Guild Wars 2

Not usually one to complain about these things but can you look into fixing the perma-evade Thief build that is making the rounds recently?

There is no break in their evade frames so no room to attack at all, let alone stun them.

It doesn’t help that they can also outpace you if you try to rotate around them.

Either way, it’s not a very fun build to fight… It’s pretty boring watching that evade notice pop up constantly.

We’re getting to the point where nearly every class can run around doing whatever they want because they’re invincible or perma evading and there’s nothing you can do to stop them.

It’s not very fun fighting thieves who just spam dodge then randomly burst someone for 80% of their hp then go back to dodge spamming.

Do thieves have protection? No
Do thieves have invuls? No
Do thieves have high access to blocks? No (besides utility skill from DD)
Do thieves have massive heals? No
Do thieves have high HP to take beating in the face? No
Do thieves have high toughness? No
Do thieves have good condi removal? Not really
Do thieves have high access to aegis or resistance? No
Thieves do have access to stealth which was rendered useless when devs gave engis and revs 6 sec reveal on 20 sec CD.
So what is left? Rrrright, dodges.

SO, how do you expect thieves to survive this madness of condi/aoe/CC spam that was introduced with HoT?

Cynz.9437:

SO, how do you expect thieves to survive this madness of condi/aoe/CC spam that was introduced with HoT?

Dodging and kiting, but to a point. This build is almost 100% upkeep on evade frames, are you saying that’s what a Thief should be?

Thief also has very high burst damage potential, which is worth keeping in mind.

agreed. perma [insert anything] should never be something that is supported.

Nerf perms evade or give me perma block guard.

It’s broken. And totally boring to fight against.

guess you are talking about some d/d condi build. in case:

There is no break in their evade frames so no room to attack at all, let alone stun them.

NOT true

it is incredibly weak against CC especially Immob, kiting and LoS. If your team got a power thief the enemy’s condi-d/d player should be rendered to uselessness.

Cynz.9437:

Do thieves have protection? No
Do thieves have invuls? No
Do thieves have high access to blocks? No (besides utility skill from DD)
Do thieves have massive heals? No
Do thieves have high HP to take beating in the face? No
Do thieves have high toughness? No
Do thieves have good condi removal? Not really
Do thieves have high access to aegis or resistance? No
Thieves do have access to stealth which was rendered useless when devs gave engis and revs 6 sec reveal on 20 sec CD.
So what is left? Rrrright, dodges.

SO, how do you expect thieves to survive this madness of condi/aoe/CC spam that was introduced with HoT?

By using dodge, teles, stealths, evades, blinds, and interrupts appropriately and skillfully. The thief build OP is talking about is the death blossom one, which is the skill equivalent of the old turret engi.

Fluffball.8307:

Cynz.9437:

Do thieves have protection? No
Do thieves have invuls? No
Do thieves have high access to blocks? No (besides utility skill from DD)
Do thieves have massive heals? No
Do thieves have high HP to take beating in the face? No
Do thieves have high toughness? No
Do thieves have good condi removal? Not really
Do thieves have high access to aegis or resistance? No
Thieves do have access to stealth which was rendered useless when devs gave engis and revs 6 sec reveal on 20 sec CD.
So what is left? Rrrright, dodges.

SO, how do you expect thieves to survive this madness of condi/aoe/CC spam that was introduced with HoT?

By using dodge, teles, stealths, evades, blinds, and interrupts appropriately and skillfully. The thief build OP is talking about is the death blossom one, which is the skill equivalent of the old turret engi.

But OP doesn’t want thief to have dodges. Stealth is hardly viable due to reasons i listed before. Interrupts don’t work due to high uptime on stab for some classes as well as instant spells. Ports have relative high CDs and don’t save you from damage (sup revs).

DB thief is cheesy as hell but doesn’t kill anyone with brains and dies when focused.

If you are talking about the D/D build it doesn’t have burst damage.

Also you have to time your CC during the after cast period when the death blossom lands.

I agree it is a low skill build and yes it’s literally in a heavy need of a nerf just like all the other HoT madness

BUT

This is the build the anet balance team (Karl McClain) wants thieves to use. In fact they recently buffed the evade time of DB to a higher time frame. Nerf the evade of DB time frame to bring in line imho.

Azukas.1426:

If you are talking about the D/D build it doesn’t have burst damage.

This is the build the anet balance team (Karl McClain) wants thieves to use. In fact they recently buffed the evade time of DB to a higher time frame. Nerf the evade of DB time frame to bring in line imho.

Yup, the burst damage comment I made earlier was meant for Thieves in general. This build is definitely just about spamming the Evades to hold points indefinitely.

That nerf would probably make the build much more bearable to fight against without drastically affecting Thieves as a whole.

psizone.8437:

I had a match just before posting this in which we had a power Thief and a Mace/Shield Warrior try to deal with one and could not get a CC ability to hit this evade Thief

too bad

Edit: sry i was mby a bit rough, but really. what should i say? if 3 of you can’t CC-lock a d/d thief then there are problems. Try asking a guildmate to practice rupting DB animation.

psizone.8437:

IThe dodges combined with DB make it so that the window of opportunity to hit them with a CC ability is so minute that it almost relies on luck rather than timing.

The fact that this even needs to be brought up is enough to call for a nerf. No build should have that high of invulnerability to damage. Imagine if obsidian flesh had even 75% uptime and also held cap points.

Fluffball.8307:

The fact that this even needs to be brought up is enough to call for a nerf. No build should have that high of invulnerability to damage. Imagine if obsidian flesh had even 75% uptime and also held cap points.

Pretty much, I didn’t think there’d be this much opposition to a nerf on it.

Anyway I’m off to bed for now. I’ll leave the ball rolling on this thread and hope there’s less “l2p” posts in the morning.

alchemyst.2165:

It’s a matter of timing and watching your opponent. If you’re not observant you’re going to get wrecked. Again, it’s a matter of skill.

Usually evading should be a matter of timing and watching you opponent. That’s what is called skill. Perma evading without thinking about when to evade and then calling it an issue of l2p… seriously that is kittened.

Cynz.9437:

Do thieves have protection? No
Do thieves have invuls? No
Do thieves have high access to blocks? No (besides utility skill from DD)
Do thieves have massive heals? No
Do thieves have high HP to take beating in the face? No
Do thieves have high toughness? No
Do thieves have good condi removal? Not really
Do thieves have high access to aegis or resistance? No
Thieves do have access to stealth which was rendered useless when devs gave engis and revs 6 sec reveal on 20 sec CD.
So what is left? Rrrright, dodges.

SO, how do you expect thieves to survive this madness of condi/aoe/CC spam that was introduced with HoT?

This list is mostly true. But that doesn’t make perma evade less op. But you are correct, without evade theif will fold like paper. Its kind of sad, they are super squishy and can no way compete toe to toe with any class without the evade and dodge mechanics.

let me clarify something… You may not realise that your main problem is not that this build is evading a lot, the problem is that it is dealing high damage with it. And yes something like that is broken by design. Stuff should not apply pressure with being defensive. We got more of this bullcrp with HoT, like engi hammer block etc…

Forestnator.6298:

alchemyst.2165:

It’s a matter of timing and watching your opponent. If you’re not observant you’re going to get wrecked. Again, it’s a matter of skill.

Usually evading should be a matter of timing and watching you opponent. That’s what is called skill. Perma evading without thinking about when to evade and then calling it an issue of l2p… seriously that is kittened.

Again, if a thief is perma evading it’s pretty easy to watch them waste their evades.

You said it yourself, they evade without thinking.

So…why blow your skills into it if you know they’ll be perma evading?

In the case of a deathblossom thief, wait and kite away while they spam their dodge. Once they go into death blossom spam, you can pretty easily pick them apart after their death blossom. Most death blossom thieves are really bad; it’s easy to kill them if you don’t go in like an idiot expecting to hit them without thinking. By that logic, you’re just as bad as the thief.

I’m tempted to make a video showcasing how easy this is.

I’m just chiming in since psi keeps saying there is no break in evade frames. DB is 1/2 sec total while the evade frame from it is only 1/4 second you can interrupt it with cc Immobs are the main way to kill this style of thief, and with these builds most lack the mobility regular thieves have yes they still have SB 5 but if they rely on that they are at a disadvantage when they actually get to a point since it burns through their initiative. They are cheesy builds that don’t perform well in higher tiers, similar to how trapper DH don’t perform well in higher tiers.

Thief right now is almost completely immune to all forms of soft CC conditions, right now unless you have an instant cast or near perfect timing on hard CC you won’t lock down a thief to kill it and I’m not talking that D/D thing. D/P is completely uncatchable now for most players and is certainly getting to be as brain dead as everything else we’ve had needed since HoT.

Wish ANet would just nerf the elite specs already, I’m sick of all the BS from the elite specs that just added more of what these classes were already good at.

The people defending this playstyle are the same people who said turret engi wasn’t a problem. We all know how to counter a perma evade thief, the problem is that it takes literally zero effort to play and take some GW2 knowledge to counter. Your average player is not going to be able to hit this thief who picked up the game yesterday.

Fluffball.8307:

The people defending this playstyle are the same people who said turret engi wasn’t a problem. We all know how to counter a perma evade thief, the problem is that it takes literally zero effort to play and take some GW2 knowledge to counter. Your average player is not going to be able to hit this thief who picked up the game yesterday.

I am a guild wars 2 thief who runs daredevil and I say turret engi was a problem.

Now, back to the relevant topic.

So basically what you’re saying is without knowledge of the game you can’t kill a thief. But…isn’t this true for everything, and how it should be? I mean your argument is that a casual player won’t be able to kill a noob thief (not true).

Maybe it comes from a lack of knowledge and play experience. I find killing other thieves pretty easy on other classes, maybe that’s due to the fact that I main a thief and know when to strike. That’s where I think the problem is. Everybody who cries out that thief is op refuses to learn when to go on the offensive and fight a thief. To be honest, a lot of the reason for this is that their defense is simply something that allows them to not be hit.

Video games are designed to give us satisfaction in the form of big red numbers. We know something is going our way when we see them. When you can’t always hit something, it makes our brain think something is wrong due to the way games are designed.

Yet you can still hit them, even though it may be less times than another class. But that’s the thing, thieves are squishy, so the net time it takes to kill it is about the same as another class.

But people don’t seem to be mad when their damage is out-sustained by simple armor value.

The point of this whole rant is to say that just because you aren’t hitting something 100% of the time does not mean that it is overpowered. It simply means that’s this class’s version of defense. It’s not flat armor or HP, blocks, heals, or blinds. It’s evasion and mobility. That’s it.

alchemyst.2165:

It simply means that’s this class’s version of defense. It’s not flat armor or HP, blocks, heals, or blinds. It’s evasion and mobility. That’s it.

Skillful use of it. Not just spamming 2 buttons to defeat most players. That’s the comparison to turret engi. My mother-in-law could beat most players on an evade thief and she has never heard of GW2, same with the old turret engi.

Another high sustain class, let’s say the bunker tempest? I’m sure you can see skillwise it’s not comparable at all.

Fluffball.8307:

alchemyst.2165:

It simply means that’s this class’s version of defense. It’s not flat armor or HP, blocks, heals, or blinds. It’s evasion and mobility. That’s it.

Skillful use of it. Not just spamming 2 buttons to defeat most players. That’s the comparison to turret engi. My mother-in-law could beat most players on an evade thief and she has never heard of GW2, same with the old turret engi.

Another high sustain class, let’s say the bunker tempest? I’m sure you can see skillwise it’s not comparable at all.

You’re right, it’s not comparable. Bunker Tempest has much more sustain and is much easier (And yes I play a bunker tempest when needed in my team comp)

Calling thief “high sustain” also doesn’t make sense. You keep comparing a squishy class with literal bunker builds. Kind of decreasing your credibility for me. I want to see all of your experience with thief, considering how easy you say it is.

Also, don’t know how many times I’ve had to say this, but if you die to a thief who does nothing but waste evades, the problem is you, not the build.

Shiyo.3578:

We’re getting to the point where nearly every class can run around doing whatever they want because they’re invincible or perma evading and there’s nothing you can do to stop them.

It’s not very fun fighting thieves who just spam dodge then randomly burst someone for 80% of their hp then go back to dodge spamming.

This guys got it. Who cares about a perma evading thief when you have a scrapper who can just sustain through absolutely everything you can throw at him while he runs to contest/decap a point.

Sure, seeing evade frames is annoying. It’s just not the worst of it XD

The build is very cheesy. I don’t think anyone with a conscience can deny that. However, there IS a break in the evades. It is hard to exploit because your cc needs to be perfect on timing. For example, a thief can easily shut down a d/d build. All you have to do is stun (basilisk) then use instant-cast cc (steal). They very easily melt after that. I really hate to say it, but it is a learn to play issue.

Note that I do not play d/d condi

well i never met such a thing.

Topher.5631:

The build is very cheesy. I don’t think anyone with a conscience can deny that. However, there IS a break in the evades. It is hard to exploit because your cc needs to be perfect on timing. For example, a thief can easily shut down a d/d build. All you have to do is stun (basilisk) then use instant-cast cc (steal). They very easily melt after that. I really hate to say it, but it is a learn to play issue.

Note that I do not play d/d condi

^^pretty much this.
This guy was playing d/d and dropped within 1 basi hit (needless to say, we won that match too).
And no, i don’t play d/d.

did some of the ppl here who qq about such gimmick build try to understand it

3 dodges, 4 evades, weapon swap from 1 more evade, sigil for more 2 dodges

BOOM left with nothing so burst it now before he heals.
he cannot rotate map, need to be in melee to put some pressure. basically not contributing in 1v1 situation unless you send 2v1 than he outplay your team. he cannot do 4v4 3v3 he will get cc,conditions etc eventually if he is melee,, in group fight. he cannot pressure you with only 1 main bleed stack as dmg.

To be honest I like the permanent evade dagger/dagger build, I don’t play it but it just seems funny to be able to dodge endlessly. It is not overpowered at all because it takes forever to kill you and endless 1v1s is not really what the role of a thief should be. Yes they can be annoying to fight, but if you land even a single stun on them, they can die extremely quickly. It is quite easy to just hold a 1v1 against that thief build forever if you just use a lot of blocks and evades or condi clears. Even if you don’t have that you can just kite them around and make sure the point stays neutral.

I fought a premade once where there were two thieves with such build. My teammates are really good pvp’ers and we couldn’t even cap these points. If something went wrong ele or dudu came to heal thieves up and disrupt. Once we managed to defeat one thief, the second one came and went apekitten crazy with dodges to prevent us from capping.

To catch thieves after evade frame,
we need very quick skill like lightning strike of ele.

Of course, not every build has such skills.

Easy to blanace:

let evade not count for capping/ decapping like stealth, elixir S etc.

I have to agree there’s one broken build out there and thats the perma evade CONDI thief. Not the usual dps thief.

Forestnator.6298:

Easy to blanace:

let evade not count for capping/ decapping like stealth, elixir S etc.

easy to balance, let blocks, protection, reflects, heals etc. not count for capping/decapping

Cynz.9437:

Forestnator.6298:

Easy to blanace:

let evade not count for capping/ decapping like stealth, elixir S etc.

easy to balance, let blocks, protection, reflects, heals etc. not count for capping/decapping

I agree that skills like Obsidian Flesh, Mist Form, Renewed Focus, Disortion, etc. should not count towards capping / decapping like it is already for Elixir S. Also evade (for all classes should not count.

Forestnator.6298:

Cynz.9437:

Forestnator.6298:

Easy to blanace:

let evade not count for capping/ decapping like stealth, elixir S etc.

easy to balance, let blocks, protection, reflects, heals etc. not count for capping/decapping

I agree that skills like Obsidian Flesh, Mist Form, Renewed Focus, Disortion, etc. should not count towards capping / decapping like it is already for Elixir S. Also evade (for all classes should not count.

Are you new to game lol? They already don’t affect capping.

Cynz.9437:

Forestnator.6298:

Cynz.9437:

Forestnator.6298:

Easy to blanace:

let evade not count for capping/ decapping like stealth, elixir S etc.

easy to balance, let blocks, protection, reflects, heals etc. not count for capping/decapping

I agree that skills like Obsidian Flesh, Mist Form, Renewed Focus, Disortion, etc. should not count towards capping / decapping like it is already for Elixir S. Also evade (for all classes should not count.

Are you new to game lol? They already don’t affect capping.

No it’s just some time ago since I played those classes. So, why should evade count then?

Also the problem with the daredevil are the dodges.

D/D builds dodge looks just like death blossom. This is a huge source of the problem in dealing with the build.

Staff takes bound and bound looks enough like vault tof throw off people who are trying to time thier attacks. Also if the Thief jump dodges with Bound there’s literally no difference between the two.

I believe the problem I just highlighted is a major issue when facing those thieves.

Forestnator.6298:

Cynz.9437:

Forestnator.6298:

Cynz.9437:

Forestnator.6298:

Easy to blanace:

let evade not count for capping/ decapping like stealth, elixir S etc.

easy to balance, let blocks, protection, reflects, heals etc. not count for capping/decapping

I agree that skills like Obsidian Flesh, Mist Form, Renewed Focus, Disortion, etc. should not count towards capping / decapping like it is already for Elixir S. Also evade (for all classes should not count.

Are you new to game lol? They already don’t affect capping.

No it’s just some time ago since I played those classes. So, why should evade count then?

Ah idk, maybe because classes relying on evades don’t have anything else? Lets also ignore the fact that invuls are instant and evades have cast and aftercast times.
Why don’t we just disable thief from capping/decapping all together to make people like you happy. Lets repeat season 1 where thief players got constantly harassed for simply playing the class.

Once again condi d/d is cheesy as hell but it remains a noob stomper. You ask for nerf to s/d thieves as well which are barely viable atm. Meanwhile we have stupid overtuned crap like scrappers and mesmers facerolling to victory.

Forestnator.6298:

Easy to blanace:

let evade not count for capping/ decapping like stealth, elixir S etc.

I’m sorry but that is one of the most terrible ideas I’ve ever heard.

Cynz.9437:

Once again condi d/d is cheesy as hell but it remains a noob stomper.

Oh and i thought by leaving alone GW1/streamers/GW2 vets player alone . would be the wisest choice . I am really starting to rethinking my rules

Cynz.9437:

Lets repeat season 1 where thief players got constantly harassed for simply playing the class.

Lest repeat the 2014 s/d era with the 100% evade frames once more
Where pros players forced to leave their Mesmers (supcutie) in order have a chance to win real-money -tournaments

alchemyst.2165:

“There is no break in their evade frames”

Quit calling for nerfs to things you don’t understand and don’t try to understand. They do have breaks in their evade frames. Time your CC/Burst then, not in the middle of their dodge. You can literally just sit there and wait out their dodges.
.

Yeah ofc , if any CC of each class have 0.01 sec cast time Mug+Bask combo

alchemyst.2165:

Also, don’t know how many times I’ve had to say this, but if you die to a thief who does nothing but waste evades, the problem is you, not the build.

alchemyst.2165:

Time your CC/Burst then, not in the middle of their dodge. You can literally just sit there and wait out their dodges.

So which is true ? Sit there and w8 , or it my fault for staying ?
You got me little comused :P

If the EVADES FRAMES includes DAMAGE DONE , you take damage

alchemyst.2165:

The point of this whole rant is to say that just because you aren’t hitting something 100% of the time does not mean that it is overpowered. It simply means that’s this class’s version of defense. It’s not flat armor or HP, blocks, heals, or blinds. It’s evasion and mobility. That’s it.

And how much damage total damage with the perma-dodge you can abosrve ?
Could you clalculate how many hits ot 3.000 damage you can evade vs the HP, blocks, heals, or blinds or other classes ?
If 1 class can prevent 300k damage in span of 2 min vs the other with 150 k , which should we nerf ?
Or should buff other up ?
Brb work

And i dont really care about thief, , but i to have some hardcore-esport conversation in the forums with some educated-PHD ppl :P

any build with perma or semi perma evade,block or even invulnerability is op and should be nerf, other class had been nerf so there is no reason not to nerf this

I love how people are just now calling broken now that thief is meta. Thief has literally the same amount of evades as it did when HoT came out, but nobody is crying until it’s meta.

alchemyst.2165:

I love how people are just now calling broken now that thief is meta. Thief has literally the same amount of evades as it did when HoT came out, but nobody is crying until it’s meta.

Why are you confused about that? If broken build exists but no one plays it, no one is affected and there will be no forum threads. Now that this build is common, it’s getting really annoying.

I had 2 of my team mates lose a 2v1 to such a build. I wasn’t there to see it, but I can imagine it was them chasing the thief, hitting him once or twice until he healed up, rinse and repeat.

Would help knowing the details of the build. I know there’s a chunk of vulnerability frames at the end of the staff 5 Vault skill…but IIRC there’s one more ability out there somewhere used for the ‘perma’ evade thingy.

Curennos.9307:

Would help knowing the details of the build. I know there’s a chunk of vulnerability frames at the end of the staff 5 Vault skill…but IIRC there’s one more ability out there somewhere used for the ‘perma’ evade thingy.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAoYn8lCFOh9OBGmC8PhFqiqrnCgGw7C+gtbO77+wH

I think this is what they use. Basically they spam dagger 3 and evades, while maintaining endurance from the heal and signet.

alchemyst.2165:

I love how people are just now calling broken now that thief is meta. Thief has literally the same amount of evades as it did when HoT came out, but nobody is crying until it’s meta.

Hello may i present to you: the warrior