[WvW Thief - Questions about the build]

1 hour ago, Ziorah.9750 said:

Hello everyone,

I need some support from you regarding wvw and my builds.
Currently I like to play with d/p. Almost everyone plays the shortbow as a secondary weapon, which in my opinion is currently quite weak. For this reason, i'm thinking about playing a/p as my second weapon. Here is the build:

My Build

What do you think? 

It is a power build. Unfortunately, I can't yet craft cele armor and weapons. Or do you have another suggestion for the second weapon slot, including a build change? What are you currently playing with your thief in WvW?

Think you might have goofed the build link there. Clicking on it opens Gmail?

[Giving up on thief WvW roaming (suggest alternatives)]

5 hours ago, Daenxi.4530 said:

Well yeah part of my frustration is that I play this game (or at least in the case of PVP) because I want to duel, I think 1v1s give me the satisfaction of tracking my improvement and skill level while beating the competion, BUT I also want to do that while fulfilling my MMORPG class fantasies. In that case I want to do that on a 'agile' assassin trickster rogue archetype with the thief  and a ... 'dark spirit warrior dragon knight' (can't think of a good archetype descriptor for Revenant) in the revenant.

Anyway I have been experimenting with dagger/dagger in WvW since I last posted a day ago and so far I have not even lost a fight ( I don't expect to win them all though). 
I am running trailblazer stats (Toughness,VItality,Condition Damage and Expertise) with Dagger+Dagger and Pistol+Dagger (yep no shortbow so its VERY off meta)
I am not going to write out the whole build because I don't think anybody cares in *that* much detail but my general strategy is to pick traitlines and grant HP using abilities e.g
DareDevil Traitline ( Gain HP from dodging) +  (impaling lotus is preferred)
Acrobatics (Gain HP from skill that use initiative)
Critical Strikes (Gain HP from outgoing critical attacks)
Trickery Is compulsory so you pick from any of the above 2.
Shadow Arts has a life steal trait but I have not tried that one yet
Now Add signet of malice to give even more healing from attacking.
As for utilities I just pick ones that grant initiative or endurance for trait line synergy e.g
Signet of agility (for endurance to dodge)
Roll for initiative ( initiative to use dagger 3).
Dagger Storm (Synergy with escapists fortitude) 

Anyway the basic idea is to spam dagger 3 deaths blossom (Attacks, Adds Bleeding AND evades) and allow it to synergise with your traits so not only do you attack, and evade at the same time but you also gain health from signet of malice and Critical Strikes/Acrobatics while attacking but you also gain health from dodging as a daredevil as well as continuing to apply conditions with impaling lotus.
If you get focused, or AOE bombed use Dagger Storm for 4seconds of evade (escapists fortitude trait means you also heal for every attack you evade this can potentially take you from 50%hp to 100%HP. 
So the only challenge here is managing your initiative and dodges for longer fights as its an effective playstyle without being overly technical. 

I like this build because it is (dare I say) actually a somewhat tanky take on the build that also negates high pressure burst attackers (Mesmers, Rangers, Certain Gaurdians).

I am still in need of more experimenting but this is what I have so far

Yep, it's a build that's been floating around in some form since the Heart of Thorns expansion, it's quite effective as long as your opponent is aggressive. The point where you're going to find it painful is when you run into an opponent that understands that if they force you to chase them that they have the advantage (your offensive mobility compared to a daredevil running D/P dash is quite low), and if they aren't aggressively spamming skills at you so your evades cleanse you they can time ranged condi application to the end of your dodges to chip you down without triggering your traits. You'll be having more success on it at the moment as you run into a player running this build once in a blue moon, and especially in outnumbered situations people tend to be more aggressive than they should. Not criticising, it's just important to know the limits of a build so you know what to avoid. A good deadeye, condi thief (if they time pistol 2 for the end of your dodges to force you to eat condis) condi immob druid or anything with a lot of immob and a brain to use it well will give you a lot of trouble. 

Shortbow used to be a good offhand for your daggers before choking gas got bumped up to 6 ini, as impaling lotus is a projectile finisher and choking gas used to spam daze as long as the target had more than 4-5 poison stacks (I forget, was a long time ago now). The main advantage to taking it now would be for downed pressure, choking gas and auto spam will stack poison, bleed and torment on the downed and the guy ressing if you take the torment on interrupt trait. Not much use in a duel but something to be aware of if you're roaming solo.

Depending on how much you're weapon swapping in a fight, taking celerity sigil on shortbow/P/D with impact strike (daredevil elite skill) is also a fun way to secure a kill, as the quickness will ensure that the evade from instant reflexes lasts for the duration of the skill, effectively giving you an invuln stomp (not perfect, as some skills will interrupt evade, and the evade runs out a hair before the end of the skill, but I've stomped peeps in the middle of their zerg doing this). Costs you your dagger storm and a sigil slot on your offhand but you can use it every 30s, so again it's a tradeoff. 

Also bear in mind that escapist's fortitude has a 1s internal cooldown, so in WvW for a 4s evade the most healing you'll get is 4x150=600 in full trailblazer. The bulk of your healing will be coming from assassin's reward. If you take the signet heal that can be significantly higher because of the bouncing daggers from daggerstorm, but not taking withdraw in WvW for the immob break is usually unwise. 

[Giving up on thief WvW roaming (suggest alternatives)]

On 4/17/2024 at 4:05 PM, Daenxi.4530 said:

OK so I am a glutton for punishment and decided to do another roaming session on my semi retired thief with the P/D Core  meta build (with some alterations) I faced a very obnoxious Tempest multiple times along with a 2v1 against a ranger and guardian  and another encounter with a necromancer, I have to say I was surprised at myself because I won nearly all my fights and even downed a ranger when fighting 2v1 against a ranger guardian but had to disengage as I didn't have a way of managing both enemies at the same time (not complaining) 

But my most notable encounter was with the tempest, he basically demolished me when I used D/P and spamming repeater after shadowstrike, after being killed 3 times instead of giving up and logging on the forum to cry I just decided to say kitten the meta and switched to D/D (off meta) and demolished him so badly just by interrupting his heal with steal and overwhelming him with bleed (as well as being able to evade while attacking doing it from dagger 3 deadly blossom. He went down so easily I thought someone was helping me from range and and I checked and I definitely beat him on my own.
I only have 2 conclusions to draw from this..

The meta feels misguiding/closed minded, I don't know how strictly you actually supposed to follow it but dagger/dagger is no where to be seen in the WvW roaming metabattle but it just flipped a fight in the complete opposite direction.

Thief gets punished by 'bad match ups' way more than other professions.
 

The thing about the meta is that you have to know the purpose that the build was made for. Most meta PvP thief builds aren't duellists, they are +1 builds. Sure, you can duel on it if the other guy doesn't know how to shut you down, but it's primary role is to move between points and to chunk something that's already fighting an ally, either downing it outright or forcing it to burn enough cooldowns that your ally can kill it after you leave. So in that sense it's not surprising that you lost to a tempest, a spec that is typically played as a duellist/support role and that packs a LOT of projectile hate. Thinking about this is important as thief typically has next to no sustain, so you have to control the flow of a fight or you will lose. 

The other problem with the meta is that everything gets balanced around those builds. I'm not loving the game at the moment as a lot of my off meta builds have recently been patched out of existence through trait and skill reworks. So yeah, you can be more effective in individual matchups by playing off meta, but be prepared to change your build completely after a patch. 

[Which race and gender combination for thief?]

I was a male sylvari thief main for nearly 10 years before changing to male charr. Any race can work tbh, my sylvari I was told looked more like a warrior than a thief and my charr looks goofy, I have a fairly silly sense of humor tho so the /surprised etc emotes on male char just fit my personality better. I actually found I was using outfits more often than not on my sylvari which is one of the reasons I wanted to change. 

Edit: First pic below is my current look, second more armoured looks is a look I've had since vanilla on various charr characters. Like I say, just gotta find something you like and roll with it. 

https://imgur.com/a/fhmG5mU

[How to properly nerf thief for pvp and wvw]

5 minutes ago, kash.9213 said:

People still getting themselves oneshot from stealth in the WvW forums though. People need to post their builds right next to their complaints from now on there because I feel like there are no parameters to go by when they talk about stealth, damage, mobility, etc. My condi specter templates are really close to baseline raid stats which have some vitality but not a lot of other modifiers to mitigate an opener, and I routinely survive opening sequence to bounce out and collect myself even if some people craft better openers than others. My own stealth doesn't mitigate that either if the cleaves and circles are already in play. 

I'm down for some Stealth critique because I think the visual gameplay and player to player dynamic could be handled better in that regard but it's not all that once I know their lane behavior. Guess I'm just not on that level where I can walk out there in full glass yet.

For sure, knowing people's builds would help. I've long said that if you're a bad player for bringing a roaming build to a zerg fight, you're also bad for doing the opposite. People keep on taking their group builds into small scale/1v1 and wonder why they get steamrolled tho, you can't balance a class around other people's poor decisions.

I don't mind stealth being debated. Honestly I'd be fine with it not existing at all, if things were properly balanced to compensated for the loss. What I have an issue with is the inherent motte-and-bailey fallacy where people say that stealth gameplay is degenerate from the perspective of the one fighting it (which is something I actually agree with), and then using that as justification to propose ONLY thief nerfs. 

By all means, change how stealth works to make it a healthier mechanic, or rework/remove it entirely. I'd just appreciate it if people stopped using it as a springboard for their personal vendetta and treat all classes that utilise stealth tactics the same way. 

[How to properly nerf thief for pvp and wvw]

Tbh there isn't much point arguing with thief haters. They will justify their tears by saying that stealth is degenerate, then when it's pointed out that engi, ranger and mesmer also have stealth they just complain that thief is a special case because it's designed around it, despite thief not having close to the same one shot burst potential as the other classes. Would people complain about mesmer stealth if thief didn't exist?

You can't have your cake and eat it. Stealth is either an issue on everything or it's not an issue at all. Propose changes to ALL stealth on ALL classes because the stealth mechanic itself is degenerate or just admit that you hate thieves and move on already. 

By the way: nerfing thief stealth access without compensating that by increasing sustain or damage in other areas will just result in MORE of the "run away and wait for cooldowns" behaviour that you find so degenerate. Think about it. 

[Quick Pockets is far too weak to be GM trait. It is the weakest in the game.]

On 3/31/2024 at 2:47 AM, Asra.8746 said:

Woah buddy. Slow down there.

Preparedness hasn't even been made baseline in over a decade; and you're asking for a lot more than just that.

Chill out. Wait for ANet's balance team to start understanding thief problems first, before asking for actual logical changes. Give them another decade or so...maybe they will finally get a thief main in their team that has a passion for the class.

You're not wrong, but I have a feeling that guild wars 3 will come out before that happens. 

[Why does Shadow Shroud not have a 50% damage reduction in pvp/wvw like Death Shroud?]

On 3/27/2024 at 8:56 AM, Iustitian.9176 said:

Thief and shadow shroud are completely different to the necromancer shrouds.

For necromancers it's a core mechanic to survive.

Thieves have much mobility, stealth and initiative for that. Shadow shroud has additional a healing option and is a pause to regenerate initiative. 

Making shadow shroud nearly the same defensive (and offensive) mechanic like necromancer shroud would definitely destroy the balance.

Did... Did you just say that because thief has initiative, shroud needs to be kept weak? That would be like me saying that necro shroud needs a nerf because it also has skills with cooldowns it can rely on instead. If that sounds daft, we're on the same page. 

[Signets of Power]

I've been advocating for critical strikes to give either unblockable or ignore armor for a while now, it's the perfect line to put it in as taking CS for unblockable and trickery for stability/protection strip would force you to either play core or not take shadow arts. Unblockable is obviously strong, ignore armor would be a way of increasing a thief's damage to a tank build without enabling the instagibbing of a zerker build any harder than we already do. 

[Anti-healing]

3 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

The idea is like most others.

You got a person that's got his arms and legs ripped off and your best help is to offer a tissue paper so he can blow his nose, he's just making a mess. Surely that'll fix things. 

Could it be... that the issue is actually the metric ton of healing and skills generating constant barrier?

True. Short of reverting a couple expac's worth of changes tho, it's hard to see how we can pin the limbs back on the dying guy lol

[Anti-healing]

17 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Yes, that's what I said: "other than more direct damage"

What if poison/demon queen relic also reduced barrier application? AFAIK it currently doesn't do this, and given barriers are affected by healing power it would make sense that they're also affected by healing reduction. It also has counterplay unlike the current situation by forcing the support to prioritise cleansing poison, while punishing supports that just spam mindlessly. 

Edit: just read that barrier isn't affected by outgoing healing modifiers. Might be that this idea is also a can of worms lol xD

[I guess unless people start making a lot of noise, this won't ever change!]

3 hours ago, Puck.3697 said:

I can give you the answer easy in all honesty.

Stealth. It’s that simple,  a willbender you will always see coming, put that same damage on something that is invisible and you start seeing one shots occurring too fast for player reaction. And that’s just simply put

willbender doesn’t stealth 

regardless of believe it’s the realistic truth, Anet put a lot of power in stealth, so it’s considered a large balancing factor. 

See, I don't like this argument because while it's true thief is the stealth archetype, it's not the only class that has stealth. Ranger, engi and mesmer all have stealth, they have decent mobility, decent tankiness when built for it and critically they can all build to one shot people with much higher damage than thief cranks out these days. So what's the difference? 

3 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

If they get rid of Stealth, I don't mind Thief getting better sustain.

Frankly I don't have a problem with this either. 

[I guess unless people start making a lot of noise, this won't ever change!]

1 hour ago, Myror.7521 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 i mean....  in my eyes the perfect profession to get a Power build with good self sustain, some Mobility, good dmg would be specter........ but for some reason Anet want it to be straight up played as conditions build. Rn specter is sadly too glassy.

It's too glassy for the present state of the game, for sure. In HoT daredevil was considered unplayable in sPvP on release (I remember people saying reroll or they'll go AFK for that match, it was genuinely that bad) but by the time PoF was released it was considered one of the strongest builds in the meta. Nothing changed with daredevil in this time, in fact it was repeatedly nerfed, but when every other elite spec was nerfed to the same level daredevil found it's place again.

At present we have not one expac but two expac's worth of power creep that hasn't been balanced down yet. There's a good chance that specter would be in the right place if the rest of the specs weren't still doing crazy stuff, but at the moment it feels weak because of that. We also have been balanced around one build (D/P daredevil) for so many years that most other options on thief are borderline unplayable. Basically one of two things needs to happen: Either bring all specs down to the old baseline, or accept that this present level is the new baseline and bring thief up in line with it. 

[I guess unless people start making a lot of noise, this won't ever change!]

1 hour ago, Myror.7521 said:

What even is this threat about? xD i don't get it xd.

 

Thing with Thief is its realy hard to Balance good. Cause if you grant it actually realy hard hitting skills in its current state so it could win 1v1s on demant it will be like instantly broken cause of how mobile and also right played untouchable the class itself is. 

I think overall its current state is the best you can get out off it...... Well at least deadeye which is allready realy incredible good in right hands ^^

I get what you're saying, and I've said myself that a spec should have at best meta damage, mobility or sustain, a combo of two of these but not all three in one build. This argument would have held more weight before willbender and basically all the EoD specs were a thing though. Now that virtually any class seems to have mobility comparable to base thief while retaining their classes' sustain and damage, thief players are starting to wonder why we can't have better damage and sustain too. 

[QoL Request that pretty much any thief player would appreciate]

22 hours ago, wolfer.7945 said:

I don't need thieves running away faster.  So many are just cowards.  Stay and take your death.  

 

But really.  It's nice idea.  Fixes the initiative, but I'm not sure the 25% speed would be the right pick. May be something that works with shadow step, like remove a single condition after teleporting more then 200, 5 sec cool down. 

11 hours ago, Asra.8746 said:

There are better choices than movement speed for this trait adjustment - but, knowing ANet's balance team, when they finally get around to it (if they ever do), they will make the initiative baseline and not add anything as replacement.

6 hours ago, nopoet.2960 said:

It could be: upon entering combat your first attack cost 3 less initiative.  This resets upon being revealed.  So you get a little buff icon whenever you are out of combat or get revealed.  Every thief just has 12 ini. 

Tbh the reason I chose the 25% movement speed was partially that it's always been a pet peeve of mine that we don't have a trait for it and 7/9 other professions do, partially that it would help core thief, and partially it's so innocuous that basically nobody could argue it was too much. The fact that it's a no brainer change makes it much more likely to happen because there are no balance implications whatsoever for a dev to think about. I'm more than happy to hear suggestions for something else tho, just try to keep power creep out of it etc. 

[Thief in WvW Zerg]

7 hours ago, Szymon.5369 said:

That would be neat, but let's be real, unblockable stealth attacks are probably a thing that's explicitly written on a whiteboard somewhere under "things that can never happen", together with warrior teleports.

We had that once in cursed bullet, if I remember right. Might not remember right. 

[QoL Request that pretty much any thief player would appreciate]

Hey Devs. If you're reading this, this would be a super easy change that would make a LOT of thief players happy. 

Change Preparedness from "Increases maximum initiative by 3. Gain increased expertise" to "Increases movement speed by 25%. Gain increased expertise" and just increase the base initiative to 15 already. 

Effects: 

• Easier for devs to balance weapon ini costs without making trickery required in every build which leads to more choices, more tradeoffs and more fun for thief players.
• Meta PvP and WvW builds remain unchanged. PvE builds gain the extra 3 ini assuming your're not playing specter, but none of those builds would overperform because of it. 
• Specter can keep the -3 ini penalty if you really want to do that without being locked into trickery. This means you can do interesting things in WvW like make healer builds using shadow arts for group sustain and acrobatics for personal sustain, which in my opinion would make the spec much more viable in WvW zergs (see my sig for similar idea using deadeye).
• It annoys me that necro is the only other class besides thief that doesn't have 25% move speed as a trait. Yes, I am that guy that plays critical strikes, shadow arts and trickery on core thief. Sure, there could be something "better" here, but this is QoL not power creep, right?

[do not touch axe/pistol]

2 hours ago, senftube.6081 said:

Bro bounding dodger is the most broken kitten  ever. Even mong vet thief players it is hated as kitten because you have literally perm stealth and you can not interrupt it really. Condi Axe/P thief is literally broken as kitten.

Yeah, I'm not denying any of that. It's just a little off topic when people are discussing how axe pistol 3 needed to be/ended up being changed, since bound wasn't the problem with that. That said, I actually like the interaction it has with sword pistol builds (I might be the only one, I admit) and without redesigning daredevil again I don't see how it would be fixed, as without the leap finisher nobody would take bound outside of PvE. 

[do not touch axe/pistol]

5 hours ago, senftube.6081 said:

Bounding dodger is a cheese kitten and needs to be reworked. 

So does willbender and a bunch of other things that hit harder than thief while being as mobile and tanky asf. Just cause you or I don't like something isn't a reason to nerf it tho, and given bound wasn't even the reason axe pistol got changed it's kinda off topic don't you think?

Axe pistol got nerfed/fixed/whatever you want to call it. It was fun while it lasted, they went overboard in fixing it and now it's useless. That's pretty much the end of the thread. 

[Please allow Siphon to revive again!]

I really miss the old shadestep with old sanctuary runes effect to spread rot wallow venom in a group while focussing on healing, it made plaguedoctor builds at least contribute something to DPS while keeping everyone on their feet though barrier and targeted revives. I haven't really run specter since that was removed, it generally feels a lot weaker and less fun now. There's builds that peeps from EcK have made that work, but it's not the same for me lol. 

[Shadow Portal Nerf]

16 hours ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

You also forgot to mention that "value" of skills differ heavily from class to class, so even if I picked the "strongest" choices they still may be weak against what teef has, that's the reality. Running around, attacking and constantly resetting a fight is cowardish af, don't pretent it's not. Teef has too much luxury of that. Warrior probably would happily allow for deletion of elite skill slot if for exchange they gained "Shadowstep" on their utility bar. In 2024 there are still no real counters to stealth in this game. Stealth pretty much kitten on everyone that requires a target for skill activation.
Oh no, the cleaves, oh wait, spammed by blind into hell. Interrupts? If you don't have spammable interrupt on 5s cd then it's a joke. Kiting? Against a teef? Against a class that can port all over the place 24/7?
Take few step backs, touch some grass and start being objective toward your own class.

It's only a luxury to use those tactics when it's a choice. Thief is explicitly designed to rely on those tactics and does not have access to other mechanics that make other tactics possible. When thief can facetank damage like a warrior or necro you'll have a point, but calling a deliberate class design a luxury while ignoring what they don't have is a little rich otherwise. 

[I Love the new Axe on thief]

20 hours ago, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

i was screwing around with quickness on it and honestly i barely see a change in axe placement speed based on with or without quickness

It's more for me about getting through the actual skills and ensuring I have quickness for impact strike. For context, I'm a solo roamer in WvW and my attack pattern is usually to throw a couple autos while out of range, steal/cloak and dagger, stealth axe point blank, axe 2, axe 3, impact strike chain, so the quickness speeds up the animations between the stealth axe and axe 3 which boosts my survival. Axe 3 and impact strike proc roughly 2s of evade combined, impact strike and relic of the wizard tower gives a bunch of cc and some projectile reflect, and with quickness you get through the whole impact strike chain before the evade finishes. Hence why it feels like willbender with boomerangs, you can play hyper aggressive with forward ports and rely on evades to keep you safe, and you get a faster stomp to boot. 

That said, this is the best it feels mostly because it apes a build I already played. It has the feel of willbender but it doesn't have the same burst, I feel like I lack damage vs well played condition roamers like mesmer as they can mitigate virtually all my damage if they play right, and some builds can straight up outheal the damage without needing to avoid it. Power feels the best so far, I have yet to try cele but I have a feeling that celestial is not going to work well due to needing deadly arts and deadeye, which means it's going to be slow and super vulnerable to reveal. I'm finding it fun, but when the novelty factor wears off I'm not sure if I'm going to continue playing it. 

Edit: tested cele. Kinda mixed bag. Can have good damage, or no effect whatsoever. 

[I Love the new Axe on thief]

On 3/4/2024 at 11:48 PM, Eugenides.1274 said:

+1. Even after they adjusted it from the beta it still needs some cast time reduction. It unfortunately feels like they designed this weapon with perma quickness in mind.

Yeah, quickness is def a must for axe. 

On topic, I've been playing this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PayAciVlNwuYbsOWJmSXntSA-DWRYBR3bO4SJsEIzIo1Co3QQqFgA+bpKlNA-w

Basically S/D impact strike just with axe over sword. Kinda feels like playing a willbender with boomerangs, but the damage could def be better. 

[What counterplays are there to Stealth?]

Countering stealth builds? As far as WvW goes I use my minstrel healer deadeye build when moving across the map (link in sig). First defence is to use rifle ports to open distance as soon as they stealth (forcing them to burn more resources to get in damage range) and make sure to dodge gap closers like shadow shot. Dodging drops target and gives ini to fuel more ports, and if I do get caught I use Shadow step and heal. Most thieves have burned everything at this point and give up chasing, engi mostly only one shots if you chase into grenades, power mesmers are rare and the burst easily dodged if you watch for the greatsword 2 projectile and rangers tend to use stealth more defensively than offensively. 

That's how I'd do it on thief. The real answer is knowing what stealth builds tend to do and knowing your kit well enough to know what you can do to prevent the stealth user from having an easy day. 

[Shadow Portal Nerf]

6 hours ago, Omegacide.8649 said:

YOU SEE... this is why we can't have anything nice. This is why ANET balances the game per their own preference and/or the top 0.01% of cases. Ever heard of "I think its a skill issue"? Just because you don't catch the thief doesn't mean its broken. We all got roles to play in this ridiculous ecosystem.

The idea is that thief has near to no stability, no block (worth using/long CD), no "damage absorbed as healing", no real way to deal with pressure other than invis + tele. The CORE reason for why people are annoyed by thieves, is their existence. If a thief isn't intentionally the hardest class to catch, then what's the point? A Mesmer is the illusions class that's built around smoke and mirrors, and the concept is that their illusions and magic "mesmerize" their opponent for survivability. They get:

• Invisibility
• Stability
• Warps
• Blinks
• Blocks
• Illusions/Floating Daggers(?)
• Distortion
• Evades
• Breakouts
• BOONS AND MORE

Thieves get:

• Invisibility
• Warp 😇
• Blink
• Evades
• Breakouts 

So when you take away one of the thief's breakouts, it cuts DEEP into our survivability. I don't see how anyone could argue "Thief could use less slippery tricks to survive" 💀

Again, all we got is teleports and invisibility to survive. If thief shouldn't have warps, why should they even blink? Its the same thing, albeit it takes other party members across as well. Also, what makes Mesmer special enough to HAVE warps?

I feel like y'all missing the part where losing a stun break immensely hurts the thief whom already struggles to stay relevant outside of going full glass cannon. So we're just going to ignore perma stability + cycled block punish builds, which enable people to never die in 1 vs (n+1) WvW?

Its these type of nerfs that force thieves towards predictable builds. UNPREDICTABILITY is all we got.

 

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with anything you're saying here, but I think you're picking the wrong hill to plant your flag. I run minimal stealth on sword builds and have no problem getting out of combat without shadow portal, and it's not lost any of it's functionality as a port by not being a stunbreak (if it's still instant cast, you can still use it while stunned, just like signets etc). Honestly it is debatable whether giving thief a 5 man port was a good idea in the first place, so losing the stunbreak was a fair change.