Let me get this straight

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

Thief is pretty countered by boon spam in both competitive game modes, has to slot in glassy stats in order to deal meaningful damage, lacks the 5-second blocks and (nigh') instaneous evade frames that other classes have on weapon skills AND (non-elite) utility - on low cooldown - and has, on average, weaker utility skills to compensate for the initiative system.

Meanwhile, glasses like ranger, warrior, engineer and revenant can go mix in tankier stats without losing out on much damage (hello, WvW soulbeast and nades engi), have all of the aforementioned + reflects, superior sustain, and mobility that's - yes - comparable to thief's. 

Why are people complaining? I do not understand. There are far more toxic builds in this game than SA thief.

[Zacchary.6183]

Because players want free kills.

EDIT: Btw, they could easily figure out how to beat thief if they would just play one. Most other professions have enough in their toolkit to take a thief out or repel them without much effort. But this mentality that if the thief bolts that they should have died instead is whats really powering the hatred.

Edited February 20, 2022 by Zacchary.6183

[Tails.9372]

1 hour ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

Why are people complaining?

If I were to make a guess I'd say it's copium. They don't want to admit defeat to another player so if they loose they surely just lost because the thing they were fighting against was op and not because their opponent just happend to be a better player (so basically this).

The fact that "easy to use" (for the average player) builds like P/P are not viable options is another issue because it elevates the average skill level of players who pick up (and stick with) thief which further blurs their perception of the class.

And last but not least the fact that A-Net has a history of actually acting on their demands instead of telling them to get better at the game is another issue that makes them feel validated in their claims.

Edited February 20, 2022 by Tails.9372

[SoulSin.5682]

19 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

If I were to make a guess I'd say it's copium. They don't want to admit defeat to another player 

 

 

They don't wanna accept that their free kill has ran away.

 

Thieves barely kill anything nowadays unless a huge disparity in skill level is involved.

[Downstate.4697]

SA thief helped make the meta what it is. Its the safest +1 with the best mobility and shut out a lot of the less tanky side noders. Their arent enough counter play options that are organically available to deal with stealth and pulsing blinds. Anet is pretty short sited in that regard. Simply providing more  counterplay would fix this. I do think thief suffers from the same thing warrior does. It only has 1 viable build path and they are long over due for trait overhauls and more realistic initiative loss from weapon skills. 

[Puck.3697]

i feel these comments are disengenious at best.

the fact of the matter is:

Among a average Ranked game Thief is never maximised, because thief requires a Team to Operate realistically, but you only have to look at the top 3 Teams monthly AT Wise, to actually see what thief is like maximised. and at those levels it defintly is a major problem.

Thief Forces a Meta, where AFKINg a side node becomes the norm. because sadly due to the fact thief can infinitely escape you cant just simply shut it down, the specc also fails to really have any strong counters to play against it with, outside of just simply also bringing a thief and doing the same thing. ontop of this it forces Side noders to inevitably build tankier which creates boring bunker gameplay on side nodes.

Thief is Responsible for ALot of the unfun builds we see in organised Play because its Simply required you build innately to be able to retain a Point against a Thief and No thieves cant run up and kill easily, but they can effectively make it Really hard for a Side noder to leave the point.

if we had a Monthly AT. Where Worms and Rank 55 were against one another, one ran thief and one didnt, the One who runs thief will win the game, that much is Pretty much Garunteed. hence why u never see these guys run comps that dont involve thief.

Now we could make a Argument having Such a Disparity between Solo queue Ranked gameplay and AT organised teams is Bad for the game and its likely this should be balanced out in another fashion to effectively improve the problems at Ranked level and tone down whats going on among Organised teams (I.E bring up things like acrobatics / crticial strike traits to opt into the More lethal +1ing builds) but we cannot deny the SA D/P Thief Is Not over the top in organised play realistically.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[DeceiverX.8361]

6 hours ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

Thief is pretty countered by boon spam in both competitive game modes, has to slot in glassy stats in order to deal meaningful damage, lacks the 5-second blocks and (nigh') instaneous evade frames that other classes have on weapon skills AND (non-elite) utility - on low cooldown - and has, on average, weaker utility skills to compensate for the initiative system.

Meanwhile, glasses like ranger, warrior, engineer and revenant can go mix in tankier stats without losing out on much damage (hello, WvW soulbeast and nades engi), have all of the aforementioned + reflects, superior sustain, and mobility that's - yes - comparable to thief's. 

Why are people complaining? I do not understand. There are far more toxic builds in this game than SA thief.

Mostly because the class' good builds are just unfun to play against thanks to the pigeonholing here into SA because the offensive lines all suck anyways by virtue of not coming even close to offensive stat parity even when heavily invested, and thanks to the Feb2019 patch, the actual difficulty of playing thief to survive opposing burst is extremely low since it gets so much safety when it fails to play correctly for the takedown.  It's not that it's dominating so much as it's just not dying like every other profession should.

Speaking as a former thief, I'd had fights where I've played literally perfectly against the opposing thief down to repeated perfect-prediction dodging their zero-animation steal combos and interrupting/preventing every major burst and offensive play they make, multi-hitting perfectly into the blinds to land my bursts to keep their hp% lower than mine at all times, and abusing the last frames of no-animation cast to slip every ounce of extra damage and advantage to win.

Like pre-nerf S/x Mirage, they can just decide to leave if the plan fails.  This isn't inherently a problem either, but this is just downright frustrating when there's no actual knowledge of when -or even if - the re-engage will happen.  There's no interactivity; they only die when they downright misplay (and not the fault of any thief players thanks to low profession damage and the incentive for thieves to spec anything but ways which encourage low-interactivity), not if you outplay them.

It's a problem on the design and stat level of both the thief and the rest of the game.  The thief rightfully should have an insane skill ceiling and a low floor as to punish poor performers, but a lot of thief players severely oversell themselves in terms of what skilled play is when it comes to actually being in combat with other players.  If you're getting frame-perfected and losing every single trade in an online game despite having the tools to make for better chip trades on a build designed to make repeated, advantageous trades, you don't deserve such an easy do-over.

Nade engi and longbow ranger are significantly more OP builds themselves - they're easier to **WIN** on.  It's just SA thief is basically impossible to **LOSE** on.  It's whatever in sPvP because the game is about nodes, but in more freeform PvP like WvW, there's no point in playing at all if nobody ends up actually clinching victory.  It's about as satisfying as kiting mobs in OW until the aggro resets - over, and over, and over.

[Mik.3401]

I think fighting SA thieves is just boring and annoying. You end up just standing there and watching them doing their stealth combo each time they get hit couple times. And that way they just sit on you until someone else comes along so they can clap you together.

I mean it’s a fair strategy but kinda wish thieves had builds which have more of rougue/lightweight fighter kind of playstyle.

Sole increasing the thief damage will not make things better, it will just make thieves cancel people like they do to most roamers in PvP etc. If burst is to be bigger then stealth needs to be reduced as well.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

3 hours ago, Mik.3401 said:

You end up just standing there and watching them doing their stealth combo each time they get hit couple times.

I'd imagine a lot less people would actually have issues if they didn't "stand there and watch them do their stealth combo".

 

[Mik.3401]

58 minutes ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

I'd imagine a lot less people would actually have issues if they didn't "stand there and watch them do their stealth combo".

 

We are in the time of the cele/trailblazer meta which is not countered by thief. If one plays other kind of roamer chances are they will get smoked by thief indeed. And I think it kind of makes sense doesn’t it. But regardless the hide and seek gameplay is irritating in either scenario. You just either mitigate getting clapped by investing in defences or go for high risk high reward and end up frustrated. For both the nerfs to stealth utilities are welcome and I’m happy to see them (even though just nerfing the SA traits would be better).

Edited February 21, 2022 by Mik.3401

[Puck.3697]

2 hours ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

I'd imagine a lot less people would actually have issues if they didn't "stand there and watch them do their stealth combo".

 

I feel it's amazing that teapot, ROM, Helseth, rank 55 dragons, Worms and every other person who plays this game at the peak of gameplay can repeatively state thief is insanely strong. 

And players will sit in gold rank screeching their wrong. 

I mean honestly. At what point do you consider you maybe wrong.

I guess it comes down to being bias towards your main proffession, but I am glad Anet are responding to the right people and ignoring this. 

If your not doing ATs  your likely not informed enough to make such a call, as thief needs a team and your more reliant on the team doing its job.

As the large disparity in general ranked due to low playerbase that skill difference, rank difference and inability to queue with more then 2 people will stop alot of things shining. 

So yeah. If your just a ranked spvp queuer your never gonna be aware of the problems thief causes. Because it isn't in ranked queue thief excels. 

Thief is the only part of every AT groups that remains completely identical through and through, maybe consider that. 

If every team in the AT uses a identical build and proffession. Theres likely alot of strength in that build and proffession and just because you can't replicate that doesn't make it less true. 

Edited February 21, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Tails.9372]

People really seem to love to ignore the context of things in order to be dismissive and to fire of some ceap ad hominems.

To be clear what "teapot and some others" criticize has nothing to do with what the OP was talking about. Even if we were to remove most offensive capabilities from thief their issue of "how it forces the meta" would still persist but this doesn't invalidate other criticisms of thiefs comparatively lackluster combat performance and also doesn't justify the calls for nerfs to builds that don't even focus on stealth.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Tails.9372

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

Just gonna say this:

In terms of power, SA thief without D/P <<< SA thief with D/P. It's the combination of SA and leaps through smoke fields that people are usually complaining about, SA for virtually any other spec or weaponset is actually fine. 

[Morena.9312]

7 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

I feel it's amazing that teapot, ROM, Helseth, rank 55 dragons, Worms and every other person who plays this game at the peak of gameplay can repeatively state thief is insanely strong. 

And players will sit in gold rank screeching their wrong. 

I mean honestly. At what point do you consider you maybe wrong.

I guess it comes down to being bias towards your main proffession, but I am glad Anet are responding to the right people and ignoring this. 

If your not doing ATs  your likely not informed enough to make such a call, as thief needs a team and your more reliant on the team doing its job.

As the large disparity in general ranked due to low playerbase that skill difference, rank difference and inability to queue with more then 2 people will stop alot of things shining. 

So yeah. If your just a ranked spvp queuer your never gonna be aware of the problems thief causes. Because it isn't in ranked queue thief excels. 

Thief is the only part of every AT groups that remains completely identical through and through, maybe consider that. 

If every team in the AT uses a identical build and proffession. Theres likely alot of strength in that build and proffession and just because you can't replicate that doesn't make it less true. 

 None of them are Main Thief players and 1 Person of them is a SA Fanboi. Honestly i do not listen to them.

[Puck.3697]

14 hours ago, Carmela.8756 said:

 None of them are Main Thief players and 1 Person of them is a SA Fanboi. Honestly i do not listen to them.

Lol. U don't need to main thief to know the meta. Lol. 

The same could be said about the fact 99% of u all don't play AT so have no idea what's going on in them. 

At their caliber of play you wouldn't be a main any proffession as u are skilled enough to multi class 

 

Edited February 22, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Puck.3697]

17 hours ago, Tails.9372 said:

People really seem to love to ignore the context of things in order to be dismissive and to fire of some ceap ad hominems.

To be clear what "teapot and some others" criticize has nothing to do with what the OP was talking about. Even if we were to remove most offensive capabilities from thief their issue of "how it forces the meta" would still persist but this doesn't invalidate other criticisms of thiefs comparatively lackluster combat performance and also doesn't justify the calls for nerfs to builds that don't even focus on stealth.

Their complaints aren't about thiefs offensive capabilities. It's about SA thiefs defensive capabilities. 

If anything they all advocate for upping thieves damage and lowering SAs survivability. 

And yeah. No ones said these nerfs were the right way to go about it. The nerfs should have been directly to SA and critical strikes and acrobatics should have seen buffs as s trade off. 

But I guess their scared of spectre Having stealth access 😂

Edited February 22, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[FarmBotXD.1430]

On 2/20/2022 at 8:50 PM, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

Thief is pretty countered by boon spam in both competitive game modes, has to slot in glassy stats in order to deal meaningful damage, lacks the 5-second blocks and (nigh') instaneous evade frames that other classes have on weapon skills AND (non-elite) utility - on low cooldown - and has, on average, weaker utility skills to compensate for the initiative system.

Meanwhile, glasses like ranger, warrior, engineer and revenant can go mix in tankier stats without losing out on much damage (hello, WvW soulbeast and nades engi), have all of the aforementioned + reflects, superior sustain, and mobility that's - yes - comparable to thief's. 

Why are people complaining? I do not understand. There are far more toxic builds in this game than SA thief.

Wow, thief players lie to themselves so much they started believing in their own lies.
1 no class is as mobile as thief, stop with this kitten, its not even close.
2 you cry about having to take DPS stats to deal damage? well maybe you shouldnt be taking 3x defensive traitlines and making a permanently stealthed build. In fact thiefs damage is kittening ridiculous with how its applied.
Classes that you mentioned in WvW take damaging traitlines to deal its daamge, I Bet SLBS that you mentioned go beastmaster + slb ( 2x dps traitlines ) no kitten they will do more dmg then your limp dicked sa, dd, trickery build.
3 Thief still to this day has loads of evasion, DD 3x dodge, endurance regen, vigor, blinds. if you want strong blocks take kittening bandits defense oh wait, you wont, because you have to actually reactively use it correctly, its better to take BP and just use it in pve rotation, its much easier that way.
Thief as always will still remain mandatory, people are mad because thief has no counterplay and never dies unless they are really bad. Itsa PvP game, killing others is the entire point.

[ixon.2496]

13 minutes ago, FarmBotXD.1430 said:

Wow, thief players lie to themselves so much they started believing in their own lies.
1 no class is as mobile as thief, stop with this kitten, its not even close.
2 you cry about having to take DPS stats to deal damage? well maybe you shouldnt be taking 3x defensive traitlines and making a permanently stealthed build. In fact thiefs damage is kittening ridiculous with how its applied.
Classes that you mentioned in WvW take damaging traitlines to deal its daamge, I Bet SLBS that you mentioned go beastmaster + slb ( 2x dps traitlines ) no kitten they will do more dmg then your limp dicked sa, dd, trickery build.
3 Thief still to this day has loads of evasion, DD 3x dodge, endurance regen, vigor, blinds. if you want strong blocks take kittening bandits defense oh wait, you wont, because you have to actually reactively use it correctly, its better to take BP and just use it in pve rotation, its much easier that way.
Thief as always will still remain mandatory, people are mad because thief has no counterplay and never dies unless they are really bad. Itsa PvP game, killing others is the entire point.

1. Thief are still top of mobility, however that gap has closed considerably.

 

2. It was always a bad design choice add evade on top of stealth,  but the intention was to give team fight potential. Which didn't pan out. Thief is frustraiting to fight with certain builds, blinding powder and smoke are and issue with being able to pressure them. Plus stealth, plus evades. But without these things thief becomes irrelevant in a team fight, since damage was reduced across the board.

 

  First people complained thief done too much damage, then they were too fast, then they were too evasive, then they were too invisible. And you know what  through all these metas, i was never bothered by thiefs place in it. Some builds just couldnt deal with them, some melted them into the ground.

[FarmBotXD.1430]

6 minutes ago, ixon.2496 said:

1. Thief are still top of mobility, however that gap has closed considerably.

 

2. It was always a bad design choice add evade on top of stealth,  but the intention was to give team fight potential. Which didn't pan out. Thief is frustraiting to fight with certain builds, blinding powder and smoke are and issue with being able to pressure them. Plus stealth, plus evades. But without these things thief becomes irrelevant in a team fight, since damage was reduced across the board.

 

  First people complained thief done too much damage, then they were too fast, then they were too evasive, then they were too invisible. And you know what  through all these metas, i was never bothered by thiefs place in it. Some builds just couldnt deal with them, some melted them into the ground.

?
Good thief will not die once in a match, this has always been my issue with the class, another issue is that existance of thief pushes most of the fun builds out of not only viability but playability, this is why everything goes tanky, because thief has 0 counterplay and they will always be able to get an opener on you, and the most effective way of surviving is having loads of hp, healing and toughness.
Back when thief played signet, thief can 100% guarantee 3 backstabs back to back, even if it only deals 4k damage that is 12k unavoidable damage coming through, this is why people play kitten like valk ranger that has almost 30k hp ( can afford to take those stabs ) or weaver that has 16k+ hp on top of 8k+ barriers.
And even if you avoid their opener it doesnt matter as thief doesnt even have to commit anything to get its openers, it just makes the game uninteresting. Thief alone makes me not want to play sidenoders, they suck the fun out of the role.

[ixon.2496]

1 hour ago, FarmBotXD.1430 said:

?
Good thief will not die once in a match, this has always been my issue with the class, another issue is that existance of thief pushes most of the fun builds out of not only viability but playability, this is why everything goes tanky, because thief has 0 counterplay and they will always be able to get an opener on you, and the most effective way of surviving is having loads of hp, healing and toughness.
Back when thief played signet, thief can 100% guarantee 3 backstabs back to back, even if it only deals 4k damage that is 12k unavoidable damage coming through, this is why people play kitten like valk ranger that has almost 30k hp ( can afford to take those stabs ) or weaver that has 16k+ hp on top of 8k+ barriers.
And even if you avoid their opener it doesnt matter as thief doesnt even have to commit anything to get its openers, it just makes the game uninteresting. Thief alone makes me not want to play sidenoders, they suck the fun out of the role.

 

Thief does have counterplay in the form of reveal, which is defintely not available enough to professions. As for openers, guard has always been the counter to that with agis, and its very disingenous to say thief is the reason people play so tanky.

 

1. Conquest itself promotes playing tanky builds to contest and hold points. 2. It's more effective since the damage reduction in the feb 2020 patch. 

3. A thief in stealth isnt decapping the point, any aoe pressure pushes them off the point too. Very easy to make a thief waste their time. Trapper DH or Trapper Ranger can destroy a thief or completely ruin their decap rotations. I have no issue vs thiefs on a 20k hp condi ranger. 

 

100% thief has some balance issues, but honestly i think you are exaggerating the problem.

 

 

 

 

[Crab Fear.1624]

2 hours ago, FarmBotXD.1430 said:

?
Good thief will not die once in a match, this has always been my issue with the class, another issue is that existance of thief pushes most of the fun builds out of not only viability but playability, this is why everything goes tanky, because thief has 0 counterplay and they will always be able to get an opener on you, and the most effective way of surviving is having loads of hp, healing and toughness.
Back when thief played signet, thief can 100% guarantee 3 backstabs back to back, even if it only deals 4k damage that is 12k unavoidable damage coming through, this is why people play kitten like valk ranger that has almost 30k hp ( can afford to take those stabs ) or weaver that has 16k+ hp on top of 8k+ barriers.
And even if you avoid their opener it doesnt matter as thief doesnt even have to commit anything to get its openers, it just makes the game uninteresting. Thief alone makes me not want to play sidenoders, they suck the fun out of the role.

Lol, lies.

All you want is a free kill.

A "Good thief".....like someone who mastered their class is an issue.

I've seen plenty of fat mouths saying how easy thief is, yet less then 10 worldwide are as impressive as people make them out to be.

I see dead thieves all the time, most people that play them are not "good".

The ones, you must be xomplaining about, fall in that group of 10.

Any duelist can sit on the node....boom counterplay.

Stupid thief comes to team fight.....I. counterplay.

Thief trys to duel at or above its skill level....counterplay.

All thief can do is decap unguarded points, and jump you when you are busy...but this is natural order.

There has to be something that can punish the stallers...side noders...

Fun builds generally turn out to be broken OP carrying bullcrap.

Get better my dude.

 

[FarmBotXD.1430]

9 minutes ago, Crab Fear.1624 said:

Lol, lies.

All you want is a free kill.

A "Good thief".....like someone who mastered their class is an issue.

I've seen plenty of fat mouths saying how easy thief is, yet less then 10 worldwide are as impressive as people make them out to be.

I see dead thieves all the time, most people that play them are not "good".

The ones, you must be xomplaining about, fall in that group of 10.

Any duelist can sit on the node....boom counterplay.

Stupid thief comes to team fight.....I. counterplay.

Thief trys to duel at or above its skill level....counterplay.

All thief can do is decap unguarded points, and jump you when you are busy...but this is natural order.

There has to be something that can punish the stallers...side noders...

Fun builds generally turn out to be broken OP carrying bullcrap.

Get better my dude.

 

Why does there need to be anything to punish sidenoders?
let them 1v1 and the winner should get something out of winning, as is they get kitten all, thief +1 decides who wins, and even if you win and get the node, thief will decap you the moment you leave. This is how sidenoding looks and feels like.
As for thief survivability, if you die as thief you are bad, thats all there is to it, like sure you can get some unlucky kitten and die once but you should never die more then once in a game, and IMO that is unacceptable in a PvP game.
And yes, thief makes the meta tanky, not by itself but as a whole, you cant have 2 damage dealers fighting on side nodes because thief will chunk 1/2HP from a squishy, with 0 counterplay, and it can chase you down and repeat the process. This is why everyone stacks HP, healing and other kitten like that.

[ixon.2496]

30 minutes ago, FarmBotXD.1430 said:

Why does there need to be anything to punish sidenoders?
let them 1v1 and the winner should get something out of winning, as is they get kitten all, thief +1 decides who wins, and even if you win and get the node, thief will decap you the moment you leave. This is how sidenoding looks and feels like.
As for thief survivability, if you die as thief you are bad, thats all there is to it, like sure you can get some unlucky kitten and die once but you should never die more then once in a game, and IMO that is unacceptable in a PvP game.
And yes, thief makes the meta tanky, not by itself but as a whole, you cant have 2 damage dealers fighting on side nodes because thief will chunk 1/2HP from a squishy, with 0 counterplay, and it can chase you down and repeat the process. This is why everyone stacks HP, healing and other kitten like that.

 

I've already pointed out that there is counter play. Thief is not some unstoppable god. 

[FarmBotXD.1430]

8 minutes ago, ixon.2496 said:

 

I've already pointed out that there is counter play. Thief is not some unstoppable god. 

yes, the counterplay is take it up the kitten and hope your team thief is getting value somewhere else 

[ixon.2496]

14 minutes ago, FarmBotXD.1430 said:

yes, the counterplay is take it up the kitten and hope your team thief is getting value somewhere else 

 

Clearly this is a L2P issue.