Thief Wvw

[DoLoR.7568]

I know people hate thiefs in Wvw but they have been nerfed quite a lot. Rangers have 1500 range on longbow and swipe is only 600 range on daredevil. I know thiefs have high mobility but 600 is too low to be viable.. make it at least 900 less than actual steal.

[GewRoo.4172]

making it at least 900 less than actual Steal woud result in a max range of 300 buddy

[DoLoR.7568]

What you mean max range of 300? Current range is 600

[GewRoo.4172]

You said that you want devs to the make the range of swipe at least 900 less than actual steal. 1200 - >900 = <300

[DoLoR.7568]

Yeah make it 900 because 600 is too low. Any other class has longer range skills including guardian/warrior/mesmer. And now with thief which supposed to be fast(stealthy) it requires me to go that close range to land swipe

[Fat Disgrace.4275]

Ok, nerf dash to normal dodge range

[kash.9213]

600 isn't bad. Between stats, traits, and equipment slots you can mitigate enough to Steal and hang around a bit and your fully equipped to scramble out. Plus it's unblockable.

[Sobx.1758]

Nah, dd doesn't need swipe range buff.

[subversiontwo.7501]

The effort and argumentation would suggest this is just a lowball troll, but since the thread is sitting here anyway:

The issue with Thieves is hardly their steal, in fact, when people discuss that the Thief should be nerfed that also comes with some understanding that bad things that have been put in place to limit the Thief should also be removed. The nerf to swipe over steal is a pretty nonsensical nerf that presumably was just added to give some trade-off when ArenaNet was hellbent at finding trade-offs for certain elite specs. That project, like most things WvW and balance, is seemingly half-way abandoned. I can't speak for everyone else but I also consider nerfs to the Thief so things like tower/guard reveals and supply reveals can be deleted. It is better if characters are balanced by characters.

With that said, as has been repeated far too many times already, the issues with the Thief mostly lies in combinations of its core mechanics with the unique resource system they have relative other classes cooldowns and their stealth/escapes. It's not just one thing but a combination of creep that exist over their resources and traits that let them focus the entire build around their core mechanics a get a bunch of other things for free.

For example, having traits that remove conditions while stealthed and/or dodging means that you do not have to divert cooldown-dependent utility skills to that and can just load up your utilities with more stealth, escapes and resource-modifiers. So it gets more stealth and through more stealth also more cleanse etc., it becomes a self-inflating system where you can just load up a bunch of stealth and escapes while other classes have to make tough choices.

The elite specs have added to this by providing further stealth on dodge, cleanse on dodge and so on. If ArenaNet wanted to make a trade-off there that is what they should have adressed, taking away some of the core spec's access to stealth/escape mechanics from the elites' kits. The steal was never such a thing. Furthermore this also conflates with the base resource management because, for example, if you can put more stealth in your utilities from free cleanses then you can use less resources to achieve stealth from weapons that way and reserve- or compound your stealths for longer or more stealth etc. For example, the amount of leaps a D/P setup can do in its smoke field is problematic and counter-intuitive to begin with. If smoke is produced by a utility that compounds.

Thieves are not the only class that has recieved traits like these (top tier functionality added to core class-unbound mechanics) but since the root Thief class mechanics are so strong such unbound mechanics just scale away even more on Thief than on other classes for who those mechanics are also powerful. For example, Warriors have had traits that at certain times have merged into very powerful combinations with their cleanses on swaps or breaks on movement-skills but those are not added ontop of such powerful class mechanics as stealth and initiative.

Those are examples of things that need a look at. And like I said, I want them looked at because I want the bad tower- and supply mechanics thrown out. Those should never have been added (or been needed to be added) in the first place if the systems (skills and balance) team had done their due dilligence before the balance splits of PvE and competetive.

[KrHome.1920]

The range is that short, because daredevil has more dodges than thief including a 450 range covering dash (only a semi viable argument as not every daredevil runs dash, but it's anet, lots of things are only semi thought-out). The range nerf was an attempt to get the insane mobility potential of daredevil in line. The alternative would have been to nerf steal to only 900, but nerf the dash range to 300. Would that be better?

Design philosophy:Core: two dodges, short to medium range weapons, long range steal gap closerDrD: three dodges with the option to strong dodge gap closers, short to medium range weapons, medium range steal gap closerDeadeye: two dodges, long range, no steal gap closer

So the class mechanic (steal) feels very different on all three specs. I think that was the intention.

make it at least 900 less than actual stealThe OP meant: "Make it at least 900, which is less than the actual steal (which is 1200)." That's really not that hard to understand out of the context!

[GewRoo.4172]

@"KrHome.1920" said:The range is that short, because daredevil has more dodges than thief including a 450 range covering dash (only a semi viable argument as not every daredevil runs dash, but you get the point). The range nerf was an attempt to get the insane mobility of daredevil in line.

Design philosphy:Core: two dodges, short to medium range weapons, long range steal gap closerDrD: three dodges with the option to strong dodge gap closers, short to medum range weapons, medium range steal gap closerDeadeye: two dodges, long range, no steal gap closer

make it at least 900 less than actual stealThe OP meant: "Make it at least 900, which is less than the actual steal (which is 1200)." That's really not that hard to understand out of the context!

No reason to clarify, I just took this man by his word. Educating kids and stuff, you know? By the way I am totally fine with the range of Swipe - at least by now since finding the new range was a tiring adjustment. I think the forced search for a tradeoff was a horrible thing to do but if that was the final word in this matter - so mote it be.

[Sleepwalker.1398]

Would you give up your 3rd dodge for it?

[GewRoo.4172]

@Sleepwalker.1398 said:Would you give up your 3rd dodge for it?

No, but i would give up the ability to get revealed as tradeoff. Deal?

[KrHome.1920]

@GewRoo.4172 said:No reason to clarify, I just took this man by his word. Educating kids and stuff, you know? By the way I am totally fine with the range of Swipe - at least by now since finding the new range was a tiring adjustment. I think the forced search for a tradeoff was a horrible thing to do but if that was the final word in this matter - so mote it be.You again. =) Reading comprehension is also a form of education, but lets not nuke this thread too, okay?

Several people in this thread didn't get the OP's intention which is interesting, as personally I found it pretty clear, but I am also not a native speaker and used to not 100% accurate english grammar/spelling and try to interprete statements in different ways to find the one that makes the most sense in the context. Maybe this is an advantage sometimes.

Back to teef!

[Shroud.2307]

Reverting it would be acceptable, increasing the range as it is would not. It's unblockable and an instant cast, remember.

I hate to pull the victim card, but I'm still mad core Necro had Doom nerfed because it was an instant ranged CC even though it always had a tell (an image of a Reaper appears above the Necro). Steal is 1200 range, instant, and can be traited to Daze... ?Don't get me wrong though, they're different classes so it isn't totally fair to make this comparison. I just get frustrated that things like this exist when Doom had plenty of counterplay as it was pre-nerf, but other things are allowed to keep their instant ranged CC's.

I do agree that Swipe is a very short range though and would support a very small increase, but I think even 900 is too much. 750 should be the absolute max for an instant cast unblockable skill.

[UNOwen.7132]

@"subversiontwo.7501" said:The effort and argumentation would suggest this is just a lowball troll, but since the thread is sitting here anyway:

The issue with Thieves is hardly their steal, in fact, when people discuss that the Thief should be nerfed that also comes with some understanding that bad things that have been put in place to limit the Thief should also be removed. The nerf to swipe over steal is a pretty nonsensical nerf that presumably was just added to give some trade-off when ArenaNet was hellbent at finding trade-offs for certain elite specs. That project, like most things WvW and balance, is seemingly half-way abandoned. I can't speak for everyone else but I also consider nerfs to the Thief so things like tower/guard reveals and supply reveals can be deleted. It is better if characters are balanced by characters.

With that said, as has been repeated far too many times already, the issues with the Thief mostly lies in combinations of its core mechanics with the unique resource system they have relative other classes cooldowns and their stealth/escapes. It's not just one thing but a combination of creep that exist over their resources and traits that let them focus the entire build around their core mechanics a get a bunch of other things for free.

It actually is just one thing. Shortbow 5. It means they can always escape, and the rest of the class basically doesnt matter as a result. Well, there is out of combat stealth stacking for keeps, but frankly, thats such an easy fix it wouldnt take very long.

For example, having traits that remove conditions while stealthed and/or dodging means that you do not have to divert cooldown-dependent utility skills to that and can just load up your utilities with more stealth, escapes and resource-modifiers. So it gets more stealth and through more stealth also more cleanse etc., it becomes a self-inflating system where you can just load up a bunch of stealth and escapes while other classes have to make tough choices.

Lets ignore for a second how many traits like that exist. Lets also ignore for a second that theyre not very good, to the point where only one of them is even being taken right now, and only rarely. Even then .... thief picks more condition-removing utility skills than most classes do. Thief picks 1.5-2.5 on average (counting withdraw as half a removal because its only movement-impairing ones and torment). The average roamer uses 0-1. The only other profession to use more than 1 is Warrior. And only recently, ever since healing signet was nerfed to hell. Well, some Reapers also do it, I think? So, if that was the goal, then they failed to accomplish that entirely. And even with all of that, thief is really bad against most condi builds. They can handle mesmer because plasma is op, but otherwise? You run, or you die.

The elite specs have added to this by providing further stealth on dodge, cleanse on dodge and so on. If ArenaNet wanted to make a trade-off there that is what they should have adressed, taking away some of the core spec's access to stealth/escape mechanics from the elites' kits. The steal was never such a thing. Furthermore this also conflates with the base resource management because, for example, if you can put more stealth in your utilities from free cleanses then you can use less resources to achieve stealth from weapons that way and reserve- or compound your stealths for longer or more stealth etc. For example, the amount of leaps a D/P setup can do in its smoke field is problematic and counter-intuitive to begin with. If smoke is produced by a utility that compounds.

You already mentioned cleanse on dodge, which isnt very good. Stealth on dodge is Rifle Deadeye, which is really bad, and also cant be used with that "cleanse on dodge" one. The good Deadeye build doesnt even use the cleanse on stealth one either, so its not even that. Also, you keep saying "you can put more stealth", but ignoring that most of them dont even put in stealth (only D/P does, and only as a stunbreak, which is not replacing the supposed free space from the cleanse utilities they pick anyway), that isnt even the issue with thief.

Thieves are not the only class that has recieved traits like these (top tier functionality added to core class-unbound mechanics) but since the root Thief class mechanics are so strong such unbound mechanics just scale away even more on Thief than on other classes for who those mechanics are also powerful. For example, Warriors have had traits that at certain times have merged into very powerful combinations with their cleanses on swaps or breaks on movement-skills but those are not added ontop of such powerful class mechanics as stealth and initiative.

Yeah except that doesnt add up. Thief has those traits, uses a lot of cleansing utility, and still dies to conditions. Meanwhile Guardians run 1 if any, and they can just shrug it off, because they have actually strong base mechanics. Warrior is also usually better for 1v1s, until most recent nerfs.

Those are examples of things that need a look at. And like I said, I want them looked at because I want the bad tower- and supply mechanics thrown out. Those should never have been added (or been needed to be added) in the first place if the systems (skills and balance) team had done their due dilligence before the balance splits of PvE and competetive.

They can look at it, see that your story doesnt add up, and discard it, if you want that.

[UNOwen.7132]

@"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said:Reverting it would be acceptable, increasing the range as it is would not. It's unblockable and an instant cast, remember.

I mean, you can remove the unblockable too. It uh, basically never matters, especially since Shortbow 4 is unblockable daze for some time now.

I hate to pull the victim card, but I'm still mad core Necro had Doom nerfed because it was an instant ranged CC even though it always had a tell (an image of a Reaper appears above the Necro). Steal is 1200 range, instant, and can be traited to Daze... ?Don't get me wrong though, they're different classes so it isn't totally fair to make this comparison. I just get frustrated that things like this exist when Doom had plenty of counterplay as it was pre-nerf, but other things are allowed to keep their instant ranged CC's.

Fear is a lot stronger than daze, thats the big thing.

I do agree that Swipe is a very short range though and would support a very small increase, but I think even 900 is too much. 750 should be the absolute max for an instant cast unblockable skill.

People really overvalue the unblockable, 95% of the time it doesnt do anything.

[ASP.8093]

@UNOwen.7132 said:I mean, you can remove the unblockable too. It uh, basically never matters, especially since Shortbow 4 is unblockable daze for some time now.

Makes a big difference when breaking Spellbreaker Bubbles, though, doesn't it?

[subversiontwo.7501]

@"UNOwen.7132" said:

• It actually is just one thing. Shortbow 5. It means they can always escape, and the rest of the class basically doesnt matter as a result.
• And even with all of that, thief is really bad against most condi builds. They can handle mesmer because plasma is op, but otherwise? You run, or you die.
  • You already mentioned cleanse on dodge, which isnt very good. Stealth on dodge is Rifle Deadeye, which is really bad, and also cant be used with that "cleanse on dodge" one.
• Also, you keep saying "you can put more stealth", but ignoring that most of them dont even put in stealth (only D/P does, and only as a stunbreak, which is not replacing the supposed free space from the cleanse utilities they pick anyway), that isnt even the issue with thief.
• Yeah except that doesnt add up. Thief has those traits, uses a lot of cleansing utility, and still dies to conditions.

I took the liberty to cut your post into pieces that I find relevant. My apologies if I pull anything out of context to where it feels misconstrued. That is not the intention.

I think you're making a mistake assuming this a dig at Thieves duelling-, power- or general fighting strength. It is not. In fact, same as with my first post, there are certainly areas in which the Thief as a class can see improvement to its fighting ability (larger scale combat is one of those). I'm not suggesting that the Thief is a poor duelist either, it's fairly popular among above average players there too for a reason. However, it is not necessarily a problem in that context.

Instead, this is about the general reset ability and what that does to the game in a larger scope. How it feeds into negative behaviours in that larger score and affects content. It lets experienced players bully new players. It premiers ganking and it allows players to deny content to too high of a degree. I'd also say that is primarily what has lead to a profileration of the class in recent years (while the class has always been a popular roamer).

With that said, in a context of general roaming and clouding rather than organized roaming and duelling I rarely see players shoot away with SB5. That is at least not the primary mean to reset and re-enage over and over. While you call those traits and builds that use them bad, you do see them quite frequently. There are plenty of players trolling around using both DE and DD builds with those traits. Not necessarily because it lets them win against an equally many, good or prepared players on condition builds but because it lets them play non-commitedly and gank less experienced or roaming-prepared players regardless if they are power, condi or support heavy.

It's the balance of picking the fights and re-picking the fights or all the trolling opportunities in various ways that comes with it that is my gripe with it. It isn't necessarily even an issue for me but rather an issue that I see looking at other players who get driven out the mode. I've been around this game mode for long enough to know how to adapt enough to fight most players to a draw at least. There may be times when I am on a risky build, feel like I've earnt a kill and get annoyed by the resets and content denial but I do not necessarily play that way very much and that is far less a concern for me in general than what I see it do to other players who are newer, less adaptable or more subjected to content denial and trolling.

I'm not even suggesting that Thieves shouldn't be (one of-) the best roaming, resetting or underhanded classes. Some of that comes with the territory. It's the ridiculous balance of it, which has lead to the implementation of tower debuffs, supply debuffs etc., and rising amount of problem-related behaviour and players adding to it. It comes back to those hamfisted counters that have been implemented as well. They're not there to even out the fighting-strength of Thieves in an engagement. They are there to check the reset-ganking behaviour a bit. They are just, obviously, doing a rather poor job at it, as it thrives, and these things should never have been balanced that way to begin with. They're only there because no one can be bothered to find a better balance between resets and keeping the style. Like I've said a couple of times already, I found that balance to be pretty decent in vanilla and see it as creep-related.

[UNOwen.7132]

@ASP.8093 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:I mean, you can remove the unblockable too. It uh, basically never matters, especially since Shortbow 4 is unblockable daze for some time now.

Makes a big difference when breaking Spellbreaker Bubbles, though, doesn't it?

Ignoring that you hardly ever even see a Spellbreaker ... Id rather just wait out the bubble? Against Warriors I think Id much rather interrupt their big heal, than cancel a block prematurely. Especially the spellbreaker one.

[UNOwen.7132]

@subversiontwo.7501 said:

@"UNOwen.7132" said:

• It actually is just one thing. Shortbow 5. It means they can always escape, and the rest of the class basically doesnt matter as a result.
  And even with all of that, thief is
  really
  bad against most condi builds. They can handle mesmer because plasma is op, but otherwise? You run, or you die.
  You already mentioned cleanse on dodge, which isnt very good. Stealth on dodge is Rifle Deadeye, which is really bad, and also cant be used with that "cleanse on dodge" one.
  Also, you keep saying "you can put more stealth", but ignoring that most of them dont even put in stealth (only D/P does, and only as a stunbreak, which is not replacing the supposed free space from the cleanse utilities they pick anyway), that isnt even the issue with thief.
  Yeah except that doesnt add up. Thief has those traits, uses a lot of cleansing utility, and
  still
  dies to conditions.

I took the liberty to cut your post into pieces I find relevant. My apologies if I pull anything out of context to where it feels misconstrued. That is not the intention.

I think you're making a mistake assuming this a dig at Thieves duelling-, power- or general fighting strength. It is not. In fact, same as with my first post, there are certainly areas in which the Thief as a class can see improvement to its fighting ability (larger scale combat is one of those). I'm not suggesting that the Thief is a poor duelist either, it's fairly popular among above average players there too for a reason. However, it is not necessarily a problem in that context.

I mean, it depends on how you define duelist. Is it good at fighting on equal ground? No. It loses those fights unless it runs away. But run away is what it always does.

Instead, this is about the general reset ability and what that does to the game in a larger scope. How it feeds into negative behaviours in that larger score and affects content. It lets experienced players bully new players. It premiers ganking and it allows players to deny content to too high of a degree. I'd also say that is primarily what has lead to a profileration of the class in recent years (while the class has always been a popular roamer).

Sure, but again, thats just what shortbow 5 does. That should be the focus of the change, because take shortbow 5 away, and thief is not even the best class for resetting anymore (not by a long shot, even.

With that said, in a context of general roaming and clouding rather than organized roaming and duelling I rarely see players shoot away with SB5. That is at least not the primary mean to reset and re-enage over and over. While you call those traits and builds that use them bad, you do see them quite frequently. There are plenty of players trolling around using both DE and DD builds with those traits. Not necessarily because it lets them win against an equally many, good or prepared players on condition builds but because it lets them play non-commitedly and gank less experienced or roaming-prepared players regardless if they are power, condi or support heavy.

Its the only means, actually. Well, ok, you can shadowstep away as well, but you usually only burn shadowstep if you really messed up, because its your most valuable cooldown. Sure, you see thieves using stealth to try and disengage, but thats the bad thieves, and theyll only do it until they face a good play who promptly kills them for trying to disengage through stealth. And you really dont see them all that much. I mean you cant tell that well when facing them, unless you count the time on their cooldown and have the health math in head, but if you do, you realise almost none of them are using it. Just not really worth it.

It's the balance of picking the fights and re-picking the fights or all the trolling opportunities in various ways that comes with it that is my gripe with it. It isn't necessarily even an issue for me but rather an issue that I see looking at other players who get driven out the mode. I've been around this game mode for long enough to know how to adapt enough to fight most players to a draw at least. There may be times when I am on a risky build, feel like I've earnt a kill and get annoyed by the resets and content denial but I do not necessarily play that way very much and that is far less a concern for me in general than what I see it do to other players who are newer, less adaptable or more subjected to content denial and trolling.

Again, this can be solved through hitting shortbow 5, and only through that. Dunno what youd change there though, its certainly not easy.

I'm not even suggesting that Thieves shouldn't be (one of-) the best roaming, resetting and underhanded classes. It's the ridiculous balance of it, which has lead to the implementation of tower debuffs, supply debuffs etc., and rising amount of problem-related behaviour and players adding to it. It comes back to those hamfisted counters that have been implemented as well. They're not there to even out the fighting-strength of Thieves in an engagement. They are there to check the reset-ganking behaviour a bit. They are just, obviously, doing a rather poor job at it and these things should never have been balanced that way. They're only there because no one can be bothered to find a better balance between resets and keeping the Thief's gameplay engaging.

Those were done to placate players who lack knowledge and skill to punish stealth. Here is the problem: Stealth is already bad against good players even without those. What youre doing is essentially suggesting to make a skill they use bad against new players, and even more unusable against good players. While not fixing the issue, because SB5 is still there. For that matter, you will always have a class like that. Take away SB5, and its Rangers and Warriors who can run from and engage on everything. Take that away and its probably elementalists or Mesmers next.

[ASP.8093]

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@ASP.8093 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:I mean, you can remove the unblockable too. It uh, basically never matters, especially since Shortbow 4 is unblockable daze for some time now.

Makes a big difference when breaking Spellbreaker Bubbles, though, doesn't it?

Ignoring that you hardly ever even see a Spellbreaker ... Id rather just wait out the bubble? Against Warriors I think Id much rather interrupt their big heal, than cancel a block prematurely. Especially the spellbreaker one.

I'm talking about playing Staff Daredevil in zerg-vs-zerg: one of your few really good "special tricks" is messing up the bubble on a melee push.

[Nimon.7840]

Thief already op af. Doesn't need buffs ;>)

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

thief nerfs have been a joke. barely happened and far too mild. they still do extreme amounts of damage, while barely beeing downable due to all other dmg sources got nerfed, and the thief mobility, stealthing and pull options and really long evadetime is just ridiculous.

for real Wvw groupplay action they are useless, and they deserve that. glasscannon egostyle classes just have no space in Wvw.

not to mention, the ever unfixed portal spots on several keeps.

[DeceiverX.8361]

The problem is the entire elite spec, like Deadeye, is poorly-designed and just amplifies issues that players already have with core.It abuses the strengths D/P already has way above the other weapon sets.It promotes the thief getting distance rather than getting closer.It allows bad thieves to recover from their losses of getting caught without resources.

Unlike the bruiser it was meant to be, Scaredevil is the king of running away or just strictly not-fighting toe-to-toe, and with that, comes a lot of power when it can choose to just leave a losing fight almost whenever it wants by mashing dodge.

It's honestly sad that the best way to play Daredevil as it was intended is to literally not pick a GM trait, be it because two of them force you to leave stealth if you're in melee range trying to make an aggressive play that way, or because it pretty much forcefully repositions you when trying to get closer, which is out of range from melee, anyways, meaning the bonus dodge is almost entirely wasted.

Thief is not strong; it's just frustrating to play against by abusing a very few select mechanics with a very few select builds with no wiggle room for diversity, because the class's stats and other kit options have been nerfed by collateral so much over the years in trying to tame objectively awful design which ANet just seems either completely incapable or completely unwilling to change.

I think ANet balances builds by popularity, rather than by performance, which is why we see stuff like D/D thief, S/S Warrior, and OH sword on Mes left to suck forever. Which is sad, because the reason other builds aren't played has nothing to do with what people want; they're just such absolute trash you legitimately stop having any winning matchups at all the moment you deviate away from what's peak performance.

Especially when it comes to the thief, ANet has lost a ton more players from D/D sucking than any gained from upholding busted design.