Guild Wars 2

Just a little story on behalf of my Mesmer, been killed 4 times by Thieves in WvW today.
One of them even did an 11k ‘Backstab’ to me! pair this with ‘Basilisk Venom’ and ‘Heartseeker’ and thats one very dead Mesmer.

My question to the Dev’s – How in holy kittens name can a class do that kind of damage and then go invisible?!
Its just ridiculous! I’m talking WvW here, not Spvp where I understand they aren’t that useful.
It actually took 5 guildies and myself to almost get a very good Thief downed the other night, the ‘Revealed’ debuff does nothing to good Thieves, we were on voice comms organizing Stuns and Knockdowns at appropriate times which he just used ‘Shadow step’ and various other skills to get out of and we still didn’t manage to actually finish the fight.

How is this Balanced? My D/D Elementaist can’t do anthing near 11k critical hits and then vanish 700 times during a fight, my Mesmer struggles to get 5k criticals and its stealth is pretty pathetic, I know Thief is meant to be a slippery class to catch but seriously Anet What the Kitten.

These threads make me want to pick up leveling my thief again.

HA! How is d/d ele balanced?

Riddle me that.

Theives are too easy to kill, even on my warrior who is slow as kitten. Thieves don’t “need” any more nerfs, people “need” to l2p or ask for advice (players helping players sub-forum or thief sub-forum).

@NinjaEd – I never said D/D ele was balanced. I’ll be the first to admit ele healing needs a substantial nerf.
Your slow as kitten warrior probably has a great deal more toughness then most caster classes, also I have 1.4k hours on my account, most of that spent in WvW.. I don’t need to L2P.

If your group of “coordinated” cc players can’t take out 1 thief, yeah you need to l2p (or ask advice , like I said) as well as your group. The only thief that can shadowstep like that is a sword/X thief which has such low damage they won’t do anything to you even in 1v1. (btw, hours played means absolutly nothing)

Also I was only ~60 on my warrior with masterwork gear when I was stomping thieves in wvw. Most thieves arn’t smart, they run straight paths when stealthed. If you’re dieing to a thief who bursts bs+mug+haste dodge, or use the invulnerability skill, or teleport away, or kb. Waste their burst, don’t have to be a “pro” to know how to shutdown bursts.

FYI: even in something like wvw, should always carry a stun break which removes things like BV. Especially if you’re a squishy profession. Mesmer has many ways to waste people’s efforts to kill them, you should be looking into them. Ele is just unkillable if you master it’s d/d or s/d and if you’re dieing to anyone you havn’t mastered it yet. I’ve watched a d/d ele jump into my group of ~8 and rtl out shortly after. Didn’t kill anyone, but they were untouchable.

The thing is, the Thief strives on circumstance. They’re powerful when it’s 1v1 or when their opponents are not organized.

The thing is, facing a Thief 1v1 is a scary experience. But that relates to people not being used to stealth. Nothing in the game prepares you for that. And honestly, I think that’s a big part of why people lose to Thieves so much.

I rolled a Thief myself and now that I am back on my Warrior, Thieves aren’t that scary. This has to do with two things. Firstly, I noticed that my Warrior has never died to a Steal>CnD>Backstab combo. Secondly, because by playing a Thief, I know how they work. Once you know how each weapon set works, you can guess how they will use Stealth based on the weaponset.

As an example, Basilisk Venom has 1 second stun with a 45 second cooldown, so it’s only really useful once per fight and only in a 1v1 situation. If I see a Thief pop Basilisk Venom as they’re approaching me, I know that they’re going to try to pull a Steal>CnD>Backstab on me. Also, Backstab for major damage requires that they hit you in the back. It is very difficult to do on an opponent that is constantly moving.

Invisible isnt invuln. You can use broad hitting skills to damage thing in invis. Just harder to target. If you have a guardian nearby have them pop justice and spam staff 1. There are many ways to counter

Players who hate thieves seem to think that every thief they see is the exact same thief and that they all have these super damage/survival powers.

You seem to be upset about two very different types of thief, namely the Glass Cannon thief and the Stealth Regeneration thief.

The glass cannon thief you described has the survivability of a lemming, they can deal with exactly one opponent at a time and are usually just griefers looking to make people rage quit WvW, If they encounter any resistance they ether run away or die, yes they are over powered but also squishy as heck and not even remotely unstoppable.

The Stealth Regen thief you went after with your guildies was about as dangerous in WvW as a bunny, they mostly run around looking for low HP players to finish off, In a one on one fight they will simply outlast you until you make a mistake, annoying yes but hardly over powered.

Nobody remember facing a Balance thief in WvW because balance thieves don’t annoy them, they just fight and die like any other profession.

Simple answer and I know I am going to get alot of hate from this:

L2P

Here’s a far less cynical and far more useful reply. Create a thief and level them up to 80. Read the build threads on the thief forums so you can figure out which was used against you. Use it until you are familiar with its mechanics and the timing of the cooldowns. Figure out its weakness or ask people on the thief forums what their general weaknesses are. You’d be quite surprised how many are willing to tell you and how much they are willing to tell simply because they want to fight more experienced opponents.

Once you’ve done all of that, go back to your mesmer and put all that knowledge to good use. If you do, the next time a thief decides to attack you, you can make sure he has a very bad day.

Thieves have an incredibly high crit rate due to their traits and gear they can get. Their back stab always 100% crits and with a good crit damage build you can easily do 10-15k crits,
TLDR:

Thieves are a HIT AND MISS class, you either KO the target quickly and run away like a pansy, or you go with dual pistols and use unload 100 times, then run away.

It took 5 of you organizing stuns and CC? Yeah, no. Way to lie out your kitten A Thief would die to a group of decent level80s.

Also, you took 11k because you’re too Glassy yourself, just like that thief, or you’re upleveled.

Michikyou.9617:

Thieves have an incredibly high crit rate due to their traits and gear they can get. Their back stab always 100% crits and with a good crit damage build you can easily do 10-15k crits,
TLDR:

Thieves are a HIT AND MISS class, you either KO the target quickly and run away like a pansy, or you go with dual pistols and use unload 100 times, then run away.

Please play my class before you say anything like that? Thanks? Thieves CAN have 100 Crit in stealth but that would mean they lost 20% damage when you are below 50% HP. The only way a single Backstab is doing that much damage is on a naked up leveled mesmer. With a certain set up the the backstab with Might stacks. Even 100% burst Thieves would have to do 3 abilities (Steal, Cloak and Dagger and then Backstab) to get to 15k-ish damage.

While a mesmer can hit one button.

Mesmers are condition damage based unless you use the sword or greatsword. Even THEN condition damage is still a high part of your base damage, large crits should never happen from a mesmer for the very reason you have confusion…which btw…you can kill any good thief by just condition crashing them and watching them die to all those skills (hint, if you use a skill to remove cfusion you take x2 confusion procs in damage…stack confusion and watch a thief kill themselves by going invisible works every time).

Imo thieves do not need a nerf of any kind, with the sole exception of the ridiculous ability to finish someone while in stealth.

Everflame.1305:

Imo thieves do not need a nerf of any kind, with the sole exception of the ridiculous ability to finish someone while in stealth.

We don’t get stability to stomp people. Like most classes, or a way to block the attack like Aegis. Stealth is our stability to stomp you, sorry you died.

Also, you can still hit us while we are stealth and stop us. The thing you should be complaining about is blinds. Blinds are the best for stomping.

Everflame.1305:

Imo thieves do not need a nerf of any kind, with the sole exception of the ridiculous ability to finish someone while in stealth.

This pretty much sums it up.

I’d be happy if when you went to finish someone all buffs were removed from you (stealth, stability, haste, shrink potion, etc).

My Mesmer isn’t uplevelled, naked or that glassy.. and was still hit for 11k with a backstab.
Nobody can say they can actually defend against an attack that you have no idea is coming.

Also I am levelling a thief (not for WvW use) to get to know the skill animations ect, I still don’t see how it’ll help against the original burst damage though.

MarkusParkus.8467:

My Mesmer isn’t uplevelled, naked or that glassy.. and was still hit for 11k with a backstab.
Nobody can say they can actually defend against an attack that you have no idea is coming.

Also I am levelling a thief (not for WvW use) to get to know the skill animations ect, I still don’t see how it’ll help against the original burst damage though.

I would ask for screenshots showing this exact scenario you’ve painted. Where you’re not glassy, and get hit by an invisible 11k backstab, but I already know they don’t exist.

I’ve never seen anyone make claims like this and have any sort of “proof” to work with. Nobody ever asks for advice or tries to show the scenario happening in video or pictures for people to pick apart and maybe figure out what happened, they just complain about it. I really don’t understand that type of post. The initial burst isn’t that bad, what are you even doing that thieves can sneak up on you that often, hit you that hard while you’re not glass, and kill you before you can retaliate in any meaningful way? Or was it seriously just one thief that totally wiped the floor with you and now all thieves are OP regardless?

MarkusParkus.8467:

My Mesmer isn’t uplevelled, naked or that glassy.. and was still hit for 11k with a backstab.
Nobody can say they can actually defend against an attack that you have no idea is coming.

Also I am levelling a thief (not for WvW use) to get to know the skill animations ect, I still don’t see how it’ll help against the original burst damage though.

I was playing spvp on my cond thief (doesn’t utilize stealth, I’m a unique butterfly ^^) and I saw a thief use BV. AS soon as he tried to steal+hit or HS me, I dodged wasting his BV. If they do BV me, I stun break. It isn’t that hard, I play thief a lot (along with warrior and on occasion ranger) and understand their mechanics, the animations speak for themselves. You should by now assuming you have “1000 hours logged” know what animations go with what effects. This is a clear cut case of l2p, nothing else. You should do some research on thieves or ask around in the player’s helping player’s sub-forum. I actually posted a thread in there awhile back (Ask a Thief) that can help answer questions you may be having. Otherwise, practice. Good thieves are hard to play, because of our lack of sustain and recovery, so don’t think we are unkillable in any way. Thats just a kitten lie.