90 replies to this topic

[Varun]

Shatteredz, on 30 October 2012 - 05:56 PM, said:

You wanna balance a game around a mode where AOE nukes own everything, more or less, along with very random factors such as siege weapons, the players(from scrubs following the commander icon to a well organised guild on ts) ect. I agree WvW is fun, but balancing around that would require Anet to give every class a huge amount of AOE ranged attacks, because those simply shine in WvW(putting aside camp assault and ox defending/assaulting).

And please, give anet the time to fix that rendering issue. Or else we gonna he have "balanced class" that suddenly gets total crap after the rendering bug gets fixed.

Come on now, by that response I can tell you really didn't play WvW much at all.

In WvW, it's important to have a good mix of builds. Glass cannon AOE builds can be useful behind a keep's wall or near chokepoints, but aren't really going to win a fight on the open field.
Check the WvW forums: turtling, inventive use of group stealth and mesmer portals together with strong organisation and planning ahead are winning WvW (as well as population, sadly and obviously).
As an example: last matchup we were assaulting a borderlands where we had absolutely no bases at all, we went for the enemy garrison anyway, which held their orb. We built siege golems at a safe location then ported them in to catch the enemy off-guard and quickly destroy their altar of power, which resets the orb, making it much easier to capture. All of this was planned ahead so we could take one of the bigger keeps later that day and carry the orb there once it had reset to its altar. Good luck finding that long-term planning in sPvP.

I might not care about sPvP too much, but I think it's only fair that the game attempts to be balanced for all of the different content areas. You might have lots of "scrubs" in WvW, but that's the case in sPvP as well, except they're filtered in tPvP. Anet has already made a great engine to support WvW imo, but the rendering issue still persists and is not the only problem I have with thiefs.

As for Elementalists, getting forced into a bunker / support build in which you are very effective at surviving and countering burst (though thiefs are still the ones that can take you out the quickest by far in my experience) but which is also extremely boring to play and which makes your damage drop down like a sack of shit, just to counter a number of lolspam specs that would kill me otherwise even if I effectively use 25+ buttons in a fight is not fine in my opinion.

The ele is a great profession to play when you catch people unaware or are facing people who don't play at their max or can coordinate with other classes. We have a great number of tools at our disposal. I too have won 3vs1 situations like you see in the little youtube montages. What those vids don't show you are the times when you've been absolutely blasted into oblivion out of stealth without any actions from your part changing anything, or the times when one thief has been abusing stealth spam to keep a whole team from capturing a point (there's plenty of footage of that). And no, I don't think that's fine.

For the record, I don't run a pure DPS build most of the time, I'm actually full support / bunker right now.

[Shatteredz]

Varun, on 30 October 2012 - 11:05 PM, said:

Come on now, by that response I can tell you really didn't play WvW much at all.

In WvW, it's important to have a good mix of builds. Glass cannon AOE builds can be useful behind a keep's wall or near chokepoints, but aren't really going to win a fight on the open field.
Check the WvW forums: turtling, inventive use of group stealth and mesmer portals together with strong organisation and planning ahead are winning WvW (as well as population, sadly and obviously).
As an example: last matchup we were assaulting a borderlands where we had absolutely no bases at all, we went for the enemy garrison anyway, which held their orb. We built siege golems at a safe location then ported them in to catch the enemy off-guard and quickly destroy their altar of power, which resets the orb, making it much easier to capture. All of this was planned ahead so we could take one of the bigger keeps later that day and carry the orb there once it had reset to its altar. Good luck finding that long-term planning in sPvP.

I might not care about sPvP too much, but I think it's only fair that the game attempts to be balanced for all of the different content areas. You might have lots of "scrubs" in WvW, but that's the case in sPvP as well, except they're filtered in tPvP. Anet has already made a great engine to support WvW imo, but the rendering issue still persists and is not the only problem I have with thiefs.

WvW has simply too much different factors to include when balancing around that mode, while balancing classes around 5vs5 has a pretty strict set of rules, like:
-No gear difference, in terms of strenght. Only thing different is the stat distribution.
-No food buffs. Some stuff, in combination with traits, is just extreme and near undoable to balance around.
-No siege weapons on most maps, or other ways to deal with your opponent. Just regular PvP without walls and gates in between, ect.

personally I feel that it would be great to balance around WvW, seeing how popular it is. But is simply has to many random factors. You will never be able to find out what is OP when each thief has a set of food buffs on him that give them 3 times the dodging power they normally have, for example.
Also, If we can manage to balance Tpvp, then the rest will follow, more or less. At least thats how it works out in other MMO's. There will, obviously, be some pubstomp builds, but you cant really help that.

[Chubby]

Re: 'facerolling' thieves and the spamming of one button

Question: A thief running D/D build backstabs you, what button do should he use afterwards?
1: Autoattack
2: HS
3: Unicorn blossom
4: Dancing daggers
5: CnD
6: Heal
7: some utility
8: Switch to SB/other set

Ideal Answers
Scenario A (your HP is <25%): 'spam' 2
Scenario B (your HP is >25%): 'spam' 1 until then follow Scenario A when it is true

Explanations
3: Thief won't LDB since BS builds aren't condition specced
4: Thief won't toss daggers to close gap since thief just backstabbed you (i.e. next to you already)
5: Stealth debuff on
6: b/c Thief would've healed before engaging you, a mere 2 seconds ago
7: possible but unlikely (see below)
8: possible but unlikely (see below)

There is no way the thief won't get you down ASAP and the only way to do that (assuming the CnD -> Steal -> BS landed and you are quite low already), is to spam 1 and 2.

Real Problem
Good players playing BS builds will 'spam' HS maybe twice
Bad players playing BS builds will 'spam' HS 6 times in a row (rofl)
QQers can't tell the difference and have conditioned themselves to "see HS leap -> QQ spamming"


TL;DR
HS is a made to be a big problem because noobs and better players need to rely on it: noobs spam it from beginning to end, better players use it when they can down someone with 1-2 hits quickly.  The problem is QQers can't distinguish between them and they simply associate HS = noob/good spammable skill

[Shatteredz]

Chubby, on 31 October 2012 - 09:19 AM, said:

Re: 'facerolling' thieves and the spamming of one button

Question: A thief running D/D build backstabs you, what button do should he use afterwards?
1: Autoattack
2: HS
3: Unicorn blossom
4: Dancing daggers
5: CnD
6: Heal
7: some utility
8: Switch to SB/other set

Ideal Answers
Scenario A (your HP is <25%): 'spam' 2
Scenario B (your HP is >25%): 'spam' 1 until then follow Scenario A when it is true

Explanations
3: Thief won't LDB since BS builds aren't condition specced
4: Thief won't toss daggers to close gap since thief just backstabbed you (i.e. next to you already)
5: Stealth debuff on
6: b/c Thief would've healed before engaging you, a mere 2 seconds ago
7: possible but unlikely (see below)
8: possible but unlikely (see below)

There is no way the thief won't get you down ASAP and the only way to do that (assuming the CnD -> Steal -> BS landed and you are quite low already), is to spam 1 and 2.

Real Problem
Good players playing BS builds will 'spam' HS maybe twice
Bad players playing BS builds will 'spam' HS 6 times in a row (rofl)
QQers can't tell the difference and have conditioned themselves to "see HS leap -> QQ spamming"

Assuming a player doesnt use either a dodge, defensive cooldown, CC or a gap-increaser.
Death blossem is a good evading move to dodge various CC's while still doing damage, Dagger is pretty much a AOE cripple against groups, and somewhat effective versus single targets(without pets that is, with pets around it gets pretty effective).

Just saying that only #1 and #2 are viable options is true, if your opponent is a plant that doesnt use skills, doesnt dodge, doesnt use stun breakers/gap increasers/CC. 1x a chil on a thief and HS wont reach anything at all, a immobolize or a stun will work even better.

[Wraith of Orr]

Thief is a stupid class. We see this kind of nonsense in EVERY MMO for some God-forsaken reason. NO class should be based around hitting 2-3 buttons and instagibbing people. To top it off ArenaNet put instagib burst AND stealth on the same class. That is a fireable offense in my opinion.

I count the Thieves in every sPvP match I play and EVERY game is 30-40% Thieves. Often times 3-4 Thieves on a single team.

The reason why you DON'T see as many Thieves in tPvP is because there is no room on the team for that many roamers, at least not with the current (idiotic) Bunker Meta. Most teams run 3 Bunkers, that means 1 Roamer and 1 Utility. IF tPvP was 8v8 then you WOULD see 3-4 Thieves per team, just like in sPvP. There is no point to bringing any other class when it comes to roaming.

I honestly don't know why ArenaNet went OUT OF THEIR WAY to make the game balanced in almost every other regard, only to make Thieves so stupidly powerful. Can you imagine if Necros had Thief level damage with their dagger builds? And a 5 second AOE Fear on a 45 second cooldown (trollololol)? People would be SCREAMING to have that shit nerfed ASAP (no doubt many current Thief players would be playing Necro instead because they just want to be the OP faceroll class and can't stand to put actual effort into the game).

BTW I have played 142 sPvP games as Thief, so I have a little idea of how stupid OP this class is right now. I have 401 games with the stupid OP class that is Mesmer. Don't even get me started on how broken Mesmers are in PvP - that is a whole 'nother story.

[Runkleford]

Noobs gonna defend their OP class and scrubs are going to cry about thief nerfs. Fact is that ANET already nerfed some things and more nerfs are coming. So are you idiots still blaming it on "noobs" and "scrubs whining about the thief profession"? Or is it more likely that even ANET has revised their balance situation and deemed that the profession is indeed a bit too strong?

People like the OP are the real scrubs since they need to rely on keeping the profession's status quo so that they can faceroll because they can't do it without this crutch.

Edited by Runkleford, 03 November 2012 - 07:08 AM.

[Shatteredz]

Wraith of Orr, on 03 November 2012 - 06:00 AM, said:

Thief is a stupid class. We see this kind of nonsense in EVERY MMO for some God-forsaken reason. NO class should be based around hitting 2-3 buttons and instagibbing people. To top it off ArenaNet put instagib burst AND stealth on the same class. That is a fireable offense in my opinion.

I count the Thieves in every sPvP match I play and EVERY game is 30-40% Thieves. Often times 3-4 Thieves on a single team.

The reason why you DON'T see as many Thieves in tPvP is because there is no room on the team for that many roamers, at least not with the current (idiotic) Bunker Meta. Most teams run 3 Bunkers, that means 1 Roamer and 1 Utility. IF tPvP was 8v8 then you WOULD see 3-4 Thieves per team, just like in sPvP. There is no point to bringing any other class when it comes to roaming.

I honestly don't know why ArenaNet went OUT OF THEIR WAY to make the game balanced in almost every other regard, only to make Thieves so stupidly powerful. Can you imagine if Necros had Thief level damage with their dagger builds? And a 5 second AOE Fear on a 45 second cooldown (trollololol)? People would be SCREAMING to have that shit nerfed ASAP (no doubt many current Thief players would be playing Necro instead because they just want to be the OP faceroll class and can't stand to put actual effort into the game).

BTW I have played 142 sPvP games as Thief, so I have a little idea of how stupid OP this class is right now. I have 401 games with the stupid OP class that is Mesmer. Don't even get me started on how broken Mesmers are in PvP - that is a whole 'nother story.

Just the fact that you say the class revolves around 2-3 buttons shows how bad most people in spvp are.
Sure, you can get away with spamming 2-3 buttons, as 90% in spvp are probably even worse then you are. But if you were anywhere near decent then you would know that HS spam doesnt work versus anything else then total noobs.

[Touche]

Thieves are fine deal with it. Unless you're running a glass cannon build you should be able to deal with them. Even some glass cannon builds can take them on. This is a L2P issue.

[Hep]

Touche, on 05 November 2012 - 02:30 PM, said:

Thieves are fine deal with it. Unless you're running a glass cannon build you should be able to deal with them. Even some glass cannon builds can take them on. This is a L2P issue.

Keeping the quote, because Anet is already exploring ways to nerf thieves, and when they do, this will apply just fine to thieves who complain about it. Since you're taking balance out of the equation and putting it completely in the players' hands.

[sagasaint]

once Anet balances thieves, this thread´s title will finally become true
I wonder how many thieves will stick to the class....3%? 2%?

Edited by sagasaint, 05 November 2012 - 07:31 PM.

[Garethh]

sagasaint, on 05 November 2012 - 07:30 PM, said:

once Anet balances thieves, this thread´s title will finally become true
I wonder how many thieves will stick to the class....3%? 2%?

Thief is an extremely tough class to nerf to the ground.
I can't really see the class being hit that hard atm.

Pretty much every utility is useful in some PvP setup (unlike any other class), all the weapon sets are good (short of p/p), and all the traits are usefull...
Shortbow is fantastic (if played well, one of the few weapon sets, and to boot alone, that can kill my ranger) d/d is solid at roaming even without the stun-spike full->nothing instagib.
Maybe s/d will see some play.
A great setup if you know enemy animations well, nigh impossible to hit with any spikes, solid CC and deals good dmg to boot (especially with traps).

Edited by Garethh, 06 November 2012 - 02:52 AM.

[sagasaint]

Garethh, on 05 November 2012 - 07:41 PM, said:

Thief is an extremely tough class to nerf to the ground.
I can't really see the class being hit that hard atm.

the thing is, you dont even have to hit it that hard.

currently most people rolling thieves do so because they wouldnt fight their way out of a paper bag with any of the other 7 classes.

even if Anet nailed the balance of the thief perfectly it would still cause a massive exodus, because without a class that plays alone, that players are hopeless.

[Shatteredz]

A lot will be fixed after the rendering fix that is comming. Once that is live we can see if thief needs aditional nerfs, IMO.

sagasaint, on 05 November 2012 - 07:30 PM, said:

once Anet balances thieves, this thread´s title will finally become true
I wonder how many thieves will stick to the class....3%? 2%?

I wonder how many of your brain cells are working.
Probably less then your estimated amount of thieves.
Saying that the majority of the players are just running thief because is "OP" is being plain ignorant.

Edited by Shatteredz, 05 November 2012 - 11:46 PM.

[Shatteredz]

Inter hick-up

Edited by Shatteredz, 05 November 2012 - 11:46 PM.

[sagasaint]

Shatteredz, on 05 November 2012 - 09:30 PM, said:

Saying that the majority of the players are just running thief because is "OP" is being plain ignorant.

lol, are you serious? is this your first MMO? your first time in internet? how old are you, 5?

Edited by sagasaint, 06 November 2012 - 07:51 AM.

[Shatteredz]

sagasaint, on 06 November 2012 - 07:50 AM, said:

lol, are you serious? is this your first MMO? your first time in internet? how old are you, 5?

Yes, I am serious.
Probably has to do with thief not being that OP at all atm, just easy to play.
Me, and alot of other people, play thief because the class is really fun to play with the diversity, mobility and cool skill+weapon sets, along with the amount of viable builds and doing good in both WvW and Spvp.

Sure, we will have some people that will quit playing thief and are really the FOTM, but saying thiefs will reduce from ~50%(in spvp, according to you "nerf thief QQ sayers") to 2%, means that ~50% of the pvp population would be playing the FoTM thief(which would be shatter mesmer over thief anyway, but not the point).

Well, quess what, that many people dont even enter the forums and read about the "FOTM". I know all of your people LOVE to exaggerate numbers and such. But really, it aint adding anything to your argument or credability.

Edited by Shatteredz, 06 November 2012 - 10:33 AM.

[sagasaint]

Shatteredz, on 06 November 2012 - 10:25 AM, said:

Sure, we will have some people that will quit playing thief and are really the FOTM, but saying thiefs will reduce from ~50%(in spvp, according to you "nerf thief QQ sayers") to 2%, means that ~50% of the pvp population would be playing the FoTM thief

agree to disagree. we have gone from 1 thief per team during BWE2-3-release to 4-5 and sometimes even 6 nowadays
once the nerfs hit we will see what the numbers looks like

no need to argue really, time will prove one of us right

Edited by sagasaint, 06 November 2012 - 02:20 PM.

[Killyox]

Chubby, on 31 October 2012 - 09:19 AM, said:

Re: 'facerolling' thieves and the spamming of one button

Question: A thief running D/D build backstabs you, what button do should he use afterwards?

None because after CND + Steal + Backstab combo most people are dead anyways

Edited by Killyox, 06 November 2012 - 03:32 PM.

[RandolfRa]

Killyox, on 06 November 2012 - 03:31 PM, said:

None because after CND + Steal + Backstab combo most people are dead anyways

The answer is f.

[blindude]

To be honest thief is currently the only class that is allowed to go full offense and still work due to the stealth.And all that with insane burst.
It doesnt matter if you can handle him.People rarely fight in 1vs1.
That means that my attention should not be solely to the nearby stealthed thief that takes me down in 3 sec.Now if  his stealth would be toned down then my team could focus on killing him FIRST like with EVERY OTHER CLASS IN GLASS CANON BUILD out there.

Edited by blindude, 07 November 2012 - 08:26 PM.

[Setharos]

Imo thieves have way too much Get of jail free cards running as glass cannon compared to all other classes. They somehow still feel stronger than most classes at pvp but i believe ArenaNet is tunning them  without destroying the class patch by patch so it's just a question of wait and see.
If I would try checking what I would balance around thieves would be the initiative system and the overall stealth system(which in my opinion offers too much stealth mechanisms for simple and quick fights).

Edited by Setharos, 07 November 2012 - 08:40 PM.

[Shatteredz]

Setharos, on 07 November 2012 - 08:36 PM, said:

Imo thieves have way too much Get of jail free cards running as glass cannon compared to all other classes.

Anet already stated(not gonna post the exact quote, but its in the dev tracker a few times), that they want the thief class to be the one to "slip trough your fingers the most".

[metalsazz]

I'm going to predict that the thief will get some kind of nerf.... But it won't change anything because thieves will still be able too face roll all the noobs and scrubs. Causing them to all stay on these forums. QQing for moar nerfs. Lol

[Sinful01]

Chubby, on 31 October 2012 - 09:19 AM, said:

Re: 'facerolling' thieves and the spamming of one button

Question: A thief running D/D build backstabs you, what button do should he use afterwards?
1: Autoattack
2: HS
3: Unicorn blossom
4: Dancing daggers
5: CnD
6: Heal
7: some utility
8: Switch to SB/other set

Ideal Answers
Scenario A (your HP is <25%): 'spam' 2
Scenario B (your HP is >25%): 'spam' 1 until then follow Scenario A when it is true

Explanations
3: Thief won't LDB since BS builds aren't condition specced
4: Thief won't toss daggers to close gap since thief just backstabbed you (i.e. next to you already)
5: Stealth debuff on
6: b/c Thief would've healed before engaging you, a mere 2 seconds ago
7: possible but unlikely (see below)
8: possible but unlikely (see below)

There is no way the thief won't get you down ASAP and the only way to do that (assuming the CnD -> Steal -> BS landed and you are quite low already), is to spam 1 and 2.

Real Problem
Good players playing BS builds will 'spam' HS maybe twice
Bad players playing BS builds will 'spam' HS 6 times in a row (rofl)
QQers can't tell the difference and have conditioned themselves to "see HS leap -> QQ spamming"


TL;DR
HS is a made to be a big problem because noobs and better players need to rely on it: noobs spam it from beginning to end, better players use it when they can down someone with 1-2 hits quickly.  The problem is QQers can't distinguish between them and they simply associate HS = noob/good spammable skill

I disagree on using #4 in Scenario B.  Dancing Daggers does considerable damage if the target has a friend (or pet ... or NPC nearby, including creeps**) and the cripple makes sure they don't get too far or causes bad players to freak and burn a CC-remover.



**Bouncing a DD off a bunny in WvW is hilarious and fun.

[Tyrant Crimson]

redslion, on 29 October 2012 - 10:53 PM, said:

Hey, if I get killed by a guardian... well, it happens.But if I get killed by someone who dances and spins (OMG it SPINS! Then there's someone whining about us engineers not being connected with the lore? How in the world is spinning connected with the lore?), I'm really gonna remember that. So ugly. So anime-like.
Seriously, how can you play a class that dances and spins?

Dervish

[RandolfRa]

Shatteredz, on 08 November 2012 - 01:42 AM, said:

Anet already stated(not gonna post the exact quote, but its in the dev tracker a few times), that they want the thief class to be the one to "slip trough your fingers the most".

That is fine. However, it is not fine if they can deal extreme damage while doing that. It is also not fine when their stealth abilities become 100% more effective due to the culling bug.

Edited by RandolfRa, 15 November 2012 - 11:27 AM.

[Shinimas]

Garethh, on 05 November 2012 - 07:41 PM, said:

Thief is an extremely tough class to nerf to the ground.
I can't really see the class being hit that hard atm.

Pretty much every utility is useful in some PvP setup (unlike any other class), all the weapon sets are good (short of p/p), and all the traits are usefull...
Shortbow is fantastic (if played well, one of the few weapon sets, and to boot alone, that can kill my ranger) d/d is solid at roaming even without the stun-spike full->nothing instagib.
Maybe s/d will see some play.
A great setup if you know enemy animations well, nigh impossible to hit with any spikes, solid CC and deals good dmg to boot (especially with traps).

This is actually true. Thief and Mesmer have SO many broken overpowered crap it will take a dedicated Nerfing Team working 24/7 to balance them out. CnD/BS spam is just the most obvious thing, there's so much more that should be toned down. Same goes for Mesmers.

[redslion]

Tyrant Crimson, on 15 November 2012 - 10:43 AM, said:

Dervish

Yeah, but the Dervish name is actually related to a dancer. The thief name isn't. And Dervishes where something like religious fighter, right? So if they have a strange fighting style, that's ok. I could even stand the fact they spin. But... Thieves?

And let's be onest: I didn't play GW1, but I'm sure ANet devs weren't so perverse to give the dervish a spinning move like the one from thieves. It REALLY resembles Sailor Moon. I really hope dervish animations were different.

[Ss Heretic]

Arngrim Einheri, on 24 October 2012 - 01:05 PM, said:

beating a decent guardian in pvp is *ing hard while beating a decent thief is not that hard IMO

This,

And as a Thief its almost impossible to spike down any guardian (as the first attacks are usually blocked or the thief is blown away).
But beating a guardian with a support/balanced build is just impossible. You'll be using your utilities just to stay alive (which usually makes the thief go in perma stealth for a while).

So the only option for a Thief to be viable in sPvP (not team Tournament play), is being a spikey assassin burst Thief.

IMO

[Piteous]

velourfog, on 23 October 2012 - 11:28 PM, said:

That's all there is to say about the bads complaining about thieves.  You can tell them how to win and explain every possible counter and weakness, but they'll never get it.  Casual scrubs wouldn't be satisfied even if thieves did half their damage.  They'd still cry about stealth being OP, initiative being infinite, or some other nonsense.

Noobs gonna noob, scrubs gonna scrub, QQ Honey Boo Boo.

I love these treads, get to hear how the leet people live.

Edited by Piteous, 15 November 2012 - 07:03 PM.