Guild Wars 2

Fighting an evading thief underwater is fun… really fun. Impossible to hit, except for one stray shot every 10 seconds or so. Another intended mechanic I guess?

yes working as intended

Yes this is a pain- a single thief can take on a whole group underwater, seems pretty unbalanced to me.

Underwater fights/skills in general seem less balanced than land based ones, but that thief spear skill that lets them nearly perma evade if they have an initative regen build probably takes the cake as the most unbalanced.

Now it could be that I just need to L2P, so if anyone knows how to counter it please let us know!

Try kiting the Thief, Spear is mostly defensive and counter melee skills, and Speargun doesn’t have many defensive options. Thief’s alsi much more limited in stealth options underwater.

This has been brought up before never seems to get much of a response. They basically sit there pressing the same button doing the same move, but yet they avoid like 80% of incoming damage while still dealing out damage

Wiki”

Strike your foe repeatedly with a shadowy assault. Evades while active.

Damage: 269
Number of attacks: 3
Range: 200

Shadow Assault

Thieves also have Nine Tailed Strike which only costs 3 initiative instead of the 5 required for Shadow Assault. Thief spear underwater is really really unbalanced, in PvE as well as PvP.

I’m not sure if there’s a real way to deal with it right now, but the a fix Anet could implement would simply be increasing the initiative cost for the skill so that it couldn’t be kept up for so long, or to reduce the duration for the same effect.

They really need to just give them cool downs…..all of these problems always arise from the broken mechanic

Raijinn.9065:

They really need to just give them cool downs…..all of these problems always arise from the broken mechanic

Not even in the least. The problems in underwater combat are solely a result of a too generous use:initiative ratio. Adjusting the either the length of the evade or the cost of the skill removes the ability to infinitely maintain the evasion. An underwater Thief with no remaining initiative is outright dead.

Syeria.4812:

Raijinn.9065:

They really need to just give them cool downs…..all of these problems always arise from the broken mechanic

Not even in the least. The problems in underwater combat are solely a result of a too generous use:initiative ratio. Adjusting the either the length of the evade or the cost of the skill removes the ability to infinitely maintain the evasion. An underwater Thief with no remaining initiative is outright dead.

Initiative is a broken mechanic. As long as they have these 5 in 1 abilities that are spammable and do insane damage problems with thieves will always exist

Syeria.4812:

Wiki”

Strike your foe repeatedly with a shadowy assault. Evades while active.

Damage: 269
Number of attacks: 3
Range: 200

Shadow Assault

Thieves also have Nine Tailed Strike which only costs 3 initiative instead of the 5 required for Shadow Assault. Thief spear underwater is really really unbalanced, in PvE as well as PvP.

I’m not sure if there’s a real way to deal with it right now, but the a fix Anet could implement would simply be increasing the initiative cost for the skill so that it couldn’t be kept up for so long, or to reduce the duration for the same effect.

Again, has anyone tried ranged attack? Shadow Assault is like an under water version of Blurred Frenzy, it roots the Thief and it doesn’t have a specific target. Nine Tailed Strike is purely a melee counter so it’s lacking in range. Thier only gap closer is Tow Line, which is like an inverse Scorpion Wire. In other words, if you avoid Melee Range, Thief isn’t anything special. At a range, just be sure to avoid Hasted Deluge.

Dual.8953:

Again, has anyone tried ranged attack? Shadow Assault is like an under water version of Blurred Frenzy, it roots the Thief and it doesn’t have a specific target. Nine Tailed Strike is purely a melee counter so it’s lacking in range. Thier only gap closer is Tow Line, which is like an inverse Scorpion Wire. In other words, if you avoid Melee Range, Thief isn’t anything special. At a range, just be sure to avoid Hasted Deluge.

If by that you mean, ranged attacks vs the thief, then yes. Used speargun, every single attack I could + melee pet, and like I said, except for a tiny hit every 10 seconds or so, I just couldn’t hit the thief, neither me using every ranged attack I could, nor my pet at melee range. But of course, I myself got hit all the freakin time, except when dodging attacks.

I usually wreck thieves underwater on my warrior better than on my thief. The first evade attack you might not can catch them often but the final attack which makes them evasion for about 3-5 seconds is avoidable since you can go somewhere else and watch them dance hitting nothing but water.

Dual.8953:

Again, has anyone tried ranged attack? Shadow Assault is like an under water version of Blurred Frenzy, it roots the Thief and it doesn’t have a specific target. Nine Tailed Strike is purely a melee counter so it’s lacking in range. Thier only gap closer is Tow Line, which is like an inverse Scorpion Wire. In other words, if you avoid Melee Range, Thief isn’t anything special. At a range, just be sure to avoid Hasted Deluge.

As OG is noting, I’m fairly certain the evade affects most every skill, ranged or otherwise. I also think that’s the way the mechanic should work, because otherwise thieves would be entirely defenseless against ranged attacks (which are available to everyone because of how underwater weapons are set up). The issue really is just that there’s too much uptime on the ability because of how long it lasts in relation to the initiative cost. As it stands, I think the maximum uptime is just under 100% (not sure on the exact numbers) so increasing the initiative cost by 20% (that is, a 6 cost instead of 5) should reduce that to 83% uptime (assuming exactly 100% as is). Increasing it by 40% would drop that to 71.4% uptime. It’s not a particularly damaging skill so even just dropping it to around 80% uptime should resolve the issue.

Brutalistik.6473:

I usually wreck thieves underwater on my warrior better than on my thief. The first evade attack you might not can catch them often but the final attack which makes them evasion for about 3-5 seconds is avoidable since you can go somewhere else and watch them dance hitting nothing but water.

I also have no special problem with thieves that do not use the spear evade skill and have good iniative regen. However, I have seen time and time again a single thief holding off a group underwater, with just “evade, evade, evade, evade, evade”. They just sit on the point and spam the evade skill, its silly really.

Also yes I always attack from range- just means I lose the point quicker thief just evades everything I throw at them.

The only way i can see taking one down is to time a stun followed by a one-shot type attack just as the skill ends. However, since there is no CD and given good initiative regen, it seems almost impossible to pull this off (even if you had said stun and one-shot skill).

I’ve run into this problem as well and it’s the poster child for what’s wrong with this game. There are just too man poorly thought out skills and broken mechanics. To make matters worse the garbage just had to be a thief skill. The skill is beyond abusive but layering this in will all the other thief related issues and it’s a hard pill to swallow.

My guess Anet will take 2-3 months to notice and do anything about the problem. By then the game will have died.

Yasha.5963:

Brutalistik.6473:

I usually wreck thieves underwater on my warrior better than on my thief. The first evade attack you might not can catch them often but the final attack which makes them evasion for about 3-5 seconds is avoidable since you can go somewhere else and watch them dance hitting nothing but water.

I also have no special problem with thieves that do not use the spear evade skill and have good iniative regen. However, I have seen time and time again a single thief holding off a group underwater, with just “evade, evade, evade, evade, evade”. They just sit on the point and spam the evade skill, its silly really.

Also yes I always attack from range- just means I lose the point quicker thief just evades everything I throw at them.

The only way i can see taking one down is to time a stun followed by a one-shot type attack just as the skill ends. However, since there is no CD and given good initiative regen, it seems almost impossible to pull this off (even if you had said stun and one-shot skill).

I guess those with initiative specs can pull it off because I can’t on my rogue. Mine doesn’t recharge that fast.

Elloni.2473:

I’ve run into this problem as well and it’s the poster child for what’s wrong with this game. There are just too man poorly thought out skills and broken mechanics. To make matters worse the garbage just had to be a thief skill. The skill is beyond abusive but layering this in will all the other thief related issues and it’s a hard pill to swallow.

My guess Anet will take 2-3 months to notice and do anything about the problem. By then the game will have died.

By then the game will have died out? Not by a long especially if its only in one field which is pvp.

I don’t have a regen build on my Thief and between dodging, Shadow Assault, and the stealth heal skill I can keep anyone of killing me indefinitely. After seeing this done I tried it out in the mists lake.

Brutalistik.6473:

I guess those with initiative specs can pull it off because I can’t on my rogue. Mine doesn’t recharge that fast.

Yeah, I know the spec I have on my thief (those rare times when I’m playing thief in spvp) won’t keep it up indefinitely. I can usually keep it up long enough to be obnoxious to the opponent, but it’s far from constant. I think if you max out initiative regen you can get it just shy of being up permanently. Toss in Hide In Shadows and you can keep yourself alive through pretty much any fight, but the stealth kills your point blocking/capping.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Fighting an evading thief underwater is fun… really fun. Impossible to hit, except for one stray shot every 10 seconds or so. Another intended mechanic I guess?

does very little damage/avoidable and in my experience thieves always get eaten alive by warrior weapon combos underwater or just ranged weapons underwater in general

Its as simple as moving out of the range of the attack, if you’re standing in his attack range attacking air and expecting results you need to revise your strategy

I agree it needs to be changed because the mechanics are dumb, but the dmg it does is pretty bad. They won’t kill you with it.

Kline.9561:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Fighting an evading thief underwater is fun… really fun. Impossible to hit, except for one stray shot every 10 seconds or so. Another intended mechanic I guess?

does very little damage/avoidable and in my experience thieves always get eaten alive by warrior weapon combos underwater or just ranged weapons underwater in general

You’re not getting it. The thief in this scenario isn’t trying to kill anything only keep you from capping a point while you sit their and watch “evade, evade, evade, evade.”

Elloni.2473:

Kline.9561:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Fighting an evading thief underwater is fun… really fun. Impossible to hit, except for one stray shot every 10 seconds or so. Another intended mechanic I guess?

does very little damage/avoidable and in my experience thieves always get eaten alive by warrior weapon combos underwater or just ranged weapons underwater in general

You’re not getting it. The thief in this scenario isn’t trying to kill anything only keep you from capping a point while you sit their and watch “evade, evade, evade, evade.”

This.

There are too many ppl making comments that don’t even understand what’s being discussed here.

The thief class is a crutch for bad players. The amount of skill it takes to play it is nothing compared to the amount of skill it takes to counter it.

Elloni.2473:

Kline.9561:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Fighting an evading thief underwater is fun… really fun. Impossible to hit, except for one stray shot every 10 seconds or so. Another intended mechanic I guess?

does very little damage/avoidable and in my experience thieves always get eaten alive by warrior weapon combos underwater or just ranged weapons underwater in general

You’re not getting it. The thief in this scenario isn’t trying to kill anything only keep you from capping a point while you sit their and watch “evade, evade, evade, evade.”

time it then stun it or knock it back i get that they are doing, but owell its a map that is not even on the tpvp list in a 8v8 zerg fest match
how much the devs pay attention to underwater combat I don’t know.

Waffler.1257:

The thief class is a crutch for bad players. The amount of skill it takes to play it is nothing compared to the amount of skill it takes to counter it.

Sadly, this has always been the case. And it’s always the kids playing the OP classes that think they are pro, and come to defend while not acknowledging the real issues at hand.

Kline.9561:

Elloni.2473:

Kline.9561:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Fighting an evading thief underwater is fun… really fun. Impossible to hit, except for one stray shot every 10 seconds or so. Another intended mechanic I guess?

does very little damage/avoidable and in my experience thieves always get eaten alive by warrior weapon combos underwater or just ranged weapons underwater in general

You’re not getting it. The thief in this scenario isn’t trying to kill anything only keep you from capping a point while you sit their and watch “evade, evade, evade, evade.”

time it then stun it or knock it back i get that they are doing, but owell its a map that is not even on the tpvp list in a 8v8 zerg fest match
how much the devs pay attention to underwater combat I don’t know.

How do you stun or knock back something that cannot be hit?

If the answer was that simple I wouldn’t be on the forum crying about it. Like I said earlier, it is also impossible to time cc+big attack because thief has no CD on skills and I can’t see thier initiative level (among other things).

Uhh… Flanking Strike and Shadow Assault are melee attacks. Every class carries a ranged underwater weapon. Just sit back and let them waste their initiative spamming skills, then attack.

bacalao.2083:

Uhh… Flanking Strike and Shadow Assault are melee attacks. Every class carries a ranged underwater weapon. Just sit back and let them waste their initiative spamming skills, then attack.

You can attack from range (best thing to do I guess) but what generally happens it that you get one or two attacks in and then its back to “evade” for quite a while.

You can only tell that initiative is depleted when an attack goes through and then if you try for cc/big attack (if your class even has such skills) the “evade” is back up.

The first time I saw it I thought it was a hack, because the thief was alone with 4 or 5 people wailing on him and he held them all off.

Yep seemed broken when i first encountered this, however the answer has already been givin in the thread.

Shadow assault is melee so just back up a little bit and keep pelting at them with your ranged weapon (speargun/trident) the thief will have no choice but to stop evading and close the gap or use all initiative while doing no damage to evade your attack. the aoe damage shadow assault does will not be wide or big enough to cover the whole point so just skim around the edges.

also, if you have a sink or float effect, they cant evade through this and just lay it on the thief when he’s cc’d

Kousetsu.1627:

also, if you have a sink or float effect, they cant evade through this and just lay it on the thief when he’s cc’d

Do you mean that a sink or float effect (underwater cc) cannot be evaded or dodged?

Jinkuro.5163:

Its as simple as moving out of the range of the attack, if you’re standing in his attack range attacking air and expecting results you need to revise your strategy

Yeah. If only sPvP wasn’t about standing on certain small circles, which would make them switch colors and start giving points to your team. Oh wait.

Also, guess what happens when you’re attacking an SA spamming Thief from range? He evades.

Hello,

There is already a thread to discuss about the thief here : Feedback about the thief and its gameplay.

Please remember to use the search feature before creating new threads.

Thank you.