Fighting thief feels like you're fighting a hacker

[Kyraios.8954]

Title says it all. 

Constant blinks, stealth, insane damage, mobility, blinds, condis. Why do they need all of this? They don't even have the lowest health pool in the game. The class in general is just broken. 

There is no counterplay to a good thief. 

Edited May 14 by Kyraios.8954

[Codename T.2847]

27 minutes ago, Kyraios.8954 said:

Title says it all. 

Constant blinks, stealth, insane damage, mobility, blinds, condis. Why do they need all of this? They don't even have the lowest health pool in the game. The class in general is just broken. 

There is no counterplay to a good thief. 

I mean they do in fact have the lowest health pool in the game technically (tied with Ele and Guardian), although not the lowest effective health, that goes to Ele. 

As to the counterplay I mean... there is not too much you can do, we can just be glad that it's not 2015-17 anymore when each backstab was critting for way more than what they do now xD 

Now don't get it twisted, I don't think thieves are fine the way they are now, but people could come here and list their wack-kitten balance ideas, just like they always do, but just know that Anet doesn't give a kitten and won't do anything meaningful anymore to the class, because they don't understand it.

Personally, I would say Thief could be way more funny for both parties involved if it worked like the Spy from Team Fortress 2. No added mobility tools, but same amount of stealth while having a loooot of damage on stealth attacks but having game-sense could counter them in a sense (being slightly visible while close - akin to bumping to them, actually being visible while burning, audible footstepts etc.) If the thief is good, he gets to have insane damage, but they have to be aware of the dangers of playing the class. If the thief is bad, they just instadie each time until they get good = Win-Win für alles : D As it stands thief doesn't do insane damage anymore (something thief mains will cry about constantly, as if they need good damage lol), but is spammy as hell so they can just wear down any class and wait out their defensives. And if they get low? well just use tons of evades, ports and reset. Not too exciting, not too fun, not too fun to play against... and the current counter play is just uhm... dodge/block preemptively when you think the enemy is about to do something? really not a thing in any other games and it's crazy how Anet hasn't figured that out yet in 12 years.

Edit: and oh yeah, one more thing, good players will be good players. If you're talking about 1v1 context anyway, a good player will rarely if ever have a hard time because they can just play around each of the classes' counter mechanics and know all the matchups really well, therefore they have multiclassed at some point.

Edited May 14 by Codename T.2847

[Endo.1652]

24 minutes ago, Codename T.2847 said:

I mean they do in fact have the lowest health pool in the game technically (tied with Ele and Guardian), although not the lowest effective health, that goes to Ele. 

As to the counterplay I mean... there is not too much you can do, we can just be glad that it's not 2015-17 anymore when each backstab was critting for way more than what they do now xD 

Now don't get it twisted, I don't think thieves are fine the way they are now, but people could come here and list their wack-kitten balance ideas, just like they always do, but just know that Anet doesn't give a kitten and won't do anything meaningful anymore to the class, because they don't understand it.

Personally, I would say Thief could be way more funny for both parties involved if it worked like spy. No added mobility tools, but same amount of stealth while having a loooot of damage on stealth attacks but having game-sense could counter them in a sense (being slightly visible while close - akin to bumping to them, actually being visible while burning, audible footstepts etc.) If the thief is good, he gets to have insane damage, but they have to be aware of the dangers of playing the class. If the thief is bad, they just instadie each time until they get good = Win-Win für jeder : D As it stands thief doesn't do great damage anymore, but is spammy as kitten so they can just wear down any class and wait out their defensives. And if they get low? well just use tons of evades, ports and reset. Not too exciting, not too fun, not too fun to play against... it's just an overall pretty sh*tty class in my opinion, but it excels at being sh*t and throwing it all over people for them to feel the sh*ttiness too ^^

Man the paragraph going on about wack ideas and then right after saying a wacky idea. Thats crazzzyy.

[Zekent.3652]

Why? don't you like getting hit by a 8k-10k backstab out of stealth?

Skill issue

Thief has no dmg, buff

[Kuya.6495]

51 minutes ago, Kyraios.8954 said:

Title says it all. 

Constant blinks, stealth, insane damage, mobility, blinds, condis. Why do they need all of this? They don't even have the lowest health pool in the game. The class in general is just broken. 

There is no counterplay to a good thief. 

Of course there is counterplay. 

The counterplay is an even better thief!

[Supernova Starr.2069]

42 minutes ago, Codename T.2847 said:

Edit: and oh yeah, one more thing, good players will be good players. If you're talking about 1v1 context anyway, a good player will rarely if ever have a hard time because they can just play around each of the classes' counter mechanics and know all the matchups really well, therefore they have multiclassed at some point.

Highly subjective

[MilkyTea.9042]

 

2 hours ago, Codename T.2847 said:

Personally, I would say Thief could be way more funny for both parties involved if it worked like the Spy from Team Fortress 2.

Can't wait to see engineers bringing flamethrowers to thief check.

[Codename T.2847]

2 hours ago, Endorphin.9147 said:

Man the paragraph going on about wack ideas and then right after saying a wacky idea. Thats crazzzyy.

I just didn't want to write "remove stealth" or "delete thief", it's getting old

[Burnfall.9573]

4 hours ago, Kyraios.8954 said:

Title says it all. 

Constant blinks, stealth, insane damage, mobility, blinds, condis. Why do they need all of this? They don't even have the lowest health pool in the game. The class in general is just broken. 

There is no counterplay to a good thief. 

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/A-Plea-to-Karl

The Community even went as far to plead for Anet attention in Thief Profession forum.

[Player.2475]

To be fair, a lot of them do actually hack because you can't see what they're doing in stealth and people will easily dismiss it as not understanding the class, until you reveal a stealthing thief and see them teleporting all over the place without using any of their shadowstep/recall abilities. 🙂

[Gabriel.8621]

7 hours ago, Kyraios.8954 said:

Title says it all. 

Constant blinks, stealth, insane damage, mobility, blinds, condis. Why do they need all of this? They don't even have the lowest health pool in the game. The class in general is just broken. 

There is no counterplay to a good thief. 

Play ranger or holosmith...

[Flowki.7194]

7 hours ago, Codename T.2847 said:

Personally, I would say Thief could be way more funny for both parties involved if it worked like the Spy from Team Fortress 2.

Hah, trick stabs and amby had people raging pretty hard though.. but at-least the skill level was undeniably high.

 

Gw2; Steal > 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

Edited May 15 by Flowki.7194

[Last Crab.6054]

Sounds like you combined all thieves into one build so that they have all skills and traits at the same time, or you are talking about Deadeye

[Shagie.7612]

don't think it'll be very surprising if DE is further nerfed in the next big balance patch since the previous stuff clearly didn't do a lot

anyways make stealthed players get revealed if they hit into blocks, that'd be nice

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

You might not be that far off.  Because of all their shadowsteps and stealth, thieves and mesmers are the favorites of hackers.  All their innate skills make it easy to hide all of the hacks they're using.  Thieves especially, due to their initiative system.  

[Gotejjeken.1267]

4 hours ago, Gabriel.8621 said:

Play ranger or holosmith...

Can confirm, as a ranger a thief might be the least scary class out of literally all of them atm.  An extremely well played DE is another story, but there's like 3 of those around.  Even then too, Sid was having a time trying to kill a SLB in the April mAT--so even at a high-level ranger still mostly counters thief.  

Edited May 15 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Skary.8956]

Unrealistic and most glass cannon build

Critical Strikes, Deadly Arts and Daredevil

Assassins Signed, Signed of Agility

Berserker, Infiltration and Fireworks

D/P Compounding and Exploitation

On Indestructible Golem at 50% HP

A full combo of Bound, Assassins Signed, DP5 into DP2 into Steal into Backstab

This combo delt total of
9k HS + 11k Backstab
This combo has 25 sec CD because we are running the most offensive build possible

This might seem like a lot but this is under perfect conditions that you will encounter very rarely. This build is bad because you put all your eggs in a single hell mary combo and after it you just get deleted. With so many ways to dodge this combo and the condition it requires its quite unreliable and its going to work only against really low level competition. So this build makes you absolutely useless in PVP especially in the current meta

A more real world build
Acrobatics, Trickery, Daredevil - so you don't die to conditions like a kitten

Assassins Signed Only

Same Sigils, same Runes, Relics and Amuelets

Same exact combo
6k HS + 7k Backstab
This is a lot less dmg but the tradeoff is that you can do this combo once every 17 seconds, a lot more surival ability but you suffer from the same thing Reliability. A lot of conditions needs to be met for those 13k hell mary on 17 seconds cd

Optimal Build
Acrobatics, Trickery, Daredevil
Bandits Defense instead of Assassins Signed
Daredevil instead of Fireworks and Unhinged Combatant instead of Bound
4k HS + 5k Backstab

This build makes you really evasive, harder to kill and really enables you to do things around the map. All the numbers I'm showing are critical strikes against light armor. This means that 30-40% of time you will hit for half of that. Add all invunerabilities, dodges, blocks and skills that make you immune to dmg or critical strikes and you get a significantly lowers reliability of this 4k + 5k up to 9k + 11k(the most unrealistic build) now add that people on higher ranks expect this combo because its super predictable the moment they see blinding powder and the HS animation they are already clicking defensive utility that will completely wreck the entire combo.

I think you probably are not experienced playing against thief so I suggest that you play the class to get a bit more familiar.

Edited May 15 by Skary.8956

[Saiyan.1704]

4 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Can confirm, as a ranger a thief might be the least scary class out of literally all of them atm.  An extremely well played DE is another story, but there's like 3 of those around.  Even then too, Sid was having a time trying to kill a SLB in the April mAT--so even at a high-level ranger still mostly counters thief.  

Bruh, we all have issues killing a ranger... thief included. This doesn't exactly help the cause especially when Rangers are meta atm.

[Flowki.7194]

8 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Can confirm, as a ranger a thief might be the least scary class out of literally all of them atm.  An extremely well played DE is another story, but there's like 3 of those around.  Even then too, Sid was having a time trying to kill a SLB in the April mAT--so even at a high-level ranger still mostly counters thief.  

I think with thief it is more about the fundementally 1 sided encounter. It doesnt matter if thief was meta, great, good or garbedge, its mechanics are annoying to fight. Stealth classes are suppose to be sneaky and elusive sure.. but that doesn't justify thiefs obnoxious low risk mechanics. Mesmer is very much in that same catigory for its own reasons.

 

Take for example, I am in a 1v1 on home, I see a thief coming in for the +1.. I mightaswell just go afk. I can't attack the thief becuase it has to much escape, I can't keep attacking to try and win the 1v1 on the other guy, becuase lets not pretend thief does low damage. Then, I don't really have much chance of escaping becuase thief mobility+backstabs. So in a nutshell, unless I was just about to win that 1v1 to transition into the next 1v1, its over, initiate time waste mode.

 

In a 1v1, its just a boring duel. Stand there, drop AOE, wait for him to get greedy and die, or he leaves. Good thieves don't tend to get greedy.. so yo just die or they leave. The duels are so degenerate I actually started bating thieves, letting my HP get to 20% in the hope they over extend. Ironically, I am the one taking all the risk.

Edited May 15 by Flowki.7194

[Kyraios.8954]

Aside from DE, I wasn't talking about getting 1 shot instantly. I said insane damage. 

 

The damage they can output, using your example (even the weaker build) can easily +1 and win a fight against someone who's not paying attention. Which is fine, there shouldnt be a build for any class that allows them to 1vx for an extended amount of time. The problem is, is the mobility, stealth, and ALL of the utility thief gets ON TOP of that damage is what makes them so ridiculous.

 

Giga mobile & High damage is not okay. Especially when you factor in stealth. 

 

Another mmo that I play handles stealth nicely. When a character is stealthed, they move slowly(sneaking up on someone hence stealth) when they cast an ability it reveals them. When they get hit they are also revealed. Yet even with all of these catches it's still an insanely strong skill because being invisible to an enemy is an insanely strong mechanic. 

 

Gw2 on the other hand, you can be stealthed, have swiftness and teleport absolutely everywhere with no drawbacks whatsoever. 

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Don't mind me I'm just watching what wacky antics the squad will get up to next

[Endo.1652]

On 5/14/2024 at 2:03 PM, Codename T.2847 said:

Personally, I would say Thief could be way more funny for both parties involved if it worked like the Spy from Team Fortress 2. No added mobility tools, but same amount of stealth while having a loooot of damage on stealth attacks but having game-sense could counter them in a sense (being slightly visible while close - akin to bumping to them, actually being visible while burning, audible footstepts etc.) If the thief is good, he gets to have insane damage, but they have to be aware of the dangers of playing the class. If the thief is bad, they just instadie each time until they get good = Win-Win für alles : D

Unfortunately in this current gamestate this wouldnt work. The game has so much mobility and classes sharing the same access to things they didnt have before, once all these expansions happened. If you cut out the mobility and evasive mechanics on thief, youd never be able to do anything to anyone with a brain. 

All this would do is make thief boring. It would be an entire match of hugging stealth and your only option is to sneak attack and down someone to watch them get ressed as you get focused and die or just die to random AoE that people spam around themselves. Adding being visible once they are too close on top of removing their mobility? If they did this while keeping the mobility of all the other classes, the "get good" you talk about would literally just be dying til you swap classes completely. I dont even think the really good thief mains would play thief anymore if they did this.

[Codename T.2847]

24 minutes ago, Endorphin.9147 said:

Unfortunately in this current gamestate this wouldnt work. The game has so much mobility and classes sharing the same access to things they didnt have before, once all these expansions happened. If you cut out the mobility and evasive mechanics on thief, youd never be able to do anything to anyone with a brain. 

All this would do is make thief boring. It would be an entire match of hugging stealth and your only option is to sneak attack and down someone to watch them get ressed as you get focused and die or just die to random AoE that people spam around themselves. Adding being visible once they are too close on top of removing their mobility? If they did this while keeping the mobility of all the other classes, the "get good" you talk about would literally just be dying til you swap classes completely. I dont even think the really good thief mains would play thief anymore if they did this.

Would be funny ngl

Edited May 15 by Codename T.2847

[Gotejjeken.1267]

9 hours ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

Bruh, we all have issues killing a ranger... thief included. This doesn't exactly help the cause especially when Rangers are meta atm.

Right, but how do you die to thief on Guard? 

[Skary.8956]

1 hour ago, Kyraios.8954 said:

Aside from DE, I wasn't talking about getting 1 shot instantly. I said insane damage. 

 

The damage they can output, using your example (even the weaker build) can easily +1 and win a fight against someone who's not paying attention. Which is fine, there shouldnt be a build for any class that allows them to 1vx for an extended amount of time. The problem is, is the mobility, stealth, and ALL of the utility thief gets ON TOP of that damage is what makes them so ridiculous.

 

Giga mobile & High damage is not okay. Especially when you factor in stealth. 

 

Another mmo that I play handles stealth nicely. When a character is stealthed, they move slowly(sneaking up on someone hence stealth) when they cast an ability it reveals them. When they get hit they are also revealed. Yet even with all of these catches it's still an insanely strong skill because being invisible to an enemy is an insanely strong mechanic. 

 

Gw2 on the other hand, you can be stealthed, have swiftness and teleport absolutely everywhere with no drawbacks whatsoever. 

Well in order to have swiftness outside of using steal(which you are using offensively) you need to run Acrobatics which results in a significant drop off in dmg.
Maybe you are starting to merge multiple thief players into one.
Teleport is 50 sec cd and it's not a skill exclusive to thief
Bow 5 is 900 range add animation and fly time and the absurd cost(its a bit broken the places you can reach with bow 5)
Stealth is unreliable in this game because many skills target you when you go invis add reveal on top and thief is not that scary.
In general the dmg is unreliable just because the range of dagger is 130 only making a lot of skills to miss from time to time.
What profession are you playing on and what Amulet are you using?
I really don't see a reason for DD to be nerfed in any way when we have some of the most broken builds right now Spellbreaker, Vindi, Herald, Untamed, Willbender/Core(with focus) and Necro