The Shadow

Khalif, on 07 January 2013 - 01:26 AM, said:

The Shadow, on 07 January 2013 - 02:52 AM, said:

As well as Shadow's information, here is a quick little chart you can refer to in order to find out what your Condition Damage stat will produce in terms of bleed damage per tick: https://docs.google....S3ZLX2FpbHNmSGc

Symbiont, on 31 December 2012 - 01:17 PM, said:

They shouldnt make it easier. They should make it not random.

It's one of those tools every thief should remember but nothing to keep on your utility bar. To me it's the same kind of utility Smoke Screen is. Invaluable in certain situations, of not much use in others. Still a very good ability.

What build are you using? Your heal is more or less tied directly your playstyle:

1. Hide in Shadows: Best for very early in the game (somewhat a "duh" moment there), both due to availability and as an escape mechanism. However, later in leveling it's suited best for stealth builds that rely on backstab, tactical strike, or sneak attack (D/D power/crit, S/D, and P/D conditions, respectively). In WvW it's handy in general for the high heal and the condition removal--something the thief lacks a lot of.

2. Withdraw: Best for high-evasion builds that rely on generating vigor and dodges. It is NOT a good heal at early levels simply because of the low heal and the fact that you won't have the traits to really benefit from it. If you put your first 10 into Acrobatics, you can get the Vigor-on-Heal trait, but it's best to put your first points somewhere else. Late game, however, it becomes very viable in super evasive builds--which, to be honest, all thief builds should be.

3. Signet of Malice: This is, perhaps, the best leveling heal but ONLY if you're speccing toward D/D Death Blossom spam or S/P Pistol Whip. It won't let you facetank with just auto attack. But when coupled with DB-spam, you'll almost never run low on health. If you're specced for it, it's awesome. End game it becomes far less useful for a few reasons: One, you can't really USE the active heal. The benefits of the heal-on-hit outweigh the active heal, but that also means you won't get procs on any trait that works with healing skills. Two, you have virtually no condition removal. The other two have some of sorts, and with low access to stealth, it's difficult to survive conditions. To be sure, SofM's passive does not proc on-heal traits. If you can do the consistent damage, however, it's great.

So there you go--depends on your build.

I dont really have the mind to post often, so expect me to break politically correct etiquette or w/e and make mistakes. In reality posting just causes debates, which become arguments and little else.

Ok, so most of my pvp experience comes from korean games. Yeah comparisons hold little real relevance I know. Yet still I find myself wondering how any of you would have survived in Aion, where assassin can not only permanently hide with no restriction for 5 whole minutes..but can also disable your toon to the point you dont get a chance to counter AT ALL.

Now that point is not a comment about the balance of that game. Or its links to the publishers. Its designed to show that thief design is a philosophy and with that comes 'player' expectation.

Many people speak of nerfing thief, changing his dynamics and designs. Why because he kills you? what about the thieves, who having their class made boring and worthless all the more, just give up playing. It seems to me all you care about mostly is taking away. Without really thinking what thief players might want or think. In any event you treat them like they dont have the right to defend the class 'you would say that your a thief player! etc' ... well yeah, who wants to see what the spent time levelling ruined by the moans of others.

In my aion reference, the community complained just like you did. The result was that for a short time, only the best could even continue the class, but we arent talking a good thing. As a different class, I went from fearing them, to treating most of them like a joke.

Funny at first, until you realise that everyone will just become a carbon copy warrior and gw2's limited versatility becomes even more limited.

Having played this game on and off for a long time.. I have tried thief, its problem for me is, its too basic. In aion assassin had many skills and little health, the design is different - more to think of > harder to pull off the kills, plus a few things can see through stealth. Here it feels more like your hating on the game/engine design and trying to blame a class for it simply because hes the one who can use hide. Those issues are different.

Tl:dr as most wont care. Maybe instead of trying to render thief useless and unfun for those who love it (and yes its ok to love to stalk in stealth and enjoy 1v1!) you should think about what you can add to their fun, to their class.

They might hate you less, arenanet might actually take anything you say seriously and well, it might just be more productive than kicking a core element from a class and making alot of people quit.

Just a thought though. No way a direct attack on the OP either, threads attacking thieves are all I ever see. Sad really, since with a bit more depth it could be a really fun game.

i just hope they continue on with the pve-pvp skill splits.

thieves are getting a hard time enough already getting on groups for hi lvl fractals/ dungeons
since they 'lack group support' for pve.
groups *only* looking for heavies (guards/warr) in LA are very real ~_~

.

EDIT: *. Wrong section. I only 5v5.

Some D/P thieves say that it gives them more utility. Yet you'd need to take an alternative stealth to replace cloak and dagger.

S/D is just as viable as backstab, yet you are sacrificing some burst-damage for more crowd control. I think S/D is rather sexy, because it allows you to infiltrator strike treb repair, and infiltrator strike doubles as a stunbreak + escape mechanic which requires much less initiate than spamming shortbow 5.

Now with the new patch that has hit thieves so hard, it is difficult to switch between builds. I would say practicing D/D is best for newbs so that they can transition to caltrops thief on foefire, yet a sword is essential for repairing on khylo. It also makes stealing NPCs very easy.

So it really depends - is my team CC'ing for me? If not - I want the extra utility of an offhand pistol. If so, then my D/D backstabs will land just fine. But S/D's tactical strike has some excellent implications for mindgames, and if leaving combat is your primary method of healing and your team does not have rezzing potential (signet undeath, rune of mercy, knockbacks, guardians) then I personally prefer sword for the infiltrator strike. Just remember- you cannot stunbreak while knocked down.

- Maple Maple

Xentin, on 21 December 2012 - 04:28 PM, said:

People don't bitch about Ele/Warrior because you can see them when they run away.

funnyguy12345, on 22 September 2012 - 10:46 AM, said:

lol at the guy bashing my post before actually considering what I'm saying

1. I wasn't only bashing the build because it has low survivability, I was bashing the title because it is severely misleading and this style of build leads to bad gameplay in general.
2. Yeah, Minion's build had low survivability but at least he wasn't stating that he would swap out more versatile utilities for something like venom, even when he's not running Venom Share, just so he can deal more DPS like the OP is. The moronic thing about the OP is that he thinks that the highest DPS is the thing that counts the most and is arrogant to think that boosting your own DPS to this point is actually worth some consideration and creedance.

Both Minion and Shadow have a playstyles that stress survivability. Shadow gets his Might and Swiftness through dodging which makes it integral to his gameplay and Minion focuses on the evasion granted while getting LBD supported by utilities. Binxy is just concerned with spamming as many LDBs as possible and maybe chucking a venom in there to make it hit harder.

In short, it's not so much the build that is wrong but the entire philosophy behind it and the tone of the OP overall.

Also, in regards to the latter half of your post, you mention 'strong survivability'. What exactly do you mean? First you state dodge will never save you forever (which it actually will if you play right), then you go on to say that the investment of points for passive survivability is too much, or at least imply it.
You contradict yourself by cancelling out both solutions to your own points (can't dodge, tank it - can't tank it, dodge it) and then contradict your entire post because the only alternative I can see, from what you've stated, is getting utilities that allow you to survive which is the whole point for me bashing the OP in the first place.

Basically, you've not really considered what anyone has said, including yourself.

diggdugg, on 17 September 2012 - 08:49 PM, said:

You sound very angry that people have more money than you, since you can't figure out how they do it. It's cute

coreyz, on 17 September 2012 - 06:39 PM, said:

One thing that's been bugging me lately is that roll for initiative doesn't have a passive effect... I hate that I have to use it to get any use out of it. (hint hint)

Garethh, on 07 May 2012 - 08:20 PM, said:

And you still haven't provided any evidence to the contrary that Thief is not imbalanced. You have still yet to answer any of my, or other peoples, questions concerning what makes us so balanced as opposed to the other professions. You simply take this hypothetical road of " Well if so-and-so happened" -- when it's a cop out. Plain and simple. Because you cannot theorize skill level and that is what all your arguments are based around - hypothetical situations where player skill cannot be taken into account rather than what is already available to us.

You say, " You've only played for three days, you don't know the profession! Go make a Meta."
I say, " You're blind if you don't see what people have been saying since the CB's -- only now does the majority begin to agree while a few people still cling to the belief that the Thief is perfectly fine."

Which ultimately leads to a disagreement of opinions -- or rather, should be a disagreement of opinions, but you don't actually disagree with me or The Shadow. So there's no sense "arguing" with you, since there's nothing TO argue about.

If you're lazy, go back and read this thread from page 1. You'll see dozens of people who feel that the Thief is unbalanced. Read the official forums. You'll find 9 pages of people who mostly believe that the Thief is subpar in certain areas compared the other professions.

All of us do not have the same play styles. Not all of us are the same skill levels. Not all of us ran with the same builds ( I ran multiple ) and not all of us went to a different profession to test out the difference ( but I did ).  Just because you get first in kills and most points and win your matches does not mean the Thief is balanced. Just because you haven't tried other professions towards the same goal doesn't mean the other professions don't exist in this grand scale of balance.

If it were just a few people saying it was unbalanced, that's one thing. The fact that so many different people are saying it's unbalanced is another thing. It's the opposite -- for every one post I find of someone saying the Thief is fine, I see four more saying it's not -- and why and how it's not, down to each individual skill, synergy, health, etc,  rather than giving crap half-answers and " oh go make a meta " or " you only had three days to play with it ".

The only person who has contrived any sort of legitimate argument that the Thief is balanced is....oh, right. There hasn't been one yet.

Like The Shadow was saying -- Thief is not some horrible broken profession nor is it useless. We've all agreed there are some pretty awesome builds available to the Thief. The problem therein lay that they are all similar or built upon the same foundation -- Venom, Mobility, and party-wide Stealth. Our versatility is limited in numerous ways. Our profession mechanic is still subpar. Low health pool does not justify our damage output. Etc. Lots of other things. Tired of explaining it. Either you see it for yourself, you've experienced it for yourself, or you're content to just let things be.

@Makaburi: If I wanted to roll a Warrior or Ranger, I would. I'm not going to. Regardless of what profession I play, I'll still drop people. That's not an issue for me. I like the way a Thief plays -- I do not enjoy playing a Warrior or Ranger, even if it's even more of a facemelt to other people to play one.

I'm glad you like the profession so much and glad that if fits you -- I really do think that's wonderful. Not sarcastic at all. Doesn't mean that it's not unbalanced.

The Shadow, on 07 May 2012 - 09:40 PM, said:

Completely agree with all this -- especially if it was another profession that was under balanced. In fact, I DO post in the Engineer forums, advocating for changes for them, too -- and they aren't even in my top three profession list to play.

krumhur, on 06 May 2012 - 04:21 PM, said:

At least you're trying to argue. I appreciate it.

I agree on venoms, they're awesome and probably the best thing we have. Scorpionwire is just a pull, other classes have them as well.

And i'm not asking for "class homogenization": the point is that the thief , altough good in almost every role, doesn't cover for being the low end on versatility, defence and armor.

Just take a look at the Ele: he's quite similar to the thief, sharing the same base HP pool, but he is A LOT MORE VERSATILE due to his attunements and is etremely endurable, due to skills like mist form, tornado and the whole earth atunement.. And he's still EXTREMELY MOBILE, just like the thief. Moreover, the ele is probably the best profession for CPCs, being the best initiator due to AoE effects and one of the best finishers, due to leaps, projectiles and AoE blasts.

Why should i choose a thief over an elemetalist ? Venoms ? Are they really so much powerful ?

And of course this is just an example.

moreover, as @shadow pointed out, the thief has lost his  utter hand on 1vs1 matches, that was supposed to be the place where the thief would shine more.

Now the point is that, in order to justify his low survivability and his low HP, the thief should REALLY shine on the damage control department. But he's not any better than other classe. Even more, on the control department he's severely lacking on the hard CCs front.

And Steal doesn't help very much.

Garethh, on 04 May 2012 - 10:59 PM, said:

Yes, personal attacks. " Shallow " is a personal attack.

Yes, you're not saying what Thieves can do better than any other profession. Your "advice"  says nothing to this point. At all. You're just repeating, " it'll be worked out. " and " it'll be okay".

So in order to be viable, I have to use Withdraw?
I have to use Blind on Stealth?
I have to use a Pistol in my offhand?
I have to use a utility dedicated to creating a smoke combo field?

And backstab, lol. Apparently you completely missed the post where --
We get 4 seconds of stealth, max, with Shadow Meld.
4 Seconds to move behind a target, that will likely not be standing still.
And attempt a backstab? That is your "one saving grace"?
And 5k crit Damage, like I said, can be done by -- Elementalists, Rangers, Warriors, Greatsword Guardians without sacrificing anything.
Swiftness on Dodge -- other professions get swiftness on swapping attunements, on swapping pets, on swapping weapons, or using a utility skill -- but those utility skills also give them more buffs, such as Fury and Might.
The whole conversation back -- I said, Thieves Guild is a hit-or-miss. Sometimes the two thieves will actually do something worthwhile, such as use Unload, sometimes they'll do something worthless, like spam Black Powder against an Ele.
Basilisk Venom requires it be traited to be any good, at all.
Dagger Storm can be stopped and rendered utterly useless by a single disable.

So in order for our profession Mechianic to be good -- you say that it has to be traited, too?

And our initiative and initiative regeneration requires you to be traited into for us to be able to use those combo skills " and make up for it " -- which is just another thing we have to attempt to trait into, to form balance.

How, exactly, are we going to trait for all these things ( Blind on Stealth, Basilisk Venom, Dodge on Swiftness, Endurance Regen, Traiting for Steal to be good, for damage, etc ) -- when we only get 70 points?

Again, you have to trait for Pistols to constantly cripple -- and using Unload to do so, do you know how many times Unload cripples on a normal set-up? About 2-4 times per Unload, not 10, unless you, again, focus on Critical -- which then leaves you, again, with little options elsewhere to trait for. And the damage from Unload is nowhere near as good as damage from Leaping Death Blossom ( Dagger/Dagger ), when you critical strike for 400-700 damage. If you choose to wear the Crit Damage amulet, your HP at Level 80 goes from 17k to 10.8k -- we have to sacrifice survivability to pull that off. Warriors, Rangers, Necromancers, and Elementalists -- do not. They still have 19k + health, with all their toughness and still have points in other ares to help with their survivability. We can attempt to, but has been pointed out, attempting to Hybrid as a Thief leaves you lackluster on all fronts.

Have you actually played the Thief at all?

Everything you've said is based off of traiting to make it comparable to the other professions -- who don't even need to Trait that heavily to make their builds viable, let alone their profession mechanic actually worthwhile or make an elite skill worthwhile.

You just proved the point that unless we trait around a single facet, our skills can't be compared to other professions, since that was the majority of what you just said.

You act like I said the Thief isn't good. And you act as if I haven't created my own videos extensively testing the Thief. I never, once, said that -- I said that the Thief isn't balanced compared to the other professions. So you can say all that, and that's fine, but it means nothing without comparing it to the other professions available in the game.

Edit: I'm still rolling a Thief, regardless of all this. I like the profession. I just think it's unfair that on so many different levels, Thieves are not " the underdog", but simply don't have something that they shine at, while all the other professions do -- and still have enough juice left to fill other roles, even if not quite as good, but still competently.

The Shadow, on 04 May 2012 - 05:07 AM, said:

Garethh, on 04 May 2012 - 02:16 AM, said:

Call of the Wild: Fury, Might, and Swiftness for 15 Seconds on a 30 Second Cooldown.
Rampage As One: Fury, Might, Swiftness, and Increased Attack Speed for 20 Seconds on a 120 Second Cooldown.
Quickening Zephry: Quickness for 6 Seconds and 50% Move Speed for 6s. 60 Second Cooldown. Combined with Wilderness Knowledge, the cooldown is reduced to 48 Seconds.

Four things that make this superior to the Warrior equivalent: You do not sacrifice nearly as much in terms of defense, all of these boons also effect your Pet, your cooldowns are shorter, and your sustained damage in combat is higher -- once the Warrior unleashes his burst, he's all out of juice, but the Ranger can keep going.




I think that's where most of my annoyance stems from. What do we honestly bring to the table that cannot be done, better, by another profession?

I love the Thief Profession. A lot. But the only comparable video of a thief I've seen, in PvP, is a gimmicky build that lets you crit for 20k on a backstab -- that is completely not viable in PvP because you have 10k HP ( half the health of the Ranger and Warrior ) and far less survivability ( They still have more defense than you )  and still have better sustain in combat than you do, and that 20k Crit Backstab hinges on:
Being in Stealth
Being behind them
Your target is not moving

I mean, look at the profession as a comparative total.

Steal:  Our Steal mechanic is decent, but the random nature of it already puts us slightly behind some of the others, as a Warrior can choose, precisely, when to activate their Mechanic -- where as we, short of memorization, and for steal to actually be useful, we have to trait into it -- Stealth on Steal, reduce Steal CD, etc. But is our Stolen Items stronger than the very thing we are copying? Often times, no -- significantly weaker, in fact,the majority of the time. On a larger CD than the classes own skill. What do we get to show out of that?

Basilisk Venom:  A 1 Second Stone on a 45 second cooldown ( Or 2 Second Stone, 36 second CD if traited ). It seems more like a utility skill. To achieve the same effect as Moa Bird ( Another condition that has no way to be removed ), you'd have to use Basilisk Venom five times over the course of 180 seconds, in a single fight --  most encounters will long since be over in that time frame. Either your target will die, you will, or one of you will have broken off and escaped.

Survivability:  Our health pools are lower than Ranger and Warrior. Our base defense is lower than Warrior -- not sure about Ranger. What do we have to show for it?

Versatility:  Our choice of weapons we can use and subsequent skills is lower than all the other professions. What do we have to show for it?

Yes, I realize that smart play will trump those "super-buffed burst builds" by Ranger and Warrior. One Black Powder shot, shooting through it to cause blind, will utterly shut those builds down for a small amount of time --  that being the key. As each missed attack will remove the blind, they will be able to hit you a few times before you can apply the next blind through the combo field. At what point, what do we do? They both have Swiftness, Warrior is immune to cripple, Basilisk Venom only lasts for one second ( two if traited ) -- you tell me. How do we survive that? How do we, as Thieves, counter that?

The bolded statements in the previous quote are how I feel right now about the Thief. I will still play a Thief as my main, regardless, but it saddens me that we feel like the Ranger from Guild Wars 1.

If anyone has any ideas or can show me what the Thief gets to make up for all this, I am ready and willing to listen.