Guild Wars 2

There have been a ton of suggestions to change stealth over the past few days. Almost all of them seem to be targeted towards stealth in general, instead of directly at the main offender: the d/p thief. Many of the proposed suggestions would absolutely destroy /d thieves, which are reasonable to counter because they have to land CnD to enter stealth.

The problem is not “perma stealth,” because their stealth is not really permanent, but the ease of access to their stealth, which can be “spammed.” Due to the blind on the bullet from blackpowder, it can be very hard to interrupt the bp + hs combo in time.

I suggest changing the black powder skill, as it is the main offender.

1)Black Powder now creates a dark field instead of a smoke field.
2)The field still blinds.
3)The shot fired from Black Powder no longer blinds but grants stealth when it hits.

What does this do?
1) It is possible to dodge the fired bullet, so it can be more easily countered like CnD.
2) The bullets damage is very low, so stealthing from range comes at the cost of the difference of damage between this skill and CnD.
3) Since heartseeker would not be used, it would be easier to predict the thief’s exact location: near the field.

Other things this would do:
Give s/p and p/p access to stealth at the cost of 6 initiative.
I am doubtful that this would change gameplay much on s/p. S/d has access but rarely uses it because the s/ stealth attack skill does very little damage.
P/P needs a buff, maybe this could help that weapon set.

When I played D/P, I hardly ever use the Stealth combo because whenever I do that, I get knockback, immobilized, or stunned.

This would also affect P/P.

The addition of a dark field would make Unload much more dangerous, granting a lot of life stealing and extra damage. Whether that’s good or bad I’m not sure.

S/P would become a very strong control Spec, with access to Tactical Strike, Pistol Whip and Headshot from stealth, I wouldn’t call them OP, but I would call them annoying as kitten. With P/P, it’d be a welcome change to bring P/P into serious usability, however it’d pretty much steal P/D’s purpose and function in doing so. Dark combo Sneak Attack sounds kinda scary when you think about it. The only way I can think of keeping the balance of Black Powder on the level of its melee ranged counter part in this case is increasing BP’s init cost to 8 or 9 init at least. This’d let X/Ps have thier new stealth, but make the cost so high that they couldn’t spam it, even with Infusion of Shadows. BP would be low risk high cost and CnD would high risk, low cost.

The only real point of /D off-hand is stealth access and a poor snare. When /P can stealth it trivializes /D where /D’s only real niche is their dual attack given both sets can stealth.

Give s/p and p/p access to stealth at the cost of 6 initiative.

Which they don’t need. Homogenizing the professions weapon-sets into stealth will only deteriorate it.
When you go S/P with stealth vs S/D. Literally the only reason to S/D at that point is flanking strike. P/D with stealth vs P/P with stealth. Again only reason becomes Shadow strike as you’ve made the /P off-hand better not just in a D/P since but completely for every /P set vs it’s /D counterpart since it does Half of what the /D kit does instead of being different. At the moment only D/P has that amount of overlap and you want to extend it to the other two?

@OP: Your post is wrong in so many ways.

1. Stealth is spammable? Maybe if you have an initiative pool of 50. Let me know how to get that.
2. Give S/P access to stealth? This spec doesn’t need anymore help. In fact, a lot of the top thieves are switching over to it. In another month or two, people are going to be saying how OP it is even with no changes.
3. If you can’t predict the location of a thief after a bp/hs combo, that’s more on you. You can see the way they jump.

Thighum.7295:

There have been a ton of suggestions to change stealth over the past few days. Almost all of them seem to be targeted towards stealth in general, instead of directly at the main offender: the d/p thief. Many of the proposed suggestions would absolutely destroy /d thieves, which are reasonable to counter because they have to land CnD to enter stealth.

The problem is not “perma stealth,” because their stealth is not really permanent, but the ease of access to their stealth, which can be “spammed.” Due to the blind on the bullet from blackpowder, it can be very hard to interrupt the bp + hs combo in time.

I suggest changing the black powder skill, as it is the main offender.

1)Black Powder now creates a dark field instead of a smoke field.
2)The field still blinds.
3)The shot fired from Black Powder no longer blinds but grants stealth when it hits.

What does this do?
1) It is possible to dodge the fired bullet, so it can be more easily countered like CnD.
2) The bullets damage is very low, so stealthing from range comes at the cost of the difference of damage between this skill and CnD.
3) Since heartseeker would not be used, it would be easier to predict the thief’s exact location: near the field.

Other things this would do:
Give s/p and p/p access to stealth at the cost of 6 initiative.
I am doubtful that this would change gameplay much on s/p. S/d has access but rarely uses it because the s/ stealth attack skill does very little damage.
P/P needs a buff, maybe this could help that weapon set.

You do not fully understand the thief class and how thief use varies tools to gain long duration stealth even without the use of a /p weaponset. I’ll link a build later to show this.

Dual.8953:

S/P would become a very strong control Spec… I wouldn’t call them OP… With P/P, it’d be a welcome change to bring P/P into serious usability, however it’d pretty much steal P/D’s purpose and function in doing so…

P/P needs a buff. The life stealing would provide it with additional survivability and a little damage.

I disagree that it would steal p/d’s purpose.
P/P would most likely remain physical damage based, I would guess the most likely rotation to be something like Black Powder -> Sneak Attack -> Unload. Repeat many times.
P/D would most likely remain more condition based, maybe a slight change would be required to reinforce this.

ensoriki.5789:

The only real point of /D off-hand is stealth access and a poor snare… you’ve made the /P off-hand better not just in a D/P since but completely for every /P set vs it’s /D counterpart since it does Half of what the /D kit does instead of being different. At the moment only D/P has that amount of overlap and you want to extend it to the other two?

I agree that the #4 dagger skill is severely underpowered. However that skill being weak and needing a buff to be more useful should not be a reason to ignore black powder.

Keep in mind that with this change CnD -> backstab would provide way more damage than Black Powder -> Backstab. Giving a tradeoff between the two weapon sets. Currently there is no tradeoff, d/p is just better than d/d in most situations. I don’t like this either!

I didn’t suggest a buff to black powder, but a change. It would be a nerf to d/p, an addition of one more option that would most likely not be used much to s/p, and a buff to p/p.

I agree that some attention would need to be given to the /d #4 to keep the p/d as a more condition based alternative (different role), maybe even a slight change to the p/d #3.

style.6173:

1. Stealth is spammable? Maybe if you have an initiative pool of 50.
2. Give S/P access to stealth? This spec doesn’t need anymore help…
3. If you can’t predict the location of a thief after a bp/hs combo, that’s more on you. You can see the way they jump.

1) No you do not need 50 initiative to be in stealth for 95% of a fight. Granted wouldn’t do much, but when you pop in and out of stealth just out of range for an extended period of time waiting for the perfect backstab opportunity or retreating when your health is low, it can be rather annoying for others to fight against. This is what I do on d/p when I am playing defensively against someone.
2) I doubt it would change the s/p that much because it would cost more initiative than would be worth to use Tactical Strike.
3) I think you are taking this as me complaining because I couldn’t beat someone. Since I play a thief I have very little AOE right off the bat, this was more to help other classes who have more AOE (like eles, 95% of which die without much of a fight). In addition, the distance you jump with HS changes with how you angle your screen when not targeting someone (last I checked).

MIrra.3604:

You do not fully understand the thief class and how thief use varies tools to gain long duration stealth even without the use of a /p weaponset. I’ll link a build later to show this.

Yes, I am well aware that there are other ways to enter stealth, nor did I complain about long duration stealth. Instead I focused on a weapon skill combo that allows you to get into stealth too easily.

I love how you started by insulting my knowledge of my main character, what a wonderful way to add something to this thread!

Thighum.7295:

Dual.8953:

S/P would become a very strong control Spec… I wouldn’t call them OP… With P/P, it’d be a welcome change to bring P/P into serious usability, however it’d pretty much steal P/D’s purpose and function in doing so…

P/P needs a buff. The life stealing would provide it with additional survivability and a little damage.

I disagree that it would steal d/p’s purpose.
P/P would most likely remain physical damage based, I would guess the most likely rotation to be something like Black Powder -> Sneak Attack -> Unload. Repeat many times.
P/D would most likely remain more condition based, maybe a slight change would be required to reinforce this.

ensoriki.5789:

The only real point of /D off-hand is stealth access and a poor snare… you’ve made the /P off-hand better not just in a D/P since but completely for every /P set vs it’s /D counterpart since it does Half of what the /D kit does instead of being different. At the moment only D/P has that amount of overlap and you want to extend it to the other two?

I agree that the #4 dagger skill is severely underpowered. However that skill being weak and needing a buff to be more useful should not be a reason to ignore black powder.

Keep in mind that with this change CnD -> backstab would provide way more damage than Black Powder -> Backstab. Giving a tradeoff between the two weapon sets. Currently there is no tradeoff, d/p is just better than d/d in most situations. I don’t like this either!

I didn’t suggest a buff to black powder, but a change. It would be a nerf to d/p, an addition of one more option that would most likely not be used much to s/p, and a buff to p/p.

I agree that some attention would need to be given to the /d #4 to keep the p/d as a more condition based alternative (different role), maybe even a slight change to the p/d #3.

style.6173:

1. Stealth is spammable? Maybe if you have an initiative pool of 50.
2. Give S/P access to stealth? This spec doesn’t need anymore help…
3. If you can’t predict the location of a thief after a bp/hs combo, that’s more on you. You can see the way they jump.

1) No you do not need 50 initiative to be in stealth for 95% of a fight. Granted wouldn’t do much, but when you pop in and out of stealth just out of range for an extended period of time waiting for the perfect backstab opportunity or retreating when your health is low, it can be rather annoying for others to fight against. This is what I do on d/p when I am playing defensively against someone.
2) I doubt it would change the s/p that much because it would cost more initiative than would be worth to use Tactical Strike.
3) I think you are taking this as me complaining because I couldn’t beat someone. Since I play a thief I have very little AOE right off the bat, this was more to help other classes who have more AOE (like eles, 95% of which die without much of a fight). In addition, the distance you jump with HS changes with how you angle your screen when not targeting someone (last I checked).

MIrra.3604:

You do not fully understand the thief class and how thief use varies tools to gain long duration stealth even without the use of a /p weaponset. I’ll link a build later to show this.

Yes, I am well aware that there are other ways to enter stealth, nor did I complain about long duration stealth. Instead I focused on a weapon skill combo that allows you to get into stealth too easily.

I love how you started by insulting my knowledge of my main character, what a wonderful way to add something to this thread!

Sorry, I misread your post. Just to be clear – you are saying the main problem with D/P is how easy it is to stealth and not the ability to stack stealth, right?

If my statement is correct and as you said yourself that you do not have a problem with stealth stacking, what are you proposing to compensate d/p theives for losing their ability to stack stealth?

Thighum.7295:

Dual.8953:

S/P would become a very strong control Spec… I wouldn’t call them OP… With P/P, it’d be a welcome change to bring P/P into serious usability, however it’d pretty much steal P/D’s purpose and function in doing so…

P/P needs a buff. The life stealing would provide it with additional survivability and a little damage.

I disagree that it would steal d/p’s purpose.
P/P would most likely remain physical damage based, I would guess the most likely rotation to be something like Black Powder -> Sneak Attack -> Unload. Repeat many times.
P/D would most likely remain more condition based, maybe a slight change would be required to reinforce this.

1) You mean P/D not D/P?
2) The thing of it is, P/P with a natural stealth would put it an ideal situation to spam Sneak Attack, the crux of P/D’s condi role, at max range, when you factor in Infusion of Shadow, you’ll have a weapon set that can spam 5 stacks of life steal charged bleeding at 900 range. Thus why I suggested BP cost 9 init, so ranged stealth would always be more costly then melee stealth.

OP, are you trying to make braindead specs (p/p, s/p) even more braindead? Do you even realize how much dmg and CC those 2 builds would put out if your suggestion was implemented….?

Besides, d/p doesn’t get stealth for free, it is whole 9 ini, if you deny them that, they are pretty much screwed…. even if they managed to go stealth there are plenty of way to pressure them to play passive…it is way easier to predict where d/p thief went than d/d for example simply becuse of dat red circle on the floor.

D/P has to deal with same disadvantage as d/d: they have to go in melee to do any meaningful dmg thus putting themself in the dager of getting aoed/cleaved to death.

Dual.8953:

Thighum.7295:

Dual.8953:

S/P would become a very strong control Spec… I wouldn’t call them OP… With P/P, it’d be a welcome change to bring P/P into serious usability, however it’d pretty much steal P/D’s purpose and function in doing so…

P/P needs a buff. The life stealing would provide it with additional survivability and a little damage.

I disagree that it would steal d/p’s purpose.
P/P would most likely remain physical damage based, I would guess the most likely rotation to be something like Black Powder -> Sneak Attack -> Unload. Repeat many times.
P/D would most likely remain more condition based, maybe a slight change would be required to reinforce this.

1) You mean P/D not D/P?
2) The thing of it is, P/P with a natural stealth would put it an ideal situation to spam Sneak Attack, the crux of P/D’s condi role, at max range, when you factor in Infusion of Shadow, you’ll have a weapon set that can spam 5 stacks of life steal charged bleeding at 900 range. Thus why I suggested BP cost 9 init, so ranged stealth would always be more costly then melee stealth.

1) Thank you for catching that! I edited that posted to P/D.
2) Hmm, I think that might be tricky to figure out exactly how much would be needed. I think 9 may be a little bit too high, and would hurt d/p with this change a little too much. (It’s already losing the damage from hs, since that combo wouldn’t be used to stealth anymore.) I was thinking by making ranged stealth do practically no damage (isn’t it like 100-200 from that bullet? not sure) on stealth while melee stealth does the higher CnD damage it would be balanced.

As I don’t really use p/x that often I don’t know that much about it. But I think that a p/p would still spec for physical damage because of unload. This would mean that the bleeds would deal significantly less damage. I would assume that the p/p thief would:
black powder (gaining stealth)-> stealth skill (how does the physical damage compare to unload?) -> unload until revealed ends. I do think that p/d would need something to cement a more condition based role, possibly a change to the very weak dagger #4 skill or its #3 skill.

Edit: added that last paragraph

MIrra.3604

Sorry, I misread your post. Just to be clear – you are saying the main problem with D/P is how easy it is to stealth and not the ability to stack stealth, right?

If my statement is correct and as you said yourself that you do not have a problem with stealth stacking, what are you proposing to compensate d/p theives for losing their ability to stack stealth?

It would decrease the cost of entering stealth significantly with what I proposed. BP is 6 initiative currently. This could free up a trait slot, since it wouldn’t use up as much initiative. Much like it is possible to ignore the initiative traits on d/d (I use blind on stealth, condi removal, and the regen in stealth traits). I’m not exactly sure what a d/p could take with this change, the 20 pt SA traits must have something that would work well.

I would also like to make it clear that despite it being more difficult to enter stealth, than it currently is, it would still be significantly easier to be able to enter stealth from range than from melee with CnD.

Cynz.9437:

OP, are you trying to make braindead specs (p/p, s/p) even more braindead? Do you even realize how much dmg and CC those 2 builds would put out if your suggestion was implemented….?

Besides, d/p doesn’t get stealth for free, it is whole 9 ini, if you deny them that, they are pretty much screwed…. even if they managed to go stealth there are plenty of way to pressure them to play passive…it is way easier to predict where d/p thief went than d/d for example simply becuse of dat red circle on the floor.

D/P has to deal with same disadvantage as d/d: they have to go in melee to do any meaningful dmg thus putting themself in the dager of getting aoed/cleaved to death.

Except that it is harder for a d/d thief to get into stealth through CnD in the first place because they have to get in melee range to use it compared to the bp/hs combo. Also CnD can be dodged, BP/HS combo doesn’t matter if it is dodged. The only way you lose initiative is if someone interrupts it, but if you are targeting them it is unlikely due to the blind from the bullet currently. (You would need time to react to clear the blind and then interrupt them.) In addition, when using the trait that give back 2 initiative upon entering stealth, d/p uses 7 while CnD uses 6 (d/d requires a trait to get blind on stealth where BP gives a blinding field as part of the skill.)

P/P currently needs a buff. This would help it a lot.

I do not think this would greatly change s/p. If used, it would most likely be as a last resort when getting low on health, but you’d still need to have 6 ini to use it, and the bullet could be dodged → a thief that is almost dead and out of initiative! S/D has access to stealth, and it isn’t like you see S/D stealth heavy thieves that often.

Thighum.7295:

Except that it is harder for a d/d thief to get into stealth through CnD in the first place because they have to get in melee range to use it compared to the bp/hs combo. Also CnD can be dodged, BP/HS combo doesn’t matter if it is dodged.

Precast CnD->Steal/InfSig is a thing and is fairly easy to land if the thief isn’t completely incompetent, and you really don’t need to do it more than once or twice in a fight unless you’re running some cheesy WvW stealth build.

As a thief player myself, I almost would like to see making stealth drop if the BS is blocked or evaded. It’s so silly to be able to just chase someone spamming BS until it connects, and is a crutch for bad thief players and a crux against skilled players trying to anticipate the thief.

Above all, I think that this would be way more reasonable than the multiple suggestions to make block blind dodge etc remove thieves from stealth after a backstab. That would completely destroy all stealth builds except maybe that suicide all signet build that does a massive burst at the expense of all defense.

I think that the biggest problem with my suggestion would be doing something about making sure that p/p didn’t take p/d’s role over completely as has been mentioned by others. A buff to dagger #4 could possibly alleviate making p/p feel like it could use the pistol stealth attack more often.

I think it would also balance d/p when compared to d/d a lot more. Low risk ranged stealth with lower total damage output vs higher risk melee stealth with higher damage output. The numbers might have to be tweaked a little but I’m sure it wouldn’t be that difficult.

Nettle.9025:

Thighum.7295:

Except that it is harder for a d/d thief to get into stealth through CnD in the first place because they have to get in melee range to use it compared to the bp/hs combo. Also CnD can be dodged, BP/HS combo doesn’t matter if it is dodged.

Precast CnD->Steal/InfSig is a thing and is fairly easy to land if the thief isn’t completely incompetent, and you really don’t need to do it more than once or twice in a fight unless you’re running some cheesy WvW stealth build.

As a thief player myself, I almost would like to see making stealth drop if the BS is blocked or evaded. It’s so silly to be able to just chase someone spamming BS until it connects, and is a crutch for bad thief players and a crux against skilled defenders trying to anticipate.

You can only CnD steal once in a fight due to the cool down. Since I don’t use the suicide signet build to frontload damage it usually take me about 2-3 backstabs to down someone (3 or sometimes more backstabs for warriors due to their high base health, armor, and regeneration with their other survival tools).

Blocked or evaded backstabs would basically make guardian immune to thieves due to aegis. I greatly disagree with your idea, which I have seen many times over the past few days. In order for this to work, stealth thieves would need WAY more sustain, or damage, or something.

Backstab already requires:
1) Being able to get into stealth
2) getting close to your opponent
3) a positional requirement

Have you ever fought a player with lots of AOE who spazzes out like a headless chicken doing about faces and changing direction though all the AOE while your trying to land a backstab? It’s a nightmare. <- is already more than a punishing enough counter to backstab.

It would be much better to make d/p shoot a bullet (that can be dodged to prevent the stealth) than your suggestion, which would greatly impact every stealth build in a negative manner. This way all stealth from weapon skill can be countered by dodging the skill that gives stealth, messing up would be on the player who didn’t properly dodge the very visible skills. Currently the bp→hs combo provides stealth too easily to expect people to reasonably stop it, this change would fix that.

Just so you know, I run PP DD thief and I can roll permanant stealth. Its not limited to only DP thief. If you change blinding powder to a dark field instead of a smoke field Im not sure if I can still run permanant stealth. If you feel like PP needs a buff, than the change regarding blinding powder would actually be a nerf to my PP build.

Dancing dagger is underpowered? Whut?

I have no suggestions since i never stop to think about one…but i play dagger/dagger because 2 specific reasons…

1st. I think its cooler..i am no power player seeking most power i can get..i am looking for fun, and i really enjoy playing d/d.

2nd. I feel the d/p gameplay OP and, at the same time, too simple, annoying.

I have 1.1k hours of thief gamplay, i tried everything already and for me d/p is the most powerfull weaponset, but i think its more a problem than a virtue.

Of course..its just my opinion and its always good hear what everyone thinks.

ensoriki.5789:

The only real point of /D off-hand is stealth access and a poor snare. When /P can stealth it trivializes /D where /D’s only real niche is their dual attack given both sets can stealth.

I have to agree with this for a few reasons:

1.There would be much less point to using a d/d build with the proposed changes because the ability to stealth at 900 range would make it much less risky and easier to land than CnD currently is.

2. It would also make blink-CnD combos nearly irrelevant. Currently, thieves commonly combine CnD with steal, infiltrator’s signet, or some other kind of blink-type ability to help land CnD. However, if they can simply gain a CnD like effect from 900 range by default, CnD is much less attractive because you are effectively gaining your blink ability back by using the proposed black powder changes.

3. Dancing dagger and head shot are both situational, so one could consider the tradeoff for those two abilities to be fair. However, I would say that the ranged stealth would easily be more advantageous than holding onto dancing dagger anyways.

4. The main reason someone would bother running a d/d spec with the proposed changes is if they wanted to run a death blossom bleed build. Backstab spike-type builds would largely, if not completely, switch over to d/p with the proposed changes because death blossom is only really used on those builds when the thief wants to add some extra evades for whatever reason (i.e. while immobilized without any convenient stealth or blink sources remaining).

I do feel the point about the blind caused by the bullet of black powder to be somewhat valid though. It’s worth noting that this isn’t actually a property of the attack, the bullet simply self-combos with the deployed smoke field since it is a 100% combo finisher. If they removed the combo finisher from black powder, it wouldn’t cause an initial blind at range, and thus an opponent would have a better opportunity to try and counter it via an interrupt of some kind. For instance, if a thief laid down black powder while fighting a ranger with a longbow, the ranger can’t use point blank shot to shoot the thief out of the field prior to the heartseeker combo because the ranger was just blinded by the self-combo of black powder. Removing this self-combo would allow the ranger to make that move, and wouldn’t inherently ruin or alter the way thieves utilize the black powder-heartseeker combo like they do now.

The other option would be to simply remove the “shot” portion of the skill. People generally do not even care about that, and many thieves will use the ability without a target simply because the smoke field is the primary purpose of the ability in the first place.

I would start slow, and just remove the blind from the bullet and/or decrease the range (currently its 900 range blind). Anet has a history of making too big of changes and completely destroying something. Minor tweaks over time will help balance, not completely shifting metas with big changes.

They should start with removing the blind on the bullet as this would allow for more counter play to stun, immobilize, etc the thief before they can black powder. Then after that they can look at init cost changes or shorten the length of the blind field if they feel like it is still too strong.

I think this will go a long way to weed out the bad thieves and the good ones.

stealth is laughably broken in this game. the ab ility to stealth in combat is unique to this game and theres a reason why other decent games haven’t done this.

IMO the stealth spam from D/P is what makes people say thief is OP. Get rid of that spam, we’ve fixed the majority of the calls of OP. Which means either changing BP’s field type, or removing the leap finisher on heartseeker. Since the leap finisher is used widely by 90% of thieves regardless of what they’re running in offhand, I don’t suggest the leap finisher removal. Meaning change the field type for BP to Dark.

you all come from wvw perspective (which all honestly very unbalanced due to food, armor etc.), think about pvp (which is way more balanced)… nobody ever remotely complains there about d/p or stealth for that matter… in fact, s/p is considered better and easier build in pvp… ever asked yourself why?

any change to d/p combos will just make entire set unusable in any competitive pvp and 99% of thieves will play evade spam…. is it what you are asking for? once again, i would rather deal with stealthed thief (that i can still kill with aoe) than perma evade one

P.S. i play thief, necro, warrior in ranked~

OP has never played EU Tpvp…

A: wtf is this ‘stealth spam’
B: s/x is stronger and easier to play competitively
C: why are people discussing PP…

Phaeton.9582:

A: wtf is this ‘stealth spam’
B: s/x is stronger and easier to play competitively
C: why are people discussing PP…

I don’t even thief but any player who is good knows this. Even in WvW that D/P set might be annoying to fight, but if that thief wants to kill you he’s putting in 3x the amount of work to do it.

Granted I’m talking about 2 players who are moderately close in skill.

Cynz.9437:

you all come from wvw perspective (which all honestly very unbalanced due to food, armor etc.), think about pvp (which is way more balanced)… nobody ever remotely complains there about d/p or stealth for that matter… in fact, s/p is considered better and easier build in pvp… ever asked yourself why?

any change to d/p combos will just make entire set unusable in any competitive pvp and 99% of thieves will play evade spam…. is it what you are asking for? once again, i would rather deal with stealthed thief (that i can still kill with aoe) than perma evade one

P.S. i play thief, necro, warrior in ranked~

The reason why it isn’t called OP is because if you’re in stealth, you aren’t capping. Meaning stealth spam from D/P is harmful to the team, not to mention I believe both Backstab AND Heartseeker got nerfs exclusively for sPvP, so they’re nowhere near as powerful as they are in WvW.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Cynz.9437:

you all come from wvw perspective (which all honestly very unbalanced due to food, armor etc.), think about pvp (which is way more balanced)… nobody ever remotely complains there about d/p or stealth for that matter… in fact, s/p is considered better and easier build in pvp… ever asked yourself why?

any change to d/p combos will just make entire set unusable in any competitive pvp and 99% of thieves will play evade spam…. is it what you are asking for? once again, i would rather deal with stealthed thief (that i can still kill with aoe) than perma evade one

P.S. i play thief, necro, warrior in ranked~

The reason why it isn’t called OP is because if you’re in stealth, you aren’t capping. Meaning stealth spam from D/P is harmful to the team, not to mention I believe both Backstab AND Heartseeker got nerfs exclusively for sPvP, so they’re nowhere near as powerful as they are in WvW.

If thieves in wvw received same threatment as in pvp, other classes dmg would have to be cut by a lot too. Dmg and tankiness in wvw in generall is stupid, you can’t take just thieves in vacuum. I personally find roaming necros the worst thing to encounter in wvw.

I do not have issues with wvw thieves but maybe because i play war/thief/necro and can counter them pretty well…