Guild Wars 2

I play a thief as main, i cant tell you how to play your class cuz my Mesmer is lvl 14ish
but i can tell you how i behave wile in HJ’s

As i very erll know the power of a backsteb build, I’m NEVER static, if im caping a point I stay in the circle but moving around and turning, they need to be behind you to deliver the burst and if they miss it the following bursts are alot less deadly.

I Have played many many builds and different weapon combos, and the BS build is the one i disliked the most due to its unexistent (and intened) survivability. i play a “tanky” control build atm with D/D + SB that relies on stealthing as often as i can and delivering small bursts (3-4k) in between stealths wile chain blinding my opponent.

versus a BS thief i do the following (again as a thief, you guys need to use what you have):

1- He came out of no were, didn’t see him arrive and i get petrified (Basilisk Venom), i got 3 tools that i can use to avoid the bust.

a) Steal + dodge – it brakes any CC and dodge is your friend
b) blinding powder will blind the thief and make him miss the BS and stealthed me at the same time.
c) Shadowstep utility will also brake the CC and teleport me to a safe distance.

If i don’t have any of the above available, he kills me whitch is fair or he lives me with a very low HP pool allowing me to stealth and run away to regain health.

I do not believe this build needs nerfing since by doing so the OTHER builds that depend on BS as main dmg dealer (like my own) will become powerless because as i mention before my BS hits for 3-4k crit it BS gets tuned down this build will fall as many others.

the 10 point trait Mug is in deed very strong for a mere 10 points, it should get its dmg adjusted (not hammered to the ground)…

I hope this helps, now you need to look at the stun brakes available to your profession and do not be a siting duck asking to be insta killed…. stay mobile and try not to have your back facing the same direction for long…

Let me tell you why that’s bullkitten.

1.) You are wearing a berserker amulet, and you have 916 toughness, which is base toughness at level 80. You sir, are the squishiest of the squish. You shall be called squishy, and you shall be mine, and you shall be my squishy.

2.) As a person who avidly plays Thief backstab builds, I can honestly say you’re blowing this way out of proportion. In order to pull off a proper backstab, and take off a respectable chunk of your health without you instantly retaliating, I need four or five of my cooldowns up, including Steal. For every minute I’m in PvP, and I’m alone and not in a group, I will spend 5-10 seconds of that minute actually fighting. Because that 5-10 second window is the only chance that I have to burst without the threat of immediate and deadly retaliation. A proper backstab Thief is also very, very, very squishy, and we will melt immediately when exposed to small amounts of damage.

3.) We aren’t even the most OP thing in the game. As a shatter Mesmer, I’m sure you know this. Not only can Mind Wrack hit for upwards of 7000+ damage (plus it’s technically an AoE), you also have invisibility, invulnerability, teleportation, Phantasms, and Time Warp. If you INSIST on complaining about profession imbalance, take a serious look at yourself because you probably abuse one of the most unfair builds in the entire game, right beside backstab Thieves.

Good day to you, sir.

I notice theres a ton of players who complain about mesmers/thiefs.

And theres good players. Its strange how the top players dont seem to think mesmers/thiefs are op.

Mesmers are a strong class though, definately. Mostly because of timewarp and portal. But, i just dont think these classes are that bad.

Aurum.8793:

Let me tell you why that’s bullkitten.

1.) You are wearing a berserker amulet, and you have 916 toughness, which is base toughness at level 80. You sir, are the squishiest of the squish. You shall be called squishy, and you shall be mine, and you shall be my squishy.

2.) As a person who avidly plays Thief backstab builds, I can honestly say you’re blowing this way out of proportion. In order to pull off a proper backstab, and take off a respectable chunk of your health without you instantly retaliating, I need four or five of my cooldowns up, including Steal. For every minute I’m in PvP, and I’m alone and not in a group, I will spend 5-10 seconds of that minute actually fighting. Because that 5-10 second window is the only chance that I have to burst without the threat of immediate and deadly retaliation. A proper backstab Thief is also very, very, very squishy, and we will melt immediately when exposed to small amounts of damage.

3.) We aren’t even the most OP thing in the game. As a shatter Mesmer, I’m sure you know this. Not only can Mind Wrack hit for upwards of 7000+ damage (plus it’s technically an AoE), you also have invisibility, invulnerability, teleportation, Phantasms, and Time Warp. If you INSIST on complaining about profession imbalance, take a serious look at yourself because you probably abuse one of the most unfair builds in the entire game, right beside backstab Thieves.

Good day to you, sir.

Again, it’s all about counters. A shatter mesmer has a counter. You move around and you can dodge them running to you. Many skilled players have avoided my shatters.

When someone steals+backstabs you starting from stealth, there IS no counter. Enjoy your backstab days while you can because you know it’s gonna be nerfed.

Nuffed said.

Volrath.1473:

I play a thief as main, i cant tell you how to play your class cuz my Mesmer is lvl 14ish
but i can tell you how i behave wile in HJ’s

As i very erll know the power of a backsteb build, I’m NEVER static, if im caping a point I stay in the circle but moving around and turning, they need to be behind you to deliver the burst and if they miss it the following bursts are alot less deadly.

I Have played many many builds and different weapon combos, and the BS build is the one i disliked the most due to its unexistent (and intened) survivability. i play a “tanky” control build atm with D/D + SB that relies on stealthing as often as i can and delivering small bursts (3-4k) in between stealths wile chain blinding my opponent.

versus a BS thief i do the following (again as a thief, you guys need to use what you have):

1- He came out of no were, didn’t see him arrive and i get petrified (Basilisk Venom), i got 3 tools that i can use to avoid the bust.

a) Steal + dodge – it brakes any CC and dodge is your friend
b) blinding powder will blind the thief and make him miss the BS and stealthed me at the same time.
c) Shadowstep utility will also brake the CC and teleport me to a safe distance.

If i don’t have any of the above available, he kills me whitch is fair or he lives me with a very low HP pool allowing me to stealth and run away to regain health.

I do not believe this build needs nerfing since by doing so the OTHER builds that depend on BS as main dmg dealer (like my own) will become powerless because as i mention before my BS hits for 3-4k crit it BS gets tuned down this build will fall as many others.

the 10 point trait Mug is in deed very strong for a mere 10 points, it should get its dmg adjusted (not hammered to the ground)…

I hope this helps, now you need to look at the stun brakes available to your profession and do not be a siting duck asking to be insta killed…. stay mobile and try not to have your back facing the same direction for long…

I’m able to avoid most backstabs when the thief stealths. This however happened to me as I was running to a cap point and thought I was alone.

This is not a regular complaint about backstab and repeat stealth. This is about problems when starting out with stealth in the first place and you don’t even know the thief is there.

I already carry two stunbreakers. They were useless cause I had no time to react. And unlike a thief, I can’t stealth and run away either.

bhagwad.4281:

Aurum.8793:

Let me tell you why that’s bullkitten.

1.) You are wearing a berserker amulet, and you have 916 toughness, which is base toughness at level 80. You sir, are the squishiest of the squish. You shall be called squishy, and you shall be mine, and you shall be my squishy.

2.) As a person who avidly plays Thief backstab builds, I can honestly say you’re blowing this way out of proportion. In order to pull off a proper backstab, and take off a respectable chunk of your health without you instantly retaliating, I need four or five of my cooldowns up, including Steal. For every minute I’m in PvP, and I’m alone and not in a group, I will spend 5-10 seconds of that minute actually fighting. Because that 5-10 second window is the only chance that I have to burst without the threat of immediate and deadly retaliation. A proper backstab Thief is also very, very, very squishy, and we will melt immediately when exposed to small amounts of damage.

3.) We aren’t even the most OP thing in the game. As a shatter Mesmer, I’m sure you know this. Not only can Mind Wrack hit for upwards of 7000+ damage (plus it’s technically an AoE), you also have invisibility, invulnerability, teleportation, Phantasms, and Time Warp. If you INSIST on complaining about profession imbalance, take a serious look at yourself because you probably abuse one of the most unfair builds in the entire game, right beside backstab Thieves.

Good day to you, sir.

Again, it’s all about counters. A shatter mesmer has a counter. You move around and you can dodge them running to you. Many skilled players have avoided my shatters.

When someone steals+backstabs you starting from stealth, there IS no counter. Enjoy your backstab days while you can because you know it’s gonna be nerfed.

Nuffed said.

I actually doubt it’s going to be nerfed. But ok. If it is, I’ll just go back to Mesmer. Pretty much the same level of OP.

Lots of thieves in this thread defending this crazy amount of damage. No other glass cannons can kill someone in ~.5 seconds with three button presses. You say the op is full glass cannon so he deserves to be effectively one shot, how dose this line of thinking even begin to make sense? What your implying is that thieves should be virtually insta-win against any other glass cannon spec. This is GW2 not rock/paper/scissors 2.0.
As it stands, the ONLY way not to die to this is to simply not run glass cannon. Why should people be locked out of a play style they enjoy simply because thieves will ALWAYS beat that play style?

This particular combo simply needs to be nerfed.

Vgman.4019:

Lots of thieves in this thread defending this crazy amount of damage. No other glass cannons can kill someone in ~.5 seconds with three button presses. You say the op is full glass cannon so he deserves to be effectively one shot, how dose this line of thinking even begin to make sense? What your implying is that thieves should be virtually insta-win against any other glass cannon spec. This is GW2 not rock/paper/scissors 2.0.
As it stands, the ONLY way not to die to this is to simply not run glass cannon. Why should people be locked out of a play style they enjoy simply because thieves will ALWAYS beat that play style?

This particular combo simply needs to be nerfed.

Engie.
Except Engie burst is on a 10 second cooldown.
Not 45.

Jumper.9482:

Vgman.4019:

Lots of thieves in this thread defending this crazy amount of damage. No other glass cannons can kill someone in ~.5 seconds with three button presses. You say the op is full glass cannon so he deserves to be effectively one shot, how dose this line of thinking even begin to make sense? What your implying is that thieves should be virtually insta-win against any other glass cannon spec. This is GW2 not rock/paper/scissors 2.0.
As it stands, the ONLY way not to die to this is to simply not run glass cannon. Why should people be locked out of a play style they enjoy simply because thieves will ALWAYS beat that play style?

This particular combo simply needs to be nerfed.

Engie.
Except Engie burst is on a 10 second cooldown.
Not 45.

Engis you can see coming, engis you can prepare for, engis you can preempt. Already stealth thieves? Your dead before theirs a chance to react.

Engies can’t stealth or have scorpion wire?
This is news to me.

Jumper.9482:

Engies can’t stealth or have scorpion wire?
This is news to me.

I have yet to be hit by an engineer who I didn’t know was there in the first place.

I’m not even going to attempt to justify such damage.

I’ve been saying that Mug needs a nerf and this is just further proof.

Vgman.4019:

Engis you can see coming, engis you can prepare for, engis you can preempt. Already stealth thieves? Your dead before theirs a chance to react.

To be fair, and already stealthed Thief can’t hit you like that. Mug would apply Revealed to him which would ruin his consecutive Cloak and Dagger + Backstab.

An already stealthed Thief can only hit you with Backstab.

A big problem with the “instant-gib” combo is that it is instant and almost completely untelegraphed. Steal has no animation and the Cloak and Dagger is a very subtle melee attack too, let alone that it is pre-cast most of the time.

What I fail to see is how you even let this happen. The screenshot clearly shows that you got hit with Steal and then Backstab. Where is the Cloak and Dagger? It’s not there. This means the thief hit you with Steal then had had to use a stealth skill then had to get into position behind you in order to hit you with his backstab for that high of an amount. With all the tools you have to avoid this from happening it looks to me like you were just easy prey and need more practice.

Seriusly, if you see a thief in the tourny line up, you should always be ready to use ur stunbreak or dodges.

Dee Jay.2460:

I’m not even going to attempt to justify such damage.

I’ve been saying that Mug needs a nerf and this is just further proof.

Vgman.4019:

Engis you can see coming, engis you can prepare for, engis you can preempt. Already stealth thieves? Your dead before theirs a chance to react.

To be fair, and already stealthed Thief can’t hit you like that. Mug would apply Revealed to him which would ruin his consecutive Cloak and Dagger + Backstab.

An already stealthed Thief can only hit you with Backstab.

A big problem with the “instant-gib” combo is that it is instant and almost completely untelegraphed. Steal has no animation and the Cloak and Dagger is a very subtle melee attack too, let alone that it is pre-cast most of the time.

If I’m not mistaken, the trait known as hidden thief overrides the reveal on steal.

Dee Jay.2460:

I’m not even going to attempt to justify such damage.

I’ve been saying that Mug needs a nerf and this is just further proof.

Vgman.4019:

Engis you can see coming, engis you can prepare for, engis you can preempt. Already stealth thieves? Your dead before theirs a chance to react.

To be fair, and already stealthed Thief can’t hit you like that. Mug would apply Revealed to him which would ruin his consecutive Cloak and Dagger + Backstab.

An already stealthed Thief can only hit you with Backstab.

A big problem with the “instant-gib” combo is that it is instant and almost completely untelegraphed. Steal has no animation and the Cloak and Dagger is a very subtle melee attack too, let alone that it is pre-cast most of the time.

Nope. A stealthed thief can hit you with stab + steal while in stealth if they link the skills together fast enough. Steal + CnD + BS isn’t as big a problem imo as Thieves who can sit in stealth (black powder + HS into a wall/crevice, easy 10 seconds of stealth) and stab + steal with a sin’s signet and potentially 100-0% an opponent in less than a second. I’ve done it multiple times.

Thief burst needs toning down, but the class also needs something in return. Otherwise the only real tournament viable build thieves have will be gone with no other role for them to fill outside of venom share, which still isn’t that great.

Theplayboy.6417:

What I fail to see is how you even let this happen. The screenshot clearly shows that you got hit with Steal and then Backstab. Where is the Cloak and Dagger? It’s not there. This means the thief hit you with Steal then had had to use a stealth skill then had to get into position behind you in order to hit you with his backstab for that high of an amount. With all the tools you have to avoid this from happening it looks to me like you were just easy prey and need more practice.

I don’t think you’ve played a thief. If you had, you’d know that “hidden thief” allows you to retain stealth on steal.

DieQuex.4096:

Dee Jay.2460:

I’m not even going to attempt to justify such damage.

I’ve been saying that Mug needs a nerf and this is just further proof.

Vgman.4019:

Engis you can see coming, engis you can prepare for, engis you can preempt. Already stealth thieves? Your dead before theirs a chance to react.

To be fair, and already stealthed Thief can’t hit you like that. Mug would apply Revealed to him which would ruin his consecutive Cloak and Dagger + Backstab.

An already stealthed Thief can only hit you with Backstab.

A big problem with the “instant-gib” combo is that it is instant and almost completely untelegraphed. Steal has no animation and the Cloak and Dagger is a very subtle melee attack too, let alone that it is pre-cast most of the time.

Nope. A stealthed thief can hit you with stab + steal while in stealth if they link the skills together fast enough. Steal + CnD + BS isn’t as big a problem imo as Thieves who can sit in stealth (black powder + HS into a wall/crevice, easy 10 seconds of stealth) and stab + steal with a sin’s signet and potentially 100-0% an opponent in less than a second. I’ve done it multiple times.

Thief burst needs toning down, but the class also needs something in return. Otherwise the only real tournament viable build thieves have will be gone with no other role for them to fill outside of venom share, which still isn’t that great.

Personally i’m all for making thieves a tad bit more beefy and a tad bit less bursty.

daydream.2938:

I notice theres a ton of players who complain about mesmers/thiefs.

And theres good players. Its strange how the top players dont seem to think mesmers/thiefs are op.

Mesmers are a strong class though, definately. Mostly because of timewarp and portal. But, i just dont think these classes are that bad.

OH hey daydream fancy seeing you here. Glad you stick for mesmers in some posts man. LOL in case anyone missed it portal is gonna go to other classes not sure which yet hopefully necro! And timewarp Meh. The only reason I defend not nerfing time warp is because history shows that the PvP crowd won’t stop there with the Mesmer hate. And for those that have issues with thieves look at your builds. If your toughness for your entire build is 916 then you are doing it wrong… and you should be hit for that much damage. Sorry get some toughness GC’s are great but they aren’t survivable against a better opponent.

LOL @ internet b— a—es going on about how he should have could have would have done this or that.

the ability to kill anyone in under 5 seconds is an issue in an RPG.

“head-shot” mechanics should be reserved for FPS, and nobody deserves an “iwin button”.

People should have a chance to see what is approaching, and react to it.

bhagwad.4281:

Sure, it may be a killfest but it still requires skill.

yeah sure…and wvsw also requires skill…..

/facepalm

Full glass may not be viable for all professions in all game situations? No wai.

while i agree that glass cannons should die fast and not complain about it, there is a difference between fast and instantly.
no spec of no class should kill anyone INSTANTLY.

skill is when you kill full toughnes vit geared guardian or warrior who knows to play his proffesion. Skill is when you use 2 buttons to kill someone in 2 sec?then i can teach my grandfather just to push 2 buttons while i do wasd movements, is my grandfather a skiller then?:D
thief profession is broken , mug is doing insane dmg (should be nerfed to 1k dmg) , backstab doing insane on 3300 armor plate profession ~ 6-7k, and spamable heartseeker should be nerfed to at least .5 sec CD and nerf stealth duration.

I read this thread and thought I had gone back in time 4~ months.

I agree with the OP.

People can argue about what the Thief needs, or how difficult this is to pull of (it isn’t though), but the bottom line is, this is not fun to play against. The Thief should be the best burst profession, yes, but it should not be downing players in one second. The first priority should be that the game is fun to play, and being downed this fast is not fun. No matter what profession you play against, you should always have a chance to survive the encounter, even if that means only being at 2000 health after the first couple of hits.

bhagwad.4281:

Daecollo.9578:

bhagwad.4281:

Daecollo.9578:

Well, heres the deal, I said “Play a Guardian” if you don’t have the skill to be bursted down as another class, its a soft fix.

Again, you’re being a jerk and deliberately unhelpful. Please tell me how a “skillful” mesmer would counter a burst that starts 100% from stealth?
.
.
.
crickets

I still believe though that you might have some useful insights. If I can only pry them out of you. But it takes two to have a meaningful discussion. I did my best.

Using a Staff, pressing ‘2’ when he hears the stealth noise.

Fail. Either deliberately dense or didn’t read anything. We’re talking about never hearing anything. We’re talking about thinking you’re alone one moment and down on the ground the next.

Don’t be an idiot burst and go with a 0/0/30/10/30 build like I do and laugh when they bounce off your rock skin before melting them with conditions?

bhagwad.4281:

Dee Jay.2460:

I’m not even going to attempt to justify such damage.

I’ve been saying that Mug needs a nerf and this is just further proof.

Vgman.4019:

Engis you can see coming, engis you can prepare for, engis you can preempt. Already stealth thieves? Your dead before theirs a chance to react.

To be fair, and already stealthed Thief can’t hit you like that. Mug would apply Revealed to him which would ruin his consecutive Cloak and Dagger + Backstab.

An already stealthed Thief can only hit you with Backstab.

A big problem with the “instant-gib” combo is that it is instant and almost completely untelegraphed. Steal has no animation and the Cloak and Dagger is a very subtle melee attack too, let alone that it is pre-cast most of the time.

If I’m not mistaken, the trait known as hidden thief overrides the reveal on steal.

You’d be wrong there.
And it’s a Master trait in the Shadow Arts tree. Thieves looking to do the BS combo won’t touch it.

Dual.8953:

bhagwad.4281:

Dee Jay.2460:

I’m not even going to attempt to justify such damage.

I’ve been saying that Mug needs a nerf and this is just further proof.

Vgman.4019:

Engis you can see coming, engis you can prepare for, engis you can preempt. Already stealth thieves? Your dead before theirs a chance to react.

To be fair, and already stealthed Thief can’t hit you like that. Mug would apply Revealed to him which would ruin his consecutive Cloak and Dagger + Backstab.

An already stealthed Thief can only hit you with Backstab.

A big problem with the “instant-gib” combo is that it is instant and almost completely untelegraphed. Steal has no animation and the Cloak and Dagger is a very subtle melee attack too, let alone that it is pre-cast most of the time.

If I’m not mistaken, the trait known as hidden thief overrides the reveal on steal.

You’d be wrong there.
And it’s a Master trait in the Shadow Arts tree. Thieves looking to do the BS combo won’t touch it.

You can see from the damage report that backstab was used immediately after stealth. Immediately without any time to cast another skill. So you explain that how exactly?

From the Wiki page of the “Mug” trait : http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mug

“Using this trait will cause Stealing to break stealth, as it counts as an attack. (does not break stealth granted by Hidden Thief)”

OP, (s)he obviously was hunting you and decided to stealth when (s)he got close enough. Point being there is no perma stealth. The longest stealth from 1 skill is rouhgly 14 seconds with 15 in shadow arts. If they want longer they would have to sacrafise other utility slots and a healing skill to “perma stealth” which is just silly.
I have done it before, its called stalking your prey and you dont stealth the entire trip to them. Hang back a little, get closer, stealth, initiate. Good thieves pick their fights, they don’t jump into a 1v3 and expect to come out on top (assuming they’re a BS thief). If this was a roamer who killed you then the post is invalid and serves no purpose. If this was you and 2+ other allies and you got targetd well then the thief saw you being a mesmer and wearing light armor a disadvantage and seems to know what they’re doing. And if they honestly crit you for 14k they most likely are full glass cannon so maybe you died once there but see them again and you should have no probem at all countering their defenceless build.

Were you afk? As a 100% glass cannon elementalist, I have never EVER been hit that much in spvp.

Razor.6392:

Were you afk? As a 100% glass cannon elementalist, I have never EVER been hit that much in spvp.

I wasn’t afk. I was running to cap a point. But how will being afk increase damage?

bhagwad.4281:

Razor.6392:

Were you afk? As a 100% glass cannon elementalist, I have never EVER been hit that much in spvp.

I wasn’t afk. I was running to cap a point. But how will being afk increase damage?

Being afk would explain not reacting at all or seeing it coming.

Try to use your “lock-in nearest target” keybind more often.

I usually blow a stun breaker whenever they use basilisk on me (I assume he did with Steal)

I do almost exclusive tPvP, tons of paids. Backstab thieves really aren’t all that. R40 (Not that that means I’m a god).

-If you didn’t see a thief coming did he pre-stealth? If so that nerfs his combo dmg. If not, that’s probably you’re fault since on any node there’s usually only 2 spots a person can come from. I mean hell dude you died by the cannon (hotjoin) with only 2 staircases.

-As a mesmer traited 50% health shatter recharge you have 2x distortion and 2x point blank daze. Staff chaos storm on self has a high chance of aegis/protection as a instant counter to his burst dmg. 17k x .33 = 5610 dmg reduction just by using chaos storm on self (considering you don’t get aegis). You can decoy as soon as he approaches / stealths and get superior positioning.

-For all you know the thief could have been buffed with stacks of might from teammates combined with all crits.

Listen, let’s say a theoretical base 2000 dmg on backstab. Base crit dmg = 150% + 62% crit dmg (30 traits, 20 amulet, 12 runes) = 212% dmg. 4240 dmg. You see even if you add in dmg from passive traits the dmg difference is coming from somewhere else.

-If something is so broken look at the meta. Since thief is never overly utilized (or at all) by top tier teams it probably means it’s not broken.

You’re not even using all of the tools available to you given your build to deal with the situation. You got caught off guard, it happens.

And especially since you’re in a hotjoin with 0 communication, there’s absolutely no reason to change balance based off of this type of situation. I certainly wouldn’t want the game to be balanced around fringe situations in a wholly uncompetitive setting.

I speak so skeptically because in over 800 hotjoin matches I have never been instagibbed as badly as you did… and I doubt that whatever spec that thief is using, is that rare that can pull such damage while being relatively unknown to most people.

Some things to be aware of.

You can activate backstab while stealthed, steal (mug) to the target and the backstab will still finish because it only checks for stealth when you activate it.

You can execute the Midcast steal CnD -> backstab combo from stealth by timing the CnD to finish right after stealth expires. You will teleport to your target, steal, CnD, restealth and then be able to backstab. Any competent player can get the timing down in 5 minutes at the practice golems.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled “thief is OP” thread.

As always i’ll just drop this here to reminds that it’s not only against gc that you can do this and it still needs to be fixed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbhdsF4oEI8

Ragnarox.9601:

skill is when you kill full toughnes vit geared guardian or WARRIOR who knows to play his proffesion. .

Excuse me while I laugh. I must be the best Thief/Ele/Mesmer in the world. I have never lost to a Warrior. Warriors are non-threats and it is amusing that people act like they can actually be viable in PvP other than gibing people in the back while they were fighting someone else.

Razor.6392:

bhagwad.4281:

Razor.6392:

Were you afk? As a 100% glass cannon elementalist, I have never EVER been hit that much in spvp.

I wasn’t afk. I was running to cap a point. But how will being afk increase damage?

Being afk would explain not reacting at all or seeing it coming.

Try to use your “lock-in nearest target” keybind more often.

I usually blow a stun breaker whenever they use basilisk on me (I assume he did with Steal)

It’s not as if I don’t know how to fight thieves. I kill a lot of them using exactly the same tactics you mentioned.

This is about having no reaction time. By the time you’re halfway to pressing the button you’re dead.

TsurugiOni.7910:

I do almost exclusive tPvP, tons of paids. Backstab thieves really aren’t all that. R40 (Not that that means I’m a god).

-If you didn’t see a thief coming did he pre-stealth? If so that nerfs his combo dmg. If not, that’s probably you’re fault since on any node there’s usually only 2 spots a person can come from. I mean hell dude you died by the cannon (hotjoin) with only 2 staircases.

-As a mesmer traited 50% health shatter recharge you have 2x distortion and 2x point blank daze. Staff chaos storm on self has a high chance of aegis/protection as a instant counter to his burst dmg. 17k x .33 = 5610 dmg reduction just by using chaos storm on self (considering you don’t get aegis). You can decoy as soon as he approaches / stealths and get superior positioning.

-For all you know the thief could have been buffed with stacks of might from teammates combined with all crits.

Listen, let’s say a theoretical base 2000 dmg on backstab. Base crit dmg = 150% + 62% crit dmg (30 traits, 20 amulet, 12 runes) = 212% dmg. 4240 dmg. You see even if you add in dmg from passive traits the dmg difference is coming from somewhere else.

-If something is so broken look at the meta. Since thief is never overly utilized (or at all) by top tier teams it probably means it’s not broken.

You’re not even using all of the tools available to you given your build to deal with the situation. You got caught off guard, it happens.

And especially since you’re in a hotjoin with 0 communication, there’s absolutely no reason to change balance based off of this type of situation. I certainly wouldn’t want the game to be balanced around fringe situations in a wholly uncompetitive setting.

There are definitely ways to pull off a backstab immediately after a steal. The fact that I posted a screenshot of the two happening together is proof enough. Unless you think I’m lying and that it didn’t happen in half a second.

If it’s the latter there’s nothing I can say that will convince you. It happened. Somehow. And that’s that.

Razor.6392:

I speak so skeptically because in over 800 hotjoin matches I have never been instagibbed as badly as you did… and I doubt that whatever spec that thief is using, is that rare that can pull such damage while being relatively unknown to most people.

I’m a lvl 29 mesmer. It happened to me twice in one day (as the screenshot shows). As I mentioned originally, I already have plenty of experience fighting thieves. So advice to use stunbreakers etc are preaching to the choir. I already know.

This is about not having enough reaction time to hit a stunbreaker button. And I don’t even know if I was stunned. It was that fast. All I knew was that I was on the ground suddenly from full health.

bhagwad.4281:

TsurugiOni.7910:

I do almost exclusive tPvP, tons of paids. Backstab thieves really aren’t all that. R40 (Not that that means I’m a god).

-If you didn’t see a thief coming did he pre-stealth? If so that nerfs his combo dmg. If not, that’s probably you’re fault since on any node there’s usually only 2 spots a person can come from. I mean hell dude you died by the cannon (hotjoin) with only 2 staircases.

-As a mesmer traited 50% health shatter recharge you have 2x distortion and 2x point blank daze. Staff chaos storm on self has a high chance of aegis/protection as a instant counter to his burst dmg. 17k x .33 = 5610 dmg reduction just by using chaos storm on self (considering you don’t get aegis). You can decoy as soon as he approaches / stealths and get superior positioning.

-For all you know the thief could have been buffed with stacks of might from teammates combined with all crits.

Listen, let’s say a theoretical base 2000 dmg on backstab. Base crit dmg = 150% + 62% crit dmg (30 traits, 20 amulet, 12 runes) = 212% dmg. 4240 dmg. You see even if you add in dmg from passive traits the dmg difference is coming from somewhere else.

-If something is so broken look at the meta. Since thief is never overly utilized (or at all) by top tier teams it probably means it’s not broken.

You’re not even using all of the tools available to you given your build to deal with the situation. You got caught off guard, it happens.

And especially since you’re in a hotjoin with 0 communication, there’s absolutely no reason to change balance based off of this type of situation. I certainly wouldn’t want the game to be balanced around fringe situations in a wholly uncompetitive setting.

There are definitely ways to pull off a backstab immediately after a steal. The fact that I posted a screenshot of the two happening together is proof enough. Unless you think I’m lying and that it didn’t happen in half a second.

If it’s the latter there’s nothing I can say that will convince you. It happened. Somehow. And that’s that.

Are you sure that the steal happened pre-backstab? The damage on the steal makes it seem likely that it happened after the backstab.

Razor.6392:

I speak so skeptically because in over 800 hotjoin matches I have never been instagibbed as badly as you did… and I doubt that whatever spec that thief is using, is that rare that can pull such damage while being relatively unknown to most people.

You dont exactly have real experience in pvp lol. I could hit you for 17k backstab, literally because that damage shows up before you even know the thief is there. You dont have to be AFK because if you dont see the thief before they steal/cnd/bs you you dont really have a choice as to whether or not they are about to hit you because you dont even know they are there. I dont think you know how their combo works, thats why you told this guy he must’ve been afk simply because YOU have never experienced it. Well you are only rank 31 so, i mean really what have you experienced? Hotjoins.

Like I said, you have no real experience in pvp, thats why it hasnt happened to you yet but it will eventually.

What people who dont like this happening to them should do is start running real builds or balance builds.

So… not only did OP lie about his stats, but he’s also completely ignorant of how the Backstab combo actually works (“100% stealth, you can’t even see them, they aren’t even required to be out of stealth to do the combo”)…

FAIL.

Here’s a tip, OP, next time ask for help on the Thief forum and you’ll get a buttload of responses giving you detailed help on how to counter the Thief BS combo with a Mesmer. If you’re still having trouble after that and you’ve spent a month at it, come and complain, and we’ll be happy to hear it.

Until then, L2P.

Normally I full heartily believe that thieves deserve to be toned down. I made one this weekend, threw together a full glass set, and proceeded to smash buttons in sPvP and do better than I do on my characters that I have hours upon hours of practice on. That’s a little too forgiving if you ask me, and dare I say much less complicated than thief players try and make it seem.

But in this case I will point out (what most people here have already stated) that the mesmer is also glass. No offense, but when the match-up becomes glass vs. glass, neither side has the right to complain. Fastest burst wins, and that was the thief in this case. If you build your glass set thinking you’re going to be awesome just bursting everyone down clicking a few buttons, don’t be upset when someone comes along and does the same thing to you.

Lol another old hat thread.

I have a mesmer too, and trust me it’ll get easier to counter.

First of all that screenshot proves nothing. The post-death recap sorts in descending order of dmg. It shows nothing about skill order. Ur 2nd screen even shows a CnD so it’s impossible to do it “right after” even if u que CnD before you steal. The fact that you think that screencap is somehow “proof” just goes to show how little you really know.

You got hit for a 14k backstab. You can’t even do basic damage calculations to see that there was some extremely cheesey build that killed you.

Yes I believe it’s possible to do a steal + backstab combo when ur pre-cloaked (super hard for most). More likely what happened is that he was already cloaked, backstabbed him, then stole right after. It looks the exact same in summary.

Everyone has an opinion, doesn’t mean it’s good. If every developer balanced against nubs snipers would be banned from every FPS cuz “OP dmg + range”.

All the people trying to argue against OP have no clue about how thief class works.

Sorry, you really should stop saying bs and should try to AT LEAST watch some good thief stream before posting if you’re so ignorant about how the thief works.

Steal can be used mid cast.

Backstab has 1/4 second cast time.

You can cast backstab ( in stealth) and use steal mid cast, in order to have both Mug and Backstab to hit at the same time WHILE STEALTHED.

With haste, you can use 1 heartseeker after the Backstab -> Mug combo and you won’t even render, due to the animation being faster than rendering.

This is indeed broken, but it’s the only thing keeping thieves as a good option for top teams.

Make the thief good in other areas ( it would need huge rebalancing of thief capabilities) and nerf this dumb, broken burst: without the first phase, the thief will become useless if they simply nerf thief burst ( which is broken).

Thanks aNet.

EaGrimdarK.7849:

Razor.6392:

I speak so skeptically because in over 800 hotjoin matches I have never been instagibbed as badly as you did… and I doubt that whatever spec that thief is using, is that rare that can pull such damage while being relatively unknown to most people.

You dont exactly have real experience in pvp lol. I could hit you for 17k backstab, literally because that damage shows up before you even know the thief is there. You dont have to be AFK because if you dont see the thief before they steal/cnd/bs you you dont really have a choice as to whether or not they are about to hit you because you dont even know they are there. I dont think you know how their combo works, thats why you told this guy he must’ve been afk simply because YOU have never experienced it. Well you are only rank 31 so, i mean really what have you experienced? Hotjoins.

Like I said, you have no real experience in pvp, thats why it hasnt happened to you yet but it will eventually.

What people who dont like this happening to them should do is start running real builds or balance builds.

One would think that in so many matches it could’ve happened at least once to me… I mean, in all this time I’ve even seen a bear thief and some other skillful ones, but still from full to zero in less than a second? Not really.

I guess their stuff was always on cooldown whenever I came around.

@OP, have you considered that maybe you lagged a bit?

Two things:

1. I recently started playing PvP and I’m getting pretty good at it. At rank 21 I can honestly say that I’ve seen my fair share of matches, this includes paid tournaments.

Now out of all of the finishers I’ve witnessed, the highest rank I’ve seen so far is a tiger. I probably played against higher ranks, but I don’t really pay attention. So the only way I’ll know a rank is by a finisher being used. Point being is that out of all of the tigers I’ve seen, I can’t recall any of those finishers coming from any other class than a thief.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not some hardcore evidence. It’s just something that strikes (hur hur) the mind.

2. I’m a Mesmer who loves my berserker build. I have a very special setup used for combating a thief and depending the player, there are times where stealth is too much for me to handle. I use stealth myself to try and counter theirs. This means I’ll wait a few seconds after they’ve gone stealth before I use mine, so I can drop some seconds off of their clock. I’ll bring a break stun and I even have two block skills saved up (scepter and secondary sword). Lastly, I’ll usually save my distortion for thieves.

Out of all of that, the stealth is still too much. If I’m fighting a pro thief, then I’ll usually go down due to their ability to know when to stealth and pick up their mistakes.

The stealth and burst combination doesn’t feel fair at all.