120 replies to this topic

[Caffynated]

Red_Falcon, on 08 November 2012 - 02:41 AM, said:

People will never stop complaining about Thieves.

Let's assume damage gets toned down for a whooping 50%.
CnD+Steal = 3k, backstab = 4k, 'seekers 1-2k.
It would only take a steal combo + 2 seeker for 12k health squishies, +3 seekers for mediums, prolly a second ambush for heavies.
Sure it would take 6-8 seconds to do this.

The problem is people wants to withstand a thief WITHOUT burning a CD, without dodging anything.
You're not going to beat a Necro without removing conditions and getting out of circles, or a Mesmer without killing clones or dodging shatters.
Similarly you're not going to beat a Thief if you stand still and let him beat you.

The next patches will be a real test to see if Anet is balancing on hard data or going the Blizzard way and balance on complaints.

Nobody complains about dying in 6-8 seconds. That's a complete straw man argument.  It's the full -> dead in 2 seconds "wtf just happened?" moments that bring people to the forums talking about imba thief builds.

Thief DPS over a 10 second span is fine where it's at. It's the burst DPS in the first 2 seconds of a fight that needs to be toned down and spread out. That seems to be exaclty what ANet are looking to accomplish.

[Killyox]

But thief has OP things and i also have a thief with op build and many thieves admit it as well that there are OP things thief has. So it seems like the OP is most ignorant in this case.

[Red_Falcon]

Caffynated, on 08 November 2012 - 08:53 AM, said:

Nobody complains about dying in 6-8 seconds. That's a complete straw man argument.  It's the full -> dead in 2 seconds "wtf just happened?" moments that bring people to the forums talking about imba thief builds.

The only classes that go down in "2 sec" are glass cannon Elementalists and glass cannon Thieves.
Even those may not die if Final Shielding/Earth's Embrace or Last Refuge trigger.

On my Warrior I kill those in 2s too, without even going full glass cannon. *shrug*

The only thing I find OP in the Thief is the whirling axe you steal from Warrior.
God, that thing is a 10k AoE.

Edited by Red_Falcon, 08 November 2012 - 02:18 PM.

[RandolfRa]

Quote

If people in Spvp ball up(like a big ball o noobs), and a elementalist nukes them with AoE's, then would that make elementalists and AoE's OP or should the players in Spvp learn to spread out?

What do you try to say here? Evading the attacks of an invisible, instagib thief isn't quite the same as moving out of a red circle.. You also don't have to alter your build at all to be able to evade AoE attacks. In other words, I don't think there is any analogy here at all.

Quote

But Anet already stated they wanted the exact opposite of that.

They can want what they want, but as long as spvp is as it is now, people play it only to farm glory, to grief, to duel, etc.. Nobody gives a flying sh*t about which team wins the fight. Really, if they wanted something else, they should have asked me before designing spvp as it is now. It is the exact same game mode as in many online shooters, and people also behave in the exact same manner.

Red_Falcon, on 08 November 2012 - 02:41 AM, said:

The problem is people wants to withstand a thief WITHOUT burning a CD, without dodging anything.

Bullcrap. People just want to withstand a thief long enough to be able to burn a CD in the first place.

Edited by RandolfRa, 08 November 2012 - 05:54 PM.

[ArcherHenchman]

Red_Falcon, on 08 November 2012 - 02:17 PM, said:

The only classes that go down in "2 sec" are glass cannon Elementalists and glass cannon Thieves.
Even those may not die if Final Shielding/Earth's Embrace or Last Refuge trigger.

On my Warrior I kill those in 2s too, without even going full glass cannon. *shrug*

The only thing I find OP in the Thief is the whirling axe you steal from Warrior.
God, that thing is a 10k AoE.

I've regularly downed players on classes and specs other than those in under 2 seconds on my thief. The catch? There is none: They're in the top 15 players on NA and they didn't * up their skills either.

The better question is whether or not we should cry about that.

First off, everyone and their uncle is now running around exploiting with svanir runes on guardian and elementalist, dropping mist form self-full resses liberally around points while being invincible to conditions and nearly impossible to burst regardless. The second most prominent team on NA does this extensively.

Top players are forced to run glassy in order to deal with the hyper-effective bunker elementalists and guardians. Tanky engineers aren't as much of an issue because they can be dealt with by any consistent application of immobilize (shortbow stealth 1, dev venom, leg specialist, mesmer sword 2, signet of earth, guardian hammer 3 and so on. Most players have no idea what separates good guardians from bad ones, too, because survivability is so easy to obtain; they don't notice that guardian v guardian is about mindgaming around hammer 4 and counting weaponswap timers. Since its so hard to kill them, either you're running an intense condition comp to try and overload his removal (and then get shat on when they run an ele/guardian bunker combo that shrugs off tons of conditions), or they run ultra spiky to spike down the opponent's also ultra spiky individuals on point.

Just to drive this home: there's less than a handful of players in paids on NA running warrior to the point where everyone knows hmann just by virtue of him being the only person there. He bursts harder than any thief spec, using whirlwind to proc 8-12k aoe instant damage without startup or setup required. Dying mid on foefire after forcing a bunch of stunbreaks, then running back on a short res timer to hit assured ww->rush->hb combos is pretty standard business for him.

Hybrid builds exist, but they're generally niche; tankier mesmers running portal to support from homepoint generally run the bulk in order to mitigate up-front thief burst, for instance. Plenty still just run pure glass regardless because mindwracking the point for 10k then dropping a timewarp wins team fights and establishes point control for a guardian that's going to require a 2-3v1 to displace anyways. People aren't asking for a mesmer's dom sig, mindwrack, sword 2-3, cry combo to be nerfed either, which has no startup time, similar cooldown, does equivalent damage to the backstab combo, but in an aoe and also applies stun AND immobilize, making it unavoidable for a number of classes even with stun breaks and which synergizes with any other members of your team attempting to spike by limiting your opponent's options for mitigation.

That said, the combo's too easy and it makes shitty thieves look competent, so please make my class harder.

[Asomal]

ArcherHenchman, on 08 November 2012 - 06:41 PM, said:

First off, everyone and their uncle is now running around exploiting with svanir runes on guardian and elementalist, dropping mist form self-full resses liberally around points while being invincible to conditions and nearly impossible to burst regardless. The second most prominent team on NA does this extensively.

Which exploit? Not asking to abuse it but I saw some people running this rune today and I'm curious. And yes,half hp self heal mist form is a problem,but isn't it easier to stomp the elementalist for once?

[Fanatic]

what i don't like is all these retarded players rerolling thief just cus they heard ohh i can spam shit,
i'm so tierd to see 4+ thiefs every pvp map i do. they are so boring to fight if eat you nabs for dinner on my PD thief.
in the beta thief was one of the classes people played the least and now their one of the most played classes U NO SE PROBLEM?
Yes hit me with the nerf bat so all the wortless meatbags that think their a thief reroll to some other class and ruin their rep so ours can heal.

[ArcherHenchman]

Asomal, on 08 November 2012 - 07:03 PM, said:

Which exploit? Not asking to abuse it but I saw some people running this rune today and I'm curious. And yes,half hp self heal mist form is a problem,but isn't it easier to stomp the elementalist for once?

There's no way in hell I'm explaining how to do them, but they're both substantially worse than the protector's strike exploit, which is ridiculous in and of itself. And no, its not easier to stomp an elementalist who does this.

[Wordsworth]

I love the "Everyone who complains about a Thieves are noobs" threads.

It's like a defensive mechanism to cope with the incoming nerfs because some people are too afraid to play a balanced Thief.

[antarian]

Red_Falcon, on 08 November 2012 - 02:41 AM, said:

People will never stop complaining about Thieves.

Let's assume damage gets toned down for a whooping 50%.
CnD+Steal = 3k, backstab = 4k, 'seekers 1-2k.
It would only take a steal combo + 2 seeker for 12k health squishies, +3 seekers for mediums, prolly a second ambush for heavies.
Sure it would take 6-8 seconds to do this.

The problem is people wants to withstand a thief WITHOUT burning a CD, without dodging anything.
You're not going to beat a Necro without removing conditions and getting out of circles, or a Mesmer without killing clones or dodging shatters.
Similarly you're not going to beat a Thief if you stand still and let him beat you.

The next patches will be a real test to see if Anet is balancing on hard data or going the Blizzard way and balance on complaints.

we are playing probably completely different class :-)) I dont have a problem to hit for 4000 + with steal and another 4000 with steal and dagger. Thats 8000. I hit sometimes for even more on squish targets... and this damage is really really hard to avoid and I am talking about real glass canon (I dont know what are you playing). If you land backstab, most of targets are nearly finished and dont have lot of possibilities how to counter that. Probably best is to hit invul and damage thief really quickly or push him back etc.... there are possibilities to counter him, the problem is that you need to know how to play and be really good but thief can play like a noob and he can still kill you pretty fast or you need to have a bunker build.

warrior can have even better damage output than thief, the problem is that his damage is very easy to avoid and I am not talking about 100blades :-) also rifles, sword, axes - everything is easy to avoid and thats the problem, or I would say ... this is exactly how it should look like.

simply the problem with thief is that damage output from MUG (steal) + cloak and dagger followed by backstab is too big and is hard to avoid.
If steal wouldnt do damage and doing anything else (some debuff, root (this will provide possibility to hit another hit but it would also give enemy chance to react), or something like that) it would be fine.

Edited by antarian, 09 November 2012 - 01:32 PM.

[Shinimas]

Red_Falcon, on 08 November 2012 - 02:17 PM, said:

The only classes that go down in "2 sec" are glass cannon Elementalists and glass cannon Thieves.
Even those may not die if Final Shielding/Earth's Embrace or Last Refuge trigger.

On my Warrior I kill those in 2s too, without even going full glass cannon. *shrug*

The only thing I find OP in the Thief is the whirling axe you steal from Warrior.
God, that thing is a 10k AoE.

Been hit for 15k from Steal, CnD and BS alone on my Warrior. Then 1 AA - another CnD and BS or just spam HS or, if the Thief is a real ass, run away and shadow refuge.

[Roland Der Meister]

you forget some of them go around spamming unload back to back to back

[Eliyahu]

I think thief DPS is fine.  It's their stealth chaining BS that drives me nuts.  If you gonna come unload your burst you should not be able to follow it up immediately with a super speedy retreat while invisible.

[Piteous]

Lets all just roll thief's and mesmers, that would be fun...right...guys???

[Millimidget]

nublets, on 27 October 2012 - 02:24 PM, said:

Thieves are both squishy and high dps. Thieves can stealth, however stealth ends when you take damage or hit something and it only provides a small amount of regen.

Bullshit; stealth lasts much longer than that no matter what they're doing. It's a.nets fault their stealth is so damn busted. They probably should have skipped a stealth+burst class given how bad it is.

Piteous, on 15 November 2012 - 07:47 PM, said:

Lets all just roll thief's and mesmers, that would be fun...right...guys???

Reroll new game?

Edited by Millimidget, 16 November 2012 - 02:29 AM.

[Caffynated]

Community: thieves can stealth too long and too often, and their initial burst coming out of stealth is too high.
ANet: So what you're saying is we shouldn't do anything about stealth and burst damage. We're reading you loud and clear!

[Invoky]

The only classes that are op are guardian/mesmer. They are the only two classes required for metagame, any other class is replaceable.

[Sizmo]

Old thread but i thought i'd chime in.

I'm not sure if this addition would be too powerful a nerf or not, but i would like to see thieves reveal on taking Direct Damage while in stealth.  Existing conditions would not reveal them. Only new damage would reveal them.

This would mean that thieves can still get the jump on players that aren't paying attention and/or are cc'd.  But this would also mean that players who DO see a thief coming, can look to their AE arsenal to provide a means of revealing the thieves.

Some ranges on thief attacks may need to be reviewed in order to make this fair.

[Asomal]

This would make stealth completly useless. "Uses Shadow Refuge to heal some HP but the enemy has just landed one aoe on it. Now you are revealed and didn't heal a thing. 1 min cooldown skill wasted and the thief is now dead.

Edited by Asomal, 08 December 2012 - 01:43 PM.

[RandolfRa]

Asomal, on 08 December 2012 - 05:18 AM, said:

This would me stealth completly useless. "Uses Shadow Refuge to heal some HP but the enemy has just landed one aoe on it. Now you are revealed and didn't heal a thing. 1 min cooldown skill wasted and the thief is now dead.

You could still dodge away from that red circle, and cast your heal a little later. Much worse things would be say warriors who can  channel long attacks such as volley.

[Nabuko Darayon]

Only problems I had with a thief was in WvW. I'd pretty good in pvp against them but I guess my reaction time is lowered in wvw due to the pve-like scenery and nothing happening while wondering around.
~Elementalist

[dynia666]

thief is OP ?! HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA I just HAHHAHAHAHAAAHAHA

lets see :

- My boon guardian half bunker laugh a lot on thiefs kill them like toys
- My engi bunker rofl a lot again
- My memser rofling and troling them too kill like toy
- My necro tank/conditioner rofling on them too kill like a toy
- My warrior cuz its half bunker too rofling around

Only ppls who play glass canon QQ about thiefs cause get ownd from behind like a toys. Pro players like me kills thiefs easy, I can say more thiefs is so easy to kill and no they are not RLY op if you know how to play, I can say more thiefs is rly weak now and could get some boosts on some builds p/p for example.

[MrForz]

dynia666, on 09 December 2012 - 01:19 AM, said:

thief is OP ?! HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA I just HAHHAHAHAHAAAHAHA

lets see :

- My boon guardian half bunker laugh a lot on thiefs kill them like toys
- My engi bunker rofl a lot again
- My memser rofling and troling them too kill like toy
- My necro tank/conditioner rofling on them too kill like a toy
- My warrior cuz its half bunker too rofling around

Only ppls who play glass canon QQ about thiefs cause get ownd from behind like a toys. Pro players like me kills thiefs easy, I can say more thiefs is so easy to kill and no they are not RLY op if you know how to play, I can say more thiefs is rly weak now and could get some boosts on some builds p/p for example.

o ok.

Edited by MrForz, 09 December 2012 - 05:14 PM.

[Wanna Go To heaven]

The problem is their burst, they global glass canons (instead of 3-4 s fights which could still give you time to react) and burst bunkers quite fast. But at least they got time to react.
I suck a thief, tried it again and again, but not for me. I got my ele which handles them just fine. But when I just on another class, I just die.

Thing about perma stealth is you can still cap the point, so it's a build with it's own hiccups .
Could use some more balancing tho

[Ninja Battle Lion]

In every game I ever played, ever, and, like, ever, there are people bitching about the Rogue class

Please keep this up it's very entertaining.

[lioka qiao]

My thief is the glass cannon in question from all the QQing but with a slight mod to the utilities:
http://gw2skills.net...UZxxhjEnlFDKmRA

Traits are slightly debatable.  Critical strikes 6 might be useful to make you not as squishy.  The gear to run in this is full berserker's with rubies preferably over runes (though the editor doesn't let me jewel the gear).  Rubies not possible the runes listed are what I ran.  I guess i could do full eagle's too.

In any case this character is about a squishy as they come.  11k HP with no additional defense on top of basic leather.  The build relies on surprising your enemy and dodging their attacks if you fail to KO in the openers.   It has a 900 range with two opener rounds available in my version and KOs anything squishy.  Depending on how fearless or reckless the build player is they can take on a balanced class and win.  This build fails when it can't burst down a target since it leaves a lot of defenses at home, relying solely on the shortbow to get out of a deadly situation.  It struggles with splash aoes too.

The QQ that comes out of it is the surprise burst the build carries and the best thief in this build takes advantage of that.  They stand out of the fight looking for a weak target that is unaware.  Once a target is decided it jumps in, unloads the burst to kill then escapes.   When I fight using this against a large enemy force I often don't stick around to secure a kill and rather just leave my target downed.  Sticking around gets me killed in those situations.  So how do you beat me?

1.  Surviving the burst.   Every class has stun breakers.  You have a 3 second window to hit that stun break once you go frozen before you're dead.
2.  Preventing me from getting close again.  Use your PBaoes, weapon dodge skills, auras, hammer knockdowns, anything.
3.  Take my element of surprise away from me.  Be wary of your surroundings in wvw when out on your own.  We have to close in out of stealth else the whole combo doesn't work.  If you see me coming you stand a better chance of deflecting my attack.
4.  Gear/spec survivability.  I bounce off guardians and they proceed to gut me like a fish.  The opener will do max 15k damage.  I actually do less damage to the trash animals in the zone than I do to you.  I know you want to be a glass cannon but you're going to need skill to survive as a glass cannon.
5.  Is your spawn being campped?  Guess what:  this is the perfect time to practice making kills and surviving.  Take out 1 gold from the bank and expect to blow it all on repairs.  You'll kill more efficiently and learn to survive more.  Penetrate deep into the enemy line and practice surviving.  It could take a new thief to learn this thief build but a master thief to survive every encounter using it.  BTW I die in wvw more than you would think.


(Edit: sorry i called them talents... still a little world of warcraft in me)

Edited by lioka qiao, 11 December 2012 - 09:26 PM.

[Val367]

Ninja Battle Lion, on 11 December 2012 - 06:34 PM, said:

In every game I ever played, ever, and, like, ever, there are people bitching about the Rogue class

Please keep this up it's very entertaining.

lol - so let me guess .. you play a rogue, thief, assassin etc etc in all these games?

something that allows you to stay stealthed like a * yet still do damage??

I'm assuming your dye job for your armour includes a yellow stripe for the back? So you show your colours when running away after not being able to down someone in a couple of tics and it seems they might be able to fight back??

[MrForz]

Val367, on 12 December 2012 - 02:14 PM, said:

lol - so let me guess .. you play a rogue, thief, assassin etc etc in all these games?

Ya man, hooded dark assassins of darkness with daggers and lust for blood as they slaughter people in one hit and disappear in the shadows, they're so cool!

Val367, on 12 December 2012 - 02:14 PM, said:

I'm assuming your dye job for your armour includes a yellow stripe for the back? So you show your colours when running away after not being able to down someone in a couple of tics and it seems they might be able to fight back??

Absolutely all black by default, or white and red just to copy some other generic assassin.

[Runkleford]

Let me preface this post by saying that I play an engineer and I can usually "beat" a thief 1v1. But when I say "beat" I mean I can get them really low on health to the point where they're running away from me but I don't actually kill them. Sure, sometimes they just can't stealth away and I kill them but more often than not, they're gone in a poof. And that's the problem here. Thieves get to pick and choose their battles and when to start and end them with too much ease.

I mean the element of surprise is a big big deal. And so is the ability to escape. I still can't believe game developers still insist on the rogue archetype for PVP games. The whole concept is totally ridiculously powerful.

[MrForz]

Runkleford, on 12 December 2012 - 10:04 PM, said:

Let me preface this post by saying that I play an engineer and I can usually "beat" a thief 1v1. But when I say "beat" I mean I can get them really low on health to the point where they're running away from me but I don't actually kill them. Sure, sometimes they just can't stealth away and I kill them but more often than not, they're gone in a poof. And that's the problem here. Thieves get to pick and choose their battles and when to start and end them with too much ease.

I mean the element of surprise is a big big deal. And so is the ability to escape. I still can't believe game developers still insist on the rogue archetype for PVP games. The whole concept is totally ridiculously powerful.

Welcome to the club, pal!