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WTF has happened to thief?


Felwal.9618

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I came back after a break recently. I quit right after dagger AA got nerfed into the ground. but what has happened to thief? I played some PvP but unless i played a staff build i deal no damage most builds can just laugh it off and then i tried to do some WvW and noticed you cant even stealth for over 3 seconds if your opponent happens to have a sentry somewhat nearby. Why? you cant even benefit from the extra stealth duration in shadow arts(or the new spider venom in stealth). And also i tried to fight a warrior i couldnt deal any real damage to him and he killed me in 3-4 autos and one real skill like hundred blades or his spin plus 1 auto. this is with full marauders armor and amulet rest is berserker (all Acended if that matters). what have they done to thief? feels like the entire class has been absolutely nutured.

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@Yasai.3549 said:Sentry now removes Stealth.

Yu just need to get good vs Warrior.

And yes they nerfed the class alot.

Yeah i know i didnt play flawlessly against that warrior but still feels kinda unfair with the amount of effort i need to put in compared to him also RIP any thief build that semi relies on stealth guess the only option is s/d or staff or i'll just quit the game again and hope they get a grip when it comes to balancing thief. Thing is they already had the d/p balance down decently before they nerfed its auto attack maybe the interupts were a bit to strong and easy to pull off but atleast thief was deadly if you didnt do anything while he was whaling at you but now if i play any build with dagger mainhand you're just an anoying fly nowadays

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They nerfed auto attack damage across the board on thief weapons. At the moment core s/d is considered meta with other builds ranging from mediocre to good.One thing to get used to is that d/p daredevil no longer works since the steal burst of that build has lost allot of range and therefor is allot easier to see coming, basically d/p doesn't work with the trait setup we used to play it with (i mean it is playable just not very good).

Here is some advice: if you want to role a dead eye then the new shadow arts works well with it, not so much because of stacking long stealth but because of lots of access to it and the fast movement in stealth, so you can pop in and out frequently and reposition all the while always threatening a big burst. Trait for hidden thief and take hide in shadows, smoke bomb and shadow step.For daredevil i found most success by traiting for bound and using it with offhand pistol (with daggeer or sword mh, they both work well with one giving you instant burst the other cc and slower burst). Daredevil has an impressive uptime on weakness due to the master minor trait, coupled with lots of dodges and you have a very durable combatant (altho all your defenses are active and you are vulnerable to burst). If you opt to use sword then pairing the daredevil line with acrobatics (instant reflex, swindlers equilibrium, upper hand) and trickery (usual steal traits) works really well, i myself am playing a daredevil in plat 2 pvp rank.

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@foste.3098 said:They nerfed auto attack damage across the board on thief weapons. At the moment core s/d is considered meta with other builds ranging from mediocre to good.One thing to get used to is that d/p daredevil no longer works since the steal burst of that build has lost allot of range and therefor is allot easier to see coming, basically d/p doesn't work with the trait setup we used to play it with (i mean it is playable just not very good).

Here is some advice: if you want to role a dead eye then the new shadow arts works well with it, not so much because of stacking long stealth but because of lots of access to it and the fast movement in stealth, so you can pop in and out frequently and reposition all the while always threatening a big burst. Trait for hidden thief and take hide in shadows, smoke bomb and shadow step.For daredevil i found most success by traiting for bound and using it with offhand pistol (with daggeer or sword mh, they both work well with one giving you instant burst the other cc and slower burst). Daredevil has an impressive uptime on weakness due to the master minor trait, coupled with lots of dodges and you have a very durable combatant (altho all your defenses are active and you are vulnerable to burst). If you opt to use sword then pairing the daredevil line with acrobatics (instant reflex, swindlers equilibrium, upper hand) and trickery (usual steal traits) works really well, i myself am playing a daredevil in plat 2 pvp rank.

Yeah i know d/p is kinda shit now tho its my favourite weapon set and i dont like deadeye outside of trying some meme one shots once in a while. I find staff to be pretty decent with acro 1/3/1 and trickery, but i find sword 2 ports to be kinda unreliable sometimes but i kinda wanna give it another try what traits are you using in DD and what amulet(i assume marauders) and what runes/sigils?

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http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsaVn0MBlOhFOBGmC0PhlriqbAmuAwbDygPYO6z+uH-jpxHQBXrMgyOEAw7EAQwHAAAOCA9Y/BAThis is my main build with which i reached high plat. It has good synergy between traits and weapon skills, basing its damage on interruption and sustain on evasion; there is a stigma against pistol whip so expect lots of salt.The main way to do damage is by landing tactical strike (get stealth by dodging through black powder) and landing a full aa chain, while infiltrator's strike and head shot are used when it's opportune. Pistol whip is best used 'as a dodge', basically instead of dodging an obvious attack you whip it to interrupt it and do heavy damage (pistol whip has an evade frame during the sword flurry part but it is not listed on the tooltip).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoaVl0MhSnYhTwvJQ/EL0E2cF8DWC9CDfhygWA4JMbA-jpxHQB9Y/B4dCAI4DAQZHCAAcEAuWZAAThis is a d/p build i found works well, but i had less success with it than i did with the above build (build editor not up to date, shadow trap is suppose to be prepare shadow portal, deadly trapper is even the odds). Basically play it like burst mesmers used to play: go on to target burst hard and fast then rotate to an unprotected point to decap and drop your portal there, then go to where you can +1 and burst, repeat.So the play style is almost the same as the old d/p builds except you are 100% geared for bursts and mobility, which is why i am suggesting withdraw as you need to hit and run alot, and why marauders resilience is taken over other traits in the adept tier as the extra hp and the damage reduction stacked with the reduction from dash and weakening strikes gives you pseudo protection (doesn't mean you can tank hits but it does mean you can stay in a smaller scale fight longer than what ppl will expect from a burst thief).The issue with this build is that it relies on allies in order to be able to +1 effectively and to be able to abuse shadow portal. If your allies cannot hold fights then all your mobility is worthless and you might as well go afk.

Staff doesn't work well at all in pvp as it is slow and predictable. You will role over ppl sometimes but as a whole the weapon is severely lacking, it has no y axis ports, it has issues gap closing if you are kited (6 initiative 600 range leap is not effective at gap closing against someone who is using multiple skills to create distance) and the auto attack is slow af.

apparently the forums are bugged and you cannot manually click on links idk, just copy and paste the build links in the search bar and it should work.

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@"foste.3098" said:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsaVn0MBlOhFOBGmC0PhlriqbAmuAwbDygPYO6z+uH-jpxHQBXrMgyOEAw7EAQwHAAAOCA9Y/BAThis is my main build with which i reached high plat. It has good synergy between traits and weapon skills, basing its damage on interruption and sustain on evasion; there is a stigma against pistol whip so expect lots of salt.The main way to do damage is by landing tactical strike (get stealth by dodging through black powder) and landing a full aa chain, while infiltrator's strike and head shot are used when it's opportune. Pistol whip is best used 'as a dodge', basically instead of dodging an obvious attack you whip it to interrupt it and do heavy damage (pistol whip has an evade frame during the sword flurry part but it is not listed on the tooltip).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoaVl0MhSnYhTwvJQ/EL0E2cF8DWC9CDfhygWA4JMbA-jpxHQB9Y/B4dCAI4DAQZHCAAcEAuWZAAThis is a d/p build i found works well, but i had less success with it than i did with the above build (build editor not up to date, shadow trap is suppose to be prepare shadow portal, deadly trapper is even the odds). Basically play it like burst mesmers used to play: go on to target burst hard and fast then rotate to an unprotected point to decap and drop your portal there, then go to where you can +1 and burst, repeat.So the play style is almost the same as the old d/p builds except you are 100% geared for bursts and mobility, which is why i am suggesting withdraw as you need to hit and run alot, and why marauders resilience is taken over other traits in the adept tier as the extra hp and the damage reduction stacked with the reduction from dash and weakening strikes gives you pseudo protection (doesn't mean you can tank hits but it does mean you can stay in a smaller scale fight longer than what ppl will expect from a burst thief).The issue with this build is that it relies on allies in order to be able to +1 effectively and to be able to abuse shadow portal. If your allies cannot hold fights then all your mobility is worthless and you might as well go afk.

Staff doesn't work well at all in pvp as it is slow and predictable. You will role over ppl sometimes but as a whole the weapon is severely lacking, it has no y axis ports, it has issues gap closing if you are kited (6 initiative 600 range leap is not effective at gap closing against someone who is using multiple skills to create distance) and the auto attack is slow af.

apparently the forums are bugged and you cannot manually click on links idk, just copy and paste the build links in the search bar and it should work.

Well with my staff build i reached high gold pretty easily i dont use vault that often because its so predictable. I could probably go into plat if i grinded out some matches but i think i'll try your build and see how it works, at this point i've given up hope on D/P and i find that shadow portal doesent work half the time especially in combat does regular damage interrupt it or something? its a cool skill tho i used to use shadow trap pre HoT and that worked really nicely. especially since thief could actually duel someone. But i'd like to play some WvW but you basically cant play thief in that mode anymore a Deadeye build well ranger does it a lot better. Stealth is worthless if you are trying to roam and thief has always been bad in zergs and playing staff or S/D in WvW then you might aswell play warrior or some other boring class with invulns for days. feels kinda wasted to have played thief for over 1600 hours and almost 1k PvP matches

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okay i played a couple of games with that build and i didnt like it was nice with all the interrupts but overall it deals less damage then my staff build does on avreage, it has worse teamfight pressence, less survivability especially against a condi build and worse mobility but it has a better single target focus and ofc all the interrupts gonna try some condi S/D build and see if it works

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@Felwal.9618 said:I came back after a break recently. I quit right after dagger AA got nerfed into the ground. but what has happened to thief? I played some PvP but unless i played a staff build i deal no damage most builds can just laugh it off and then i tried to do some WvW and noticed you cant even stealth for over 3 seconds if your opponent happens to have a sentry somewhat nearby. Why? you cant even benefit from the extra stealth duration in shadow arts(or the new spider venom in stealth). And also i tried to fight a warrior i couldnt deal any real damage to him and he killed me in 3-4 autos and one real skill like hundred blades or his spin plus 1 auto. this is with full marauders armor and amulet rest is berserker (all Acended if that matters). what have they done to thief? feels like the entire class has been absolutely nutured.

yea... same thing happened to me. i came back to gw2 pretty sure thief will be stronger then the last time i played (cuz back then it was already being neutered). to my surprise... it's even worse. i decided to re-roll to mesmer. but then this last balance patch came out and... yea... gotta put chrono on the shelf too. idk who is making these decisions in their office but... my only suggestion is.. play S/D meta and come to terms with that low dmg/high risk/high effort playstyle or don't PvP/WvW at all. go PvE. if u rly want WvW roam... roll somethin different. like soulbeast or somethin. for PvP just roll condi mirage and be cancer (not that mirage is very OP but still pretty decent compared to Thief). u aren't missing on much tho.. not many ppl roam these days. every1 is sitting on their mounts and they don't even engage.

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Part of the problem is, "Marauder and Berserker gear". Its not a power meta anymore and hasn't been for a long time in PvP/WvW, you need condi, because people stack defenses and you can't bypass them with power-based damage.

As for the warrior, you lost to him because he was hitting you. he was melee so why was he hitting you? Bring up your utility skills and change them to immobilizes and blinds, especially take "Blinding powder", which is now a pulsing area. And try not to fight melee in glass against a class that has far more health and armor than you do because they can be more effective at it since their entire class design is "hit stuff".

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Balance happened to thief!

For a while it was very frustrating to play the game in PvP and especially WvW. They were thief ganking squads behind every corner : uncatchable - unpunishable ( shortbow 5 - infiltrator return - and ofc stealth ) - doing stupid amounts of dmg with AA only leaving thief free to spam skills like pre-nerf Pulmonary Impact triggering with headshot which has no cast time and just 4 ini - we had also pre loaded vault/steal combo hitting for 15k+ dmg out of nowhere - then we had (still have ) pistol whip ect ect ect...

Ofc I don't expect thieves to ever agree with my statements but luckily Anet did agree and made the game less frustrating to play, yes ofc a class that allows you to easily grief others , mock them and more...will be a MMO player wet dream and many people quitted the game back in the day especially during DE era , I mean a class that forces others to quit soon or later will be brought down with hardcore nerfs

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@Arheundel.6451 said:Balance happened to thief!

For a while it was very frustrating to play the game in PvP and especially WvW. They were thief ganking squads behind every corner : uncatchable - unpunishable ( shortbow 5 - infiltrator return - and ofc stealth ) - doing stupid amounts of dmg with AA only leaving thief free to spam skills like pre-nerf Pulmonary Impact triggering with headshot which has no cast time and just 4 ini - we had also pre loaded vault/steal combo hitting for 15k+ dmg out of nowhere - then we had (still have ) pistol whip ect ect ect...

Ofc I don't expect thieves to ever agree with my statements but luckily Anet did agree and made the game less frustrating to play, yes ofc a class that allows you to easily grief others , mock them and more...will be a MMO player wet dream and many people quitted the game back in the day especially during DE era , I mean a class that forces others to quit soon or later will be brought down with hardcore nerfs

There are two sides to balance. Thief was one side. The other has been allowed to run more rampant than Thief ever did. Even placed in a vacuum, thief isn't balanced against itself. Anet didn't really adjust other things in any meaningful way - the nerfs have left it extremely lopsided as a class.

No wonder you don't expect thieves to ever agree with you.

@OP - if you want to main thief in this game and be in any way competitive, you'll have to make some pretty hard sacrifices, sanity wise. GW2 is no longer...well, it never was (maybe for one brief, shining moment years ago?) - an anywhere near decent game for half-decent pvp.

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@Arheundel.6451 said:Balance happened to thief!

many people quitted the game back in the day especially during DE era , I mean a class that forces others to quit soon or later will be brought down with hardcore nerfs

And you say that based on what? Your imagination or 3 people from your guild that quit the game? Seems like a random player's opinon that you try to set up as a fact.

Also it's ironic that something like that is said by the same person that complains about SB nerf -too bad even other rangers disagreed with you, right? :D

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@Curennos.9307 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:Balance happened to thief!

For a while it was very frustrating to play the game in PvP and especially WvW. They were thief ganking squads behind every corner : uncatchable - unpunishable ( shortbow 5 - infiltrator return - and ofc stealth ) - doing stupid amounts of dmg with AA only leaving thief free to spam skills like
pre-nerf Pulmonary Impact
triggering with
headshot
which has no cast time and just 4 ini - we had also pre loaded vault/steal combo hitting for 15k+ dmg out of nowhere - then we had (still have ) pistol whip ect ect ect...

Ofc I don't expect thieves to ever agree with my statements but luckily Anet did agree and made the game less frustrating to play, yes ofc a class that allows you to easily grief others , mock them and more...
will be a MMO player wet dream
and many people quitted the game back in the day especially during
DE era
, I mean a class that forces others to quit soon or later will be brought down with hardcore nerfs

There are two sides to balance. Thief was one side. The other has been allowed to run more rampant than Thief ever did. Even placed in a vacuum, thief isn't balanced against itself. Anet didn't really adjust other things in any meaningful way - the nerfs have left it extremely lopsided as a class.

No wonder you don't expect thieves to ever agree with you.

@OP - if you want to main thief in this game and be in any way competitive, you'll have to make some pretty hard sacrifices, sanity wise. GW2 is no longer...well, it never was (maybe for one brief, shining moment years ago?) - an anywhere near decent game for half-decent pvp.

As I have said already, a class like GW2 thief is every average MMO player's wet dream and even more before the deserving balance phase : "an unpunishable class with stupid amount of dmg, mobility and disengage potential" , the unpunishable part has been left almost intact while the dmg component has been deservingly adjusted so that thief players will feel the sting once they become too greedy.

The combination of infiltrator's return - no cast time attacks including daze/stuns -stealth on demand and shortbow 1200 retreat and other stuff I may forget atm , makes thief an headache to fight...and it was previously a nightmare to fight thieves because of the stupid AA dmg.

Every other class can be caught and punished in 90% of cases...a thief can simply disappear if things go south and this coupled with damage made an ideal combination for roamers in WvW up to 1 year ago.

-Fightning d/p with pre-nerf Pulmonary impact and AA ...was truly a nightmare, the thief could simply walk up to you and just spamm AA coupled with headshot everytime you'd move a muscle and ofc thief players consider that kind of gameplay balanced and everybody else needs to l2p..luckily Anet thought otherwise

-Then we have s/d thief : infiltrator combo followed by unblockable flanking combo..rinse and repeat till tha target dies...again thieves think this gameplay is balanced and everybody else needs to L2P ofc

-The pre cast stealth/vault combo dealing 15k+ dmg out of the blue from stealth...yes yes..L2P and dodge again, very luckily Anet removed the ability to pre cast vault and steal teleport.

Thief is supposed to be a slippery support/finisher character....not the ultimate brawler class and it was till some time ago, luckily that got adjusted and I hope it never returns

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As I have said already, a class like GW2 thief is every average MMO player's wet dream and even more before the deserving balance phase : "an unpunishable class with stupid amount of dmg, mobility and disengage potential" , the unpunishable part has been left almost intact while the dmg component has been deservingly adjusted so that thief players will feel the sting once they become too greedy.

The combination of infiltrator's return - no cast time attacks including daze/stuns -stealth on demand and shortbow 1200 retreat and other stuff I may forget atm , makes thief an headache to fight...and it was previously a nightmare to fight thieves because of the stupid AA dmg.

Every other class can be caught and punished in 90% of cases...a thief can simply disappear if things go south and this coupled with damage made an ideal combination for roamers in WvW up to 1 year ago.

-Fightning d/p with pre-nerf Pulmonary impact and AA ...was truly a nightmare, the thief could simply walk up to you and just spamm AA coupled with headshot everytime you'd move a muscle and ofc thief players consider that kind of gameplay balanced and everybody else needs to l2p..luckily Anet thought otherwise

-Then we have s/d thief : infiltrator combo followed by unblockable flanking combo..rinse and repeat till tha target dies...again thieves think this gameplay is balanced and everybody else needs to L2P ofc

-The pre cast stealth/vault combo dealing 15k+ dmg out of the blue from stealth...yes yes..L2P and dodge again, very luckily Anet removed the ability to pre cast vault and steal teleport.

Thief is supposed to be a slippery support/finisher character....not the ultimate brawler class and it was till some time ago, luckily that got adjusted and I hope it never returns

Yet whenever i played Holo/Soulbeast/Mirage/Rev i destroyed people alot easier and faster. Even pre-pof days it was effortless to go rev/chrono/scrapper/druid and wreck people. Also not to mention that basically i never even played those classes cuz i mained thief since almost beta and somehow right out of the gate with other classes it was flawless. So yeah.. i think your view on thief is quite distorted. Other specs achieve more by doing less. Ppl take "stealth" mechanic as some kind of overpowered ability.. well.. it's easy to counter. Just spam your AA and thief will pop up dead near beside you. Not to mention that WvW now is full of revealing guards Thief became as useless as it gets. I'd rather take blocks/stabs/invulns then getting 1-2 shotted by soulbeasts pets. But yea .. we do have disengage abilities.. that's all we can do now cuz we got no dmg no stealth and no sustain. Idk.. but assassin type classes in other MMOs used to be deadly yet vulnerable if played carelessly. But what we have now with thief.. that's not deadly at all. It's just a meme shortbowing around the map for no reason. Thing is.. some people just want to main a class that's fun to play no matter how strong/weak it is. Or else we could all roll SB/Holos and enjoy easy life. But now maining thief feels like some kind of punishment and that's where the problem is. Your game has to provide options for people who prefer X mechanics vs Y mechanics and then ppl choose which gamestyle they enjoy the most. But by providing those mechanics u still have to make sure the class can be competetive. (slow-mo guard-like gamestyle or fast-paced assasin-like gamestyle?) If not then why even create the class? Delete it then and leave only slow-paced passive-skilled classes and stop promoting fast-paced gameplay if u can't balance it out.

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@"Hannelore.8153" said:Part of the problem is, "Marauder and Berserker gear". Its not a power meta anymore and hasn't been for a long time in PvP/WvW, you need condi, because people stack defenses and you can't bypass them with power-based damage.

This is just flat out wrong. The vast majority of builds utilize power based stats outside of some Scourge, Mirage, and MAYBE the occasional weaver. There hasn't been a condi meta, especially in PvP, for quite some time due to the massive amount of cleanse support specs can spit out and the fact that pretty much all condi builds outside of the above mentioned are trash tier or "meh" at best

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@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:Balance happened to thief!

For a while it was very frustrating to play the game in PvP and especially WvW. They were thief ganking squads behind every corner : uncatchable - unpunishable ( shortbow 5 - infiltrator return - and ofc stealth ) - doing stupid amounts of dmg with AA only leaving thief free to spam skills like
pre-nerf Pulmonary Impact
triggering with
headshot
which has no cast time and just 4 ini - we had also pre loaded vault/steal combo hitting for 15k+ dmg out of nowhere - then we had (still have ) pistol whip ect ect ect...

Ofc I don't expect thieves to ever agree with my statements but luckily Anet did agree and made the game less frustrating to play, yes ofc a class that allows you to easily grief others , mock them and more...
will be a MMO player wet dream
and many people quitted the game back in the day especially during
DE era
, I mean a class that forces others to quit soon or later will be brought down with hardcore nerfs

There are two sides to balance. Thief was one side. The other has been allowed to run more rampant than Thief ever did. Even placed in a vacuum, thief isn't balanced against itself. Anet didn't really adjust other things in any meaningful way - the nerfs have left it extremely lopsided as a class.

No wonder you don't expect thieves to ever agree with you.

@OP - if you want to main thief in this game and be in any way competitive, you'll have to make some pretty hard sacrifices, sanity wise. GW2 is no longer...well, it never was (maybe for one brief, shining moment years ago?) - an anywhere near decent game for half-decent pvp.

As I have said already, a class like GW2 thief is every average MMO player's wet dream and even more before the deserving balance phase : "an unpunishable class with stupid amount of dmg, mobility and disengage potential" , the unpunishable part has been left almost intact while the dmg component has been deservingly adjusted so that thief players will feel the sting once they become too greedy.

The combination of
infiltrator's return - no cast time attacks including daze/stuns -stealth on demand and shortbow 1200 retreat
and other stuff I may forget atm , makes thief an headache to fight...and it was previously a nightmare to fight thieves because of the stupid AA dmg.

Every other class can be caught and punished in 90% of cases...a thief can simply disappear if things go south and this coupled with damage made an ideal combination for roamers in WvW up to 1 year ago.

-Fightning d/p with pre-nerf Pulmonary impact and AA ...was truly a nightmare, the thief could simply walk up to you and just spamm AA coupled with headshot everytime you'd move a muscle and ofc thief players consider that kind of gameplay balanced and everybody else needs to l2p..luckily Anet thought otherwise

-Then we have s/d thief : infiltrator combo followed by unblockable flanking combo..rinse and repeat till tha target dies...again thieves think this gameplay is balanced and everybody else needs to L2P ofc

-The pre cast stealth/vault combo dealing 15k+ dmg out of the blue from stealth...yes yes..L2P and dodge again, very luckily Anet removed the ability to pre cast vault and steal teleport.

Thief is supposed to be a slippery support/finisher character....not the ultimate brawler class and it was till some time ago, luckily that got adjusted and I hope it never returns

I find this funny considering u have ur own thread called looking at thieves and nerf scope being only to nerf it out of viability lmao. what happened? Did a thief kill u a few times and now ur doing exactly what u said the community does and say a class is OP cuz a few hurt ur ego? Almost ur whole post is a exaggeration and or flat out wrong. I play multiple classes and even weaver can down peeps faster than thief for me these days to join the list of reaper,ranger,holo and rev. I dont play warrior but I'm sure I'd be on the list to if I played it for a while. Thief can gank noobs all night long or a good player once, good luck sec time once they kno ur around. In conquest the can rotate and carry games through their mobility but its definitely little to do with their ability to fight which is less than all other classes hence the +1 role tacked onto decapping. Sure a thief will win a 1v1 if they badly outplay their opponent but that's hardly OP lol.

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@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:Balance happened to thief!

For a while it was very frustrating to play the game in PvP and especially WvW. They were thief ganking squads behind every corner : uncatchable - unpunishable ( shortbow 5 - infiltrator return - and ofc stealth ) - doing stupid amounts of dmg with AA only leaving thief free to spam skills like
pre-nerf Pulmonary Impact
triggering with
headshot
which has no cast time and just 4 ini - we had also pre loaded vault/steal combo hitting for 15k+ dmg out of nowhere - then we had (still have ) pistol whip ect ect ect...

Ofc I don't expect thieves to ever agree with my statements but luckily Anet did agree and made the game less frustrating to play, yes ofc a class that allows you to easily grief others , mock them and more...
will be a MMO player wet dream
and many people quitted the game back in the day especially during
DE era
, I mean a class that forces others to quit soon or later will be brought down with hardcore nerfs

There are two sides to balance. Thief was one side. The other has been allowed to run more rampant than Thief ever did. Even placed in a vacuum, thief isn't balanced against itself. Anet didn't really adjust other things in any meaningful way - the nerfs have left it extremely lopsided as a class.

No wonder you don't expect thieves to ever agree with you.

@OP - if you want to main thief in this game and be in any way competitive, you'll have to make some pretty hard sacrifices, sanity wise. GW2 is no longer...well, it never was (maybe for one brief, shining moment years ago?) - an anywhere near decent game for half-decent pvp.

As I have said already, a class like GW2 thief is every average MMO player's wet dream and even more before the deserving balance phase : "an unpunishable class with stupid amount of dmg, mobility and disengage potential" , the unpunishable part has been left almost intact while the dmg component has been deservingly adjusted so that thief players will feel the sting once they become too greedy.

The combination of
infiltrator's return - no cast time attacks including daze/stuns -stealth on demand and shortbow 1200 retreat
and other stuff I may forget atm , makes thief an headache to fight...and it was previously a nightmare to fight thieves because of the stupid AA dmg.

Every other class can be caught and punished in 90% of cases...a thief can simply disappear if things go south and this coupled with damage made an ideal combination for roamers in WvW up to 1 year ago.

-Fightning d/p with pre-nerf Pulmonary impact and AA ...was truly a nightmare, the thief could simply walk up to you and just spamm AA coupled with headshot everytime you'd move a muscle and ofc thief players consider that kind of gameplay balanced and everybody else needs to l2p..luckily Anet thought otherwise

-Then we have s/d thief : infiltrator combo followed by unblockable flanking combo..rinse and repeat till tha target dies...again thieves think this gameplay is balanced and everybody else needs to L2P ofc

-The pre cast stealth/vault combo dealing 15k+ dmg out of the blue from stealth...yes yes..L2P and dodge again, very luckily Anet removed the ability to pre cast vault and steal teleport.

Thief is supposed to be a slippery support/finisher character....not the ultimate brawler class and it was till some time ago, luckily that got adjusted and I hope it never returns

I find this funny considering u have ur own thread called looking at thieves and nerf scope being only to nerf it out of viability lmao. what happened? Did a thief kill u a few times and now ur doing exactly what u said the community does and say a class is OP cuz a few hurt ur ego? Almost ur whole post is a exaggeration and or flat out wrong. I play multiple classes and even weaver can down peeps faster than thief for me these days to join the list of reaper,ranger,holo and rev. I dont play warrior but I'm sure I'd be on the list to if I played it for a while. Thief can gank noobs all night long or a good player once, good luck sec time once they kno ur around. In conquest the can rotate and carry games through their mobility but its definitely little to do with their ability to fight which is less than all other classes hence the +1 role tacked onto decapping. Sure a thief will win a 1v1 if they badly outplay their opponent but that's hardly OP lol.

Mostly I was talking about pre-nerf builds which were too oppressive , easy and forgiving to play and Anet thought likewise after analyzing data numbers , it doesn't matter how pro thieves think to be...OP builds will always be complained about and subsequently nerfed.

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@Felwal.9618 said:

@Yasai.3549 said:Sentry now removes Stealth.

Yu just need to get good vs Warrior.

And yes they nerfed the class alot.

Yeah i know i didnt play flawlessly against that warrior but still feels kinda unfair with the amount of effort i need to put in compared to him also RIP any thief build that semi relies on stealth guess the only option is s/d or staff or i'll just quit the game again and hope they get a grip when it comes to balancing thief. Thing is they already had the d/p balance down decently before they nerfed its auto attack maybe the interupts were a bit to strong and easy to pull off but atleast thief was deadly if you didnt do anything while he was whaling at you but now if i play any build with dagger mainhand you're just an anoying fly nowadays

Play sword/dagger core thief. Eez to kite warrior

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@"Arheundel.6451" said:

As I have said already, a class like GW2 thief is every average MMO player's wet dream and even more before the deserving balance phase : "an unpunishable class with stupid amount of dmg, mobility and disengage potential" , the unpunishable part has been left almost intact while the dmg component has been deservingly adjusted so that thief players will feel the sting once they become too greedy.

LOL what year are you playing this game in, 2015? If I were to extrapolate from your last string of posts, there's a good chance that you fall into this category of thought:

"Nerf Rock, Paper is OK though" - Scissors

Why? Because aside from gimmick one shot builds that only affect other glass targets, Thief has had lower burst damage than most for quite a few years. S/F Ele, Holo, Mirage, Herald, DH, and even power Reaper have higher burst damage than Thieves. They also have higher sustained damage than Thieves and far better staying power in fights. Their defenses are also easier as they can continue pressure at the same time.

Just because you couldn't defeat Thieves on your own doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. Because it does, all the time. Otherwise Thieves would be the most represented roaming class, which granted they were...4 years ago. I suggest you put some vitality and toughness into your build, also try playing Thief for a little while. It's clear that you never have as you seem to think that they have unlimited initiative and don't have any cooldowns on their utilities.

OP builds will always be complained about and subsequently nerfed.Is this why condi Mirage is so weak? Oh...oh wait...hmmm.

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Thieves are still decent at killing "trash tier" afk single players & chain backstabbing PvE bosses while semi AFK, but you definately want to avoid any real fight/resistance these days. The class kinda degenerated like crazy after the power nerfs, u either have to be super squishy, or run around doing no dps trying to look cool.

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@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:Balance happened to thief!

For a while it was very frustrating to play the game in PvP and especially WvW. They were thief ganking squads behind every corner : uncatchable - unpunishable ( shortbow 5 - infiltrator return - and ofc stealth ) - doing stupid amounts of dmg with AA only leaving thief free to spam skills like
pre-nerf Pulmonary Impact
triggering with
headshot
which has no cast time and just 4 ini - we had also pre loaded vault/steal combo hitting for 15k+ dmg out of nowhere - then we had (still have ) pistol whip ect ect ect...

Ofc I don't expect thieves to ever agree with my statements but luckily Anet did agree and made the game less frustrating to play, yes ofc a class that allows you to easily grief others , mock them and more...
will be a MMO player wet dream
and many people quitted the game back in the day especially during
DE era
, I mean a class that forces others to quit soon or later will be brought down with hardcore nerfs

There are two sides to balance. Thief was one side. The other has been allowed to run more rampant than Thief ever did. Even placed in a vacuum, thief isn't balanced against itself. Anet didn't really adjust other things in any meaningful way - the nerfs have left it extremely lopsided as a class.

No wonder you don't expect thieves to ever agree with you.

@OP - if you want to main thief in this game and be in any way competitive, you'll have to make some pretty hard sacrifices, sanity wise. GW2 is no longer...well, it never was (maybe for one brief, shining moment years ago?) - an anywhere near decent game for half-decent pvp.

As I have said already, a class like GW2 thief is every average MMO player's wet dream and even more before the deserving balance phase : "an unpunishable class with stupid amount of dmg, mobility and disengage potential" , the unpunishable part has been left almost intact while the dmg component has been deservingly adjusted so that thief players will feel the sting once they become too greedy.

The combination of
infiltrator's return - no cast time attacks including daze/stuns -stealth on demand and shortbow 1200 retreat
and other stuff I may forget atm , makes thief an headache to fight...and it was previously a nightmare to fight thieves because of the stupid AA dmg.

Every other class can be caught and punished in 90% of cases...a thief can simply disappear if things go south and this coupled with damage made an ideal combination for roamers in WvW up to 1 year ago.

-Fightning d/p with pre-nerf Pulmonary impact and AA ...was truly a nightmare, the thief could simply walk up to you and just spamm AA coupled with headshot everytime you'd move a muscle and ofc thief players consider that kind of gameplay balanced and everybody else needs to l2p..luckily Anet thought otherwise

-Then we have s/d thief : infiltrator combo followed by unblockable flanking combo..rinse and repeat till tha target dies...again thieves think this gameplay is balanced and everybody else needs to L2P ofc

-The pre cast stealth/vault combo dealing 15k+ dmg out of the blue from stealth...yes yes..L2P and dodge again, very luckily Anet removed the ability to pre cast vault and steal teleport.

Thief is supposed to be a slippery support/finisher character....not the ultimate brawler class and it was till some time ago, luckily that got adjusted and I hope it never returns

I find this funny considering u have ur own thread called looking at thieves and nerf scope being only to nerf it out of viability lmao. what happened? Did a thief kill u a few times and now ur doing exactly what u said the community does and say a class is OP cuz a few hurt ur ego? Almost ur whole post is a exaggeration and or flat out wrong. I play multiple classes and even weaver can down peeps faster than thief for me these days to join the list of reaper,ranger,holo and rev. I dont play warrior but I'm sure I'd be on the list to if I played it for a while. Thief can gank noobs all night long or a good player once, good luck sec time once they kno ur around. In conquest the can rotate and carry games through their mobility but its definitely little to do with their ability to fight which is less than all other classes hence the +1 role tacked onto decapping. Sure a thief will win a 1v1 if they badly outplay their opponent but that's hardly OP lol.

Mostly I was talking about pre-nerf builds which were too oppressive , easy and forgiving to play
and Anet thought likewise after analyzing data numbers
, it doesn't matter how pro thieves think to be...OP builds will always be complained about and subsequently nerfed.

I'll agree with you that certain needed a nerf post HoT. . . what we thief mains are saying is that they went too far. We take great risks to hit a target, being glassy by design, and it feels pretty bad when we take that risk and are rewarded with a tickle of damage.

That being said. . .thief is feeling better and better lately. Certainly better than around the patch that made Scrapper unkillable (surprise bunker meta anyone?)Think anet is moving in the right direction balance wise atm.

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I think the reason you don't see thieves dropping left and right is because they all learned early when to run away, which is usually early in the engage.Arguably the only thing they excel at compared to other classes, really. Their ability to reset (run away), and even that aspect is slowly being encroached by the other classes.

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@Felwal.9618 said:I came back after a break recently. I quit right after dagger AA got nerfed into the ground. but what has happened to thief? I played some PvP but unless i played a staff build i deal no damage most builds can just laugh it off and then i tried to do some WvW and noticed you cant even stealth for over 3 seconds if your opponent happens to have a sentry somewhat nearby. Why? you cant even benefit from the extra stealth duration in shadow arts(or the new spider venom in stealth). And also i tried to fight a warrior i couldnt deal any real damage to him and he killed me in 3-4 autos and one real skill like hundred blades or his spin plus 1 auto. this is with full marauders armor and amulet rest is berserker (all Acended if that matters). what have they done to thief? feels like the entire class has been absolutely nutured.

Nerfs are good, it's just the other offenders that need nerfs still are yet to be touched. Once those get the proper nerfs, I think thieves will be more valuable in team play as utility type assassins again. At the moment, the meta favors insane amounts of damage (rev, holo, scourge, warrior, etc) so Thieves kind got the short end of the stick. But with rev nerfed, holo only slightly nerfed (it still needs more, 5k auto chains is insane), and a couple other things nerfed, Thieves will start to see slightly more play. Lets hope they deliver the proper nerfs soon, so we can start to see more diverse team comps and strategies come back into the game.

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