Yeah some would say so about ur necro, especially players that play along side ur classes espec scourge in wvw but doesn't make it true. I bet u think scourge and their 1000 carpet surrounding every zerg is a fine design right? How many threads u post in about its absurdity in such a mode, prob non cuz u play it. For few yrs scourge was thee braindead spam and get free bags class in wvw, is still now.

[UNOwen.7132]

@jwhite.7012 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:First of all, power thief is better than condi thief. Condi thief is a bad meme build. Second, the truth is as long as thief has the highest mobility, it in fact cannot be allowed to be good at 1v1s or teamfights, nor allowed to have good damage. Thats just how it is. Maybe if another class could come close to matching shortbow 5, but no class can, at least not in sPvP and its maps. But thats what thief has been like for

years

.

shortbow 5 doesn't offer that much mobility tbh.. rangers have some pretty insane mobility. Soulbeast with a bird, and it's on a pretty short CD. Pair that with warhorn for swiftness and sword for leap and you're hauling kitten across the map. I can usually outrun thieves on my warrior as well. Sword leap, gs charge can get me away pretty easily.

It does. And while youre right that rangers (And warriors) have insane horizontal mobility, this is where sPvP map design comes in. Because sPvP maps are usually pretty vertical, or have inclines to port up. Thats where thief critically pulls ahead, and ranger/warrior fall behind. If we had a perfectly flat map, Id probably drop thief for a soulbeast.

edit: the biggest perk of sb 5 is the vertical aspect of it, and being able to quickly move to higher ground. Although there's only a few maps where that would really benefit you.

Id argue every map benefits from that, just to different degrees.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

Some very alternative points of view going on in this thread.

A couple things to note:

1. D/P Daredevil is amongst the top 4 meta right now and P/D Thief is a strong alternative. There is nothing "dead" about Thief.
2. There is absolutely no Ranger, Druid or Soulbeast build that can keep up with a D/P Daredevil in a horizontal race. Even if you were to stat for the fastest horizontal build possible with a Soulbeast in merge, there is no way to keep up with SB#5, Shadowstep, and Dash. And that's not to mention all of the tricks it has to bypass objects and instantly port places in a straight line, which shortens its required travel distance from point (A) to point (B). The only build that might actually be able to keep up with a D/P Daredevil would be a Mirage with Jaunt, Blink, Mimic, and traited so all manipulations grant Super Speed. And even that build would lose the race in the end. Initiative and Shadowstep recharge too quickly for any class/build to ultimately keep pace with in the long run. Some kind of a weird Rocket Boot Scrapper Super Speed build may be able to keep pace for awhile, but it would be useless in combat.

[Shiyo.3578]

@Leonidrex.5649 said:thief is taking its sweet kitten time dying, at this rate it might take a year, give or take 15 years.The class has gone from high-risk, high-reward to high-risk no reward.excuse me what ? thief is NO risk medicore reward, thief was never in my time ( little over a year ) had ANY risk built into it.

Thief is zero risk, insanely high reward. It's why you consistently see thieves trying to 1v1 and staying in the fight until either you, or they die. A thief should learn by 5 games into PvP they absolutely do not and cannot 1v1 anything, but the class is so absurdly overpowered that it can actually WIN 1v1's against side noders, it's hilarious.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:Cuz the players in this game like the low population and love that the pvp is dying. They want all classes but their own nerf hammered so they can feel far more skilled than they actually are on their loaded class. It's no different than the pve scene, gw2 is literally braindead easy,even HOT yet people complained it's to hard. Then u get to pvp and the players want tons of passives, spammy low risk high reward play and any time they have issues with a class they spam nerf threads. Gw2 pvp population is not the type of population that enjoys challenge nor do the find it enjoyable to learn how to fight certain classes, its oh I got killed 3 times by this class its OP pls nerf. I remember post feb patch probobly a week after there was a thread thief BS is still doing 4k pls nerf more lmao, perfect example of the pvp community when most the heavier classes were bursting 10k+.

Amen.

What really broke thief for me was just the slow dismantling of the flow of mechanics for the class. It started with Blinding powder gaining a cast time...then it culminated with the range reduction of Steal being the final nail in the coffin. Icing on the cake was increasing initiative cost to skills on a class that's forced to take Trickery because no decent builds can be made with only 10 initiative.

When the damage reduction patch hit, it had killed what was already dead and you have a class that is a mere specter of it's former self. Back in it's Hay day before Sindrener was a common house hold name, Thief had 4x more evades, 4x more damage (6-12k backstabs, with no cooldown) and had a combat flow that was so smooth it was one of the best classes to play. The kids today won't even remember some of the thieves that were literally unbeatable like Min Scherzo or Kronos. If anyone thinks thieves are OP now, then they have no idea what OP really is...because these players would have showed em' the true meaning of overpowered.

The balance and the games own pvp community drove most players off. Gl to the game but doubt even expacs gonna save it except maybe few month people will return to try out the new specs then leave again cuz in the end the expac wont fix any underlining issues that plague the game, actually may make it worse.

Ya i agree. I don't even know if i'm gonna buy the game. I am moving on to Cyberpunk when it comes out, and i'll probably just read up on the new specs from the wiki and watch some videos. It's a shame because this game really is fun combat wise, and it's just been years of watching them taking it apart piece by piece.

[Shiyo.3578]

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:Some very alternative points of view going on in this thread.

A couple things to note:

1. D/P Daredevil is amongst the top 4 meta right now and P/D Thief is a strong alternative. There is nothing "dead" about Thief.
2. There is absolutely no Ranger, Druid or Soulbeast build that can keep up with a D/P Daredevil in a horizontal race. Even if you were to stat for the fastest horizontal build possible with a Soulbeast in merge, there is no way to keep up with SB#5, Shadowstep, and Dash. And that's not to mention all of the tricks it has to bypass objects and instantly port places in a straight line, which shortens its required travel distance from point (A) to point (B). The only build that might actually be able to keep up with a D/P Daredevil would be a Mirage with Jaunt, Blink, Mimic, and traited so all manipulations grant Super Speed. And even that build would lose the race in the end. Initiative and Shadowstep recharge too quickly for any class/build to ultimately keep pace with in the long run. Some kind of a weird Rocket Boot Scrapper Super Speed build may be able to keep pace for awhile, but it would be useless in combat.

Ranger is utter trash in SPvP due to all the passive aoe blind spam going around. You don't have the tools to deal with being perma blinded and every S tier build passively spams AOE blind all the time for no reason. The fact that a thief can beat a ranger 1v1 unless it's a bunker ranger is actually absurd and shows how utterly broken thief is in it's current state. You have to be 10x better than thief as literally everything in the game besides condi bunkers or menders bunkers to not be free food to thief in 1v1. It's insane.

Anet doesn't seem to understand how strong blind is and just puts it on everything.

[Sifu.9745]

I play Staff + P/P or SB Thief and my survivability is quite high thx to infinite dodges and Stealth (much higher than Repaer with zero survivability), but dmg on Staff is a bit low, lower then double Pistol dmg lol. Anyway Staff is the most fun Thief's weapon imo and is easy to play for a casual like me.

Edit: About "Thief has no dmg": yesterday a stealthy dagger/pistol thief deleted my Thief three times in a row within 3 -5 seconds in unranked pvp! I didn't even realized what's going on. 50% + health gone from a stealth attack (backstab i guess), another 50% in next 3 to max 5 seconds before i was able to react (it was night and i was a bit sleepy with low concentration but anyway, dmg was just absurd) I have never experienced such a brutal burst before. Show me any other profession that can burst you down so quickly, with exception of burn Guardian.

[Arklite.4013]

Wondering what game you guys are playing where thief sucks. The class has bonkers mobility, can hold its own in 1v1s, and if it isn't winning, it can easily disengage and apply pressure somewhere else, or poke at you/wait for CDs, and engage again. If you play thief, you can entirely avoid other players and just stand on nodes and have a significant impact on the game because of how quickly they can rotate.

[UNOwen.7132]

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:Some very alternative points of view going on in this thread.

A couple things to note:

1. D/P Daredevil is amongst the top 4 meta right now and P/D Thief is a strong alternative. There is nothing "dead" about Thief.
2. There is absolutely no Ranger, Druid or Soulbeast build that can keep up with a D/P Daredevil in a horizontal race. Even if you were to stat for the fastest horizontal build possible with a Soulbeast in merge, there is no way to keep up with SB#5, Shadowstep, and Dash. And that's not to mention all of the tricks it has to bypass objects and instantly port places in a straight line, which shortens its required travel distance from point (A) to point (B). The only build that might actually be able to keep up with a D/P Daredevil would be a Mirage with Jaunt, Blink, Mimic, and traited so all manipulations grant Super Speed. And even that build would lose the race in the end. Initiative and Shadowstep recharge too quickly for any class/build to ultimately keep pace with in the long run. Some kind of a weird Rocket Boot Scrapper Super Speed build may be able to keep pace for awhile, but it would be useless in combat.

In a purely horizontal race (i.e. flat ground with no inclines), Ranger and Warrior both outpace thief. We know that because WvW exists, where there are large flat areas, and we know warrior and ranger outrun thief. Not that thats much help in sPvP, because none of the maps are completely horizontal.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:Some very alternative points of view going on in this thread.

A couple things to note:

1. D/P Daredevil is amongst the top 4 meta right now and P/D Thief is a strong alternative. There is nothing "dead" about Thief.
2. There is absolutely no Ranger, Druid or Soulbeast build that can keep up with a D/P Daredevil in a horizontal race. Even if you were to stat for the fastest horizontal build possible with a Soulbeast in merge, there is no way to keep up with SB#5, Shadowstep, and Dash. And that's not to mention all of the tricks it has to bypass objects and instantly port places in a straight line, which shortens its required travel distance from point (A) to point (B). The only build that might actually be able to keep up with a D/P Daredevil would be a Mirage with Jaunt, Blink, Mimic, and traited so all manipulations grant Super Speed. And even that build would lose the race in the end. Initiative and Shadowstep recharge too quickly for any class/build to ultimately keep pace with in the long run. Some kind of a weird Rocket Boot Scrapper Super Speed build may be able to keep pace for awhile, but it would be useless in combat.

Ranger is utter trash in SPvP due to all the passive aoe blind spam going around. You don't have the tools to deal with being perma blinded and every S tier build passively spams AOE blind all the time for no reason. The fact that a thief can beat a ranger 1v1 unless it's a bunker ranger is actually absurd and shows how utterly broken thief is in it's current state. You have to be 10x better than thief as literally everything in the game besides condi bunkers or menders bunkers to not be free food to thief in 1v1. It's insane.

Yeah except Thief doesnt beat a ranger in 1v1. Ever. In fact it seems you think (for some inexplicable reason) that thief wins 1v1s when it specifically loses all of them. Thats why you dont see top thieves go for 1v1s except maybe against non-reaper necro (and mesmers if those were around). Didnt you try to claim you were a thief main?

[darren.1064]

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:thief is taking its sweet kitten time dying, at this rate it might take a year, give or take 15 years.

The class has gone from high-risk, high-reward to high-risk no reward.

excuse me what ? thief is NO risk medicore reward, thief was never in my time ( little over a year ) had ANY risk built into it.

Thief is zero risk, insanely high reward. It's why you consistently see thieves trying to 1v1 and staying in the fight until either you, or they die. A thief should learn by 5 games into PvP they absolutely do not and cannot 1v1 anything, but the class is so absurdly overpowered that it can actually WIN 1v1's against side noders, it's hilarious.

So... they can't 1v1 anything and and can 1v1 everything at the same time? Schrodinger's Class

and then the class is overpowered if they manage to win 1v1s??? that's some new kind of logic there buddy

[Shiyo.3578]

@darren.1064 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:thief is taking its sweet kitten time dying, at this rate it might take a year, give or take 15 years.

The class has gone from high-risk, high-reward to high-risk no reward.

excuse me what ? thief is NO risk medicore reward, thief was never in my time ( little over a year ) had ANY risk built into it.

Thief is zero risk, insanely high reward. It's why you consistently see thieves trying to 1v1 and staying in the fight until either you, or they die. A thief should learn by 5 games into PvP they absolutely do not and cannot 1v1 anything, but the class is so absurdly overpowered that it can actually WIN 1v1's against side noders, it's hilarious.

So... they can't 1v1 anything and and can 1v1 everything at the same time? Schrodinger's Class

and then the class is overpowered if they manage to win 1v1s??? that's some new kind of logic there buddy

You didn't read my post correctly. The classes design intention is that it's bad at 1v1 but it can escape easily and come back when you're low on CDs/low hp. However, it's so absurdly overpowered AT THIS MOMENT that new and bad thieves are so used to winning 1v1's due to the classes absurd power, so they stay and fight like they're a duelist because they've been conditioned to believe it's a duelist due to it being brokenly strong.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

I wouldn't argue with these players, they lie constantly and it's literally the same few every thread lmao. Just move on and ignore their biased dribble which I know is hard since theres only like 10 people that continue to post in this games pvp forums, can u guess I e of the reasons why? Lol

[darren.1064]

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@darren.1064 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:thief is taking its sweet kitten time dying, at this rate it might take a year, give or take 15 years.

The class has gone from high-risk, high-reward to high-risk no reward.

excuse me what ? thief is NO risk medicore reward, thief was never in my time ( little over a year ) had ANY risk built into it.

Thief is zero risk, insanely high reward. It's why you consistently see thieves trying to 1v1 and staying in the fight until either you, or they die. A thief should learn by 5 games into PvP they absolutely do not and cannot 1v1 anything, but the class is so absurdly overpowered that it can actually WIN 1v1's against side noders, it's hilarious.

So... they can't 1v1 anything and and can 1v1 everything at the same time? Schrodinger's Class

and then the class is overpowered if they manage to win 1v1s??? that's some new kind of logic there buddy

You didn't read my post correctly. The classes design intention is that it's bad at 1v1 but it can escape easily and come back when you're low on CDs/low hp. However, it's so absurdly overpowered AT THIS MOMENT that new and bad thieves are so used to winning 1v1's due to the classes absurd power, so they stay and fight like they're a duelist because they've been conditioned to believe it's a duelist due to it being brokenly strong.

lol no, that isn't the classes design