Guild Wars 2

Daecollo.9578:

Good.
Now, what do thieves do for other allies?

Kill the people who are trying to kill their allies? :p

Enemies -= 1; //decrement the number of enemies involved in the fight by 1

Altho in teh case of the aoe burster the number 1 is variable.

Now, I want to reiterate that I don’t want a blanket nerf to thieves. Frankly, I’ve been on these boards so long and involved in these discussions so much that I’ve heard everything, from both sides… a gajillion times. Heck, I’ve even rolled a thief, played them in sPvP, studied thief builds etc… (especially after the 1st instagib). A blanket nerf is not the answer. An insta-gib nerf is. A stealth fix is. These 2 things would go a LONG way to fixing the thief. Once those are fixed, then we can really discuss balance again. Until then, thief is OP especially when configured to use the traits that it is supposed to (stealth and surprise) due to the ability to do massive damage without being seen.

What should a thief do for their allies? Finishing (picking off people in a fight)… actually in my mind a thief should be the +.5 to a fight that causes their side to win instead of lose (a la combat support). Scouting and intelligence. Combat with an ability to escape. Ability to enter and leave a battle at will. I don’t agree with their high damage… but… (shrug).

I also do not agree with being a master of 1v1. I think a thief in a situation of 1v1 should have to fight tooth and nail with several mini hit and run tactics. Etc…. Fight, re-enter stealth to get better position, strike again. Essentially gnat their way to killing someone. To me a thief is supposed to be agile (hard to hit) but when you do land a hit on a thief, it should be decimating. But if you just ignore them, they kill you too. The thief should NOT be WW2 submarines (stealth and then ur dead). I’m jez sayin.

Mesmers grant allies AOE Quickness/Healing/Enemy Debuffs.

Elementalists grant allies Protection/AOE Healing/More AOE/Healing/Buffs/Regeneration/Swiftness

Guardians grant allies Protection/AOE Healing/Regeneration/Aegis/Shielding

Warriors grant allies Regeneration AOE/Shout Healing/Shout Buffs/Stat Buffs/AOE Critical Chance/Vulnerability on Enemies/swiftness.

Engineers grant allies regeneration/turret cover/healing/condition removal/buffs/protection/swiftness.

Necromancers grant allies regeneration/pulls boons off them, and debuffs the enemies.

Rangers…. are rangers and are very special.

Thiefs do damage, run away, thats all they really do, AOE Venoms are kind of worthless due to them not stacking and only being applied to 5 targets max, Stealth Regeneration is pointless due to the stealth break on damage, retaliation can also break this.

Daecollo.9578:

Rangers…. are rangers and are very special.

hehe, no need to be mean

Daecollo.9578:

Let me get a screenshot for you sir.
http://imageshack.us/a/img442/4864/gw074b.jpg

10805 HP Base, without vitality.

Are you sure you play a thief?

We’re talking glass cannon thief, why you would be using anything beyond berserker is beyond me. Please, continue to distort information to fit your agenda.

Daecollo.9578:

Shukran.4851:

Daecollo: i don’t understand: lvl 80 in the MISTS, with PVP equip.
which PVP amulet do you use to have 10.8k hp? amulet means amulet+jewel.
the most burst damage amulet in mists is berserk berserf afaik. it gives you that 2.2k hp to go to 14095 hp. which is the BASE stat of every glass cannon thief .explain pls

Thieves in SPVP and Thieves outside SPVP are a bit different, I was explaining that outside SPVP Thieves only have a base of 10k HP, he said “His Thief” assuming he had a level 80 thief and not a level 1 he plays for SPVP has a base of 14k HP, I showed him he was wrong.

Rabid Set is a pretty good set actually, but not for the common thief.

You weren’t explaining “outside of spvp”…please.

I explain everything at once usually, very confusing.

2 second TTK is bad game design. No amount of talking one way or the other is going to change that.

Even bust specs shouldn’t be able to output more than about 4-5k dps tops during their burst period. The damage the backstab thief combo puts out wouldn’t be a problem if it were distributed over 5 seconds instead of done in about 1.5 seconds.

In practical terms this means nerfing backstab and quickness. If you do that you get pretty much all the 2 second TTK specs.

So…. Nerf Mesmers?

phaeris.7604:

Wow…just wow..ok.

1) You can have toughness or vitality, not both. If you have both your damage is 0. Either way a backstab+c+d+steal will do about18-20k, so even if you run max vitality you’re down to 8-10k health in a few seconds.

2) Stun breakers are on 1 minute timers. I’ll make sure to only fight every one minute and not use it on any other class I come across just in case i find a thief.

3) This had to be the funniest one. I’ll be sure to listen for thieves above the constant ’INCOMING!!! and mesmer blasts and arrow sounds and pets and so on…but honestly, that was amazing advice…lifesaving….

4) I stand a chance of killing a thief as long as I can catch him after he’s just killed another player.

5) Use an aoe, which I don’t have.

6) Swing the air and hope to hit something. What is it with you people and 2-3 auto attacks…Even if the thief had 14k hps (which is pretty glass cannon), my auto attacks would have to hit for 4.5k each…EACH…did you even think before you posted this?

7) Oh wow…it’s because every thief has learnt to counter every single weapon set and ability of all the other classes that they can backstab you for 10K, followed by c+d and steal for 5k each. That’s why! All other classes don’t need to bother to learn counters at all or dodge, that’s where our problem has been all this time. I forgot to dodge! or swap weapons!

8) Oh man! I also forgot to get my pet out, the pet i can’t summon and have no access to with any ability.

This list is amazing. keep going. Thief advice is the best sort of advice.

2) What class are you playing with stun breakers on a one minute timer? This isnt SW:TOR with abundant CC’s and 1.5-2 minute stun breaker.

I’ve played Warrior, Mesmer, and Thief in sPvP. Thief being my main, and the most extensive play time with it.

Warrior: “Shake it off!”, and I know it’s on a 25 sec CD.
Mesmer: Blink, also like 30 seconds.
Thief: Withdraw, 15 sec. RfI, 60 sec. Shadowstep, 30 second.

More than likely if you dont have one of those in your utility slot at all times for some reason, you’re doing something wrong. But dont complain about it on forums when you get immobed and owned.

These are the ones I know off the top of my head, I know there’s more.

5) I’m sure one of your weapons has an AoE. At any rate, you could still attack the air, thats what I do. Dodge back and stay away from where you expect them to come from. As a thief, I know that once I get some distance between myself and a thief, it’s very hard to catch up AND hit them in the back, without blowing a dodge or some kind of gap closer.

7) I’m sure you probably did forget to dodge. Rebind it to an easier key to hit in mid battle, and use it more often.

8) Even some runes give you access to some pets, so… Or you just wanted another thing to nitpick and whine about. You chose your own class, so yeah, no reason to be QQ’ing here. >.>

Merciless.5349:

Would you mind if I made a video titled “The Best Thief in the Whole World” and showed off what I could do with just 3 skills?

Then maybe you could relay some tips from that?

Just 3 skills? Yes, please. No assassins signet, no basilisk venom, no shadow refuge, no hide in shadows. Only use C&D, Steal, and BS. I wanna see this.

Question: what do you do to close the gap? Steal first? Ok, that’s valid. You are still sitting there for a bit before your C&D goes off. If they are any good they will see someone shadow stepped to me, must be a thief and reason that what is coming next is a C&D then they will try to get behind me. Maybe I should roll or turn around.

Let’s assume they don’t. Let’s assume they didn’t notice you running up to them. Let’s assume they also didn’t put 2+2 together and recognize you as a thief. Let’s even assume that you get your C&D off and they stand there like an idiot waiting for you to walk around them and get your BS off and follow up with your HS’s to finish them…

Oh wait. HS is on the 2 key. That’s 4 skills. Whoops. Your argument is gone.

Don’t assume that just because its burst that that’s all there is to it. Thief’s cast 2 spells before they even touch you, and need to cast 2 more after they combo to down you. They then need to cast 1 more just so you wont see them stomping you, even though anyone with half a brain should figure out by now that a thief only stealths after they down someone to stomp them or run away. Burst doesn’t mean anything if you can’t get your stomp off. Its also important to note that following that one kill, the thief can’t effectively kill anyone 1v1 for another whole minute. Did you hear that? They can only reliably kill someone once a minute by building BS class cannon. They also use a total of 7 spells to down you, and 9 to kill you. 9 spells pressed fervently in the exact order all under 3-5 seconds for one kill, once a minute. That’s what everyone is complaining about. That’s what everyone is saying is easy mode.

Listen, I play thief. I get it. Its frustrating when you get rolled quickly before you understand what happened. But don’t assume that they didn’t work for their kill.

You want to know how to beat a thief? Make the fight last longer than 5 seconds. Even if he runs away and leaves you to get revived by a teammate, you have done more for your team the he did for his. You get up, wait a few ticks for your CD’s to come back, and get back in the fight, He has to stay away from you for another minute to lick his wounds and try again.

OP has posted his advice, and posted a vid of him taking on BS thieves in another thread. He doesn’t have anything left to prove to you. Take his advice and try it out, no matter how far fetched it seems or keep whining. Your choice.

The most frustrating thing about thieves is the fact that they just run away all the time and they always show up to ruin the fun.

I’m an axe/shield & rifle warrior (Hundred Blades warriors are just as bad as Heartseeker thieves) and I was going toe-to-toe with a Mesmer yesterday. We were throwing everything at each other and I finally managed to down her. I was just about to finish her off when a Thief shows up, spams 2 and nails me.

Now any other class did that and I wouldn’t mind so much. But it’s the fact that he didn’t use any other skill, just that stupid f-ing HS skill. Even the Mesmer said ’it’s always a thief that shows up to ruin the fun. I still had some tricks up my sleeve, but yeah you had the upper hand’.

Normally if I get hit by an invisi-thief I just put up my shield and block all his attacks, shield bash, eviscerate, cyclone axe, switch to rifle, rifle #5, cripple shot and then try and finish off with a rifle. However, by the time I’ve blocked all their #2 spams, they just turn tail and run. Should rename the class to ‘Coward’.

8) fight Fire with Fire, just make a Thief and kill them all!

I really like the ( swing at the air ) tip. Fighting a Thief who is invis 90% of the fight, and still able to attack is what is bring on all the thief hate. Not to mention all the re-rolls are starting to hit the lakes, so its more and more common to meet up with 1-3 invis thieves. Until the fix the rendering portion of the game the Thief class will remain broken, no matter how many nerfs they get to damage.

Anyone that tried to defend the thief and calls it’s the most intensive game play should be banned from the forums for trolling.

@ Schwahrheit
Mesmers are where the truly sneaky people are. They probably scream loudest about thieves to draw attention away from themselves. Misdirection is kinda what they do. That doesn’t mean that theives aren’t OP, because they are very OP. You thieves will get nerfed some more. Time to face up to it.

Unfortunately, even Anet is afraid to mess with mesmers…..

Mesmer has been touched the last few patchs…. I’ll give you that they’re taking it slow, but you can say the same about their approach with thief. The sad thing is, they nerf things that mesmers don’t need to be op’d in tpvp.

I don’t have many issues with thieves… sometimes i’m caught off guard and blame myself, but generally they’re easy to deal with. Much harder to deal with in team fights, but still possible.

The only real advice you gave that might keep people alive is going a bunker build, which they would do regardless of your advice if it is viable for their class. For everyone else you need to be aware of how thief burst is performed, and have very good reaction time. Anything short of that will have you eating dirt. Every single class in the game can counter thief burst, it is purely a reaction time issue.

That said, I’m not saying thief is balanced. I’m not fond of any of the heavy burst… but in the game’s current state with bunker builds how can you propose to deal with one and not the other?

Deer.1890:

I really like the ( swing at the air ) tip. Fighting a Thief who is invis 90% of the fight, and still able to attack is what is bring on all the thief hate. Not to mention all the re-rolls are starting to hit the lakes, so its more and more common to meet up with 1-3 invis thieves. Until the fix the rendering portion of the game the Thief class will remain broken, no matter how many nerfs they get to damage.

Anyone that tried to defend the thief and calls it’s the most intensive game play should be banned from the forums for trolling.

Believe it or not that is one of the few really effective tips he gave. I think the sound stuff is a bit much, but when a thief stealths his speed is decreased by a lot, unless he specs for it. If they are stealthed for 90% of the fight then that means they are glass cannon build and only attack for 10% of the fight while you should be attacking for 100% of the fight unless you are basilisked for part of it. If its a good thief and a C&D that he just used, you will be basilisked, so it wont matter what you do. but if you’re complaining about any other stealth then it goes as follows:

1. Shadow refuge = AOE the circle he just dropped and remember this: In order to get his longer stealth he has to stay in that circle for 4 seconds. AOE and autoatk as much as you can, you will usually get off a few hits, bringing his hp down by about 2-3k, not much, but on a glass cannon its enough to get him thinking whether its worth it to keep going on you or to run away. After all, he still has to stomp you with very little hp, making him VERY vulnerable.

2. stealth with no basilisk venom = He is going to try and get behind you. About face and walk backwards auto atking.

The only 2 exceptions to this are:

A. He is running away and stealthed to make his escape. Autoatk and AOE his shortest route to safety.

B. He is about to stomp a downed teammate. Stand by your teammate and use any AOE CC (stun, fear, knockdown) you have available to save your teammate. If you don’t have one available, hope your downed teammate can time his interrupt correctly and immediately start autoatking around his body, the stomp has a short range and you will hit him for at least 4-5k over the time he is stomping. Assuming you landed any hits at all before he stealthed he will now be at around 40-50% max hp. he will destealth and you can finish him off unless he uses hide in shadows, because his cd’s for steal should still be down as well as his assassin’s signet, meaning that if he does hide in shadows, he wont have the nearly the amount of burst he brought the first time.

I’m not saying the thief is the most intensive gameplay, but like I said earlier:

They cast 9 spells in the correct order while positioning himself at the right angle to get behind you to get a kill in 3-5 seconds, and can only do that reliably once every minute. That’s a lot of work. Chances are if you do something out of the usual stand there and look stupid anytime he is stealthed it will throw him off at least a little bit from their casting routine.

Agree completely with OP and Schwahrheit. I think it is just like every other game. Noobs complain about a profession/class that they die to a lot. People, stop stacking only vitality. After you have so much vitality armor gives you more life. Effective hit points (ehp) learn about it and use it. Back stab thiefs do a ton of damage but they ARE a glass canon and drop so easy. Mesmers on the other hand have way to many tools at their disposal while also being effective damage dealers and having a kitten down state.

I think Thieves need to drop better loot for the effort it takes to kill them.

Reading these forums I have learned that people who play thieves are incredibly skilled and just flat out better then everyone else (something about the class just draws the intellectual elite). The rest of us just need to get better at the game. I mean really, what kind of loser is unable to hit an invisible, moving, target. It only shows our ineptitude that we haven’t yet mastered this skill.

Steely Phil.3952:

Reading these forums I have learned that people who play thieves are incredibly skilled and just flat out better then everyone else (something about the class just draws the intellectual elite). The rest of us just need to get better at the game. I mean really, what kind of loser is unable to hit an invisible, moving, target. It only shows our ineptitude that we haven’t yet mastered this skill.

I understand your’e being sarcastic, but you would be suprised at how often I see thieves stealth and watch their opponent just sit and wait while the thief catches his breath and preps for the rest of the battle.

Thief’s aren’t better or smarter, but their class does have the advantage of not showing visual cues for what is coming next. That doesnt make them OP or better, it just means the learning curve in fighting them is steeper. Learn the meta and think like a thief to predict what is coming next.