Guild Wars 2

Now. I know what you’re thinking. “If this is really all that Stealth offers a Thief. How come they can kick my butt so kitten ed easily?” I know, it can be totally confusing, especially when you have never spent more than 2 seconds on a Thief in a PvP scenario before. Let’s go over that a bit.

There are effectively two kinds of Thieves you’ll encounter in WvW or SPvP. The “Glass cannon Thief”, which brandishes a shortbow, 2 daggers, and focuses entirely on setting you up for a wonderous backstabbing. And the “Runaway Thief”. This is a Thief that usually plays with 2 pistols and a shortbow, or 2 pistols and a dagger/pistol. It is designed to annoy you, do a bit of damage, and if things get dangerous – they high-tail it out and lick their wounds before coming back at you like an unsatisfied mosquito.

These two types are not to be confused with one another, but very often – they are. There is a HUGE fundamental difference between the two though; one is VERY easy to kill, and does a LOT of burst damage, the other is VERY hard to kill, and does PRETTY MUCH NO burst damage. Damage, and survivability – pick one.

A GC Thief, as I stated – is designed to do a lot of damage up front. This means berserker gear, berserker traits, and berserker utilities. Absolutely no actual defense. Also – unsurprisingly, very few stealth utilities. These are not the perma-stealth thieves you find yourself fighting, those are the Runaways.

How do I kill a GC Thief? Quite simple actually. A GC Thiefs goal is to land a backstab on you. Backstab, in order to be used effectively – requires them to be behind you, AND at close range! If you are playing anyone other than a D/D Thief, you have instant access to spammable close-range AoE. Simply auto attack around in circles until the Thief emerges in the distance. If they can’t get to your backside, they’ll opt to stay in stealth OR deliver a wimpy backstab. If they went with the latter option, you have a good couple of seconds to chomp off their measly 11k health pool while they try to find your sweet spot. Here’s a handy list of easy-access anti-thief tools you may not be aware of;

Warrior:

• Hammer auto-attack
• Greatsword auto-attack
• Axe auto-attack
• Sword auto-attack
• Mace auto-attack

Guardian:

• Hammer auto-attack
• Greatsword auto-attack
• Staff auto-attack
• Mace auto-attack
• Sword auto-attack

Thief:

• Sword auto-attack

Engineer:

• Grenades #1
• Flamethrower auto-attack
• Bombs #1
• Tool Kit auto-attack

Ranger:

• Greatsword auto-attack
• Sword auto-attack

Elementalist:

• Fire/Water/Air Dagger auto-attacks
• Fire/Water Staff auto-attacks

Mesmer:

• Sword auto-attacks

Necromancer:

• Staff auto-attack
• Axe auto-attack
• Dagger auto-attack

WOW! Look at all this Anti-Stealth you have going on AND THESE ARE JUST THE AUTO-ATTACKS!

I speak from experience when I tell you, any idiot can run around and swing their sword while I’m trying to land a hit, and I’ll go into Stealth with 100% HP and come out with 50% or less. This is SPECIFICALLY because:

• Stealth does not reduce the damage I take
• Stealth does not make me invincible
• Stealth does not make the target a sitting duck
• Stealth does not disable the targets skill bar
• Stealth does not hurt the target on its own
• A Thief who Stealths and runs away, does almost no damage, every day!
• A Thief who Stealths and tries to land a hit, gets auto-dropped like a sack of… you know.

“But.. BUT.. What about all the ways a Thief can get into Stealth!? If I can’t see them frequently in a fight, how can I know they aren’t winning?” Here is how most Thieves get into stealth.

• We use Steal on you when traited (2-3s of Stealth after we Steal)
• We use Cloak & Dagger on you (
• We use Hide in Shadows (long cooldown, removes dot-conditions) – used primarily for backing out of combat
• Blinding Powder – used by ineffective Thieves when they’ve exhausted their Initiative too early in combat, and either need to try to backstab you again or run away.
• Shadow Refuge – “I REALLY need to run away bad, and need 15 seconds worth to confuse you so I can escape!”

Long story short, only 2, maybe 3 – of these common stealthing methods are used to keep biting your ankles, and thats Steal (long cooldown) and Cloak & Dagger. Everything about CnD is close range, making Thieves that rely on this method the most susceptible to the auto-attack-AoE method.

Now, here’s where I have to level with you. Thieves are really good at doing one specific thing; single target damage, out of nowhere, against unsuspecting prey. If you are a squishy character running around Eternal Battlegrounds, and a Thief comes up behind you and mauls you with a fully loaded backstab and a few heartseekers in short order, its because that is pretty much what it was designed to specifically do – and it does it well. I know, it sucks – that guy actually got to fulfill a role for once. You literally lost a game of rock-paper-scissors where you were by default paper, and the Glass-Cannon Thief is specifically designed as scissors. Do you really think that if you build, gear, and practice SPECIFICALLY to fill that role, that other players who do not understand your limitations should really just be able to complain about you and get you nerfed? Is that actually fair? I don’t think so. Targetting our only useful class mechanic is like saying;

• Warriors should have to choose between having large health/defense pools or high damage (currently they get both)
• Guardians lose their defensive abilities, or having all 3 of their virtues share a 90s cooldown?
• Engineers only get one toolbelt skill?
• Rangers have 25% more of their damage/utility shifted to the pet?
• Elementalists have 30s cooldown on attunements?
• Mesmers only get to have 2 clones out?
• Necromancers only get to use DS when they are at 25% health?

Steal is not our actual class mechanic. Stealth is. Neuter stealth, and what wrathful karma would you invite upon your own classes?

Thanks for reading if you made it this far!
-LoreChief

From all of us fellow thieves. (Too lazy to make a forum one)

This is the closest I’ve ever gotten to Reddit Gold! Thank you very much!

^These words be true

An amusing way to discourage a thief I’ve found as an engineer with flame thrower (I was just having fun) is if they keep stealthing is to just keep hitting 1 on flamethrower and spin your toon round in circles. With the range and dot it does and just how counter intuitive it may seem, there’s been many times in wvw where a thief could have easily killed me but they ran off instead….maybe I just seemed crazy.

Ok, let me try and see if I got this straight;

“If you have a melee weapon, spam dat #1” right?

If you have a ranged weapon and cant switch out of it (elementalist) then you are screwed, right? Further more, the thief is dumb enough to stay around melee range for 3-4 autoattacks instead of coming in quickly and doing their nice 14-16k Backstab…..sounds about right?

Im sorry but thats just a pathetic excuse to stealth currently, if the thief decides to run away there is no way a #1 will stop that. If a thief decides to come in quickly instead of hanging around you for 3 seconds then thats tactic is useless. How about you play other classes that dont need to relay in a cheap mechanic such as stealth, specialy in game where it has been done virtually uncounterable and that gives a lot more benefices besides the already strong invisibility?

Only bad thieves (most of them apparently) die to these cheap tactics. And I dont think that even if they were to somehow be effective, that these are the right way to approach this problem. How about we get some real counterplay here, like say, hard CC can know a thief out of stealth after a 1 second grace? Sounds like something that could lend to skillful plays

Fortus.6175:

Ok, let me try and see if I got this straight;

“If you have a melee weapon, spam dat #1” right?

If you have a ranged weapon and cant switch out of it (elementalist) then you are screwed, right? Further more, the thief is dumb enough to stay around melee range for 3-4 autoattacks instead of coming in quickly and doing their nice 14-16k Backstab…..sounds about right?

Im sorry but thats just a pathetic excuse to stealth currently, if the thief decides to run away there is no way a #1 will stop that. If a thief decides to come in quickly instead of hanging around you for 3 seconds then thats tactic is useless. How about you play other classes that dont need to relay in a cheap mechanic such as stealth, specialy in game where it has been done virtually uncounterable and that gives a lot more benefices besides the already strong invisibility?

Only bad thieves (most of them apparently) die to these cheap tactics. And I dont think that even if they were to somehow be effective, that these are the right way to approach this problem. How about we get some real counterplay here, like say, hard CC can know a thief out of stealth after a 1 second grace? Sounds like something that could lend to skillful plays

I run a full burst D/D spec and my backstabs generally only crit for 6-8k. You’re sorely mistaken if you think that we can hit you for over 10k if you have even remotely close to full exotic armor. My autoattacks generally hit for 1k, 1k then 2 2k hits. Again, you’re making it seem like we’re some sort of unstoppable killing machine when in fact we can be out-DPS’d by warrior and phantasm mesmer easily. We also have 3 seconds that we’re revealed after coming out of stealth.

I’d suggest doing your homework before having the audacity to vomit numbers in thief territory. Melee is surprisingly hard to “just get out of” when we’re only in stealth for a few seconds, so feel free to serenade me with these false accusations more. Rangers have plenty of AoE. That’s your best bet against a stealthed thief.

I’ll let the masses eat your post alive, and I advise you to do some actual research before making absurd claims for the class which is at the bottom of the totem pole in both PvE and PvP. How about we remove the bleed off of ranger shortbow and see how you feel, then make every one of your attacks a root? Sounds about fair for what you’re asking be done to the thief.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I run a full burst D/D spec and my backstabs generally only crit for 6-8k. You’re sorely mistaken if you think that we can hit you for over 10k if you have even remotely close to full exotic armor.

Im sorry, man, but then you are doing something very wrong, you might want to reconsider that build

(all of them were lvl 80s, no might stacks)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9d4Og8KbEM

Viking Jorun.5413:

I’ll let the masses eat your post alive

Oh boy, cant wait until you see the moment you realize how bad your build is.

Viking Jorun.5413:

, and I advise you to do some actual research before making absurd claims for the class which is at the bottom of the totem pole in both PvE and PvP..

You might want to give eles a serious try, perhaps you will see why there has been a grand total of zero eles in the past competitions, then come to us and say how bad S/D, S/P and D/D truly are….

if you don’t know how to be invincible with stealth, you are doing something wrong. lol

Fortus.6175:

Viking Jorun.5413:

stuff

stuff.

You are right that 10k is low for a backstab, however there are people running around with super unicorn + protection which can reduce the damage of backstab to those levels.

Secondly, its all about warriors this month. Of course nobody is going to use eles because warriors do not need eles to stay alive.

Sanduskel.1850:

if you don’t know how to be invincible with stealth, you are doing something wrong. lol

If you can’t spell invisible properly, you might have a problem. You have an even bigger problem if you can’t differentiate between the two words.

People try so hard to watch things they despise burn when they could put that energy towards being a better player. :I

Fortus.6175:

Ok, let me try and see if I got this straight;

“If you have a melee weapon, spam dat #1” right?

If you have a ranged weapon and cant switch out of it (elementalist) then you are screwed, right? Further more, the thief is dumb enough to stay around melee range for 3-4 autoattacks instead of coming in quickly and doing their nice 14-16k Backstab…..sounds about right?

Im sorry but thats just a pathetic excuse to stealth currently, if the thief decides to run away there is no way a #1 will stop that. If a thief decides to come in quickly instead of hanging around you for 3 seconds then thats tactic is useless. How about you play other classes that dont need to relay in a cheap mechanic such as stealth, specialy in game where it has been done virtually uncounterable and that gives a lot more benefices besides the already strong invisibility?

Only bad thieves (most of them apparently) die to these cheap tactics. And I dont think that even if they were to somehow be effective, that these are the right way to approach this problem. How about we get some real counterplay here, like say, hard CC can know a thief out of stealth after a 1 second grace? Sounds like something that could lend to skillful plays

You sir deserve a medal I’m tired of these babies crying about other classes auto attack being anti stealth. Let me freshen you a bit kiddies, ok warrior hmmm thief that’s dumb enough to not be able to get a backstab while you slowly turn a circle swinging shoulda kill themself that covers all melee thank you. Class isn’t over however yes those aoe classes ele necro engie and longbow warrior mind you hammer really needs you to be able to slap the hoe around for adren since your burst is about the only devastating thing a hammer warrior has with some distance/aoe. so you are narrowed down to only worrying about select weapons and select classes assuming they can take the damage or provide enough aoe damage you run. as for thieves having what 5 ways to stealth bs. blackpowder shot + heartseeker hmm blinding powder only used by bad thieves? nope smoke field noob if you didnt know that about your own class off yourself. I know my post is lacking in everything english(grammar punctuation etc.) but maybe it will get through your heads thief is overpowered simply put you can’t see it because you like the sweet life of being cradled. Good day.

TheJokester.4672:

You sir deserve a medal I’m tired of these babies crying about other classes auto attack being anti stealth. Let me freshen you a bit kiddies, ok warrior hmmm thief that’s dumb enough to not be able to get a backstab while you slowly turn a circle swinging shoulda kill themself that covers all melee thank you. Class isn’t over however yes those aoe classes ele necro engie and longbow warrior mind you hammer really needs you to be able to slap the hoe around for adren since your burst is about the only devastating thing a hammer warrior has with some distance/aoe. so you are narrowed down to only worrying about select weapons and select classes assuming they can take the damage or provide enough aoe damage you run. as for thieves having what 5 ways to stealth bs. blackpowder shot + heartseeker hmm blinding powder only used by bad thieves? nope smoke field noob if you didnt know that about your own class off yourself. I know my post is lacking in everything english(grammar punctuation etc.) but maybe it will get through your heads thief is overpowered simply put you can’t see it because you like the sweet life of being cradled. Good day.

First off – I have to discount a lot of what you’re saying just because you attempted to be completely inflammatory with your use of the words babies/kiddies. Some of the least intelligent people on the Internet seem to think those words lend to their argument instead of making them look like baser sophomores. ANYWAYS.

If you’re only in stealth long enough to pull the backstab, then you’ve completely validated my point that half the traits we get from stealth are worthless in the first place.

As far as the #‘s of those Thieves in the youtube video – I’ve never personally seen or heard of a Thief actually pulling those numbers. I’m sure we’d see more participation from Thieves if this was common or achievable – since that actually looks hella rewarding. These probably aren’t authentic, and if they are I would request validation from a Dev that it is legit and achievable. I personally run GC Thief with full zerker gear + exotic rubies (no scholar thanks). In my wildest dreams have I ever pulled off over 9k on even a defenseless upleveler.

Regardless of whether they are legit or not; it only goes to show that Stealth is not the balance problem on a Thief – its the numbers. Why destroy the class mechanic when it would clearly only take some coefficient modifications to the skills that are allegedly dishing out 17k damage instantaneously?

if you notice in a video he wasn’t pulling over 14k very often he only hit 15-17k a few times on what he did record most of his where 12- almost 14k with some 8 and 9k backstabs even running full zerk ascended weapons/trinkets war 8 stacks of vulnerability burst skills do bonus damage + dmg with axe/sword/mace in off hand axe skills + crit dmg and chance + dmg based on adren level I’ve seen max 10.4k eviscerate(f1 axe mainhand warrior) maybe I need to throw on food and find a way to snatch 16 or so stacks of might then I can hit that hard but the thief doesnt even need vul…….

Zacchary.6183:

Fortus.6175:

Viking Jorun.5413:

stuff

stuff.

You are right that 10k is low for a backstab, however there are people running around with super unicorn + protection which can reduce the damage of backstab to those levels.

Secondly, its all about warriors this month. Of course nobody is going to use eles because warriors do not need eles to stay alive.

Sanduskel.1850:

if you don’t know how to be invincible with stealth, you are doing something wrong. lol

If you can’t spell invisible properly, you might have a problem. You have an even bigger problem if you can’t differentiate between the two words.

People try so hard to watch things they despise burn when they could put that energy towards being a better player. :I

Oh I fully intended to use the word, invincible, not invisible! Look at the thread title! Thanks for your concern, though.

Excellent and informative post, OP. Shame about the whining that followed!

Fortus.6175:

(all of them were lvl 80s, no might stacks)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9d4Og8KbEM

20 might stacks, actually. I had a trait that grants might on signet use.

i’m a warrior and i thank you LoreChief. very much for this educational post!

halfway reading through.

will continue later.

thanks again!

the only thing i hate is the perma stealth this should get a cooldown. Also i dont like the cowardness of 70% of the thiefs i met. They try to kill you in the first 20 sec. doesnt work run away in stealth and starts laughing.

BTW Granade 1 is no autoattack!

And stealth reduces the damage you take the condition damage cause as i know you can lose conditon when going in stealth.

Stealth is in some cases arguably better than invulnerability…

If you see an invulnerable foe, you can at least plan your tactic on its cooldown…

You can t plan nor see CD and position of a stealthed target.

Stealth is infact absurdly OP Expecially if paired with BONUS in stealth.

The only counterargument people could provide is how predictable some thieves are that is just the sign of a BAD player and not a balanced skill.

You can t really counterplay a good thief…even anet said if a thief runs away you could count it as a victory…..

That is like saying “oh you can t win, but if you don t die you should be happy”.

How to balance a stealth skill:
Reduce heavily its mobility
Apply a long cooldown.

Issue: applying this to thieves would destroy half of the profession….so just nerfing stealth would be an awful idea….

For sure it would need a redesign. (maybe starting giving them 1200 range for example).

p.S: i hope now i won t hear that you can kill a thief entering shadow refuge with 10% HP and standing still…..that is what i mostly hear…

Necromancer auto attack with axe is almost impossible to hit thiefs in stealth with, however as necro just use marks on yourself and stand on top of them and let the thief come to you. Much better.

Also Stealth is extremely strong as you can not see your enemies at all which in turn means he got the upperhand 100% of the time he is in stealth, you can get lucky and “see” his path before going stealth and pre use skills but it’s mostly about luck, Stealth is not OP as such it’s just an extremely bad mechanic for any game really.

As someone who has played 6 classes on level 80 in WvW and all 8 in SPvP, thieves are extremely easy to counter. They rely on a high initial burst, deny that burst, and they have 2 choices:
- run away
- stealth and retry

A lot of classes can deny burst:
- Ele: invulnerability through mist form and potentially an arcane shield. Besides that auras (protection), some CC, dodges
- Mesmer: has stealth itself, can easily disrupt the thief and can use clones to confuse and kill it (cause it has low hp)
- Warrior: you all know he’s invincible :P
- Engineer has a ton of blocks: shield #5 & tool kit #4, not even mentioning the Elixir.
- Ranger: one of the classes I’m not adept in: should be able to keep a thief off with pet’s “Sick ’em” and a few other defensive mechanics on weapons/traps.
- Guardian can keep off most thieves due to their armour rate anyways. (a few days ago 3 thieves bursted me the same time, used a blind, healed when they could hit and finally popped a ward. Watch them bump into it cause thieves don’t have stability… xD).
- Last class is necro: huge health pool, huge damage evasion, sustained condi dmg.

I’d think everyone who dies from a thief has a l2p issue.

I personally don’t main a thief, I play my necromancer 99% of the time. And I agree with what you have said and you illustrate a very good case.

It’s kind of unfair that thieves are getting nerfed just because people have trouble dealing with stealth which is one of the thiefs only saving graces.

On a small tangent: Don’t you dare nerf my Death Shroud (Only being able to activate with less than 25% health). xD

I’ll be totally honest here…
I simply don’t like fighting something I can’t see.
Thieves in this game exemplify the ‘Hit you, vanish, hit you, vanish, har har, hit you vanish’ kind of game play that is just really annoying as kitten.
And if I wanted to deal with annoying brats, I’d just stay at work…
It’s all too easily a Troll class. And all trolls can, quite frankly, die horribly and make the world a slightly nicer place.
:p

Dealing with stealth is an oxymoron.

All you can do is “guess”……by definition

Haralin.1473:

the only thing i hate is the perma stealth this should get a cooldown. Also i dont like the cowardness of 70% of the thiefs i met. They try to kill you in the first 20 sec. doesnt work run away in stealth and starts laughing.

BTW Granade 1 is no autoattack!

And stealth reduces the damage you take the condition damage cause as i know you can lose conditon when going in stealth.

The stealth condition cleansing is the only realiable condi cleanse thieves get outside shadowstep. All the other condi cleansers either cleanse only one or a limited set of conditions (for example: withdraw cures chilled, crippled and immobilized while signet of agility cures all types but only one). That’s the reason so many thieves run with runes of lyssa and basilisk venom

LordByron.8369:

Dealing with stealth is an oxymoron.

All you can do is “guess”……by definition

I disagree. Being good at pvp means making predictions about what your opponent is about to do and being ready to counter. If you are a skilled player, you’ll take note of the weapons your thief opponent is using and when they pop stealth, you should be able to predict whether they’re going in for a backstab or just trying to clear a condi/heal up/escape. Reacting appropriately is not guessing for everyone, maybe it is for you, though.

I don’t know about PvP (it seems kind of balanced there) but in WvW stealth in the hands of a good thief is ridiculously OP.

Facepunch.5710:

LordByron.8369:

Dealing with stealth is an oxymoron.

All you can do is “guess”……by definition

I disagree. Being good at pvp means making predictions about what your opponent is about to do and being ready to counter. If you are a skilled player, you’ll take note of the weapons your thief opponent is using and when they pop stealth, you should be able to predict whether they’re going in for a backstab or just trying to clear a condi/heal up/escape. Reacting appropriately is not guessing for everyone, maybe it is for you, though.

Prediction being skill is another oxymoron itself….

You are just proving most thieves are bad players (note for readers: most doesn t means you…).

Predicting a human being require the other human being involved to be “predictable”.

And predictable means BAD.

The best way to be unpredictable is giving stealth to a player Example:

If you are fleeing from a target you throw stealth.
I then have to guess wich direction you are going….this guessing is highly unfavorable for the guesser……

If your opponent is stealthing, you could justthrow your invul skill to avoid his damage…..
But unless the thief is really bad he will just SEE you doing that and adapt.

You Always consider thieves to be scripted entity rather than human playing….
Stealht itself requires to totally outplay your opponent and even so you won t be able to kill your stealth user unless he is either extremely bad or you are extremely lucky.

Julie Yann.5379:

I don’t know about PvP (it seems kind of balanced there) but in WvW stealth in the hands of a good thief is ridiculously OP.

Yep. Oh, sure, it may be fine if you’re fighting in a small point – you know the thief will have to come there.
But in an open field there isn’t that luxury…so a thief can engage and disengage at will. And you can’t do much about that, especially if they want to escape.

LordByron.8369:

You Always consider thieves to be scripted entity rather than human playing….
Stealht itself requires to totally outplay your opponent and even so you won t be able to kill your stealth user unless he is either extremely bad or you are extremely lucky.

I guess we won’t see eye to eye here. You’re essentially saying that stealth is so ridiculously imbalanced that they only way you survive an encounter with a skilled thief is to get lucky. Not the case at all in my experience. Remember what the OP pointed out, going full GC to the point that you’ll take an opponent down in seconds after a single backstab means you’ll have very low HP, armor, and almost no condition removal options. That means that there is a very clear path to victory against a GC thief that works and does not require you to just get lucky.

Facepunch.5710:

LordByron.8369:

You Always consider thieves to be scripted entity rather than human playing….
Stealht itself requires to totally outplay your opponent and even so you won t be able to kill your stealth user unless he is either extremely bad or you are extremely lucky.

I guess we won’t see eye to eye here. You’re essentially saying that stealth is so ridiculously imbalanced that they only way you survive an encounter with a skilled thief is to get lucky.

I didn t write this….
I wrote that ANET said they don t expect you to KILL thief…..

Not the case at all in my experience. Remember what the OP pointed out, going full GC to the point that you’ll take an opponent down in seconds after a single backstab means you’ll have very low HP, armor, and almost no condition removal options. That means that there is a very clear path to victory against a GC thief that works and does not require you to just get lucky.

I think you should post this in thief forum and ask them …. good thief players (those you can t kill) will explain you are wrong.
Expecially for www some called this build a paraphrase of “beginner friendly”.

Haralin.1473:

[…]

And stealth reduces the damage you take the condition damage cause as i know you can lose conditon when going in stealth.

Because of a trait, not stealth.

ITT:Thieves are the only class with stealth

PU mesmers can keep stealth 60% uptime, their phantasm doesn’t disrupt stealth, they kitten out conds out of the kitten and perma protec/regen while in stealth, tons of blinks and teleports.

So where is the counter?Kill the clones? Oh he makes more just by dodging…

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stealth

Stealth is a common tool, i use to say thief problem is not stealth…

GW2 mechanics are.

LoreChief.8391:

Necromancer:

• Staff auto-attack
• Axe auto-attack
• Dagger auto-attack

WOW! Look at all this Anti-Stealth you have going on AND THESE ARE JUST THE AUTO-ATTACKS!

The Necro Axe auto attack doesn’t hit stealthed players. Even if it did, the damage from it is pathetic (another topic for another forum).

Regardless, i don’t have a problem with thieves – I main Necro/Warrior/Ranger.

Mesmers on the other hand… make my brain stop working and i get all nervous trying to pinpoint which one he is (even if it’s obvious because of appearance/movement). It’s not the stealth i hate, it’s the clones.. so many clones

Sirendor.1394:

As someone who has played 6 classes on level 80 in WvW and all 8 in SPvP, thieves are extremely easy to counter. They rely on a high initial burst, deny that burst, and they have 2 choices:
- run away
- stealth and retry

A lot of classes can deny burst:
- Ele: invulnerability through mist form and potentially an arcane shield. Besides that auras (protection), some CC, dodges
- Mesmer: has stealth itself, can easily disrupt the thief and can use clones to confuse and kill it (cause it has low hp)
- Warrior: you all know he’s invincible :P
- Engineer has a ton of blocks: shield #5 & tool kit #4, not even mentioning the Elixir.
- Ranger: one of the classes I’m not adept in: should be able to keep a thief off with pet’s “Sick ’em” and a few other defensive mechanics on weapons/traps.
- Guardian can keep off most thieves due to their armour rate anyways. (a few days ago 3 thieves bursted me the same time, used a blind, healed when they could hit and finally popped a ward. Watch them bump into it cause thieves don’t have stability… xD).
- Last class is necro: huge health pool, huge damage evasion, sustained condi dmg.

I’d think everyone who dies from a thief has a l2p issue.

How can you deny that if you can’t see the thief and so don’t know they are going to attack you?

There is a reason why in most games and even in GW2 (if you are not a thief) you always lose invisibility when in combat or when you get hit or when you want to attack.

Don’t forget being invisible means you can get away in a full circle (360 degrees) and every second that circle becomes bigger. Then also being able to move very fast only increases that.

One semi-usefull skills as a longbow ranger against a thief is ‘Rapid fire’ because it keeps shooting when a thief go’s into combat and so you can also see where he is going. Many thiefs complain about that but they forget that if they go invisible just before you hit the skill (what happens a lot) you lose that skill for the whole time it fires and you get it’s cool-down. The only other sort of useful skill then is Barrage but also that it only useful when you know where he is and it takes him about 1 sec to get out of the AOE even if he is in it. And that is if you don’t get downed (depending on your build) right away. But there is the problem. If you have a glass cannon build you have a bigger change at killing him (if you know where he is, so luck is part of it) but you also have a bigger change of getting downed to easy.

Also none of the attacks that require a target work on thief’s when they are invisible so in a fact they are invulnerably (invincible) for those attacks. I once made a thread about that but only got some negative reactions about it.

Not to mention that most classes can’t do anything against a thief when they are downed. The thief go’s invisible so is invulnerably / invincible for attacks that require a target and multiple professions only have downed attacks that require a target.

So stealth is not invincible but it is invincible against multiple skills. The skills that require a target, plus gives the huge advantage to get somewhere very fast without the other person having any idea where you are and going (so not being able to really counter it). Guessing where he is is pure luck with a area where the thief can go that increases every second.

Where can I find the build?

Fortus.6175:

Viking Jorun.5413:

I run a full burst D/D spec and my backstabs generally only crit for 6-8k. You’re sorely mistaken if you think that we can hit you for over 10k if you have even remotely close to full exotic armor.

Im sorry, man, but then you are doing something very wrong, you might want to reconsider that build

(all of them were lvl 80s, no might stacks)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9d4Og8KbEM

Viking Jorun.5413:

I’ll let the masses eat your post alive

Oh boy, cant wait until you see the moment you realize how bad your build is.

Viking Jorun.5413:

, and I advise you to do some actual research before making absurd claims for the class which is at the bottom of the totem pole in both PvE and PvP..

You might want to give eles a serious try, perhaps you will see why there has been a grand total of zero eles in the past competitions, then come to us and say how bad S/D, S/P and D/D truly are….

As a necro I laugh at thieves. They are so cute trying to kill me.

The best defense against a thief is to just stand there while sitting in your AOE. With a full stack of 5 marks I can kill a thief within 3 seconds of him trying to attack me.

Facepunch.5710:

LordByron.8369:

Dealing with stealth is an oxymoron.

All you can do is “guess”……by definition

I disagree. Being good at pvp means making predictions about what your opponent is about to do and being ready to counter. If you are a skilled player, you’ll take note of the weapons your thief opponent is using and when they pop stealth, you should be able to predict whether they’re going in for a backstab or just trying to clear a condi/heal up/escape. Reacting appropriately is not guessing for everyone, maybe it is for you, though.

So what if it’s an escape to then come back (seconds) later for another back-stab. Pretty much the standard tactic of a thief. How do you as a skilled player know where is escapes to? And then how are you gonna kill him and so preventing him coming back for another back-stab? Or how do you know at what exact moment he will be coming back? Using a attack to soon (what the thief might be waiting on) means it gets in cool-down so thats when the thief will attack most likely ‘escaping’ again before it’s out of cool-down.

The way i see it, stealth in GW2 gives an unfair advantage to thieves ( and mesmers to a certain extent) simply due to the fact that all other professions have a huge nametag hovering over their head permanently and can be spotted from miles around, even behind obstacles when ‘attempting’ to hide, whereas a stealthed toon is COMPLETELY invisible and also has that nametag removed.

Combine that with spike dmg and you got yourself a pretty unkillable toon, given that the player controlling it isn’t half bad.

Logically, it would mean that every single build of every other profession in either WvW or PvP should have something slotted to ‘counter’ stealth, which renders any attempt at an original, fully integrated build completely useless unless stealth is ALWAYS taken into consideration. I don’t see any other specific skill (mechanic) having that kind of importance in other professions. The rest of the defense mechanics are pretty general and/or do not have the same lethal consequences.

I’m lucky my build is designed so i can somewhat defend myself and sometimes kill the thief that backstabs me for 50%+ of my hp. But should i consider myself lucky every time i do get the kill? Or should i always think that the player i just downed must have been a bad one since he has such an advantage that there is no other way i would’ve gotten him? While stealthed, he can spot me simply due to the nametag, keep popping stealth, follow me and backstab, pop back into stealth, etc. and i’m done. Doesn’t seem really fair to me.

I’ve given some thought to this issue because sometimes, as one of the earlier posters stated, you got trolls /laugh at you after getting a backstab kill that there was absolutely nothing you could’ve done against. Like, nothing. And most of the time, this has nothing to do with the player’s skill, only a game mechanic that someone ‘exploits’ (not a real exploit, but you see what i mean) over another player. I don’t care if someone /laughs after having killed me. GG, really. But there’s always that uneasy feeling when it happens after a stealthed thief did it.

There are solutions to this, though.

One i thought of and discussed with some people would be having the same kind of shadowy invisibility that allies have when you Shadow Refuge them, maybe even a little more shadowy. Another would be for the thief to ‘blink’ in and out of stealth at given moments. It could be a combination of both. It could mean remove the nametags in WvW and PvP for everyone, or put em on for thieves permanently.

I’m simply trying to be constructive and give ideas to keep the thief’s initiative advantage due to stealth as well as giving a chance to other professions to play the game as they intended, not only the opposing thief’s way.

I also find it funny that do many thiefs always say that not being able to kill a thief has to do with the skills of those players lacking.

However I see thiefs come into zergs to get a hit on somebody, then I see multiple people trying to attack that thief but I see the thief in many occasions getting way. So that means all those people trying to kill the thief are lacking skills while all those thief’s are very skilled.

It’s not like I don’t see thief’s die but everybody knows these encounters happen a lot and thief’s can keep people busy very long. If it’s simply so that you only cant (just as easily as another profession) kill a thief because of lack of skills then thief’s should die much more in those fights because in a 1 vs 5 fight is simply more likely that one of those 5 people is more skilled then the thief.

Or should I make up of those comments thats skilled players will always go for a thief? Then it would make sense.

Nebilim.5127:

ITT:Thieves are the only class with stealth

PU mesmers can keep stealth 60% uptime, their phantasm doesn’t disrupt stealth, they kitten out conds out of the kitten and perma protec/regen while in stealth, tons of blinks and teleports.

So where is the counter?Kill the clones? Oh he makes more just by dodging…

Oow yeah I forgot about the mesmers. Just leveling one so don’t know the details (differences with thief’s) about invisibility yet.

Maybe somebody who is experienced with a mesmer and with a thief can explain the difference in stealth abilities.

I was mostly referring to the few skills some other profession might have to give invisibility or usable items like the fountain in the WvW JP and so on.

Good post, OP!

I would like to add that i’m pretty sure you can also see damage you do to stealthed units if you have the combat log open. Unfortunately, i’ve only tested it on stealthed mobs in PvE but i can’t imagine it would be different against a player in PvP.

So if you’re weird like me, and you generally have the combat log open, you can glance at it while your auto-attacking the air to see if you actually connect with a stealthed thief.

I’m also impressed Yski showed up to the thread. For a while i thought you were actually Fortus, because he’s been posting your videos everywhere. I thought his “nerf thief” threads were actually veiled attempts by you to get views on your video, haha.

That dude hates thieves but sure knows how to get you hits on your youtube channel.

OP is just trying to justify why his favourite class should be overpowered against others.

Stealth in GW2 is so far detached from other gameplay mechanics that it feels it is from completely different game. It breaks targetting, it can’t be broken by damage, you can stealth mid-combat etc. It’s like they went through dozen different MMOs and picked the strongest feature of stealth implementation from each of them and combined them together in GW2.

This post is great, except 4 out of 5 roaming stealth users are now PU mesmers, and not thieves.

I couldn’t care any less about balance right now (although it’s really hard to justify a thief being able to troll 24/7 2 or 3 players in WvW), but don’t defend stealth as it is currently implemented plz. It’s simply not fun.

Think of a PvP game where stealth grants you complete invisibility. Yeah, there’s a reason you aren’t finding any.

Devata.6589:

Sirendor.1394:

As someone who has played 6 classes on level 80 in WvW and all 8 in SPvP, thieves are extremely easy to counter. They rely on a high initial burst, deny that burst, and they have 2 choices:
- run away
- stealth and retry

A lot of classes can deny burst:
- Ele: invulnerability through mist form and potentially an arcane shield. Besides that auras (protection), some CC, dodges
- Mesmer: has stealth itself, can easily disrupt the thief and can use clones to confuse and kill it (cause it has low hp)
- Warrior: you all know he’s invincible :P
- Engineer has a ton of blocks: shield #5 & tool kit #4, not even mentioning the Elixir.
- Ranger: one of the classes I’m not adept in: should be able to keep a thief off with pet’s “Sick ’em” and a few other defensive mechanics on weapons/traps.
- Guardian can keep off most thieves due to their armour rate anyways. (a few days ago 3 thieves bursted me the same time, used a blind, healed when they could hit and finally popped a ward. Watch them bump into it cause thieves don’t have stability… xD).
- Last class is necro: huge health pool, huge damage evasion, sustained condi dmg.

I’d think everyone who dies from a thief has a l2p issue.

How can you deny that if you can’t see the thief and so don’t know they are going to attack you?

There is a reason why in most games and even in GW2 (if you are not a thief) you always lose invisibility when in combat or when you get hit or when you want to attack.

Don’t forget being invisible means you can get away in a full circle (360 degrees) and every second that circle becomes bigger. Then also being able to move very fast only increases that.

One semi-usefull skills as a longbow ranger against a thief is ‘Rapid fire’ because it keeps shooting when a thief go’s into combat and so you can also see where he is going. Many thiefs complain about that but they forget that if they go invisible just before you hit the skill (what happens a lot) you lose that skill for the whole time it fires and you get it’s cool-down. The only other sort of useful skill then is Barrage but also that it only useful when you know where he is and it takes him about 1 sec to get out of the AOE even if he is in it. And that is if you don’t get downed (depending on your build) right away. But there is the problem. If you have a glass cannon build you have a bigger change at killing him (if you know where he is, so luck is part of it) but you also have a bigger change of getting downed to easy.

Also none of the attacks that require a target work on thief’s when they are invisible so in a fact they are invulnerably (invincible) for those attacks. I once made a thread about that but only got some negative reactions about it.

Not to mention that most classes can’t do anything against a thief when they are downed. The thief go’s invisible so is invulnerably / invincible for attacks that require a target and multiple professions only have downed attacks that require a target.

So stealth is not invincible but it is invincible against multiple skills. The skills that require a target, plus gives the huge advantage to get somewhere very fast without the other person having any idea where you are and going (so not being able to really counter it). Guessing where he is is pure luck with a area where the thief can go that increases every second.

Lol. I haven’t been surprised by a thief for like a year now… of course they’re in stealth when they attack you, but you should be able to kick them out of your way once they have ‘unleashed that mighty backstab’.

While OP is generally correct, I think they are trying to sell thieves short. Using auto attacks to deter the thief – it just doesn’t work. You will either need to spin in circles (which means exposing your back to a stationary thief) or hope the thief doesnt know how to dodge roll/walk around you to backstab. Nor does damaging stealthed thief break the stealth, and even a GC can eat a swing of auto attack without flopping.

Thieves really arent limited to roles of harasser with little damage and pure glass cannon either. Thief can take guaranteed crit on stealth, stack p/v/crit dam and p/t/crit dam gear and have spike damage near equivalent to burst build and survivability of a harasser.

Generally the guide will be sufficient against a newbie thief who rolled the class because they got owned once too many times by thief in WvW, but against a good player, it won’t do much.

Regarding PU mesmers. Yes they are annoying as hell. But on the other hand, telling apart mesmer from their clones should be trivial. Clones do crap for damage and can be ignored completely (in fact should be, as most PU mesmers will trait into annoying conditions on clone death). To get maximum stealth uptime mesmer has to sacrafice 2 utility slots, an elite, and have a torch out. Which means that they have one selectable utility and one healing skill that they can play with. But yes, just as a good thief, good PU mesmers are really annoying.

Devata.6589:

So what if it’s an escape to then come back (seconds) later for another back-stab. Pretty much the standard tactic of a thief. How do you as a skilled player know where is escapes to? And then how are you gonna kill him and so preventing him coming back for another back-stab?

Full GC thieves often have few condition removal skills at their disposal. Cast a couple of junk conditions on the thief. He will clear them if he can. Once he does, immobilize/KD/stun/daze and burst him down. Done.