Guild Wars 2

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I play a guardian with overpowered survivavility, I dont usually have problems with thieves. But those are particular low risk high reward build examples. And no, not every aspect of Thieves is OP, it’s just that Thieves in particular are played like that due to their spammy nature, so it’s more of a problem in the design of the profession.
Mesmers, on the other hand, are a design abomination, there’s so much wrong with this profession I wouldn’t even know where to start.

As an engi fighting a theif is a kind of random. Sometimes I win easily and sometimes I drop instantly. I rock high health/toughness, and when going against thieves I tend to welcome the challenge as it usually results in a good fight.

However, I will agree with the fact that sometimes a thief will just destroy me before I can even see what happens. Every time I see pistol whip at the top in the after death damage window.

Wolfe.3097:

@mayama if your talking to me, then you didnt read my post, or your so blinded with thief hate you couldnt comprehend it, at no point did i say 20k burst in 2 seconds was ok or justifiable, i instead outlined how its possible and what the REAL culprits are (assassins signet and 6 stacks of fury combo, plus more probably)

take a breath, regain some of your unbias logic, and try again

I meant the general attitude of some people on this forum that think its ok that such burst even exists.

Mayama.1854:

Wolfe.3097:

@mayama if your talking to me, then you didnt read my post, or your so blinded with thief hate you couldnt comprehend it, at no point did i say 20k burst in 2 seconds was ok or justifiable, i instead outlined how its possible and what the REAL culprits are (assassins signet and 6 stacks of fury combo, plus more probably)

take a breath, regain some of your unbias logic, and try again

I meant the general attitude of some people on this forum that think its ok that such burst even exists.

meh, its not hard to see some people try to justify it (at least for me) but ya, its simply too much.

I think many thiefs downplay it by saying its easily avoided.

How ever I disagree, sure an experienced gamer will have a fair chance to avoid it, how ever if he fails to do so somehow he will be severly punished. And the Avg. Joe will not avoid this burst easily.

Furthermore who’s to say that you always stand ready to face the thief? Myabe you are engage in combat with someone allready – a thief sneaks up and its game over in 3 sec.

People are annoyed that these guys can squeeze too much damage out without a whole lot of effort

Fundamentally the problem is a combination of things: abilities like pistol whip/backstab, combined with stealth, combined with haste simply make this build too powerful for your typical hot-join PvP match for any profession that isn’t specced as a bunker build. Glass cannon builds are fine, but this is over the top. The PvP in this game was should have have tactical fights. In order to do so, there needs to some back and forth between the opponents. This requires at least a modest amount of time.

Being blown up from 100%→0% health in 2 seconds without warning is neither tactical, nor fun.

You’re talking about a build that has all its eggs in one basket.

If the thief failed to land that combo, he would have died. Actually he risked much going against an engi in the first place. If the Engi actually used a bomb kit, that spec wouldn’t have stood a chance.

It’s a spec that preys on the new players and the unsuspecting.

Complaining that “but what if I’m fighting someone and another guy comes in and I die?”. If that second class entering the fight is a burst DPS class, you’re dead anyways. A signet + BS thief just ends the fight quicker. A power well necro, frenzy warrior, rifle+belt engi, burst ele. They will blow you up as well.

And wanna talk about effort?

A engineer has to lay down smoke bomb to counter this opener from a BS thief. A thief has to use steal + C&D, signet, backstab. 1 ability to counter a killer combo. Where’s the effort?

But knowledge is power. If you want to play a glass cannon class then you need to dodge the other glass cannons out there. If you can’t do that, then play something tankier until you know how other classes work and how they like to open.

there is only 3 ways i can see a thief sneaking up on anyone. blowing there stealth skills back to back to gain more hten 3-4 seconds of stealth time. shadow trap, or you having your camera zoomed in too far.

just cuz your engaged in combat with someone doesnt mean you can exclude your positional awareness. i remember fighting 2 people at a node, having to dodge and attack them, i see a warrior coming, in anticipate adn dodge his bulls charge letting him whif his hundred blades.

now, i could say “i was fighting 2 people how do i see the warrior coming?”

but as for precasted cloak>steal>backstab…while it only happens once every 45 seconds or so, i agree its not easily avoided. however CnD by itself is easily avoided, seeing a thief go into stealth it is also then easy to avoid him (just make room, his stealth will fade before he can get into position)…but if you choose to ignore it and keep fighting your target, you took the loss.

but saying “you werent ready” is never an excuse

not too mention aside from the damage stacking one hit wonder backstab build, there is actually a good bit of effort and timing involved in landing a typical backstab and pistol whip. you can just hit PW (or backstab obviously) and expect a return on your investment. never happen

Elevated.9752:

As an engi fighting a theif is a kind of random. Sometimes I win easily and sometimes I drop instantly. I rock high health/toughness, and when going against thieves I tend to welcome the challenge as it usually results in a good fight.

However, I will agree with the fact that sometimes a thief will just destroy me before I can even see what happens. Every time I see pistol whip at the top in the after death damage window.

People are not taking into account taht there is currently issues with stealth, as in you are not instantly revealed when you do damage. this 1-2 secs of not being revealed makes a huge difference for pistol whip, as it takes a moment before the skill even starts channeling. were this issue fixed, you’d have a significantly larger window to stunbreakand get out.

Yes, but with a warrior, you can actually see him charge you with his rush. With a thief, you don’t know you’re being stunlocked by a thief until you’re at least down 25% of your hp. The spike is too large. It is unreasonable.

If you are being stunlocked, you should have enough reaction time to assess the situation. Right now you need to basically pop your stun breaker the moment you are stunned in case a stealthed thief is about to unload on you, and that’s simply silly.

Liav.7598:

Deadly Toy.2630:

As Warrior with 28k hp, I was once taken down by a thief in around two seconds, no joke. All they have to do is spam a few skills and kills will flow to them, and when their skill combos got interrupted, they just use one of their many stealth skills and they can safely plan their next move again. This is BS. As long as Thief remains in their current state, PvP will never become enjoyable especially for more squishy professions.

What about godmode Mesmers? Guardians that can hold a point against 2-3+ players at a time for several seconds until their team mates come to assist?

Ever consider that your class should be brought up to par instead of ruining other classes? I can barely compete with a good Elementalist/Mesmer/Engineer, as a Thief. If they nerf Thieves then I guarantee you the FOTM is going to go somewhere else. Oh wait, it already has. It’s called Mesmer!

The only reasonable approach is to try to get the classes on an even playing field a little bit at a time.

I would rather deal with Mesmer BS and Guardian’s ridiculous tankiness combined than getting killed by some garbage thief in two seconds. At least when I am facing Mesmer or Guardian, I have a chance to react like identifying the true Mesmer and trying to interrupt Guardian heal with my skills.

Being able to deal over 10k damage with one single skill in one hit is BROKEN, and combining that BS with other equally high damage skills as well as multiple skills that allow one to easily escape and come back makes a profession way overpowered. I’m sorry but only thieves are defending their own op profession; enjoy while it lasts because there is no way that ArenaNet is gonna just ignore all these complaints. I will probably open a thief character just to abuse him in PvP until it gets nerfed.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Yes, but with a warrior, you can actually see him charge you with his rush. With a thief, you don’t know you’re being stunlocked by a thief until you’re at least down 25% of your hp. The spike is too large. It is unreasonable.

If you are being stunlocked, you should have enough reaction time to assess the situation. Right now you need to basically pop your stun breaker the moment you are stunned in case a stealthed thief is about to unload on you, and that’s simply silly.

a thief cannot stunlock, the only stun we have is attached to pistol whip and lasts .5 seconds.

the only time i can agree with it being hard to react to is when they precast it and pair it with a teleport. or when hasted. any other time it is possible to react, PW has a large windup before it hits.

Deadly Toy.2630:

Liav.7598:

Deadly Toy.2630:

As Warrior with 28k hp, I was once taken down by a thief in around two seconds, no joke. All they have to do is spam a few skills and kills will flow to them, and when their skill combos got interrupted, they just use one of their many stealth skills and they can safely plan their next move again. This is BS. As long as Thief remains in their current state, PvP will never become enjoyable especially for more squishy professions.

What about godmode Mesmers? Guardians that can hold a point against 2-3+ players at a time for several seconds until their team mates come to assist?

Ever consider that your class should be brought up to par instead of ruining other classes? I can barely compete with a good Elementalist/Mesmer/Engineer, as a Thief. If they nerf Thieves then I guarantee you the FOTM is going to go somewhere else. Oh wait, it already has. It’s called Mesmer!

The only reasonable approach is to try to get the classes on an even playing field a little bit at a time.

I would rather deal with Mesmer BS and Guardian’s ridiculous tankiness combined than getting killed by some garbage thief in two seconds. At least when I am facing Mesmer or Guardian, I have a chance to react like identifying the true Mesmer and trying to interrupt Guardian heal with my skills.

Being able to deal over 10k damage with one single skill in one hit is BROKEN, and combining that BS with other equally high damage skills as well as multiple skills that allow one to easily escape and come back makes a profession way overpowered. I’m sorry but only thieves are defending their own op profession; enjoy while it lasts because there is no way that ArenaNet is gonna just ignore all these complaints. I will probably open a thief character just to abuse him in PvP until it gets nerfed.

what other qually damaging skills?

but im not gonna bother with you, your the type of player who wants x class nerfed so hard it wont be competitive and any format.

not too mention its obvious you dont know what aspects of thief are OP and what arent.

do you know how we get so high a backstab?

auhfel.4129:

People are not taking into account taht there is currently issues with stealth, as in you are not instantly revealed when you do damage. this 1-2 secs of not being revealed makes a huge difference for pistol whip, as it takes a moment before the skill even starts channeling. were this issue fixed, you’d have a significantly larger window to stunbreakand get out.

This is very true and a hugely noteworthy issue.

The lengthy delay before an unstealthed thief appears makes stealth incredibly powerful in this game, and makes it pretty much impossible to react to a hasted pistol whipper.

Wolfe.3097:

Deadly Toy.2630:

Liav.7598:

Deadly Toy.2630:

As Warrior with 28k hp, I was once taken down by a thief in around two seconds, no joke. All they have to do is spam a few skills and kills will flow to them, and when their skill combos got interrupted, they just use one of their many stealth skills and they can safely plan their next move again. This is BS. As long as Thief remains in their current state, PvP will never become enjoyable especially for more squishy professions.

What about godmode Mesmers? Guardians that can hold a point against 2-3+ players at a time for several seconds until their team mates come to assist?

Ever consider that your class should be brought up to par instead of ruining other classes? I can barely compete with a good Elementalist/Mesmer/Engineer, as a Thief. If they nerf Thieves then I guarantee you the FOTM is going to go somewhere else. Oh wait, it already has. It’s called Mesmer!

The only reasonable approach is to try to get the classes on an even playing field a little bit at a time.

I would rather deal with Mesmer BS and Guardian’s ridiculous tankiness combined than getting killed by some garbage thief in two seconds. At least when I am facing Mesmer or Guardian, I have a chance to react like identifying the true Mesmer and trying to interrupt Guardian heal with my skills.

Being able to deal over 10k damage with one single skill in one hit is BROKEN, and combining that BS with other equally high damage skills as well as multiple skills that allow one to easily escape and come back makes a profession way overpowered. I’m sorry but only thieves are defending their own op profession; enjoy while it lasts because there is no way that ArenaNet is gonna just ignore all these complaints. I will probably open a thief character just to abuse him in PvP until it gets nerfed.

what other qually damaging skills?

but im not gonna bother with you, your the type of player who wants x class nerfed so hard it wont be competitive and any format.

not too mention its obvious you dont know what aspects of thief are OP and what arent.

do you know how we get so high a backstab?

And your the kind of people who assume what others are thinking. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to lower thief’s damage so that, for example, the maximum damage a glass cannon thief can achieve on its back-stab is 8k-10k OR nerf thief’s invisibility skills so that they won’t be able to get away so easily after a failed attempt of assassination.

And to be honest, I don’t need to understand thief 100% in order to make my complaints valid. From my experience, I know what they are capable of, and what they are capable of is way over the top. Seriously, if you think being able to deal around 20k damage in 2 seconds with multiple skills for effective escape doesn’t make a profession overpowered, then your just a thief defending thief. But don’t worry, I will be joining you soon as a thief, but my main goal is to influence other people to complain about thief so that they will get nerfed as soon as possible.

theifs needs to be nerfed.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Assume a nominal amount of lag, say 200ms. Assume further the thief is stealthed, so you don’t realize it’s a thief until he’s already attacking, give that another 0.5s. Now you have about 1 second to react before you’re dead.

It doesn’t matter if the thief loses all endurance if the fight is over.

in a prealarmed state the human body will react much faster than the way you described

also 200ms? you should change your connection, i would consider anything far above 50ms unplayable and mmo’s are very humane with ping
moba’s are already at 50ms basically unplayable

so all in all when you know something is in stealth, see a thief running towards you or are in a fight where you should be ready to get out of kitten any second a decent player will probably react as fast as <100ms to a thief trying to pistol whip him

and yes if your stunbreak is on cooldown / your out of endurance etc pp you’re screwed, that’s just the way it is, but that’s the same thing as if an ele or warrior were charging you (admittedly not as fast)

not playing with berserker’s amulet as non-thief is said to help aswell and so does not playing 8v8 where you basically get intokitten situations due to zerging 24/7

edit: yes the remark about stealth is right, it takes somewhat 500ms to be fully revealed from stealth which is outrightkitten and a huge annoyance

you can target your enemy immediately tho

And your the kind of people who assume what others are thinking. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to lower thief’s damage so that, for example, the maximum damage a glass cannon thief can achieve on its back-stab is 8k-10k OR nerf thief’s invisibility skills so that they won’t be able to get away so easily after a failed attempt of assassination.

“garbage thief” <-that right there alone speaks volumes about your stance on game balance, that its sitting quietly directly behind your battered ego.

but, ive said more then once that 20k in 2 seconds is crap and needs addressing,b ut everyone says nerf backstab base damage, when in fact that doesnt solve the burst problem, its how we can stack damage effects+assassins signet.

and for stealth, if you have problems with it wait for the numerous bugs with it to be fixed before you start crying nerf eh?

and to be honest you DO need to understand how the class works before you complain about it, or it in fact does invalidate you claim.

you have no concept of class balance, you just want a nerf, in wahtever form, so you feel better about playing what you like aesthetically, screw balance.

Wolfe.3097:

And your the kind of people who assume what others are thinking. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to lower thief’s damage so that, for example, the maximum damage a glass cannon thief can achieve on its back-stab is 8k-10k OR nerf thief’s invisibility skills so that they won’t be able to get away so easily after a failed attempt of assassination.

“garbage thief” <-that right there alone speaks volumes about your stance on game balance, that its sitting quietly directly behind your battered ego.

but, ive said more then once that 20k in 2 seconds is crap and needs addressing,b ut everyone says nerf backstab base damage, when in fact that doesnt solve the burst problem, its how we can stack damage effects+assassins signet.

and for stealth, if you have problems with it wait for the numerous bugs with it to be fixed before you start crying nerf eh?

and to be honest you DO need to understand how the class works before you complain about it, or it in fact does invalidate you claim.

you have no concept of class balance, you just want a nerf, in wahtever form, so you feel better about playing what you like aesthetically, screw balance.

Typical argument by someone who is clueless. Your attacking my attitude towards thief rather than trying to provide evidences to argue against my point. And your opinion that nerfing backstab damage won’t solve the problem leads to absurd implication: so if bactstab damage is halved, 20k damage will be just as easily achievable? Plus, I have a problem with the amount of stealth skills thief has available and how easy they can be spammed regardless of whether they are bugged.

Sadly to you whether my opinion is invalid due to fact that I do not FULLY understand thief and whether I FULLY understand class balance is irrelevant here because Im gonna voice my opinions anyway and let the developers judge whether they should nerf thief or not. It’s just your opinion that my opinion is valid; I can say your defending theif only because you play thief and you know nothing about class balance, but that doesn’t mean anything either.

I still can’t fathom why developers continue to add stealth classes to their games. The only people who don’t get frustrated andkitten off at them are the people who play them.

Especially when they’re the typical, “Kill you before you can react from stealth”.

Oh. I guess… I guess you beat me. Oh well.

It’s just not fun. I have an incredible success rate versus those gimmicky HB warriors. Want to know why? Because I actually have a chance to react. It doesn’t matter if they can take 50-80% of my health away, since I can very easily dodge Bull’s Rush, Eviscerate, ect.

Even if you manage to dodge/avoid the thief’s attack, he still has the rest of his initiative for it. He doesn’t rely on 30+ second CDs. On a vigor stacking ranger with Sigil of Energy, I STILL don’t have enough endurance to avoid the entire burst chains. Who cares if they have 12k health when throughout the entire fight you’re on the defensive and never have a chance to scratch him.

R E F L H E X.8413:

He’s using the stealth spec for more damage an +% from behind or side, along with a few other things like dagger training. Also, he is most likely purely a glass cannon with like 14k hp.

This. I just got put into a really amusing sPVP match that ended up weirdly being 1v1: me against a Thief with near the same exact build. He could do high initial damage, but after I survived the initial onslaught, there was nothing he could do to me. I just swatted him.

I exclusively play a thief and have tried many builds and my biggest BS crit was for 14k, then I started trying P/D bleed build and never looked back.

Last night I ended up in a 1v1 situation with a burst spec thief in hot-join, he caught me off guard (id just finished off one of his team mates when he jumped me) and had me down to 10% hp almost instantly, so what did i do? I dodged away, went stealth, put 5 x bleed on him with my pistol, dodged his next attack, signet blinded the one after that, stealthed again with healing, stacked another 5 x bleed on him, by this stage he was running away with about 12 x bleeds on him, so i used steal, then crippled him, used cloak and dagger for another stealth and 5 x bleed then watched him run around a corner and fall down.

No real point in my post, just thought it was a cool story.

My thief can crit over 20k easy, i even made a video of it

Zyrusticae.7245:

Payneful.7934:

Pistol whip and HB is extremely useful in “higher tier play”. You just have to know when to use them.

With quickness, yes. Without quickness… hell no. With the combination of a self-root AND melee range? Good luck with that!

The idea is to only switch to your sword when you have quickness up. Otherwise you are full time short bow.

First of all im playing a necro! I know thiefs are hitting hard and yeah i was upset about it.

BUT

from a PVE perspective it is senseless to nerf their damage. On the long run this wont be a solution.

Also think about it.. is it really the damage that keeps killing you? or is it their abiliy to sneak up on you and hit you unprepared just to vanish again?

What is it that keeps mesmer and thiefs alive?

You are right! ITS their Stealth!

So we need an easy solution that does not affect PVE right ?

Let me think about it… why not simply … give us some utility traits/skills that grant somekind of stealth detection?

“BUT THAT WILL RUIN THIEFS CLASS MECHANIC!!!!!! QQ :*(”

If implemented the right way NO it wont!

A few examples:

Engineer:
One of the turrets could provide an aoe (fixed radius) stealth detection.

Necro:
One of the Minions could provide an aoe stealth detection.

Ranger:
One of the Traps could provide an aoe stealth detection.

Elementalist:
Switching attunements could provide an aoe stealth detection buff. (trait maybe)

Warrior:
a Stance or maybe a buffshout could provide an aoe stealth detection buff.

Guardian:
is played tanky most in the cases anyway and doesnt need stealth detection :P

same goes for mesmer and thiefs themself.

Oh and before i forget.. NO.. Thiefs wont be useless by this gameplay addition.. the only difference would be that you guys now need a brain and map awareness to initiate on someone. Complexity is something the thief class is missing anyway.

Just my 50cent

/discuss

except some stacking stealth, it last 3seconds – 4 traited – on thief, and mesmers are so strong not thanks to stealth. moreover, after revealt, a thief has 3 secs in which he cannot stealth again.
what is the purpose of a stealth revelator? because you die to a lot of backstab’s thieves?
do you play 8v8 or 5v5?
thanks

wrong just to clarify how thief vanish again into stealth , it’s a skill called clock and dagger needs cast time and needs to stay at the same place cause u cant cast it while running and third and most important at all if u move i miss it cause it has a low range , so yeah if u wanna nerf stealth fine by me , u have to compensate somewhere else , cause hard hitting thieves has 13k hp

now about mesmer they need a nerf to their huge hp pool which is by default 24.5k
that’s 11.5k more than thief almost double the hp , and decoy can be casted instantly

and mesmer doesn’t have to stand still , so now tell me which class needs a nerf ?

thief or mesmer ?

i play both

Dude stealth is way OP :P
stealth detection should be included

Shukran.4851:

except some stacking stealth, it last 3seconds – 4 traited – on thief, and mesmers are so strong not thanks to stealth. moreover, after revealt, a thief has 3 secs in which he cannot stealth again.
what is the purpose of a stealth revelator? because you die to a lot of backstab’s thieves?
do you play 8v8 or 5v5?
thanks

actually i take apart most thiefs that come for me just because im tanky enough to take it. Problem is not the thiefs damage but the way he provides it. Theres no “risk” for the reward he gets.

Stealth detection provides this risk.

Deepblue.1237:

Shukran.4851:

except some stacking stealth, it last 3seconds – 4 traited – on thief, and mesmers are so strong not thanks to stealth. moreover, after revealt, a thief has 3 secs in which he cannot stealth again.
what is the purpose of a stealth revelator? because you die to a lot of backstab’s thieves?
do you play 8v8 or 5v5?
thanks

actually i take apart most thiefs that come for me just because im tanky enough to take it. Problem is not the thiefs damage but the way he provides it. Theres no “risk” for the reward he gets.

Stealth detection provides this risk.

the risk is the 14k hp 1.9k armor they have all game long forever and ever. as i wrote above after a steath a thief has to wait 3 secs to stealth again. for that kind of glasscannon is a huge time. they have to be sneaky.
cloack and dagger cost half of the initiative of the thief, even if it miss.

dreaming on guys , good players can kill thief really easy , it’s not meant as an offend no, but u really need to l2p , stealth detection is not needed , brain is

Why do you need stealth detection when you can just keep swinging while the thief is in stealth?

Like, seriously why? If he teleports, he’s thrown out of stealth. So he’s not going to be on the other end of the map. He’s going to be reasonably close to where he went into stealth.

Swing in that general direction, hit the thief while he is in stealth, watch the thief die.
/dance on his corpse.

UptheIronz.6732:

dreaming on guys , good players can kill thief really easy , it’s not meant as an offend no, but u really need to l2p , stealth detection is not needed , brain is

Really? Killing a thief who alternates high bursts and stealth is easy? Tell me how. Swinging the air hoping you get an hit?

In my opinion Stealth detection isn’t needed. What is needed to let the Stealth less easy mode.

1. When you use a skill, also if it doesn’t land, stealth ends (backstab will actualy requires skills to use properly!!!111)
2. When a stealthed player get struck by any hit, there should be something to let the attacker realize he hit the stealthed guy. As it is now, you can only swing the air having no clue of there the enemy is going.
3. The Revealed effect should last longer, maybe 2-3 seconds more (no Stealth spammers anymore).
4. Stealth should last less on thieves when it is not traited, way more when it is traited.

With these changes, Stealth can also lasts longer without balance issues imho.

sorrow.2364:

1. When you use a skill, also if it doesn’t land, stealth ends (backstab will actualy requires skills to use properly!!!111)

I agree with this. Not because it’s overpowered or necessary, but I at the very least think that swinging my dagger towards the enemy should reveal me, even if I don’t hit him.

sorrow.2364:

2. When a stealthed player get struck by any hit, there should be something to let the attacker realize he hit the stealthed guy. As it is now, you can only swing the air having no clue of there the enemy is going.

I don’t agree with this, since there’s already plenty of clues as to whether you hit him or not.

If you hit the thief with a melee swing, your combo will chain. If you don’t hit anything, you combo WON’T chain. If your combo chains, you know you’re hitting the thief.

Stealth does not make thieves immune to damage, and people just need to get used to that. Once you realize stealth is just an invisibility, not a immunity-coat with added stealth, you’ll be downing thieves easily.

I disagree with the rest. Initiative is why.

we really have more important issues than stealth atm , look at the mesmer and guardians do u think they are balanced ? stealth with thief is overrated , anyway it’s not our call whats to buff whats to nerf , it’s Anet Call , we have to wait and see whats comming in that pvp blog , if that’s comming , imo i highly doubt thief will be nerfed further

AoE should trigger dectection. If you bleed on the floor people should see it.

Rika.7249:

sorrow.2364:

2. When a stealthed player get struck by any hit, there should be something to let the attacker realize he hit the stealthed guy. As it is now, you can only swing the air having no clue of there the enemy is going.

I don’t agree with this, since there’s already plenty of clues as to whether you hit him or not.

If you hit the thief with a melee swing, your combo will chain. If you don’t hit anything, you combo WON’T chain. If your combo chains, you know you’re hitting the thief.

Stealth does not make thieves immune to damage, and people just need to get used to that. Once you realize stealth is just an invisibility, not a immunity-coat with added stealth, you’ll be downing thieves easily.

I disagree with the rest. Initiative is why.

No any weapon sets has combos as autoattack. If you are using a weapon set that has no combo, you can’t know if the thief is around you. It sounds lame to me. Also there are skills that chain and are single target (Ex: Necro scepter chain) that will chain anyways without let you know where the thief is.

Can you tell me how can Initiative make you disagree with the rest I said, please?

UptheIronz.6732:

we really have more important issues than stealth atm , look at the mesmer and guardians do u think they are balanced ? stealth with thief is overrated , anyway it’s not our call whats to buff whats to nerf , it’s Anet Call , we have to wait and see whats comming in that pvp blog , if that’s comming , imo i highly doubt thief will be nerfed further

Thief had no nerf at all, I don’t feel to call the Heartseeker change a nerf, seriously.
Consider also that it will be an ArenaNet call to nerf or buff, but we are suggesting what to do, otherwise people claim us to make no constructive discussions but only whining.

It isnt stealth, its

-Ridiculousness of Quickness (not thief specific)

-Initiative system. Allowing thiefs to use the same skill in rapid succession like HS or Death Blossom, giving them the possibility to do untold burst and evading, all with 1 or 2 buttons.

I agree that also Quickness needs something, since it is not available to any professions.
It should be as it was in Guild Wars, just 33% increased attack speed, not 100%.

sorrow.2364:

Rika.7249:

sorrow.2364:

2. When a stealthed player get struck by any hit, there should be something to let the attacker realize he hit the stealthed guy. As it is now, you can only swing the air having no clue of there the enemy is going.

I don’t agree with this, since there’s already plenty of clues as to whether you hit him or not.

If you hit the thief with a melee swing, your combo will chain. If you don’t hit anything, you combo WON’T chain. If your combo chains, you know you’re hitting the thief.

Stealth does not make thieves immune to damage, and people just need to get used to that. Once you realize stealth is just an invisibility, not a immunity-coat with added stealth, you’ll be downing thieves easily.

I disagree with the rest. Initiative is why.

No any weapon sets has combos as autoattack. If you are using a weapon set that has no combo, you can’t know if the thief is around you. It sounds lame to me. Also there are skills that chain and are single target (Ex: Necro scepter chain) that will chain anyways without let you know where the thief is.

Can you tell me how can Initiative make you disagree with the rest I said, please?

Currently, initiative is our greatest weakness. What we use all adds up to a nasty global cooldown, yet because we’re able to use the same ability more than twice in a row, our abilities need to be weaker than other’s abilities, which are cooldown based.

Cloak and Dagger is our strongest ability, not because it delivers great damage, but because it allows us to backstab – which is where the great damage comes from. It also allows us to confuse the enemy. Revealed debuff is essentially working against the initiative system here – initiative was supposed to let us the same ability if we desired, yet that isn’t possible with Cloak and Dagger, because of the revealed debuff. Increasing the duration of the Revealed debuff will indirectly increase the cooldown of Cloak and Dagger, which already has a cooldown – which contradicts the whole initiative purpose.

This is why I think the current untraited stealth duration vs. revealed is alright – not perfect, but neither should be affected negatively.

Pff, easiest way to reduce Thief QQ n warrior QQ for that matter is simple…

REMOVE QUICKNESS!

Over n done with.

When hes stealth you can still hit him just keep attacking and move turn around and attack etc. if this is implemented then i think they should get some advantage as well maby higher hp. i had a epic 1 vs 1 fight against a theif (im guardian) and won with simple 50hp left stealth made it interesting.

Rika.7249:

Currently, initiative is our greatest weakness. What we use all adds up to a nasty global cooldown, yet because we’re able to use the same ability more than twice in a row, our abilities need to be weaker than other’s abilities, which are cooldown based.

Cloak and Dagger is our strongest ability, not because it delivers great damage, but because it allows us to backstab – which is where the great damage comes from. It also allows us to confuse the enemy. Revealed debuff is essentially working against the initiative system here – initiative was supposed to let us the same ability if we desired, yet that isn’t possible with Cloak and Dagger, because of the revealed debuff. Increasing the duration of the Revealed debuff will indirectly increase the cooldown of Cloak and Dagger, which already has a cooldown – which contradicts the whole initiative purpose.

This is why I think the current untraited stealth duration vs. revealed is alright – not perfect, but neither should be affected negatively.

The point is that you don’t need to vary your attacks to be effective and there should be something to compensate the cooldown absence on Thieves. I mean, with your untraited initiative pool, you can land 2 CnD with 2 Backstab and if you are just a bit good at, you can easily kill an enemy with 2 skills, not considering Roll for Initiative. There is no attack variety and the damage is insane.
Not to say that in a full stealth build, you can pop in and out of stealth every 3 seconds, dealing massive damage in the 3 seconds you are out of stealth and than vanishing again and also, you get this amazing defense without you need to put one single trait point in Shadow Arts or Arcrobatics. Any other profession, to have effective defenses, needs to put a bunch trait points in one on their defensive traits, thieves (and mesmer in some ascpects) don’t.

I used to defend thieves … that is until I yesterday went in with my newly created elementalist. One would think, that 2 stun breakers and 1.9k toughness and around 20k hp would be enough. But nope … even with 1 stun breaker the thief (backstab-build) manages to land 4 hits …. and that is all it takes. With stealth, this kind of stupidity just becomes unavoidable.

Currently in both 5vs5 and 8vs8 I run with 2 stunbreakers thanks to thieves and warriors … is this really the way, the game should be? Even on my mesmer, where I can take the vast majority of thieves/warriors 1vs1, better thieves (because, yeah some DO improve) knows by now which is the mesmer and can melt me in a fraction of a second if I don’t have my stunbreakers ready.

Either make some diminishing return on stuns o give us a MUCH shorter cool down on them. Meeting a good thief or warrior is turning into a question of when I last met one and if I have my cd’s up.

Just to clarify: Of course you/I can manage to survive with good team-mates and good communication … but if the thief has the same … well, then his burst and their CC is coordinated as well. It doesn’t really change things.

Another thing I have started to notice: A lot of ppl don’t even try to finish thieves and meserms anymore … they simply kill us. Is that a good sign, tell me?

PS: I do agree that quickness should be toned down and is probably one of the places to start as well.

if i could list all the things people don’t like about thief, the class won’t exist or would be a weaker warrior.
if it could possible to be dangerous spamming headshot or infiltrator’s i would use more skills.
but if i use sword and pistol i have
autoattack -cost 0: can i use it ok? normal damage
infiltrator’s -cost 3 recast 2: bit damage and immobilize on target. a lot of classes has immobilize for their skills no?
pistolwhip – cost 5: main source of damage
headshot – cost 4: bit damage daze
black powder – cost 6: bit damage 3secs aoe blind.
any suggestion about using these skills in fight? remember my pool of initiative is only 12(15 if traited)
for the record: pistol whip does dthe same normal damage more times a little bit faster with a 0.5secs stun.

Shukran.4851:

if i could list all the things people don’t like about thief, the class won’t exist or would be a weaker warrior.
if it could possible to be dangerous spamming headshot or infiltrator’s i would use more skills.
but if i use sword and pistol i have
autoattack -cost 0: can i use it ok? normal damage
infiltrator’s -cost 3 recast 2: bit damage and immobilize on target. a lot of classes has immobilize for their skills no?
pistolwhip – cost 5: main source of damage
headshot – cost 4: bit damage daze
black powder – cost 6: bit damage 3secs aoe blind.
any suggestion about using these skills in fight? remember my pool of initiative is only 12(15 if traited)

That’s why the thief is broken, as he is designed, he encourage people to mindless spamming skills. It is like an easymode professions for PvP.

Shukran.4851:

if i could list all the things people don’t like about thief, the class won’t exist or would be a weaker warrior.
if it could possible to be dangerous spamming headshot or infiltrator’s i would use more skills.
but if i use sword and pistol i have
autoattack -cost 0: can i use it ok? normal damage
infiltrator’s -cost 3 recast 2: bit damage and immobilize on target. a lot of classes has immobilize for their skills no?
pistolwhip – cost 5: main source of damage
headshot – cost 4: bit damage daze
black powder – cost 6: bit damage 3secs aoe blind.
any suggestion about using these skills in fight? remember my pool of initiative is only 12(15 if traited)

Here’s a good suggestion… No Quickness. Remove quickness and moderately lower the dmg/crit dmg of backstabs.

Fought a Thief today who refused to use Quickness… When I asked him why the reply I got was “Because Haste is only useful for people who don’t want to learn the class” which was kinda funny but no he still slaughtered me in seconds… xD Backstab build….

sorrow.2364:

That’s why the thief is broken, as he is designed, he encourage people to mindless spamming skills. It is like an easymode professions for PvP.

i don’t spam mindlessly.
try to spam against a warrior and you will die in a sec.
a mesmer can use #2staff or F4 and gg thief
ranger can use #3? to avoid some damage
necro can DS,fear
guardian..has retaliation,hp pool,toughness etc
ele has breakstun,cond remove
thief has shadowstep,blind,infiltrators,daze

ps: i removed haste from build 2 weeks ago, when a good team left me to 0 in tournament because they knew how to deal with thieves.

Shukran.4851:

i don’t spam mindlessly.
try to spam against a warrior and you will die in a sec.
a mesmer can use #2staff or F4 and gg thief
ranger can use #3? to avoid some damage
necro can DS,fear
guardian..has retaliation,hp pool,toughness etc
ele has breakstun,cond remove
thief has shadowstep,blind,infiltrators,daze

ps: i removed haste from build 2 weeks ago, when a good team left me to 0 in tournament because they knew how to deal with thieves.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t spam mindlessly. Many people do it and succed, I’ve tried to do this and I succeded. If you want to play a thief in an higher level, that’s good, but don’t you feel frustrated knowing that people with half your skill performs just as good as you do (assuming you are good, of course)? That’s the point. You should learn your profession, know the traits, try builds, timing skills and than you should be effective. With thieves is not the case.

Knyx.5926:

It is really funny to see how desperate these horrible bottom of the barrel players really get with the nerfs they ask for

You don’t even deserve an answer. Come back to your cave.

Deepblue.1237:

BUT

from a PVE perspective it is senseless to nerf their damage. On the long run this wont be a solution.

Stopped reading there – your argument is invalid.