Oh, to be a Thief main

[bethekey.8314]

18 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Do you have any ides what they could do?     Because right now, even tho you think its bonkers....  s/d thief is simply not good.   So any change would be welcome.

It has taken this many posts, and honestly a lot of patience, to just get a rare few people to admit that 11+ evades in a row is excessive. I'm open to discussing what changes could be done in time, but it is neither my job nor do good suggestions make it into the game. And I'd much rather discuss those aspects with people capable of having conversations without starting with insults.

18 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

I dont really agree with this statement tho. 

If a Thief with tons of stealth / teleports isn't in control of engages/disengages, idk what is in this game. Hard disagree. It seems your comment might have been more directed at the "balance is off" ending though.

18 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Build has high dmg/high evasion,  but low staying power, and no stealth.      It requires perfect execution, cuz even 2 hits, will end you. Build has 11k hp.

18 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Its not like he has good defenses AND good offenses....      If he had good defenses, he could have just finished the kill with AA´s early. HE INDEED TRIED THAT..., but you instantly landed a single hit, and brought him to lower% than you were after his "op burst".  

For comparison, my Scrapper build has 16k HP taking full damage traits. You mistakenly identified it as Nade Scrapper despite sharing neither the weapon, heal, or any of the same utilities (and many of the traits), but I understand most people here aren't detail oriented or experts. I think it was an attempt to call it low skill. Anyway. You may consider it bad, but then again Core S/D thief is also called bad here, so hey, even footing.

We can calculate the Thief's HP from my damage and the health bar %. My Rocket hit of 6309 takes the Thief from 80% to 42%. 6309 =  0.38x, x = 16.6k HP. The Thief has 16.6k HP.

Rocket was also the 2nd hit, the first being Explosive Entrance + Function Gyro after the Flanking Strike to daze Larcenous + land my big hit. That expert advice you offered, if I recall.

We can also calculate my % of health post-Thief opener.   6125 / 15998 = 38%. Lower than 42%. You're actually so wrong and so not detail oriented in your analysis it's hard to have a real conversation with you. It's embarrassing and I'm losing interest.

18 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Every single evade he did, required a buttonpress. A buttonpress with a extremly small window of effect....

18 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

 

You said, you want interactive and skillfull gameplay, but cant even appreciate when its standing infront of you.   You think he was hammering his head on the keyboard, and just passively evaded everything....   You cant play this build like that...

It's 3. He literally spammed the button 3, back to back to back. I believe I quote you previously "A good player doesn't use things back to back to back". Are you now back tracking and calling this skilled? Am I mistaken in that my skill is being highly criticized here despite having much more complexity and much better timing? The hypocrisy is palpable.

If the Thief actually had to time their evades that would be skillful. But they have so many, with 0 cooldown, they instead use a basic algorithm of: Steal combo > 333 > double dodge > 333 > dodge > reset and repeat. They're not reacting to anything and they don't need to. Many pre-nerf bunker builds play the same way.

18 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

That is a lack of knowledge. 

The absolute cherry on top.

Edited April 26 by bethekey.8314

[bethekey.8314]

13 hours ago, Codename T.2847 said:

 

If the player is good as hell core classes can appear to be more than just 'fine', but still, I hope you don't have the same qualm about every other (arguably worse offender) meta classes out there in PvP atm, because if yes you are signing yourself up to a lot of misery and misfortune. (I've been there)

I will say it again: "I value the game having less degenerate mechanics in play, regardless of class, which isn't based on who wins and who loses." Something can be overpowered with healthy/fun/interactive mechanics, while something can be underpowered and degenerate/unfun/uninteractive.

I believe in strong, fundamental balance philosophies that create fun, interactive gameplay. All of the people stuck on things like:

9 hours ago, Endorphin.9147 said:

Everything you described that was your problem with sd thief, im pretty sure hammer vindi does it 2x better.

are missing the point. I don't care about the class. I even say in the original post, "also applies to Revenant". Remove all class identifies for the sake of argument and fix the absurd, uninteractive gameplay. Aegis spam, dodge spam, invuln spam, blind spam...it's rampant.

8 hours ago, Endorphin.9147 said:

The dodge spam is degenerate. But thats how assassin like classes in any fantasy genre are supposed to be.

Thanks for saying at least the degenerate part. From an RP perspective I get the underhanded tactics point, but in practice, this level of damage combined with this level of defense didn't even exist within this same game years ago. It's not how it has to be.

Edited April 25 by bethekey.8314

[Flowki.7194]

47 minutes ago, bethekey.8314 said:

It's 3. He literally spammed the button 3, back to back to back. I believe I quote you previously "A good player doesn't use things back to back to back". Are you now back tracking and calling this skilled? Am I mistaken in that my skill is being highly criticized here despite having much more complexity and much better timing? The hypocrisy is palpable.

That was the biggest let down for me, it looks like a complicated class but every spec, be it condi or power, boils down to spamming steal+3 most of the time, across most weapons. I found it the most boring damage application in the game, it was honestly more fun playing blade.

Edited April 25 by Flowki.7194

[bethekey.8314]

2 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Will it get to 5 pages before vindi and ranger even show up on the map? You decide kekw

I include Rev, meaning Vindi, in the very first post. Is everyone incapable of reading and interpreting short, replayable videos now?

Also, there's already a whole multi-page thread about Vindi on the front page.

Edited April 26 by bethekey.8314

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

1 hour ago, bethekey.8314 said:

I include Rev, meaning Vindi, in the very first post. Is everyone incapable of reading and interpreting short, replayable videos now?

Also, there's already a whole multi-page thread about Vindi on the front page.

Yes yes, I'm just tickled that sword dagger has instantly become a problem again, it's not like it has ever -not- done what its currently doing, it just shows up based on whether or not the thief is a free bag while running the set. 

[Shagie.7612]

i'd happily trade anything out of my kit thief players want for like half of what they believe makes their class actually not very good
you can take your pick

[cyberzombie.7348]

13 hours ago, Endorphin.9147 said:

But thats how assassin like classes in any fantasy genre are supposed to be. They are supposed to be cheap and degenerate, they use underhanded methods to get their kills. They are known for having high agility as well and then fall over once they are focused. At least with this one you are able to counter play it with enough game knowledge.

I think a lot of people forget this, rouges/thieves/assassins are supposed to be the dirty yet agile glass cannons. Without that, all you get is a Shiro rev from Wish.

[Myror.7521]

@Sahne.6950 I hardly disagree that it does Low dmg. S/D is now able to do 4k plus daze out Off its steal/5/1 Comb. While also doing around 8k with its 3 Skill. Its more than enough dmg. But its just hard to Play still cause you actually need to time your 3 Skill and dodges right to stay alife

[bethekey.8314]

2 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Yes yes, I'm just tickled that sword dagger has instantly become a problem again, it's not like it has ever -not- done what its currently doing, it just shows up based on whether or not the thief is a free bag while running the set. 

I'm just one person; I call it as I see it lol. I also happen to be one of, if not the only, person who actually posts video evidence to add real weight to my claims.

I'm not claiming that S/D is some meta dominator spec. People jump to conclusions when their class gets called out. It does have degenerate mechanics that I think should be changed.

If there are limited balance resources, of course those should be directed at bigger issues first. But this is an issue.

[Sahne.6950]

8 hours ago, bethekey.8314 said:

If the Thief actually had to time their evades that would be skillful. But they have so many, with 0 cooldown, they instead use a basic algorithm of: Steal combo > 333 > double dodge > 333 > dodge > reset and repeat.

i dare you to hop ingame and try that for 1 second.

It doesnt work like that.  You will take alot of hits, if you just hammer your buttons, without reacting whats visually coming your way.

 

PLEASE test it before talking such nonsense.     You have never touched this build.... and it shows.

Edited April 26 by Sahne.6950

[bethekey.8314]

55 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

i dare you to hop ingame and try that for 1 second.

I can do what that Thief did within 1 hour of playing Thief the first time. It's not complicated.

55 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

 

PLEASE test it before talking such nonsense.     You have never touched this build.... and it shows.

Lol...do you have any shame or credibility?

How about this, I dare you to be a decent person and own up to your mistakes.

You come into this thread, insult me multiple times without any prior interaction, lie about or fail to understand multiple aspects of the video to further your argument, repeatedly offer advice that I am already demonstrating in the video, then have the gall to tell me I'm talking nonsense.

With 3.7k posts, you are a depressing example of someone who can barely think straight while offering the most input. Kindly resist that temptation in the future, for all our sake. Holy moly.

Edited April 26 by bethekey.8314

[Sahne.6950]

1 minute ago, bethekey.8314 said:

I can do what that Thief did within 1 hour of playing Thief the first time. It's not complicated.

Do it.

[bethekey.8314]

1 minute ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Do it.

You first (the be a decent person and own up to mistakes part). Also what do I get when I press 3 three times?

Edited April 26 by bethekey.8314

[Sahne.6950]

5 minutes ago, bethekey.8314 said:

You first.

i just uploaded me playing it.  Look at my video.   i pressed 3 two times in a row, but he just waited for the animationlock between the dodges, and instantly deletes 80% of my healthbar.  

Your turn.   I am serious.  

Play that build, and show me you can just mash 3, and evade everything with ease.

Edited April 26 by Sahne.6950

[Sahne.6950]

9 minutes ago, bethekey.8314 said:

Also what do I get when I press 3 three times?

You get the  "You dont have enough initiative to do this"- message

Edited April 26 by Sahne.6950

[bethekey.8314]

41 minutes ago, bethekey.8314 said:

(the be a decent person and own up to mistakes part)

Yeah I'm gonna need a full admission to each of your mistakes in this thread before I put more effort into correcting you. For bonus points, quote yourself calling yourself competent before you do so.

44 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Your turn.   I am serious.  

Play that build, and show me you can just mash 3, and evade everything with ease.

I also envision a world where I repeat the Thief's actions and your dense self moves the goalpost. So to make sure we're on the same page, write out what your stance is, what you think mine is, and what exactly you think it is I need to do.

If it all looks good, I'm game to practice some evade spam.

 

[Sahne.6950]

5 hours ago, bethekey.8314 said:

Yeah I'm gonna need a full admission to each of your mistakes in this thread before I put more effort into correcting you. For bonus points, quote yourself calling yourself competent before you do so.

I also envision a world where I repeat the Thief's actions and your dense self moves the goalpost. So to make sure we're on the same page, write out what your stance is, what you think mine is, and what exactly you think it is I need to do.

If it all looks good, I'm game to practice some evade spam.

 

What i will admit is, that I was being very rough towards you.

I apologize for that.   I could have worded it more friendly.

I will try to stay more objective and friendly from now on.  promised.

Lets both take a step back, calm down, and follow the others train of thought. I promise to do it too.

Your stance:   

S/D Thief having this many evades is unhealthy gameplay. You cant properly interact with it, and therefore its simply not fun going against it. Having 10+ seconds of nonstop evades is as simple as following a rotation, pressing evades back to back, and then simply disengaging, should you run out of evades. The burst is way to high, for being able to teleport away at any time, and also having this many evades.

Thats why it should be changed.

My stance:

S/D Thief indeed has alot of evades, but using them is by no means as easy as you think, and you can definitly not "simply chain them".

The evadeskill(3) has a evadeframe, that doesnt cover the whole animation. If you simply chain those evades, without actually reactin to visual cues, like you say is possible, you will find yourself dead on the floor rather fast, because of animationlocks.

In the video i posted, i am using the 3 back to back, just how you said thief can do to be constantly evading. You can see it in my skillbar! i was mashing 3. But the other player hits me at the beginning of the evadeframe, and ALSO at the end, instantly setting me to 10% hitpoints.

But why?                    Because i used the skill at the wrong time!

I just pressed 3 as fast as i could and therefore didnt evade anything with it, rather i just set myself up for him. All he had to do, was wait out the animation, and then burst me. A single misstimed press of 3, against a competent opponent.... and you are at 10% hitpoints.  I even slowed down the video so you can see it.

What i tried to explain to you, but it degenerated in flaming... sry...  was that their biggest strength, being the "evadespam" can easily be used against them, should a thief ACTUALLY spam dodges, instead of using them reactively. 

And thats where i think the build indeed is interactable. You have a very clear window of punishment that opens, everytime the thief does the smallest mistake.

"well but what if he doesnt make a mistake?" 

AND THAT is why i want you to play the build, and also the reason i said its highly skillbased.   -->Try doing that.<--  The window is so small, and the meta so spammy, that timing it perfectly multiple times in a row is unbelievably hard. And everyone being able to pull it off consistently deserves nothing but the best.

What i do believe is, that actually playing S/D will quickly reveal just how much more difficult to play and fragile that build is, in comparison to what you currently think.

What i want you to do: 

I literally just want you to FEEL the build for yourself.   idk... jump in the FFA and see how it goes... Whatever you wanna do.

You dont even need to record anything. (Bonus points if you can show us recorded footage tho). 

Just play it, and afterwards tell me how you felt playing that build.

Was it easy?  Did you have succes?  Was anything harder to do, than you initially thought?    That kinda thing.

 

Imm gonna link you the 2 variants of Core S/D i would personally run. In the video your enemy was running the Acro build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAwiVlNwuYdsNGJOMTrrTA-DaIPleFCxLBCYEUwCwP3CAA   Acro

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAwiVlNwuYdsNGJOMLZrVA-DaIPleFCxLBCYEUwCwP3CAA Critstrikes

Edited April 26 by Sahne.6950

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

 

11 hours ago, cyberzombie.7348 said:

I think a lot of people forget this, rouges/thieves/assassins are supposed to be the dirty yet agile glass cannons. Without that, all you get is a Shiro rev from Wish.

people forget this, get scammed by a thief, get mad, then try to balance emotionally based on the fact they feel scammed while oblivious to the fact that a good thief will -always- make you feel scammed.

It's in the skill design.

You can't escape. 

I understand woodstock's sentiment very well, but it's not like this will be the last thing before people suddenly find the true fair thief matchup.. It'll just shift to bound or blindspam or scepter spam or [axe speeen] or what have you. The true fair thief matchup for people oblivious to the above is the thief being dead or not being rolled as an option. Notice how sword/dagger was seen as the fairest thief matchup when it didn't hit hard/acro was garbage? It's because nobody ran it/those thieves crumpled, apart from the one or two thieves that know your class better than you do and would embarrass you on anything. Does it hitting harder suddenly flip it from being fair to degen? 

 

Edited April 26 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Flowki.7194]

9 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

i dare you to hop ingame and try that for 1 second.

It doesnt work like that.  You will take alot of hits, if you just hammer your buttons, without reacting whats visually coming your way.

 

PLEASE test it before talking such nonsense.     You have never touched this build.... and it shows.

Ive touched all the builds, and thief debates always leave out 1 key factor. It is EASY to learn how to abuse thief mobility, become unkillable outside of 2v1 try hards (or another thief), and focus on +1.. creating highly impactful, but very low risk game play. Then, when you get more compitant, you can take on plenty 1v1's, and get out at the drop of a hat if the person was "better than you thought". The only bad thieves in the game are ones who are not vet, and try to 1v1 everything. Every other thief is a fking nightmare being such low risk, and having +1 dominance. You don't even have to have great game sense on thief, at the very least just abuse the mobility to back cap all game, wasting peoples time.. which is more impact than that same player would ahve on something like necro; roles upto the point > extends into enemy line (coz double life), forgot to place wurm.. gets ganked.

 

I wish I had kept that one video. Quite a novice thief (in terms of doing dps) who had clearly figured out how to use the mobility to avoid pvp and back cap all game. It was so degenerate, and exposed that absolute crutch that is thief mobility. It was funny becuase it got to the point I stopped attacking him, and we continually walked past each other to cap/recap mid/home.. like, the only thing further from pvp than that would be to litterally play pve content. 

Edited April 26 by Flowki.7194

[Frequency.6407]

48 minutes ago, Flowki.7194 said:

Ive touched all the builds, and thief debates always leave out 1 key factor. It is EASY to learn how to abuse thief mobility, become unkillable outside of 2v1 try hards (or another thief), and focus on +1.. creating highly impactful, but very low risk game play. Then, when you get more compitant, you can take on plenty 1v1's, and get out at the drop of a hat if the person was "better than you thought". The only bad thieves in the game are ones who are not vet, and try to 1v1 everything. Every other thief is a fking nightmare being such low risk, and having +1 dominance. You don't even have to have great game sense on thief, at the very least just abuse the mobility to back cap all game, wasting peoples time.. which is more impact than that same player would ahve on something like necro; roles upto the point > extends into enemy line (coz double life), forgot to place wurm.. gets ganked.

 

I wish I had kept that one video. Quite a novice thief (in terms of doing dps) who had clearly figured out how to use the mobility to avoid pvp and back cap all game. It was so degenerate, and exposed that absolute crutch that is thief mobility. It was funny becuase it got to the point I stopped attacking him, and we continually walked past each other to cap/recap mid/home.. like, the only thing further from pvp than that would be to litterally play pve content. 

You have nicely summarised thief's role in PvP.

What's wrong with that?

The class is literally called 'thief', the degenerate one.

[bethekey.8314]

11 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

What i will admit is, that I was being very rough towards you.

I apologize for that.   I could have worded it more friendly.

I will try to stay more objective and friendly from now on.  promised.

Lets both take a step back, calm down, and follow the others train of thought. I promise to do it too.

11 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

What i want you to do: 

Appreciate that and the summaries, shame it took you wanting something to happen. I'm pretty tired of dealing with critical people who spout false narratives and never make amends when called out. It's childlike. I laid out 4(?) objectively wrong things you said in the following quoted post alone and you just skate on by. Pretty sure there are more throughout. I'm not committing more time to a conversation with someone who doesn't do their due diligence when forming arguments, can't see reason, and can't humbly admit when they're wrong.

Granted, after such fuss I may still try the Thief build to see just how low the skill floor and ceiling go.

21 hours ago, bethekey.8314 said:

For comparison, my Scrapper build has 16k HP taking full damage traits. You mistakenly identified it as Nade Scrapper despite sharing neither the weapon, heal, or any of the same utilities (and many of the traits), but I understand most people here aren't detail oriented or experts. I think it was an attempt to call it low skill. Anyway. You may consider it bad, but then again Core S/D thief is also called bad here, so hey, even footing.

We can calculate the Thief's HP from my damage and the health bar %. My Rocket hit of 6309 takes the Thief from 80% to 42%. 6309 =  0.38x, x = 16.6k HP. The Thief has 16.6k HP.

Rocket was also the 2nd hit, the first being Explosive Entrance + Function Gyro after the Flanking Strike to daze Larcenous + land my big hit. That expert advice you offered, if I recall.

We can also calculate my % of health post-Thief opener.   6125 / 15998 = 38%. Lower than 42%. You're actually so wrong and so not detail oriented in your analysis it's hard to have a real conversation with you. It's embarrassing and I'm losing interest.

On this:

11 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

 

And thats where i think the build indeed is interactable. You have a very clear window of punishment that opens, everytime the thief does the smallest mistake.

Again, I'm aware there is a small window and that you can purposefully get hit to open up a non-evade. I don't think you understand that this is context dependent. If the Thief bursts you for 10k from the start, as a glassy build yourself, you can't afford to eat more damage--just to have a chance at hurting the 100% health Thief who can also disengage/reset much easier than you.

Further, what you describe as "interactable" here is a sliver of what most classes have to deal with constantly. You make a big deal about this small vulnerable window for Thief, while downplaying the massive vulnerable windows of others. Others that do less damage, have worse disengage, similar sustain tbh, and whose other defenses aren't as strong or reliable as evade spam (blind, blocks etc.). It's not a good argument.

Hope that makes sense. I won't be replying to your posts further.

Edited April 26 by bethekey.8314

[Sahne.6950]

i tried.

[Flowki.7194]

7 hours ago, Frequency.6407 said:

You have nicely summarised thief's role in PvP.

What's wrong with that?

The class is literally called 'thief', the degenerate one.

Sure, but just know that I have never been able to bring myself to respect the skill of a p+ thief, too crutchy.

[Sereath.1428]

On 4/25/2024 at 10:00 PM, cyberzombie.7348 said:

I think a lot of people forget this, rouges/thieves/assassins are supposed to be the dirty yet agile glass cannons. Without that, all you get is a Shiro rev from Wish.

And they couldn't handle that either, look at it now.
A thief without that many evades, blind spam, instant shadowsteps is a Power Herald in its prime.
This place is hopeless.

I regret supporting this engi main in the past.
By the way, I am now waiting for the video of you dueling core revenants evade spamming.

Edited April 27 by Sereath.1428

[Ferus.3165]

On 4/24/2024 at 1:14 AM, JosephKatz.9375 said:

He used every bit of his kit and initiative exhaustion and only took you under 50%

funny way to say down to 10% hp.