Thief gets so much hate that's is honestly frightening.

[Krynji.5130]

I've played thief for a long while and good god does this class get a whole ton of hate compared to every other class, and it's always something that has to do with their mobility and stealth. Literally the two things that give them a chance in any competitive game mode (idk if raids & fractals count as competitive, I don't PvE as much sorry), and when they mention these type of "counters" or "nerfs" they never mention things in return that could potentially filter in the missing gap if that change would occur.

 

I was reading on a post earlier about Shadowstep pathing (which 4 other classes can do) and how "unfair" it was when they get away. Every Thief here knows that the pathing is our best friend while being our worst enemy at the same time (shoutout shadowstepping on some small slope and getting the "no pathing" error), and I feel like these people just have never played Thief in a competitive setting before, just only played against them. Shadowstep being the utlity skill, steal/swipe, or Shortbow 5 are literally our only mobility skills, not to mention that switching to shortbow we're earing trying to seek someone out that's in stealth or trying to gtfo and most of the time its the latter option. I can't understand why this would be something to complain about seeing as how most of the classes can catch up with the same ease except maybe guardian and necromancer (I don't know if war or engi has a shadowstep or not sorry). 

 

Another problem I frequently see get mentioned over the years is how broken thief stealth is. Everyone wants to think of counters and nerfs that would benefit their own classes but never think of how they'd fix up thief so they'd have a way to fight "brawler style" which they can't actually do. Daredevil staff is very predictable, unless you have quickness, 7 times out of 10 you're going to miss that vault (wish they'd do something good for PvP staff, no one plays it anymore). Most people drop aoe's on our smoke field or AA on top of it which is the correct way to do that and I wish people would see that more cause its literally an actual counter that works, people throwing projectiles in random directions, spinning your character so the thief misses the backstab multiplier, not some kitten like "blight".

 

Thief is one squishy kitten class that only has high damage in small bursts (unless they play marauder then its the other way around), stealth, and mobility. It literally brings nothing else to the table I believe, correct me if i'm wrong. I can't understand why a person would feel resentment towards a class that literally has to flee to survive because they can't fight against your one trick pony/bunker build/high condi pressure class and I've been seeing this same anger for years on this forum, the subreddit, and in-game. I know the problems I brought up aren't ALL of them but they're just the main ones I see alot.

 

Also rework trapper runes, those darn trapper builds... 🙂

[wusekwurz.9712]

I like my thief and I like it with some tears 🙃 they bring out the flavour so much. This is somethibg thats not specific to gw2, i wouldnt worry about it.

Edited September 3, 2021 by wusekwurz.9712

[Jumpel.3972]

Rule number 1 : Always Thief fault

[Salvatore.3749]

LOL. I remember when a PUG member in PvP got mad at me for not capping or roaming enough, except I capped the entire time and he died 12 times (12x5=60) and gave 60 points to the other team lol. It was my fault for not capping enough. He wasn't only one dying, the druid also died 6 times (6x5=30) and gave the other team 30 points. So that right there was 90 points. I had to jump in and +1 fight to cover ground. As soon as I did it, BAM, "No thief, just cap! You'll get us killed", mind you we had all 3 caps. The druid then chimed in too. Mind you, we lost by 90 points and it was my fault the entire time lol. I didn't die at all that whole round and got 7 kills. 

It's not thief player's fault, or ANET's fault, it's the fact that GW2 has become so big that there are too many people to please and too many people feel entitled to tell others how to play their classes and the devs how to modify classes they don't like. I think it's out of frustration that other players act this way. I know its a sweeping generalization, but it's true to a high degree with how thief (and even mesmer) is perceived in the community.  

The two classes that were OP at launch were thief and mesmer. Coincidently, these are two of the most complex classes to play in the game. The mechanics they have are unique and when utilized skillfully, other players complained. For instance, 1v1ing a roaming mesmer at launch was near impossible. I remember when you could be a mesmer and easily take on a ranger, guardian, and warrior solely because of confusion. Same with condi core thief with dual pistols and ricochet trait and thieves guild burst with venoms. It was instant death for so many other players. Naturally, people complained, and the most complaining happened right after GW2 went free to play as more players came aboard. 

Overtime, the easier professions to play suffered less nerfs and became stronger and central to many functions in the game i.e. Necro, Warrior, and Guardian for all group play events simply because more players played them and learned to counter them.

 

[Tails.9372]

3 hours ago, Krynji.5130 said:

and it's always something that has to do with their mobility and stealth

 

Which are not even two things that are inherent to thief. P/P DE for example doesn't have any outstanding amount of mobility and even sheath is something you specifically have to build for in order for it to amount to anything yet this build still has to deal with all the negatives that are usually justified with "but mobility and sheath tho" which just shows a big flaw in class design. Either every build is oozing these things by default or it's build dependent in which case the builds that don't feature them shouldn't be burdened by the negatives A-Net wants to associate with them.

 

 

3 hours ago, Krynji.5130 said:

idk if raids & fractals count as competitive, I don't PvE as much sorry

 

That depends on whether or not you include the chat but the ability to fight the mobs head on over an extended period of time is generally more important for PvE than "mobility and stealth".

Edited September 3, 2021 by Tails.9372

[shrew.3059]

My suspicion is that the stealth-mobility combination allows moderately skilled players to frustrate low-skill players in a way that’s hard for them to immediately understand. To counter/play Stealth, you need to get the mechanics and tactical positioning, but that’s a lot of work for someone specced into Forum Whinging.

 

Moreover, complaints from vocal, low-skill players regarding damage or sustain are probably split between all classes that kill them, whereas complaints about being unable to counter stealth are going to be piled on one profession.

[Zacchary.6183]

When the game first launched, they did have a legitimate reason to complain. Backstab was instagib, ~30k+ on zerk vs zerk. After a series of nerfs, Thief went from d/d non-instagib to d/p +1 decap bot. At the same time, complaints changed from actually getting killed from stealth to "teef ran away from me". The problem now is players think they are entitled to kills.

You'll get used to it though.

Edited September 28, 2021 by Zacchary.6183

[Cynz.9437]

On 9/4/2021 at 4:18 PM, shrew.3059 said:

My suspicion is that the stealth-mobility combination allows moderately skilled players to frustrate low-skill players in a way that’s hard for them to immediately understand. To counter/play Stealth, you need to get the mechanics and tactical positioning, but that’s a lot of work for someone specced into Forum Whinging.

 

Moreover, complaints from vocal, low-skill players regarding damage or sustain are probably split between all classes that kill them, whereas complaints about being unable to counter stealth are going to be piled on one profession.

 

Pretty much this. I got reported quite few times for supposedly hacking because i used shadowstep on vertical terrain (e.g. clocktower) and some stealth. Why is it ok for mesmers, guards, revs, necros, eles do it but not for thieves is beyond me.

 

Also, what Zach said, somehow players think they are entitled to kills and expect thieves to fight like warrior toe-to-toe w/o thief having tools for it (because when thieves COULD in fact do it those builds got nerfed pretty fast because Anet doesn't want thieves to be able to duel/be a point holder, at least based on their balancing decisions).

 

In PVE thieves got coals for most part. Anything thief can do other classes can do better and bring more utility on top of it. I had more success getting spot in raids/fractals as mesmer/guard respectively than as thief. For many years. Getting spot as a thief in raid group is sometimes close to lottery win, especially since they nerfed plasma. Usually people will just ask if you have anything else (outside of Quadim maybe).

Idk how it is now in WOW but when i played it rogues did not bring much utility to raid either but they had REALLY good damage so it was common to have couple of them in the group.

Some will say, "bs, you can raid no problem with thief", sure you can, doesn't change the fact that it is not necessary optimal choice and that many groups prefer something else and you would never face such struggles as mesmer/guard.

Edited September 6, 2021 by Cynz.9437

[shrew.3059]

1 hour ago, Cynz.9437 said:

Also, what Zach said, somehow players think they are entitled to kills and expect thieves to fight like warrior toe-to-toe w/o thief having tools for it

 

Agreed with everything you said, but to address the above specifically: some players feel like “Thieves don’t fight fair”, which I translate as “Thieves deny me the opportunity to cycle through the rotations I’ve watched on YouTube”. Playing a Thief means improvising, and fighting one requires the same.

[Hotride.2187]

I've dueled thieves a lot in wvw the last 2-3 months. Prior to that I had 0 respect for the players, thinking their class is broken (in fact I came to the forum to read on what to do about thieves).

I have a lot of respect for good thief players now though (even the ones with a bad personality). The difference between a good thief and an average one is night and day (not to mention a bad one). Yes, the class is strong in 1v1, even in 2v1 or 3v1 (in the wvw setting anyway) if played well. But one misstep and half their HP is gone. Another misstep and they are down.

And honestly they can do nothing else other than that 1v1 in wvw. They have no place in zergs, they don't contribute much in even small scale group fights (e.g. see what happens when they get in melee of an enemy condi bunker group). Their only real place (where they are highly valuable) seems to be spvp. I dunno about raids but in fractals there are almost 0 thieves.

I'm fine with a profession being able to do 1 thing very well.

Edited September 6, 2021 by Hotride.2187

[shrew.3059]

55 minutes ago, Hotride.2187 said:

I'm fine with a profession being able to do 1 thing very well.

 

I think a lot of Thieves (myself included) are not fine with only being able to do one thing really well in a game where other professions enjoy options across multiple game modes. It basically means that if you want to play Thief, you want to sPvP. If you want to play Thief in any other mode, well… don’t? This seems like poor design rather than an intentional goal.

[ShadowInTheVoid.9183]

I play thief as main including PVP and i've fought against plenty of thieves too.
Fighting against thieves using stealth is annoying because you have to retarget all the time not because of the stealth itself.

It does upset some people when a thief stealth and runs rather then dying but they're then having to regen health before they can attack somebody else anyway (in alot of cases they would be better of dying and respawning anyway) and given that it does take some skill and there is DPS trade off I don't see any issue there.

Also yeah, too many people who don't want to cap and all just suicide rush mid but call out a thief for defending near and far despite them being able win duals.

There is a few really toxic people out there that need to reminded that if they don't want to play with people of your rank they should get good enough that they stop getting put in matches with you (or just block them because your not missing much)

[Chips.7968]

The hate is easy to understand for me - and a single profession forum to hear complaints about across several game modes doesn't help; different scenarios/circumstances never clarified.  Anyway - for me, in a WvW setting, two things.  

 

It's a heck of a lot harder for other classes to go "wait, this isn't going to plan, lets try again..." - disengage and come back with 100% health again. Especially true when fighting against a thief. Against other classes they've got a better chance (although there are now some remarkably great kiting/disengaging class builds out there). So thief suffers the negative here twice, they can disengage easier, and they make it harder for opposition to disengage when otherwise they could.

 

So that's the mobility nerf crying brigade. 

 

The other is likely just the "I can't see the opposition..." and I'd agree, hiding in stealth endlessly so they're having to dodge bursts is annoying.

 

There is another factor that is never admitted. There are some great thieves out there and some may meet them and think it's just OP thief with all the benefits. No, some are just *that* good despite how good you think you are, that they'll rinse you.

 

Thief used to be a class that players actively avoided years ago - if they saw one they WP, ran away, or looked for more people for cover. These days it's nearly a universal "engage the thief..." - so they expect to win. If they don't... they probably come and post about thief being OP. Perhaps they were just outplayed.  

 

 

 

Edited September 6, 2021 by Chips.7968

[MrForz.1953]

2 hours ago, shrew.3059 said:

 

I think a lot of Thieves (myself included) are not fine with only being able to do one thing really well in a game where other professions enjoy options across multiple game modes. It basically means that if you want to play Thief, you want to sPvP. If you want to play Thief in any other mode, well… don’t? This seems like poor design rather than an intentional goal.

Sadly, many thieves would rather step on a couple of legos than give up the one thing they do too well in exchange of doing fairly well across more game modes. There's also that one morbid mentality of extracting salt daily in one game mode that favors the class and reveling in being a victim in another game mode, which would then justify the former salt extraction.

[Tails.9372]

3 hours ago, MrForz.1953 said:

Sadly, many thieves would rather step on a couple of legos than give up the one thing they do too well in exchange of doing fairly well across more game modes.

 

Some builds already do that and they still get nothing but nerfs in return.

[omega.3758]

This is why I advocate for the thief class to be completely redone. As long as we have stealth + mobility the 'casual' majority will cry wolf and Anet will keep the nerf hammer ready. For god sake if you miss an attack in stealth they put a COOLDOWN on your attack skill so that you CAN'T attack again while you are in stealth. WHAT OTHER GAME DOES THIS. It's like your a little kid and your mom is behind your shoulder watching you to make sure you don't play too good or you will hurt the other kids feelings and make them cry. 

 

We are clearly outnumbered by the MUCH MUCH LARGER 'casual' majority. Like they say if you can't beat them then join them. Remake the entire class to remove stealth and mobility and make it like the much easier brain dead classes with low skill ceiling. Make us into a shadowmancer instead of using stealth we use shadow magic. Kind of like a guardian but with shadow skill. An specialization could be shadow knight that cloaks us in a suit of shadowy armor. We then gain sick shadow attacks that look cool but mechanically work the same as a warrior. We can also become for another specialization nocturns which are like a druid but using Night magic to buff other allies. We can conjure moons or stars that will buff ourselves and allies in a given area. 

 

I call for a complete redesign of the thief cause thief as it is right now is unplayable. We have been nerf to holy hell where 1 to 2 mistakes mean your immediate death, and the only thing we can reliably do is roam as scouts in WvW and decap in sPvP.  

 

Basically make thief to be the same as the main character of Solo Leveling Sung Jinwoo.

Edited September 6, 2021 by omega.3758

[shrew.3059]

For me this comes down to a couple things:

 

1. If Thieves were generally overpowered, they would be one if the most played professions. Instead, they are one of the least played. Fantasy plays a role; people would play the standard RPG classes regardless of balance, which should cover the Thief/Rogue, yet it doesn’t.

 

2. The things Necros, Elementalists, Revenants, and Guardians are capable of across game modes are just not achievable by most Thief players. They are likely not achievable at all. That’s not to say these professions should be nerfed, it’s just notable that they have options for damage and survivability that Thieves don’t have and cannot build for.

 

TDLR: People hate Thieves but if Thieves deserved that hate, people would just make a Thief. Outside of sPvP, Thieves just aren’t very good. That dedicated and skilled players can do great things with them, but those players are swimming upstream.

[Telgum.6071]

Because thief can be annoying to fight. Daredevil has lots of dodges, deadeye has no counterplay (projectile hate don't last long) on plain field and condi p/d is just OP.

There are other classes annoying to play against, like Mesmer with all those clones, Elementalist being unkillable or Core Necro. But Thief is the only one that controls the flow of the battle by default, + stealth + high damage + high survivability. Also you find more roaming thieves than mesmers and core necros. Which is normal, if I want a safe travel to the enemy north camp in WvW thief is just the best option, no matter how many enemies I face, I will never die and I can disengage at will.

Not saying that Thief is OP (apart from Condi p/d) or deserves nerfs, just trying to point why I think thief receives so much hate. IMO, Celestial or Trailblazer elementalist is worse.

Edited September 7, 2021 by Telgum.6071

[shrew.3059]

3 minutes ago, Telgum.6071 said:

Also you find more roaming thieves than mesmers and core necros. Which is normal, if I want a safe travel to the enemy north camp in WvW thief is just the best option, no matter how many enemies I face, I will never die and I can disengage at will.

 

But consider what this means in practice: Thief is a great choice if you want map mobility. In the context of current WvW, that’s pretty underwhelming since on its own it doesn’t really contribute to the meta. Maybe that’s a problem with the meta, but unfettered map mobility isn’t on par with providing Stab to a boonball, for example.

[Telgum.6071]

2 hours ago, shrew.3059 said:

 

But consider what this means in practice: Thief is a great choice if you want map mobility. In the context of current WvW, that’s pretty underwhelming since on its own it doesn’t really contribute to the meta. Maybe that’s a problem with the meta, but unfettered map mobility isn’t on par with providing Stab to a boonball, for example.

Yeah I agree, you don't have to convince me about how bad thief is on group content compared with other classes. Just wanted to share why I think people dislike Thief according to what I've been reading on this forum and ingame.

Although to be honest, I don't think thief is that bad, I just hope we get some more group utility with the third specialization, rather than another dps spec like the two previous ones.

Edited September 7, 2021 by Telgum.6071

[shrew.3059]

1 hour ago, Telgum.6071 said:

Although to be honest, I don't think thief is that bad, I just hope we get some more group utility with the third specialization, rather than another dps spec like the two previous ones.

 

Exactly. Most of the time I enjoy my Thief, but then I see what other professions are capable of doing for groups, and I understand why they are more sought after. And that’s on top of all the things those professions can do solo. I wouldn’t even mind having to work hard for the additional group utility (e.g., Elementalist attunement swapping).

[Salvatore.3749]

 

23 hours ago, Chips.7968 said:

Thief used to be a class that players actively avoided years ago - if they saw one they WP, ran away, or looked for more people for cover. These days it's nearly a universal "engage the thief..." - so they expect to win. If they don't... they probably come and post about thief being OP. Perhaps they were just outplayed.  

Like the Uchiha clan LOL

[Goettel.4389]

Just block and move on, no need for fright.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I remember a thread about this in the past... it turned into a whole hullabaloo where I ended up hijacking the thread for controversial opinions.  

 

The short version is this: Thieves have the threatening combination of being invisible, bursty, and very mobile.  Having these three traits together makes them very hard to balance, since they're essentially a specter that could be anywhere, is nigh impossible to hit or catch, and can gib you almost instantly.  Though the damage as of late has been nerfed substantially to avoid instant kills, it still isn't very fun to fight against a foe that disappears constantly and are hard to catch.  People at least like the illusion of being able to fight back, and the thief robs them of this.

 

IMO it is one of the biggest design flubs that Anet made with GW2.  I've never seen a PVP game throw out so much invisibility.  All of the other MMOs I know have a non-binary stealth system, or they have it so once invisibility is gone it stays gone for the rest of the fight.  Re-stealthing yourself in a fight is rare, and tied to one or two skills at most.

 

The counter-balancing solution to removing their invisibility is pretty simple: make them better at debuffing.  Make slow, weakness, poison, and boon removal more prominent in their toolkits.  Right now those (well, except poison) are relegated to a few select skills with short durations.  That 11k health is a lot harder to get through if you can't maintain stacks of fury/might and permanently suffer weakness.  

Edited September 8, 2021 by Blood Red Arachnid.2493

[shrew.3059]

1 hour ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

I remember a thread about this in the past... it turned into a whole hullabaloo where I ended up hijacking the thread for controversial opinions.  

 

The short version is this: Thieves have the threatening combination of being invisible, bursty, and very mobile.  Having these three traits together makes them very hard to balance, since they're essentially a specter that could be anywhere, is nigh impossible to hit or catch, and can gib you almost instantly.  Though the damage as of late has been nerfed substantially to avoid instant kills, it still isn't very fun to fight against a foe that disappears constantly and are hard to catch.  People at least like the illusion of being able to fight back, and the thief robs them of this.

 

IMO it is one of the biggest design flubs that Anet made with GW2.  I've never seen a PVP game throw out so much invisibility.  All of the other MMOs I know have a non-binary stealth system, or they have it so once invisibility is gone it stays gone for the rest of the fight.  Re-stealthing yourself in a fight is rare, and tied to one or two skills at most.

 

The counter-balancing solution to removing their invisibility is pretty simple: make them better at debuffing.  Make slow, weakness, poison, and boon removal more prominent in their toolkits.  Right now those (well, except poison) are relegated to a few select skills with short durations.  That 11k health is a lot harder to get through if you can't maintain stack fury/might and permanently suffer weakness.  

 

But here’s what I don’t get: if Thieves are so frightening and overpowered, why isn’t everyone rolling a Thief? We see multiple Necro matches, but it’s not like we see this for Thieves. Thieves aren’t dominating sPvP even if they play a critical role strategically. In fact, the most critical task a Thief can play depends on them having a good understanding of the map and the matchup, neither or which you could really call “frightening”.