Guild Wars 2

stealth has a counter it’s aoe preferable with a long duration (traps/marks/ combustive shot/ …).

Luke.4562:

The fact the survivability of the Thief is reduced while playing with this build doesn’t really matters. In a teamfight it’s enough if they go for an istantshot attack on the focused target, after that he wasted all his Defensive cooldowns, to achieve a sure kill, then the Thief can stealth and reset the fight, giving an huge advantage to his team.

The signet build can’t do anything of what you listed in there: it has no defensive cooldowns or stealth longer than 3/4 seconds, no way to acces stealth outside CnD which needs an enemy to land (variants can use the heal for stealth but you need to go full signet on utilities then), you sit around 12k worth of health with no damage mitigation or any good condi removal and the 2 teleports it has need a target to work so you can’t shadowstep away unless you use shortbow but if you do the burst you generally don’t have the ini to use infiltrators arrow.

Basically you fire all your signets, CnD and backstab (add in the devourer venom for 2 secs of immo variant but you need to use signet of malice so no stealth outside of CnD then). You get 3 tries max (3 tries if the target doesn’t move or use any abilities for 10 secs) and then you need to hs away if you still have some ini left. In the meantime using prot, aegis, block, invulnerability, stun, dazes, knockdowns, stealth, teleports or just a good old dodge can basically counter the burst completely.

Just don’t panic and use those wisely. If i’m ambushed by one on my mesmer a decoy, blink, phase retreat, blurred frenzy, riposte or distortion is more than enough to escape and then killing the thief is trivial afterwards.

Plus ,the fact that during a fight you can get focused, blow your defenses and someone can assasinate you is just part of how pvp works in all MMOs. It could have been a dps guard, condi engi/necro, etc and still ended the same way.

Ps: since it seems you play necro a simple deathshroud- doom or reapers mark would negate the burst, then place marks at your location (chillblains, mark of blood). Now the thief can’t burst you down and will be forced to flee. Use any other cc you have or just get straight to business and use signet of spite. Gz now the thief is dead.

Don’t play a zerker if you can’t counter a zerker. Glass on glass. Bread on bread. They take out each other. A guardian/warrior wears heavy armor, a Thief wears medium armor, an Elementalsit wears light armor. It would be more reasonable to buff Elementalist, than nerf Thief.

Did he just seriously put 4 signet 25/30/0/0/15 build as an example of backstab damage ? Do you even imagine what would happen to said thief in any other situation then 1×1 vs clueless glassies with no situational awarness skills ?

Karolis.4261:

Did he just seriously put 4 signet 25/30/0/0/15 build as an example of backstab damage ? Do you even imagine what would happen to said thief in any other situation then 1×1 vs clueless glassies with no situational awarness skills ?

It’s not even 25/30/0/0/15. It’s 30/30/0/0/10. Doesn’t even start with 15 initiative.

Karolis.4261:

Did he just seriously put 4 signet 25/30/0/0/15 build as an example of backstab damage ? Do you even imagine what would happen to said thief in any other situation then 1×1 vs clueless glassies with no situational awarness skills ?

We do. Problem is he doesn’t so instead he romanticizes this incredible damage burst tanky build that can shadowstep and permastealth at the same time. sigh if only thieves were 1/4 that powerful.

Auesis.7301:

Karolis.4261:

Did he just seriously put 4 signet 25/30/0/0/15 build as an example of backstab damage ? Do you even imagine what would happen to said thief in any other situation then 1×1 vs clueless glassies with no situational awarness skills ?

It’s not even 25/30/0/0/15. It’s 30/30/0/0/10. Doesn’t even start with 15 initiative.

Ah yes it 30/30/0/0/10 . Didn’t watch the video past 4 signet glimpse. That just further proves the point of 0 retreating/defensive/mobility abilities.

The funny part is, I don’t think people really have any problems with the damage thieves can put out – in fact, most professions can do something similar when built for it. It’s the fact they feel they can’t do anything about it that’s getting on people’s nerves, and that’s because of the survivability.

It’s not the ridiculously easy to counter burst you’re complaining about, it’s the combination of damage and sustain some of the stealth builds out there have
* cough * d/p * cough *

Kadin.2356:

Backstab has POSITIONAL stealth required skill coefficient of 2.40

Guardian has Whirling Wrath skill coefficient of 2.8 (.4×7=2.8)
Mesmer has Blurred Frenzy skill coefficient of 2.37 (8×0.2970=2.3763)
Warrior has Hundred Blades skill coefficient of 5.5 (8×0.55 + last hit 1.1=5.5)

Don’t get me started on condi builds…

Anyone can do insane damage if they walk around with tissue armor. Try it out, see how fun it is.

Backstab really doesn’t require much positioning. You can get the double damage from the front and side, in other words you can land it anywhere but directly in front of the character.

Also, the skills you linked are all channeled skills. 100b takes over 3secs to deliver full damage, blurred frenzy is a bit over 2 secs to achieve full damage, like wise with whirling wrath. In other words it would require the target to sit there through the whole channeling. Unless they are perma rooted most player will move out of the channel skill.

Backstab in comparison is almost instant, you can’t see the animation nor the thief. There is no skill that really compares to it in game.

D/D “cough” has more in combat stealth uptime than D/P “cough”, D/P has not more “sustain” than D/D if you use the same gear with both weapon sets, D/P has more CONTROL atleast if it comes to small scale fights.

People hate getting con"troll"ed and that`s the fun with D/P “cough”, this still needs better planning and execution “cough” than the" 5 buttons in one gaming mose macro button" on the D/D oneshot build.

AlexEBT.7240:

…

1) Backstab doesn’t hit like a truck just in a fantomatic signet build.

2) I thank you, but I don’t play just Necro, and I still am not here asking a strategy to counter this problem.

If thief die in this game, i have no fate left in humanity period

yski.7642:

…*

Yski, can’t you upload a video of you’re 4 signet backstabs unedited? Showing how often you have to run for your life or die before you get those clean kills? People here really think that a youtube video is 100% accurate and those players in there never die cause it doesn’t show them dying.

Backstab is far from the strongest attack in this game. Warriors can deal almost twice the damage from 1500 range, and still be immune to conditions, physical damage, have a high health pool and toughness. Thief won’t survive a group fight nearly as well, but yeah, people think we’re broken.

Backstab is a single target attack that requires a setup to do. You either have to blow a utility or you have to land another attack to set it up. It involves a ton of counter play;

• Evade
• Block
• Invulnerability
• Blind
• Fear
• Daze
• Immobilize

All those can be used both to negate the thief stealth or to deny him a backstab. My glass thief rarely hits a backstab above 7k. During a fight I may land a clean backstab, but usually I’m face stabbing or I’m out in the open running for my life.

People still cry about being beaten by a duelist build / profession on their zerg / group play character…. kitten logic, right?

Bazzoong.7145:

“cough”

I was refering to the combination of blind and stealth, not stealth alone. It can be pretty tricky landing anything on a good d/p, though I do admit there are some d/d sustain builds as well. I just find them a lot easier to deal with simply because CnD is pretty easy to dodge.

Also, to go totally off topic: I don’t actually have a gaming mouse or macros. Muscle memory ftw

Gwalchgwn.1659:

Yski, can’t you upload a video of you’re 4 signet backstabs unedited? Showing how often you have to run for your life or die before you get those clean kills? People here really think that a youtube video is 100% accurate and those players in there never die cause it doesn’t show them dying.

I could, but it’s mostly just me running around in hopes of actually finding someone.

…

Deal. ~2 hour raw roaming clip coming right up :P

Aza.2105:

Rahar.9872:

As a Thief main, I think backstab is fine. The counterplay isn’t in the backstab itself, but in the stealthing. There’s plenty of counterplay involved in keeping a D/D or D/P Thief from stealthing, and proposing that blinding powder or something is used means that the Thief loses out on a cooldown, stunbreaker, and possibly initiative, depending on the utility swapped out. If he’s Shadow Arts, his damage is pathetic anyway. Blind him and block him as D/D, and use your dazes/stuns when he drops Black Powder for D/P. If he manages to get in stealth, stealth as well if you have access to it, use a cooldown to avoid the damage, or at the very least, attempt to be unpredictable as to try to lure out a facestab.

I’ve played a lot of other professions (Engi, Necro, Warrior, Mesmer) and Thieves were always pretty easy to handle to me. The only ones that put up a challenge are the good ones, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Once again, you make the same mistake that many players make when it comes to understanding counterplay. What you describe are stealth “preventions” not stealth counterplay. I’ll just post what I wrote from another thread:

---

None of what you listed are counters though. People seem to be perplexed at what the word counter means:

1. To meet or return (a blow) by another blow.
2. To move or act in opposition to; oppose.
3. To offer in response: countered that she was too busy to be thorough.
To move, act, or respond so as to be in opposition.

What you and others are describing is stealth “prevention”. Prevention is not the same as a counter.

Prevention:
1. the act or practice of stopping something bad from happening : the act of preventing something

That is a significant difference. There are lots of potential “stealth preventions” in game. But there exists only one counter throughout all eight classes.

By nature a counter is something that delivers equal force but of the opposite polarity. Lets take a look at the counters available in gw2 at this time:

1. Fear, Stunned, Daze, Knockdown, Knockback —-———-Stability & Stun Breaker
2. Boons —-— Boon Strip/Corruption
3. Protection boon —-—— Vulnerability
4. Regeneration boon —-—- burning, bleeding, torment
5. Healing —-—- Poison
6. Endurance —-—- Weakness
7. Swiftness —-—- Cripple, Chill, Immobilize
8. Stealth —-—- Sic em

As you see there is a pattern, the counter is the opposite of the skill it opposes.
Here is how this list would would look like if the understanding of counter according to certain people in this thread were true:

1. Fear, Stunned, Daze, Knockdown, Knockback —-———-Dodge/Evade
2. Boons —-— Do more damage
3. Protection boon —-—— Do more damage
4. Regeneration boon —-—- Do more damage
5. Healing —-—- Interrupt them
6. Endurance —-—- Make them waste all of their dodges
7. Swiftness —-—- Kill them before they can use swiftness
8. Stealth —-—- Interrupt them

What you’re arguing is semantics, which in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t really prove much. Counterplay is also prevention – it keeps the person from doing what they want, and in return, you can deal damage. A Thief has to enter stealth before he can use backstab, therefore, in order to counterplay (or prevent, which ultimately does the same thing in this example) this move, you have to use another to stop it. Isn’t that what you were explaining in your post? And even when the Thief does get in stealth, there’s things you can do to prevent it. Good players will know what the Thief is intending to do by his health and by their experience.

I suppose I miss the reasoning behind your argument, because the differences are lost when the result is the same. To me, your post seems awfully arbitrary.

yski.7642:

Bazzoong.7145:

“cough”

I was refering to the combination of blind and stealth, not stealth alone. It can be pretty tricky landing anything on a good d/p, though I do admit there are some d/d sustain builds as well. I just find them a lot easier to deal with simply because CnD is pretty easy to dodge.

Also, to go totally off topic: I don’t actually have a gaming mouse or macros. Muscle memory ftw

Gwalchgwn.1659:

Yski, can’t you upload a video of you’re 4 signet backstabs unedited? Showing how often you have to run for your life or die before you get those clean kills? People here really think that a youtube video is 100% accurate and those players in there never die cause it doesn’t show them dying.

I could, but it’s mostly just me running around in hopes of actually finding someone.

…

Deal. ~2 hour raw roaming clip coming right up :P

You could skip the parts where you’re just running around, not encountering anyone. :P