Guild Wars 2

Hi, I’m a thief. Since pre-day launch day 1, I have played and enjoyed thief. Many others have as well. Problem is, a lot of people claim thief to be “op” which is I have found to be interesting for numerous reasons. But since thief has already received more nerfs than any other profession, I think it is time that people stop requesting nerfs and start asking questions. So, what are those questions? Well some may of not been asked directly but I’ll answer the indirect questions.

Q. Can thieves maintain perma stealth?
A. No, our highest stealth skill lasts 15 seconds. However 4 of those seconds require us to be inside this field (shadow Refuge) leaving us suceptible to skills like Stomp or shield of absorbtion or even Magnetic inversion. Anything that doesn’t require a target that knocksback or pulls works marvelously against this skill. Also chill, cripple, or just swinging randomly helps. Most thieves pop this skill as a defence to revive an ally or to stack up some stealth duration and plan an attack or avoid a group/area. Stealth durations can stack but that requires thoughtful planning such as leaping through a smoke field repeatedly or using various utlity skills. Either way, it isn’t very harmful to any enemy if a thief stacks stealth since it won’t damage any enemies. If they attack they break stealth and cannot re-enter for 4 seconds.

Q. If I can’t see a target, how the kitten am I supposed to kill it?
A. Remember, Invisible =/= invincible. Swinging a melee weapon till the chain starts up is one way, another way is to find something that requires a player to “trip” it such as a trap, or a well. Other ways are skils that channel onto the enemy such as a mesmer Gs basic attack (not very long but still works) or ranger [Rapid Fire]. There are various situations that can happen where you need to adjust such as get ready to dodge or stun break when you see a thief go stealth but all in all, they are planning to burst you. Your best bet is to keep a distance or track them. You will not likely be able to see a thief invisible directly but through traps/wells/channel skills you can get the general direction they are going. Also, most thieves that are new have a tendency to walk straight after going stealth. “WRONG”. If they do, just keep chasing them and/or avoiding them until they appear. If they want to waste all their Cd just to maintain stealth then that’s their loss which also means their defenceless. If you have a question on a specific build/profession against a stealthed thief I’d be more than glad to assist or other thief forum users may. Not my call.

Q. How do I counter a HS (Heart seeker) spamming thief’s burst?
A. Immobilize. Fear makes them use no initiative, cripple still gets them some distance as well as chill so it may work depending on their distance. Best solution I’ve found is immobilize after they hit you atleast once. Then immobilize, and they will continue spamming HS however if you back off just a bit they will be out of range and foolishly waste all their initiative and retreat or leave a door open for you to strike back. Most HS spam thieves arn’t that skilled and simple spam hs until they think they killed something. If there are 3 or more HS spamming thieves against you well there is no such counter except maybe dodge and run like a moa.

Q. My zerker profession can’t seem to kill this thief guy in pvp. What am I supposed to do?
A. Not build Zerker. Thieves a,re the best at burst dmg (power).Even without quickness, hs along with BS and mug can do significant damage. Even if you die, remember, spvp isn’t about kills it’s about objectives held. If you die on the platform atleast you buy a few seconds for you to communicate to your team or for them to react. Although not very unique, build defensivley in spvp unless your confident your build can counter a well played aggressive thief.

Anymore questions/answers for thieves are welcomed. Please, stay a moment and ask away. It is better people learn how to counter thief than to call them out as unfair and develop yet another nerf when not necessary.

NinjaEd.3946:

Q. My zerker profession can’t seem to kill this thief guy in pvp. What am I supposed to do?A. Not build Zerker.

…
which is why they cry for nerfs.

A: use an AOE weapon/skill. Many silly people build glass thieves (not me), and they cant hide from AOE’s. Yeah they are doing high damage on you, those builds, but have no defense, so you clunk them with your hammer or something, they run away. GS or something? forget it, you’ll get 0 on them. Really, better answer would be to just not solo or lag behind zergs, safety in numbers. Wolves of the battlefield.

Q: what do some thieves do that makes them melt on their own?

Especially in WvW, I’ll see a thief run towards me, stealth, so I’ll pop invisibility or death shroud or invulnerability depending on my class. Three seconds later the thief pops out of stealth, spins at me, goes invisible again, and them drops dead.

But thiefs can maintain perma stealth…

Q: In the latest ‘state of the game’ livestream, I heard about a Thief trait called ‘Mug’ dealing a lot of damage and a possible related Nerf, how does this Trait work for a Thief and how will it affect Thieves gameplay if it is Nerfed?

Q: What do you feel is an effective counter towards Shortbow Theives?
Seems to be quite a slippery weapon set for Thieves!

MarkusParkus.8467:

Q: What do you feel is an effective counter towards Shortbow Theives?
Seems to be quite a slippery weapon set for Thieves!

That’s for sure. I have six and plan to add more, my fallback weapon after D/D’s. With good power, accuracy and CD they can be pretty effective, but really only against groups standing/moving close together. When it comes 1v1 or 1v2 I don’t find it a viable weapon, maybe apart from my purity bow.

You will have more problems with a ranger or even a rifle warrior if your grou kitten paced out some (whats up with the filter?) if… your… group… is… spaced… out… some. I use a bow quite often in wvw, but mostly I am looking for clumps of targets, like on the edges of zergs. Other than that, fighting zergs and removing conditions on the fly, it effective against finding the real mesmer.

A: Don’t clump up in big groups.

kittenzlenit.7648:

But thiefs can maintain perma stealth…

(lol filter changed your name to kitten…)
I hear some say they do since the patch. I haven’t tested it myself as I have no need for perma-stealth and haven’t been able to perma-stealth on my build. I focus on quick accurate damage bursts with lingering CD, initiative gain from stealthing often, and modest evasion (no extra stealth run speed seems needed). But there may be a build that can do it, I wouldn’t be surprised, although may not benefit extra damage or be too fragile.

MarkusParkus.8467:

Q: In the latest ‘state of the game’ livestream, I heard about a Thief trait called ‘Mug’ dealing a lot of damage and a possible related Nerf, how does this Trait work for a Thief and how will it affect Thieves gameplay if it is Nerfed?

Q: What do you feel is an effective counter towards Shortbow Theives?
Seems to be quite a slippery weapon set for Thieves!

A. Mug is a Major trait in the first tree for thieves. It deals damage to the enemy when you steal and therefore removing stealth. Steal is a shadowstep and requires no cast time therefore some have been able to swing in for a Backstab with mug in perfect unison and dealing massive damage. The nerf to mug will affect many people playing thief, since so many use the generic insta-gib build. Best thing would be to wait for the patch that affects it and see what happens. In the end, the won’t nerf it harshly since the motto for profession balance is small steps according to ArenaNet, which imo is very good if they were to occur more than 1 time a month.

A. There are atleast 2 builds for thief I’ve seen with sb in terms of dps. Either stacking poison for cond dmg (cluster bomb is slow, and the bleed doesn’t last long) which hurts anyone with a passive regen deeply or if they don’t remove it b4 healing. The other is teleport onto the enemy and spam cluster bomb and detonate ontop the enemy where all 3 bombs deal great damage, more than not detonating if all 3 hit. In terms of mobility, well remember Infiltrator’s Arrow (#5 on thief sb, shadowstep where your arrow goes up to 900 units away) costs 6 initiative (the blind is irrelevant to this answer). So sure they can get some distance but infiltrator’s arrow doesn’t remove immobilize so as long as they are ONLY taking large steps and you continue running, keep a cripple or chill along with immobilize for mobility purposes to keep up with their escape. That or disable them through daze, stun, kb (in the right direction that is), kd, and launch (also in the right direction. Thieves usually run sb just for the mobility but it can prove useful in other fields. Note, choking gas on sb does not break stealth. So they can throw those down all around while in stealth and if they got SoM they can get a large heal from it. Avoid those fields since CG is quite expensive initiative and make em waste their effort

kittenzlenit.7648:

But thiefs can maintain perma stealth…

Well there is one build that can “perma stealth” but when you see it written down you will care less about its effectiveness.

Traits: Infusion of shadows; Gain 2 initiative when using a skill that stealths you.
Patience; Regain initiative faster while in stealth.
Quick Recovery; Gain 2 initiative every 10 seconds.
Weapons: Dagger/pistol
Skills: First black powder, then aim and leap through the field as many times.
Utility Skills: Infiltrator’s signet; Gain 1 initiative every 10 seconds.
Smoke Screen; Creats a smoke field for 7 seconds.

All this build does is give you “perma stealth” but you never break it, never hit anything, you just sit there being a kitten. It does nothing harmful to anyone so sure, they can “perma Stealth” but is it effective in combat? No. Can it be abused on a boss? No. Can it give you over a minute of stealth? No. How about 30 secon… No.

Dear NinjaEd,

every time when I unload my pistol(s) upon an unsuspecting enemy, the loud noise gives away my location, what can I do?

Sincerely
Apprentice Thief

Rouven.7409:

Dear NinjaEd,

every time when I unload my pistol(s) upon an unsuspecting enemy, the loud noise gives away my location, what can I do?

Sincerely
Apprentice Thief

Wait for Anet to release a legendary pistol with a silencer attatched. Otherwise, nothing to help. (personally I’d love a silencer pistol skin ^^ Fits thieves nice and neat.)

However I think the bullet’s path would give your position away more than the sound but thats just a guess.

with the question about mug do keep in mind that while its attached to a skill that is instant cast you can often see it coming and still dodge/block it in some way and it is also a 45s cooldown move so you wont be seeing mug after mug after mug, it will be a 1 time thing for most fights.

If you manage to dodge/block that hit from a burst build thief you have most likely won.

Dasorine.1964:

with the question about mug do keep in mind that while its attached to a skill that is instant cast you can often see it coming and still dodge/block it in some way and it is also a 45s cooldown move so you wont be seeing mug after mug after mug, it will be a 1 time thing for most fights.

If you manage to dodge/block that hit from a burst build thief you have most likely won.

It isn’t that often, even traited you’re only looking at a min of 31.5 seconds steal. However the insta-gib build comes from the shadows. Not unless you can calculate the exact distance the thief is from you right before they stealth and again calculate how long it will take them to be within 900 units from you, there is no way to see it coming. They stealth, ready a BS hit from afar and steal(mug) right away putting out 2 very high hits immediatly. I think the better solution would be either put on a type of invulnerable when you see a thief running at you then stealthing such as an invulnerable skill, a channeled block skill, or a counter skill. Aside from those, you can only avoid them by creating distance or setting a trap in front and backing off to see how much closer they are.

If your profession can’t do any of those things without bending your build to far extremes, although not very fair imo but it works, build tanky. If you can get hit by a mug+BS and survive with more than 50% health, then set up your skills to be able to control the thief the second the pop out and attack. Your goal is to make them waste all the energy (not the endurance, I’m talking mind set that they get when they land this combo) on you such as haste or assassin’s signet. If they burn all their cd and fail to bring you low, you gain a huge advantage because any thief who tries this usually runs squishy as silly putty. But thieves are quick to attack, and quick to escape into the shadows and try again so you must act quickly and take advantage of w/e time you get. Immobilize works well, and stun or daze. Another method is to place confusion on the enemy when they start this burst. They attack very rapidly and each hit will hurt them and either get them very low or push them to retreat. Either way you win the fight.

But again, they can’t try this over and over since you gata go 30 into Trickery, which isn’t common at all from what I’ve seen, just to get a remotely low cd. But be prepared at any time for this burst. It kills most definitly, and if you can’t adapt to its power you will be shut down again and again.

Was reading through this forum and don’t really have anything to add, but the Order of Whispers pistol has a suppressor attached to it. :P

Kunshu.5281:

Was reading through this forum and don’t really have anything to add, but the Order of Whispers pistol has a suppressor attached to it. :P

Yes, but it doesn’t silence the shot unfortunatly. Would be neat if it did but still no true silencer for a thief to use (or engineer if they want).

Sorry for bump, want people who think thief is op to see thread however. Other thieves are welcome to put in tips/tricks as well, don’t leave any stone un-backstabbed.