Thief Buffs

[Loboling.5293]

I'm wondering when the thief will get buffed after being partially gutted during last weeks' patch. Specter fails in all modes (can sort of work in some instanced content), Deadeye is usable in pvp, and functional for open world, and daredevil is still suffering from old nerfs that have neutered it in most modes. Core thief... well, it's possibly the worst base class for general play. 

I know there are other issues facing the balance right now, such as a lot of other power dps specs also being weak still. 

 

I love the changes to Ranger, Warrior, Engineer, Rev, Mesmer, etc. Even the rework of Shadowarts on thief was great in my opinion, for removing toxic gameplay, but giving them back some old gamestyles that have gone cold.

I'd say that the initiative cost of some skills or the regen rate for initiative need to be updated baseline. 

I'd also say that the thief really needs it's next elite spec to focus on area damage. I've been craving a greatsword thief since forever, as a teleporting backstab with a giant hulk of metal sounds so good. I hope they come up with a thief playstyle that feels fun to run around and slaughter masses of mobs or players. A bruiser, tank and area damage dealer. Consdier things like no stealth, but stealth buff instead gives you health regen or damage resistance buffs. Kind of what they went for with shadowarts back in the day. So you can still use all the stealth skills, but not to turn invisible, but to turn into an effin tank, on par with Jalis or elementalist. 

Anyway, I want to thank the devs for their efforts with this recent patch, I think it was mostly positive, but a lot more work is needed and thief I think is now the worst class in the game, and needs the most help. Like warrior was before this patch. 

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Thief  needs at least one of the following.

 

• * High damage
• * Good access to some kind of mitigative resource 
• * High mobility.

 

At this point the people with just fundamental issues with thief existing have gotten it swatted to the point where it has none of those. Other classes are faster, do more damage and are less brittle. 

 

Pick one thing for thief to do, and then let them do it. You all don't want DE spam so don't make it the only thing thieves can play without being a liability.  

Edited October 13, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Mell.4873]

I am willing to bet with the recent wave of removing Trade-offs we will see the return or buff of most Thief traits/skills.

I mean the most abused stuff is for the most part gone.
In terms of Open World the return of a lot of its sustain would help. I think providing Thief with better time gated damage windows would go along way with a class that is heavily reliant on Spamming one to two skills in a given scenario.

Dead eye in particular should be providing Quickness to a group and not Might/Fury. A cool idea is just had 4 seconds group quickness to Fire for Effect since the other grandmaster already provides and extra buff for with self Quickness. 

[Sleepwalker.1398]

All the while DE camps rifle 2 2 2 2 swap 2 2 Mercy 2 2 2 2  and it's called skillful gameplay in WvW.

[Vordrax.5243]

I acknowledge this is probably a bad take, so forgive me, but if stealth is so bad that it's literally preventing the designers from being able to work some efficacy into Thief, why not just redesign stealth? If the issue is that having people be invisible is toxic to the game, just make it so stealth has like a shadowy effect so that good players can see the movement, but make the Thief untargetable and maybe give them a 1 second aegis or something to give it some defensive capabilities. That way stealth is still functionality an invisibility in PvE and it can be used for tactical movement during a chaotic encounter, but it becomes much less useful as a bespoke ambush or dueling ability, and becomes more of an ad hoc defense. Anyways, I accept that this is probably a terrible idea, I'm neither a designer nor am I adept enough to really get to the heart of the matter, but it's obvious that stealth is causing some design difficulty (file it under the same category as, say, attunements are to Elementalist, where there are design constraints that make it harder to buff the class or make it easier without tipping it to being ridiculous in the hands of a master.)

[Alcatraznc.3869]

Thief isnt really the worst class in the game.

 

The specter nerf were justified, at least on WvW/PvP side. I dont think they needed to nerf anything PvE side, the spec wasnt overperforming or anything. Daredevil are still very nimble and a pain to catch in PvP content. For PvE I dont know. As for Deadeye, I consider it one of the top WvW spec available right now. Before it could be permanently invisible and just being a pain to kill while being able to pressure people at range with rifle. The recent SA rework buffed even more the spec by offering boons+heal+initiative when entering or leaving stealth, which rifle deadeye can do whenever he wants.

 

Your tank/bruiser suggestion could very well be a rework of Daredevil to be fair. The spec was promoted to be that staff melee fighter with lots of dodges and attack on dodges. 

[smiiirf.3201]

Thief is the big stepchild in the room. I mean he is  literally bad in all modes ecept roaming or 1vs1 but also there are stronger classes. In Spvp he is a kittening decap bot played with D/P and he can't 1vs1 most other classes only +1 (exept DE). In WvW he is pretty good in roaming but even more bad than a Ranger in Zerging. He has no group support/ no b00n spam and with the recent nerfs spectre is unplayable in zergs. In PvE thief is pretty trash and other classes are simply better, easier to play or brings more to the table. 

 

That is simply really bad and I think the class is now one of the worst ever state this game ever had. No idea how that kitten could go trough the QA.

 

Anet should simply revert some changes which where made in the past.

 

Also the only class which has hardcounters in form of watchtowers/guards and traps in the game. Silly after that SA rework.....it massively weakens the offensive as well as the deffensive, partly without the opponent having to do anything at all. Unfair!

Edited October 14, 2022 by Leolas.6273

[Westenev.5289]

In terms of PvE, I just want Invigorating Precision un-nerfed because it was fun watching the health bar ping up and down. What's wrong with a for-fun PvE sustain trait that directly competes with a speedrunner preferred dps trait (No Quarter)?

Edited October 19, 2022 by Westenev.5289

[felix.2386]

top 1 NA ranked right now is d/p daredevil 

[Thaddeus The Blade.6472]

On 10/13/2022 at 6:49 PM, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Thief  needs at least one of the following.

 

• * High damage
• * Good access to some kind of mitigative resource 
• * High mobility.

 

At this point the people with just fundamental issues with thief existing have gotten it swatted to the point where it has none of those. Other classes are faster, do more damage and are less brittle. 

 

Pick one thing for thief to do, and then let them do it. You all don't want DE spam so don't make it the only thing thieves can play without being a liability.  

You're right. I rather core thief, daredevil and specter get buffed to the moon than witness deadeye in public in a pvp scenario ever again. That, like mechanist, is a troll spec that is not to fun to play against in any circumstance.

Ok, bring on the confused and laugh emojis...

Edited October 20, 2022 by JTGuevara.9018
add

[Strider.7849]

I think anet has to be very careful with buffing thief. I've been enjoying thief again after the changes to shadow arts. The old style of thief that wasn't dependent on stealth to camp, but more for quick engages/disengages. It's like how deadly arts/trickery/daredevil was prior to the initiative nerfs.

 

I personally feel that shortbow needs some changes to its initiative costs, damage increases on critical skills like backstabbing which needs to be setup, and lines like acrobatics need improvements. Staff/rifle could use some improvements as well. 

 

The one thing I would NOT like to see is them returning increased stealth durations which promotes a very toxic style of combat which is unfun for your enemy and will only lead to more heavy handed nerfs in the future. 

[Loboling.5293]

3 hours ago, Strider.7849 said:

I think anet has to be very careful with buffing thief. I've been enjoying thief again after the changes to shadow arts. The old style of thief that wasn't dependent on stealth to camp, but more for quick engages/disengages. It's like how deadly arts/trickery/daredevil was prior to the initiative nerfs.

 

I personally feel that shortbow needs some changes to its initiative costs, damage increases on critical skills like backstabbing which needs to be setup, and lines like acrobatics need improvements. Staff/rifle could use some improvements as well. 

 

The one thing I would NOT like to see is them returning increased stealth durations which promotes a very toxic style of combat which is unfun for your enemy and will only lead to more heavy handed nerfs in the future. 

I agree, there's a lot of room for improvement, but stealth is better now. However, I would appreciate changes to sentries in WvW to no longer give revealed. I think stealth is at a healthy level now that it doesn't need much outside influence to be balanced.

 

Daredevil buffs from dodges need to last longer than 4 seconds. The trait that increases damage based on missing endurance should just be if any is missing. And pulmonary impact should deal more damage. (Double)

 

Deadeye could use some buffs to the aoe damage of its utility. And some changes to rifle 5, to allow breaking it by moving. And then add an additional skill to skill 5 when crouching. Also change skill 4 crouching to a circular area, rather than a line.

 

Specter needs more health for shroud in PvE, a different design for providing alacrity. And we'll of bounty change should be reverted. Ideally, it could also get it's initiative back. But I'd prefer if in general thief skills costed a bit less initiative. About 3-5 of them are too expensive. (Mostly in PvP and WvW)

 

This would be a great start. 

[Alcatraznc.3869]

12 hours ago, Loboling.5293 said:

I would appreciate changes to sentries in WvW to no longer give revealed.

 

Yeah no. Sentry are useful right now as they spot on the minimap and reveal stealth opponent. They dont need to be changed, if you dont want to get spotted then dont go near them.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Alcatraznc.3869