Turk.5460

What would you nerf? Off the top of my head:-Damage shave on Shadow shot and remove its blind. This skill has been extremely bloated forever.-Damage shave on Skirmisher's shot-%damage per malice reduced on Death's Judgement-Remove damaging condi application from Steal traits and replace with utility (I am a firm believer that condi builds should NEVER be burst-related since its impossible to balance thanks to Dire/TB) I've probably had a couple more come to mind but those stand out.

I can't speak for PvP, but in WvW I find Thief extremely powerful. It may not be powerful in zerg-play but we never were, and most likely never will be due to our kit. We are a small-scale and solo damage machine and not really in need of any buffs. I feel like Thief is in a good spot, and could actually do with a few minor nerfs here and there. And no, I am not a main of another profession. I exclusively play Thief and have over 4,000 hours on it.

A friend asked for mine a short while ago so I thought you may appreciate a copy/pasta. The videos showcasing it in action are from quite a few updates ago, however not enough has changed for that to really matter on how this build works. As long as you know what to avoid (and are adept at avoiding them) then its only inherent weakness is other Thieves - mainly D/P or other stealth-camping weenies. Though a Target Painter will give you the edge you need there, at the cost of incessant whining from your victim. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PayAQxrlNwkYbMQGJOMXnvKA-zVZYBBZME1jY4yPlwUItJJaVE1rQUjHgA+rRAzAA-w -Open with Mark, skirmisher's shot 3 to 4 times to trigger M7. Use stolen skill to gain stealth, DJ to dump Malice and deal chunk damage. If DJ misses, don't spam skills, shoot one or two spaced Skirmisher's shots in between your auto attacks just to make it so you don't get full initiative, wait for reveal to fade, gain stealth again by dodging, stolen skill, or elite and DJ again. -Mercy is very often used offensively even when not stunned, it refills initiative when you are having a hard time landing DJ, and gives you immediate access to Mark again (damage, heal, interrupt, 3 boon steal, poison, weakness, vulnerability, might, fury, swiftness, vigor, and quickness (quickness only if it has been 20s since last rifle-wielding mark due to Sigil of Celerity) -Smoke Screen is used immediately as a preemptive defense vs ranged projectile enemies. If you are not being attacked by ranged projectiles, it is used as soon as a melee player enters your space. It provides excellent mitigation on a 1s pulse unblockable AOE blind, all Skirmisher's shots fired through it will carry a blind, and 20% of auto attacks will carry a blind. If you are getting overwhelmed and your smoke screen is active, you can Rifle 4, Death's Retreat, to get out of melee range and gain 3s of stealth -Shadowstep can also be used offensively to gain unobstructed line to the target, see this video at 35 seconds in to see how I noticed that the 2nd enemy or his clones would block Death's Judgement, so I Shadowstepped immediately after gaining stealth to fire from an open angle: Here is a general video that is long enough to showcase damage, defense, reactions, repositions, etc: -You'll notice that I target clones and use DE Mark. This is intentional as the mark refreshes when the target is killed/destroyed. Clones have low hp - power Mesmer clones are destroyed just by the mark alone, and it gives initiative, regen, might, fury, vigor, healing(Mug), and potentially resets a cooldown w/improv. Condi/tank Mesmer clones take one mark and then one F2 (stolen skill). This strategy allows for multiple Mugs to heal you up and refill your initiative. -When projectile hate or line of sight is preventing you from doing Rifle damage, immediately swap to S/P and use Sword2, Sword3 to port in, immob the target, and then chunk their HP with pistol whip. Generally you will need to sword2 again right after pistol whip is done to avoid counter-pressure in melee range. I also have a variant copy of this build that uses anti-toxin runes and two rifles, both with sigil of energy and sigil of cleansing. Your damage and hp are slightly lower, but you're extremely resilient against condition-based opponents, which is why I didn't list condi thieves as one of my build's weaknesses.

SA is there to hold your hand, unfortunately. I only have one build with it and that's the current flavor of the month SA D/P build. Its so ridiculously OP in a 1v1 setting, that if I don't even engage enemy thieves I see running it. I only have it as a template to swap to it as to combat the other thieves using it. But a SA D/P thief vs a SA D/P thief is probably the most boring fight you'll find; the outcome is absolutely not determined by skill, that's for sure. Fixing SA to change it from less of a crutch should start by replacing stealth on heal, stealth on steal, and shadow siphoning.

Condi burst and application frequency is still ridiculous given the defensive stats that are allowed to be stacked along with it's damage stats.

Stealth humping even for 3s at a time has never been a skillful nor balanced method of gameplay. 2s of stealth is enough time to attempt a sneak attack, (especially from CnD - which most definitely is rewarding with its damage and coefficient.) I don't know what your point here is other than you have not learned how to adapt. I've roamed as Thief almost exclusively since the beginning, I can attest to how easy it was to play certain builds. Now I roam almost exclusively as a DA/Trick/DE Rifle +S/D Deadeye build where the only stealth comes from stolen abilities w/5+ malice and a mere 1s on dodge. I am very successful in solo roaming. Stealthing for more than 2s at a time is not necessary period.

That warrior battle, omg what a weenie haha. They need to just accept the loss if it was from the duel zone! xD

If we're talking zerging, necro. For "Roaming" (you won't be solo/small roaming as a new player probably) - then Longbow glass cannon soulbeast.

More than that, how is it that I get into a fight with a thief, engi, mes, ranger etc etc and know and count down their stealth timer in my head of when they are going to attack and dodge a backstab with "miss" popping up, or pop a block only to see rapid fire hitting me "block, block, block" but they don't get revealed? Why are they not punished for this? Being able to counter an attack you cant even see coming and the stealth user is rewarded with getting to try again? Why? For something to change in the direction you are inferring means the removal of Guardian's passive aegis. Why should Aegis be removed when need to rework stealth?When the player activates a skill, stealth is gone.When the player receives damage from any source, stealth is gone.I don't see how Aegis would be affected by these two changes. Stealth in its current anti-pvp state is the ultimate coward runaway tool that's overpowered and the access is too abundant.It's in dire need of a rework, but Arenanet apparently doesn't care. My reply was to to how stealth attacks would interact with blocks. Why should Guardian get a passive permanent protection from all stealth attacks if Tink's idea was taken? They shouldn't. But sure, lets entertain your reply: What buffs do you propose to compensate traitlines whose defenses are reliant on stealth? There is no class that relies on Stealth as a defensive tool.Stealth is used to cowardly run away in PvP, which is not an defensive action.Thieves have enough evasive tools to form their active defense, Mesmers have enough tools and their clones to annoy opponents and divert their attacks.Scrapper is tanky enough not to need any more defences.Adjusting something to make it proper instead of unfair and over-performing doesn't require compensations. As for the Aegis part: It block one attack, one. That's far from permanent. I didn't say class, did I? What buffs do you propose to compensate traitlines whose defenses are reliant on stealth? Or just...oriented around stealth. Your suggestion would require a rework to Shadow Arts at the very least - what do you propose is buffed/changed in Shadow Arts in order to compensate for your suggestion? More than that, how is it that I get into a fight with a thief, engi, mes, ranger etc etc and know and count down their stealth timer in my head of when they are going to attack and dodge a backstab with "miss" popping up, or pop a block only to see rapid fire hitting me "block, block, block" but they don't get revealed? Why are they not punished for this? Being able to counter an attack you cant even see coming and the stealth user is rewarded with getting to try again? Why? For something to change in the direction you are inferring means the removal of Guardian's passive aegis. Why? More than that, how is it that I get into a fight with a thief, engi, mes, ranger etc etc and know and count down their stealth timer in my head of when they are going to attack and dodge a backstab with "miss" popping up, or pop a block only to see rapid fire hitting me "block, block, block" but they don't get revealed? Why are they not punished for this? Being able to counter an attack you cant even see coming and the stealth user is rewarded with getting to try again? Why? For something to change in the direction you are inferring means the removal of Guardian's passive aegis. Why should Aegis be removed when need to rework stealth?When the player activates a skill, stealth is gone.When the player receives damage from any source, stealth is gone.I don't see how Aegis would be affected by these two changes. Stealth in its current anti-pvp state is the ultimate coward runaway tool that's overpowered and the access is too abundant.It's in dire need of a rework, but Arenanet apparently doesn't care. My reply was to to how stealth attacks would interact with blocks. Why should Guardian get a passive permanent protection from all stealth attacks if Tink's idea was taken? They shouldn't. But sure, lets entertain your reply: What buffs do you propose to compensate traitlines whose defenses are reliant on stealth? So, you want that changed because it means you can't start a fight from stealth, it means you have to actually hit someone and be revealed before doing a burst, this is something high burst builds have always complained about. It is also not permanent, it is tied to F3's CD and is only applied every 40 seconds if F3 isn't on CD. Why should Guardian's receive special treatment regarding this then? The fact that it is only applied every 40s has no bearing considering it is permanent until removed. It's not a skillful block or counter that you are actively using. It's a single block, if you are having issues with that, it might be a L2P issue. Fact is it's because guard has a low base HP and spiking one from stealth without it is easy, there really is very little reason to complain about this, guard sustain is block based, it's why guard has one of the lowest base HP in the game and thats for a heavy class. However, go ahead, remove it. At the same time we can remove the ability to attack from stealth, because why should you get a free burst off? "Thats not skillful".If you are having issues with reacting to burst attacks from stealth that have been in the game since beta, it might be a L2P issue. Guard has the same hp pool as Thieves and Eles, yet they do not have a passive permanent-until-removed aegis or anything similar. However, go ahead and remove the ability to attack from stealth. That or revealing upon activation would be fine, at least it wouldn't hinder my personal success.

More than that, how is it that I get into a fight with a thief, engi, mes, ranger etc etc and know and count down their stealth timer in my head of when they are going to attack and dodge a backstab with "miss" popping up, or pop a block only to see rapid fire hitting me "block, block, block" but they don't get revealed? Why are they not punished for this? Being able to counter an attack you cant even see coming and the stealth user is rewarded with getting to try again? Why? For something to change in the direction you are inferring means the removal of Guardian's passive aegis. Why should Aegis be removed when need to rework stealth?When the player activates a skill, stealth is gone.When the player receives damage from any source, stealth is gone.I don't see how Aegis would be affected by these two changes. Stealth in its current anti-pvp state is the ultimate coward runaway tool that's overpowered and the access is too abundant.It's in dire need of a rework, but Arenanet apparently doesn't care. My reply was to to how stealth attacks would interact with blocks. Why should Guardian get a passive permanent protection from all stealth attacks if Tink's idea was taken? They shouldn't. But sure, lets entertain your reply: What buffs do you propose to compensate traitlines whose defenses are reliant on stealth? There is no class that relies on Stealth as a defensive tool.Stealth is used to cowardly run away in PvP, which is not an defensive action.Thieves have enough evasive tools to form their active defense, Mesmers have enough tools and their clones to annoy opponents and divert their attacks.Scrapper is tanky enough not to need any more defences.Adjusting something to make it proper instead of unfair and over-performing doesn't require compensations. As for the Aegis part: It block one attack, one. That's far from permanent.I didn't say class, did I? What buffs do you propose to compensate traitlines whose defenses are reliant on stealth? Or just...oriented around stealth. Your suggestion would require a rework to Shadow Arts at the very least - what do you propose is buffed/changed in Shadow Arts in order to compensate for your suggestion? More than that, how is it that I get into a fight with a thief, engi, mes, ranger etc etc and know and count down their stealth timer in my head of when they are going to attack and dodge a backstab with "miss" popping up, or pop a block only to see rapid fire hitting me "block, block, block" but they don't get revealed? Why are they not punished for this? Being able to counter an attack you cant even see coming and the stealth user is rewarded with getting to try again? Why? For something to change in the direction you are inferring means the removal of Guardian's passive aegis. Why? More than that, how is it that I get into a fight with a thief, engi, mes, ranger etc etc and know and count down their stealth timer in my head of when they are going to attack and dodge a backstab with "miss" popping up, or pop a block only to see rapid fire hitting me "block, block, block" but they don't get revealed? Why are they not punished for this? Being able to counter an attack you cant even see coming and the stealth user is rewarded with getting to try again? Why? For something to change in the direction you are inferring means the removal of Guardian's passive aegis. Why should Aegis be removed when need to rework stealth?When the player activates a skill, stealth is gone.When the player receives damage from any source, stealth is gone.I don't see how Aegis would be affected by these two changes. Stealth in its current anti-pvp state is the ultimate coward runaway tool that's overpowered and the access is too abundant.It's in dire need of a rework, but Arenanet apparently doesn't care. My reply was to to how stealth attacks would interact with blocks. Why should Guardian get a passive permanent protection from all stealth attacks if Tink's idea was taken? They shouldn't. But sure, lets entertain your reply: What buffs do you propose to compensate traitlines whose defenses are reliant on stealth? So, you want that changed because it means you can't start a fight from stealth, it means you have to actually hit someone and be revealed before doing a burst, this is something high burst builds have always complained about. It is also not permanent, it is tied to F3's CD and is only applied every 40 seconds if F3 isn't on CD.Why should Guardian's receive special treatment regarding this then? The fact that it is only applied every 40s has no bearing considering it is permanent until removed. It's not a skillful block or counter that you are actively using.

More than that, how is it that I get into a fight with a thief, engi, mes, ranger etc etc and know and count down their stealth timer in my head of when they are going to attack and dodge a backstab with "miss" popping up, or pop a block only to see rapid fire hitting me "block, block, block" but they don't get revealed? Why are they not punished for this? Being able to counter an attack you cant even see coming and the stealth user is rewarded with getting to try again? Why? For something to change in the direction you are inferring means the removal of Guardian's passive aegis. Why should Aegis be removed when need to rework stealth?When the player activates a skill, stealth is gone.When the player receives damage from any source, stealth is gone.I don't see how Aegis would be affected by these two changes. Stealth in its current anti-pvp state is the ultimate coward runaway tool that's overpowered and the access is too abundant.It's in dire need of a rework, but Arenanet apparently doesn't care.My reply was to to how stealth attacks would interact with blocks. Why should Guardian get a passive permanent protection from all stealth attacks if Tink's idea was taken? They shouldn't. But sure, lets entertain your reply: What buffs do you propose to compensate traitlines whose defenses are reliant on stealth?

More than that, how is it that I get into a fight with a thief, engi, mes, ranger etc etc and know and count down their stealth timer in my head of when they are going to attack and dodge a backstab with "miss" popping up, or pop a block only to see rapid fire hitting me "block, block, block" but they don't get revealed? Why are they not punished for this? Being able to counter an attack you cant even see coming and the stealth user is rewarded with getting to try again? Why?For something to change in the direction you are inferring means the removal of Guardian's passive aegis.

Better yet, we shouldn't be able to stealth as frequently as we currently can anyway. Reveal skills wouldn't even need to be in the game at that point.

You talk about low effort but what exactly is high effort in zerging? I have yet to see a high damage any meta build that people don't label as low effort because they want it nerfed because it does something useful. You say it's ok if it would be made harder to play but really what you want is the game dumbed down more because you will never be satisfied when others have learned how to play on a higher level but you are left behind and unwilling to improve. Some of us prefer chess pieces,People unwilling to learn want checkers Sticks for everyone indeed. It doesn't sound like you want chess pieces at all. It sounds like you want rock paper scissors, and for you as rock to always be fighting scissors, but able to always choose not to fight paper.

The build pretty much plays the game for you on almost all matchups. Rune of Tormenting is a strong contender for a nerf, but Trailblazer's gear in general should be changed or removed completely for the health of the game.

+1(+1 shotting included...yes even after recent 'balance' patch) -current build variations included- -Bad Design Can Not Be Balanced-Redesign Is The Only Way I cringe at some of the play by the opponents in that video to be honest. That last reaper may actually take the spot for the single worst reaper I've ever seen. i never blame players but the profession itself. Thief Profession Toxic Design is to be blamed because a non-condition base profession shouldn't never outperform a pure condition base profession...reaper or not...Necromancer Profession is its base core. it is like putting a bicycle against a motorcycle and having it outperform the motorcycle speed.....that would be unheard in a competitive scenery but in the world of Guild Wars 2 'competitive' scenery, Everything is true=possible!! BAD DESIGN IS BAD DESIGN!! -Necromancer Should Be The Strongest Condition Damage Dealer Profession In The Game Because That Is Their Root Core!!!!- Nor Thief, Elementalist, Ranger, Warrior, Engineer Profession should ever be capable to resist their conditions Guardian/Monk being the only Profession who is capable of cleaning all of Necromancer Professions conditions and Mesmer being the only Profession having the power to stop Necromancer conditions from ever casting Restore Condition'Removes all conditions. Removal effect: heals for 10...58...70 for each condition removed.'https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Restore_Condition Blackout'You can use this skill as an interrupt, since any skill being activated by the target when he is blacked out will fail at the end of the skill's activation time'https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blackout Sooooo, you want to be unkillable vs 5/9 professions simply because you deal condi damage. Fair and balanced. Incidentally, this reminds me of one of my favourite things to do in HoT, which was to troll condi reapers by condi bombing them on a trapper build then using take root (sylvari racial elite) to give myself invulnerability so the reaper couldn't transfer the condis back. They couldn't cleanse anything as reaper had terrible cleanse at the time, so they died horribly every time. Fair and balanced, right? Why are you still engaging him after all these years xD

Looks good! I like fighting XOXO, see you in game! :)

I thought they weren't going to do many "PvP Only" splits anymore, and were going to share PvP and WvW. D: Wonder why the most recent fix skipped WvW.

Core Necro needs some LF generation nerfs in WvW like whoa

Will these changes carry over to WvW too?

TBH it seems as though Thief gets the least amount of nerfs in comparison to the other professions. My main build is barely touched, while my only troublesome matchups have their sustain, damage, and overall utility very noticeably reduced.

Sustain has also taken a hit, TTK will increase, but it's not nearly going to be as bad as the Turret-Engineer sPvP days.

Apply these changes to WvW as well. Almost all of them are overperforming in WvW even more than they are in sPvP due to the gear stats and food available.

No, you don't. No, it won't.

Spellbreaker and Core warrior take the least amount of actual gameplay skill to roam as. Condi Mirage and Condi Daredevil are close contenders, but neither hold your hand as much as Spellbreaker and Core Warrior.