Thief CORE Mechanics are TOO GOOD in Competitive Modes

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

This thread is a waste of time and energy and proof that some people exist that just innately hate how thief functions and don't actually care about it attaining a state of balance or having fair counters. 

There will never be a game, least of all an MMO,  that has universally agreed upon not-annoying mechanics. If something's annoying, but reasonable and fair for what it is, that's a personal issue that no game developer is under obligation to cater to. 

10 hours ago, Leger.3724 said:

 

I want good gameplay to be rewarded and when the thief has a bunch of "OOOOOOOOOOOOOPS" buttons for when they get punished by my skilled play... I am going to feel a type of way about that.

 

In League of Legends flash is the "ooops" button. It has a 5 minute cooldown after usage and anyone can bring flash into their match. So if I determine following up on their oops button with my own flash is worth securing a kill, I can do that.

 

 It wasn't skilled play if you didn't account for the "oops" buttons a thief can bring. The wiki is right there. People learned how to bait shadowstep between 2012 and now, but the thieves find you lacking. 

The amount of "Oops" buttons a thief has is at -max- three, less if they have any signet or use any skill that has a tooltip you can see. You can very quickly deduce what build a thief has with experience, and know when those 40-50 second cooldowns are all spent, instead of firing into the wind and attributing a thief escaping to toxic mechanics. 

This is like someone getting blown up by Ekko, not ccing them, and coming to forums to ask Riot to make LoL2 because Ekko's escape is obviously toxic and has no counter and there's no way to rework him without ticking off all the Ekko mains, so you might as well build a whole new game and do it -better- this time.

Edited October 4, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[ASP.8093]

3 hours ago, Emolesbian.3170 said:

- You wanna slap it but it vanishes in a shadowstep and come back a few moment later to bzzz bzzz the kitten out of you.

Other classes have shadowsteps and fast movement abilities, too. This is something thieves excel at but they also have to make heavy use of these abilities *during* the fight. Unless you're fighting someone who is playing very carefully with Shadow Portal, you do have real opportunities to catch them. Especially now that more people are playing Deadeye and Specter than full-mobility Daredevils with Shortbows.

What happens quite often is that people just don't bother, though. They don't chase at all, they never learn how Shadowstep (thief's most powerful and practical teleport button) works and don't track the enemy thief's resource usage at all, they don't know how to idenitfy no-port spots (even though that will also save them from guardian, revenant, and mesmer bursts), they just instantly freeze when an enemy goes into stealth, &c.

[Svarty.8019]

6 hours ago, Emolesbian.3170 said:

Current thief is like this mosquito visiting you in the middle of the night:

 

- Unsignificant.

- Physically harmless to you.

- You can get rid of it with a slap.

 

Tell that to the carpet of victims..

[Emolesbian.3170]

 

3 minutes ago, Svarty.8019 said:

Tell that to the carpet of victims..

 

Sadly there is a "long" one lol. 

 

But joke aside, thieves are still considered as a plague not because of their outstanding damage output (it's gone lol), or tremendous support potency (lol please...) and mobility (not anymore lol)...their true power lies into...

 

...FRUSTRATION. And they do generate a kitten amount of it.

 

Spoiler

Like mosquitos...hehe

 

Some people get mad and strike for nerfs. While some others are simply too bored to try to catch it and give themselves up to tiffy.

 

And this is, in my humble opinion, where a considerable chunk of the carpet comes from.

 

I've been watching Anet removing/adding things here and there from my thief to tone down the frustration. For so long that almost nothing remains of thief's identity than I'd like Anet to explain their vision to me (if there's still one...).

 

But the frustration still remains. And that's an issue (I think !  I'm not an expert in game design 😐).

 

Meanwhile, I'm here, roaming in WvW, shamely relying on my rifle to get a decent source of stealth. Switching to Condi Bow and Sword to get a touch of spice from time to time lol.

 

 

 

[Leger.3724]

6 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

This thread is a waste of time and energy and proof that some people exist that just innately hate how thief functions and don't actually care about it attaining a state of balance or having fair counters. 

There will never be a game, least of all an MMO,  that has universally agreed upon not-annoying mechanics. If something's annoying, but reasonable and fair for what it is, that's a personal issue that no game developer is under obligation to cater to. 

 It wasn't skilled play if you didn't account for the "oops" buttons a thief can bring. The wiki is right there. People learned how to bait shadowstep between 2012 and now, but the thieves find you lacking. 

The amount of "Oops" buttons a thief has is at -max- three, less if they have any signet or use any skill that has a tooltip you can see. You can very quickly deduce what build a thief has with experience, and know when those 40-50 second cooldowns are all spent, instead of firing into the wind and attributing a thief escaping to toxic mechanics. 

This is like someone getting blown up by Ekko, not ccing them, and coming to forums to ask Riot to make LoL2 because Ekko's escape is obviously toxic and has no counter and there's no way to rework him without ticking off all the Ekko mains, so you might as well build a whole new game and do it -better- this time.

Ekko has a giant trail telling you where he will be teleporting to so you can pre-position to deal with it. And Ekko's ultimate has a long cooldown. It's not 5-30 seconds.

As I have said quite a few times now - Arena Net can put their heads in the sand with you and pretend a peak player count of a few hundred playing pvp is success and "every game has complaints" so why try... or they can look at what popular pvp games do and learn lessons.

Arena Net has always seemed to do relatively well in that sense. Guild Wars 1 was a great pvp experience and showed early potential in MOBA esports. But it had its flaws. And then they went hard on pve with Guild Wars 2 and developed great systems for cooperative leveling with events and hearts. And then they added a unique mount system that other games are looking to copy.

I have faith that as long as they're looking and paying attention to successful pvp games that attract playerbases... they can offer something uinque and fun if they're willing to put in the time. That being said no sense in doing it with Guild Wars 2. Look to make the change with Guild Wars 3 or the next MMO project they work on, if they work on one.

 

 

 

 

[reddie.5861]

On 10/4/2022 at 2:10 AM, Leger.3724 said:

 

I want good gameplay to be rewarded and when the thief has a bunch of "OOOOOOOOOOOOOPS" buttons for when they get punished by my skilled play... I am going to feel a type of way about that.

 

In League of Legends flash is the "ooops" button. It has a 5 minute cooldown after usage and anyone can bring flash into their match. So if I determine following up on their oops button with my own flash is worth securing a kill, I can do that.

 

 

tell me these oops buttons and your class..

see if we can replace my thief OOPS buttons with ur OOPS buttons 😉

[Bern.9613]

On 10/4/2022 at 9:22 AM, ASP.8093 said:

Other classes have shadowsteps and fast movement abilities, too. This is something thieves excel at but they also have to make heavy use of these abilities *during* the fight. Unless you're fighting someone who is playing very carefully with Shadow Portal, you do have real opportunities to catch them. Especially now that more people are playing Deadeye and Specter than full-mobility Daredevils with Shortbows.

What happens quite often is that people just don't bother, though. They don't chase at all, they never learn how Shadowstep (thief's most powerful and practical teleport button) works and don't track the enemy thief's resource usage at all, they don't know how to idenitfy no-port spots (even though that will also save them from guardian, revenant, and mesmer bursts), they just instantly freeze when an enemy goes into stealth, &c.

You're all about pve, aren't you? No one is playing deadeye nor specter in wvw. I recently watched a couple of streamers and didn't see many thieves, a few here and there, and they were daredevils. I did play once in pvp with a streamer to show him how to p/p bound daredevil after the 28 June SA massacre. Came up against a deadeye who, surprise, surprise, die pdq. And not only to me but to the guy I was showing how to play it. Won't even tell you how fast he dropped against the weeb bender. Even Sizer is all about sword/dagger now.

[Lighter.5631]

On 9/24/2022 at 8:19 PM, itspomf.9523 said:

That's because Thief has the lowest health pool and medium armor, whiiiiiiiiich doesn't amount for much.

 

HP difference from lowest to medium is 20%, daredevil Marauder's Resilience gives 10% 

and with plenty of runes that add 10% HP, like divinity, orr, which are the best PVP runes right now.

you can easily get to medium HP pool with medium armor.

 

people can easily gain the missing HP back from runes and amulets and elite specs, but nobody will ever gain missing utilities from runes and amulets and elite specs.