Guild Wars 2

Any word on when Thieves will be brought into line with the other classes people play in this game for WVW?

Just curious how long the rediculous imbalance is going to be allowed to persist

Arlandino.7513:

Any word on when Thieves will be brought into line with the other classes people play in this game for WVW?

Just curious how long the rediculous imbalance is going to be allowed to persist

For a good while longer.

On that note, they have stated they fixed the culling/rendering issues for sPvP, etc., but they haven’t worked out a fix yet for WvW.

You mean when will culling be fixed and capping objectives while stealthed?

Arlandino.7513:

Any word on when Thieves will be brought into line with the other classes people play in this game for WVW?

Just curious how long the rediculous imbalance is going to be allowed to persist

./Co-Sign

seriously arenanet devs, isn’t there a team for wuvwuv?? at all?

things are getting way past ridiculous

Arlandino.7513:

Any word on when Thieves will be brought into line with the other classes people play in this game for WVW?

Just curious how long the rediculous imbalance is going to be allowed to persist

Outside of large fights with culling issues for all, small group fights thieves are reasonably in line. They have good damage, and die in about 3 hits.

Thieves trolling cap points while in stealth is about the only problem I have with them.

Arlandino.7513:

Any word on when Thieves will be brought into line with the other classes people play in this game for WVW?

Just curious how long the rediculous imbalance is going to be allowed to persist

out of curiosity, what class do you play?

Phantom.8130:

Arlandino.7513:

Any word on when Thieves will be brought into line with the other classes people play in this game for WVW?

Just curious how long the rediculous imbalance is going to be allowed to persist

out of curiosity, what class do you play?

it doesn’t matter whatsoever

when 1 thief can stop 50+ people from capping an objective for 10minutes+

bottom line: where the devs at? you’d think they’d fix on gamebreaking issues but i guess arenanet doesn’t have the manpower to do it

such is the price of having no subscription i suppose, they simply cannot adress the issues plaguing guild wars 2

CharliePrince.2071:

it doesn’t matter whatsoever

yes, actually, it does.

when 1 thief can stop 50+ people from capping an objective for 10minutes+

50+ people, and not one thought to use AoE, or lay down a bunch of traps? because, yes, that does stop the technique used to prevent caps.

depending on the objective its rather easy to counter a thiefs stealth.
They can’t prevent any keep/tower from capping (circles are to small) only some supply camps. 5 people that know how it works will catch the thief withing a minute while 20 stupid ones can be trolled for hours (only in some camps).
Still those combos shouldn’t be available that easy esp. without weapon switching.

Got my trolling thief now since a few days and its quite fun :p but there will be a nerf soon I guess. Even more mean are thiefs that hide inside a keep and ress the dead mesmer

I cant wait for thieves to be fixed so I can find out what everyone will QQ about next.

My money is on mesmers. Maybe the d/d ele, kill shot warrior, maybe some good old fashion 100b QQ, it could be anything! The suspense is almost unbearable!

ps. I dont think any of the above are issues

Phantom.8130:

CharliePrince.2071:

it doesn’t matter whatsoever

yes, actually, it does.

when 1 thief can stop 50+ people from capping an objective for 10minutes+

50+ people, and not one thought to use AoE, or lay down a bunch of traps? because, yes, that does stop the technique used to prevent caps.

it’s obvious you have no idea what you’re talking about to suggest nobody was aoeing or trying to bring the thief out of stealth

Bottom Line: i understand your desire to protect your class but it does not change the fact that Thieves right now break the game.

no other way to say it, it’s a legal hack. that’s how ridiculous thieves stealth is right now specially with the permastealthing going on

it’s simply gamebreaking

although fear not, the arenanet devs have all but ignored and turned a blind eye on wuvwuv

you know it, i know it, they will do nothing

so rest easy at night

this is the price we pay for not having a subscription

this is the best service arenanet weill ever give us

because we do not pay them a subscription fee, they simply do not have the employees, desire, people etc to actually fix their game

Dude its not gamebreaking. Learn to the play the game. If you guys simple stack up and AoE the thief would be dead within 30 seconds.

SmokeyNYY.7841:

Dude its not gamebreaking. Learn to the play the game. If you guys simple stack up and AoE the thief would be dead within 30 seconds.

A thief who is HSing through a smoke field on the perimeter would love that :P Break the zerg? Then just go back to good ol c&d on stragglers. Its not hard.

One of my characters is a thief.

SmokeyNYY.7841:

Dude its not gamebreaking. Learn to the play the game. If you guys simple stack up and AoE the thief would be dead within 30 seconds.

that is the counter to it, try to get PUGS to do that, while you’re fighting to cap it so you can go back to defend a keep being sieged

sorry Smokey, it’s gamebreaking although i find it ironic someone from Sanctum of Rall is defending it considering you guys have used it the most

nothing anyone says can change this one undeniable truth

sad but true

I also play a thief and zergs that actually know what they are doing will kill you within 30 seconds every single time.

CharliePrince.2071:

SmokeyNYY.7841:

Dude its not gamebreaking. Learn to the play the game. If you guys simple stack up and AoE the thief would be dead within 30 seconds.

that is the counter to it, try to get PUGS to do that, while you’re fighting to cap it so you can go back to defend a keep being sieged

sorry Smokey, it’s gamebreaking although i find it ironic someone from Sanctum of Rall is defending it considering you guys have used it the most

nothing anyone says can change this one undeniable truth

sad but true

I agree that thieves shouldnt be allowed to stop a cap while in stealth but to say that this is gamebreaking is pretty stupid.

CharliePrince.2071:

Phantom.8130:

CharliePrince.2071:

it doesn’t matter whatsoever

yes, actually, it does.

when 1 thief can stop 50+ people from capping an objective for 10minutes+

50+ people, and not one thought to use AoE, or lay down a bunch of traps? because, yes, that does stop the technique used to prevent caps.

it’s obvious you have no idea what you’re talking about to suggest nobody was aoeing or trying to bring the thief out of stealth

Bottom Line: i understand your desire to protect your class but it does not change the fact that Thieves right now break the game.

no other way to say it, it’s a legal hack. that’s how ridiculous thieves stealth is right now specially with the permastealthing going on

it’s simply gamebreaking

although fear not, the arenanet devs have all but ignored and turned a blind eye on wuvwuv

you know it, i know it, they will do nothing

so rest easy at night

this is the price we pay for not having a subscription

this is the best service arenanet weill ever give us

because we do not pay them a subscription fee, they simply do not have the employees, desire, people etc to actually fix their game

If it was gamebreaking, everyone would be a thief and there would be no progress in PvP/WvW. It’s not game breaking. Its cheap, much like AWP is in Counter-Strike, but it certainly isn’t game breaking. If you don’t like the way the game is played or the slow fixes, you can always stop playing. No one is stopping you, but to criticize a company, who is trying to appease all sides, for taking too long to find a plausible and non-bias fix is merely ranting on your part.

They fixed the culling issue for sPvP. Now they just need to find a way to fix it for WvW. First it was one Thief skill, then another, and another, and another. Heck, I don’t play any of the glass-cannon, uber stealth thiefs, but I find them to be a challenge for my CB thief. And if 50+ people can’t AoE a thief that is very easy to kill, then I give that thief a standing ovation because I sure as heck can’t do it and I haven’t seen many thieves do it. In fact, one thief thought he could do it to my squad and he was quickly taken down.

So really, it isn’t gamebreaking. Game breaking means that the game cannot be played. Clearly, it can.

SmokeyNYY.7841:

I also play a thief and zergs that actually know what they are doing will kill you within 30 seconds every single time.

Ok, how does a 5-10 man group counter this? Forget the zerg argument.

Stacking up won’t help when you have NPC’s and other targets in the cap area.

Zilm.8459:

SmokeyNYY.7841:

I also play a thief and zergs that actually know what they are doing will kill you within 30 seconds every single time.

Ok, how does a 5-10 man group counter this? Forget the zerg argument.

Stacking up won’t help when you have NPC’s and other targets in the cap area.

Well considering the NPC’s would be on his team and he wouldn’t be able to hit them to stealth it wouldn’t be much harder. A 5-10 man team just stack up on each other and AoE. The thief has to get near someone to continuously stealth. Once the thief comes near and hits the person to stealth he gets AoE’d down. Less people would actually make it harder for the thief to do this.

SmokeyNYY.7841:

The thief has to get near someone to continuously stealth.

Been a bit since I played my thief, but.. no they dont. Leap finisher + smoke field. Add in things like strategically used shadow refuge, and c&d on stragglers near perimeter (including npc mobs), and it is really quite easy to remain stealthed using a variety of methods.

They can all be countered, but as someone who stopped playing thief because it felt cheap (so take it for what its worth), I dont think this extent of permastealth was intended. Even with zero culling issues, it remains a problem. Albeit, a slightly smaller one.

Zilm.8459:

SmokeyNYY.7841:

I also play a thief and zergs that actually know what they are doing will kill you within 30 seconds every single time.

Ok, how does a 5-10 man group counter this? Forget the zerg argument.

Stacking up won’t help when you have NPC’s and other targets in the cap area.

learn to count
learn to watch for swirls
learn to use CC
learn to tab target
learn to pay attention to combat and HUD text
learn to watch what the pets are doing

There is no question that you shouldn’t be able to stop a cap while stealthed. There is no question that rendering problems give a lot of people far more survivability then they should have regardless if that is stealth from thieves, mesmers or use of portal.

However there is also no question that a lot, maybe a vast majority, of people spend zero effort at trying to find solutions, learning other classes, heck most do not even learn their own class. The game coddles this kind of play to much, entire groups of people carried by the downed system.

Thieves are broken and the only people who disagree are other thieves. When 1-2 thieves or a group of them can hold off entire groups/zergs simply by dancing around the edge of the ring long enough for reinforcement it is broken. Plain and simple.

An easy way to fix this would be to make the capture rings much smaller and making it that stealth doesn’t stop capture. I really don’t think anything else is required although thief mobility is insanely strong in WvW it isn’t much of an issue.

CharliePrince.2071:

bottom line: where the devs at? you’d think they’d fix on gamebreaking issues but i guess arenanet doesn’t have the manpower to do it

such is the price of having no subscription i suppose, they simply cannot adress the issues plaguing guild wars 2

Bottom line is I’m tired of listening you “kids” who late any patience kitten and moan some more.

Culling issue is being fixed in the patch, really that is the main thing wrong with thief.

Tuluum.9638:

SmokeyNYY.7841:

The thief has to get near someone to continuously stealth.

Been a bit since I played my thief, but.. no they dont. Leap finisher + smoke field. Add in things like strategically used shadow refuge, and c&d on stragglers near perimeter (including npc mobs), and it is really quite easy to remain stealthed using a variety of methods.

They can all be countered, but as someone who stopped playing thief because it felt cheap (so take it for what its worth), I dont think this extent of permastealth was intended. Even with zero culling issues, it remains a problem. Albeit, a slightly smaller one.

Without culling it becomes more then “slightly smaller” I already track thieves for days on my necro with marks.

CharliePrince.2071:

it’s obvious you have no idea what you’re talking about to suggest nobody was aoeing or trying to bring the thief out of stealth

and it’s obvious you’re just looking for an argument. i asked someone else entirely what class they play, and you chimed in with a tidal wave of hostility. social skills, give ’em a try.

Bottom Line: WAAAHHHH!!!

yeah, pretty much…..

SmokeyNYY.7841:

I also play a thief and zergs that actually know what they are doing will kill you within 30 seconds every single time.

Really? Needing a small zerg just to kill ONE thief trolling a cap point doesn’t sound ridiculous to you?

rootnode.9546:

SmokeyNYY.7841:

I also play a thief and zergs that actually know what they are doing will kill you within 30 seconds every single time.

Really? Needing a small zerg just to kill ONE thief trolling a cap point doesn’t sound ridiculous to you?

Evidently not. As they keep saying, “learn to play and AoE”, it’s not an issue at all. We are all just bad players who don’t know how count or to tab a target with culling issues.

As a memsmer I agree the portal is an issue due to the culling problem. Line of sight is an issue with iBezerker. Oh wait, no they aren’t, learn to play and quit complaining.

Oh well, time to level my thief and join in on exploiting the culling and capping issue.

SmokeyNYY.7841:

I also play a thief and zergs that actually know what they are doing will kill you within 30 seconds every single time.

30 seconds for a full zerg to kill a lone thief huh? Balanced.

Get over it man, this isn’t the first game that has had this sort of garbage capture prevention from perma stealth. It’s broken and everyone but the few thieves who like abusing a clearly broken mechanic know it. It always gets fixed.

I don’t get why this game doesn’t have legitimate counters to stealth, more skill based, in the sense that you can actually reveal the thief in stealth, beyond blindly firing around with AoE and hoping you hit them.

For example previous games had potions, flares, skills that increased your detection radius when they were near you. It is a poorly conceived and poorly implemented mechanic, that wasn’t even going to be in initially, but like just about every other game that caved for the sake of box sales, it comes at the cost of balance and good PvP gameplay.

CharliePrince.2071:

Phantom.8130:

CharliePrince.2071:

it doesn’t matter whatsoever

yes, actually, it does.

when 1 thief can stop 50+ people from capping an objective for 10minutes+

50+ people, and not one thought to use AoE, or lay down a bunch of traps? because, yes, that does stop the technique used to prevent caps.

it’s obvious you have no idea what you’re talking about to suggest nobody was aoeing or trying to bring the thief out of stealth

Bottom Line: i understand your desire to protect your class but it does not change the fact that Thieves right now break the game.

no other way to say it, it’s a legal hack. that’s how ridiculous thieves stealth is right now specially with the permastealthing going on

it’s simply gamebreaking

although fear not, the arenanet devs have all but ignored and turned a blind eye on wuvwuv

you know it, i know it, they will do nothing

so rest easy at night

this is the price we pay for not having a subscription

this is the best service arenanet weill ever give us

because we do not pay them a subscription fee, they simply do not have the employees, desire, people etc to actually fix their game

No I’m sorry, I’m absolutely calling shenanigans on this one. You’re telling me out of 50 people in a capping circle, not one single person could hit the thief? Not one AoE hit? Not one person could tab target at any point? That’s absolutely laughable.

That said, I play a thief, and the only thing I see is an issue, is the cap holding, I’ve done it myself and it’s pretty silly how easy it actually is when people don’t even bother trying to attack or look for you, but not so easy when they do. I would say a sensible fix would be to perhaps make it that one single person cannot hold a position from a group.

Pretty sure this has been discussed to death already.. we all know that it’s a problem. I’d like to give an example of an experience that I’ve had on more than one occasion while trying to capture an enemy Garrison.

Our zerg has broken through the water gate.. we have 30-40 people in the capture circle, the keep lord is dead, and all visible enemies have been pushed out of the circle. But wait? The capture bar isn’t moving?

The organized part of this group recognizes what’s going on and begins stacking and throwing AoE around, to no avail. PuG players will never stack properly, so the thief is able to maintain stealth without issue. This goes on for 3 or 4 minutes.. while enemy reinforcements are growing in number and we’ve become completely surrounded. At this point everyone has to focus their attention away from the thief, and our fate is sealed. The garrison is only 1 minute walk from the citadel, so a player holding this capture circle for even a short amount of time has a huge effect on the outcome of the battle.

Inevitably we’re pushed from the garrison, knowing that it was a single enemy which caused our downfall.. and the loss of many siege golems.

Obviously the thiefs who manage to survive while holding a capture point against a zerg this size are pretty skilled, and they CAN be countered, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is a huge problem. The “learn2play” comments are completely unnecessary, as are the comments which condemn a developer that obviously recognizes the issue and is taking steps to fix it (albeit not fast enough). Culling issues aside, stealth-capping is a broken mechanic in WvW. And for now we just have to deal with it.

rootnode.9546:

SmokeyNYY.7841:

I also play a thief and zergs that actually know what they are doing will kill you within 30 seconds every single time.

Really? Needing a small zerg just to kill ONE thief trolling a cap point doesn’t sound ridiculous to you?

Exactly.

Another aspect to this is that one player being able to delay a group from capping a supply depot for 30 seconds can be critical in the points race that is WvWvW. Compound that if there is an uncoordinate PUG that allows the thief to hold the depot for longer, or possibly indefinitely, and the problem is real.

I can see how this would be immensely amusing to the thief though!

Let ArenaNet fix the culling issues for WvW first and we’ll see how much of a difference that makes. Then maybe we should address the class itself. Or just impliment a simple fix such as disallowing stealthed players from affecting the status of a capture ring.

Need to do something about the ridiculous spin round and round immune whilst killing half a dozen people ability then poof back into stealth.

The thief is without question silly overpowered and we’ve been waiting too long for proper fixes.

Signal.9763:

Or just impliment a simple fix such as disallowing stealthed players from affecting the status of a capture ring.

I don’t understand why this isn’t in place considering that’s how it works in PvP.

Yes we are getting a buff and our magical never ending perma stealth is on 24/7

You thought back stab was bad well on friday look out. We will be buffed and kicking butt all over the place and no matter how many QQ threads pop up we will still kick butt.

Would you prefer we all have the same class and abilities so you can call for a nerf on that 1 class as well? I guess people are just that bad?
same thread over and over

tagnut.8621:

Need to do something about the ridiculous spin round and round immune whilst killing half a dozen people ability then poof back into stealth.

The thief is without question silly overpowered and we’ve been waiting too long for proper fixes.

Stop auto shooting and cc lock that thief then start melee hitting them. If they’re not dead in a few seconds they’re not going to stick around. But then it’s probably that same terminator thief holding off fifty people from taking a supply camp.

love the thieves that say the class isn’t broken, it’s just they are more skilled than other players to 1vs50. You just never hear “ranger just 1vs50 us at golanta, he kited us good”

Seren.6850:

love the thieves that say the class isn’t broken, it’s just they are more skilled than other players to 1vs50. You just never hear “ranger just 1vs50 us at golanta, he kited us good”

I love how people say they love things they really don’t love. Anyway, I agree that there are ridiculous aspects of the thief class, at least in conjunction with some game world design. Being a thief who never uses back stab and almost never goes into stealth unless to daze or revive a downed teammate, it gets old seeing so many broad post titles like this. The only thing that needs to be fixed on my thief is flanking strike pathing and speed. Still, I counter those cookie cutter thieves on my guardian the same way I do on my thief, never seems like a big deal really, they’re no mesmers.

Mesmers are about the only class a thief complains about.

Seren.6850:

Mesmers are about the only class a thief complains about.

SmokeyNYY.7841:

I also play a thief and zergs that actually know what they are doing will kill you within 30 seconds every single time.

Well, those thiefs should just run with a zerg to kill the one Mesmer easily.

I’m currently running P/D stealth spec but I’m ready in case they drastically change stealth to make it more or less useless:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckzzzz9MolbLMolvLMa9Mxxccsbckq8khf7khG7khf7khG7070z7kuB70z7kIN70z7kG270z

Evade tanking extraordinaire! I tested this in the mists last night and it works great. So if stealth somehow gets nerfed, we will have “thief can evade too much” QQ

I play a thief / guardian (split my time between them). The issue isn’t Thieves, but rather the stealth mechanic as it is. The primary issue with stealth is that someone in stealth should not be able to either cap or prevent the cap of a resource. This would fix the majority of issues.

To mirror what someone else said above, thieves in small skirmishes are balanced as they stand because in those cases, culling is not a factor. Thieves only feel OP when culling comes into effect in major zerg battles where culling does affect game play. This is a technical issue with the game engine, not a component of the thief class.

people will forever qq about thief because the type of player that rolls thief is and always will be better at ganking then the average gamer

Stealth mechanic and culling are the real issue. Coupled with 5 k bursts, you die before you can hit a thief.

To the people saying just stacking up will get the thief to come close enough to aoe, be aware there are various chickens/rats/cats/etc at pretty much every single supply camp in this game. Thieves can infinitely keep a control point locked up if they so desire. This should not be.

Capping/preventing capture while stealthed is the only issue with thief, and it should definitely be fixed.

A lot of the posts are telling people to Learn2Play, which I guess is pretty typical behavior on the internet. But, despite the harsh way people go about saying it, in this case, it really is the most practical advice.

I mostly play WvW. My 2 80’s are a warrior and a necro. I have a low 30’s mesmer and a lowbie engineer. I wasn’t very interested in playing a thief because my main character on Warcraft was a Rogue, and I played that for like 7 years. But one thing in WvW was bugging me: thieves preventing bases from capping. First time I saw it was a few weeks ago, there were about 15 of us at Gods, trying to re-cap the base, but we were unable to cuz of a thief. We finally managed to kill him, but that dude wasted like 10 minutes of our time, and we had other points under attack that needed defending.

So I learned2play. I rolled a thief and leveled it high enough to where I could do the same thing. Now, I know what a thief has to do to maintain his stealth. I know what to look for.

Helpful hint – Keep an eye on ranger pets. A lot of the time, a thief will hit a ranger’s pet to re-stealth. Look for a little black puff of smoke, that means the thief has just stealthed at that location. Even when your group is stacked up, sometimes a pet will be just far enough off to the side that it can be hit without entering into the aoe spam.

Arbacus.8296:

people will forever qq about thief because the type of player that rolls thief is and always will be better at ganking then the average gamer

I kinda agree with this. Anyone that rolls a thief as their first choice and not because its fotm will have a certain play style. They want high burst dps and is typically a min maxer. These gamers are alphas thats not to say other ppl with other classes are not, it just means that there will always be QQers because a good thief will always find a way to destroy you in such a way that is gonna make you come on to these forums and cry cry for a nerf.

If u get one rounded by a thief pick yourself up dust yourself off and study what happened and why. Let me give you some insight, im a thief i dont have much health. Im not the only thief in this game obviously. If another thief gets the jump on me im dead. Guess what? That rarely happens. I know how to counter my own tactics. Stay on the move, anticipate an attack, know whats going on around you, look at ppls buffs so you know what your fighting. Trust me when i say a quick and proper decision on your part will negate our burst. Its a game of chess each piece has its own abilities and counters.

L2p

Rhyis.7058:

To the people saying just stacking up will get the thief to come close enough to aoe, be aware there are various chickens/rats/cats/etc at pretty much every single supply camp in this game. Thieves can infinitely keep a control point locked up if they so desire. This should not be.

Capping/preventing capture while stealthed is the only issue with thief, and it should definitely be fixed.

I have heard this argument and i have even seen videos with thiefs who have done this. No disrespect intended here but any decent group that has allowed this to happen for more than a couple of seconds needs to reevaluate what happened. There is no way NO WAY!!! That a thief should be able to stay in stealth for an extended period of time denying a group + from capping a point.

On the flip side if this happened and its because of some dumb culling issue that anet has yet to resolve…. Guys that is not our fault. Ill QQ right beside you and we can sing kumbayah together untill anet fixes this problem.

Your right Cifu. I’ve dusted mydelf a dozen times now. And I studied what happened. A stealth thief jumped out of stealth, hit me really hard, stealthed, hit me again while stealthed and put me down, then finished me while stealthed.

He then held off 10-15 people for 3-4 minuted from capping a supply point then ran off when he was finally flushed out.

The stealth build that is taking advantage of the game engine rendering issues has nothing to with it…at all. The alpha gamers have taught the rest of us we need to “L2P”.

Thanks for the heads up man.

no comment on thief balance per se, other than to say class mechanic issue or game mechanic issues shouldn’t be viewed differently imo. Class mechanics should account for game engine performance and limitations in all game play scenarios that exist.

tldr: if culling is crappy, design stealth mechanics knowing that.

L2p is nonsense in this case. We cannot target the enemy before we are dead, and our cc’s and heals are insufficient. Sorry. That’s a mechanical issue and a bug.