... But The Thief Got Away.

Gotejjeken.1267 · January 26, 2021

@Voltekka.2375 said:
@Psycoprophet.8107 said:
@Gotejjeken.1267 said:
@UmbraNoctis.1907 said:
@Gotejjeken.1267 said:
As a suggestion, I think Druid for instance is actually in a good place, one that could be used as a model for thief.

Absolutely no. Druid is the worst of ranger specs. Being either useless or hardcarried by a broken mechanic, that requires counterbuilding with little to no way to actually outplay even trash druids without reliable way to get out of the roots, shouldn't be model for anything. I'd rather fight soulbeasts or thieves all day long (even tho both can be quite cancerous in their own ways).

Have you actually played it? I can tell you a decent boon beast is far, far worse than a druid any day. You outplay 'trash' druids by having stab uptime, literally any CC skill, or outranging them, all of which are pretty easy to do. I've played one of the builds that you would hate for many hours and can tell you it's only really effective in group settings (non-zerg).

Complaints about rooting are very similar to the complaints about thieves bursting from stealth, both require counterplay. Druid roots have major counterplay as unless you are +1'ing, almost all classes have ways to instantly break out of the roots or never be rooted to begin with. Roots aren't even druid specific, it's one trait on a 10 second ICD lol. SB can actually do immob better being selfish, can have sustain all day, only lacking in condi removal unless you run runes of cleansing.

Anyway, Thieves on the other hand are built so that counterplay will 'kill the class' (see above responses). That's just bad design all the way around, as you either have an unkillable +1ing machine and 'have to deal with it' or you 'break the entire class beyond repair'.

Outplay druid by bringing stab up time & out range it lol only a few classes have enough stab up time to keep up with druids root access, lastly u say out range it yet druid can out range most classes so.....

Just so you know, stab is useless against immobilize. If you need a further explanation, immob is a CONDITION. Here, hope this helps!

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stability

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Immobile

So, you actually need another boon to render IMMOBILISE useless, it is called RESISTANCE

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Resistance

Hope that helped!

Was talking about ancient seeds which is primary way to get into immob being useless if you can't get CC'd in the first place (i.e. stab uptime). But thanks for the articles.

cyberzombie.7348 · January 26, 2021

@"VICBEAR.1529" said:What is about Engineer, Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer etc?Many classes can escape from fight but why is thief so big trouble?
Just make topic "Please delete thief class"

From personal experience, most other classes except for some rangers actually commit to escaping. It's more common to see roaming thieves (dash d/p daredevils specifically) to be cocky and just ooc, stack on stealth, then come right back to anyone with their back turned and run away again when they realize they're still in hot water.

kamikharzeeh.8016 · January 26, 2021

@kash.9213 fundamental error there... i don't smallscale at all, but i killed several roamers with bombs of my largescalecharacters. i help people defending camps if i feel like it, and nah, i don't adapt my set for that. drop dmg, dodge incoming dmg... that's doing it mostly.

idk if y o u build for ganking. thieves maybe do kinda stuff, surely.

that has absolutely nothing to do about beeing in Wvw. the pvE people in there build even for nothing at all. some run likely the same sets they used for completing their storymode.

when i run in a big group, i do that bc i expect other big groups around. if u think u'll not get bombed as roamer trying to poke that, that is not ganking. that's punishing cockyness. zergsets are not built for ganking. they are built to be effective, either dmg/heal/strips/cleanse, and to do their job in a big impact.

@Gotejjeken.1267 stab gets burnt away if too much cc comes in (or its duration ends). that's why even minstrel FB can get cc+entagled/dazed etc

kash.9213 · January 27, 2021

@kamikharzeeh.8016 said:@kash.9213 fundamental error there... i don't smallscale at all, but i killed several roamers with bombs of my largescalecharacters. i help people defending camps if i feel like it, and nah, i don't adapt my set for that. drop dmg, dodge incoming dmg... that's doing it mostly.
idk if y o u build for ganking. thieves maybe do kinda stuff, surely.
that has absolutely nothing to do about beeing in Wvw. the pvE people in there build even for nothing at all. some run likely the same sets they used for completing their storymode.
when i run in a big group, i do that bc i expect other big groups around. if u think u'll not get bombed as roamer trying to poke that, that is not ganking. that's punishing cockyness. zergsets are not built for ganking. they are built to be effective, either dmg/heal/strips/cleanse, and to do their job in a big impact.
@Gotejjeken.1267 stab gets burnt away if too much cc comes in (or its duration ends). that's why even minstrel FB can get cc+entagled/dazed etc

That's why we get a lot of dumb posts on this forum.

Lan Deathrider.5910 · January 27, 2021

Just got to say I just had a moment where the thief got away. Not even mad. Yeah I outplayed them on my core warrior with Axe/Axe+Rifle, but they weren't the worst thief I've fought, but not the best either. They made the right call to disengage and run. I was a bit mad though that my T3 killshot only did 5.5k but then I wasn't running full glass so /shrug.

Also not mad because I was finishing my monument daily when they interrupted me and I got to finish it when they ran :lol:

In all seriousness all you lose out on is the trivial amount of WXP, track progress on a two achievement tracks, and possible a loot bag. If the thief runs, then you won the fight take the win for what it is folks.

Edit:People do need to accept the fact that without some of these escape tactics most thieves would die very quickly 1v1. They are not built to trade blows on equal footing with some of the other classes. They are meant to shadowstep in and out and use blinds and interrupts to cover themselves.

Like in my fight just now, if the thief had one fewer stealth, or didn't have sleight of hand to interrupt one of my volleys then, they would have taken a dirt nap. That or if warrior rifle didn't do bbgun levels of damage on 4/6 skills...

DeceiverX.8361 · January 27, 2021

@cyberzombie.7348 said:
@"VICBEAR.1529" said:What is about Engineer, Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer etc?Many classes can escape from fight but why is thief so big trouble?
Just make topic "Please delete thief class"

From personal experience, most other classes except for some rangers actually commit to escaping. It's more common to see roaming thieves

(dash d/p daredevils specifically)

to be cocky and just ooc, stack on stealth, then come right back to anyone with their back turned and run away again when they realize they're still in hot water.

The part nobody else ****ing understands.

It's not thief. It's D/P Daredevil.

All these people asking for nerfs should go play any other thief build. Anything besides D/P DrD pretty much gets splattered if it botches an engage and deals no damage except for maybe S/P into relatively bad foes who don't know how to punish it or are running bad builds.

Thief has been balanced around D/P Daredevil existing because it's the worst offender of unhealthy designs, and ANet absolutely refuses to rework it because it'd require a huge class rework and I know they're too lazy to do so.

When DE started eclipsing its bad design it actually got nipped in the bud and reworked properly.

Lan Deathrider.5910 · January 27, 2021

@DeceiverX.8361 said:
@cyberzombie.7348 said:
@"VICBEAR.1529" said:What is about Engineer, Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer etc?Many classes can escape from fight but why is thief so big trouble?
Just make topic "Please delete thief class"

From personal experience, most other classes except for some rangers actually commit to escaping. It's more common to see roaming thieves

(dash d/p daredevils specifically)

to be cocky and just ooc, stack on stealth, then come right back to anyone with their back turned and run away again when they realize they're still in hot water.

The part nobody else ****ing understands.

It's not thief. It's D/P Daredevil.

All these people asking for nerfs should go play any other thief build. Anything besides D/P DrD pretty much gets splattered if it botches an engage and deals no damage except for maybe S/P into relatively bad foes who don't know how to punish it or are running bad builds.

Thief has been balanced around D/P Daredevil existing because it's the worst offender of unhealthy designs, and ANet absolutely refuses to rework it because it'd require a huge class rework and I know they're too lazy to do so.

When DE started eclipsing its bad design it actually got nipped in the bud and reworked properly.

Dwayna help the poor thieves I've Bull's Charged with no Stunbreaks to recover from it...

But there is a point to be made here. If D/P DD is the big problem then is it the D/P part or is it the DD part? I suspect it is the E-Spec driving the problem not the weapon spec. Not that the weapon spec itself isn't a problem, but is it as much a problem on Core or DE? No, and that is because of the DD dodge being a leap. Remove the leap finisher from the dodge and you may see DD become very balanced very quickly. Not that there are other things that could be done, but I suspect that would go a long ways by itself.

DeceiverX.8361 · January 27, 2021

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:
@DeceiverX.8361 said:
@cyberzombie.7348 said:
@"VICBEAR.1529" said:What is about Engineer, Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer etc?Many classes can escape from fight but why is thief so big trouble?
Just make topic "Please delete thief class"

From personal experience, most other classes except for some rangers actually commit to escaping. It's more common to see roaming thieves

(dash d/p daredevils specifically)

to be cocky and just ooc, stack on stealth, then come right back to anyone with their back turned and run away again when they realize they're still in hot water.

The part nobody else ****ing understands.

It's not thief. It's D/P Daredevil.

All these people asking for nerfs should go play any other thief build. Anything besides D/P DrD pretty much gets splattered if it botches an engage and deals no damage except for maybe S/P into relatively bad foes who don't know how to punish it or are running bad builds.

Thief has been balanced around D/P Daredevil existing because it's the worst offender of unhealthy designs, and ANet absolutely refuses to rework it because it'd require a huge class rework and I know they're too lazy to do so.

When DE started eclipsing its bad design it actually got nipped in the bud and reworked properly.

Dwayna help the poor thieves I've Bull's Charged with no Stunbreaks to recover from it...

But there is a point to be made here. If D/P DD is the big problem then is it the D/P part or is it the DD part? I suspect it is the E-Spec driving the problem not the weapon spec. Not that the weapon spec itself isn't a problem, but is it as much a problem on Core or DE? No, and that is because of the DD dodge being a leap. Remove the leap finisher from the dodge and you may see DD become very balanced very quickly. Not that there are other things that could be done, but I suspect that would go a long ways by itself.

It's really both in conjunction, but not for the reason you think. Contrary to the opinions of many, Bounding Dodge is actually rather mediocre and doesn't really contribute at all to D/P Daredevil's relative power. It's substantially more useful for P/P than D/P. And I'd still say Dash is better on P/P; BD is mostly a trap for gimmicky builds and the extra stealth is fairly easy to predict in a lot of cases and if outplayed, can be a huge liability since it'll self-reveal.

Dash fulfills D/P's inherent counterplay more than anything else. D/P uniquely has the ability to access sustained OOC stealth over all other weapon sets on the thief, which is where the class has so much power from its engages. D/P can largely just wait out its opponent before making its first strike, giving it a strong opening burst. In conjunction with Shadow Shot, D/P gets sticking power and soft CC on top of that, which lets it punish enemy disengage attempts and continuously deal follow-up strikes which many other classes cannot out-maneuver. If the thief swaps shortbow to disengage, it cannot gain stealth again for the remainder of the swap cooldown, and if it tries to disengage with just D/P, it runs out of initiative trying to rapidly gain space, or just lets the opponent reset, too. Dash fixes both halves of this, letting thieves disengage into range safely while also not burning excess resources or precious weapon swap timers, giving it full control of spacing in combat.

You can reliably bomb a thief using BD to gain stealth in a smoke field because you can see its starting dodge frames and trajectory, and if it's in melee range, the AoE is large enough where a second dodge will self-reveal. This means you can burn the ground and the thief will lose stealth in 3-4s, also predictable by the build it has based on traits noticeable in the first engage, such as with CiS, cleanses, etc.

Dash provides counters to the innate counters of D/P by giving the class a safe disengage covering lots of ground while being basically immune to soft CC, while utilizing a wholly different resource from the initiative pool D/P depends on for its engages, enabling D/P to leverage control of both the engage AND the disengage safely, with speed which could otherwise only be met via burning resources which would impact its combat potential or ability to reset.

It's a highlight of a number of the weaknesses various other kits on the thief have, and why we can also see P/D gaining popularity with Dash and not Lotus Training, because P/D is functionally the opposite; its damage and utility comes from its power of disengage on Shadow Strike/Repeater, and Dash gives it the ability to control the re-engage rather than having to depend on the opponent coming towards the thief or it burning teleport cooldowns etc.

There's even further nuance to it, but it's not really specifically any one facet of either individually that breaks the thief. Recall D/P Deadeye, too; it provided immense safety and damage for D/P and not D/D because D/P can innately make up for the lack of Steal via Shadow Shot to control engages, and pre-rework deadeye was extremely safe for sustaining controlled stealth-disengages and maintaining stealth OOC with high-damage burst on pre-rework MBS.

Shadow Shot is an overloaded skill, and rightfully should have been nerfed or reworked a long time ago alongside changes/reworks to the entire rest of the thief as a class to make it more potent in-combat or have to commit more to its engages, however it's really the combination of the broad utility D/P has along with its high damage and paired covering of its weaknesses thanks to the elite specs (and D/P's self-sufficiency making it able to mostly ignore tradeoff weaknesses of the elite specs such as waiting out exhaustion via OOC stealth or engage via weapon skills) that lets the thief seemingly always have control over a fight despite being very weak stat-wise.

It's why the class is in such a desperate need for a rework; it's only strong because of very specific combinations and playstyles. As soon as that build and playstyle pattern is deviated from, the class becomes basically unusable in the modern powercreeped game.

Fat Disgrace.4275 · January 27, 2021

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:
@DeceiverX.8361 said:
@cyberzombie.7348 said:
@"VICBEAR.1529" said:What is about Engineer, Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer etc?Many classes can escape from fight but why is thief so big trouble?
Just make topic "Please delete thief class"

From personal experience, most other classes except for some rangers actually commit to escaping. It's more common to see roaming thieves

(dash d/p daredevils specifically)

to be cocky and just ooc, stack on stealth, then come right back to anyone with their back turned and run away again when they realize they're still in hot water.

The part nobody else ****ing understands.

It's not thief. It's D/P Daredevil.

All these people asking for nerfs should go play any other thief build. Anything besides D/P DrD pretty much gets splattered if it botches an engage and deals no damage except for maybe S/P into relatively bad foes who don't know how to punish it or are running bad builds.

Thief has been balanced around D/P Daredevil existing because it's the worst offender of unhealthy designs, and ANet absolutely refuses to rework it because it'd require a huge class rework and I know they're too lazy to do so.

When DE started eclipsing its bad design it actually got nipped in the bud and reworked properly.

Dwayna help the poor thieves I've Bull's Charged with no Stunbreaks to recover from it...

But there is a point to be made here. If D/P DD is the big problem then is it the D/P part or is it the DD part? I suspect it is the E-Spec driving the problem not the weapon spec. Not that the weapon spec itself isn't a problem, but is it as much a problem on Core or DE? No, and that is because of the DD dodge being a leap. Remove the leap finisher from the dodge and you may see DD become very balanced very quickly. Not that there are other things that could be done, but I suspect that would go a long ways by itself.

I'd say its definitely daredevil. 3 dodges a side, lets just call it 2 like everyone else. It's a 450 range escape-evade that clears movement condis, and the whole line stacks -30% incoming dmg as well as giving weakness on enemy's after a successful evade and has a 15% dmg modifier. Who else wouldn't take daredevil lol

Cynz.9437 · January 27, 2021

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:
@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:
@DeceiverX.8361 said:
@cyberzombie.7348 said:
@"VICBEAR.1529" said:What is about Engineer, Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer etc?Many classes can escape from fight but why is thief so big trouble?
Just make topic "Please delete thief class"

From personal experience, most other classes except for some rangers actually commit to escaping. It's more common to see roaming thieves

(dash d/p daredevils specifically)

to be cocky and just ooc, stack on stealth, then come right back to anyone with their back turned and run away again when they realize they're still in hot water.

The part nobody else ****ing understands.

It's not thief. It's D/P Daredevil.

All these people asking for nerfs should go play any other thief build. Anything besides D/P DrD pretty much gets splattered if it botches an engage and deals no damage except for maybe S/P into relatively bad foes who don't know how to punish it or are running bad builds.

Thief has been balanced around D/P Daredevil existing because it's the worst offender of unhealthy designs, and ANet absolutely refuses to rework it because it'd require a huge class rework and I know they're too lazy to do so.

When DE started eclipsing its bad design it actually got nipped in the bud and reworked properly.

Dwayna help the poor thieves I've Bull's Charged with no Stunbreaks to recover from it...

But there is a point to be made here. If D/P DD is the big problem then is it the D/P part or is it the DD part? I suspect it is the E-Spec driving the problem not the weapon spec. Not that the weapon spec itself isn't a problem, but is it as much a problem on Core or DE? No, and that is because of the DD dodge being a leap. Remove the leap finisher from the dodge and you may see DD become very balanced very quickly. Not that there are other things that could be done, but I suspect that would go a long ways by itself.

I'd say its definitely daredevil. 3 dodges a side, lets just call it 2 like everyone else. It's a 450 range escape-evade that clears movement condis, and the whole line stacks -30% incoming dmg as well as giving weakness on enemy's after a successful evade and has a 15% dmg modifier. Who else wouldn't take daredevil lol

Anet wanted to sell xpacs so they made DD basically mandatory. Same goes for a lot of especs. Let's be honest, how many really run core on the character? If they nerf DD then people will play DE. If they nerfed DE there will be just no thieves. I guess most people with pve specs in greens in WvW will love it but guess what? They they start to die even more to mesmerss/rangers/wars etc. Look at pvp forums: there are multiple threads and posts complaining about revs since main beating target (thief) got for most part removed with sb nerf.

As for this thread:if thief got away this means they are not dumb enough to stay in fight they can't win. If they were your enemy - rejoyce, you just won the fight. Once again people, care what you are asking for. If for some reason Anet would nerf thief escape capability completely they would have to compensate it and result would be some really disgusting type of shiro rev. Good thieves will still murder your average WvW player and you still won't get your bags.

Isn't it enough for you that every thief player get instantly kicked from squads and flamed on top of it for simply existing? By own teammates? Or like yesterday, i just wanted to do some dailies, enemy comes in group and trash talks me because i had to run away since i just can't fight them all at once, especially with constant reveals from the keep. I am biased but i will still defend the point that thief is not the issue here. WvW community should seriously look in mirror - maybe they would finally see what toxic mass they have become.

Dawdler.8521 · January 27, 2021

@DeceiverX.8361 said:
@cyberzombie.7348 said:
@"VICBEAR.1529" said:What is about Engineer, Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer etc?Many classes can escape from fight but why is thief so big trouble?
Just make topic "Please delete thief class"

From personal experience, most other classes except for some rangers actually commit to escaping. It's more common to see roaming thieves

(dash d/p daredevils specifically)

to be cocky and just ooc, stack on stealth, then come right back to anyone with their back turned and run away again when they realize they're still in hot water.

The part nobody else ****ing understands.

It's not thief. It's D/P Daredevil.

And yet the post you quote use engineer, warrior, ranger, mesmer.

Do we have OP core rangers running around peppering people? OP core engineers roflstomping everyone? Etc.

We ****ing know what is referred to.

VICBEAR.1529 · January 27, 2021

Wow, wow, wow...Just review patch notes since 2014 to see how thief was nerfed and you will see that it is good time to create topic "Please delete thief class".

But before this, create your own thief to discover how difficult to play it.Isn't that why you play with another classes?

I just leave it here:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Marked_(Sentry)https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revealed

Voltekka.2375 · January 27, 2021

@Cynz.9437 said:
@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:
@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:
@DeceiverX.8361 said:
@cyberzombie.7348 said:
@"VICBEAR.1529" said:What is about Engineer, Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer etc?Many classes can escape from fight but why is thief so big trouble?
Just make topic "Please delete thief class"