Thief Dead?

[Klypto.1703]

@Yasai.3549 said:Thief is not dead.

• Mobility. While SB5 nerf did hurt Thief's ability to rotate, Thief is still more mobile than a majority of the builds currently used in sPvP.When racing against snails, even a sloth is faster.
• +1. Due to their mobility, Thief is still able to bounce between nodes and +1 ongoing fights. Thief while may not do roflstomp damage anymore, they still cause enough disruption to turn a fight around. People who claim that Thief does 0 damage have no idea what they are talking about. Their damage is nowhere near 0, and they are the only Profession left in the game which can potentially remove up to 5 Boons in a insant. (Bountiful + Rending + Sigils)
• Group enabling. Yu know Stealth Portal bombs in WvW? Well, Thief is able to Portal bomb with just Shadow Portal. In addition to this, they can stack stealth for their team before the match starts by blasting fields.
• Side noding Thief is nowhere near dead for 1v1 node dueling. In fact, Thieves are the best at keeping the enemy side noder occupied even if they don't outright win fights because with their mobility and stealth, they put a constant mental pressure on the enemy side noder by threatening to decap or flip it as soon as the Side noder leaves. And if the Side noder doesn't leave, Thief is free to +1 the main fight. No other Profession can do this more effectively than Thief. And Thief doesn't even have to win the fight. And if they do win the 1v1, the node's gone.

@Kuma.1503 said:

Stealth could also see some changes to give more classes ways of dealing with it. As one example, perhaps if blasing smoke fields grants stealth, maybe blasting light fields causes a reveal. Likewise whiffing an attack into a dodge should reveal the attacker. Adding bits of risk here and there should allow the devs to give back to thieves with lower initiative costs or more damage.

+1 For blasting Light Fields for Reveal.

They should move the cleanse portion to Water field too, and make Light Fields seriously anti Smoke.Light Aura : Immunity to BlindLight Blast : Reveal in AoELight Whirl : Reveals enemies hit by bolts.

No it should be if you use a light field that you have perma blind until you double down, reveal your allies if you give them boons, and then with the whirl that you reveal any stealthed ally in your squad.

[Jobber.6348]

@Klypto.1703 said:

No it should be if you use a light field that you have perma blind until you double down, reveal your allies if you give them boons, and then with the whirl that you reveal any stealthed ally in your squad.

Smoke field should then proceed to silence all yur skills and utilities, and any effect coming from a combo finisher with a Smoke field will also achieve the same effect :)

That way Stealth stacking will silence the players but natural Stealth giving skills won't!

[Shao.7236]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Performance of Thief is bad after 8 init shortbow 5.

Honestly that change needs to be reverted.

If the performance is bad after shortbow#5 nerf, then reverting this change would be a mistake. The level of performance of a profession shouldn't depend on a single weapon skill.

I'm not saying that thief don't need some nice buffs, but thief certainly don't need to depend on a single skill either. Reverting the shortbow nerf will only lead thiefs to return to it's initial state where player couldn't fathom a thief build without a shortbow.

this is kinda true. IA arrow cost should be reverted as no skill regardless should cost over half of a classes global resource for a single cast, thats pretty silly BUT u are 100% right no class or kit should be dependent on one skill to perform well as thats a huge fail in design. AI should got a reduction in range and the removal of the blind, say 750 or 800 woulda sufficed.The sb is designed badly for sure, if AI didn't exist it woul be barely used.

You don't have to think everything is badly designed because of X reason, in fact it might be just good as it is and because players have to put out more effort for is also good, except in a MMO players seeing nerfs feel incredible bias rather than thinking of the alternatives of finally not being constricted to one solution because cooldowns and numbers, this isn't always true and everything in games is based around numbers anyway.

I also can't agree on the fact that because x thing consumes this amount is bad. Core Revenant as a whole depends on the energy pool which more than enough skills from a fresh start can deplete most options right away, yet the class is in a very playable and fun state.

It's no wonder that Herald and Renegade skills are mostly favored though given they have brakes on their lingering skills that people who play anything else can understand better rather than having to keep in mind what options will take away the others and so on, what can you do to stay in the momentum without suffering from a vulnerable downtime. (To add Riposting Shadows and Empty Vessel nerfs were the biggest blessing to Revenant.)

Thief losing 8 initiative is complained about way too much considering you have utilities apart of that pool and typically the skill is used back to back to escape or rotate insanely fast which everyone knows before it, getting a kill on a Thief was nearly impossible (Unless they commit to fights).

The escape potential while they're already at the other node changing the pace of the game even though they'd lose every fights is too much.

I prefer having thieves that can fight properly than being decap bots to which can carry if your own team is too dumb to compensate against it.

It would have made no sense to make the skill weaker at the same cost, I can't see a lesser distance or newer functions be better than the current state, init increase was the best call.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Shao.7236 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Performance of Thief is bad after 8 init shortbow 5.

Honestly that change needs to be reverted.

If the performance is bad after shortbow#5 nerf, then reverting this change would be a mistake. The level of performance of a profession shouldn't depend on a single weapon skill.

I'm not saying that thief don't need some nice buffs, but thief certainly don't need to depend on a single skill either. Reverting the shortbow nerf will only lead thiefs to return to it's initial state where player couldn't fathom a thief build without a shortbow.

this is kinda true. IA arrow cost should be reverted as no skill regardless should cost over half of a classes global resource for a single cast, thats pretty silly BUT u are 100% right no class or kit should be dependent on one skill to perform well as thats a huge fail in design. AI should got a reduction in range and the removal of the blind, say 750 or 800 woulda sufficed.The sb is designed badly for sure, if AI didn't exist it woul be barely used.

You don't have to think everything is badly designed because of X reason, in fact it might be just good as it is and because players have to put out more effort for is also good, except in a MMO players seeing nerfs feel incredible bias rather than thinking of the alternatives of finally not being constricted to one solution because cooldowns and numbers, this isn't always true and everything in games is based around numbers anyway.

I also can't agree on the fact that because x thing consumes this amount is bad. Core Revenant as a whole depends on the energy pool which more than enough skills from a fresh start can deplete most options right away, yet the class is in a very playable and fun state.

It's no wonder that Herald and Renegade skills are mostly favored though given they have brakes on their lingering skills that people who play anything else can understand better rather than having to keep in mind what options will take away the others and so on, what can you do to stay in the momentum without suffering from a vulnerable downtime. (To add Riposting Shadows and Empty Vessel nerfs were the biggest blessing to Revenant.)

Thief losing 8 initiative is complained about way too much considering you have utilities apart of that pool and typically the skill is used back to back to escape or rotate insanely fast which everyone knows before it, getting a kill on a Thief was nearly impossible (Unless they commit to fights).

The escape potential while they're already at the other node changing the pace of the game even though they'd lose every fights is too much.

I prefer having thieves that can fight properly than being decap bots to which can carry if your own team is too dumb to compensate against it.

It would have made no sense to make the skill weaker at the same cost, I can't see a lesser distance or newer functions be better than the current state, init increase was the best call.

Naw man u literally sound like someone biased against thief complaining about thief players being biased. No matter the class if any class had a skill that took over half the the classes global resources id say the same thing. I stand by what I said and what u said is wrong, if a kit is only used by all players that play the class predominantly because of one skill it is not designed well just as one could say dh isn't designed well being almost useless without trapper rune.The cost nerf of AI was a lazy ass nerf no doubt about that.

[Shao.7236]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Shao.7236 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Performance of Thief is bad after 8 init shortbow 5.

Honestly that change needs to be reverted.

If the performance is bad after shortbow#5 nerf, then reverting this change would be a mistake. The level of performance of a profession shouldn't depend on a single weapon skill.

I'm not saying that thief don't need some nice buffs, but thief certainly don't need to depend on a single skill either. Reverting the shortbow nerf will only lead thiefs to return to it's initial state where player couldn't fathom a thief build without a shortbow.

this is kinda true. IA arrow cost should be reverted as no skill regardless should cost over half of a classes global resource for a single cast, thats pretty silly BUT u are 100% right no class or kit should be dependent on one skill to perform well as thats a huge fail in design. AI should got a reduction in range and the removal of the blind, say 750 or 800 woulda sufficed.The sb is designed badly for sure, if AI didn't exist it woul be barely used.

You don't have to think everything is badly designed because of X reason, in fact it might be just good as it is and because players have to put out more effort for is also good, except in a MMO players seeing nerfs feel incredible bias rather than thinking of the alternatives of finally not being constricted to one solution because cooldowns and numbers, this isn't always true and everything in games is based around numbers anyway.

I also can't agree on the fact that because x thing consumes this amount is bad. Core Revenant as a whole depends on the energy pool which more than enough skills from a fresh start can deplete most options right away, yet the class is in a very playable and fun state.

It's no wonder that Herald and Renegade skills are mostly favored though given they have brakes on their lingering skills that people who play anything else can understand better rather than having to keep in mind what options will take away the others and so on, what can you do to stay in the momentum without suffering from a vulnerable downtime. (To add Riposting Shadows and Empty Vessel nerfs were the biggest blessing to Revenant.)

Thief losing 8 initiative is complained about way too much considering you have utilities apart of that pool and typically the skill is used back to back to escape or rotate insanely fast which everyone knows before it, getting a kill on a Thief was nearly impossible (Unless they commit to fights).

The escape potential while they're already at the other node changing the pace of the game even though they'd lose every fights is too much.

I prefer having thieves that can fight properly than being decap bots to which can carry if your own team is too dumb to compensate against it.

It would have made no sense to make the skill weaker at the same cost, I can't see a lesser distance or newer functions be better than the current state, init increase was the best call.

Naw man u literally sound like someone biased against thief complaining about thief players being biased. No matter the class if any class had a skill that took over half the the classes global resources id say the same thing. I stand by what I said and what u said is wrong, if a kit is only used by all players that play the class predominantly because of one skill it is not designed well just as one could say dh isn't designed well being almost useless without trapper rune.The cost nerf of AI was a lazy kitten nerf no doubt about that.

What is biased about me saying that people complaining too much when in the same text I express content satisfaction with my favorite profession being nerfed?

Revenant stunbreaks take 40% of the pool which is never full? So that's like 90% almost in every start of an encounter if stunned. It makes no sense to complain about SB5 when the only use for is moving around, does not break any of the combat for Thief whatsoever, having it as an easily accessed escape tool is already strong enough, reaching any side of the map in matters of seconds was an overpowered aspect of it, I don't mind not killing but the constant decap botting was really annoying. Even Mirage Jaunt does not compare to it either, nothing does still after the nerf, it deserved it.

[avey.4201]

Thief isn't dead, game is dead.

[Jables.4659]

@"Yasai.3549" said:they are the only Profession left in the game which can potentially remove up to 5 Boons in a insant. (Bountiful + Rending + Sigils)

Mesmer could remove 5 in an instant by casting Arcane Thievery + Diversion while traited with "Shattered Concentration" and "Vicious Expression". That's not an endorsement of how good Mesmer is.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Shao.7236 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Shao.7236 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Performance of Thief is bad after 8 init shortbow 5.

Honestly that change needs to be reverted.

If the performance is bad after shortbow#5 nerf, then reverting this change would be a mistake. The level of performance of a profession shouldn't depend on a single weapon skill.

I'm not saying that thief don't need some nice buffs, but thief certainly don't need to depend on a single skill either. Reverting the shortbow nerf will only lead thiefs to return to it's initial state where player couldn't fathom a thief build without a shortbow.

this is kinda true. IA arrow cost should be reverted as no skill regardless should cost over half of a classes global resource for a single cast, thats pretty silly BUT u are 100% right no class or kit should be dependent on one skill to perform well as thats a huge fail in design. AI should got a reduction in range and the removal of the blind, say 750 or 800 woulda sufficed.The sb is designed badly for sure, if AI didn't exist it woul be barely used.

You don't have to think everything is badly designed because of X reason, in fact it might be just good as it is and because players have to put out more effort for is also good, except in a MMO players seeing nerfs feel incredible bias rather than thinking of the alternatives of finally not being constricted to one solution because cooldowns and numbers, this isn't always true and everything in games is based around numbers anyway.

I also can't agree on the fact that because x thing consumes this amount is bad. Core Revenant as a whole depends on the energy pool which more than enough skills from a fresh start can deplete most options right away, yet the class is in a very playable and fun state.

It's no wonder that Herald and Renegade skills are mostly favored though given they have brakes on their lingering skills that people who play anything else can understand better rather than having to keep in mind what options will take away the others and so on, what can you do to stay in the momentum without suffering from a vulnerable downtime. (To add Riposting Shadows and Empty Vessel nerfs were the biggest blessing to Revenant.)

Thief losing 8 initiative is complained about way too much considering you have utilities apart of that pool and typically the skill is used back to back to escape or rotate insanely fast which everyone knows before it, getting a kill on a Thief was nearly impossible (Unless they commit to fights).

The escape potential while they're already at the other node changing the pace of the game even though they'd lose every fights is too much.

I prefer having thieves that can fight properly than being decap bots to which can carry if your own team is too dumb to compensate against it.

It would have made no sense to make the skill weaker at the same cost, I can't see a lesser distance or newer functions be better than the current state, init increase was the best call.

Naw man u literally sound like someone biased against thief complaining about thief players being biased. No matter the class if any class had a skill that took over half the the classes global resources id say the same thing. I stand by what I said and what u said is wrong, if a kit is only used by all players that play the class predominantly because of one skill it is not designed well just as one could say dh isn't designed well being almost useless without trapper rune.The cost nerf of AI was a lazy kitten nerf no doubt about that.

What is biased about me saying that people complaining too much when in the same text I express content satisfaction with my favorite profession being nerfed?

Revenant stunbreaks take 40% of the pool which is never full? So that's like 90% almost in every start of an encounter if stunned. It makes no sense to complain about SB5 when the only use for is moving around, does not break any of the combat for Thief whatsoever, having it as an easily accessed escape tool is already strong enough, reaching any side of the map in matters of seconds was an overpowered aspect of it, I don't mind not killing but the constant decap botting was really annoying. Even Mirage Jaunt does not compare to it either, nothing does still after the nerf, it deserved it.

Because any complaints thieves have in this community is biased and un needed as far as most players in this community due to thief being the most hated against class.Say something bad about thief and see all the likes lmao.It may have deserved a shave but not a lazy nerf like a cost increase.

[Jobber.6348]

@"Jables.4659" said:

Mesmer could remove 5 in an instant by casting Arcane Thievery + Diversion while traited with "Shattered Concentration" and "Vicious Expression". That's not an endorsement of how good Mesmer is.

Thief can do it while expanding single cooldown which is only 17.5 secs long.There is no competing with that.

[Khalisto.5780]

thief will be only dead when you see a guy like sindrener rerroling to another class, which prolly won't happen cuz i think he would just quit game for good.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Khalisto.5780 said:thief will be only dead when you see a guy like sindrener rerroling to another class, which prolly won't happen cuz i think he would just quit game for good.

He basically has or close to it no?

[Khalisto.5780]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Khalisto.5780 said:thief will be only dead when you see a guy like sindrener rerroling to another class, which prolly won't happen cuz i think he would just quit game for good.

He basically has or close to it no?

Dunno, i find thief gameplay very boring to watch

[Leonidrex.5649]

@Jables.4659 said:

@"Yasai.3549" said:they are the only Profession left in the game which can potentially remove up to 5 Boons in a insant. (Bountiful + Rending + Sigils)

Mesmer could remove 5 in an instant by casting Arcane Thievery + Diversion while traited with "Shattered Concentration" and "Vicious Expression". That's not an endorsement of how good Mesmer is.

or use 3clone F3 with double trait in melee with sigil of revocation to remove 9 boons.mesmer OP, nerf

[Jobber.6348]

@Khalisto.5780 said:

Dunno, i find thief gameplay very boring to watch

Thief gameplay is literally fishing simulator.Keep trying till yu succeed.

[Leonidrex.5649]

@Yasai.3549 said:

@Khalisto.5780 said:

Dunno, i find thief gameplay very boring to watch

Thief gameplay is literally fishing simulator.Keep trying till yu succeed.

before sb5 and shadow-portal nerfs playing and watching thief felt like cheating.I cant imagine how fucking frustrating playing side-node had to be.Imagine getting decaped, getting the node back, and that rat places portal and you cant leave for 1min or you get insta-decapped again. And ofc the CD ticks in the background for some stupid reason so its instantly back, meaning to have a side, you have to afk there 24/7. and fucking hope someone pushes you so you can actually fight something to play the gameThis shit would legit make me not want to play the game as a side player

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Khalisto.5780 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Khalisto.5780 said:thief will be only dead when you see a guy like sindrener rerroling to another class, which prolly won't happen cuz i think he would just quit game for good.

He basically has or close to it no?

Dunno, i find thief gameplay very boring to watch

Boring to play for long periods to, ini has positive but negatives to. Thieves always take sb for AI mostly for mobility and ini being global means weapon swapping gains no resource gain for the next weapon kit so dp/sb spends most its time spamming a couple effective skills until disengaging (HS&SS), sd/sb spams sw2 strike and s3 over and over cus do is filler and d5 is so niche. Don't see staff often but again spam same couple staff skills and swap to sb to disengage or get somewhere faster so in most combat scenarios ur still using same couple attacks. All thieves kits work like this. Its fun moving around in pve with thief but in pvp its so boring, I swapped topower splb even though its weaker in this meta just cuz its more fun to play than thief's couple button spam playstyle.To add I don't kno how any scourge or burn guard can stand to play those classes more than a hr given their spammy/passive damage playstyles.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

It's amusingly hypocritical to see AoE-heavy spam classes complain about thief gameplay being boring.

Boon removal is keeping thief alive right now, even with stealth being what it has always been. Outside those, and SB5's OOC mobility, revenant is just strictly better.

[Jobber.6348]

@Shao.7236 said:Mirage Jaunt does not compare to it either, nothing does still after the nerf, it deserved it.

Nothing will ever come CLOSE to current SB5 xDDDD

Jaunt is a baby 450 range teleport which has a 30s recharge.Phase Traversal requires a target and has baked in 5s cooldown as well as running dry out of energy so yu risk being unable to burst even if yu surprise someone.

SB5 costs 8 ini which rapidly regenerates, and is 900 range free targetting, can port up cliffs, and if the Thief is dry out of ini, yu can consider SB5's cooldown to be around 8s for 8 ini to regenerate.

Yu can use an 8 ini cost SB5 at least 5 times during the same time 1 Jaunt recharge comes off cooldown.

Nothing in the game even comes close to Thief's mobility atm.In a race against snails, even a sloth wins.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Yasai.3549 said:

@Shao.7236 said:Mirage Jaunt does not compare to it either, nothing does still after the nerf, it deserved it.

Nothing will ever come CLOSE to current SB5 xDDDD

Jaunt is a baby 450 range teleport which has a 30s recharge.Phase Traversal requires a target and has baked in 5s cooldown as well as running dry out of energy so yu risk being unable to burst even if yu surprise someone.

SB5 costs 8 ini which rapidly regenerates, and is 900 range free targetting, can port up cliffs, and if the Thief is dry out of ini, yu can consider SB5's cooldown to be around 8s for 8 ini to regenerate.

Yu can use an 8 ini cost SB5 at least 5 times during the same time 1 Jaunt recharge comes off cooldown.

Nothing in the game even comes close to Thief's mobility atm.In a race against snails, even a sloth wins.

Yeah but let's also mention while waiting for that 8 secs for the 8 ini to return u cannot use ANY of ur other weapon skills.

[Klypto.1703]

Only way people ever learn that they are just making excuses like this is for them to actually play a Thief or whatever class they are complaining about. I can clearly see most have never even attempted to play one because personally if I can get on another class a counter play a thief then anyone in the game can do it too. What is being requested is that players do not want to do any kind of thinking or understanding game mechanics to counter a class and that is what generally has happened with this game and why it is dead. Plus any long time player knows that if Thief or anything using stealth is as OP as these people are claiming it is that like necro was for such a long time everybody would be playing it if it was that broken.

[Jobber.6348]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:Yeah but let's also mention while waiting for that 8 secs for the 8 ini to return u cannot use ANY of ur other weapon skills.

Oh boo hoo, meanwhile yu can still use :Heals, Utilities and Elites.Some of these being extremely strong in their own right, such as :

• Binding Shadow (Single most overloaded skill in DE's kit)
• Smoke Screen (Area denial which also projectile hates, why not)
• Roll for Initiative (restores Ini as well as a mobility tool, woohoo)
• Shadow's Refuge (Area sustained Stealth and heal, but sir what if we get revealed! Yea, how many Professions have on demand reveals I wonder)
• Thieves' Guild (Does too much damage even on a Condi build)
• Bladestorm (It's Bladestorm)

And they can use multiple of them at once as long as they are off cooldown! How neat is that!

This is the point Shao was probably trying to make :Thieves aren't absolutely vulnerable upon using all their ini, not like the way Revenant is.(Rev can't cast any utility at all, INCLUDING THEIR HEAL if they somehow fall to 0 Energy)

And besides, if yu are currently in the process of escaping/travelling, all that ini spent on SB5 isn't gonna be missed anyway, and if yu do have someone yu have to fight, Thieves just do what Thieves do best : sit around and wait for ini.

That sort of non-interacting is the single reason why people just hate playing against Thieves.They only pick the fights they want, and people can't pick a fight with them unless they are sure the Thief has to commit.

And as Thieves become increasingly weaker over the years, they went from choosing their fights to choosing not to fight entirely, performing their side noding job with full dedication because that's the best value they can bring by just being an extremely slippery character.(Which again, Shao was expressing discontent about)

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

@Yasai.3549 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:Yeah but let's also mention while waiting for that 8 secs for the 8 ini to return u cannot use ANY of ur other weapon skills.

Oh boo hoo, meanwhile yu can still use :Heals, Utilities and Elites.Some of these being extremely strong in their own right, such as :

• Binding Shadow (Single most overloaded skill in DE's kit)
• Smoke Screen (Area denial which also projectile hates, why not)
• Roll for Initiative (restores Ini as well as a mobility tool, woohoo)
• Shadow's Refuge (Area sustained Stealth and heal, but sir what if we get revealed! Yea, how many Professions have on demand reveals I wonder)
• Thieves' Guild (Does too much damage even on a Condi build)
• Bladestorm (It's Bladestorm)

And they can use multiple of them at once as long as they are off cooldown! How neat is that!

This is the point Shao was probably trying to make :Thieves aren't absolutely vulnerable upon using all their ini, not like the way Revenant is.(Rev can't cast any utility at all, INCLUDING THEIR HEAL if they somehow fall to 0 Energy)

And besides, if yu are currently in the process of escaping/travelling, all that ini spent on SB5 isn't gonna be missed anyway, and if yu do have someone yu have to fight, Thieves just do what Thieves do best : sit around and wait for ini.

That sort of non-interacting is the single reason why people just hate playing against Thieves.They only pick the fights they want, and people can't pick a fight with them unless they are sure the Thief has to commit.

And as Thieves become increasingly weaker over the years, they went from choosing their fights to choosing not to fight entirely, performing their side noding job with full dedication because that's the best value they can bring by just being an extremely slippery character.(Which again, Shao was expressing discontent about)

Thief utilities have massive cooldowns (in particular when you consider some of the effects), though. You can't say thief doesn't have a trade-off in this aspect of their initiative system. Thieves only pick fights they can pick. Saying they pick fights they want is a gross overstatement. Saying they can afford to sit around while simultaneously claiming they're dedicated to side-noding? Which one is it?

Do I like how reliant thief has become on stealth over the past year or so? No. But people would complain about thief regardless of their meta build. It's how things go with these kinda characters across all PvP genres.

[Cynz.9437]

I am biased (like most of us here) but here is my opinion:

1. Risk vs reward: is thief generally dead? No. However it takes too much effort to be effective compared to some other offenders. Right now to do somehow well on thief you need to be either long time, experienced player or just be really good generally and still you just can't do as well as some clicking keyboard warrior running dh/necro. The class is absolutely NOT noob friendly at all in current state. I don't mind it but i would expect other classes to require as much effort to be effective. How many thief bots have you seen? Yeah.... One mistake, you have to run. People see it as jail free card and OP but truth is, you couldn't cap anything nor help your teammates.

2. P2W: oh boy, this is main reason why i just can't click that buy button in GW2 store. I have 2 accounts, 1 with xpacs, 1 without. On main i run DD, on alt i run core obviously. The difference between DD and core is just disheartening at least, same applies for many other classes. I log in on my alt account, see advertisement to buy HoT/PoF, nearly click dat buy button, queue for pvp for daily and get instantly reminded in the match why i shouldn't spend money in this game and how much this game is P2W (not to mention their indescribable aversion towards thief class, especially core for some reason. Prove me wrong, SB5 says hi).

3. Inflationary mobility: everyone and their mother has so much mobility (be it traits, skill, runes) that thief can barely make decapping/+1 work, if at all. It does NOT work vs players with brains, it doesn't. If you disagree, i suggest you to play a match vs plat3/legend team as a thief, heck even plat1 will do. Stacking traps on point w/o any thoughts also doesn't make that job easier. I could buy that thief is now allowed to have high damage, to duel most classes, to support, to bunker, to cap (hi stealth) etc. because thief is supposed to be mobility king and be everywhere on map. Well, not anymore really. Recent sb5 nerf also shows that thief apparently is not allowed to do anything in this game. Let's be honest, if you want to play effective thief just play rev - you would be better off and your team too. In tournaments where you can stack classes, most teams just run revs. This is fact.

@Khalisto.5780 said:thief will be only dead when you see a guy like sindrener rerroling to another class, which prolly won't happen cuz i think he would just quit game for good.

He pretty much did.

[Jobber.6348]

@NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

Thief utilities have massive cooldowns (in particular when you consider some of the effects), though. You can't say thief doesn't have a trade-off in this aspect of their initiative system.

Why are yu acting like other classes don't have cooldowns either?Are yu seriously pretending that Thieves having cooldowns is a tradeoff?

And Massive only applies to Thieves Guild.All the other utilities I've mentioned have very reasonable cooldowns.

Thieves only pick fights they can pick. Saying they pick fights they want is a gross overstatement. Saying they can afford to sit around while simultaneously claiming they're dedicated to side-noding? Which one is it?

Same difference. They are allowed to pick the fights.No other class can do this because if they get jumped, they can't just hold up a stop sign, and run away.

Now enter SA ThiefJust pressing the heal skill disengages them with Stealth. Lol.

Do I like how reliant thief has become on stealth over the past year or so? No. But people would complain about thief regardless of their meta build. It's how things go with these kinda characters across all PvP genres.

The issue people have with Thief has already been laid out : extreme non interactivity.

Previously there was only one tried and true way to encounter a Thief, and that is to jump them and instantly put them down.

That's nowhere near possible anymore on any Thief, bar Glass cannon Berserker Thieves, but even then it's a tough customer because Daredevil increases their durability considerably.

And when people suggest : hey why not cut out Thieves' ability to be an untouchable annoying gremlin and give them some combat viability people get all huffed and puffed up about it.

It's as if Thief mains enjoy not fighting.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Hannelore.8153 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:If the performance is bad after shortbow#5 nerf, then reverting this change would be a mistake. The level of performance of a profession shouldn't depend on a single weapon skill.

I'm not saying that thief don't need some nice buffs, but thief certainly don't need to depend on a single skill either. Reverting the shortbow nerf will only lead thiefs to return to it's initial state where player couldn't fathom a thief build without a shortbow.

The problem is, this is all Thief builds in general, not just Shortbow. Due to poor class design they have a low diversity for skill use, even if you try to do something completely different you still end up taking mostly the same skills.

That doesn't invalidate what I say, in fact I'd even say that it support what I say. Being over reliant on a minority of skills isn't good for the thief. Nerfing shortbow#5 ini cost might have been an attempt to make thief break away from their reliance on this skill.

It failed, if that was the goal. Because the problem is that thief fails to function without SB5. Their reliance is because the alternative is unplayable.

Compare this to classes which can take

radically

different builds into battle and still succeed.

Does the thief truly

need

SB#5 mobility to succeed or is it a specific gameplay that thief players have grown used to? The fact is that SB#5 is a very useful tool to run around but is running around the only thing that can make a thief successful? No, I don't believe it's the case. Thiefs players believe that their "raison d'être" is to be a quick +1 or fast stealthy decap. It's true that the profession excel at these roles but nothing prevent thiefs players to build toward different directions and, in my opinion, if somehow those different directions are lacking, that's where ANet need to apply the buff.

Yes. Thief needs SB5s mobility. Running around is indeed the only thing that makes thief successful. And what prevents thief from building towards different directions is that theyre incredibly underpowered across the board.

That said, thief players might actually need to be willing to explore different gameplay for those hypothetic buffs to be relevant.

They have. They realised a few years back that shortbow 5 is the only reason to play thief, and that the different gameplay amounts to "trolling your teammate by forcing them into a 4v5 while youre worthless". So they dropped it.