Guild Wars 2

Greetings, people of the mist!
I have come here to this beloved forum to say out loud my opinion about us fellow thieves, our strengths, our weaknesses, and the common reactions from you, the rest of the community

First, about myself; I am a Rank 40 Sylvari thief, rocking the Steal burst build by Caed.
Throught my carieer as a Tpvp thief I have experienced with almost every build possible EXCEPT of S/d evasion build.
outside of pvp my thief is lvl 80 with all exotic/ascended items.
I also have a lvl 80 Mesmer with similar items.
I used to spend most of time roaming wvw and 1vXing like crazy
I admit, Thieves are elite roamers… They are deadly assassins of the night that you should never let catch you off guard (well,at least some are).
But this is not about WvW, this letter is addressed to you, my pvp loving friends, so pay attention!

So what’s it like being a Thief in this heavy condi/bunker meta pvp,you ask?
Well, it’s different.
You do not have the tools to to scatter aoe dmg and tank hits from 3+ foes.
You can’t stun lock an enemy and let your passive health regen sustain you.
You cannot apply massive amounts of conditions in a quick burst (you CAN play a condition build and be perfectly viable though, it’s just that you’re. Ot as good at it as say,engirs or necros).
What you can do however,is apply the most spikey burst to an enemy and thus apply massive pressure to him, forcing him to stop whatever he was doing a second ago and take massive action countering this barrage of Heartseekers!
That’s pretty much how a Thief plays.
He selects the most “glassy” target in sight and quickly takes care of it.
If it plays well, the target is now downed and the Thief would either try to down or finish his target with dmg.
The Thief would then retreat, either fully to let his hp back up, or partially, attacking from a distance with his SB.
Those traited deep into Shadow Arts, with the GM trait “shadow Rejuvanation” would probably go into a shadow refuge or just prolonged stealth to gain their HP back for another rotation.
That is the most typical role that a burst thief will take in a group, and in a nutshell, his rotation.

Now, to the part that drove me to write all this: the complaints!
Now, let me start by saying that complaining is normal! Players will always find SOMETHING to complain about, anything. I don’t mind that.
BUT, and this is a big but,when too many people complain about something specific it escalates and escalates, to the point where it distorts the facts!
I’m talking about you, Stealth!
Oh, our good old stealth!
It’s easy to think stealth is a terribly overpowered mechanic in GW2 that ruins the whole balance in the entire game!
After all, it’s invisibility man…this DOES give the player tremendous advantages and wonderful escape plans.
Do I think Stealth is a mechanic so strong that it’s game changing? Absulotely,but it is the exact OPPOSITE of game breaking.
In fact, it may be the one Mechanic that adds the MOST strategy amd tactical play to a class.
It is beautiful, it’s what defines a thief and makes him what he his, and I think Anet deserve a big applause for the implementation of such a complicated qnd unique mechanic.

So, how exactly does Stealth blend in GW2 PVP normally?
It’s thanks to this one golden rule,this is a big one guys.
In fact, it is so big that if you fully grasp the idea behind it, you can abuse it to make the Thief lose and be a hindrance to his whole team.
So pay attention guys here it is: “Every second that the thief is abusing Stealth, is a second he will not attack or capture nodes.
In other words, he’s not helping his team AT ALL, while occupying  a Player slot in their team”.
In PVP, a stealthed thief is a dead thief (well, up to the moment he la da that nasty Backstab combo on you).
If it was WvW, if the Thief stealthed away from you it sucks because you get no lootbag/exp and he continues with his camp slaughter rampage.
However, if a Thief stealths away from you in PVP, it works to your advantage!
Every second that the thief is hidden and thinking “oh, he won’t see this one coming, I’m gonna get you…” Nd almost every thief thinks like that, because this is what we like about being a thief the mos . It is our joy, you are buying time for your team, the node ticks more points and your team has the upper hand.
So next time you almost kill a thief and he stealths away and comes back 20 seconds later with full hp and tries to assault your node again, remember you just WON your team 20 points! 
That’s just how the game works.
So you see, Stealth is counter-productive, a true hidden killer.
Stealth is only useful when used tactically to gain the upper hand in a fight,or save your life,but it is still killing time in every sense of the word.

So you want to know how to counter any stealth Thief? 
First, make sure your build has a wY to negate our burst.
For anwarrior, it could be Shield Stance, for a Necro its Death Shroud.
Other than that,here’s a list of our most hated tricks:
1)Conditions (Guess what? They tick when we’re stealthed too! Not every thief has Shadows Embrace)
2)Immobolize + spamming attacks
3)CC
4)AoE
5)push/pull/knockback out of a refuge for a sweet free kill!

Last word of advice inwould give you would be, pay attention when your health drops below 50%…a hidden thief might be a second away from his dance of death with you.
 Thank you for reading, see you in game!

~Nit Shade from Whiteside Ridge

MightyMe.1356:

So pay attention guys here it is: “Every second that the thief is abusing Stealth, is a second he will not attack or capture nodes.
In other words, he’s not helping his team AT ALL, while occupying  a Player slot in their team”.
In PVP, a stealthed thief is a dead thief (well, up to the moment he la da that nasty Backstab combo on you).
If it was WvW, if the Thief stealthed away from you it sucks because you get no lootbag/exp and he continues with his camp slaughter rampage.
However, if a Thief stealths away from you in PVP, it works to your advantage!
Every second that the thief is hidden and thinking “oh, he won’t see this one coming, I’m gonna get you…” Nd almost every thief thinks like that, because this is what we like about being a thief the mos . It is our joy, you are buying time for your team, the node ticks more points and your team has the upper hand.

This is why people should never talk about introducing FFA or deathmatch in pvp… This would be a complete joke for half the classes.

MightyMe.1356:

So, how exactly does Stealth blend in GW2 PVP normally?
It’s thanks to this one golden rule,this is a big one guys.
In fact, it is so big that if you fully grasp the idea behind it, you can abuse it to make the Thief lose and be a hindrance to his whole team.
So pay attention guys here it is: “Every second that the thief is abusing Stealth, is a second he will not attack or capture nodes.
In other words, he’s not helping his team AT ALL, while occupying  a Player slot in their team”.
In PVP, a stealthed thief is a dead thief (well, up to the moment he la da that nasty Backstab combo on you).
If it was WvW, if the Thief stealthed away from you it sucks because you get no lootbag/exp and he continues with his camp slaughter rampage.
However, if a Thief stealths away from you in PVP, it works to your advantage!
Every second that the thief is hidden and thinking “oh, he won’t see this one coming, I’m gonna get you…” Nd almost every thief thinks like that, because this is what we like about being a thief the mos . It is our joy, you are buying time for your team, the node ticks more points and your team has the upper hand.
So next time you almost kill a thief and he stealths away and comes back 20 seconds later with full hp and tries to assault your node again, remember you just WON your team 20 points! 
That’s just how the game works.
So you see, Stealth is counter-productive, a true hidden killer.
Stealth is only useful when used tactically to gain the upper hand in a fight,or save your life,but it is still killing time in every sense of the word.

So you want to know how to counter any stealth Thief? 
First, make sure your build has a wY to negate our burst.
For anwarrior, it could be Shield Stance, for a Necro its Death Shroud.
Other than that,here’s a list of our most hated tricks:
1)Conditions (Guess what? They tick when we’re stealthed too! Not every thief has Shadows Embrace)
2)Immobolize + spamming attacks
3)CC
4)AoE
5)push/pull/knockback out of a refuge for a sweet free kill!

Last word of advice inwould give you would be, pay attention when your health drops below 50%…a hidden thief might be a second away from his dance of death with you.
 Thank you for reading, see you in game!

~Nit Shade from Whiteside Ridge

Exactly!!
Stealth is so counter productive in tPvP that I would consider it the most underpowered mechanic in this conquest pvp mode.
Ty for your effort but you’re wasting time mate,
Haters gonna hate anyway

Ever played a S/F Elementalist?
Spam auto attack … cant in 2 elements, hard in 2 others

AOE, 1 AOE skill that is reusable others are hard to hit or very long cooldowns… shatter stone is that 1 skill and it hits a second after it is cast.

Conditions, sort of doable… but this is the ele, condition spec is not very good at all.

CC. The kd is powerful vs a thief, if you have someone else nearby to beat him up for you.

Push pull knockback, not present on the weapon set.

Everyone needs an equal chance at fighting stealth. Increasing the height on projectile attacks (with no targets) and making beam type attacks usable with no targets would got along way.

I also signed up for this game with the promise from the devs that stealth would be short duration and not very accessible. Meanwhile at the 20+ second stealth and usable every 3 (wvw) to 4 (pvp) seconds is not short and low access.

Elementalists received a 40 second cd to RTL because people in WvW were using it to escape and reset fights. Where is the thieves 40 second cd on heart seeker when missing a foe?

Back to heart seeker, losing half your health then getting finished by 22222 is not fun. It sticks to you and does increased damage the more they use it. Forcing you to use an invulnerability or interrupt to get a heal out so they can go back to 22222 a second later.

Finally. Unskilful use of the thief’s abilities pushes my hatred for them over the edge. If you go invisible and then I use my invulnerability to counter, you should have to wait for it to run out before trying to backstab me. Instead you can happily spam 1111111 until my invulnerability runs out and remain in stealth. The same is for blinding the thief, aegis, interrupt etc etc. While blinding a theif would be a stupid counter, perhaps the thief could have another stealth tool (like F2) that will do a low damage skill to remove aegis and blind before using his big hit. Or using skill 1 whilst blinded or foes is blocking will use a the above mentioned low damage skill to clear the blind or aegis.

Unskilful gameplay is ruining this game, some of us enjoy the high skill curve of the higher skill level professions, but being gim/ped by an unskilful player is just wrong.