Guild Wars 2

Nope did not get owned by a thief, sorry conspiracy theory thieves. Only thief to own me in recent days was a really really good sword/dagger one and even then after 3rd encouter he had some major hard time with my ranger. On to the subject:

Ok, a-net, you got some explaning to do.
A while ago you said yourself you want to move away from hard counter gameplay into soft counter style, so player skill has bigger say in result of pvp encounters then their build.

And for most part you’re keeping true to your word – quickness and berserker stance becoming boons which can be stripped or corrupted, elite specs filling gaps base professsions had etc.

….except thieves.

Shadowstepping. Stealth not removed when blocked or evaded, , phletora of instant casts including a heal skill that breaks movement inpairment and has massive evade, initiative unaffected by chilling or interrupt induced skill cooldown.

So where exactly is the room for “skilled counter gameplay” against a thief who knows his stuff in pvp? Cause so far all i see is the “hold the point and survive for as long as possible”.

Agreed. Thief needs more counter play

Anet’s solution of fixing thief:
Buff Deadly Art, Shadow Art and Trickery

Yeah, thieves really need a fix. Thief is the class which relies the most on teleports. Which is a totally broken and bugged mechanic.

1. Teleports not working because of a leaf on the ground
2. Teleports costing initiative while they not working
3. …

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Nope did not get owned by a thief, sorry conspiracy theory thieves. Only thief to own me in recent days was a really really good sword/dagger one and even then after 3rd encouter he had some major hard time with my ranger. On to the subject:

Ok, a-net, you got some explaning to do.
A while ago you said yourself you want to move away from hard counter gameplay into soft counter style, so player skill has bigger say in result of pvp encounters then their build.

And for most part you’re keeping true to your word – quickness and berserker stance becoming boons which can be stripped or corrupted, elite specs filling gaps base professsions had etc.

….except thieves.

Shadowstepping. Stealth not removed when blocked or evaded, basilisk venom piercing stability, phletora of instant casts including a heal skill that breaks movement inpairment and has massive evade, initiative unaffected by chilling or interrupt induced skill cooldown.

So where exactly is the room for “skilled counter gameplay” against a thief who knows his stuff in pvp? Cause so far all i see is the “hold the point and survive for as long as possible”.

Shylock.4653:

Yeah, thieves really need a fix. Thief is the class which relies the most on teleports. Which is a totally broken and bugged mechanic.

1. Teleports not working because of a leaf on the ground
2. Teleports costing initiative while they not working
3. …

Na, now shadowstep becomes even noob friendly than before.
You used to waste initiative or CD if you FAIL to teleport up Battle of Khylo or Forest of Nulfield. Now it’d not cast it before you find the “right location”, so ANY NOOB can easily abuse the map as much as possible. I used to have a hard time finding those “right spot” too. Now I just spam SB5 no end until it actually teleports me up.

Toxsa.2701:

Anet’s solution of fixing thief:
Buff Deadly Art, Shadow Art and Trickery

Solution: instead of fixing problems, ‘deliberately’ increase them more?

thief should get some buffs considering how easy engineer and guard can counter thief. thief has to be able to do something against the blocks . dont nerf thief

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Shadowstepping.

Thief is not the only class that has blinks available. Yes they are available in greater numbers but thief is supposed to be one of the more mobile classes.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Stealth not removed when blocked or evaded

With the exception of Blinding Powder (and Last Refuge) every instance of thief stealth can be prevented (Cloak and Dagger, Smoke Field finishers, Hide in Shadows, Shadow Refuge), or punished (Shadow Refuge).

ZeftheWicked.3076:

basilisk venom piercing stability,

… What? Have you been playing the game for the last two and a half years?

ZeftheWicked.3076:

phletora of instant casts including a heal skill that breaks movement inpairment and has massive evade,

Again, thief is not the only class that has a plethora of instant cast skills available (mesmer and elementalist come to mind). Withdraw can be countered by poison.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

initiative unaffected by chilling or interrupt induced skill cooldown.

Working as intended. If there is to be added some more counterplay to initiative, I’d rather see it implemented in some other way, perhaps making the thief lose 1 initiative every time one of their attacks are evaded, blocked, or blinded.

Edit: To be honest, considering how powerful chill is, and with the advent of the Reaper, I think certain applications of chill (including the thief’s Ice Shard Stab) could do with a drastic toning down in duration (the same goes for immobilize), but that’s a different matter entirely.

How can you add counter play to a class that’s designed to play really well in order to counterplay everyone else? One bad move at any given moment and the Thief is toast.

I’m all for adding more counter play and items could always be improved, visually or mechanically, on every class. It’s a bit more difficult for a Thief when a slightest change in anything could make or break the class.

Thief should get applied updated energy system from revenant;

-Utilities now cost small amount of ini
-Some weapon skills that are obviously strong should have a short cd (between 2-5cd) to prevent it from spamming

This way it will force thief to think what hes doing and he will also be affected by chill and interrupts from mes.

Like for example inf arrow entering on 2cd after each use.

skowcia.8257:

Thief should get applied updated energy system from revenant;

-Utilities now cost small amount of ini
-Some weapon skills that are obviously strong should have a short cd (between 2-5cd) to prevent it from spamming

This way it will force thief to think what hes doing and he will also be affected by chill and interrupts from mes.

Like for example inf arrow entering on 2cd after each use.

You’re a genius here!
Hope Anet will actually see this post.

skowcia.8257:

Thief should get applied updated energy system from revenant;

-Utilities now cost small amount of ini
-Some weapon skills that are obviously strong should have a short cd (between 2-5cd) to prevent it from spamming

This way it will force thief to think what hes doing and he will also be affected by chill and interrupts from mes.

Like for example inf arrow entering on 2cd after each use.

+1

Shylock.4653:

1. Teleports not working because of a leaf on the ground

This is a problem for every class and many skills, you get ‘obstructed’ on ranged attacks because of some pebble or leaf, leaps fail because they hit some pebble or plant, pulls like magnet pull fail, etc.

As a necromancer main who probably has the hardest time fighting thieves with all the blinds and headshots I am confidently saying that there is indeed counterplay to thieves.

Thieves are a very squishy class and just like every profession you fight you should be able to predict what they are going to do next and that is how you capitalise on killing them. Currently d/p thief is meta and is A LOT easier to kill than s/d. When you see a thief use blinding powder to heartseeker into stealth, you should chill/cripple or CC them before the stealth goes off. If they manage to get the stealth off you need to play aggressively when they open with their backstab while anticipating the next stealth. Its actually so simple.

/grammar posted from my phone

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Nope did not get owned by a thief, sorry conspiracy theory thieves. Only thief to own me in recent days was a really really good sword/dagger one and even then after 3rd encouter he had some major hard time with my ranger. On to the subject:

Ok, a-net, you got some explaning to do.
A while ago you said yourself you want to move away from hard counter gameplay into soft counter style, so player skill has bigger say in result of pvp encounters then their build.

And for most part you’re keeping true to your word – quickness and berserker stance becoming boons which can be stripped or corrupted, elite specs filling gaps base professsions had etc.

….except thieves.

Shadowstepping. Stealth not removed when blocked or evaded, basilisk venom piercing stability, phletora of instant casts including a heal skill that breaks movement inpairment and has massive evade, initiative unaffected by chilling or interrupt induced skill cooldown.

So where exactly is the room for “skilled counter gameplay” against a thief who knows his stuff in pvp? Cause so far all i see is the “hold the point and survive for as long as possible”.

Learn to play or make a thief before jumping into conclusions.
The only reason basilisk venom pierces your stability is because the thief was savvy enough to strip you of your stability. Yeah, its the first boon you lose when the thief Steals from you. There is a boon priority, Aegis and stability are the first in line.

Also, since you seem to know jack about thieves – Larcenous Strike steals your might with priority. So you better off not stacking it. Its the #1 reason all D/D cele eles cry from S/D thieves. They give them might stacks throughout the fight. No blame from me though, its the build that uses the same skill rotation vs any other opponent.

Also if only 1 thief managed to beat you “in months”, then by logic thief is fine no? Clearly your “skill” gives you the upper hand.

Another one O.o!! Should I go back to mine for a while to create tears and leave necro alone for a while?? Hell if it’s so strong let’s all play one and stack them in ranked premades!!

I agree completely. I hate the fact that i wait 5 minutes for a game to start only to end up fighting a thief that can’t be killed because they just, hold, stealth, heal and repeat.

while i would like to see some punishments for bad plays regarding the thief i think most nerfs would totally break the class.
Thief is probably the most forgiving zerker class with the current meta builds.
By that i mean even though u ate a ton of dmg u can most of the time still escape or/and deal a lot of damage.
Thats mostly caused due to the stealth and port mechanics.
So while i think changing those would destroy the class id concentrate on the Steal mechanic. The Steal Traitline (Trickery) turns that F1 skill into a superweapon. It does so many things at the same time with no casttime and the only counterplay is guessing when the thief will use it.

On a “meta” thief that one skill
inflicts 10 seconds Poison,1 second Daze
grants 10 seconds Vigor,Fury,Might,Swiftness (fury,might,swiftness for allies too)
rips 2 boons with a priority on stability
gives 2 initiative back
deals 370 dmg
heals for 2k

And dont forget the “stolen skills”
Some of those totally destroy the respective class
like Mesmer → consume plasma
or warrior → Whirling Axe

Furthermore there are more broken traits in the shadowarts traitline which gonna get buffed with the next update and i fear the day those get used outside of WvW.

Saiyan.1704:

How can you add counter play to a class that’s designed to play really well in order to counterplay everyone else? One bad move at any given moment and the Thief is toast.

I’m all for adding more counter play and items could always be improved, visually or mechanically, on every class. It’s a bit more difficult for a Thief when a slightest change in anything could make or break the class.

This. So much this. I feel like these people complaining about the class have never tried it out. Most of the nerf suggestions to thief that I come by are utterly absurd and would make the class unplayable.

Why should a good player be punished for being good?

Seriously, while i agree, fighting thieves can be frustrating due to their survability, (i personally hate fighting D/P thieves, especially in wvw. I still believe 3s reveal is too short imHo) i really doubt that class would be playable if the complainers’ ideas were incorporate in the game…
Complainers rarely see the battle from the other side. It is also very frustrating as a thief to be random dodged on steal, blocked, blind, invul atm you attempt any action.
While it can be a l2p issue, there is also a matter of luck in every encounter.

@ Toxsa.2701 This is a video i recently made about issues that can be game breaking (imo), you can clearly see (teleports part), that teleports fail a lot more than before.
Thoses issues happen to me every day many time. The best thing: it’s totally random!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXx5eAkZNm8

I would love to see more counterplay in this game, but this would go for every class.
Community needs to grow up.

Regards.

zinkz.7045:

Shylock.4653:

1. Teleports not working because of a leaf on the ground

This is a problem for every class and many skills, you get ‘obstructed’ on ranged attacks because of some pebble or leaf, leaps fail because they hit some pebble or plant, pulls like magnet pull fail, etc.

The difference with thief is that SB5 eats initiative while doing nothing from time to time. And thief needs initiative to use weapon skills. I’ve died many a times just trying to get away because SB5 isn’t working and eats my initiative while doing so.

I dont even main ranger and I have 0 problem vs Thieves as Condi (Survival) or Power Ranger.

Sorry, but this is definenately a L2P issue. I normally dont say this but everyone seems to crawl out of their cave since one troll started asking for Thief-nerfs, everyone now does.

U have a big counter called “Channeling Skill Following Through Stealth” and others vs Thieves..

A Ranger complaining about a Thief.. doesn’t get through my head..

I said in “days” not “months” use the quote function, or don’t try to cite me by hand.

Also i will bark back the part about basilisk being unblockable by stability then – my bad here. So they did fix it.

That still doesn’t take away from rest of thief inbalances:
withdraw with 0 cast time, evade and breaking movement impariment. Yeah i can poison thief, he’ll go into stealth and poison gone. 2 points into shadow arts is all it takes. I don’t have spammable poison every time i fail to land it too.

no reaveal on block or miss when stealthed – speaking of spammable… If a thief failed to land an attack in such extremely favourable situation, then regardless if it was thief’s blooper, or opponents great job at seeing the unseeable, a big reward for the defender and hard punishement for the thief are in order. It’s enough how spammable stealth is, it should carry a risk vs it’s reward

And how are things looking right now? Nothing happening to the thief, backstab is FREE, heck he even might get a condi cleanse and faster ini regen while spamming his backstab till it lands, or just running off after failed 1st attempt.

near impervious to interrupts and chilling by design – there’s no skill here at all. Simply everything initiative based is near immune to it, and if that’s not enough there’s always them insta-casts, which thief has plenty. Good luck with skilled countering or trying to impose more cooldown on something that has none!

How’s that steal working for you? anyone ever countered that by means other then sheer luck?

And if there are no capture points? Some degree of balance is stealth preventing capture point contribution, or in plain english – you can’t hold/cap when invisible. So when fighting with a thief on a point i win the point because he stealths too much. But what about stronghold that’s coming along?

Thieves are squi…oh oops! Nvm! Resilience of shadows! Coming to thief near you with core specialization update as shadow arts minor. You pick shadowarts, you’re no longer the squish vs direct damage when you stealth.

Thief is broken from top to bottom. The only two “balanced” things about thief is that it majority of them are bad, and that points can’t be captured when stealthed.
But that’s like saying that german shepard tank is balanced vs Fiat Punto, because the road is narrow and the tank has to watch the curves…

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Nope did not get owned by a thief, sorry conspiracy theory thieves. Only thief to own me in recent days was a really really good sword/dagger one and even then after 3rd encouter he had some major hard time with my ranger. On to the subject:

Ok, a-net, you got some explaning to do.
A while ago you said yourself you want to move away from hard counter gameplay into soft counter style, so player skill has bigger say in result of pvp encounters then their build.

And for most part you’re keeping true to your word – quickness and berserker stance becoming boons which can be stripped or corrupted, elite specs filling gaps base professsions had etc.

….except thieves.

Shadowstepping. Stealth not removed when blocked or evaded, basilisk venom piercing stability, phletora of instant casts including a heal skill that breaks movement inpairment and has massive evade, initiative unaffected by chilling or interrupt induced skill cooldown.

So where exactly is the room for “skilled counter gameplay” against a thief who knows his stuff in pvp? Cause so far all i see is the “hold the point and survive for as long as possible”.

I dun get it… so… you have 0 trouble with thieves… but they should be nerfed…? ok…

also;
basi venom does not ignore stab,
“plethora of instant casts…” you mean our F1 and some utilities? Is this not the case with most professions?
“Stealth not removed when blocked or evaded” – and why should it? sure it’s not logical but fire raining down from the heavens isn’t logical ether… heavy armor people running faster then everyone isn’t logical… people not dying from being whacked in the head with a giant hammer isn’t logical… it’s a game Oo…

bleh, if you want to call for nerfs at least be honest about it. The “I can beat x profession all the time but (long list of nerfs) should be implemented” is getting old.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

no reaveal on block or miss when stealthed – speaking of spammable… If a thief failed to land an attack in such extremely favourable situation, then regardless if it was thief’s blooper, or opponents great job at seeing the unseeable, a big reward for the defender and hard punishement for the thief are in order. It’s enough how spammable stealth is, it should carry a risk vs it’s reward

Thieves are squi…oh oops! Nvm! Resilience of shadows! Coming to thief near you with core specialization update as shadow arts minor. You pick shadowarts, you’re no longer the squish vs direct damage when you stealth.

They could punish missed/blocked backstab by flipping it back to basic attack. As a thief I would have nothing against that. But removing stealth while doing it? Nope. You’re already at high risk going melee range into that area of effect and melee skill spam. Stealth is not invulnerability.

As for shadow arts… I think this is a WvW thing only where the main thing is to run in a zerg vs another zerg (not something thief naturally excells at). Nobody uses full SA line in sPvP. What use is being tanky if you can’t hold the point at the same time? Remember, while in stealth, the thief is not doing anything.

SA line will always be points taken from somewhere else to be able to use Resilience of shadows (a grandmaster trait), be it Steal buffs (Steal is garbage without investing points full on Trickery) or pure condi/dps from Deadly Arts (which also has Mug and Panic Strike traits in it) and Critical Strikes/mobility from Acrobatics. I don’t see why this is a problem. If anything, they’ve given thieves another viable build for zerg vs zerg even if the only thing you can do with it is to revive your mates.

Personally I’ve never touched Resilience of shadows so that’s all I can say off the top of my head.

Withdraw and headshot has been two of the games biggest balance outliers for a while. In general thieves should have their cast times and initiative cost increased across the board though. When they buffed thief base initiative regen they essentially reduced all thieves cds by 33%.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Nope did not get owned by a thief, sorry conspiracy theory thieves. Only thief to own me in recent days was a really really good sword/dagger one and even then after 3rd encouter he had some major hard time with my ranger. On to the subject:

LOL yes sure… pretty obvious u got farmed by a thief now youre here to cry on the forums asking for “balance”

you know i ate a 13k rapid fire yesterday on my thief in spvp, yes? Why dont you play one for a week instead of crying here.

Ravenmoon.5318:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Nope did not get owned by a thief, sorry conspiracy theory thieves. Only thief to own me in recent days was a really really good sword/dagger one and even then after 3rd encouter he had some major hard time with my ranger. On to the subject:

Ok, a-net, you got some explaning to do.
A while ago you said yourself you want to move away from hard counter gameplay into soft counter style, so player skill has bigger say in result of pvp encounters then their build.

And for most part you’re keeping true to your word – quickness and berserker stance becoming boons which can be stripped or corrupted, elite specs filling gaps base professsions had etc.

….except thieves.

Shadowstepping. Stealth not removed when blocked or evaded, basilisk venom piercing stability, phletora of instant casts including a heal skill that breaks movement inpairment and has massive evade, initiative unaffected by chilling or interrupt induced skill cooldown.

So where exactly is the room for “skilled counter gameplay” against a thief who knows his stuff in pvp? Cause so far all i see is the “hold the point and survive for as long as possible”.

Learn to play or make a thief before jumping into conclusions.
The only reason basilisk venom pierces your stability is because the thief was savvy enough to strip you of your stability. Yeah, its the first boon you lose when the thief Steals from you. There is a boon priority, Aegis and stability are the first in line.

Also, since you seem to know jack about thieves – Larcenous Strike steals your might with priority. So you better off not stacking it. Its the #1 reason all D/D cele eles cry from S/D thieves. They give them might stacks throughout the fight. No blame from me though, its the build that uses the same skill rotation vs any other opponent.

Also if only 1 thief managed to beat you “in months”, then by logic thief is fine no? Clearly your “skill” gives you the upper hand.

And that boon priority doesnt work like that on mesmer or necro, which is pretty whack.

@above
My beef is how thief as a profession, gets tons of get out of jail cards vs opponents who skillfully interrupt or ensnare them, as well as no punishment for their own bad performance when trying to land a stealthed attack.

Bad thieves that do not realize or cannot properly use that, do not “balance” the general problem with this profession. They just cover it up.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

@above
My beef is how thief as a profession, gets tons of get out of jail cards vs opponents who skillfully interrupt or ensnare them, as well as no punishment for their own bad performance when trying to land a stealthed attack.

Bad thieves that do not realize or cannot properly use that, do not “balance” the general problem with this profession. They just cover it up.

specific examples please. I also like how anyone who doesn’t agree with you is a ‘bad thief’.

Room for error is built into much of the game as no one can play perfectly. A comparable equivalent is ranged attacks like ranger’s LB. It actually shoots much further than the stated 1500 range doesn’t (it)? Wouldn’t it be nice if I could stop being hit the moment I reach 1501 range? the 2000+ actual range often isn’t possible to reach. One could argue that it wasn’t “fair”.

You haven’t answered my question… if you’re having no problems with thieves… then what are you talking about? balance? According to you, only 1 thief in recent memory could even stand a chance against you. The rest aren’t dying fast enough for your tastes? They should not be able to get away at all? Your “skillful play” should completely and utterly shut them down regardless of what they do?

*Edit: doesn’t (it) got censored… wow

Maris.3164:

Saiyan.1704:

How can you add counter play to a class that’s designed to play really well in order to counterplay everyone else? One bad move at any given moment and the Thief is toast.

I’m all for adding more counter play and items could always be improved, visually or mechanically, on every class. It’s a bit more difficult for a Thief when a slightest change in anything could make or break the class.

This. So much this. I feel like these people complaining about the class have never tried it out. Most of the nerf suggestions to thief that I come by are utterly absurd and would make the class unplayable.

Why should a good player be punished for being good?

“Why should a good player be pnished for being good?” I see what you did there. I’ll play.

Why should a good player be punished for good positioniong?
Why should a good player be punished for interupt of BP+HS only for the thief to HS again?
Why should a good player be punished for using the correct skill to counter stealth attack only to have the thief stay in stealth and stealth attack again?

I bet thieves are going to say “because they are bad players.” Lolz…

Ravenmoon.5318:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Nope did not get owned by a thief, sorry conspiracy theory thieves. Only thief to own me in recent days was a really really good sword/dagger one and even then after 3rd encouter he had some major hard time with my ranger. On to the subject:

Ok, a-net, you got some explaning to do.
A while ago you said yourself you want to move away from hard counter gameplay into soft counter style, so player skill has bigger say in result of pvp encounters then their build.

And for most part you’re keeping true to your word – quickness and berserker stance becoming boons which can be stripped or corrupted, elite specs filling gaps base professsions had etc.

….except thieves.

Shadowstepping. Stealth not removed when blocked or evaded, basilisk venom piercing stability, phletora of instant casts including a heal skill that breaks movement inpairment and has massive evade, initiative unaffected by chilling or interrupt induced skill cooldown.

So where exactly is the room for “skilled counter gameplay” against a thief who knows his stuff in pvp? Cause so far all i see is the “hold the point and survive for as long as possible”.

Learn to play or make a thief before jumping into conclusions.
The only reason basilisk venom pierces your stability is because the thief was savvy enough to strip you of your stability. Yeah, its the first boon you lose when the thief Steals from you. There is a boon priority, Aegis and stability are the first in line.

Also, since you seem to know jack about thieves – Larcenous Strike steals your might with priority. So you better off not stacking it. Its the #1 reason all D/D cele eles cry from S/D thieves. They give them might stacks throughout the fight. No blame from me though, its the build that uses the same skill rotation vs any other opponent.

Also if only 1 thief managed to beat you “in months”, then by logic thief is fine no? Clearly your “skill” gives you the upper hand.

You conveniently ignored half of his issues…good job.

Hy good morning.
i play w thief… im see burst on critical hit and i dont undestanding …
when i fighting w warrior and guardian i note extremely power of heavy classes… im using 0/6/6/2/0 on pvp and wvw.
I feel a little unbalanced… and i like very much play with critial hits… dont think change, but i feel most dificult has play thief on this build.
thanks for attention.

Gabriell.4856:

Ravenmoon.5318:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Nope did not get owned by a thief, sorry conspiracy theory thieves. Only thief to own me in recent days was a really really good sword/dagger one and even then after 3rd encouter he had some major hard time with my ranger. On to the subject:

Ok, a-net, you got some explaning to do.
A while ago you said yourself you want to move away from hard counter gameplay into soft counter style, so player skill has bigger say in result of pvp encounters then their build.

And for most part you’re keeping true to your word – quickness and berserker stance becoming boons which can be stripped or corrupted, elite specs filling gaps base professsions had etc.

….except thieves.

Shadowstepping. Stealth not removed when blocked or evaded, basilisk venom piercing stability, phletora of instant casts including a heal skill that breaks movement inpairment and has massive evade, initiative unaffected by chilling or interrupt induced skill cooldown.

So where exactly is the room for “skilled counter gameplay” against a thief who knows his stuff in pvp? Cause so far all i see is the “hold the point and survive for as long as possible”.

Learn to play or make a thief before jumping into conclusions.
The only reason basilisk venom pierces your stability is because the thief was savvy enough to strip you of your stability. Yeah, its the first boon you lose when the thief Steals from you. There is a boon priority, Aegis and stability are the first in line.

Also, since you seem to know jack about thieves – Larcenous Strike steals your might with priority. So you better off not stacking it. Its the #1 reason all D/D cele eles cry from S/D thieves. They give them might stacks throughout the fight. No blame from me though, its the build that uses the same skill rotation vs any other opponent.

Also if only 1 thief managed to beat you “in months”, then by logic thief is fine no? Clearly your “skill” gives you the upper hand.

You conveniently ignored half of his issues…good job.

Yeah because his other suggestion is silly.
As i stated in the thread right next to this one, I’ll quote myself

This change is totally kittened. Skilled thieves currently wait out your blocks because if you were skilled yourself you’d know that blocking lets you know the thief’s position. Change that and yeah you’ll kill scrub thieves i guess. Though you should be able to takeout scrub thieves even now because they don’t think much.
The following week the good thieves will stab you brutally again and because you don’t know how to protect yourself properly you’ll come to the forums again begging for backstab nerf.
Maybe create a thief and see how “ridiculously OP” it is before judging?

Pardon me for choosing not to repeat myself earlier.

Gabriell.4856:

Maris.3164:

Saiyan.1704:

How can you add counter play to a class that’s designed to play really well in order to counterplay everyone else? One bad move at any given moment and the Thief is toast.

I’m all for adding more counter play and items could always be improved, visually or mechanically, on every class. It’s a bit more difficult for a Thief when a slightest change in anything could make or break the class.

This. So much this. I feel like these people complaining about the class have never tried it out. Most of the nerf suggestions to thief that I come by are utterly absurd and would make the class unplayable.

Why should a good player be punished for being good?

“Why should a good player be pnished for being good?” I see what you did there. I’ll play.

Why should a good player be punished for good positioniong?
Why should a good player be punished for interupt of BP+HS only for the thief to HS again?
Why should a good player be punished for using the correct skill to counter stealth attack only to have the thief stay in stealth and stealth attack again?

I bet thieves are going to say “because they are bad players.” Lolz…

If you interrupt BP + HS it gives you a big time window when thief cannot stealth due to not having intiative. If you cannot put any pressure on the thief in that period of time, then it’s your own fault.

Yea A-net, please nerf thieves so this guy can /afk on his ranger spamming rapid fire on cd. This would make happy of us all.

l2p and shut up

Since there are very few thieves looking objectively at this thread, I’ll speak up.

Right now, maintaining stealth on blocked attacks is okay.

Once Resilience of shadows and the other thief buffs drop, whiffing or getting a backstab blocked should count as an attack and cause reveal, to counter the damage reduction in stealth.

Don’t be silly. We’re squishy as hell, but once we’re not squishy we need to put some risk somewhere.

There’s no such thing as tons of get out of jail free cards. we have two on demand ports max per weapon set, iirc, and only one of them is a stun break. Initiative is in a comfortable range for me, if that needs to be nerfed or buffed remains to be seen.

But as far as adding reveal to whiffed attacks? We can take that hit with the new changes.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

But as far as adding reveal to whiffed attacks? We can take that hit with the new changes.

Most good thieves do not give up their location by attacking a blocking toon, or better yet, they don’t even stealth while someone is blocking in 1on1. Its better to wait it out and re-engage while the target has a huge cooldown.

…but that’s smart play, not a bug <o>

It’s like blaming mesmers for using Portal or blinking on the Z axis …

oh wait …. most of you actually do this.

The real culprit to point fingers at is the panic strike build itself, and not inherent thief mechanics. A lot of the propositions mentionned would make thief too obsolete in comparison to the meta builds which already have a pretty huge advantage over thief in a skirmish or 1v1 scenario (discounting improvisation procs…again this is due to the panic strike build and not the class as a whole).

From a perspective of purely removing stealth, look at the new guardian trap, but it’s already possible to counter a stellar he’s player without a reveal. Just use the over abundant AoE and cleave in the game.

from my pov problems with thief:
-they have too much built in survivability even if they go full zerker
-there is little counterplay to stealth – only available if you know thief stealthed and even then very risky
-there is no counter play to thief shadow steps, none at all. No teleporting skill should ignore LoS – though this applies to other classes with such skills as well(guardian), Can not be dodged since it has no cast time.
-there is no counter play to thief shadow step return (most of them have no cast time), even if interrupted nothing stops thief from recasting the skill

Sugestions:
-shadows stepping TO target should always require line of sight(all classes)
-if stealth attack is blocked/missed(blind) that skill slot is put on cooldown(3-5 sec)(all classes)
-if stealth attack is DODGED thief is revealed (all classes)
-initiative is affected by chill
-all mobility(return)/evade skills should have windup(even if no cast time) the skill should be visible before it takes effect – except for utility stun breakers

this might be under or over kill but I think it would be good place to start

Regarding fighting stealth with AoE: That tactic only partially may work as thief is not frozen solid when insisible. they still can see your AoE coming and dodge it. Shadow Refuge is one exception as is forces thief to stay inside visible aoe circle and then placing long lasting aoe on top of it, such as meteor storm or ranger barrage may work miracles. Outside of that case thief can fullly see and dodge the aoe. Well at least it’s a dodge bait..

Dragonhunter trap is a step in the right direction. I would also very much like to see ranger traps ignore stealth and trigger regardless of target visibility. Real life traps sure don’t care for camouflage as long as they’re stepped on.

@Nutshel – totally agreed. Especially about shadowsteps having a windup, unless it’s a utility.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Nope did not get owned by a thief, sorry conspiracy theory thieves. Only thief to own me in recent days was a really really good sword/dagger one and even then after 3rd encouter he had some major hard time with my ranger.

BLAH BLAH

So where exactly is the room for “skilled counter gameplay” against a thief who knows his stuff in pvp? Cause so far all i see is the “hold the point and survive for as long as possible”.

i smell contradiction.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Shadowstepping. Stealth not removed when blocked or evaded, , phletora of instant casts including a heal skill that breaks movement inpairment and has massive evade, initiative unaffected by chilling or interrupt induced skill cooldown.

Shadowstepping. : guess you want to argue about SB#5 as most of the non thief players do. i have to say it works as intended. offers decent mobility vs high resource cost. using 2 of these requires 12 init which is 4/5 of his MAX initiative. this end ideally in a 1800 range non instant transfer(which in realyty is like 1600 <— autohit range of LB ranger)

Stealth not removed when blocked or evaded. : if you are decent anough thief cant land most of his bs into your back. in that case its damage is weak. +you shoudnt block randomly bs’s couse you are missunderstanding something if you think bs is what kills you. most of thieves damage comes from autohit + sigil procs from them. or from some failed to evade hartseakers, but those are really your fault.

phletora of instant casts including a heal skill. : guess you want to interrupt thieves heals after almost downing them with 2 autohits. seems fair. Imo the 2 more instats you wanna complayn of are steal and headshot(this isnt really instant).
interrupting in gw2 is really dificult. in gw1 there was a bar which showed what spell your oponent was casting. we are missing this in gw2 so you have to know all the skill animations you are looking for to interrupt, then recognize then interrupt. this method leads to a way bigger reaction delay than in the old game where mesmers(man/secondary) owned interrupts with the same cast time. this skill also got a 4init skill cost which makes it really unspammable in most situations. Steal is steal deal with it. btw i got my steal random dodged many times #instant op.

interrupt induced skill cooldown: it does effect. they lose initiative. (when power locked they shoud lose more initiative instead of going CD)

and no chill shoudnt effect init regen. it already hurts badly thx.

PS: i see a lot of thief QQ topics recently but cant really find the reason. could someone pls make a ‘How to deal with thieves’ tutorial with gameplay footage to end this nonsence? (i cant do it, my PC cant even handle fraps + gw2 @ the same time lolz)
thieves are strong for theyr role but the OPs complaining in these topices dont really get close the facts that make this class used so often. its the ability of stealthing other high burst teammates for several seconds, the roaming/back capping potential, and the reast teammates are able to handle pressure while thief in peeling in all fights where it also cant rez or stomp, thanks to cele and shoutbow/engi aoe heal.

@Zeft, I 100% understand what your saying. There are facets of the Thief abilities that don’t make sense. I think you should be revealed by using an interface like stomping. I don’t think you should be able to stealth stomp.

However, In my interest of learning how thieves work I, who normally plays necro/mediguard , started running a thief for a while in WvW and PvP to get a feel for what thier abilities are and how to counter them. I had always lived under the belief that Stealth was like this be all end all that would save me.

It doesn’t and, more to the point I was shocked by how low their health pool is, how hard it is sometimes to land hits ect. Now, I am no master thief, and thief is not a profession I am currently interested in. I mainly wanted to understand it so I could combat it. But, I think I can say safely that there are areas of thief that need help, that need change to improve thier QOL, meanwhile there are other areas that are not counterable, and could use rework.

However, this is the case for almost every class except a few. The thing that people don’t realize is that high damage classes may seem easy with no skill to play and do damage but, they actually take ALOT of skill to survive on.

Laraley.7695:

Gabriell.4856:

Maris.3164:

Saiyan.1704:

How can you add counter play to a class that’s designed to play really well in order to counterplay everyone else? One bad move at any given moment and the Thief is toast.

I’m all for adding more counter play and items could always be improved, visually or mechanically, on every class. It’s a bit more difficult for a Thief when a slightest change in anything could make or break the class.

This. So much this. I feel like these people complaining about the class have never tried it out. Most of the nerf suggestions to thief that I come by are utterly absurd and would make the class unplayable.

Why should a good player be punished for being good?

“Why should a good player be pnished for being good?” I see what you did there. I’ll play.

Why should a good player be punished for good positioniong?
Why should a good player be punished for interupt of BP+HS only for the thief to HS again?
Why should a good player be punished for using the correct skill to counter stealth attack only to have the thief stay in stealth and stealth attack again?

I bet thieves are going to say “because they are bad players.” Lolz…

If you interrupt BP + HS it gives you a big time window when thief cannot stealth due to not having intiative. If you cannot put any pressure on the thief in that period of time, then it’s your own fault.

Since when does thief has only 9 initiative ? Last time I checked, every thief spec into trickery for a total of 15 total initiative. He will just HS again to gain stealth. Since they don’t have CD on weaponskill, HS doesn’t go on a 5 second CD like other interupts…

Ravenmoon.5318:

Gabriell.4856:

Ravenmoon.5318:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Nope did not get owned by a thief, sorry conspiracy theory thieves. Only thief to own me in recent days was a really really good sword/dagger one and even then after 3rd encouter he had some major hard time with my ranger. On to the subject:

Ok, a-net, you got some explaning to do.
A while ago you said yourself you want to move away from hard counter gameplay into soft counter style, so player skill has bigger say in result of pvp encounters then their build.

And for most part you’re keeping true to your word – quickness and berserker stance becoming boons which can be stripped or corrupted, elite specs filling gaps base professsions had etc.

….except thieves.

Shadowstepping. Stealth not removed when blocked or evaded, basilisk venom piercing stability, phletora of instant casts including a heal skill that breaks movement inpairment and has massive evade, initiative unaffected by chilling or interrupt induced skill cooldown.

So where exactly is the room for “skilled counter gameplay” against a thief who knows his stuff in pvp? Cause so far all i see is the “hold the point and survive for as long as possible”.

Learn to play or make a thief before jumping into conclusions.
The only reason basilisk venom pierces your stability is because the thief was savvy enough to strip you of your stability. Yeah, its the first boon you lose when the thief Steals from you. There is a boon priority, Aegis and stability are the first in line.

Also, since you seem to know jack about thieves – Larcenous Strike steals your might with priority. So you better off not stacking it. Its the #1 reason all D/D cele eles cry from S/D thieves. They give them might stacks throughout the fight. No blame from me though, its the build that uses the same skill rotation vs any other opponent.

Also if only 1 thief managed to beat you “in months”, then by logic thief is fine no? Clearly your “skill” gives you the upper hand.

You conveniently ignored half of his issues…good job.

Yeah because his other suggestion is silly.
As i stated in the thread right next to this one, I’ll quote myself

This change is totally kittened. Skilled thieves currently wait out your blocks because if you were skilled yourself you’d know that blocking lets you know the thief’s position. Change that and yeah you’ll kill scrub thieves i guess. Though you should be able to takeout scrub thieves even now because they don’t think much.
The following week the good thieves will stab you brutally again and because you don’t know how to protect yourself properly you’ll come to the forums again begging for backstab nerf.
Maybe create a thief and see how “ridiculously OP” it is before judging?

Pardon me for choosing not to repeat myself earlier.

I see now. Your response is silly.

Gabriell.4856:

Laraley.7695:

Gabriell.4856:

Maris.3164:

Saiyan.1704:

How can you add counter play to a class that’s designed to play really well in order to counterplay everyone else? One bad move at any given moment and the Thief is toast.

I’m all for adding more counter play and items could always be improved, visually or mechanically, on every class. It’s a bit more difficult for a Thief when a slightest change in anything could make or break the class.

This. So much this. I feel like these people complaining about the class have never tried it out. Most of the nerf suggestions to thief that I come by are utterly absurd and would make the class unplayable.

Why should a good player be punished for being good?

“Why should a good player be pnished for being good?” I see what you did there. I’ll play.

Why should a good player be punished for good positioniong?
Why should a good player be punished for interupt of BP+HS only for the thief to HS again?
Why should a good player be punished for using the correct skill to counter stealth attack only to have the thief stay in stealth and stealth attack again?

I bet thieves are going to say “because they are bad players.” Lolz…

If you interrupt BP + HS it gives you a big time window when thief cannot stealth due to not having intiative. If you cannot put any pressure on the thief in that period of time, then it’s your own fault.

Since when does thief has only 9 initiative ? Last time I checked, every thief spec into trickery for a total of 15 total initiative. He will just HS again to gain stealth. Since they don’t have CD on weaponskill, HS doesn’t go on a 5 second CD like other interupts…

15-9 = 6 =/=9

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Thieves are squi…oh oops! Nvm! Resilience of shadows! Coming to thief near you with core specialization update as shadow arts minor. You pick shadowarts, you’re no longer the squish vs direct damage when you stealth.

And Ranger isn’t getting a buff to LB with faster velocity as Baseline and traiting for faster attacks and faster cooldowns plus Opening Strike proccing more often?

Srsly, pretty much every class is getting buffed with core specializations.

Nightshade.2570:

@Zeft, I 100% understand what your saying. There are facets of the Thief abilities that don’t make sense. I think you should be revealed by using an interface like stomping. I don’t think you should be able to stealth stomp.

However, In my interest of learning how thieves work I, who normally plays necro/mediguard , started running a thief for a while in WvW and PvP to get a feel for what thier abilities are and how to counter them. I had always lived under the belief that Stealth was like this be all end all that would save me.

It doesn’t and, more to the point I was shocked by how low their health pool is, how hard it is sometimes to land hits ect. Now, I am no master thief, and thief is not a profession I am currently interested in. I mainly wanted to understand it so I could combat it. But, I think I can say safely that there are areas of thief that need help, that need change to improve thier QOL, meanwhile there are other areas that are not counterable, and could use rework.

However, this is the case for almost every class except a few. The thing that people don’t realize is that high damage classes may seem easy with no skill to play and do damage but, they actually take ALOT of skill to survive on.

Thank you!

A sensible person who did the sensible thing and actually tried the profession out instead of just running to the forums QQing for a nerf. You then proceeded to find out what everyone who mains a thief knows. We die really kittening easily if we mess up and stealth isn’t this super invulnerability people make it out to be.