Guild Wars 2

for me the issue is rly : Learn to play …

BS is just a nice dmg output (lesser than evi from war for exemple), have 2 condition : be in sleath and be in back of the target.
Thanks of gods, this skill have some reward :/.

Against good player its rly hard to land a nice bs, with full dmg build its just impossible to survive.

For your exemple, you was probably lower than 50 % of your max health => +20% dmg from exec.
3 k more steal = Mug +15 stack of might

so you was hurt with one specific skill, whitch need 2 pre requirement to land, and with heavy bonus dmg… So yes, its hurt.

If PVP mode was 1v1 or 2v2, peraps you will be legit. But its teamplay game, each one have a role, thief BS is for instant down a target, like burst ele, sniper war etc… But for down a target faster they must leave all defensive utility so they down target and be down in follow. That’s all…

Down statment allow your team to take you up after one BS, thief ruined 4 cd to down you, your mate 2 sec to kill him and rez you…

Where did you see the OP state ?

Fortus,

I really have to applaud your argument, but I do not think much will come out of this thread.

1) Right wrong or indifferent by singling out back stab you have a ton of posts of thieves getting very defensive (which cripples any kind of good solid debate).

2) Look at posts that got Devs attention and feedback
2a) Most were long and thought out, very logical, and brought a lot of numbers or examples.
2b) Allie was there, and she did a good job at providing feedback to salient posts.

3) Even if a dev did hear your plight, and agree it would be at least 3 months before another balance patch, and they may do a CDI first (Tyler Chapman promised a CDI for Elementalists for this year, so you can get an idea on the time tables).

Look I have tried to fight the good fight against the Devs balance and the forum poster (Trolls), in the end I was spending too much time on the forums or in game gathering data and not enough having fun which is what a game is supposed to be about.

I decided it was better for me to just leave for another game and pop my head back in every once and a while (really easy when GW2 has super big patches several months apart).

One day I am sure they will have class balance, they have changed so much of this game since launch, and they are not afraid to turn a lot of systems upside down in search for a better experience. I am, however, sure that such a fix will not be here anytime soon, at best 3 months, but I suspect much longer at this rate of patching.

I see this being no different than being blown to bits by a mesmer or medi guard or axe/x warrior who couples a stun + eviscerate. Any of these are capable of jumping into a fight real fast, and focusing a target down with near the same frequency of a thief with much higher defenses.

Just because you play perfectly and it works with a build against most classes doesn’t mean you won’t find a class/build that chews you up. In this case, it clearly is stealth.
But that is ok, because stealth typically has lots of counters in PvP from not being able to take points to being easy to bomb/AE etc.

The OP is nuts. 13k backstab. One in a million. And they spent the rest of the match getting absolutely kittenslapped because you say ‘boo’ and they fall over.

Posts like this are annoying. Before you post ‘stealth is op’ or ’backstab lolz is op. Go roll a thief. Build it anyway you like, and tell me how long you last versus… oh I dont know… anyone?

Tell me how many times you die IN stealth, from incidental aoe, or get one shot by a cleave attack, trying to compete on a node.

oh while your there, tell me how many 13k backstabs you get. While you do, We’ll tell you have many 3k backstabs we get (far more realistic)

Thief has never been harder to play and survive. You need the reflexes of a sleek jungle cat, and nerves of steel. High risk, average reward.

Thieves are so broken right now. Theres a reason most are running around with pistols post 15th. lol

Oh and for what it’s worth. Do any of these complainers even understand just how low a health pool thieves are working with?

13k backstab, one in a million (and post patch its usually 3 – 5k), on 20 – 25k health. Sup.

Does that mean thieves should be ranting and complaining about anyone who achieves a 3.5k or 4k crit? because we are working with half the health most other classes are.

Roll one, play it. And be realistic.

Threads like these are what I feel are toxic -_-

Backstab comes from the Assassin style. This is a kittening role playing game, the class is supposed to surprise you. While the thief deals 8-13k to a single target, a staff ele can hit 5 enemies for 2-4k.

Backstab doesn’t need its damage reduced even further. These high numbers are only possible if you run 30/30/0/0/10 with 3 or 4 signets and scholar runes. This doesn’t come with any survivability whatsoever, thieves specced this way generally can’t stealth much more than 2 times and missing their one major burst will leave them like a sitting duck.

I’m not sure if it’s okay for high numbers like that to be achievable. However, rather than reducing damage on backstab itself it might be more useful to look into all the options that amplify this damage. The new 200 power trait, might on signets, scholar runes, flanking strikes, lead attacks, and I may be forgetting a few. Those things are the reason why backstab hits so high in that particular build, it’s just so much damage amplification. It’s not because of the backstab damage itself.

Personally I don’t have a problem with a build sacrificing everything to achieve such high numbers, but I can imagine why others would. However, keep in mind that just lowering the backstab damage will probably hurt the other thief builds more than it would the “instagib” builds, and a nerf like that wouldn’t be healthy for the class or the game.

To be fair, I do think that Mesmers should have “perfect” clones. It should be an actual effort to find me among the copies. It’s ok if I have 0 other defence, so against single-target attacks I’d be strong, and AE would screw me over. But conceptually it’d make much more sense.

Shadowfall.6543:

Fortus,

I really have to applaud your argument, but I do not think much will come out of this thread.

1) Right wrong or indifferent by singling out back stab you have a ton of posts of thieves getting very defensive (which cripples any kind of good solid debate).

2) Look at posts that got Devs attention and feedback
2a) Most were long and thought out, very logical, and brought a lot of numbers or examples.
2b) Allie was there, and she did a good job at providing feedback to salient posts.

3) Even if a dev did hear your plight, and agree it would be at least 3 months before another balance patch, and they may do a CDI first (Tyler Chapman promised a CDI for Elementalists for this year, so you can get an idea on the time tables).

Look I have tried to fight the good fight against the Devs balance and the forum poster (Trolls), in the end I was spending too much time on the forums or in game gathering data and not enough having fun which is what a game is supposed to be about.

I decided it was better for me to just leave for another game and pop my head back in every once and a while (really easy when GW2 has super big patches several months apart).

One day I am sure they will have class balance, they have changed so much of this game since launch, and they are not afraid to turn a lot of systems upside down in search for a better experience. I am, however, sure that such a fix will not be here anytime soon, at best 3 months, but I suspect much longer at this rate of patching.

Once again, Once more, Our concerns. continue to be ignored and ‘thrown under the rug’

Ex: Sometimes this is the only method used when our relationship show no care whatsoever for our concerns.

Like a singer says in a song, “You took my love for granted……you don’t know what you got… t’ill it’s gone”

Perhaps this is the only way for us and our concerns to be cared for, is to part ?

I think fortus should stop pvping naked.

and now i am curious. 13k bs +4k mug? hmmm. gonna try it.

Terrahero.9358:

Chaotic.9742:

While it sucks that you died, I’m assuming this thief is a tissue and would die quite easily as well.

This is actually a wrong assumption.

Thieves can build incredibly glassy, go all out damage and zero defensive. But thanks to Stealth, Blinds, Evades and Teleports they will still actually be one of the hardest to kill.

I never undestood why Arenanet descided to put the burst on an Stealth skill. Rather then making it an opener. Say, give cripple, stack vulnerability, something to give you an edge as you start the fight.
Not taking down half or more of someones health.

Sorry but I still stand by what I said. If he can hit those numbers he’s likely running might on signets or has a buddy buffing him those might stacks so his build is literally hit you or he’s screwed. Whatever the class may be, it has options to counter his burst and put him on the defensive.

Scrambles.2604:

Fortus.6175:

Later on that same thief hit me with 11k backstab and another 12k, both times with no vulnerability stack, couldnt target him at the moment it happened so I couldnt see the might stacks, but he was constatnly using dagger/pistol smoke to disappear into stealth.

Im sorry, but a thief is not defined as tissue paper. Want to know what true tissue paper is? An ele with no stealth to disappear into. Thieves have low hp yes, but by no mean they are the easiest to kill class in the game, in fact, I would dare to say a well played thief is nearly virtually impossible to kill with the access to blinds/teleports/stealth.

All I want is an equal chance to retaliate vs them, and less upfront damage and more over-time damage. Right now a backstab has literally no counterplay other than hope you can run faster than a thief with multiple teleports. That is not fun, that is not counterplay, that is no skill.

You gotta swim in your AoEs, man. Otherwise, there are lots of builds/classes that just straight trump other ones. Switch to some defensive utilities if you can anticipate a thief is around.

Honestly, your best bet would be to roll a thief. People that complain about thief only have the perspective of the times they were owned by them. They never mention the scrub thieves that they drop without an issue.

Play a thief and get wrecked just as often as you drop people and it may alter your narrow worldview. Doing 12k dmg is nice but you will also have to manage the effects of having only 11k HP.

I did exactly that, rolled a thief. Didn’t read anything about thieves from thieves so I made a build based on my own noobie thief judgement.

Result: 20+ kills every single match and that was without me even knowing about the backstab all that I knew beforehand was that thieves lurk around and one-shot me (elementalist 1500 hours). With elementalist I rarely ever get more than 12 kills even when I go full zerker. I also die around 3 times every match. With the thief I didn’t die once for several hours.

But its not just the thief. Compared to a glassy elementalist everything’s better. I get better results with mesmer, warrior, guardian (barely), engineer, necromancer only the ranger is slightly worse.

@ OP clear case of L2p i.t.o (in thieves opinion)

I did exactly that, rolled a thief. Didn’t read anything about thieves from thieves so I made a build based on my own noobie thief judgement.

Result: 20+ kills every single match and that was without me even knowing about the backstab all that I knew beforehand was that thieves lurk around and one-shot me (elementalist 1500 hours). With elementalist I rarely ever get more than 12 kills even when I go full zerker. I also die around 3 times every match. With the thief I didn’t die once for several hours.

You are so full of kitten. Did Everyone else cringe at this? Heh pvp for several hours on the most squishy class in the game, that is so unforgiving, and didn’t die once? Hahaha.

This kid is great.

The biggest problem is not the damage, but the fact there is no counter play to it.

If you block, dodge, or blind it through, it does not break stealth, thus letting the thief get away with it, which makes no sense.

Fortus.6175:

There is absolutely NO COUNTERPLAY. You cant dodge, you cant block, you cant blind, you cant see it, and even if you know it is coming, there is absolutely nothing you can do by surviving one because 4 seconds later the second one is coming, for sure

As you are saying in your post.

The problem IS NOT the backstab, the problem is the absence of stealth counter.

I saw numerous thief gameplay video, i play one too sometime, i played against quite many too ( i’am a wvw player, but the issue is still the same ), and seriously the only choice given to the thief oppent is : playing “defence”.
From the start its unbalanced because stealth cut down many of your class ability
VS a stealth thief you cannot play aggresively like against whatever other class except if you are a mind reader to guess his movements

So yeah in a game like GW2 where everything have more or less a counter, introducing a gameplay mecanic WITHOUT ANY break the game.

I’am amazed that Anet never thought about that instead of nerfing the initiative regen to prevent a bit more the perma stealth which btw didnt change anything except locking down thief build diversity when you want use stealth efficiently. (so like their awfull initiative regen that break down the gameplay flow )

Mean as long as Anet dont want invest time to really take care of the gameplay mecanic, so do SMART class update (instead of the current “nerf” that only reveal how they dont even understand their own game ) we are still going to have a incredible amount of problem. ( not only speaking about thief )

E Tan.7385:

The problem IS NOT the backstab, the problem is the absence of stealth counter.

A skill that does that much damage with a near instant cast time, that you can’t see coming, that you can’t counter play is a problem. Stealth just intensifies the situation.

The requirements are rock bottom with backstab:

1. Go stealth
2. Doesn’t matter if you miss, do it again because you aren’t revealed
3. Hit from the back and sides despite the text specifying it only works from the back.

1. leaves room for a lot of error for the thief, they do not even have to be behind the users to hit for full damage. If they did, I believe landing it would be far more difficult and would require a certain type of setup for them to do it.

In regards to the target receiving the backstab lets look at their options:

1. Try to run
2. Aegis, Blind, Dodge
3. Play a guessing game and aoe

If you observe the cards that the receiver of backstab can use most of a common theme rng or uncertainty. With #1, you can try to run but since you can’t see the thief you can not know for certain if this tactic is countering it.

With #2 active mitigation do not prevent the stab from landing, it only slows the process down by milliseconds. So its not an real counterplay since it does not punish the thief from missing the stab.

With #3 its the most common solution thieves try to give. “Just aoe and they die!” I don’t see many thieves stupid enough to stay in aoe. In fact most thieves are often far out of distance if they do stealth to get away from aoe.

Most people know that guild wars 2’s combat system is supposedly the way it is so that each individual can read animations to determine how they will counter play. Thief however is exempt from this rule with stealth, in fact they are exempt from many different rules of combat.

If you look at my screenshot earlier in the thread, I got hit for 14.5k in spvp. The thing is, I never even seen the thief before hand. I was at the point by myself when I was suddenly dead. How can one counter play that? They can’t.

Most thief players like to assume that each player fighting against them should be psychic. Like I should of known that thief was there before hand and got my defensive skills up. Unfortunately things do not work that way.

That’s very nice and all, but are you aware of just how hard it is to land a backstab mid fight?

With 10-12k hp, and a lot of damage flying around, if you miss….. It’s not inconsequential, you need to get the kitten out.

Between huge ele aoes that hit like a truck, explosions, grenades, bombs, phantasmagoria and pets that continue to attack us in stealth, ranger barrage. 10k hp don’t last long.

You realize we take damage in stealth right?

Mid fight, if you cloak and dagger, backstab and miss, you don’t have enough initiative to try again. Because like other games, misses aren’t refunded.

If I don’t kill you in a very short amount of time, I’m dead….and you don’t even have to target me.

So sure, nerf backstab, nerf stealth. But then give us 20k hp pools, better or reliable access to aegis, protection or stability. Then see who complains.

You think a 10k or so crit on a 20k health pool is rough? Try a 4 or 5k crit on a 10k health pool. It’s all relative.

I’ve been one shot by power engis jump shot for 12k while I was still in stealth.

Oh and to clear up some stealth myths, unless your running d/p and flip through your pistol field with heart seeker three times, stealth doesn’t last that long. In fact, unless your running stealth on steal trait, which due to the range of steal, you see coming….

We have two options for preemptive stealth. Blow our only heal to stealth before we engage, or drop our blinding power, which only provides 4 seconds.

Outside that you can cloak and dagger, in melee range, right before a backstab.

So saying you can’t see it coming, at all is stupid.

If your running that stupid skill that you can combo field with your short bow, you can stack a bit of stealth, but your hardly going to do it in the heat of a match

Less bullkitten facts flying around, and more truths is needed in this discussion.

Wait a minute. So your telling me that a character with the lowest hit point pool, and no toughness, in all zerker gear, defined for single target fights, hit a guy for a lot of damage.

INCONCEIVABLE !!!!!

That’s the annoying part, any decent thief will tell you, we have to go almost full zerker. We have no choice. We can trait and gear super defensively and still die in seconds, but now we can’t kill anyone either.

We sort of have to go all or nothing, because we are going to die fast and easy either way.

The counterplay is how easily thieves are taken out once revealed….. Or a meteor shower >.<

Bowflex.4502:

The OP is nuts. 13k backstab. One in a million

You know something taht gets on my nerves easily?

I tell people that im getting hit by 10k+ backstabs, nobody believes me. Everyone throw their highest backstabs and give it for granted thats the highest it can go (eg 4k, 5k etc). I show them proof of otherwise, and I get hell.

I tell them I was getting hit 11k-13k backstabs ALL GAME around, on several games from different people, and nobody believes me. Apparently I have to fill my pictures folder with 10k+ backstab screen shots to prove my point. And even then I beckon someone, somewhere, will find a way to turn a blind eye on it, nitpick on some other detail and then give me hell for it.

There is just no winning here. Apparently it has to take everyone playing a squishy build and playing enough PvP to know just how frustrating it is. Sure, since everyone plays bunkers and/or condi builds, you get to know nothing.

Thieves ARE pushing away GC builds, and you people are so unconsciously afraid of it that you dont even dare to play them anymore, and give it for granted that thieves were meant to push away all those builds, and even go as far as to justify it !! Shame, it is truly shameful.

Fortus.6175:

Bowflex.4502:

The OP is nuts. 13k backstab. One in a million

You know something taht gets on my nerves easily?

I tell people that im getting hit by 10k+ backstabs, nobody believes me. Everyone throw their highest backstabs and give it for granted thats the highest it can go (eg 4k, 5k etc). I show them proof of otherwise, and I get hell.

I tell them I was getting hit 11k-13k backstabs ALL GAME around, on several games from different people, and nobody believes me. Apparently I have to fill my pictures folder with 10k+ backstab screen shots to prove my point. And even then I beckon someone, somewhere, will find a way to turn a blind eye on it, nitpick on some other detail and then give me hell for it.

There is just no winning here. Apparently it has to take everyone playing a squishy build and playing enough PvP to know just how frustrating it is. Sure, since everyone plays bunkers and/or condi builds, you get to know nothing.

Thieves ARE pushing away GC builds, and you people are so unconsciously afraid of it that you dont even dare to play them anymore, and give it for granted that thieves were meant to push away all those builds, and even go as far as to justify it !! Shame, it is truly shameful.

The only way to hit those numbers with backstab is to be running a might stacking build, be full berserker glass cannon, and running executioner (no guaranteed backstab crits because you didn’t take hidden killer) AND running the +15% damage signet.

Even if you are full glass cannon, running utility skills, rather than the signet you cap out at around 7 – 8k. On top of all this, you also really need to be backstabbing another glass cannon.

This is fact. Said thief now has zero survivability, around 11k health, and is a one shot wonder.

You know the worst part? Thieves are forced to run glass cannon builds in pvp now if they choose to spec for power and not condition, because due to so many nerfs, our damage scales horribly otherwise, and with already being so squishy, if we can’t kill our target fast, we die, even if you accidentally hit us.

It’s not like the players have a choice. If you nerf our damage or scaling further, you’ll have to buff our survivability,

Bowflex.4502:

It’s not like the players have a choice. If you nerf our damage or scaling further, you’ll have to buff our survivability,

nobody is denying that, however, toxic things has to go away, and backstab is toxic. Still, if you think GC thieves are the squishiest and least survivable builds out there then you need to revise your build and spell rotations, because they are by far one of the hardest things to kill, and thats including bunkers. How you ask? Stealth. On top of that, teleports that have no CD, dodges and blinds. An ele would give a limb for such survival rate that thieves enjoy.

IMO thieves damage as it is is fine, except for backstab and a couple more spammble spells. They need to have stealth reworked, and given more team utility and less single target DPS.

The issue Ive noticed isn’t so much with the damage backstab can deal by itself, but with the overall capability of thieves. Even 6-7k backstabs, half of what the OP encountered, are easily achievable yet excessive given the overall capability of thieves.

A key part of any glass cannon build is applying a large amount of damage as a defense. You try to weaken or take down the enemy before they can deal enough damage to you or your team, but this key strategy doesn’t work against thieves for a few reasons. Playing a signet build on the ranger for example:

They start the fight off with the first strike advantage, usually a backstab, easily hitting 40% or more of your health. Because of this your at a large disadvantage, and unless you do something quick you’ll be dead from their other skills. So you either dodge away, use invincibility, use counterattack, hunters shot, or point blank shot (if the thief blinded you the counterattack/point blank shot/hunters shot will miss and have no effect).

Having stopped their assault the thief will stealth again, likely with their heal skill, healing up whatever damage you managed to deal with your counterattack, and wait for any invincibility you put up to ware off. They will then follow up with another backstab, knocking out another massive chunk of your HP.

And the fight pretty much continues like that, and unless you have an ally which is actively putting pressure on the thief, its difficult to stay alive let alone kill the thief.

So I guess my points are:

• The thief has a low risk engage via stealth, massive burst damage via backstab and the initiative system, and the strongest disengage in the game also via stealth, which is too much when used together.
• Their ability to pop in, hurt someone 40% or more in an instant, disengage, then pop back in for another burst is too much against glass cannon players who’s main form of defense is to apply pressure via damage. Against the thief glass cannons don’t have effective counters due to not being able to effectively track or damage the thief while it is stealthed, and when they first appear not enough time is given to hit them back.
• Even if the player invests in an invincibility skill the thief can easily disengage while they wait for it to end then pop back in when it ends. Unless you have multiple forms of defense like a bunker would have, you cannot keep up.

I just thought it would be best to give some perspective to this discussion by showing people what one of these ‘OMG 13k BACKSTAB’ thieves sees after they manage a successful burst. (screenshot attached)

Rather, if you were being backstabbed 13k… you have less armor than a light target golem O_O

After bursting, the thief has… no utilities left, (probably) used their elite skill, professional F1 skill also on cooldown (used to gap close and gain might), with not enough initiative left to stealth even once… if thats not high risk, high reward then i quite honestly don’t know what is.

COUNTER PLAY (that i can think of off the top of my head)
1. Buddy up with 1 other player if you’re completely glass, if the thief instant downs one of you, that thief will only have enough initiative left to throw down a blind field. Auto attack the thief to death… he/she will not be able to get away & finish the kill at the same time. (please note the 14k hp and 1.9k armor…)

2. Stun/knockdown/immob the thief before he/she is able to get the burst off. In order to reach such high levels of damage, the thief will have a single signet stun breaker which he/she will use to gain might. CC that silly head if you see the signets disappear from the status bar and might stacks appear. (might stacks also do not last long, if you can delay them for around 8 seconds… you win! hard but doable)

3. Thieves do not go around in stealth for hours at a time. They will rarely stealth until AFTER they engage and only for a few seconds at a time. Hold mouse 1 and spin your camera often! Spot the thief, focus the thief, kill the thief.

If you are currently already fighting with 2~3 other players and the thief jumps in and kills you… how is that different from any other class jumping in and changing the odds? Other than the fact that the thief will land a very noticeable amount of damage… the end result often would be the same no?

It seems many people are arguing ‘if full glass eles can’t get away then full glass thieves should not either!!‘… but really… why are we trying to compare a full glass ele to anything. There is something inherently wrong with ele survivability outside of the bunker builds (i play an ele too). Please don’t compare any class with that. It will be a sad day if anet decides to balance the game around that standard!

disclaimer I do not play this build in pvp, rather i don’t play pvp at all. Mainly i wvw as a d/d thief, so if there is anything i said that was incorrect, please go ahead and point it out to me.

emi

Lol he thinks 13k BS are bad…wait till some one tells him warrior can hit 20k with kill shot and necro can hit 10-15k with axe 2 both without having to get right up in your face like thiefs have to and they get 20k hp in stead of 14k.

Damage is damage, most anything built with enough zerker is gonna wreck your day if you give them half a chance. Thief is on the low end of the bullkitten stick, in fact me and most of my guild feels thief damage is to low for the amount of hp they have to sacrifice. You don’t see many long time thiefs playing pure DD burst because its VERRY easy to get killed if you make one single mistake.

Fortus.6175:

nobody is denying that, however, toxic things has to go away, and backstab is toxic. Still, if you think GC thieves are the squishiest and least survivable builds out there then you need to revise your build and spell rotations, because they are by far one of the hardest things to kill, and thats including bunkers. How you ask? Stealth. On top of that, teleports that have no CD, dodges and blinds. An ele would give a limb for such survival rate that thieves enjoy.

Personally I’m not against a thief rework of some sorts, but please be factual with your posts. In no way do thieves that hit backstabs for 13k+ enjoy the survivability you described. That survivability actually comes with different builds that hit glassy targets for 6k with backstab, maybe 7k at the very most. Teleports that have no CD only come with using a sword in your main hand, shadowsteps of a d/d or d/p thief actually have considerable cooldowns.

Ok, let me clear things up since it seems people are not understanding me:

>I know thieves are squishy, Im well aware of that, I know they die quickly in glass cannon builds. However, they are not any squishier than an ele or mesmer with same stats, and thus they should not get any special treatment.

>Im aware the backstab build is a one trick pony, just like fresh air ele, however, they should not be put together. One is a build that has 40+ CD, has more than one skills involved, can be seen from miles away. The other one has only one skill involved, and if it were to fail, all he has to do is stealth/teleport away. Completely different.

>Backstab is whats wrong, not the class. I actually believe having too many thieves in my team will lose me the game. Why? Because they are terrible in capture the point, Most thieves resort to stealth spam, and i think we cna all agree that stealth spam is both bad for the players in the sense that it lacks true coutners, and the fact that a thief who spends his time in stealth isnt winning the game.

> All I want is all the upfront damage to be moved somewhere else. RIght now squishies are straight up pushed away from the meta almost single handlely by both thieves and condi bunkers. This needs to stop.

>I want thieves to be a nice add to the team, not a one trick pony that creates frustration but lose games. Right now thieves are too binary; either they face squishies and dominate, or face tanks and get dominated No middle ground, no team utility if they cant instagib the enemy. This is my definition of toxic; it creates a situation where both sides lose.

there is counterplay to kill shot, eviscerate, life blast, churning earth, phoenix, volley, dragons tooth. What is my counterplay to backstab? Double dodge roll in the opposite direction I last saw the teef and pray he runs out of stealth? As an ele, it is extremely hard to kill a d/p teef because of the blinds and the atleast 50% stealth uptime and the window in which i can kill them is about 45 seconds before refuge comes back up. All the while I pray that backstab wont crit me and ONLY do 5k-6k damage.

Fortus.6175:

>Im aware the backstab build is a one trick pony, just like fresh air ele, however, they should not be put together. One is a build that has 40+ CD, has more than one skills involved, can be seen from miles away. The other one has only one skill involved, and if it were to fail, all he has to do is stealth/teleport away. Completely different.

Why do you think thieves only have a single ‘one trick pony’ build? Thieves can also be seen miles away, unless your up against a thief that blows all his/her utilities and initiative before even engaging…

Fortus.6175:

>Backstab is whats wrong, not the class. I actually believe having too many thieves in my team will lose me the game. Why? Because they are terrible in capture the point, Most thieves resort to stealth spam, and i think we cna all agree that stealth spam is both bad for the players in the sense that it lacks true coutners, and the fact that a thief who spends his time in stealth isnt winning the game.

Last i checked, stealth spam thieves were the worst thing for that game mode. btw, the 13k backstab build that you’re complaining about is a completely different build. stealth spam builds have no hope of achieving backstabs with the numbers you’re talking about.

Fortus.6175:

> All I want is all the upfront damage to be moved somewhere else. RIght now squishies are straight up pushed away from the meta almost single handlely by both thieves and condi bunkers. This needs to stop.

I thought sword/dagger (evasion) and dagger/pistol (trickery) builds were the thief meta currently? both do not spam stealth.. and both do not do 13k backstabs…

Fortus.6175:

>I want thieves to be a nice add to the team, not a one trick pony that creates frustration but lose games. Right now thieves are too binary; either they face squishies and dominate, or face tanks and get dominated No middle ground, no team utility if they cant instagib the enemy. This is my definition of toxic; it creates a situation where both sides lose.

I wasn’t aware that thieves were all binary one trick ponies… I shall now tell every thief i meet to play in this way so as to meet your expectations and bias. :>

NinjaBreadMan.8926:

What is my counterplay to backstab? Double dodge roll in the opposite direction I last saw the teef and pray he runs out of stealth? As an ele, it is extremely hard to kill a d/p teef because of the blinds and the atleast 50% stealth uptime and the window in which i can kill them is about 45 seconds before refuge comes back up. All the while I pray that backstab wont crit me and ONLY do 5k-6k damage.

Double dodging and praying isn’t a very good way to fight a thief…

As a d/d ele, don’t dodge at all. estimate how long the thief will take to reach you and turn and face them, autoattacking in air the whole time. if you manage to make them facestab you and you land 2 or so autoattacks, you will end up taking a bigger chunk out of their health than they do yours. Follow that on with air 5 -> fire 3 -> fire 4 -> etc. and burst them. if they shadowstep away, get into water and heal back up or follow them with an earth 4 -> lightening flash. D/D eles are actually a hard matchup for backstab thieves. the AOE 360 range autoattacks hurt alot and the number of soft and hard CCs you have access to…. you shouldnt be having problems with backstab thieves.

If you start running before the fight even starts, why are you surprised that you lost?

emi

I will at least give Fortus credit for being a very determined person. No matter how many months go buy it’s always the same QQ. I just hope I’m not the only person who notices all of these thread are made by the same guy.

Anyway as always yes thieves can be countered. There are other people who explain how easy it is to do, please read their posts. All we have here is one guy who refuses to to change his own playstyle and adapt to others.

Dog.1472:

I will at least give Fortus credit for being a very determined person. No matter how many months go buy it’s always the same QQ. I just hope I’m not the only person who notices all of these thread are made by the same guy.

Anyway as always yes thieves can be countered. There are other people who explain how easy it is to do, please read their posts. All we have here is one guy who refuses to to change his own playstyle and adapt to others.

I’ve noticed it is the same Thief players who are wilfully ignorant/arrogant when it comes to any constructive discussion revolving their precious class. They don’t contribute anything to the discussion rather than spewing “L2P” nonsense and regurgitating the same “counters” which have been debunked numerous times (please go read them).

All we have are Thief players who refuse to give up their abusive playstyle in return for more gameplay variety that will benefit the whole community.

come back next year and find out backstab has been ‘nerfed’ to 12.5k hit.

stealth is a passive mechanic that is bad by nature in active combat which gw2 is trying to achieve… can’t believe people are actually trying to defend it.

OP: get rekt

Aza.2105:

E Tan.7385:

The problem IS NOT the backstab, the problem is the absence of stealth counter.

A skill that does that much damage with a near instant cast time, that you can’t see coming, that you can’t counter play is a problem. Stealth just intensifies the situation.

Nop, stealth IS the reason WHY backstab is that powerfull.
If there was a stealth counter, it would also mean decent backstab counter.

And you clearly said it “that you can’t see coming” yeah because there NO SINGLE stealth counter.
If there was stealth counter it would be clearly more risky for a thief to do his backstab

Without that, there is no way backstab could have a good balance.
Also as thief to do a that high backstab damage value you have to be a 100% zerk even in your trait. No need to say that, like that, even a rabbit could OS you. But because of stealth, thoses thief are pretty insanely hard to kill except if they do huge gameplay mistake.

+ play as a balanced thief, or more oriented to “perma stealth” your backstab wont really go over 4-5k, which is clearly not that OP when you consider all other class DPS potential.

IMHO, backstab is actualy fine, the only problem is the lack of stealth counter.

Supreme.4051:

come back next year and find out backstab has been ‘nerfed’ to 12.5k hit.

stealth is a passive mechanic that is bad by nature in active combat which gw2 is trying to achieve… can’t believe people are actually trying to defend it.

Stealth is a passive mechanic? Clearly someone doesn’t play thief, and has zero experience.

Landing and CnD mid fight is tough, shadow refuge has a cast time, and if you have any form of situational awareness it’s pretty easy to spot and prepare an aoe or knock back.

Blinding powder / heart seeker combo is a 2 stage prep and easily spotted. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen thieves kittened out of it due to a block ect.

Fighting as a thief, stealth is hardly passive, and it doesn’t make you immune to cc or damage.

High end pvpers don’t have an issue with this, only poor players who prefer to blame a class rather than themselves.

For every 10 of you whining, there’s a great player with zero issues

If anything thieves should be whining, we got the short end of the stick and it’s never been harder to compete high end as a thief,

Hate to say it, but anyone who disagrees, is just showing their inexperience as a player.

Edit, and quit saying you can’t see it coming, you can. Thieves don’t run around in stealth across the map like a rogue in wow. Mostly they don’t even enter stealth until after the steal, which has a limited range. If you didn’t see the thief approaching into steal range, that’s your lack of awareness.

Clones, pets, minions, other players, guards, and NEUTRAL CREEPS. In WvW, you have ample of options to CnD mid fight.

Cast time on Shadow Refuge? Boo-freakin-hoo. Compare that to any skill from any other class.

Stealth combo hard to execute? Don’t worry, you still have initiative. You aren’t severely hindered by cool-downs, unlike EVERY OTHER CLASS.

Hmm… you can’t execute stealth combos? I’m sorry, you are just showing your inexperience as a Thief player.

Thieves skills are very telegraphed

The most being BP → HS. Scratch that BS is the most telegraphed since if they are stealthed you know it’s coming and actually have literally seconds to counter

Emi.4152:

Why do you think thieves only have a single ‘one trick pony’ build?

Thieves do not have a single one-trick pony build.

The blatant misdirection with this statement is staggering, suggesting Thieves have but a single way to play, Backstab zerker or gtfo.

That is utterly false.

Bowflex.4502:

Supreme.4051:

come back next year and find out backstab has been ‘nerfed’ to 12.5k hit.

stealth is a passive mechanic that is bad by nature in active combat which gw2 is trying to achieve… can’t believe people are actually trying to defend it.

Stealth is a passive mechanic? Clearly someone doesn’t play thief, and has zero experience.

Landing and CnD mid fight is tough, shadow refuge has a cast time, and if you have any form of situational awareness it’s pretty easy to spot and prepare an aoe or knock back.

Blinding powder / heart seeker combo is a 2 stage prep and easily spotted. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen thieves kittened out of it due to a block ect.

Fighting as a thief, stealth is hardly passive, and it doesn’t make you immune to cc or damage.

High end pvpers don’t have an issue with this, only poor players who prefer to blame a class rather than themselves.

For every 10 of you whining, there’s a great player with zero issues

If anything thieves should be whining, we got the short end of the stick and it’s never been harder to compete high end as a thief,

Hate to say it, but anyone who disagrees, is just showing their inexperience as a player.

Edit, and quit saying you can’t see it coming, you can. Thieves don’t run around in stealth across the map like a rogue in wow. Mostly they don’t even enter stealth until after the steal, which has a limited range. If you didn’t see the thief approaching into steal range, that’s your lack of awareness.

‘High-end PvP’, ‘gw2 esport’ lolo

CnD hard to land? Just reminding you that you can land it on pretty much anything? Why try to hit this pesky player who has a dodge, while pets, spirits, minions, clones, phantasms, turrets, gates, walls (yes you can CnD off a 30 feet long inamimate object). Even if it’s dodged then you can just try again because your skills have no cooldown.

Black powder spams blind so most melee attacks will miss ofc (how do you even block this? unless you have auto-targetting on and leap into someone). If you even have an aoe knockback/pull then you’re lucky but otherwise moar stealth and blind incoming. Of course when a thief is in stealth he’s not immune to everything but any thief with more than 2 brain cells will know to avoid attacks.

I do feel bad for thieves like you out there, noone likes to play against you because of this bad mechanic

You are aware how long the stealth off a CnD lasts right? You make it sound like you can CnD a pet, then gap close on the ranger a mile off. Not the case.

And you say if you miss you can just try again due to no cooldowns, you’re aware of the initiative cost right? And ways to regen initiative? I.e part of your auto attack chain, which if you missed your CnD, chances are you’re missing your auto attacks too.

And since when did blind stop you from blocking

So much untrue information in these posts that complain about mechanics.

The only thing “toxic” here are QQers, specifically elementelist QQers, glass eles can do the same numbers but they can do it to 5 players at once, they can cover the whole point with their AoE.

One one-shot player complaining over another makes me sick.

I honestly despise the attitude of people in spvp, though the game mode is entertaining the people there are not, their gimmick is always ok and the other guys gimmick is always OP.
Once their gimmick fails people procced to insult people in /w and once they are blocked they procced to complain on the forum.

Bazzoong.7145:

The only thing “toxic” here are QQers, specifically elementelist QQers, glass eles can do the same numbers but they can do it to 5 players at once, they can cover the whole point with their AoE.

Cool story bro, you got more of those?

He was instagibbed, there’s NO counter play when you’re DEAD!

To the OP, the dev’s are mostly PvP players and actually WANT us to be instagibbed and trolled. They want us to rage and get our blood pressure thru the roof. Why they think it’s a good idea (or healthy) is beyond me but, that’s how they designed the game. For the thieves defending the profession, of course they don’t want their special taken away. Thus, they instacry about being the poor persecuted profession on threads like yours. Meanwhile, laughing behind the monitor as they know they are getting away with murder, literally in the game.

btw… OP, use a different screenshot than one from a couple months ago.

And they wonder why more people don’t PvP!

DeWolfe.2174:

He was instagibbed, there’s NO counter play when you’re DEAD!

To the OP, the dev’s are mostly PvP players and actually WANT us to be instagibbed and trolled. They want us to rage and get our blood pressure thru the roof. Why they think it’s a good idea (or healthy) is beyond me but, that’s how they designed the game. For the thieves defending the profession, of course they don’t want their special taken away. Thus, they instacry about being the poor persecuted profession on threads like yours. Meanwhile, laughing behind the monitor as they know they are getting away with murder, literally in the game.

btw… OP, use a different screenshot than one from a couple months ago.

Here’s the thing, if you nerf damage on a thief even further, to the point that glass cannon squishies can feel “comfortable” what hope in hell does a thief have to kill a warrior or guardian? Or anyone else, we sure as he’ll can’t stand toe to toe with anyone with 11kp and no mitigation outside stealth.

It’s not the thieves ruining pvp for you, it’s the dozen bunker builds, and necros with 30k hp, three times a thief,

Give and take. Works both ways,