Guild Wars 2

ManCaptain.3154:

The other problem with thief is the thief guild elite which makes it really hard to handle an already very damaging, stealthing opponent.

I don’t see any difference with thieves guild compared to any other minion heavy utility or skill. Besides, and this might actually come off as a shock, there are viable thief builds that have no stealth at all.

@ hacks, actually the reason we spam 1-2 skills has nothing to do with the initiative cost of the other skills, its cuz the other skills are utility. black powder or headshot for example both do next to no damage. cloak and dagger does ok damage but is used to get into stealth.

fact is, the thief class is designed to use 1-2 skills for damage, the rest for other situations. the problem becomes in 8v8 zerg style play where nobody is really trying to do anything but damage eachother, then you develop this semi false stigma of all thieves being spammers.

if you dont take time to read the main body, its on you honestly, ill do my best to restate the information regardless, but i wont stop bringing it up either :P

define spammable? backstab cannot be spammed as it destealths you, pistol whip has to be paired with another spell on its every use in order to be viable. the only spec i can think of that really spams for thieves anymore is death blossom builds, and tahts condition damage not burst.

i cant really create a claim/counter argument for you as you have the base reasons for why the class is played the way it is currently wrong. it was correct when HS builds were being used, but now, we use our damage moves cuz they are our damage moves, we use our utility moves when they are needed. you can argue that that is a bad design, but that is the way the design is currently.

generally a thief weapon set has 6 moves, 5 utility, 1 damage (in case of dagger mainhand, damage move is while in stealth). some of his utility moves may do damage, but are never spammed because there design discourages it. This results in any situation where the thief can get away with “just using its damage move” then they will use that move.

like ive said to discourage that you can increase the cost of using a move back to back for everytime they use it consecutively, it would probably be easy to do compared to a complete revamp, and worst case scenario you will just get thieves who do an extra move in between there damage move.

the thief is designed to have the option of using an ability back to back tho.

Id like us all to take a step back and instead of shouting L2P, your bad, or any other vitriol

The problem is that, this is the excat problem, ppl are unable to see how easy things are to deal with, if spammed. And they lack the know how of the class.

Its like this in every mmo, some ppl just dont get it, and its a quite large portion of the player population unfortunatly.

And theres the problem, you can not balance a game around ppl who are bad, if you do that, then ppl who are actually going to abuse that becoming even more “godlike” to the bad players, resulting in new whine threads, and new demands, creating a spiral that will basicly destroy the game mechanics.

This is a mmo, and there will allways be issues with class’s balance in this genre, because the game model is so dynamic, that you cant account for every variable.

I can fully understand why some ppl find X thing annoying, specialy if they do not quite understand whats going on, to them its “omg 1 shot HS spamming thief” or mesmer scrub, HB war kitten etc.

But unfortunatly, this is most of the time a l2p issue, and in this case it is. If ppl would be more constructive in their posts on the forums, I am sure ppl would be more willing to help out.

And a good thing, in this game rerolling to the “fotm” class you would like to try/play takes you around 5 mins.

The only thing I might disagree with, or at least the only one I feel more qualified to disagree with is the issue of Quickness. I run S/P and actually get a lot of my main damage from my auto attack, believe it or not but I still have PW, obviously and use it. It’s the builds only burst and the daze effect, when used well with Infiltrator’s Strike, can prevent and enemy from fleeing.

I have Haste on my bar. It is used rarely and in cases when I need to burn a priority target or am in a real jam. But someone in another thread made a point that the 2x speed might be to high. Mind you, this is across the board for any usage of Quickness, it’s not unique to our class. They suggested something more in line with 1.5x speed.

I don’t think this is completely unreasonable. It still gives increase burst and would be beneficial when used well but would not necessarily make it as big of a thing. Since a skill like Haste, for instance, means losing Endurance for a time and because using it generally means that the thief or whoever with have, in the former case, used a lot of Initiative, and in the latter, burned through cooldowns, it’d not be an issue as well.

A lot of on demand quickness skill have downsides: Warriors receive more incoming damage. Rangers and their pets cannot be healed. Engineers get a random drawback. The only skill that has no real drawback is the Mesmer Time Warp, which is because it’s an elite skill with a sizable cooldown.

So reducing the speed might be prudent. I’m not sure how much this affects the metagame or class balance but a meager decrease wouldn’t, in my mind, remove the viability of certain builds

I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

I’ll admit I’m somewhat biased though. The only 3 classes I’ve been able to stick with are Necro/Engi/Ele. All of which play with the diversity and complexity I would expect from all classes in this game. I am clearly mistaken in that regard though.

It’s not that the design of the thief means spamming is BETTER. It’s that it encourages spamming by rewarding it even when the player is bad.

But initiative is broken way beyond that. It’s just a badly conceived system. A system which gives the thief very large burst for a short time followed by relatively little burst naturally overpowers the thief in 1v1 fights and underpowers them in group fights. If you balance to group fights they end up gibbing people too fast in solo fights, and if you balance to solo fights they are kitten in group combat.

There’s no way to really balance a system like that in PVP.

Thieves are strong because the main counter to them, slows, are not useful for most classes in TPVP.

As any ranged class with slows, thieves aren’t a problem. You slow them. They can’t easily close the gap. You just need to create distance after the Steal, Shadowstep, and heal. An immobilize can spell death. HS spam while chilled will only move the Thief forward 100-150.

But that’s the problem. Only an Engineer, Ranger, and Condition Necro want to fight from 900+ range. All other classes fight in melee range, with the Mesmer splitting time between S/P and Staff.

Then factor in that this game is all about point control and that kiting off point is punished, and all of a sudden the class’s main weakness is removed due to game design.

Stealth in this game is different. ANet wanted to remove “perma-stealth” seen in other games. So instead they granted an in-combat version of stealth.
—Stealth in other games can be activated any time OOC and breaks upon damage. Lasts forever.
—Stealth in GW2 is typically only activated in-combat and doesn’t break on damage. Lasts 3 (4) seconds.

Going to say that their vision of stealth is far more powerful. Ironic you seek to reduce the power of stealth seen in other games and end up creating something more powerful.

i didn’t read this whole thread of QQ, but i have some points for serious note:

1) i don’t have much problems against thieves 1v1 (playing condition engi and mesmer), problem is in teamfights. decent thief wait in cover, till i engage fight with someone and then he use stealth, quickness and steal->backstab/PW -> dead. then he can move to another node and repeat. usually he is in stealth whole time his burst (2sec), or with PW, he is out of stealth after i have already half HP. this is bad. he must be out of stealth immediately after his attack from range (steal). this implement for all classes with stealth ofcorz

2)high mobility. when he fail his combo and can’t kill me in 2sec, he just use hide and with bow disappear. repeat: stealth and high mobility. i know, it cost him ini, but this is wrong also. he can have stealth OR mobility, no both

3)skills w/o cd. i use frozen grenade with chill, but he can still spam his skills. this is also wrong. with chill on him, he must have some cd on skills, like 1sec or even 0,5sec

4)PW+quickness. i often use on mesmer two stunbreakers. against PW with quickens it’s almost useless. i can’t even dodgeroll mostly. only distorsion save me. this can be fixed with some “stun protection/immunity” after stunbreaker use. 0,5s will be more than enough i think. most ppl cry when i use my #2 sword skill. “he is invincible and deal tons of damage OMG!”… well, against PW with his interrupt it’s piece of cake i think

this all together can make from good player killing machine in teamfight, especially with backstab build. PW is also strong, but not that much. HS spam don’t bother me mostly.

Yukishiro.8792:

It’s not that the design of the thief means spamming is BETTER. It’s that it encourages spamming by rewarding it even when the player is bad.

But initiative is broken way beyond that. It’s just a badly conceived system. A system which gives the thief very large burst for a short time followed by relatively little burst naturally overpowers the thief in 1v1 fights and underpowers them in group fights. If you balance to group fights they end up gibbing people too fast in solo fights, and if you balance to solo fights they are kitten in group combat.

There’s no way to really balance a system like that in PVP.

i actually addressed this already in this thread. while the reward isnt as good as a well played thief, the fact that it rewards is still a problem, spamming, the mindless action of it, should be discouraged…my only idea on that i also gave twice now. make it so when a thief uses the same move consecutively it increaes in initiative cost, this means that its not effecient to spam the same move, it will be discouraged, but the option is still there for when you really need it.

as for yoru main point tho, i think thats only true if you hold to the idea of high burst with high deficit, or “sitting around afterword” time. why can a thief not have potent burst (i said potent, no OP, unbalanced, or out of line) without becoming a sitting duck? just spitballing here of course.

Daays.4317:

Thieves are strong because the main counter to them, slows, are not useful for most classes in TPVP.

As any ranged class with slows, thieves aren’t a problem. You slow them. They can’t easily close the gap. You just need to create distance after the Steal, Shadowstep, and heal. An immobilize can spell death. HS spam while chilled will only move the Thief forward 100-150.

But that’s the problem. Only an Engineer, Ranger, and Condition Necro want to fight from 900+ range. All other classes fight in melee range, with the Mesmer splitting time between S/P and Staff.

Then factor in that this game is all about point control and that kiting off point is punished, and all of a sudden the class’s main weakness is removed due to game design.

Stealth in this game is different. ANet wanted to remove “perma-stealth” seen in other games. So instead they granted an in-combat version of stealth.
—Stealth in other games can be activated any time OOC and breaks upon damage. Lasts forever.
—Stealth in GW2 is typically only activated in-combat and doesn’t break on damage. Lasts 3 (4) seconds.

Going to say that their vision of stealth is far more powerful. Ironic you seek to reduce the power of stealth seen in other games and end up creating something more powerful.

First, i have to tell you right now, slows are not a real counter to thieves. its just that the way players currently spec you see a lot of return on using slows on us. we have a trait, not that hard to get, that removes cripple/weakness on us whenever we dodge, and if we want we can trait to dodge a LOT. essentially nullifying yoru slows.

rather i think a counter to thieves is more along the lines of condition damage (from my experience messing with specs, it was the biggest universal difficulty for my thief) which has its own issues and limitations. thief also has no real DR skill (damage reduction) so they rely heavily on regen, and avoiding damage.

also from what ive seen (just saying, its what ive seen/heard) thieves are not nearly as unbalanced in tpvp as it is in spvp (or more specifically spvp hotjoin). fact is, thieves in tpvp can be effectively and severely countered.

as for the power of stealth, its more that its power is shifted, and becomes a real skill rather then a gimmick. i addressed stealth in detail tho in the main body, we really need the bugs surrounding stealth to be fixed before any real adjustments can be correctly made to it.

I don’t really have a problem with thieves, but I can understand concerns about how initiative is designed to promote spamming. Swtor handled this in an interesting way. An operative had an energy mechanic but the lower the energy got, the slower it regen’d. It made it risky to blow all of your energy on one opponent. Just an idea I thought I would throw out.

Never played a thief myself but I have faced plenty.

I have to say for those complaining its down to either:

a) learn to play
b) dont go glass cannon build.

Bugs do have to get fixed ofc.

@Wolfe

That trait is a 10 second cooldown with 20 pts into the Acro tree. Only condition thieves, and to a lesser extent S/P thieves, touch that tree.

Conditions are easily dealt with by going into Shadow Arts. They make most condition classes useless, outside of Engineers and Mesmers, as those are the only two classes that don’t rely upon one source of condition damage.

Slowing a backstab thief makes the class a joke. When I play a frost necro (can epidemic 15-25seconds of chilling) a thief with the chilled debuff is just a sad sight to behold. After they engage, they have nothing to close the gap outside of their heal, and even then you just debuff them while stealthed. They do no damage because they’re not hitting anyone. Heartseeker can’t close the gap because all Leaps are affected by the slow.

Now while S/P has more mobility, it doesn’t have the power of stealth, lacks burst when haste is on cooldown, and PW can be easily interrupted. Also, S/P thieves are actually easier to kill than D/D because stealth drops target.

You slow a D/D to counter them.
You interrupt a S/P to counter them.

However, Thieves are a requirement for TPVP. I don’t know why you think otherwise. They’re the best class to steal a Svanir/Chieftain on FoN. They’re the only class that can solo the Lord on Foefire. They can teleport through walls and up the Z-Axis in BoK. Not to mention they’re one of the best treb assaulters because of thieves guild and the 1v1 power of the class.

people should stop complaining about anything really ?

they complain and complain and complain about necromancer

and the fact is some necromancer builds can take anyone 1v1 and 2v1 actually

i just saw a pro necromancer called Aneete or whatever his name is taken me and a warrior 2v1 and

yeah Jon Peters Said when people start mastering DS build , he’s afraid of how powerfull necromancer are

and now people starting to master it i guess

so everyone complain and qq about thief , i’m scared thief and warrior and elementalist are a bit behind the rest of the classes

yeah glass canon builds kill only badies half decent player will never die to a glass canon

Daays.4317:

@Wolfe

That trait is a 10 second cooldown with 20 pts into the Acro tree. Only condition thieves, and to a lesser extent S/P thieves, touch that tree.

Conditions are easily delt with by going into Shadow Arts. They make most condition classes useless, outside of Engineers and Mesmers, as those are the only two classes that don’t rely upon one source of condition damage.

Slowing a backstab thief makes the class a joke. When I play a frost necro (can epidemic 15-25seconds of chilling) and a thief with the chilled debuff is just a sad sight to behold. After they engage, they have nothing to close the gap outside of their heal, and even then you just debuff them while stealthed. They do no damage because they’re not hitting anyone. Heartseeker can’t close the gap because all Leaps are affected by the slow.

Now while S/P has more mobility, it doesn’t have the power of stealth, lacks burst when haste is on cooldown, and PW can be easily interrupted. Also, S/P thieves are actually easier to kill than D/D because stealth drops target.

You slow a D/D to counter them.
You interrupt a S/P to counter them.

However, Thieves are a requirement for TPVP. I don’t know why you think otherwise. They’re the best class to steal a Svanir/Chieftan on FoN. They’re the only class that can solo the Lord on Foefire. They can teleport through walls and up the Z-Axis in BoK. Not to mention they’re one of the best treb assaulters because of thieves guild and the 1v1 power of the class.

“they only touch that tree” thats a problem with the players not the class, as any meta changes, the needs of the player changes, if slows become too devestating and widespread the thief will simply start investing in that trait line for that trait. yes it has a 10 second CD but unless you were slowed from max range that dodge+other effects is gonna get you in melee range. its not ideal, and slows hurt, but i was simply saying form my perspective i havent had that much trouble with them. to each there own

how does going down shadow arts make conditions useless? we can remove one random condition every 3 seconds in stealth if traited. we can regen health in stealth (sort of a soft defense against conditions). pain response? no control, 45 second CD, its nice, ive used it, hell i designed a thief spec to maximize the thiefs ability to remove conditions. conditions still will give you trouble simply cuz thief has relatively few effective removals for conditions.

not too mention the irony of saying dont go down tree x to deal with y, but go down tree z to deal with A.

and your snare comment with necro assumes the thief is playing a spec with no gap closers at all aside from HS. granted itll make it harder for the thief, but thats the intention, would be kinda bad if it didnt work wouldnt it?

the S/P comments are well and good, tho im not sure what your trying to prove with them.

also what you described isnt tpvp, its spvp. and there are other classes that can solo the lord dont spread misinformation.

either way good chat tho.

Uh that’s the point: initiative is poorly designed since it’s designed to be something where you trade off high current burst for running out later. That is just a bad system. It needs to be shifted to a system where dps is more steadily applied like other classes do.

Yukishiro.8792:

Uh that’s the point: initiative is poorly designed since it’s designed to be something where you trade off high current burst for running out later. That is just a bad system. It needs to be shifted to a system where dps is more steadily applied like other classes do.

again this has been addressed, tho if you want to discuss it further you need to provide new information

is it a bad system cuz its a bad system? or is it a bad system cuz its different from everyone elses? The system itself does what its supposed to do. its jsut that players tend to just spam things because in spvp you can get away without using your utility skills. you need to really explain why you think its a bad system, to you at least.

do you want the classes damage to be applied more steadily because you think the current state is not fixable? or beacuse you dont like thieves having burst? they could (and some specs obviously do) have too much burst. does that mean we have to scrap it entirely instead of just lessening burst to a reasonable degree?

and high current burst for running out later…i see variations of this said a lot. is this anets intention or rather a educated assumption on hte playerbase? my assumption was it was just a way to allow thieves the flexibility of using a skill back to back. i can see how people would assume/think what you said tho. and if thats true, how effective would a thief be if he/she was out of initiative after every kill? or kill attempt i should say?

im not stating my opinoins on this part here, not sure if i have any, but i like posing questions.

Most D/D thieves take shadow refuge, shadowstep, and a signet. If they run movespeed, they don’t have a 2nd gap closer. If they run the shadowstep signet, they move slower and aren’t as mobile for backcapping or in combat.

The main reason for mentioning slows is that while it’s a great counter to D/D thieves, it’s really not that useful because of game design. You want to create distance but because this is a point control game, you’re giving up your control point for a kill. If someone comes in to reinforce the thief during your fight, you’re going to go down quickly and they will cap it faster.

As such, the D/D main weakness is removed due to game design. While S/P weaknesses are still relevant.

But side note: the one random condition becomes much less random when those condition classes only have one primary condition on you. A condition thief for example will be stacking bleeds. Just bleeds. And the stealth regen isn’t weak at all. It’s ~10% of your health if you wait for the full duration.
Then you have shadowstep in case you get a good amount of conditions (typically vs engineers and mesmers only).

Between all those you can take out a condition class with confidence.

And what I described is TPvP. I can easily grab a boss kill with Mug + C&D. That’s 10k damage instantly if I crit both. I can wait as long as I want because of stealth, not to mention the longer your team waits, the more time my team has to reinforce and take mid.

Also, what other classes can easily kill the Lord by bypassing all the guards?

I can’t believe there is a merged stickied thread on the official forums for nerfing a class.

Daays.4317:

Now while S/P has more mobility, it doesn’t have the power of stealth, lacks burst when haste is on cooldown, and PW can be easily interrupted. Also, S/P thieves are actually easier to kill than D/D because stealth drops target.

I’m hazy what you mean by “power”. At the very least, doing things properly I can do fair (read: sufficient) damage even off my auto attack with the proper S/P build. Although I agree that D/D or really, P/D builds have a potential uptime advantage if they really prioritize stealth.

I’m not necessarily saying this completely in reply to you but I do think that some people underestimate the degree to which the thief (or really, most classes) can be built to meet a suitable playstlye for the person behind the keyboard. And as long as that person’s a good player, that’s the most important thing. Sure, the meta will point to certain builds over others but it is possible to craft suitably equal or at least competitive builds.

@ Schurge.5194 : it is only because there were about 4-6 thread all about thief op

Shukran.4851:

lol at thief shortbow need a nerf because every thief use it..maybe because it gives us mobility and survivability?
so nerf every staff for mesmer because evey mesmer has a staff. nerf every shield because every warrior has one. . .
these are not suggestions, these are people who want to destroy a class. it is sad.

most mesmers run GS / sword/pistol lol

most what?
shatter build staff is better
tanky build staff is good.
maybe 30/30/0/0/10 mesmer can use gs.

Shortbow mesmer so OP. Make me bleed so much and only hit 1, 1, 1. And that skinny dog is so ugly.

there is one big problem I have with the thief, it is the damage out of stealth combined with quickness buff. my engineer carries the soldiers amulet/jewl (yeah right the one with thoughness, vitality and power) and he drops before the thiefs stealth reappear animation ends. additionally the client often refuses to load the player model for a second (which is a known bug since beta btw) which makes it even worse.

I thought that this cannot be true thus I rolled a thief 2 weeks ago and I could not believe how easy it is to achieve such high amounts of damage. there is no way someone can react in time to do anything and even if you manage to do something in this split second, it only delays death anyway as you will be almost dead. it seems that thoughness does not help as much against big hits as it does against many small ones thus you still get hit for almost 8k backstabs even with the bonus thoughness from soldiers amulet.

Overall it looks like a very poor game mechanics when a thief still hits for that much damage and is able to down a target in under a second when the target carries the soldiers amulet/jewel which should make you very durable against direct damage.

Daays.4317:

Most D/D thieves take shadow refuge, shadowstep, and a signet. If they run movespeed, they don’t have a 2nd gap closer. If they run the shadowstep signet, they move slower and aren’t as mobile for backcapping or in combat.

I fail to see how tough choices that have there own strengths and weaknesses as a problem, just cuz we cant have it all doesnt mean much balancewise. spec accordingly and play around your weaknesses is the best one can do

The main reason for mentioning slows is that while it’s a great counter to D/D thieves, it’s really not that useful because of game design. You want to create distance but because this is a point control game, you’re giving up your control point for a kill. If someone comes in to reinforce the thief during your fight, you’re going to go down quickly and they will cap it faster.

I think it simply means if you spec for ranged you probably shouldnt try and solo node cap. but there are other aspects of pvp rather then spvp.

As such, the D/D main weakness is removed due to game design. While S/P weaknesses are still relevant.

i still say conditions are more of a weakness to the profession as a whole rather then slows, you can build around slows easier then conditions with thieves.

But side note: the one random condition becomes much less random when those condition classes only have one primary condition on you. A condition thief for example will be stacking bleeds. Just bleeds. And the stealth regen isn’t weak at all. It’s ~10% of your health if you wait for the full duration.
Then you have shadowstep in case you get a good amount of conditions (typically vs engineers and mesmers only).

I understand 1v1 happens, and in those cases the random effect would be less random, chalk it up to playstyle, i seldom roam alone.

Did i say the health regen was weak? like shadows rejuvination? i use it in my D/P build atm and i agree its quite good.

Between all those you can take out a condition class with confidence.

i dont consider any class with only 1 condition damage source to be a condition class personally, but that may be a difference in opinion.

Also, what other classes can easily kill the Lord by bypassing all the guards?

sorry i dont recall you saying “by bypassing all the guards” the first time around. just to kill the lord. i did it on a ranger before.

CptCosmic.3156:

there is one big problem I have with the thief, it is the damage out of stealth combined with quickness buff. my engineer carries the soldiers amulet/jewl (yeah right the one with thoughness, vitality and power) and he drops before the thiefs stealth reappear animation ends. additionally the client often refuses to load the player model for a second (which is a known bug since beta btw) which makes it even worse.

I thought that this cannot be true thus I rolled a thief 2 weeks ago and I could not believe how easy it is to achieve such high amounts of damage. there is no way someone can react in time to do anything and even if you manage to do something in this split second, it only delays death anyway as you will be almost dead. it seems that thoughness does not help as much against big hits as it does against many small ones thus you still get hit for almost 8k backstabs even with the bonus thoughness from soldiers amulet.

Overall it looks like a very poor game mechanics when a thief still hits for that much damage and is able to down a target in under a second when the target carries the soldiers amulet/jewel which should make you very durable against direct damage.

its almost universally agreed that backstab burst needs tuning, however ive said before, just nerfing backstab will result in nerfing the damage of non uber glass cannon builds too. makes more sense to nerf the root causes of this problem, a few traits and assassins signet namely.

highest crit by anyone else in one swing is at most 4-6k if thiefs backstab or any other ability were limited to that i would have no problem, i dont mind high burst but anytime you can hit harder than everything else means its not balanced a ranger and engineer both have the same survivability as a thief and no matter how you spec them niether of them can hit for 10-17k in one sing/shot, no matter how they build or sacrifice survivability for burst, it jsut isnt possible.

Are there counters to it…yes but the fact remains its not balanced and its very very broken. there is a simple fix remove the amount of +% and add a simple additive modifierso from stealth they get +200 damage instead of +200% i cna beat most glass cannon thieves, but that is if i am 100% perfect with everything i do and all my cooldowns are up.

pistol whip is fine hundred blades is fine backstab for that much burst in one swing is broken. no matter how you counter, backstab is broken and needs to be fixed

@Wolfe

The point of showing what D/D thieves use for utility skills is to show that they’re very easily kited. It’s also to show that kiting, while strong, really goes against the game design.

Kiting has its place on a map like Foefire, where you can engage people well off the point. But on BoK and FoN, kiting is much more difficult. Really the only place to kite and still solidly defend your point is Mine.

You can’t leave a ranged class to defend, because they need to stay on point. You can’t send a ranged class to assault, because they need to kite. See the problem? While fine for sPvP, for tPvP ranged loses its power. You need a hybrid type of playstyle, similar to a mesmer. Which goes back to the point that creating distance and crippling/chilling a thief doesn’t really play into the current game design. If this was a CTF and TDM, then it would be much more effective and D/D thieves would lose a lot of their strength.

Explain how you can quickly kill an enemy Lord when you need to take time to kill the guards? You want teams to not be able to defend in time when they hear “Your Lord is Under Attack”. Any thief can solo engage the Lord (except blue lord, you need to down a caster for him, but takes about 3-5 seconds).

I honestly don’t know what I’d take if I had to replace a thief. No other class has the mobility or burst damage.

If you’re playing range, instead of just kiting, try to find more knockbacks? For example, on days where I’m playing Longbow Warrior and there is more than one S/P thief around, I swap out my stun breaker for Stomp.

Why not put a rather large initiative cost on backstab, let thief have that burst but make them sacrifice more for doing it. Want a 13k 1 hit? Now you cant use anything else for a little while.

Say 4 init (maybe even 5)? Meaning a CnD/backstab combo blows 10 of 12 init.

Thief can now no longer SB tele to safety instantly after failing.

Thief now likely cant CnD again after initial BS failure.

Thief Can at Max use 1 Heartseeker afterwards (after lettering init recharge once giving time for dodge/whatever).

Want to go further? Have it use half the endurance bar. Less than half left when using? Delay endurance regernation for a few seconds.

Pistwhip? Change haste ability to only give a 33% or 50% or whatever increase in attack speed. Done.

Paranoid.9542:

Why not put a rather large initiative cost on backstab, let thief have that burst but make them sacrifice more for doing it. Want a 13k 1 hit? Now you cant use anything else for a little while.

Say 4 init (maybe even 5)? Meaning a CnD/backstab combo blows 10 of 12 init.

Thief can now no longer SB tele to safety instantly after failing.

Thief now likely cant CnD again after initial BS failure.

Thief Can at Max use 1 Heartseeker afterwards (after lettering init recharge once giving time for dodge/whatever).

Want to go further? Have it use half the endurance bar. Less than half left when using? Delay endurance regernation for a few seconds.

Pistwhip? Change haste ability to only give a 33% or 50% or whatever increase in attack speed. Done.

Simple. Find another way to spam backstab. Grab the 10 points in the stealth tree for the 2 initiative on stealth, grab shadow refugee, voila full initiative after 2-3 sec.

KogarasuMaru.7036:

Simple. Find another way to spam backstab. Grab the 10 points in the stealth tree for the 2 initiative on stealth, grab shadow refugee, voila full initiative after 2-3 sec.

Maybe so, but then you know where he is, that large red circle with the house over it. That kinda puts a damper on the surprise aspect of the build. That 2-3 seconds is enough to respond/heal/move/defend whatever.

The point was to allow to have that burst, but make the sacrifice for using it in having a much more delayed follow up, also lowering escape possibilities.

Keep in mind, using that also gives the thief 1 more backstab, and this time the target is ready and aware they’re being targetted. Also the second hit wont have assassin’s signet up.

CptCosmic.3156:

Overall it looks like a very poor game mechanics when a thief still hits for that much damage and is able to down a target in under a second when the target carries the soldiers amulet/jewel which should make you very durable against direct damage.

Agree 100%.

Their damage is out of proportion with people’s health. And the way initiative works it promotes spamming.

Damage needs to be looked at.
Initiative needs to cost more as you spam some of the high damage skills or cd needs to be put in.

Relentliss.2170:

CptCosmic.3156:

Overall it looks like a very poor game mechanics when a thief still hits for that much damage and is able to down a target in under a second when the target carries the soldiers amulet/jewel which should make you very durable against direct damage.

Agree 100%.

Their damage is out of proportion with people’s health. And the way initiative works it promotes spamming.

Damage needs to be looked at.
Initiative needs to cost more as you spam some of the high damage skills or cd needs to be put in.

it only promotes spamming if your a nitwit with no critical thinking skills. rather it allows spamming, which is still bad, ive suggested ways to alleviate this without removing the unique mechanics of the thief profession.

and i think damage needs to be handled in such a way so that a thief can afford to spec non glass cannon. in other words, we need to figure out a way to lower glass cannon damage without hurting non glass cannon builds. just nerfing base damage of backstab wont do that.

we need to figure out a way to lower glass cannon damage without hurting non glass cannon builds. just nerfing base damage of backstab wont do that.

this

The problem with just any glass cannon build is that they’re weak. That’s..well..their weakness :p

The issue with glass cannon thieves is that they still have defense in the form of confusion. Stealth doesn’t go away just because your damage is high. In some cases it actually increases damage due to skill sets.

The stealth and shadowstep mechanics must be considered highly defensive since you’re attacking human players, not NPCs or mobs. NPCs and mobs reacquire the thief very easily once stealth is up. It’s a short-term out in PvE. In PvP, target acquisition and positioning is key in this game and the thief has the best way of screwing with players in that realm regardless of build.

Redscope.6215:

The problem with just any glass cannon build is that they’re weak. That’s..well..their weakness :p

The issue with glass cannon thieves is that they still have defense in the form of confusion. Stealth doesn’t go away just because your damage is high. In some cases it actually increases damage due to skill sets.

The stealth and shadowstep mechanics must be considered highly defensive since you’re attacking human players, not NPCs or mobs. NPCs and mobs reacquire the thief very easily once stealth is up. It’s a short-term out in PvE. In PvP, target acquisition and positioning is key in this game and the thief has the best way of screwing with players in that realm regardless of build.

i am not a fan of shortcuts, but what if i told you that “target closest enemy” could work with thieves. ofc if they are d/d, stealthed, and you are glass cannon too, well…gg.
but i agree every constructive comment as long as it is ..constructive…let’s see what anet will do in the balance patch.

My 100% personal view is that any class that can only work if you build it as a glass cannon is completly broken. I think its healthier for the game if a well balanced spec is the best for most situations.

In spvp hotjoins, peeps don’t care rats about objectives or team support / utility skills. They just want to kill fast and if possible live to do it again. So that’s why you see an abundance of glass cannon specs abusing quickness, 8v8 is zerg, 10% of players in a hotjoin will ress you if you are downed in a team fight or assist you if you are trained etc, everyone for himself to get kills but they move together (herding sheeps). So what good is a balanced spec if you can’t 3-4 shot someone and stomp them before you die yourself?

See end of video:

I have 1.4k toughness and 20k HP.

shrewd.5319:

Unbelievable how much crying there is about thieves and backstab. I hope (but doubt) arenanet does not listen to these people. They will not be content until the thief profession is wearing crutches.

How is a backstab above 10k even possible? The highest backstab I can achieve is 7k on critical with 3300 attack, and 2-3 might stacks. These people must have default toughness, using photoshop, lying, or all these.

Close enough? Those are my stacks of might and that is a well rounded engineer.

Even if target were a glass cannon, dropping 10k dmg in one hit is too much. 6k steal + 10k = dead dagger/dagger ele, with that player unable to do anything.
Or most cloth and leather classes with 80% hp fighting someone else will get instantly dropped by a thief, unable to do anything at all.
No class in the game comes even close to thief in burst damage. The closest is warrior HB builds, except the warrior doesn’t teleport to you into stealth and cannot open with burst out of stealth. Which is precisely why thief is OP currently. Highest burst in the game combined with shadowsteps and stealth = OP.

thanks for posting the videos. nice evidence of thiefs needing a big nerf bat treatmeant
12k backstab is really too much

ok 12k backstab is too much even if to accomplish that you have to
- precast cloack and dagger
- steal
- go to back of opponent
- use assassin signet = 1 utility spot
- attack
- hope it has low armor
- …
- profit

ok. btw there were a couple of thieves dead to ranger’s autoattack build and noone cared about it? noone said op op op? strange..but those were thieves which didn’t use mainly stealth as ability. noone wants to thanks them or cry for them because they died to an autoattack ranger? which is more skilled: autoattack, dodge, use pets fear or doing the list above?
think about it.

How to avoid a back stab you don’t know is coming?
Answer: keep moving. It is hard to maneuver to your back in 3 seconds if you always move. If you are not moving at every single available moment, you are one of the bads.

The problem isn’t stealth. Heatseeker was nerfed. If you still die to heart seeker spam, it is because you turned your back and ran like a bad.

No competent thief spams heart seeker, ever.

-The haste utility needs a longer cool down.
-Heart seeker needs its range reduced slightly so it cannot close the distance of an evade.
-33% increased speed while stealth needs to be removed.
-20% more damage to players under 50% needs to be under 33%.

There, now the bad thieves out there will suddenly realize they suck because back stab is harder to start fights with and heart seeker spam even misses the target more often.

These changes will make bad thieves obvious and hardly effect good thieves at all.

@ Shukran

This is how people are. When their own build/class is highly effective and, dare I say it, over-powered, they never say a word. When another person’s build comes along and kills them, it’s immediately over-powered, they rant about it on the boards, and demand immediate nerfs. As far as I can tell, people want their own favorite classes to be able to easily win against all other classes, and, when they can’t win easily, they demand nerfs to other classes. Personally, I don’t even hold it against them. It’s human nature to want the things you like to be very good. Thieves are getting the short-end of the stick right now because they are so popular in PvP. More people play thieves —> More people complain about thieves —> more people think thieves are op —> more people play thieves. It’s crazy circular.

@ everyone else

Backstab damage is high, but, as previously stated, the number things that need to go right to hit that damage is also high. You need to precase/preload skills, get behind the target, and basically need to have steal up, just to name a few. If you want to reduce the damage, fine, but make it easier to pull off, like being able to hit from side, rather than just the back.

The stealth glitch is bug and it is a problem that needs to be fixed.

Thieves are generally meant to be a hit and run class, thus viability depends on high damage in a short period of time. If you feel the damage is too high and want Thieves to become stable/sustained damage dealers, then Thieves need a buff to survivability. Balanced comments are fine. But yelling “damage nerf, damage nerf” does not really help.

Finally, thieves only have like 1-2 useful combat skills per weapon set to begin with. (It’s either 2 or 3). The rest of the skills are situational, defensive, or utilities. I am pretty sure this is kinda true for all of the classes (which means if you are on the defensive, you will have to pull off multiple things while the attacked can just hit one or two keys). This is true for thieves just like everyone else. I don’t really understand all of the yelling regarding spamming skills.

Anyway, this is strictly my opinion, you don’t have to agree or disagree. I find GW 2 to be a fun game. It’s frustrating at times, but frustration just makes me think about how to be a better player. It’s all part of the experience.

Duckzor.4327:

See end of video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n90dcsuqVlk

I have 1.4k toughness and 20k HP.

If that Cloak and Dagger critted that would be 5k dmg. On high toughness, medium armor. Now of course this kind of backstab damage needs a bit of preparation. But on cloth armor user with less toughness you can get 12k without all the special stuff.

Shukran.4851:

i am not a fan of shortcuts, but what if i told you that “target closest enemy” could work with thieves.

You’re right, except for one fatal flaw: Proper target acquisition and positioning don’t just automatically happen when you press ‘t’ (or whatever key you use). It sounds good on paper, but then again most erroneous comments do.

Just because you now have the Thief targeted, doesn’t mean you know where he is, what he’s doing, what you should do, when you should react, at what point he will disappear again, etc.

That’s a hefty chunk of confusion and it must be taken into consideration in a game where most skills are not just “press 1 and you’re guaranteed a hit” but in fact take a reaction to your situation.

All classes have skills that other classes have to use proper reactionary measures to counter or diminish. The thief is, outside of the mesmer, the only class which multiplies that by forcing other players to consistently pan their view and apply guesswork to the fight.

In other words, ask yourself these questions:

• Is it skill when the Thief presses an ‘invis button’ and forces a miss by confusing the target?
• Is it skill if a player swings where s/he thinks a thief is and actually hits him?

If you can’t respond to both of those questions with the same answer, you’re opinion of stealth is skewed in the favor of whatever class you’re playing.

Shukran.4851:

ofc if they are d/d, stealthed, and you are glass cannon too, well…gg.

I’m not sure what you’re saying here. So two glass cannons go up against each other and the thief should automatically win?

Pretty poor statement to make if you’re trying to argue that the crying about thieves is unwarranted.