Is It Just Me Or Do Other Classes Do Thief Better?

[Gatvin.6510]

The way base thief is designed is cool, its got really strong mobility and incredible ability to stick to a target. Initiative effectively gives them the only mana-based toolkit in the game that lets them use the same ability multiple times. at the cost of all abilities sharing the same functional cooldown. Its got a decent amount of stealth which is really fun to play with. Evade tanking is also one of the most frustrating things to fight, and feels every bit as acrobatic as it looks. Unfortunately, thief is designed as far as I can tell, almost entirely for 1v1 for flavor reasons while every other class is designed for maximum flashy impact. Thief looks and seems fine when the game mode involves punching one target a lot, but it drops off rapidly as addional concurrent threats need to be handled. Additionally while thief in theory has the bonus of being able to use multiple weapon skills in a row, what other classes get instead of this is ADDTIONAL SKILLs that fill in the dead-space in their skill usage and give them more options. The only one this isn't really true for is the warrior, and the warrior has fairly low cooldowns on its abilities to compensate AND has incredibly good defensive skills. Condi-evade builds, especially the Daredevil ones fix this by adding an extra attack resource, the evade bar. This both frees up initiative to use offensively, generates damage while defending (something most other classes can already do baseline) and gives them something they can burn for extra damage when they run out of initiative.

[Lorinser.1508]

I feel like my dps in p/p is top tier. No way a warrior out dps me.

[Menyus.4610]

> @"SoulSin.5682" said:

> > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > It's never been able to crit. Imho, that's part of the problem.

> >

> > One could run around in soldier's/paladins and just spam headshot without worrying about crit/ferocity for max damage while playing innately tankier.

> >

> > It also does stack, so saying the DPS is low isn't true; if you interrupt three times in two seconds, they'll take 9k damage within 2s after 3s.

> >

> > Further, it heavily depends on build. Marauder stat builds have very low power. Prior to the nerf, my build would be able to PI for around 8-10k per interrupt or ~6-9k without assassin's signet, which is really disgustingly strong to be hitting while the opponent is also getting interrupted.

>

> What build you are using to make those calculations after all?

 

he just simply lied you cant even do 6k+ PI in wvw

In PvP the maximum possible is with 25 might, maximum power setup(berserker amulet, scholar rune) + damage modifiers and against a berserker ele would be 8454 below 50% hp

[Lyros.4673]

I don't even need to read the thread to say that yeah, in GW2, every class can do more or less the same average smattering of the same things with only slightly different advantages in each field.

 

If you were to make a graphical representation of the abilities of each class, they would look roughly the same. Imagine a series of peaks, and each peak represents a class and their overall capabilities. Most of the peaks are within ~15% of each other under maximum theoretical effectiveness, and the valleys between the peaks are rather shallow since every class often has major overlapping abilities that are just tuned to a different flavor. Shadowsteps, teleports, boon granting, healing, it's all very homogenized with only assets that really make a huge difference. Because it's impossible to achieve a perfect balance, this homogenization results in classes that all feel samey, with minor detailed attempts at balancing that end up gimping an entire class or propelling it into OP territory because the "room for error" in terms of theoretical effectiveness relative to other classes is tiny.

 

The only real class defining thing that serves more as a nuisance than actual effects on gameplay is Health. Necros are the exception as their Vitality is tied into their class mechanics. Thieves have effectively the lowest effective health in PVE because they have a complete lack of active defenses, stealth being useless for anything but a damage modifier, and very few abilities and utilities to encourage offensive yet avoidant gameplay. That's not to say a skilled thief isn't good at doing damage or is any less "theoretically" viable, but it has literally nothing else going for it. It has one of the most limited utility sets in the game (in my opinion tied with warrior) so it can't do anything interesting.

 

Another way of saying all of the above is that every class can accomplish more or less the same thing and that the classes are not unique. The problem with Guild Wars 2 is that each class isn't defined by its strengths, but rather the micromanagement BS it needs to do to accomplish the same theoretical effectiveness. No class is allowed to have better healing, or better damage under different circumstances. Rather, what contextual strengths there are for a class are as a happenstance result of the game's mechanics instead of actually being a part of the class.

 

So everything you said about thief? Totally right. Thieves are easy prey for me in WvW, except the ones that do nothing but evade and dodge and have survivability. That's about the only thing I've really ever seen them do because they can't kill me, but I can't kill them, so I don't bother. Yet Mesmers not only have faster actions, they have everything the thief has on top of survivability and capability to keep distances while doing damage.

 

[Grandtomatoe.2045]

A good mesmer out does a thief these days for sure. As a thief I used to be able to beat every single mesmer that came my way for a long time though. Now days mirage and even chrono can be tough. I cant beat the best ones out there. I usually put out a few attacks and if it doesnt go well I bail.

[DeceiverX.8361]

> @"Menyus.4610" said:

> > @"SoulSin.5682" said:

> > > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > > It's never been able to crit. Imho, that's part of the problem.

> > >

> > > One could run around in soldier's/paladins and just spam headshot without worrying about crit/ferocity for max damage while playing innately tankier.

> > >

> > > It also does stack, so saying the DPS is low isn't true; if you interrupt three times in two seconds, they'll take 9k damage within 2s after 3s.

> > >

> > > Further, it heavily depends on build. Marauder stat builds have very low power. Prior to the nerf, my build would be able to PI for around 8-10k per interrupt or ~6-9k without assassin's signet, which is really disgustingly strong to be hitting while the opponent is also getting interrupted.

> >

> > What build you are using to make those calculations after all?

>

> he just simply lied you cant even do 6k+ PI in wvw

> In PvP the maximum possible is with 25 might, maximum power setup(berserker amulet, scholar rune) + damage modifiers and against a berserker ele would be 8454 below 50% hp

 

Lmao what?

 

>**Prior to the nerf**, my build would be able to PI for around 8-10k per interrupt or ~6-9k without assassin's signet, which is really disgustingly strong to be hitting while the opponent is also getting interrupted.

 

PI pre-nerf: 3.28 coefficient.

Mug: 1.5 coefficient.

 


Screenshot was into a thief. I've done more damage, but it's hard to nab screenshots of damage logs in group play.

 

I actually low-balled my numbers because if I said 12k like I could actually do, people would lose their minds lol. Also is more of a median of some people running toughness.

 

PI post-nerf: 2.0 Coefficient -> 6.9k

 

If you're going to complain about not dealing damage... stop playing builds that are loaded up on defense with trash for offense.

 

PS: Those numbers are still doable on a soldier's tank build.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

Ignore this

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

Ignore this, I misread

 

 

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > @"Menyus.4610" said:

> > > @"SoulSin.5682" said:

> > > > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > > > It's never been able to crit. Imho, that's part of the problem.

> > > >

> > > > One could run around in soldier's/paladins and just spam headshot without worrying about crit/ferocity for max damage while playing innately tankier.

> > > >

> > > > It also does stack, so saying the DPS is low isn't true; if you interrupt three times in two seconds, they'll take 9k damage within 2s after 3s.

> > > >

> > > > Further, it heavily depends on build. Marauder stat builds have very low power. Prior to the nerf, my build would be able to PI for around 8-10k per interrupt or ~6-9k without assassin's signet, which is really disgustingly strong to be hitting while the opponent is also getting interrupted.

> > >

> > > What build you are using to make those calculations after all?

> >

> > he just simply lied you cant even do 6k+ PI in wvw

> > In PvP the maximum possible is with 25 might, maximum power setup(berserker amulet, scholar rune) + damage modifiers and against a berserker ele would be 8454 below 50% hp

>

> Lmao what?

>

> >**Prior to the nerf**, my build would be able to PI for around 8-10k per interrupt or ~6-9k without assassin's signet, which is really disgustingly strong to be hitting while the opponent is also getting interrupted.

>

> PI pre-nerf: 3.28 coefficient.

> Mug: 1.5 coefficient.

>

> 

> Screenshot was into a thief. I've done more damage, but it's hard to nab screenshots of damage logs in group play.

>

> I actually low-balled my numbers because if I said 12k like I could actually do, people would lose their minds lol. Also is more of a median of some people running toughness.

>

> PI post-nerf: 2.0 Coefficient -> 6.9k

>

> If you're going to complain about not dealing damage... stop playing builds that are loaded up on defense with trash for offense.

>

> PS: Those numbers are still doable on a soldier's tank build.

 

Fuck defences if you want to do more damage than other classes with defences. Got it.

[Menyus.4610]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > @"Menyus.4610" said:

> > > @"SoulSin.5682" said:

> > > > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > > > It's never been able to crit. Imho, that's part of the problem.

> > > >

> > > > One could run around in soldier's/paladins and just spam headshot without worrying about crit/ferocity for max damage while playing innately tankier.

> > > >

> > > > It also does stack, so saying the DPS is low isn't true; if you interrupt three times in two seconds, they'll take 9k damage within 2s after 3s.

> > > >

> > > > Further, it heavily depends on build. Marauder stat builds have very low power. Prior to the nerf, my build would be able to PI for around 8-10k per interrupt or ~6-9k without assassin's signet, which is really disgustingly strong to be hitting while the opponent is also getting interrupted.

> > >

> > > What build you are using to make those calculations after all?

> >

> > he just simply lied you cant even do 6k+ PI in wvw

> > In PvP the maximum possible is with 25 might, maximum power setup(berserker amulet, scholar rune) + damage modifiers and against a berserker ele would be 8454 below 50% hp

>

> Lmao what?

>

> >**Prior to the nerf**, my build would be able to PI for around 8-10k per interrupt or ~6-9k without assassin's signet, which is really disgustingly strong to be hitting while the opponent is also getting interrupted.

>

> PI pre-nerf: 3.28 coefficient.

> Mug: 1.5 coefficient.

>

> 

> Screenshot was into a thief. I've done more damage, but it's hard to nab screenshots of damage logs in group play.

>

> I actually low-balled my numbers because if I said 12k like I could actually do, people would lose their minds lol. Also is more of a median of some people running toughness.

>

> PI post-nerf: 2.0 Coefficient -> 6.9k

>

> If you're going to complain about not dealing damage... stop playing builds that are loaded up on defense with trash for offense.

>

> PS: Those numbers are still doable on a soldier's tank build.

 

waiting for your 10k PI interrupt Screenshot

[DeceiverX.8361]

You won't find it because I don't play OH pistol.

 

At this point you're just denying math, though.

Unless you'd like to tell me the coefficient data was wrong all these years and nobody noticed.

[DragonSlayer.1087]

> @"Lyros.4673" said:

 

> So everything you said about thief? Totally right. Thieves are easy prey for me in WvW, except the ones that do nothing but evade and dodge and have survivability. That's about the only thing I've really ever seen them do because they can't kill me, but I can't kill them, so I don't bother. Yet Mesmers not only have faster actions, they have everything the thief has on top of survivability and capability to keep distances while doing damage.

 

So true. I was watching old videos of great thief players do roaming in WvW and realize oh... can't do those anymore.

 

Bye damage

Bye stealth

Bye acrobatics

 

 

[Estoroth.4310]

Short Answer: Thief had one strength: mobility combined with high single target burst damage. Other classes have caught up on thief's strength but don't have the weakness of thief: non existent group support, including group fight abilites.

 

Long Answer:

 

I think thief is currently in a bad state if you consider all game modes in GW2. The measure I use is this: How many top builds (meta-builds) exist for the class in any game mode and does the class have a niche where it excels? The game modes are PVP, PVE-Fractals, PVE-Raids, WvW-Zergs and WvW-Roaming.

 

For PVE, fractals and raids, looking at matabattle.com, thief has no meta build and no niche, it has "ok" builds but no build which adds equal or more value to the group than one of the other classes.

 

For WvW it's the same: no meta builds for zerg fights or niche. I think thief lost its niche as one of the best roaming classes. The reason is the powercreep of HoT and PoF, nerfs to D/P weaponset and the change how people do roaming. Roaming changed from solo-roaming to group-roaming and thief was never a good team fighter. The latest nerfs made it even more difficult to contribute in a team fight as a thief. Other classes have builds that combine damage with survivalibility - including mobility - much better, especially in a group fight, while also being as good or better in 1v1s. I think thief has no real niche where it currently excels in WvW; it has good builds for roaming but currently many classes can roam as good or better (group-roaming) while also having builds for WvW Zerg fights. This does not mean that you cannot have fun playing thief in WvW or that thief is useless in roaming or even bad; it's just that other classes are better now.

 

For PvP, thief has a meta-build and a niche - decapping and plus one - mostly because of one skill: "Infiltrator's Arrow". Infiltrator's strike/return and the boon rip of s/d are important too but not the main reason thief is still used. If Anet nerfs Infiltrator's Arrow thief would be out of meta.

 

I added a table with the number of meta-builds of all professions from metabattle.com. Even if the number of meta-builds per class is not a perfect measure for evaluating how good a class is, it gives us nevertheless a rough overview [1]. Thief is currently in a bad state by this measure while Mesmer and Warrior are too strong.

 

 

Number of meta builds per class (2018-06-14) , Metabattle.com, Meta with rating > 90, except spellbraker in WvW

___

 

| | Warrior | Mesmer | Ranger | Nekro | Ele| Engi | Guardian | Rev | Thief |

|-----------------|-----------:|-----------:|-----------:|--------:|----:|-------:|-------------:|-----:|-------:|

| Fractal Meta | 4 | 2 | 2 | | 1 | 1 | | | |

| Raid Meta | 3 | 3 | 2 | | 1 | 1 | | 1 | |

| WvW Meta | 1 | 1 | | 1 | 1 | | 1 | 1 | |

| PvP Meta | 1 | 2 | | 2 | | 1 | 1 | | 1 |

| Summary | 9 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 |

 

 

[1] This measure has multiple flaws. These numbers say nothing about very good builds - builds that are nearly as good as meta builds or could be meta - like bunker druid and d/p Daredevil in PvP or scourge, reaper and guardian builds in WvW. Also this measure tells us nothing about how much stronger a class is compared to other classes in its niche.

 

[Estoroth.4310]

Offtopic: Pulmonary Impact

 

I'm not sure about Pulmonary Impact (PI). The skill supposed to have a coefficent of 3.28 according to the wiki but I never had damage numbers that backed that up. But my perception and my memory could fool me. Unfortunately I never bothered to calculate the coefficent myself.

 

For example assuming you have equipped an ascendent weapon (average weapon strength 1000), power 2800 and a target with medium armor (ascendent, defense 1118) and no toughness; you would do 8215 damage in average with a successful PI with coefficent 3.28. From my experience fighting in WvW against other thieves I can't rember having done that much damage with PI - I assume the thieves I met had either marauder armor, berserker armor or a mixture of the two. This is of course only anecdotal evidence.

 

PI with a coefficent of 2.0 would do 5009 damage (Power 2800, medium ascended target armor, no toughness). With power 3600 you could get 6440 damage against a medium target. I think in the end it doesn't matter what coefficent PI had or what damage a skill did in the past or how strong or weak a class was in the past, what matters is the present; the current balance.

 

[MUDse.7623]

> @"Estoroth.4310" said:

> Offtopic: Pulmonary Impact

>

> I'm not sure about Pulmonary Impact (PI). The skill supposed to have a coefficent of 3.28 according to the wiki but I never had damage numbers that backed that up. But my perception and my memory could fool me. Unfortunately I never bothered to calculate the coefficent myself.

>

> For example assuming you have equipped an ascendent weapon (average weapon strength 1000), power 2800 and a target with medium armor (ascendent, defense 1118) and no toughness; you would do 8215 damage in average with a successful PI with coefficent 3.28. From my experience fighting in WvW against other thieves I can't rember having done that much damage with PI - I assume the thieves I met had either marauder armor, berserker armor or a mixture of the two. This is of course only anecdotal evidence.

>

> PI with a coefficent of 2.0 would do 5009 damage (Power 2800, medium ascended target armor, no toughness). With power 3600 you could get 6440 damage against a medium target. I think in the end it doesn't matter what coefficent PI had or what damage a skill did in the past or how strong or weak a class was in the past, what matters is the present; the current balance.

>

multipliers like force sigil, scholar rune etc and damage reductions like protection aside damage is calculated like this:

damage done = (Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target's Armor)

 

what you missed is that Armor includes also thoughness and we got a base thoughness of 1000, so someone with 1118 armor would be pretty much naked. my thief in full berserk without bloodlust has 2118 armor for example.

so without any modifiers and without damage reductions 3.28 coefficient, 2800 power on medium armor would result in 4336 damage wich is pretty much what i did get hit for, often more tho.

if we take that 3600 power you mentioned on a DA + Tr build , assuming scholar runes, below 50% hp wit executioner, a condition , 15 stacks lead attacks, havoc mastery as well as active bound buff, then this would result in a 10957 PI on my thief wich is nearly a oneshot. and there is still options for more modifiers and more power. ( with 2.0 coefficent only 6681 tho)

 

 

[SoulSin.5682]

> @"MUDse.7623" said:

> if we take that 3600 power you mentioned on a DA + Tr build , assuming scholar runes, below 50% hp wit executioner, a condition , 15 stacks lead attacks, havoc mastery as well as active bound buff, then this would result in a 10957 PI on my thief wich is nearly a oneshot. and there is still options for more modifiers and more power.

 

You know. I never tough that would actually be possible but thinking that way it prolly is.

 

Point is that this is still not impressive, for 10k damage we need perfect conditions, use 3 specific traitlines, 3 traits, a specific set of runes, must be full health, enemy must be 50% or lower, must burn Assassin Signet, must be on havoc mastery range, etc etc...

 

If that was actually "good", you would find a lot of thieves in WvW running on full Soldiers Interrupting people for 8~~10k left and right. Clearly doesn't happens.

 

(PI could get an additional effect in exchange for damage, perhaps another short daze in the 3 second mark? Would be fun watch people reaplying PI on thenselves over mindless spam)

[Jinks.2057]

LOL Deceiver is still at it.

 

 

Thieves in the beginning of the game were broken because of 1 thing only.

 

Culling

 

What this did was enhance the game's performance by not showing all players on the screen at one time. Stealthed characters who revealed themselves were not able to be seen by their enemy for 2.5-3 seconds. A common tactic used was CnD > BS attack for the duration of revealed then immediately stealth again. When a thief was GOOD and had his timing down you would either never see him or only catch very small glimpses of him while he destroyed your entire party. I can say from my previous play time that 1 full Auto Chain then CnD was the proper rotation used back then.

 

Now what happened is Anet nerfed thief hard and also got rid of culling. We never got to see the original release of thief vs the rest of the game w/out culling, and I believe the original state of thief was balanced. Remember the game was new and we players hadn't discovered all the OP builds in the game. Look at the D/D ele back then. All we heard on release was ele players crying how bad their class sucked when in reality they were the most broken OP class ever to grace the game. Same with Mesmer, Engi, etc.

 

The place thief is in is b/c the balance team has an agenda. They do not want thieves being able to fight 1v1 or in XvX fights.

 

As for Deceiver you need to understand this is the fella who played a gimmick 1 shot signet D/D thief build. He lobbied HARD for nerfs to DP b/c of his playstyle. Now as predicted Anet did NOT buff D/D as he wanted (in fact they nerfed the bejesus out of his build ROFLMAO) but thief is in an even worse state then it was from back then.

 

Take what he says with a grain of salt.

[MUDse.7623]

> @"SoulSin.5682" said:

> > @"MUDse.7623" said:

> > if we take that 3600 power you mentioned on a DA + Tr build , assuming scholar runes, below 50% hp wit executioner, a condition , 15 stacks lead attacks, havoc mastery as well as active bound buff, then this would result in a 10957 PI on my thief wich is nearly a oneshot. and there is still options for more modifiers and more power.

>

> You know. I never tough that would actually be possible but thinking that way it prolly is.

>

> Point is that this is still not impressive, for 10k damage we need perfect conditions, use 3 specific traitlines, 3 traits, a specific set of runes, must be full health, enemy must be 50% or lower, must burn Assassin Signet, must be on havoc mastery range, etc etc...

>

>**If that was actually "good", you would find a lot of thieves in WvW running on full Soldiers Interrupting people** for 8~~10k left and right. Clearly doesn't happens.

>

> (PI could get an additional effect in exchange for damage, perhaps another short daze in the 3 second mark? Would be fun watch people reaplying PI on thenselves over mindless spam)

not every good build is frequently present in WvW, i mean i dont expect to run into many deadeyes after this week altho d/p +rifle deadeye is one of, if not the strongest solo roaming (thief) build out there atm. reason for this is that many thief mains dislike the deadeye and altho for an experienced thief it is a rather easy build, a noob will die alot with it so you also wont see many non thief mains try and and stick to deadeye.

 

that said a soldiers build for only PI is stupid as it requires your opponent to keep spamming skills instead of using them more carefully so it is only able to kill bad opponents, but you can kill bad opponents with all builds (execept pure bunker builds, tho i have killed an engi once on a full nomad thief...he was not afk and 'fighting' back) so you need to build for fighting experienced opponents. my post was just to explain the calculation, in that regard deciever is right it is in theory possible to hit very high damage with PI but its not worth building for only PI. so builds with high PI damage are usually still valkyre with CS and hidden killer if you want to have alot of vitality or some marauder/berserk stuff, but full soldiers is not a good option.

 

i also do think that the PI nerf was not that bad for long term balance as this gives option to buff other areas, but you never know what they will come up with next. i guess another DE PvP/WvW buff will be next because still not enough people playing it, for example instant mark. so many traits tied to it makes steal far superior to mark as it is instant, if it gets interrupted you need to wait for all those traits to trigger and cant use it during other actions also easier evaded/blocked.

[DeceiverX.8361]

> @"Jinks.2057" said:

> LOL Deceiver is still at it.

>

>

> Thieves in the beginning of the game were broken because of 1 thing only.

>

> Culling

>

> What this did was enhance the game's performance by not showing all players on the screen at one time. Stealthed characters who revealed themselves were not able to be seen by their enemy for 2.5-3 seconds. A common tactic used was CnD > BS attack for the duration of revealed then immediately stealth again. When a thief was GOOD and had his timing down you would either never see him or only catch very small glimpses of him while he destroyed your entire party. I can say from my previous play time that 1 full Auto Chain then CnD was the proper rotation used back then.

>

> Now what happened is Anet nerfed thief hard and also got rid of culling. We never got to see the original release of thief vs the rest of the game w/out culling, and I believe the original state of thief was balanced. Remember the game was new and we players hadn't discovered all the OP builds in the game. Look at the D/D ele back then. All we heard on release was ele players crying how bad their class sucked when in reality they were the most broken OP class ever to grace the game. Same with Mesmer, Engi, etc.

>

> The place thief is in is b/c the balance team has an agenda. They do not want thieves being able to fight 1v1 or in XvX fights.

>

> As for Deceiver you need to understand this is the fella who played a gimmick 1 shot signet D/D thief build. He lobbied HARD for nerfs to DP b/c of his playstyle. Now as predicted Anet did NOT buff D/D as he wanted (in fact they nerfed the bejesus out of his build ROFLMAO) but thief is in an even worse state then it was from back then.

>

> Take what he says with a grain of salt.

 

Culling was game-breaking but almost entirely unique to WvW, and Mug crits and the launch Assassin's Signet, Shadow Arts, and BP were completely broken beyond belief. Nothing has changed about Mug or the surrounding skills. There is very obvious math which will demonstrate why launch thief was broken and overpowered. And I'm saying this as a D/D player who ran the build: Nobody worth their salt would sit and AA chain prior to the implementation of Revealed because CnD chaining was infinite and with SA ran capped might and permanent max initiative while dealing 20% more damage on its coefficient. It didn't even depend on culling because it could deal damage while in stealth forever. I played this build for a while because CS/SA was the highest-hitting build on thief... period. It also didn't depend on SoP since it capped might thanks to SA, and at launch, Executioner was in CS and there were no trait tiers, letting a loadout like 10 DA/30CS/30SA still have benefits of capped might which stacked OOC with D/P, the modifiers from CS, and no need for trickery with infinite initiative from SA. BP+HSx3 -> Swap D/D ->Assassin's Signet -> Mug (crit to 12-15k) + CnD -> CnD -> CnD would never break stealth and dealt roughly 30-35k damage as a whole with a 100% crit rate thanks to HK.

 

Thief is in a worse state than at launch because thief was completely overpowered at launch.

 

I advocated for making the thief more diverse and fun to play both as and against. And I still do. D/P SA was braindead easy to play and extremely boring. SA itself (years ago) was overloaded with nearly all of the thief's PvP capabilities including literally the class' only condi cleanse. People who had any semblance of understanding of the class never disagreed with my posts about D/P SA being the gatekeeper of the rest of the thief's balance (years ago prior to powercreep of other professions and changes to other trait lines). They disagreed with the notion of accepting nerfs because they thought that ANet wouldn't buff the thief in more universal core areas to compensate for hits to D/P. The only time other builds emerged was when:

 

- S/D Acro being pretty busted with old vigor and FG while also being the only counter to the boonbunker cele ele meta (which subsequently got nerfed) due to the precast potential on LS.

- SA HoT when Daredevil phased out SA with external reveal on DH and EA+UC being strictly better than SE as a source of condi removal.

- D/P being phased out with PoF due to the emergence of FB.

 

D/P on thief for years was easymode. I'd play it, win fights, and get bored. Signets got nerfed as far as an all-in build went, not just D/D; the signet changes buffed D/P over D/D yet again by putting the entire investment of two traits from CS into just Assassin's Signet, and rewarded builds not built around assassination more than builds which did. The changes made no sense, and I posted about them with contempt because it did absolutely nothing about the issues D/D alone faced while nerfing about the only viable D/D power build remaining. I play signets because it's a challenge in outnumbered fighting which I find fun. I don't get the salt. If I wanted to be OP, I'd be encouraging the same asinine damage buffs people keep demanding. I mean, imagine if my numbers were made so much innately bigger - I'd be one-shotting tank warriors!

 

And because I don't enjoy that, I do not ask for them, and usually oppose them because I'd end up overpowered. I'm outspoken against what I think is OP on other classes as well, because a number of things mathematically and conceptually shuts the thief (and other builds) down in a variety of ways which make risk-taking and playing diverse builds punitive in all cases. But I do not know the other professions as well. So I do so with hesitancy. I know the thief inside and out. So I'm more vocal here.

 

I literally said the balance team doesn't want the thief to be a top-tier duelist because of their agenda in my original post on this subject lol. Other classes "do thief better" because according to the developers over the years, its identity in the game is to decap and +1 and generally be a nuisance. Strictly speaking, the entirety of the basis for the Deadeye which I originally proposed was to let the thief be a better duelist by forcing it to make more committed engagements in order to assist in this play behavior to enable buffing it in its direct fight capacity. I'd like it to be a better 1v1 class. But I'd also like it to be a more fair 1v1 class that encourages people to play smart and high-risk and consequently reap the rewards when they do so successfully and die when they don't play well. Something like soldier's tanks hitting for 10k+ PI's at range with stealth and high mobility/disengage is stupid and bad design.

 

And so I speak out about bad design because if something is poorly designed, it prevents other things from being made viable. I don't care about what's optimal. I care about diversity existing and matchups where things are less based around cheese or rock paper scissors balance with only one build in mind for each.

 

@"SoulSin.5682" @"MUDse.7623"

 

I'm not really sure if it'd be "good." We're also in a much different meta right now, though - which doesn't favor D/P or the interrupt utility OH pistol brings - and one which has pretty definitively busted concepts/specs. There's way too much stability/negation and blocking in the game at this moment in time (especially on FB/Mirage) or too much access to things which can attack while ignoring damage. Though I don't think it'd be definitively bad, either. That's a huge amount of extra sustain to have, especially into power-based matchups given the toughness increases; soldier's+scrapper runes is effectively 3x tankier than zerk or twice of Marauder's and over 50% more than Valkyrie with better anti-condi sustain (100% and 30% better than the former two) as well given the higher health pool and lack of need for an offense trait line. Unless playing against a build with permanent stability, sustain from SA + Daredevil and BT off trickery for boon theft would probably work pretty well to get a lot of PI procs. With D/P + Bound and SA (rejuv) it also has permanent stealth, so it's not like it'll be killed open-field easily. Ultimately, it'll mandate your opponent makes attacks to kill it, so interrupting won't be hard. Thinking more into the psychology of the matchup, people tend to also be willing to try and pour damage/skills into clearly tanky foes under the belief they won't suffer much damage back. In the case of pre-nerf PI which would only require two or three interrupts to kill almost anyone, I think forcing people to feel compelled to attack you and getting only two or three interrupts in a few seconds wouldn't be too difficult. The build wouldn't function currently. But that's the point: It shouldn't. It's a tank sustain build dealing large chunks of damage... on a build which is designed strictly to deny your opponent from playing the game to begin with by denying its ability to use its abilities. Such a concept without a substantial risk/skill cap isn't good for the sake of the game and enjoyment of everyone involved.

 

I think people didn't run it previously more or less because it wasn't posted on metabattle and isn't really something a lot of people would think of doing; I mean, there are clearly multiple people in this thread who have said such numbers would be impossible while being totally incorrect in their assumptions. It's also not a one-size-fits-all build; it wouldn't work in sPvP (where a lot of builds emerge initially) since it'd likely be stealth-reliant and lose efficacy into bunker builds with high stability uptime, and obviously, there's no pure power-bunker kit in sPvP, either. The closest thing is Paladin's, in which case, it just makes more sense to go Marauder's and +1 properly and more reliably while being not much squishier.

 

The trait design is pretty unhealthy, and I'd really have rather seen the PI effect merged into more of the interrupt utility skills like Distracting Daggers and Reflexive Strike to keep the interrupt/toughness monk theme of the Daredevil alive while not allowing cheese and rewarding spammy play with OH pistol builds that become very frustrating and difficult to overcome on classes/builds without much stability or immunity effect access. If they really wished to make interrupt thief more of an available concept, it'd have made more sense to consolidate the effect to be stronger under Pressure Striking to promote P/P condi.

 

And maybe we'll see those changes. Can't ever know with ANet, though. The way it was wasn't exactly fun and was highly exploitable with a pretty low-risk build (soldier's SA hitting for 9-10k damage at range) is ultimately my point.

[Jinks.2057]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > @"Jinks.2057" said:

> > LOL Deceiver is still at it.

> >

> >

> > Thieves in the beginning of the game were broken because of 1 thing only.

> >

> > Culling

> >

> > What this did was enhance the game's performance by not showing all players on the screen at one time. Stealthed characters who revealed themselves were not able to be seen by their enemy for 2.5-3 seconds. A common tactic used was CnD > BS attack for the duration of revealed then immediately stealth again. When a thief was GOOD and had his timing down you would either never see him or only catch very small glimpses of him while he destroyed your entire party. I can say from my previous play time that 1 full Auto Chain then CnD was the proper rotation used back then.

> >

> > Now what happened is Anet nerfed thief hard and also got rid of culling. We never got to see the original release of thief vs the rest of the game w/out culling, and I believe the original state of thief was balanced. Remember the game was new and we players hadn't discovered all the OP builds in the game. Look at the D/D ele back then. All we heard on release was ele players crying how bad their class sucked when in reality they were the most broken OP class ever to grace the game. Same with Mesmer, Engi, etc.

> >

> > The place thief is in is b/c the balance team has an agenda. They do not want thieves being able to fight 1v1 or in XvX fights.

> >

> > As for Deceiver you need to understand this is the fella who played a gimmick 1 shot signet D/D thief build. He lobbied HARD for nerfs to DP b/c of his playstyle. Now as predicted Anet did NOT buff D/D as he wanted (in fact they nerfed the bejesus out of his build ROFLMAO) but thief is in an even worse state then it was from back then.

> >

> > Take what he says with a grain of salt.

>

> Culling was game-breaking but almost entirely unique to WvW, and Mug crits and the launch Assassin's Signet, Shadow Arts, and BP were completely broken beyond belief. Nothing has changed about Mug or the surrounding skills. There is very obvious math which will demonstrate why launch thief was broken and overpowered. And I'm saying this as a D/D player who ran the build: Nobody worth their salt would sit and AA chain prior to the implementation of Revealed because CnD chaining was infinite and with SA ran capped might and permanent max initiative while dealing 20% more damage on its coefficient. It didn't even depend on culling because it could deal damage while in stealth forever. I played this build for a while because CS/SA was the highest-hitting build on thief... period. It also didn't depend on SoP since it capped might thanks to SA, and at launch, Executioner was in CS and there were no trait tiers, letting a loadout like 10 DA/30CS/30SA still have benefits of capped might which stacked OOC with D/P, the modifiers from CS, and no need for trickery with infinite initiative from SA. BP+HSx3 -> Swap D/D ->Assassin's Signet -> Mug (crit to 12-15k) + CnD -> CnD -> CnD would never break stealth and dealt roughly 30-35k damage as a whole with a 100% crit rate thanks to HK.

>

> Thief is in a worse state than at launch because thief was completely overpowered at launch.

>

> I advocated for making the thief more diverse and fun to play both as and against. And I still do. D/P SA was braindead easy to play and extremely boring. SA itself (years ago) was overloaded with nearly all of the thief's PvP capabilities including literally the class' only condi cleanse. People who had any semblance of understanding of the class never disagreed with my posts about D/P SA being the gatekeeper of the rest of the thief's balance (years ago prior to powercreep of other professions and changes to other trait lines). They disagreed with the notion of accepting nerfs because they thought that ANet wouldn't buff the thief in more universal core areas to compensate for hits to D/P. The only time other builds emerged was when:

>

> - S/D Acro being pretty busted with old vigor and FG while also being the only counter to the boonbunker cele ele meta (which subsequently got nerfed) due to the precast potential on LS.

> - SA HoT when Daredevil phased out SA with external reveal on DH and EA+UC being strictly better than SE as a source of condi removal.

> - D/P being phased out with PoF due to the emergence of FB.

>

> D/P on thief for years was easymode. I'd play it, win fights, and get bored. Signets got nerfed as far as an all-in build went, not just D/D; the signet changes buffed D/P over D/D yet again by putting the entire investment of two traits from CS into just Assassin's Signet, and rewarded builds not built around assassination more than builds which did. The changes made no sense, and I posted about them with contempt because it did absolutely nothing about the issues D/D alone faced while nerfing about the only viable D/D power build remaining. I play signets because it's a challenge in outnumbered fighting which I find fun. I don't get the salt. If I wanted to be OP, I'd be encouraging the same asinine damage buffs people keep demanding. I mean, imagine if my numbers were made so much innately bigger - I'd be one-shotting tank warriors!

>

> And because I don't enjoy that, I do not ask for them, and usually oppose them because I'd end up overpowered. I'm outspoken against what I think is OP on other classes as well, because a number of things mathematically and conceptually shuts the thief (and other builds) down in a variety of ways which make risk-taking and playing diverse builds punitive in all cases. But I do not know the other professions as well. So I do so with hesitancy. I know the thief inside and out. So I'm more vocal here.

>

> I literally said the balance team doesn't want the thief to be a top-tier duelist because of their agenda in my original post on this subject lol. Other classes "do thief better" because according to the developers over the years, its identity in the game is to decap and +1 and generally be a nuisance. Strictly speaking, the entirety of the basis for the Deadeye which I originally proposed was to let the thief be a better duelist by forcing it to make more committed engagements in order to assist in this play behavior to enable buffing it in its direct fight capacity. I'd like it to be a better 1v1 class. But I'd also like it to be a more fair 1v1 class that encourages people to play smart and high-risk and consequently reap the rewards when they do so successfully and die when they don't play well. Something like soldier's tanks hitting for 10k+ PI's at range with stealth and high mobility/disengage is stupid and bad design.

>

> And so I speak out about bad design because if something is poorly designed, it prevents other things from being made viable. I don't care about what's optimal. I care about diversity existing and matchups where things are less based around cheese or rock paper scissors balance with only one build in mind for each.

>

 

Culling happened in PvP in the beginning as well. Revealed debuff was in effect upon release of the game to the public and was put in effect in Beta. Now if you are talking about CnD CnD CnD CnD extending your stealth...actually dying to that was hard to do. In October 1 month after the game released they implemented revealed to stealth gaining skills if they hit while stealthed. You then went on a number of monthly nerfs to thieves before culling was finally fully removed in March of 2013.

 

Sorry the time lines are not supporting your theory...

 

 

 

 

[Gatvin.6510]

I'd rather not argue about the thief being a 1v1 specialist. That's not a practical thing to care about in this game anymore. You'll get some amount of 1v1s in PvP, and some small amount that actually matters in WvW, and 1v1 isn't a thing in PvE, so trying to argue the thief should be a 1v1 specialist is like saying thief should only be useful in 1/15th of the game.

[Alatar.7364]

> @"Gatvin.6510" said:

> I'd rather not argue about the thief being a 1v1 specialist. That's not a practical thing to care about in this game anymore. You'll get some amount of 1v1s in PvP, and some small amount that actually matters in WvW, and 1v1 isn't a thing in PvE, so trying to argue the thief should be a 1v1 specialist is like saying thief should only be useful in 1/15th of the game.

 

We are talking PvP here and Skill gamemode splits have been a thing for months now, so don't bring in PvE arguments, it has literally nothing to do with it nor does "1v1 is not practical" that one makes particularly no sense since that simply can not justify Thiefs current state when it was always ment to be 1v1 in PvP.

 

EDIT: It's PvP where 1v1s matter not WvW at all.

[Straegen.9534]

Scouting, Plus One and decapping is pretty much the only place a thief shines. Several classes are nearly as fast as a standard SB Thief. Several classes duel and 1v1 better. Several classes have better burst. The thief is just awful in coordinated group fights as it has so few useful group abilities and limited AoE. The mesmer variants are straight up more durable, dangerous and every bit as slippery.

 

At this point any skilled thief player will perform better in another class. I hung in there because I like the play style but after the P/P nerf it is has been mostly downhill.

[Gatvin.6510]

> @"Alatar.7364" said:

> > @"Gatvin.6510" said:

> > I'd rather not argue about the thief being a 1v1 specialist. That's not a practical thing to care about in this game anymore. You'll get some amount of 1v1s in PvP, and some small amount that actually matters in WvW, and 1v1 isn't a thing in PvE, so trying to argue the thief should be a 1v1 specialist is like saying thief should only be useful in 1/15th of the game.

>

> We are talking PvP here and Skill gamemode splits have been a thing for months now, so don't bring in PvE arguments, it has literally nothing to do with it nor does "1v1 is not practical" that one makes particularly no sense since that simply can not justify Thiefs current state when it was always ment to be 1v1 in PvP.

>

> EDIT: It's PvP where 1v1s matter not WvW at all.

 

I keep seeing people (not you say PVP doesn't produce reliable 1v1 situations (which is mostly correct I find) and that WvW is the place to try 1v1 (not that they often matter there). The point I was trying to make is that 1v1 in PVP AND WVW is a small part of those game modes and not a hugely important one either. Even in PvP where a 1v1 CAN have meaning, going into one purely to kill your opponent is mostly reckless unless you're in lower ranks and can reliably faceroll whoever because they're bad.

 

As far as the Mode Splitting on skills goes, that's not the be-all end all solution. Its a way they have of keeping a class feeling the same while not ruining one of the modes. If they were to fix the theif through mode-splitting its skills, it would be like adding 2 new classes to the game. Over the course of the thread the conversation has occasionally brought PVE up, and I do feel its worth mentioning that thief's focus on single targets has had negative impact there as well. Remember when daggers couldn't cleave?

 

The real joke here is that many other classes do 1v1 better than thief already because they AREN'T specialized into 1v1 fighting. I feel like the only thing thief "gets" for being focused on 1v1 is "being worse than other classes".

 

[omgdracula.6345]

> @"Gatvin.6510" said:

> > @"Alatar.7364" said:

> > > @"Gatvin.6510" said:

> > > I'd rather not argue about the thief being a 1v1 specialist. That's not a practical thing to care about in this game anymore. You'll get some amount of 1v1s in PvP, and some small amount that actually matters in WvW, and 1v1 isn't a thing in PvE, so trying to argue the thief should be a 1v1 specialist is like saying thief should only be useful in 1/15th of the game.

> >

> > We are talking PvP here and Skill gamemode splits have been a thing for months now, so don't bring in PvE arguments, it has literally nothing to do with it nor does "1v1 is not practical" that one makes particularly no sense since that simply can not justify Thiefs current state when it was always ment to be 1v1 in PvP.

> >

> > EDIT: It's PvP where 1v1s matter not WvW at all.

>

> I keep seeing people (not you say PVP doesn't produce reliable 1v1 situations (which is mostly correct I find) and that WvW is the place to try 1v1 (not that they often matter there). The point I was trying to make is that 1v1 in PVP AND WVW is a small part of those game modes and not a hugely important one either. Even in PvP where a 1v1 CAN have meaning, going into one purely to kill your opponent is mostly reckless unless you're in lower ranks and can reliably faceroll whoever because they're bad.

>

> As far as the Mode Splitting on skills goes, that's not the be-all end all solution. Its a way they have of keeping a class feeling the same while not ruining one of the modes. If they were to fix the theif through mode-splitting its skills, it would be like adding 2 new classes to the game. Over the course of the thread the conversation has occasionally brought PVE up, and I do feel its worth mentioning that thief's focus on single targets has had negative impact there as well. Remember when daggers couldn't cleave?

>

> The real joke here is that many other classes do 1v1 better than thief already because they AREN'T specialized into 1v1 fighting. I feel like the only thing thief "gets" for being focused on 1v1 is "being worse than other classes".

>

 

I would argue the point that 1v1 is actually pretty important in PvP. There are a decent amount of times where someone will have to 1v1 to keep a point controlled until a +1 shows up or they will 1v1 to try and capture a point. For thief being as pigeonholed into a +1 as it is, being able to 1v1 would make it a bit more viable. There are plenty of times on thief where I go to backcap and an enemy shows up and I just wasted time because thief can't 1v1 really anything at the moment.

 

If you spend your time at mid 1v1s definitely seem rare, but the side points where thiefs operate at mostly 1v1 is pretty important. You're either back capping before an enemy shows up, or you are hoping your teammate you are going to +1 can 1v1 well enough for you to get there.