Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been reading way to many “nerf thief, thief op” etc. threads and I don’t see your points. Please link some builds about how a thief can counter any of the following, I would love to beat some unstoppable walls here. Youtube PVP videos of thief domination would be great too, please no videos about any of these classes standing in blind fields or just not moving (yes i’ve been linked those)
a) hambow warrior – Fire eats me for about 500-1k dmg/tick and I only have 12-15k health using valk or zerker amulet, also if I get stunned by ANY hammer move (what is that 3 stuns/knockdowns?) then I am perma stunned when he/she adds any other stun.)
b) turret engy – tracks in stealth and aoe bombs, you just dont have to aim to hit anyone let alone a thief who is trying to backstab you or evade sword spam you
c) bunker guard – I can literally stand behind guardians and continuously backstab and switch rotations but if he just stands there he can tank me for a good 10+ seconds doing no damage whatsoever but just healing himself. Once he does go offensive I bump my face against his line of warding a kitten ton (no stability, if you count daggerstorm then I don’t do nearly enough focus damage) and his symbols do continuous damage
d) well necros – I cant get close, but if i switch to SB it doesnt do enough damage, condi thieves if the best option, but even then one heal and usually all my conditions heal him.
e) Pu mesmers – I have issues with condi clears, using shadow’s embrace and a generosity sigil and sometimes the assassins signet and well, PU. You backstab him, you fail once and 3 condis + unveiled debuff for 3 seconds

I’m posting this asking for help, not to flame any class. I’ve tried almost all the builds, but just some of these seem pretty unstoppable, low hp + no stab/harder to clear condis + no stealthing if I want to cap points or decap them makes me feel like thief isn’t all that OP.

Hambows: poison and shortbow. Get off point if fire field; in out with SD. Dodge arcing arrow. Stand at ~600 range and wait for him to switch hammer and use intell + F1. Dodge that. Steal his stab. Reset when he pop zerk stance. Reset when he pop endure pain. Use stun break for Staggering blow. Bait out all his CD and if no inc help for him, DP blind tank his hammer. Backstab when he LB F1 or arcing arrow.

Turret: LoS poison and shortbow his turrets. Blind or evade rifle. Wait for overcharge or pushback; stun break and burst after. Dodge magnet.

AH Guard: just poison and make him use some CDs, soften him up for Necro/Engi/team to bring down. If he goes down, cleave like you lost your wallet.

Necro: any Necro with full LF will shiet on you if you make one mistake. Catch one without death shroud. Stun then blind then fear then interrupt until dead. If you eat Doom, stun break and reset immediately.

PU Mesmer: hang around and poison him. Dodge around, blind some stuff, decap and leave.

Don’t 1v1 as a thief except if you are fighting another. Your job is peel thief off your friends, decap and burst low hp targets.
Be an kitten. Come into existing fights. Daze a key heal, cleave downed, blind stomp, stealth res.

Thief is OP because there is no other zerker class that has its mobility and on demand burst.
Watch magic toker, reikou, caed, collero, sizer, aeroxe, kurotsuki, old jumper gameplay. It’s more running, pick off weak, and decap than 1v1.

You might also feel thief is OP because good thief players watch map and enemy at all times and have to make decisions. There’s only good and bad thieves, while you can have mediocre hambow/D/D ele and still do okay. Playing one well in competitive situations takes mental strength.

Nerf steal and it will be fine.
90% of the thiefs will ragequit and only the good ones will remain.

Edit: Why steal is op?
– Instant
– Interrupt
– Dmg
– Heal
– Poison
– Teleport
– stolen skill is most times useful (thief, warrior, mesmer, ranger, necro)

This is structured PVP forum, you understand that you can be unable to kill anyone in 1v1 (even tho thief is probobly best 1v1 class) and still be overpowered in spvp?
Its so overpowered that we have this dumb kitten bunker meta, cause noone can play zerker without getting rekt by thiefs. (i mean overall ofcourse)
And its amusing how thiefs whine about bunker meta when they are reason behind it.

Dwaynas Avatar.1562:

Nerf steal and it will be fine.
90% of the thiefs will ragequit and only the good ones will remain.

Edit: Why steal is op?
– Instant
– Interrupt
– Dmg
– Heal
– Poison
– Teleport
– stolen skill is most times useful (thief, warrior, mesmer, ranger, necro)

…one dodge/block/etc. of the enemy and all these things miss.

That make steal to a all or nothing mechanic. This is not OP, but just bad and easy to counter.

Ralkuth, thank you for showing me the best way to deal with these guys. I’ll focus more on poison as that’s what i’ve been lacking. Also checking out the youtube people asap.

@Dwaynas Avatar – So you’re saying a stock thief build will have all that on steal? I’d love to see a youtube video of you wrecking anyone with a full steal build, I’ve never even heard of something like that before. Seems pretty wreckless, and not that useful either.

@ Atse – I agree with you, i feel like some classes do the same damage with higher defense/sustain ability so no one runs thief EXCEPT in wvw where stealth is actually a very large part of why thief is OP (or skipping certain parts of fotm/dungeons)

@Leeto, I’m unfamiliar with the pvp rules of how people are overpowered actually. Because I’m such a noob actually I don’t undestand it at all haha. So I can’t kill anyone alone, but because I can get to a point quickly I am overpowered? I understand 2v1 fights should be in favor of the 2, but thats not even a guarantee win against some classes that can lock me down (stun lock usually) I also usually dont have much of an option when anyone of the mentioned class/builds before already have the point on lock and are just waiting for me to come. Also you’re saying, because thief is so OP, people make classes to consistently kill thieves, so it’s the thieves fault?.. I don’t mean to sound condescending that just doesn’t make any sense to me. At all. 0_o

You a aware that ALL those meta builds exists because thieves burst down everything that isnt a bunker in seconds?

its just one of those things friend. tell me what part of warrior longbow generated too much adrenaline?..It got nerfed anyway..

a t s e.9614:

Dwaynas Avatar.1562:

Nerf steal and it will be fine.
90% of the thiefs will ragequit and only the good ones will remain.

Thief is already unplayable among the bunkers that deal similar damage but have 3x more sustain. I doubt bad players or fotm rollers are playing thief atm since they could play something with no risk and similar reward.

unplayable? S/D has godlike mobility, great burst, great utility and can 1v1 anything in the game.

lets not forget how many dodges you get

Ralkuth.1456:

Hambows: poison and shortbow. Get off point if fire field; in out with SD. Dodge arcing arrow. Stand at ~600 range and wait for him to switch hammer and use intell + F1. Dodge that. Steal his stab. Reset when he pop zerk stance. Reset when he pop endure pain. Use stun break for Staggering blow. Bait out all his CD and if no inc help for him, DP blind tank his hammer. Backstab when he LB F1 or arcing arrow.

Turret: LoS poison and shortbow his turrets. Blind or evade rifle. Wait for overcharge or pushback; stun break and burst after. Dodge magnet.

AH Guard: just poison and make him use some CDs, soften him up for Necro/Engi/team to bring down. If he goes down, cleave like you lost your wallet.

Necro: any Necro with full LF will shiet on you if you make one mistake. Catch one without death shroud. Stun then blind then fear then interrupt until dead. If you eat Doom, stun break and reset immediately.

PU Mesmer: hang around and poison him. Dodge around, blind some stuff, decap and leave.

I think this is great advice, but it will still be really hard to win 1vs1. Its funny to read the above because it shows how much skill and thought you need to play thief effectively, contrary to what many people say.

In contrast on my dps guard, which I just play for lols, the strategy is ring of warding-teleport, f1, change to sword symbol, whirl, auto-attack, blind, change to hammer and keep smashing until dead. I don’t have to think or change my attack pattern and it basically works well against every class/build.

Thief is not OP in the way that most people complain about it. It is good at doing a certain job, but I it takes more skill and is more fun to play than a lot of other classes imo.

magicmanh.1597:

@Dwaynas Avatar – So you’re saying a stock thief build will have all that on steal? I’d love to see a youtube video of you wrecking anyone with a full steal build, I’ve never even heard of something like that before. Seems pretty wreckless, and not that useful either.

Here is what most meta thief builds for tPvP have on steal:

• Poison
• Heal
• Damage
• Instant cast 900 range teleport
• Might, Fury and Swiftness for you and your teammates
• Stealing two boons from enemy and give them to yourself and your team + Vigor
• Interrupt (daze)
• Gain Initiative
• Gives you a stolen skill that is useful
• 21 sec cooldown

All these skills and attributes are from Trickery and Deadly Arts trait line. Steal is incredibly strong when used wisely indeed.

Are people kitten or something ? of course no other zerker should stand up to the thief in 1 v 1 thats how it was meant to be , its working as intended.

Go read the thief’s bio while you are it .

That’s the role of the class to reset if anything goes wrong it was build for that because of the initiative system. Most of the thieves will have utilities for resetting the fight (SR,Shadowstep…) and the damage comes from set,gear and traits because usually you’re screwed if you don’t have a way to reset. What good thief doesn’t have something to reset?I can definitely see my self using SB more now since every class might get 6 sec revealed skill but no one better complain about the resetting in those future times.

It’s not a higher chance of winning it’s doing what your foe can’t let me explain : this whole zerker thing is to kill your foe first by building high damage output for so called high risk high reward but any thief with a brain know other zerkers will usually not have a way to regain the lost health or endurance that’s the window other zerkers forgot they have you dot have sustain for that if the thieves builds out full damage no resetting the same thing would happen vs reset thief.

If you are not constantly hitting them and not healing or buffing while not attacking you give them advantage that why war is good Healing Signet+Adrenal Health keeps working when then that thief is resetting or when the war is blocking or uses a stance. You created a window for them and they like it zerker or not.

Steal is op, sure it is.
But s/d thief is not just about steal, u have initiative all the time, teleports, ilfiltrator’s strike, infiltrator’s signet, cloak and dagger, flanking strike, shadow refuge, infiltrator’s arrow, withdraw, signet of agility, feline grace, vigorous recovery, fluid strikes, kleptomaniac, preparedness, spam evades (u dont even need to think when to evade, just hit evade button all the time and its ok), and hit like 5k all the time cause u have sigil air/fire, and im not even mention trickery line and the fact that when u switch to shortbow u have energy sigil.
Now, how can you say this is not op?

SunnyLane.9386:

Steal is op, sure it is.
But s/d thief is not just about steal, u have initiative all the time, teleports, ilfiltrator’s strike, infiltrator’s signet, cloak and dagger, flanking strike, shadow refuge, infiltrator’s arrow, withdraw, signet of agility, feline grace, vigorous recovery, fluid strikes, kleptomaniac, preparedness, spam evades (u dont even need to think when to evade, just hit evade button all the time and its ok), and hit like 5k all the time cause u have sigil air/fire, and im not even mention trickery line and the fact that when u switch to shortbow u have energy sigil.
Now, how can you say this is not op?

By “this” you mean the setup or thief?

Yeah other classes don’t have "OP " setup zerker or not.

“Thief is not OP in the way that most people complain about it. It is good at doing a certain job, but I it takes more skill and is more fun to play than a lot of other classes imo”
I like that, I’m content.

and hello kinsz, thanks for kicking my butt with s/d, thats all thats getting me through spvp atm. Hope our new DB→SoS are behaving.

sunnylane, im calling you out right now. That was the most thick comment I’ve read on the forums in a while. You literally named all the thief skills, said one was OP, and then called the class was OP.

I’m done with the thread, thanks for everyone with useful comments for helping me, and showing me why thief is OP. The answer: because everyone says so. Not because we die in a few hits, but because we kitten players off to no end. I will play a thief forever just to make people rage. MAGICMANH OUT. FIND ME ONLINE TO FLAME ME!

i’m talking about s/d thief.
other thief builds are ok imo, since u can counter it, but doesn’t matter how they buff other zerk classes, ppl will stay with your bunker specs because thief can counter any zerker spec.

TheThiefMaster.3812:

Are people kitten or something ? of course no other zerker should stand up to the thief in 1 v 1 thats how it was meant to be , its working as intended.

Go read the thief’s bio while you are it .

Its just flavor of the month, not intendet. I remember guardians bunker builds unbeatable in 1v1, rangers kings of 1v1. Mesmer that counter everything in 1v1, spirit weapon guardians killing any solo player etc. Its just the usual mmorpg balance patched shifting meta. Oh and in beta bunker necros were able to win versus a small zerg.

A superior 1v1 class is not healthy for the PvP meta, look at WoW’s frost mages and what they did to the game.

It isnt even true that thieves are the superior 1v1 class. All meta builds are build around not dying to thieves. The chance that you can solo anyone as thief is actually pretty low. But it is still cancer for the meta, because thieves basicaly remove a wide range of build options and a meta with very limited build options is not a healthy meta.

magicmanh.1597:

“Thief is not OP in the way that most people complain about it. It is good at doing a certain job, but I it takes more skill and is more fun to play than a lot of other classes imo”
I like that, I’m content.

and hello kinsz, thanks for kicking my butt with s/d, thats all thats getting me through spvp atm. Hope our new DB->SoS are behaving.

sunnylane, im calling you out right now. That was the most thick comment I’ve read on the forums in a while. You literally named all the thief skills, said one was OP, and then called the class was OP.

I’m done with the thread, thanks for everyone with useful comments for helping me, and showing me why thief is OP. The answer: because everyone says so. Not because we die in a few hits, but because we kitten players off to no end. I will play a thief forever just to make people rage. MAGICMANH OUT. FIND ME ONLINE TO FLAME ME!

Yeah its weird, I seem to be able to take people out faster and easier with dps guard, but I get a lot more hate tells when I play thief.

i noticed a surprising amount of backstab thieves last night,
one hit me for 12k. (on my warrior)
and the cooldown of backstab is only aslong as “Revealed” then you can simply restealth and do it again!
or just spam 6k heartseekers to finish!

Liewec.2896:

i noticed a surprising amount of backstab thieves last night,
one hit me for 12k. (on my warrior)
and the cooldown of backstab is only aslong as “Revealed” then you can simply restealth and do it again!
or just spam 6k heartseekers to finikitten

his was in sPvP?! Numbers that high are rare in WvW with all buffs up, and should be impossible to reach in PvP under normal conditions…

When thief 1vs1s worse than a shatter mesmer then it might ??! be balanced..but im not sure.
When a class can ignore position by bypassing los restrictions ,sustain while burning multiple cooldowns and defences of the enemy,have the best mobility in game by far,has access to stealth for whole team which cant be breaked (lol) and does a kitten tone of single/aoe damage and plenty reduce healing access /instant control of boons and disables (i can go on and on actually !)…something got to be wrong
If something that strong in its role that restricted that big portion of build diversity was in another game /another company like riot
you thief players would be trash tier now after a handfull of repeated hot fixes.Thief might also had been disabled from ranked paly till the issue is resolved :P

Geiir.7603:

Liewec.2896:

i noticed a surprising amount of backstab thieves last night,
one hit me for 12k. (on my warrior)
and the cooldown of backstab is only aslong as “Revealed” then you can simply restealth and do it again!
or just spam 6k heartseekers to finikitten

his was in sPvP?! Numbers that high are rare in WvW with all buffs up, and should be impossible to reach in PvP under normal conditions…

From time to time people make up such stories. What happens in reality doesn’t live up to the legend unfortunately.

I don’t see how anyone can complain about s/d’s actual damage or burst. It almost all comes from stacking air+fire procs which are hardly unique to thieves.

Steal I could see being an issue, but how do you resolve it? Would simply moving sleight of hand to another tree or removing the 20% steal reduction in favor of a boon duration increase be reasonable here?

As to spammable evades? That’s kind of the name of the game for the Thief class. If you want to nerf it, the best solution is addressing initiative regen… but when you go down this path, you’re going to have to give the Thief some rather large improvements elsewhere.

Why thief is OP

First, thieves are not OP because of combat abilities.

They have good matchups against some builds and worse matchups against others. In particular, they can be godly against AI controllers like mesmer or Ranger because stealth messes up the AI. They are also great against any kind of berzerker, because stealth lets them get the first hit in. But, The class stealth ability makes them worthless in a 1v1 against a durable bunker, who caps the point everytime the theif stealths.

Alot of new players see “Theif OP,” and rush to the class and get owned hard trying to fight other players.

Theives are OP for a different reason: Ungodly land speed combined with stealth.

Theives have the best land speed in the game. This is due to spam able skills like sword and shortbow teleport. Such skills are not only no/low cooldown but they also work on the Z axis, allowing the theif to lap very fast characters like greatsword warrior.

The theif can just warp past obstacles up to the middle ledges in Kyhlo, and get to the middle point or the treb in about half the time that any other class can.

Combine that land speed with stealth. In the time it takes for shadow refuge to expire, the theif can be literally anywhere on the map. Is he still in the group fight at mid, or did he steal the unguarded home? You don’t know until the stealth expires. By that time it is too late. This unpredictability is what is OP.

Because theifs can be anywhere so quickly, so unpredictably, the whole game suffers. Teams dedicate a whole defensive player to bunkering home point, just to stop the enemy thief from getting ideas.

In this game, the downed state essentially means that the force with numerical superiority is going to win the fight 95% of the time. If you have to dedicate a player to what your opponent’s theif might hypothetically do, you lose. Remember that the thief can also reset the fight at will, potentially adding numbers to another fight on the map while you wonder where he is.

The only counter to this OP is to have your own theif.

TL;DR. Stealth + land speed lets the team with the theif always fight with player numbers advantage.

a t s e.9614:

No one can play in zerker except thieves? That’s a good joke , have you ever seen a DPS guard that has block/blind uptime ? If anything, guard is the class that go pure zerk and take no damage.

Zerker guard can beat most thieves 1v1 quite well, however, it is a burst build that:
- Runs out of steam after the initial burst
- Has low map mobility (which can be slightly reduced if team-mates give them a target in the right area of the map)
- Has no escapability or ability to reset a fight

Power necro still have 40k HP in full zerk because of the class mechanics , they can kill you easely if the life force is full.

Power necro can have a lot of health, and can pretty easily be cc’d all day as they lack stability/vigor. It true that power necro can nearly 1-shot you (with silly air/fire/chill of death procs), but their attacks are all telegraphed, they lack map mobility, and once again can’t escape a fight (unless pre-casting wurm and nothing happening to it).

Compare any of these builds to thief:
- BEST map mobility by far
- Easy means to gtfo of any situation that is bad
- Nearly complete control of the flow of the fight, deciding when it starts and when it ends
- Excellent 1v1 capability when played well b/c of the ability to reset/run at will
- Excellent burst to kill priority targets in teamfights with good survivability due to evades/shadowsteps
- Great support by sharing boons on steal, controlling downstate by stealing stab, and ressing with shadow refuge
- Heavy advantage in any zerker v. zerker fight that isn’t dps guard

All of the builds you mention either lack mobility, escape-ability, or team-support, and are hard to justify logically over thief. You would only ever play those builds b/c you like playing guard/necro and YOLO.

Dies too fast. http://www.twitch.tv/isilzhasb/c/4498813 Totally OP.

TheThiefMaster.3812:

Are people kitten or something ? of course no other zerker should stand up to the thief in 1 v 1 thats how it was meant to be , its working as intended.

Go read the thief’s bio while you are it .

And Necro is supposed to be the master of attrition. Working as intended lmfao.

I wonder what class is good at attrition…

It’s a risk vs reward issue. Beyond being the first game where you don’t reveal from attacks when you miss. Things like chaining blocks, invulns, and evades while being glassy that can hit max burst with little to no setup, plus uninterruptible heals. No matter what the build or class will always be hard to balance and set a standard of unfairness between classes.

All glass builds should only have one long C/D (or initiative whipe or lock in terms of thief?) with a max 3-4 sec invuln and maybe one evade skill on weapons. Max damage require proper set up that can be countered, or have a fair down time if instant.

Then afterwords tone down bunkers and balance the damage out put of tanky DPS including condi.

IMHO I think things like Shatter mesmers and dagger thieves are a fair balance between risk and reward (tho I think reveal on miss is called for.) things like s/d thief and engies who can chain defensive things while already innately tanky (like some of the other classes celestial builds) are unhealthy for the game.

I barely play or post here now days, but I can see people saying the same bs over and over and over again, like a broken record. First:

• Zerk thief doesn’t allow any other zerk to play.
  —-
  What is this, September 2012? That statement hasn’t been true for a long time now. The only real full zerk classes that struggle against thieves are Ranger, Elementalist and Mesmer. Even so, It doesn’t mean they can’t win against it.

• S/D thief can just BURST you down
  —-
  I don’t think you know what this word means. 8k crit from Steal + 10k BS was burst. What S/F Eles do is burst. 10k Eviscerate is burst. S/D thief is NOT bursting you down (air + fire sigil isn’t exclusive to thieves). Stop misusing the word already.

• Thieves are the master of 1×1
  —-
  If you are a good player, winning 1×1 as a thief shouldn’t be hard but, have you seem what people play in today’s pvp? Tell me how can a S/D thief wins against a A/S celestial warrior? Celestial D/D ele? Zerk Guardian? Turret engi? And other builds? Sure thieves have potential in 1×1, but they are far from being masters

The only reason thieves aren’t “masters” is because of the bunker meta. If the celestial amulet was removed, you’d see nearly nothing but bunkers and hambow. Saying that thieves are fine is just diluting yourself. Listing a cancerous build or two is anecdotal evidence at best and only goes to show what a giant cesspool the “meta” is. The game won’t ever work like a MOBA and defending MOBA-like role systems is silly (my thief is an assassin kitten!!!!1111) because there’s little to no buildup to the power of individual characters. You can strike at full power right away and go ham. There’s very little counter play to any of it short of making a build that counters what’s most dangerous. Even then it’s just hit and miss with no real depth.

So why is the bunker meta bad again? In the meantime, the forums are full of drivel about how two-shotting – say – other mediums in berserker is totally okay and corresponds to some imaginary “role”.

Good job.

#esports

It’s Gw1 assassins Evade stances all over again. People get mad since they can’t auto pilot fights and have to think. You’re going to splatter nades/bomb/serious damage dealing aoe, ok, Ill step out and add poison fields and weakness to keep you low. I’m just there to annoy, I got nothing but time.

Basically there are two types of people in this thread.

1. People talking about their personal experience with thieves or what they’ve seen.
2. People talking about the thief meta and their role as a dps roamer.

You are supposed to discuss thieves in the context of #2 and not #1. Watching top 100 thieves like Sizer and Caed will tell you more about thieves.

Asomal.6453:

I barely play or post here now days, but I can see people saying the same bs over and over and over again, like a broken record. First:

• Zerk thief doesn’t allow any other zerk to play.
  —-
  What is this, September 2012? That statement hasn’t been true for a long time now. The only real full zerk classes that struggle against thieves are Ranger, Elementalist and Mesmer. Even so, It doesn’t mean they can’t win against it.

• S/D thief can just BURST you down
  —-
  I don’t think you know what this word means. 8k crit from Steal + 10k BS was burst. What S/F Eles do is burst. 10k Eviscerate is burst. S/D thief is NOT bursting you down (air + fire sigil isn’t exclusive to thieves). Stop misusing the word already.

• Thieves are the master of 1×1
  —-
  If you are a good player, winning 1×1 as a thief shouldn’t be hard but, have you seem what people play in today’s pvp? Tell me how can a S/D thief wins against a A/S celestial warrior? Celestial D/D ele? Zerk Guardian? Turret engi? And other builds? Sure thieves have potential in 1×1, but they are far from being masters

Exactly, nice post.

Theif are op becous they can play glasscannon and still survive like a bunker. And they are the reason I cant play my ranger with any other spec than bunker, and even bunker specced most theifs can take more damage then my ranger can.

scirocco.9805:

Theif are op becous they can play glasscannon and still survive like a bunker. And they are the reason I cant play my ranger with any other spec than bunker, and even bunker specced most theifs can take more damage then my ranger can.

Survive like a bunker? You mean run like a little girl the second you realize you can’t win the fight? There are no way a thief can survive any focus in a team fight. Any focus and it drop instantly.

Just relax, your ranger are getting some pretty nice buffs soon, so I do believe we will see a shift in the meta.

Black Teagan.9215:

Dwaynas Avatar.1562:

Nerf steal and it will be fine.
90% of the thiefs will ragequit and only the good ones will remain.

Edit: Why steal is op?
– Instant
– Interrupt
– Dmg
– Heal
– Poison
– Teleport
– stolen skill is most times useful (thief, warrior, mesmer, ranger, necro)

…one dodge/block/etc. of the enemy and all these things miss.

That make steal to a all or nothing mechanic. This is not OP, but just bad and easy to counter.

not to mention it needs do be TRAITED in order do do all that. if i’m not mistaking we need to spend 8 points in order to steal to do all that! awesome hum?!

Rangers will get a Grand Master Trait embedded in there signets FOR FREE. With thieves get the same treatment? I don’t think so.

Geiir.7603:

scirocco.9805:

Theif are op becous they can play glasscannon and still survive like a bunker. And they are the reason I cant play my ranger with any other spec than bunker, and even bunker specced most theifs can take more damage then my ranger can.

Survive like a bunker? You mean run like a little girl the second you realize you can’t win the fight? There are no way a thief can survive any focus in a team fight. Any focus and it drop instantly.

Just relax, your ranger are getting some pretty nice buffs soon, so I do believe we will see a shift in the meta.

Im talking about the million evades and blind, cant hit a theif at all. Well the ranger changes are just stupid, will force all rangers too play glasscannon specs and play kill before u get killed style, no tactical thinking needed at all anymore. It was the survability of group support and bunker specs that needed buffing.

Asomal.6453:

I barely play or post here now days, but I can see people saying the same bs over and over and over again, like a broken record. First:

• Zerk thief doesn’t allow any other zerk to play.
  —-
  What is this, September 2012? That statement hasn’t been true for a long time now. The only real full zerk classes that struggle against thieves are Ranger, Elementalist and Mesmer. Even so, It doesn’t mean they can’t win against it.

• S/D thief can just BURST you down
  —-
  I don’t think you know what this word means. 8k crit from Steal + 10k BS was burst. What S/F Eles do is burst. 10k Eviscerate is burst. S/D thief is NOT bursting you down (air + fire sigil isn’t exclusive to thieves). Stop misusing the word already.

• Thieves are the master of 1×1
  —-
  If you are a good player, winning 1×1 as a thief shouldn’t be hard but, have you seem what people play in today’s pvp? Tell me how can a S/D thief wins against a A/S celestial warrior? Celestial D/D ele? Zerk Guardian? Turret engi? And other builds? Sure thieves have potential in 1×1, but they are far from being masters

^ this +1

XacTactX.6709:

Basically there are two types of people in this thread.

1. People talking about their personal experience with thieves or what they’ve seen.
2. People talking about the thief meta and their role as a dps roamer.

You are supposed to discuss thieves in the context of #2 and not #1. Watching top 100 thieves like Sizer and Caed will tell you more about thieves.

I’d just like to note that my comment and video was a joke – I know full well that was just a really bad thief.

Thief is OP in real coordinated teamQ, or top soloQ where all superpugs know what theyre doing. If youre a “bad” thief you may feel weak, but thats a l2p issue. But why learn your class, when you know theres a “black thiefy wall” upcoming, which you will never pass?

1) There is NO other counter than also play thief.
Never was and never….maybe….. but the mobility is just worth too much to give up strategically.

2) S/D evade is actualy good in most 1v1 matchups.
A mobile fortress? you get the idea how broken it sounds

3) Initiative = No CDs .
Old problem. It wont get fixed, just remember that it exists and hope that they keep it somewhat balanced. point 1&2 are bigger for pvp

thief can be considered “OP” due to several facts. But i think the most striking “effect” any thief build has, is psychological. You never know when to expect the thief (unless the thief is blatantly aiming for you). Outside of 1v1 You never know when that basilisk steal will hit you, or that backstab…. you never truly know. While with say a hambow, you can see that fat hammer wielding klutz jump at you from miles away (thus dodge accordingly) or you can see that ele setting up for a burst.

Flumek.9043:

Thief is OP in real coordinated teamQ, or top soloQ where all superpugs know what theyre doing. If youre a “bad” thief you may feel weak, but thats a l2p issue. But why learn your class, when you know theres a “black thiefy wall” upcoming, which you will never pass?

1) There is NO other counter than also play thief.
Never was and never….maybe….. but the mobility is just worth too much to give up strategically.

2) S/D evade is actualy good in most 1v1 matchups.
A mobile fortress? you get the idea how broken it sounds

3) Initiative = No CDs .
Old problem. It wont get fixed, just remember that it exists and hope that they keep it somewhat balanced. point 1&2 are bigger for pvp

+1 to this

scirocco.9805:

Geiir.7603:

scirocco.9805:

Theif are op becous they can play glasscannon and still survive like a bunker. And they are the reason I cant play my ranger with any other spec than bunker, and even bunker specced most theifs can take more damage then my ranger can.

Survive like a bunker? You mean run like a little girl the second you realize you can’t win the fight? There are no way a thief can survive any focus in a team fight. Any focus and it drop instantly.

Just relax, your ranger are getting some pretty nice buffs soon, so I do believe we will see a shift in the meta.

Im talking about the million evades and blind, cant hit a theif at all. Well the ranger changes are just stupid, will force all rangers too play glasscannon specs and play kill before u get killed style, no tactical thinking needed at all anymore. It was the survability of group support and bunker specs that needed buffing.

I completely agree that ranger are getting buffed wrong as it will literally kill most thieves within a second and that its team support and fight capabilities should be buffed instead. But you know anet….

You know, the current mets builds doesn’t have both blinds and evades. It Is one or the other. The d/p build most used has just as many evades as all other professions. S/D has high evade uptime but no blinds. S/P are the exception with evade frames in Pistol Whip though.

“What is this, September 2012? That statement hasn’t been true for a long time now. The only real full zerk classes that struggle against thieves are Ranger, Elementalist and Mesmer. Even so, It doesn’t mean they can’t win against it.”

I think this is basically it. The reason why people run with zerk thieves is because of their natural skillset is best suited for their role and for the team. With zerker specs on your team, you cannot just sit on two points in this game and get kills. The reward for killing people just isn’t high enough. Instead you need to play for three points to snowball. You don’t even need to have the third point capped, just neutral state to snowball. It just so happens that thieves have the best range of movement to easily travel between points the quickest. For the same reason why guardian is ran as a support – because of its natural skillset demands it. It is true that certain specs get eaten alive by thieves, but that’s true for all classes. Certain common specs have strengths against other setups than others.

Playing all three points does certain beneficial things for a team with some zerker specs in it. The beneficial effects really all revolve around forcing your opponent into doing something. In general I find it does two things: Playing all three points forces your opponent to rotate, and it naturally creates smaller fights. Both of these things generally create the healthiest environment possible for zerker builds. Zerker builds generally can out-rotate heavy sustain specs, and zerker classes ability to contribute to fights drops significantly with more bodies involved – it just becomes too risky. So you’re going to have trouble getting your two sustain heavies + 3 zerker spec team to work if you’re trying to just play 2 points and get kills, if you’re faced against a more sustain setup. It gets riskier as time goes by because your team is forced to screw up less or things will fall apart.

Any other zerker spec ether struggles against thieves (fresh air s/d ele is as fragile and as bursty as an all signet thief but instead with wayyy more utility for the team), or other zerker lines wrecks face, but the natural skillset of the class just fits other roles better to help fill in the gaps for the team (zerker engie hurts, but they have a better skillset, and can contribute more to a team, as a roaming all-rounder).

I think the reason why we see people play sustain specs is because sustain specs, at the very least, allow you to endure on a point long enough for your teammates to show up. At the very best, it allows you to 1v1 people as easily as possible. So many solo que builds focus around afk’ing on point hoping someone comes by to fight. Solo que is an area where communication is absolutely horrid so the lag time between a fight starting and support arriving is longer. People WILL exploit that lack of communication.

Dwaynas Avatar.1562:

Nerf steal and it will be fine.
90% of the thiefs will ragequit and only the good ones will remain.

Edit: Why steal is op?
– Instant
– Interrupt
– Dmg
– Heal
– Poison
– Teleport
– stolen skill is most times useful (thief, warrior, mesmer, ranger, necro)

Only if you trait for it.

Also Thieves are meant to have super high burst and high mobility but when you catch them in immobilizes/AoE/other abilities you get killed really fast.

Geiir.7603:

scirocco.9805:

Geiir.7603:

scirocco.9805:

Theif are op becous they can play glasscannon and still survive like a bunker. And they are the reason I cant play my ranger with any other spec than bunker, and even bunker specced most theifs can take more damage then my ranger can.

Survive like a bunker? You mean run like a little girl the second you realize you can’t win the fight? There are no way a thief can survive any focus in a team fight. Any focus and it drop instantly.

Just relax, your ranger are getting some pretty nice buffs soon, so I do believe we will see a shift in the meta.

Im talking about the million evades and blind, cant hit a theif at all. Well the ranger changes are just stupid, will force all rangers too play glasscannon specs and play kill before u get killed style, no tactical thinking needed at all anymore. It was the survability of group support and bunker specs that needed buffing.

I completely agree that ranger are getting buffed wrong as it will literally kill most thieves within a second and that its team support and fight capabilities should be buffed instead. But you know anet….

You know, the current mets builds doesn’t have both blinds and evades. It Is one or the other. The d/p build most used has just as many evades as all other professions. S/D has high evade uptime but no blinds. S/P are the exception with evade frames in Pistol Whip though.

I would not say that rangers are buffed in the wrong way.
I would say thieves are just too weak outside of stealth.

Anyone that says S/D thief is a “sustain” spec please go play it. Hambow is sustain. Bunker Guard is sustain. Not S/D thief. With Permavigor, an S/D thief can only dodge 3 times within ~5 seconds, learn to count the evades. Flanking strike’s evade is so hilariously easy to counter that if you can’t your kittened.

-Teef Teef Teef Teef

Elitist.8701:

Anyone that says S/D thief is a “sustain” spec please go play it. Hambow is sustain. Bunker Guard is sustain. Not S/D thief. With Permavigor, an S/D thief can only dodge 3 times within ~5 seconds, learn to count the evades. Flanking strike’s evade is so hilariously easy to counter that if you can’t your kittened.

-Teef Teef Teef Teef

Want to recalculate with SBow added to the thought process?
kitten SBow..

Yep cause 3 dodges every 5 sec is too little..lol every dodge is a sec of invulnerability.
Add to that that opponent has skills with casting time which he does no damage while casting(no need to dodge then) plus your ports which are countless and the abuse of los..
Define sustain pls..Cause yeah thief cant stand still and soak damage.He has all the tools to avoid it and more.The "more " is the problem.Something needs to go.Not much be it a steal nerf,los on port,some reduce on dodging (not much),damage,landspeed..Whatever those who “balance” choose to take away