Stealth on dodge for DE needs to go...

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

1 hour ago, bq pd.2148 said:

personally i dont think this game is or should even be balanced or viewed as 1 vs 1. balance should be seen within the context of the mode it is in. yet most balance complains i see in this forum are specifically about class x vs class y without any context, not at all about the impact a class has in a given mode of the game.

If this game was viewed as 1v1 @Terrorhuz.4695 and I would be mortal enemies, because power block mes mechanically invalidates warriors and I will probably be forever annoyed at that. 

Context matters though. They're slow, and that mechanical invalidation is single target with a huge falloff if clones get killed by AOE, so even though them just breathing hard counters my build there are still ways to fight/avoid them on the map.

 

[Flowki.7194]

4 hours ago, bq pd.2148 said:

not at all.
i wanted you to consider all the crutches that keep all the other classes in the game and popular picks.

i know you like to play some random off meta things to satisfy your own subjective notion of skill, but in general all working builds do have some crutches that the builds countered by it (partially or fully) might find toxic.  be that too much projectile hate, too much cc, too much cleanse that you can ignore all condi application, too much invuln, too much stability, too high constant pressure, too high self heals and so on.
for you to recover from having lost 3/4 of your health against a target that is presumed to still be full hp with "barely" any resource used would indicate that you do have some crutches in that build that even allowed you to turn the table on that thief and made them run.  but i guess you going to tell me that it is pure skill?

personally i dont think this game is or should even be balanced or viewed as 1 vs 1. balance should be seen within the context of the mode it is in. yet most balance complains i see in this forum are specifically about class x vs class y without any context, not at all about the impact a class has in a given mode of the game.

Yes, almost every spec is based on some crutch, or spam of a powerful mechanic, we all know this.. the only thing to speak of is which of those are the most oppressive to other specs. This game is about group fight and 1v1, and thief is toxic if jumping you in either. Take TP as the main example, all of them are shocking game design, tping through terrain is just bad. Yet, herlads TP does not feel near as oppressive becuase the spec actually has downsides, like power is suppose to. Thief and WB tp are problomatic becuase of the rest of the mechanics, mainly mobility, which allow a TP in, and very reliable ride out. That is what creates the low risk nature of thief, and in many ways WB.. as their damage aplication on arival is also cake mode. I felt dirty playing them, its all I can say about it. Power in general I can't bring myself to play anymore, it is so mobility/sustain crept, natural counters/downsides are massively reduced. Power untamed a couple year back, that was the ranger bench mark, but look at the builds now, the dps could not be easier, nor could the sustain.

 

Again, your logic on surviving a burst is off. It implies that in order for a spec not to be toxic, it has to die every time it is jumped by a thief. The jump/mobility mechanics of thief are toxic, if you want to brush that off, then do so, we should leave it at that.

[Terrorhuz.4695]

3 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

@Terrorhuz.4695 and I would be mortal enemies

 

Edited May 26 by Terrorhuz.4695

[Flowki.7194]

4 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

They aren't toxic in every iteration. The iterations that aren't toxic die to classes using their own version of carry, and aren't played because the other versions of carry stifle them out of the game.

Designing thief as a roamer that can't conquest points on its own tends to make them build as roamers that can quickly assist other players in winning their nodes or picking off weak enemies. Unfortunate, but you getting a kill isn't as important as the game's overarching balance. If you want the representation of thief skill to result in a kill if yours is greater, advocate for duelist builds that can fight with you on sides in exchange for their leaving power.

We tried that btw. It didn't go over well.

Thieves run out of cooldowns too.

I don't think I can help with this, but there's a reason thief has existed in the way it has been for a decade.

You're annoyed at thief for successfully playing the one way they can get anything done on the map.

The skill was them rotating to that point or location in a way that they didn't waste their time fighting a losing node capture or interacting with a counter, and that you couldn't or didn't prepare for (via approaching out of line of sight or while you had low cooldowns).

If you look carefully, you can also see it in them surviving doing that.

If you want to duel them, they need a duelist build.

Depends. which build deleted 3/4ths of your health? 

 

I understand the limitations of theif. What I don't understand is thief mains keep defending it, rather than trying to get changes that can remove the crutch bs, and allow them to compete fairly, so that I can actually apreciate their skill ( like I do with a herald/holo etc). Half of that issues is that they cannot bring themselves to admit the functional parts of thief right now, are a toxic crutch. Anybody being objective for example, could try specter, and quickly see how bs scepter 3 is. They could try axe thief, see how bs that is. They could try condi core, see how bs that is. DD/DE, see how bs that is. All of them can hard ride 1 dps button outside of steal, and then the rest of it is just mobilty/stealth abuse. I played all these specs, and they genuinely get boring due to the dps application, and then they also start to feel cheap in escape, but at the same time very limited on point in group fights. Nobody wins, why defend it?

Edited May 26 by Flowki.7194

[roederich.2716]

issue with this lots of stealth is it feels like fighting against a cheater. a design like that is one sided fun and therefore bad game design.

[bq pd.2148]

2 hours ago, Flowki.7194 said:

Yes, almost every spec is based on some crutch, or spam of a powerful mechanic, we all know this.. the only thing to speak of is which of those are the most oppressive to other specs.

and i think that is highly subjective or dependent on the build that is pitted against it. having 90% projectile hate uptime doesn't matter if your opponent does not use them, having infinite cleanses doesn't matter against power etc.

2 hours ago, Flowki.7194 said:

This game is about group fight and 1v1, and thief is toxic if jumping you in either. Take TP as the main example, all of them are shocking game design, tping through terrain is just bad. Yet, herlads TP does not feel near as oppressive becuase the spec actually has downsides, like power is suppose to. Thief and WB tp are problomatic becuase of the rest of the mechanics, mainly mobility, which allow a TP in, and very reliable ride out. That is what creates the low risk nature of thief, and in many ways WB.. as their damage aplication on arival is also cake mode.

herald tp is not as bad as the same skill used by a vindicator. 
both thief and WB (less so but still) have lower staying power and instead better escape options. in a mode where you get decent amount of points from holding a location.

yes the fight itself is low risk for the thief if they always keep some escape options ready and leave early enough.
however if they leave without accomplishing the goal of their engagement, kill/decap etc. they just have wasted time and cooldowns that could have better been used elsewhere, the fight could thus still have been an overall loss. because of this jumping some people might actually be a high risk move in terms of the overall game impact, even if the survival of the thief was not really threatened.

2 hours ago, Flowki.7194 said:

 I felt dirty playing them, its all I can say about it. Power in general I can't bring myself to play anymore, it is so mobility/sustain crept, natural counters/downsides are massively reduced.

i don't like playing condi because i think its terribly designed. technically conditions like power damage can be avoided on application but additionally the game has a ton of cleanses. to account for the cleanses condition damage application has to be easier than power or harder to avoid. i feel like it then leads to either you apply so many conditions so easily that you completly overwhelm your opponent or they just shrug it all off, there is not enough in between for me to enjoy playing it.
power burst i find much more predictable and more consistent and thus preferable.
if cleanses were only removing non-damaging conditions (and -% heal from poison moved off it) + condition application balanced for it, then i would be much more ready to play condi.
 

2 hours ago, Flowki.7194 said:

Again, your logic on surviving a burst is off. It implies that in order for a spec not to be toxic, it has to die every time it is jumped by a thief. The jump/mobility mechanics of thief are toxic, if you want to brush that off, then do so, we should leave it at that.

you brought up thief being toxic, i would think if they do survive a thief jumping them and removing 3/4 their HP before reacting and then force the thief to retreat, they are as toxic as a thief that does manage to retreat as the fight goes longer than planned.   

2 hours ago, Flowki.7194 said:

I understand the limitations of theif. What I don't understand is thief mains keep defending it, rather than trying to get changes that can remove the crutch bs, and allow them to compete fairly, so that I can actually apreciate their skill ( like I do with a herald/holo etc).

see that is the problem. while i can't know what you see as crutch and what is not. the very design of thief on pretty much all levels leads to a playstyle that usually is not seen as 'competing fairly' , to change that would require a rework that replaces 90% of thief, maybe keeps some animations. which would essentially be a deletion of the class and replacing it by a new one. i would be totally fine with that.
however i think it is extremely unlikely that we will get that. i am all for reworks that make thief more 'fun' to play against as long as thief will also remain a viable option to play in the competitive modes and i dare say a 'fun' class to play. ofc. fun in playing as or against is highly subjective.  yet mostly its just nerf this, nerf that and rarely people ask for actual reworks.
so veterans of the forum will already see the next nerf request when they see the current one as neither actually changes how thief plays only its viability.

Edited May 27 by bq pd.2148

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

3 hours ago, Flowki.7194 said:

I understand the limitations of theif. What I don't understand is thief mains keep defending it, rather than trying to get changes that can remove the crutch bs, and allow them to compete fairly, so that I can actually apreciate their skill ( like I do with a herald/holo etc). Half of that issues is that they cannot bring themselves to admit the functional parts of thief right now, are a toxic crutch. Anybody being objective for example, could try specter, and quickly see how bs scepter 3 is. They could try axe thief, see how bs that is. They could try condi core, see how bs that is. DD/DE, see how bs that is. All of them can hard ride 1 dps button outside of steal, and then the rest of it is just mobilty/stealth abuse. I played all these specs, and they genuinely get boring due to the dps application, and then they also start to feel cheap in escape, but at the same time very limited on point in group fights. Nobody wins, why defend it?

Excellent question. I personally don't think the goalpost of "thief seen as fair" exists for players. Its a pipe dream.

It probably has to do with the fact that most of the thief whining only targets overarching mechanics that people don't like interacting with as opposed to any interaction reworks that make the class more engaging. They're all very transparent balancing suggestions that remove thief from usability lightly disguised as an earnest effort to make things better (like removal of stealth entirely with no provision or consideration given to how stealth attacks work, or extremely long reveal timers that proc if the thief is hit in stealth with no provision or adjustments suggested to adapt to that. )

Check my post history, I've constantly asked for suggestions from people that think the current mechanics need adjusting, as to how to go about reworking the class so its fair to play AND play against (often, I inquire "what do y'all want?") .  Very rarely do people step up to bat for that.  More often they just get mad at me, because the information you need to make a suggestion that's fair for both thief and an opponent would likely prevent you from having so much trouble with thief to begin with. 

I'm of the opinion most people dont actually want thief to be fair, they want it to be dead.  My opinion will be adjusted immediately if the suggestions warrant it and offer a playstyle that isn't lootbag bait AND manages to be a respectable playstyle. Until then I'm going to play what I'm given (and argue for counters where possible ofc.)

And "HaHa" every time people scream to delete stealth. That's also important. 

Edited May 27 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Myror.7521]

@Flowki.7194 what If i Play core sword dagger Thief and see how bs that is 😜

[Kyraios.8954]

5 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Excellent question. I personally don't think the goalpost of "thief seen as fair" exists for players. Its a pipe dream.

It probably has to do with the fact that most of the thief whining only targets overarching mechanics that people don't like interacting with as opposed to any interaction reworks that make the class more engaging. They're all very transparent balancing suggestions that remove thief from usability lightly disguised as an earnest effort to make things better (like removal of stealth entirely with no provision or consideration given to how stealth attacks work, or extremely long reveal timers that proc if the thief is hit in stealth with no provision or adjustments suggested to adapt to that. )

Check my post history, I've constantly asked for suggestions from people that think the current mechanics need adjusting, as to how to go about reworking the class so its fair to play AND play against (often, I inquire "what do y'all want?") .  Very rarely do people step up to bat for that.  More often they just get mad at me, because the information you need to make a suggestion that's fair for both thief and an opponent would likely prevent you from having so much trouble with thief to begin with. 

I'm of the opinion most people dont actually want thief to be fair, they want it to be dead.  My opinion will be adjusted immediately if the suggestions warrant it and offer a playstyle that isn't lootbag bait AND manages to be a respectable playstyle. Until then I'm going to play what I'm given (and argue for counters where possible ofc.)

And "HaHa" every time people scream to delete stealth. That's also important. 

People want thief to be nerfed, they don't want it to be compensated for those nerfs. It just has absolutely too much going for it. 

Unblockable

Blind

Blink

Evades

Stealth

Condition spam 

High Damage

CC

 

Thief is just ridiculous in both pvp and wvw. Game would be a million times if they reworked its kit entirely. NERF/CHANGE IT ALREADY ANET! 

Mesmer is a close second but at least they don't have spammable ports. 

 

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

1 hour ago, Kyraios.8954 said:

People want thief to be nerfed, they don't want it to be compensated for those nerfs. It just has absolutely too much going for it. 

Unblockable

Blind

Blink

Evades

Stealth

Condition spam 

High Damage

CC

 

Thief is just ridiculous in both pvp and wvw. Game would be a million times if they reworked its kit entirely. NERF/CHANGE IT ALREADY ANET! 

Mesmer is a close second but at least they don't have spammable ports. 

 

@Flowki.7194 see what I mean?

 I don't think it's my job to try to find middle ground with people that want to balance based on resentment. 

Edited May 27 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Frequency.6407]

Let's start with:

1. Take away thief stealth.

2. Give it 2x health

3. Enable stealth attacks on dodges (let's call them 'agility' attacks now). Give 3 dodges to the class.

[Sahne.6950]

meh tbf... DE is the most unhealthy thief spec, and i can understand the complaints.

Why is the burst higher than d/p, but you can do it at range?   i dont rly understand that part.

Stealth on dodge, also isnt the healthiest of mechanics anet introduced....

 

If youd ask me:

change Silent scope -> Preparing shadows:  Whenever you use a dodgeroll, you gain the effect "Prepared shadows" On your next Deaths retreat/Deaths advance, you will automatically combo a Stealth finisher.

 

Its kind of time, that DE has to invest Ini for gaining stealth, just as any other thief spec has to do.    

Thats kind of the reason they are so opressive.  They can just dump all of the ini into dmg, but still have access to stealth after doing it.

Edited May 27 by Sahne.6950

[Flowki.7194]

15 hours ago, bq pd.2148 said:

and i think that is highly subjective or dependent on the build that is pitted against it. having 90% projectile hate uptime doesn't matter if your opponent does not use them, having infinite cleanses doesn't matter against power etc.

herald tp is not as bad as the same skill used by a vindicator. 
both thief and WB (less so but still) have lower staying power and instead better escape options. in a mode where you get decent amount of points from holding a location.

yes the fight itself is low risk for the thief if they always keep some escape options ready and leave early enough.
however if they leave without accomplishing the goal of their engagement, kill/decap etc. they just have wasted time and cooldowns that could have better been used elsewhere, the fight could thus still have been an overall loss. because of this jumping some people might actually be a high risk move in terms of the overall game impact, even if the survival of the thief was not really threatened.

i don't like playing condi because i think its terribly designed. technically conditions like power damage can be avoided on application but additionally the game has a ton of cleanses. to account for the cleanses condition damage application has to be easier than power or harder to avoid. i feel like it then leads to either you apply so many conditions so easily that you completly overwhelm your opponent or they just shrug it all off, there is not enough in between for me to enjoy playing it.
power burst i find much more predictable and more consistent and thus preferable.
if cleanses were only removing non-damaging conditions (and -% heal from poison moved off it) + condition application balanced for it, then i would be much more ready to play condi.
 

you brought up thief being toxic, i would think if they do survive a thief jumping them and removing 3/4 their HP before reacting and then force the thief to retreat, they are as toxic as a thief that does manage to retreat as the fight goes longer than planned.   

see that is the problem. while i can't know what you see as crutch and what is not. the very design of thief on pretty much all levels leads to a playstyle that usually is not seen as 'competing fairly' , to change that would require a rework that replaces 90% of thief, maybe keeps some animations. which would essentially be a deletion of the class and replacing it by a new one. i would be totally fine with that.
however i think it is extremely unlikely that we will get that. i am all for reworks that make thief more 'fun' to play against as long as thief will also remain a viable option to play in the competitive modes and i dare say a 'fun' class to play. ofc. fun in playing as or against is highly subjective.  yet mostly its just nerf this, nerf that and rarely people ask for actual reworks.
so veterans of the forum will already see the next nerf request when they see the current one as neither actually changes how thief plays only its viability.

I think people would collectively agree there are some mechanics in the game that are over used. Stealth, evade+dmg, boon spam, CC spam etc. This topic is specifically about thief. Stealth and mobility are massively overused in the current itteration of the game, and thief is right up there at the top. Thief has one of the lowest HP pools in the game, yet if the thief knows how to use the mobility, it is nion unkillable, and can recover from bad engagement choices, that is not a risky class. Or plainly put; Thief is only risky if youre bad at it.. is that what you guys want for the class?

I understand peoples complaints about condi, but when talking about condi, people only tend to think of the broken condi builds using condi bombs, or face tanking for fun while spamming the ground with AOE. The problem is, power is so oppressive in this game, that those are the only condi specs that see any light of day in terms of being competitive. At the same time, there are problomatic elements of condi builds such as theif/ranger, that so easily apply poison, it is not healhy design either. I played those specs, and I stopped playing them becuase of that, and that most of the damage came from spamming the same few buttons. Poison is way too powerful to be spammed that casually on instant abilitys, a lot of which are ranged/tp/stealth covered with low risk.

With that said, if you play a slower ramp up condi spec, most power specs oppress it with easy condi cleanse and escape mobility, meaning constant resets to eventually 100-0 you when you fk up on 1 stun. How many times does a "balanced" condi spec have to outplay a power spec before it dies? Ive counted as much as 7 resets on power specs, losing their jumps, reseting. Does that mean my spec is bad, or is it that power is crept?, think objectively on that question for just a second. At the same time, condi bomb specs Vs my spec are similar, I can outplay 80% of their attacks, and land most CC/apply dmg to them, but they only need to hit me with 1 confusion/poison laced condi bomb and im in serious trouble. It is at the point now, I beleive, where power specs in general are less risk, and less punishing than many of their condi counter parts. Mobility to leave every fight, buffs to sustain, nerfs to other specs/amus and all that stuff.. yet mainting the ability to CC-100-0 is what has led to that. Even untamed, despite all of its utility, all of its tank, can still 100-0 you very fast, it is rediculous to the point I don't know how anybody can play that spec in good faith. I do feel sorry for the long term users though, I know one of them, he's really good.. and anet have destroyed that "pride" for him.

Again I just can't understand your logic on thief steal jumps. Be specific. Are you suggesting that a spec must die to a thiefs steal >immob>daze jump in order for that spec not to be considered toxic? That is what your comments infer, and if that is what you mean then your logic is on a different planet to mine, no offense. What it means, is that every game would be full of thieves, no other so called "balanced" spec would be able to compete. At that point, you need to give me a solid reason as to why a balanced spec, by default, should die to a steal>immob>daze jump through terrain. You need to explain that, because as it looks to me, your bias for thief is massively tilting your judgement.

What makes any ecnounter more fun to fight is when the spec dies for making clear mistakes/bad choices. Thief is fine getting the jump, it is fine having mobility/stealth, but it is not fine when the over abundence of those mechanics, unlocks low risk, high damage jumps, with easy exits. How could you possibly expect me to find that fun to fight, or to view that thief as skilful. How could I know he is skillfull, when he has the mechanics to completely escape the punishment of counter play? He's not being tested. Front loaded burst specs work like that also, their is some skill in knowing when to go in sure, but 100-0ing people before they can react, meaning you don't have to react to that reaction? I don't see the skill their either. That is from somebody who played glass power ele for a while, and got bored of 100-0ing people in one stun. It isn't skill, although at-least it was risky.

Edited May 27 by Flowki.7194

[Flowki.7194]

15 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Excellent question. I personally don't think the goalpost of "thief seen as fair" exists for players. Its a pipe dream.

It probably has to do with the fact that most of the thief whining only targets overarching mechanics that people don't like interacting with as opposed to any interaction reworks that make the class more engaging. They're all very transparent balancing suggestions that remove thief from usability lightly disguised as an earnest effort to make things better (like removal of stealth entirely with no provision or consideration given to how stealth attacks work, or extremely long reveal timers that proc if the thief is hit in stealth with no provision or adjustments suggested to adapt to that. )

Check my post history, I've constantly asked for suggestions from people that think the current mechanics need adjusting, as to how to go about reworking the class so its fair to play AND play against (often, I inquire "what do y'all want?") .  Very rarely do people step up to bat for that.  More often they just get mad at me, because the information you need to make a suggestion that's fair for both thief and an opponent would likely prevent you from having so much trouble with thief to begin with. 

I'm of the opinion most people dont actually want thief to be fair, they want it to be dead.  My opinion will be adjusted immediately if the suggestions warrant it and offer a playstyle that isn't lootbag bait AND manages to be a respectable playstyle. Until then I'm going to play what I'm given (and argue for counters where possible ofc.)

And "HaHa" every time people scream to delete stealth. That's also important. 

For me it comes down to the lack of defined class roles, and an unwillingness to encourage them. From the ground up, anet really dropped the ball in not making more supports viable. They should be the bedrock of any sPVP match, with group fight specs specifically tailored to fight alongside them. In that sense, I also beleive supports should have the most access to things like cleanses, protection, resolotion, resistance etc, which they can place on single team mates where it is needed (aoe on dps/support is way over used).

 

To save a massive wall of text, SPB should be one of the few specs that has a lot of CC, that it can bring to group fights to help its team lay down coordinated dmg, or peel for people. Thief should ofc have the highest stealth/mobility, it just makes sense (many other non-thief specs need a hard nerf on mobility imo). However, their is too much emphesis on thief being a back capping/+1 bot.. its boring to play as, and annoying to fight. A different approach would be to give thief more team support utility. For example, it can jump into group fights, and apply an immob on a target, and it has access to poison. If the game spammed less resistance/trait ignores of immob, it would matter more, yet immob/poison should not be overused, being why thief would be one of the few appliers of it. The thief in that sense would not need to be deleting 3/4 of people health in 1 toxic jump, or just avoiding pvp all game to back cap, becuase it now brings vital group utility (obviously it could still back cap). With lower damage output on such a spec, the thief can then have more sustain while applying its utility in group fights/small skirmishes. Obviously the likes of DE would lose such utility in order to take on a more dps role. After that, the damage application of the specs are horrendously too simple, I was genuinely let down when palying thief, as I thought there was more to it. Spread those co's out or something.. force the thief to have to use all of its toolkit so its actualy engaging to do dmg with. Spread out scepter 3 utlity, things like that. It reminds me of ele condi on auto attack. I played condi tempest for a while and hated that part of it.. so chose to use other abilitys just to not fall asleep. Its not quite like that on thief since a few of the abilitys are vastly better than the rest.

 

At current  everybody is just roaming, doing their own thing, with 0 direct team work. All they are doing is looking for +1s, and thief in this setting has so much oppertunities for cheap +1's, it further emphesises the issues of the class, and anets clear bias toward power/roaming, at the complete alienation of countless other specs/playstyles. This current meta is by far the most boring, and least team oriented experiance ive had in the game. The only real risk now is who is brave enough (or stupid enough) to set the ball rolling by taking on the 1v1, then just see who gets +1d first.

Edited May 27 by Flowki.7194

[bq pd.2148]

48 minutes ago, Flowki.7194 said:

Again I just can't understand your logic on thief steal jumps. Be specific. Are you suggesting that a spec must die to a thiefs steal >immob>daze jump in order for that spec not to be considered toxic? That is what your comments infer, and if that is what you mean then your logic is on a different planet to mine, no offense.

i don't consider any singular build particularly toxic as there are always builds that one can swap to to deal with them. the only thing i find toxic is some players in an inherently unbalaned mode (wvw) tryharding to force fights against smaller groups/solos were keeping them busy doesn't even gain you anything, but that is not the forum for that.

i think thief has practically no staying power in a fight so they engage and if they cannot secure a kill fast, they should leave, if they stay too long they should and often will die.  other classes do have staying power but in turn can not escape or chase as well, if they get through the initial phase against a thief, they will have won the encounter either by the thief leaving or dying. i don't find either side more toxic than the other, but i can see advantages and limitations of both.
if the thief should die for engaging a target that they will not kill, they need to have a much higher likely hood of killing the target on engage.

Edited May 27 by bq pd.2148

[Flowki.7194]

42 minutes ago, bq pd.2148 said:

i don't consider any singular build particularly toxic as there are always builds that one can swap to to deal with them. the only thing i find toxic is some players in an inherently unbalaned mode (wvw) tryharding to force fights against smaller groups/solos were keeping them busy doesn't even gain you anything, but that is not the forum for that.

i think thief has practically no staying power in a fight so they engage and if they cannot secure a kill fast, they should leave, if they stay too long they should and often will die.  other classes are do have staying power but in turn can not escape or chase as well, if they get through the initial phase against a thief, they will have won the encounter either by the thief leaving or dying. i don't find either side more toxic than the other, but i can see advantages and limitations of both.
if the thief should die for engaging a target that they will not kill, they need to have a much higher likely hood of killing the target on engage.

That ethos is bad though. Do you actually understand the advantedge that comes with being a jump class? You have the suprise, the other opponent has to do ALL of the reacting or dies in under 4 seconds, so they have ALL the pressure. If you think the thief should have a higher success rate in that, then nobody would play the specs getting jumped by the thief, why would they? That is an absurd advantedge to the thief. That dynamic is why jump specs are so difficult to balance, I felt that very much on ele, melting people in 1 CC, then certain specs could litterally eat my entire burst cycle, I could die due to using most utility to stay active and lay down that damage. That issue comes down to bad game design, they need to aim for a happy medium, if you make X amount of mistakes you die, and 100-0ing people in 3 seconds simply should not be possible, its rediculous, so many specs can do it.

Jump/roam specs should be afforded less mistakes, becuase they have the advantedge of picking the enegagement and elements of suprise (tp etc), along with "balanced" spike damage. Less mobile specs should be afforded a few more mistakes.. but not litterally eating all CC and facetanking 30k worth of dmg kind of mistakes. Currently the balance is massively bias toward thief, remember this is not just about 1v1. He can jump you 1v1 with high dmg, realise you are not going to die, then reset,  try again if he thought he messed up the jump, or figured out your spec/style, or leave, and then jump you +1. Knowing how to escape with a TP is a much easier skill to learn than putting down fast burst damage, and what damage to avoid. Silver/low gold thieves typically eat what I feed them, and from that point, TP out, go into flight mode and become unkillable. The only time I will see that thief again is in a +1. There is no other spec that will have that immunity at lower skill levels, which is why I think thief mobility/stealth is a crutch. If you put that player on most other roamers they would not escape, and die, I say that becuase I kill far more of those roam specs than thieves, far more.

Edited May 27 by Flowki.7194

[bq pd.2148]

15 minutes ago, Flowki.7194 said:

That ethos is bad though. Do you actually understand the advantedge that comes with being a jump class? You have the suprise, the other opponent has to do ALL of the reacting or dies in under 4 seconds, so they have ALL the pressure. If you think the thief should have a higher success rate in that, then nobody would play the specs getting jumped by the thief, why would they?

higher chance of getting a kill in a fight does not need to be within the first seconds and does not mean actually having the jump on people.

as said if you want thief to die instead of escape when failing, thus having less mobility/stealth to disengage, they would also be less in position to jump you.
however whether it is a short or a longer fight would depend on the amount of staying power the specs have.  if you expect thief to not escape and have no staying power, then they better be extremely deadly, give them staying power and the fight can be more balanced in terms of give and take.

as said i wouldn't mind a complete rework, i am just opposed to pure nerfing to reduce viability because some people don't like playing against it. then rework it, make it fun. but don't try to patch a class out of the game.

Edited May 27 by bq pd.2148

[Flowki.7194]

1 hour ago, bq pd.2148 said:

higher chance of getting a kill in a fight does not need to be within the first seconds and does not mean actually having the jump on people.

as said if you want thief to die instead of escape when failing, thus having less mobility/stealth to disengage, they would also be less in position to jump you.
however whether it is a short or a longer fight would depend on the amount of staying power the specs have.  if you expect thief to not escape and have no staying power, then they better be extremely deadly, give them staying power and the fight can be more balanced in terms of give and take.

as said i wouldn't mind a complete rework, i am just opposed to pure nerfing to reduce viability because some people don't like playing against it. then rework it, make it fun. but don't try to patch a class out of the game.

Lets not move the goal posts here, keep the focus on the most toxic scenario, the thief steal jumps through terrain, or from stealth, into immob>daze>10-14k ish dmg, then has a stunbreak TP if kitten goes south. At that, even if you see the thief, it is more difficult to react to steal, than to pull it off. Thats the same with DH, it is alot more difficult to play around the DH abilitys than to use them, thanks to the casually backed in blocks+unblockables. Steal>immob>daze+TP stunbreak, baked in easy jump/escape, with return option if they chase, pretty much ensuring there is no point in chasing, bye thief. This is just the steal+tp btw, never mind the rest of it. I never said thief should have no staying power, I wish they had less mobility, and more staying power, in the form of active defence (keep the stealth). That way, they will have to use that defence, or die. Great.. pick a better encounter next time, coz stealing into a 2v1 to skill check them was not it.

 

It is not just some people, the majority of people hate playing against it, quite like mesmers, fun for many to play as, not fun to fight against <targetdrops/clones/daze/confusion/stealth> uninteractive encounters of being daze locked, retargeting, checking you can play the game coz not loaded with 10+ confusion etc.

Edited May 27 by Flowki.7194

[bq pd.2148]

24 minutes ago, Flowki.7194 said:

Lets not move the goal posts here, keep the focus on the most toxic scenario, the thief steal jumps through terrain, or from stealth, into immob>daze>10-14k ish dmg, then has a stunbreak TP if kitten goes south. At that, even if you see the thief, it is more difficult to react to steal, than to pull it off. Thats the same with DH, it is alot more difficult to play around the DH abilitys than to use them, thanks to the casually backed in blocks+unblockables. Steal>immob>daze+TP stunbreak, baked in easy jump/escape, with return option if they chase, pretty much ensuring there is no point in chasing, bye thief. This is just the steal+tp btw, never mind the rest of it.

it might be more difficult to play against it. but if you can play against it, the limitations will kick in. 
i merely want you to agree that it is a matter of fun, or to stick to your language 'toxic design' not one of the class being too strong over all, as you noted above if thief was too effective at that, there would be little reason to play other classes and yet other classes do see plenty of play.

but thief being unfun to play against would warrant reworks to make them more fun, just straight nerfs don't make it more fun to run into a thief just less likely.

thats why i made a suggestion on the first page here to replace silent scope's stealth on dodge with restoring the stolen skill if one does hit above 5 malice with a stealth attack. it would be a gain for the thief in terms of resource management if they do hit, but that itself would offer more counterplay, it could work with more weapons than just rifle and it would show why death's judgement is terrible for a stealth attack (i would prefer a more reliable utility stealth attack for standing rifle in its stead, based on cursed bullet for example).

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

3 hours ago, Flowki.7194 said:

For me it comes down to the lack of defined class roles, and an unwillingness to encourage them. From the ground up, anet really dropped the ball in not making more supports viable. They should be the bedrock of any sPVP match, with group fight specs specifically tailored to fight alongside them. In that sense, I also beleive supports should have the most access to things like cleanses, protection, resolotion, resistance etc, which they can place on single team mates where it is needed (aoe on dps/support is way over used).

 

To save a massive wall of text, SPB should be one of the few specs that has a lot of CC, that it can bring to group fights to help its team lay down coordinated dmg, or peel for people. Thief should ofc have the highest stealth/mobility, it just makes sense (many other non-thief specs need a hard nerf on mobility imo). However, their is too much emphesis on thief being a back capping/+1 bot.. its boring to play as, and annoying to fight. A different approach would be to give thief more team support utility. For example, it can jump into group fights, and apply an immob on a target, and it has access to poison. If the game spammed less resistance/trait ignores of immob, it would matter more, yet immob/poison should not be overused, being why thief would be one of the few appliers of it. The thief in that sense would not need to be deleting 3/4 of people health in 1 toxic jump, or just avoiding pvp all game to back cap, becuase it now brings vital group utility (obviously it could still back cap). With lower damage output on such a spec, the thief can then have more sustain while applying its utility in group fights/small skirmishes. Obviously the likes of DE would lose such utility in order to take on a more dps role. After that, the damage application of the specs are horrendously too simple, I was genuinely let down when palying thief, as I thought there was more to it. Spread those co's out or something.. force the thief to have to use all of its toolkit so its actualy engaging to do dmg with. Spread out scepter 3 utlity, things like that. It reminds me of ele condi on auto attack. I played condi tempest for a while and hated that part of it.. so chose to use other abilitys just to not fall asleep. Its not quite like that on thief since a few of the abilitys are vastly better than the rest.

 

At current  everybody is just roaming, doing their own thing, with 0 direct team work. All they are doing is looking for +1s, and thief in this setting has so much oppertunities for cheap +1's, it further emphesises the issues of the class, and anets clear bias toward power/roaming, at the complete alienation of countless other specs/playstyles. This current meta is by far the most boring, and least team oriented experiance ive had in the game. The only real risk now is who is brave enough (or stupid enough) to set the ball rolling by taking on the 1v1, then just see who gets +1d first.

Funny story

We had class roles before, people got mad thief was good at +1 roaming, so the next xpack dropped a bunch of roaming gear into the game and now everyone is roaming and throwing the game (because the teamfighters die to roamers alone) and still mad at thieves. 

I'm just along for the ride now.  When one thing on a class I play gets too annoying and gets nerfed, I'll be back on another, like a curse people can't get rid of. There is no consensus about what constitutes fair thief even if you shackle people to roles, but I'm happy to watch people try to find one.  💀

[Flowki.7194]

Fair enough, but im never going to take the skill of a thief seriously when it is hard carried by low risk mechanics. Thats just my opinion I guess, I'll keep trolling the duel jumps of plat thieves with mouse click dodge/blocks, awaiting the day it will actually be worth the time to touch keys and interact..

Edited May 27 by Flowki.7194

[magickthief.6492]

22 hours ago, Kyraios.8954 said:

People want thief to be nerfed, they don't want it to be compensated for those nerfs. It just has absolutely too much going for it. 

Unblockable

Blind

Blink

Evades

Stealth

Condition spam 

High Damage

CC

 

Thief is just ridiculous in both pvp and wvw. Game would be a million times if they reworked its kit entirely. NERF/CHANGE IT ALREADY ANET! 

Mesmer is a close second but at least they don't have spammable ports. 

 

They don't have all those at once, "my dude"

[Skary.8956]

Harbringer, SB, DH and Untamed in every single lobby on both teams and people complain about Thief.
Jesus Christ 🤣

[Frequency.6407]

4 minutes ago, Skary.8956 said:

Harbringer, SB, DH and Untamed in every single lobby on both teams and people complain about Thief.
Jesus Christ 🤣

Replace harb and DH with condi reaper and we good. Last one is thief ofcourse.

Also, thief gets blamed if you lose mid 4v4.

Then you complain about the opposing thief on forums.

Because thief OP.

[Skary.8956]

2 minutes ago, Frequency.6407 said:

Replace harb and DH with condi reaper and we good. Last one is thief ofcourse.

Also, thief gets blamed if you lose mid 4v4.

Then you complain about the opposing thief on forums.

Because thief OP.

I KEKed Irl 🤣
I think a lot of the hatered against thief is based on youtube kill compilations not based in reality.