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

[delriaan.7854]

On 9/30/2021 at 3:40 PM, Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

Actually... Thieves do have a strong contribution to zergs.

 

DD Staff are extremely good at overextending dps. Meaning if you have ever done zerg vs zerg combat most of the times they are just masses spamming abilities onto one another at range. And very rarely is it in melee outside of one side collapsing into a loss already. Because this behavior has so little micromanaging for Commanders, zerg structures tends to be very inflexible with no room for oddities or distractions. Even if the commander is good at micromanaging - this still puts a strain on the opposing zerg as individual players aren't exactly reliable.

 

Where thief comes in, is they get into the middle or backline of the opposing zerg and lay on some serious damage that outruns the healing fields that they are placing (which is softened by the aoe spam from your zerg). If the players ignore the thief, they will start having people get dropped pretty dang quickly. If they try to kill the thief (who's actually stupidly hard to kill) then they are getting distracted from their roles in the zergs and the lack of dedicated resources causes the zerg to collapse quickly.

Because the abilities that the DD will be using are all combo finishers, and there's bound to be combo fields, the thief actually gets a large number of auras, boons, and useful effects that helps keep them alive.

A squad of 3-4 thieves with dual staves can actually cause a zerg to collapse in less than a minute.

Short-bow skills 1,2, and 4 are also good at adding pressure to enemy groups:

1. Trick Shot can damage unseen enemies (e.g., to the side of an open gate)
2. Cluster Bomb has decent damage when bursting close to an area 
3. Choking Gas is great for reducing passive healing and interrupting the flow of combat/movement

I think a worthwhile consideration regarding group play with Thief is to take an "attack of opportunity" mindset and find ways to leverage stealth and mobility to benefit the group.  Death by a thousand papercuts still equals dead.  At least, that's the way I play the profession.

[Graeaw.6329]

3 hours ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

Thief deserves all the hate because it's dictated the meta since gw2 alpha.

As someone who mostly plays WvW and PvE, I'd love to have some of that Thief dictated meta.

[saerni.2584]

I am the meta. Even when I'm not. 

[HowlKamui.5120]

True I get the most hate when roaming on a thief as opposed to my mirage, which is waaay more obnoxious to fight against imo. At least, with the builds im running.

 

It's like, people see the thief icon and they automatically get on a mindset... I don't really mind though. Just an observation I have.

[Keitaro Dragonheart.9047]

22 hours ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

Thief deserves all the hate because it's dictated the meta since gw2 alpha.

 

[Burial.1958]

On 10/9/2021 at 7:24 PM, Shiyo.3578 said:

Thief deserves all the hate because it's dictated the meta since gw2 alpha.

ye ye thief is the non plus ultra class in all modes.

[Gatvin.6510]

On 10/9/2021 at 3:47 PM, delriaan.7854 said:

Short-bow skills 1,2, and 4 are also good at adding pressure to enemy groups:

1. Trick Shot can damage unseen enemies (e.g., to the side of an open gate)
2. Cluster Bomb has decent damage when bursting close to an area 
3. Choking Gas is great for reducing passive healing and interrupting the flow of combat/movement

I think a worthwhile consideration regarding group play with Thief is to take an "attack of opportunity" mindset and find ways to leverage stealth and mobility to benefit the group.  Death by a thousand papercuts still equals dead.  At least, that's the way I play the profession.

I do like thinking about small edges and how I can use them to win, and stuff like this is a great example of that. It doesn't change the fact that ultimately other classes can generally do anything the thief can do better. Sure we can attack around corners with trick shot. Rangers can just send their pet in. Ranged Aoe damage effects also do this quite readily, and thief has very few of these.

 

I came back recently after a year off, and the choking gas nerf is ridiculous. Its somewhat needed because shortbow is (still) one of thief's most versatile weapons, but it was also the thief's only real persistent zone control. I'm glad we got seal area, but it requires a lot of setup to be good and uses a very precious utility slot. Unlike other classes, our "F" skills are mostly offensive in nature. Steal ports us to our opponent's position, which means we're going to use our utility skills to survive the blender we're jumping into. Seal area isn't fast enough to work into that plan so I can basically only run it if I'm sitting pretty in a friendly zerg. At that point, I might as well just play a Dragonhunter, since my traps will be faster, I will be tankier, my range will be higher, and I even get better aoe disruption with the light-cage attack. It even comes with a built-in scorpion wire on the F skills.

[Twilight Tempest.7584]

To the OP's point, I consistently find lone thieves in WvW being on the receiving end of corpse jumps and tossed siege (literal hate) more than any other class, even when they managed to hang on for days severely outnumbered by being brilliantly wiley.

 

It's like a hunting party finally catching a fox and then spitting on it for daring to outfox them.

[Teratus.2859]

It's because thieves having so much mobility and stealth access function almost entirely as a troll, harasser class.

Even if a thief can't kill you they can keep pecking at you constantly running away and resetting the fight every time you gain the advantage resulting in people constantly having to deal with annoying troll builds that exist purely to waste their time and kitten them off.

The entire class is held back because of these mechanics too, thief players constantly demand improvements to damage etc and call thieves underpowered and they are correct about that.

But so long as thieves have the ability to harass as exceptionally well as they do via their mobility and stealth you can never have the upgrades required to make them exceptional duelists.. it would make the class straight up broken.

I would gladly see serious nerfs to stealth in combat given to thieves in exchange for the class getting a serious power boost to make them deadly in duels, but many thief players in the past have harshly rejected such suggestions.
Truth is a lot of thief players enjoy playing the troll who exists just annoy other people.. and so long as that's a thing the thief will always be little more than an annoying troll class that everyone hates on.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

22 minutes ago, Twilight Tempest.7584 said:

To the OP's point, I consistently find lone thieves in WvW being on the receiving end of corpse jumps and tossed siege (literal hate) more than any other class, even when they managed to hang on for days severely outnumbered by being brilliantly wiley.

 

It's like a hunting party finally catching a fox and then spitting on it for daring to outfox them.

For every one thief these players catch, they're probably getting nuked by a dozen+ for not having object permanence. 

It's not warranted, but its a hallmark of people who have had their egos bruised.

Edited October 12, 2021 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Tails.9372]

1 hour ago, Teratus.2859 said:

so long as that's a thing the thief will always be little more than an annoying troll class that everyone hates on

Even if that's not a thing people would just find something else to complain about in order to justify their nerf requests. Been there, done that.

[kash.9213]

1 hour ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

For every one thief these players catch, they're probably getting nuked by a dozen+ for not having object permanence. 

It's not warranted, but its a hallmark of people who have had their egos bruised.

It's not exactly object permanence.

If they're not building to catch a thief, but also not building for other stuff, what are they building for?

[Zacchary.6183]

20 minutes ago, kash.9213 said:

what are they building for?

Autoattack PEWPEW

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

2 hours ago, kash.9213 said:

It's not exactly object permanence.

If they're not building to catch a thief, but also not building for other stuff, what are they building for?

PvD

PvD

[Twilight Tempest.7584]

3 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

For every one thief these players catch, they're probably getting nuked by a dozen+ for not having object permanence. 

It's not warranted, but its a hallmark of people who have had their egos bruised.

Yeah I understand the sentiment, even if it's no excuse for BM.  Thieves' annoying factor can be level 9000 and the urge to say "hah!" if you finally pin them down is strong.

It's less understandable when the thief is playing passively, and merely trying to run away from a gank group that gets the better of them.  Bragging in those scenarios makes me question whether people can count or otherwise have any sense of fairness.

[ASP.8093]

5 hours ago, Twilight Tempest.7584 said:

To the OP's point, I consistently find lone thieves in WvW being on the receiving end of corpse jumps and tossed siege (literal hate) more than any other class, even when they managed to hang on for days severely outnumbered by being brilliantly wiley.

 

It's like a hunting party finally catching a fox and then spitting on it for daring to outfox them.

I mean, I gotta be honest, a lot of the fun I have in WvW is when people get a bad case of "hunting party" brain and then I kill them because they're not thinking about their actions anymore. 🦊

(I don't actually like the "repeated poking" thing as thief. If I see a player or small group my goal is to get whatever kills I can in 30-90 seconds and then move on.)

[shrew.3059]

13 hours ago, Teratus.2859 said:

Truth is a lot of thief players enjoy playing the troll who exists just annoy other people

 

If someone poking you and running away is the worst thing that happens to you in WvW, you’re probably having a good day.

 

Has the bar for “trolling” dropped so low that this constitutes harassment, like somehow it would be more polite if they outright killed you or were easier to kill? Is repeated disengagement annoying, probably, but trolling? If they could kill you but didn’t, that would qualify, but are there a lot of Thieves purposely not killing their targets for fun?

[Teratus.2859]

1 hour ago, shrew.3059 said:

 

If someone poking you and running away is the worst thing that happens to you in WvW, you’re probably having a good day.

 

Has the bar for “trolling” dropped so low that this constitutes harassment, like somehow it would be more polite if they outright killed you or were easier to kill? Is repeated disengagement annoying, probably, but trolling? If they could kill you but didn’t, that would qualify, but are there a lot of Thieves purposely not killing their targets for fun?

Not so much poking and running away.

It's the constant denial of a kill that you earned several times over and repeatedly being locked into combat with someone you don't want to fight because you know they will just run away every time you get close to killing them thus every single fight with them constitutes as a total waste of your time for someone else's amusement.

One of the definition's of harassment is tormenting someone via persistent attacks.
Another is continued unwanted and annoying actions by an individual or party. 
There are more that apply to this situation as well.
So yes this tactic that thief players employ is by multiple definitions a form of harassment.. and the class is designed for that kind of playstyle which is largely why so many hate fighting against thieves in the first place.

Harassment is a grossly overused and often misused word these days and it's thrown around far too casually so I can understand why you'd feel it inappropriate or an extreme word to use here.
Nevertheless it is the appropriate word to describe how many thieves fight.

Edited October 13, 2021 by Teratus.2859

[shrew.3059]

22 minutes ago, Teratus.2859 said:

Not so much poking and running away.

It's the constant denial of a kill that you earned several times over and repeatedly being locked into combat with someone you don't want to fight because you know they will just run away every time you get close to killing them thus every single fight with them constitutes as a total waste of your time for someone else's amusement.

One of the definition's of harassment is tormenting someone via persistent attacks.
Another is continued unwanted and annoying actions by an individual or party. 
There are more that apply to this situation as well.
So yes this tactic that thief players employ is by multiple definitions a form of harassment.. and the class is designed for that kind of playstyle which is largely why so many hate fighting against thieves in the first place.

Harassment is a grossly overused and often misused word these days and it's thrown around far too casually so I can understand why you'd feel it inappropriate or an extreme word to use here.
Nevertheless it is the appropriate word to describe how many thieves fight.

 

I think it’s appropriate in the way you describe it, that is “harassment” in the tactical sense. The question is whether that amounts to “harassment” in the psychosocial sense. ANet has a duty to reduce or mitigate the latter, whereas it seems they’ve designed Thieves to be masters of the former. It could be that the potential conflation of the two is reason enough to redesign the profession, but being denied kills and being forced into unwanted combat in WvW seem to me like legitimate consequences for stepping onto the field.

[Tails.9372]

20 minutes ago, Teratus.2859 said:

It's the constant denial of a kill that you earned several times over

Well it's debatable how "earned" a kill against an (in terms of class based fighting strength) objectively weaker opponent really is. It's more that they're mad because they didn't get the kill they feel entitled to.

21 minutes ago, Teratus.2859 said:

Nevertheless it is the appropriate word to describe how many thieves fight.

It is also the way A-Net wants them to fight as the developers seem to be quite adamant about pushing thief into these niche rolls and the point here is that if the roamer can keep the other player(s) busy than he / they wont be able to go for the objective so at least in theory it does serve to help the team however there are several major issues with it and the game doesn't even acknowledge this as contribution if the thief doesn't get a kill.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

2 minutes ago, Teratus.2859 said:

Not so much poking and running away.

It's the constant denial of a kill that you earned several times over and repeatedly being locked into combat with someone you don't want to fight because you know they will just run away every time you get close to killing them thus every single fight with them constitutes as a total waste of your time for someone else's amusement.

The definition's of harassment is tormenting someone via persistent attacks.
So yes this tactic that thief players employ is by the very definition a form of harassment.. and the class is designed for that kind of playstyle which is why so many hate fighting against thieves.

Harassment is a grossly overused and often misused word these days thanks to certain internet communities etc so I can understand why you'd feel it inappropriate or an extreme word to use here but regardless it is the appropriate word to describe how many thieves fight.

I don't mean to be rude here, but this is totally the wrong mindset for WvW. 

 

You're not entitled to a kill. You didn't earn the kill if he got away. You don't earn the kill on an ele if you fail to stop them running to a tower, and you don't earn the kill by downing someone 1v2 and then failing to stomp. You earn the kill only when they are dead, anything else is stopping short. This applies just as much to the thief as to his target. 

 

Harassment by definition is not just unwanted and persistent attacks but it also has some aspect of illegality to it, either through breaking a rule or denying someone their rights.

You agreed to be a target for anyone not on your team when you entered a WvW map, just like the thief did.

You're not entitled to your personal space inside your objectives in WvW.

You're not entitled to go about your business without someone trying to stop you in WvW.

You don't have the right to run to your group without fear of attack in WvW.

You're not entitled to not be sieged, jumped on or laughed at when you die, even though I consider that poor sportsmanship and I don't do it personally. 

About the only thing that I'd consider that DOES come under the term harassment is salty/rage whispers, because that's deliberately circumventing the system to do something you're not supposed to do and it's done specifically in order to grief someone. So if you whisper me you can expect a block after I finally stop laughing at you. Every other form of behaviour that the thief or any other roamer may exhibit is in fact in line with the rules of the game, rules that you agreed to when you entered the map. 

 

So yeah, feel free to siege me and dance on my corpse if you want to. Just don't be surprised if you get hunted for the next few hours, because those are the rules that we all agreed to. 

[Geoff Fey.1035]

Thieves will still probably get this level of hate even with the elite specs adding mobility (Harbinger/Willbender) or spikes (Virtuoso/Bladesworn).

It's not necessarily power that Thieves need, but survivability. As posted previously, a thief survives via 3 ways:

1. Stealth - Primary damage is locked behind this "defense" and used to set up/break off engagements
2. Movement - Primarily for disengaging but also repositioning and harassing locations tactically
3. Evades - To avoid damage and apply pressure via traits

If there was going to be a nerf to one, you'd either need to A) buff one of the other 2 defenses or B) add a 4th type of defense.

Buffing Movement would cause excruciating levels of complaints. This is because movement can be used to disengage, engage, and reach capture points. Increasing that ability would make Thieves nigh impossible to catch compared to how they are now. We already see how disgusting fighting a Mesmer (Mirage) is with the endless number of dodges, evade frames, and invulnerability that they have access to; could you imagine non-Daredevil thieves having access to that level of evades? Actual Daredevils would just be permanently dodging.

4th Type of Defense would mean that now a Thief has access to 4 different types of defense which is frankly far too much unless you did a blanket nerf of all 3 types of defense which would be overkill. Thieves are built around the idea of being "hard to catch", thus all 3 of their current defenses make thematic sense. It's sort of a 3 legged stool idea with a ball on top. You can't change any of 3 without the ball falling off (unbalanced).

The best solution I can provide for people having trouble fighting Thieves is to tailor an aspect of their build to specifically fight Thieves. Different professions can perma-immobilize, reveal, stack on layers of burning/torment, fear-lock, etc. Yes, you may have trouble against other builds or trying to take camps/towers/keeps with that, but that's the nature of the game.

There is no build that is 100% effective against every single profession/build. Most builds that are designed to handle "general" fights (camps, 1 or 2 roamers, etc) completely fall flat vs. a Thief that dumped all of their defenses into mobility/stealth.

[Graeaw.6329]

1 hour ago, Teratus.2859 said:

It's the constant denial of a kill that you earned several times over

Yeah man, I mean it's so annoying when I go through the trouble of separating someone from their zerg, dismounting them, downing them, only to be forced to disengage because some white-knight buddy comes to their help before I could claim the kill.

I earned it !!!

[MrForz.1953]

1 hour ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

The best solution I can provide for people having trouble fighting Thieves is to tailor an aspect of their build to specifically fight Thieves. Different professions can perma-immobilize, reveal, stack on layers of burning/torment, fear-lock, etc.

 

That about sums it up. The outcome of my encounters against decent Daredevils with the D/P training wheels build comes down to whether I successfully switched templates to Tools with Lock On + Goggles or not before the fight starts. It's unfair either way, to me or them.

Though... from my own Thief's perspective if I'm to expect reveals or potential reveals I'm simply not going to fight until Shadow Step and weapon swapping to Shortbow are available. It's costly, but it's safe.

Now one of the more sensible questions would be whether WvWvW should have balancing attempts all the way down to 1vs1s if classes and specs are to serve different functions. Because right now these duels and small scale fights... they don't matter much, if at all.

Edited October 13, 2021 by MrForz.1953
I really can't spell.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

1 hour ago, MrForz.1953 said:

I'm simply not going to fight until Shadow Step and weapon swapping to Shortbow are available. It's costly, but it's safe.

Every second you have to waste is more added to your team's complaints and your ineffectiveness. That's just a fact. That's the price you pay as a thief. 

You don't have to kill a thief to render them ineffective - which, apparently, is the point that triggers most players.