Guild Wars 2

The counter to stealth: Keep attacking. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean that you can’t hit them. I constantly kill thieves while they are stealthed simply by mashing 1 and running in random circles. As soon as you hit with the #1 attack, the combo will start and you can tell where they are based on the hit-confirm. They usually pop-out of stealth in a downed state.

If you’re someone with AOE, just place it down your aoe at your feet and wait for them to dodge-roll into it, or teleport into it. Thief has a chance to either run or die at that point.

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 very much.

I wish more people were like you.

And played the class instead of suggesting things like

Off his rocker:

-if stealth attack is blocked/missed(blind) that skill slot is put on cooldown(3-5 sec)(all classes)
-initiative is affected by chill

We constantly dance a razor edge to do anything at all. Our health pool is erased with relatively minimal effort, so the seemingly numerous escapes and uncounterable stealths are necessary for us to be even marginally useful as a class. I am willing to take added risk in reveals on whiffs or blocks, because that seems like a reasonable situation in which you’d get revealed.

But to all the people saying we should have cooldowns and stuff jammed into our skill bar because of reasons, nah. Calm that kitten down now, cause it’s not happening.

Laraley.7695:

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

Exactly! So why did you say a BP+HS interrupt will leave the thief with no initiative?

Gabriell.4856:

Laraley.7695:

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

Exactly! So why did you say a BP+HS interrupt will leave the thief with no initiative?

Maybe read what I said, which was stating after BP + HS, he won’t have enough initiative to stealth again for some time.

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, , 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”.

You don’t get owned by thieves but they are OP and need to be fixed… wat?

What’s wrong with shadowstepping? it is a defensive/offensive skill like any other in game~

If stealth was getting removed by blocks/invuls then other classes would have their defensives nerfed~

Actually, thieves don’t have instant healing skill; you can’t use withdraw while being CCd, just saying; what’s wrong with withdraw breaking movement imparing effects? necro heal does the same O_o are necros OP now?

Define massive evade, it is not even full sec… guardian heal for example gives them block for longer duration at (it), are guardians OP now lol?

Ini was affected by chill before, it was devastating because thieves share same resource for both weapon sets unlike other classes…

Interrupts actually affect thieves, all cast spells can be still interrupted, dazed thief can’t use any casting spells either; only difference is that weapon skills don’t go on visible CD however since initiative is wasted and counts as CD effectively they do go on CD after all by denying resource to thief instead of putting number on spell bar.

Do i understand it right, thief that “knows his stuff” should get punished by being a free kill?
There is plenty of skillful gameplay vs even good thief. Name me a spell and i will give you list of things you could do to counter it.

I am not big fan of saying it but if only thing you see is “hold the point and survive for as long as possible”, then you really need to L2P.

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.

As stated above. And you also seem to forget that stealth is timed. BP+HS doesn’t last as long as Shadow refuge. If you keep moving the thief will not manage to hit you with Backstab in time. Fighting a thief is very active gameplay and yes it might require you to focus more than against a say, ranger. Why is this a bad thing?

I don’t agree with revealed on missed/blocked stealth skill, but they could instead punish the thief by flipping the skill back to basic attack. Then again, that might result in no one ever using backstab again. All it would take is a long lasting aegis or blind since stealth (unless traited or Shadow refuge) doesn’t last that long.

Don’t bother to respond to Gabriell, he’s not really putting arguments, he’s just trolling.

Jelzouki.4128:

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

That’s all well and good, and I’m even getting to the point where I can bait out backstabs but flip my character in time to avoid the huge damage. The counterplay is absolutely there against Thieves, during the engagement.

Have fun doing it five times over after they reset until you’re +1’ed in the fight, or eventually most of your skills are on CD and you finally die. I laugh at Thieves who complain about Guardian or Warrior sustainability.

I think,that using regular block “not aegis” or evade/dodge should cause reveal if the thief is just spaming 1,while in stealth.Only aegis or blind shouldnt cause it.Thou i wouldnt call it priority or a big isue,just a thing which struck me as first thing,and i used to thing its a bug.Like missed f1 on warr,before the change.

2nd isue i see with not only thieves but also guard,is porting skills not needing LoS “Line of sight,not pathing,like a thief behind pillar porting through it without even seeing his target”.Again not a big deal,but its quite annoying,especially on sword thief,if he starts to abuse the 2nd abil.Port,hit,port back and repeat and u just stand there on point and wonder where on earth is the thief porting from.
“remmember mostly that map with npcs and mid point with stairs,where thief was porting from below to point and back,almost imune to anything”

" No matter how much the truth hurts, it will never hurt as bad as the betrayal that comes with living a lie. Tell your truth anyway "

Arena net need to hear the truth: thief profession is extremely problematic: broken… for too long (3 years+) is not ok!!. Thief Profession need to be urgently resolve as soon as possible.

Last,

" Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently "

Thief is a fail profession: it need to be redesign and rework.

I don’t mind about thieves having access to stealth but when I dodge/block/evade attacks from stealth, thieves should be revealed. I don’t mind getting stealth bursted by thief/mesmer combo, I don’t mind that thieves have access to stealth and can disengage almost at will. Initiative reduction by chilling is debatable, but then I don’t play thief so I can’t really say.
But I think that I should be rewarded if I dodged attacks from stealth, whether its from shortbow, steal, sword, dagger, pistol, etc, thieves should be punished. This way they have to make sure to grasp the perfect opportunity before opening on me. From dueling thieves to playing Gw2 pvp, most thieves do attack from stealth, and sometimes due to my intuition i dodge/blind/block their skills, I do not get rewarded for countering.
Mobility for thieves is fine as it is, and I agree that it is extremely difficult to play thief well in gw2 pvp. But then remaining in stealth after failed attack is something that I don’t think its fair. If I countered their attack, they should have some sort of disadvantage as well other than having their basilisk venom removed.

DarkSyze.8627:

" No matter how much the truth hurts, it will never hurt as bad as the betrayal that comes with living a lie. Tell your truth anyway "

Arena net need to hear the truth: thief profession is extremely problematic: broken… for too long (3 years+) is not ok!!. Thief Profession need to be urgently resolve as soon as possible.

Last,

" Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently "

Thief is a fail profession: it need to be redesign and rework.

I agree DarkSyze thief is completely broken it need to be nerf a lot

WHEN WILL ARENA NET FIX THIS BROKEN CLASS?

I love how it’s not okay for thieves to stealth stomp while mesmers are left completely out of that comment even though they could potentially do the same exact thing.

Also I find it amusing that while stealth stomp which rarely will ever be accompanied by something such as stability, or while I’m at it will never be combined with mist form or how about being mini or invulnerable … is somehow such a horrible thing when you can’t actually stop other stomps. But even with someone who’s paying attention with a knockback or hard CC ready, they can stop a stealth stomp, however, even with perceptive counter play it’s still unfair. (Not to mention all the random times thieves will be trying to stealth stomp and they get hard CC’d out of stomp completely by accident? Yeah, totally unfair!)

So much lrn2play issues all over the forums lately.

babayum.1895:

DarkSyze.8627:

" No matter how much the truth hurts, it will never hurt as bad as the betrayal that comes with living a lie. Tell your truth anyway "

Arena net need to hear the truth: thief profession is extremely problematic: broken… for too long (3 years+) is not ok!!. Thief Profession need to be urgently resolve as soon as possible.

Last,

" Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently "

Thief is a fail profession: it need to be redesign and rework.

I agree DarkSyze thief is completely broken it need to be nerf a lot

WHEN WILL ARENA NET FIX THIS BROKEN CLASS?

You do Realize that if a thief has a twig rub against them they are Pretty much going down?

Aeroxe.8140:

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).

I agree. Improv and panic strike are both badly designed traits. On top of that, meta thief has a condi remove that encourages camping in stealth. The weakness trait is also really strong but not OP. This with vamp runes means thief can do many many mistakes and still live and be effective.

…yeah I think thieves are n a nice spot and don’t need to have stealth changed in any way. They can’t really block like other classes, so they stealth. They also can’t really stop you from stomping one of their allies, no knockdowns, knockbacks, etc… I play ranger and always find them an enjoyable duel.

It’s really hard to see why you would defend the mechanic that you can attack from stealth and get blocked and then not get revealed. How is that not absolutely broken?

serenke.4806:

It’s really hard to see why you would defend the mechanic that you can attack from stealth and get blocked and then not get revealed. How is that not absolutely broken?

It’s the shining example of their forgiving gameplay. If you’re dumb enough to attack someone with a block up, you should be punished. But alas ..

I find that thieves are pretty well balanced in spvp. I “win” most 1 vs 1 thief, meaning that thief just resets the fights and flees. Surely thieves hard counter almost any other berserker/burst build, which limits build versatility, but the fact that you cannot contest points while in stealth, makes stealth so much weaker in spvp. Thieves excel at super high mobility and coming to assist to make the kills. I think this is intended design.

In WvWvW roaming thieves, especially the perma stealth D/P and perplexity condi D/P are like cancer (perplexity runes should be toned down, giving condition stacks on attacking their wearer is pure madness). Thieves are by far the most common roamers, often roaming in pairs or even 3-5 thieves in a group, instantly stealing and ganging anything in range and resetting fights at ease. This leads to most players sticking to a large group (for safety) and this is one reason for zerging.

Venom share is frowned upon by the veteran players in the unofficial and official forums. Venom share + pirate ship is the new WvWvW meta.

Profession balance in WvWvW is bad. The overpowered foods (like +/- 40% condition duration) make things even worse. Any buffs to shadow arts are close to insanity (strangely Arenanet plans to buff shadow arts!). I never understood why revealed in WvWvW is mere 3 seconds, while it is 4 seconds in spvp, even though stealth is so much more powerful in WvWvW. Stealth should have a maximum duration of 8 seconds and after that if thief (or other profession) still continues to spam shadow fields or stays in shadow refuge, it leads to 4 s revealed.

WhiteCrow.5310:

serenke.4806:

It’s really hard to see why you would defend the mechanic that you can attack from stealth and get blocked and then not get revealed. How is that not absolutely broken?

It’s the shining example of their forgiving gameplay. If you’re dumb enough to attack someone with a block up, you should be punished. But alas ..

If the block has a counter (E.g. ranger gs block or warrior sword block) it does counter properly.

If it doesn’t then it doesn’t punish. Simple as that.

Also define punish. Why should someone be punished because you decided to go invulnerable? Which class actually gets punished for attacking blocking character? Every decent player auto-attacks until your block/mist is gone.

This change makes absolutely 0 sense. It won’t help you beat thieves. You’ll still die to them. If you can’t see that, you are a baddie.

Just my 2 cents.

Ravenmoon.5318:

WhiteCrow.5310:

serenke.4806:

It’s really hard to see why you would defend the mechanic that you can attack from stealth and get blocked and then not get revealed. How is that not absolutely broken?

It’s the shining example of their forgiving gameplay. If you’re dumb enough to attack someone with a block up, you should be punished. But alas ..

If the block has a counter (E.g. ranger gs block or warrior sword block) it does counter properly.

If it doesn’t then it doesn’t punish. Simple as that.

Also define punish. Why should someone be punished because you decided to go invulnerable? Which class actually gets punished for attacking blocking character? Every decent player auto-attacks until your block/mist is gone.

This change makes absolutely 0 sense. It won’t help you beat thieves. You’ll still die to them. If you can’t see that, you are a baddie.

Just my 2 cents.

Quite simple. Have you ever seen a movie about snipers? It’s usually about hiding and hoping that you notice the enemy before they notice you. The one who shoots reveals his location (in the movies anyhow) and the other one has an advantage. That’s how you feel when you know the thief went into stealth. If you block a thief when he is attacking from stealth he is like the sniper that gave away his location. He should be forced to hide again/switch location, but no, in our case he can just shoot again and again until he finally headshots you (you ran out of blocks). It’s not that he should be “punished” or that this would help anyone beat thieves, it just does not make sense and it eradicates any smart counterplay.

“Punish” in this case is being revealed which makes absolute sense since the thief in question attacked after all.

KaporHabakuk.6219:

2nd isue i see with not only thieves but also guard,is porting skills not needing LoS “Line of sight,not pathing,like a thief behind pillar porting through it without even seeing his target”.Again not a big deal,but its quite annoying,especially on sword thief,if he starts to abuse the 2nd abil.Port,hit,port back and repeat and u just stand there on point and wonder where on earth is the thief porting from.
“remmember mostly that map with npcs and mid point with stairs,where thief was porting from below to point and back,almost imune to anything”

^this
Someone pls let me teach me how to counter LOS port spam, eg teef sword 2 at khylou clock tower.
Pls!

WhiteCrow.5310:

serenke.4806:

It’s really hard to see why you would defend the mechanic that you can attack from stealth and get blocked and then not get revealed. How is that not absolutely broken?

It’s the shining example of their forgiving gameplay. If you’re dumb enough to attack someone with a block up, you should be punished. But alas ..

It is called reward with not taking risk instead of challenge: risk-reward. It is very obvious thief is not to be a challenge profession and that is only hurting Arena net image of making this game fun and challenge.

Thief is not the only profession that is hurting Arena net image of making this game fun and challenge: rangers, elementalist. engineer, mesmer and warrior.

serenke.4806:

Ravenmoon.5318:

WhiteCrow.5310:

serenke.4806:

It’s really hard to see why you would defend the mechanic that you can attack from stealth and get blocked and then not get revealed. How is that not absolutely broken?

It’s the shining example of their forgiving gameplay. If you’re dumb enough to attack someone with a block up, you should be punished. But alas ..

If the block has a counter (E.g. ranger gs block or warrior sword block) it does counter properly.

If it doesn’t then it doesn’t punish. Simple as that.

Also define punish. Why should someone be punished because you decided to go invulnerable? Which class actually gets punished for attacking blocking character? Every decent player auto-attacks until your block/mist is gone.

This change makes absolutely 0 sense. It won’t help you beat thieves. You’ll still die to them. If you can’t see that, you are a baddie.

Just my 2 cents.

Quite simple. Have you ever seen a movie about snipers? It’s usually about hiding and hoping that you notice the enemy before they notice you. The one who shoots reveals his location (in the movies anyhow) and the other one has an advantage. That’s how you feel when you know the thief went into stealth. If you block a thief when he is attacking from stealth he is like the sniper that gave away his location. He should be forced to hide again/switch location, but no, in our case he can just shoot again and again until he finally headshots you (you ran out of blocks). It’s not that he should be “punished” or that this would help anyone beat thieves, it just does not make sense and it eradicates any smart counterplay.

“Punish” in this case is being revealed which makes absolute sense since the thief in question attacked after all.

This is guild wars 2, not call of duty.
But using your analogy. Please enlighten me how are you going to stop a sniper bullet with a sword. This kitten is viable only in bollywood movies.

Also the thief doesn’t attack from 2 miles away. They are in your melee range and after the block popup you very well know where the said thief is.

If you don’kittens L2P issue.

Ravenmoon.5318:

serenke.4806:

Ravenmoon.5318:

WhiteCrow.5310:

serenke.4806:

It’s really hard to see why you would defend the mechanic that you can attack from stealth and get blocked and then not get revealed. How is that not absolutely broken?

It’s the shining example of their forgiving gameplay. If you’re dumb enough to attack someone with a block up, you should be punished. But alas ..

If the block has a counter (E.g. ranger gs block or warrior sword block) it does counter properly.

If it doesn’t then it doesn’t punish. Simple as that.

Also define punish. Why should someone be punished because you decided to go invulnerable? Which class actually gets punished for attacking blocking character? Every decent player auto-attacks until your block/mist is gone.

This change makes absolutely 0 sense. It won’t help you beat thieves. You’ll still die to them. If you can’t see that, you are a baddie.

Just my 2 cents.

Quite simple. Have you ever seen a movie about snipers? It’s usually about hiding and hoping that you notice the enemy before they notice you. The one who shoots reveals his location (in the movies anyhow) and the other one has an advantage. That’s how you feel when you know the thief went into stealth. If you block a thief when he is attacking from stealth he is like the sniper that gave away his location. He should be forced to hide again/switch location, but no, in our case he can just shoot again and again until he finally headshots you (you ran out of blocks). It’s not that he should be “punished” or that this would help anyone beat thieves, it just does not make sense and it eradicates any smart counterplay.

“Punish” in this case is being revealed which makes absolute sense since the thief in question attacked after all.

This is guild wars 2, not call of duty.
But using your analogy. Please enlighten me how are you going to stop a sniper bullet with a sword. This kitten is viable only in bollywood movies.

Also the thief doesn’t attack from 2 miles away. They are in your melee range and after the block popup you very well know where the said thief is.

If you don’kittens L2P issue.

They can use shortbow auto from stealth to immob (even double-immob). I can dodge three of theese om my mes, get hit by the fourth one and still die. That is why people don’t like it.

Terrorsquad.4802:

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..

Condition ranger should beat the current thief meta builds.

Power ranger shouldn’t, a good d/p-sb thief has all the right counter skills to take us down.

E.g. you are 1500 from the main fight doing your pew pew, thief can get to you in ruffly 1-3 seconds, once the gap is closed it becomes rather hard to land LB skills so unless you land your KB or Stealth your forced to change weapon to GS which is where you get punished the most, not sure if many are aware of this build #3 on dagger counters our #5 completely, once you change into GS and hit your block skill to escape or counter play all the thief needs to do is #3 it will damage me and blind me right through the block making the counter attack miss completely, now all the thief needs to do is play his evades on our big hits which you can see mile away then blind and repeat combo’s, due to high damage ranger uses his stone signet and that is our final card. If we can’t escape the thief’s attacks its just matter of time. This is where team mates come into play if we don’t get peels its game over.

This is a L2P issue on the thieves side not the rangers side. I could go on with list of combo’s the thief can do to counter most LB/GS rangers but once again L2P issue on the thieves side not the ranger.

Doesn’t matter how good of LB/GS ranger you are, even if you catch the thief off guard he has the right skills as long there not on CD, to escape reset and come punish you.

Edit, just like to note I’m not overly worried about thief’s as its team game and there is really not point to complaining about balance when a complete revamp of traits is about to be released.

Quadox.7834:

Ravenmoon.5318:

serenke.4806:

Ravenmoon.5318:

WhiteCrow.5310:

serenke.4806:

It’s really hard to see why you would defend the mechanic that you can attack from stealth and get blocked and then not get revealed. How is that not absolutely broken?

It’s the shining example of their forgiving gameplay. If you’re dumb enough to attack someone with a block up, you should be punished. But alas ..

If the block has a counter (E.g. ranger gs block or warrior sword block) it does counter properly.

If it doesn’t then it doesn’t punish. Simple as that.

Also define punish. Why should someone be punished because you decided to go invulnerable? Which class actually gets punished for attacking blocking character? Every decent player auto-attacks until your block/mist is gone.

This change makes absolutely 0 sense. It won’t help you beat thieves. You’ll still die to them. If you can’t see that, you are a baddie.

Just my 2 cents.

Quite simple. Have you ever seen a movie about snipers? It’s usually about hiding and hoping that you notice the enemy before they notice you. The one who shoots reveals his location (in the movies anyhow) and the other one has an advantage. That’s how you feel when you know the thief went into stealth. If you block a thief when he is attacking from stealth he is like the sniper that gave away his location. He should be forced to hide again/switch location, but no, in our case he can just shoot again and again until he finally headshots you (you ran out of blocks). It’s not that he should be “punished” or that this would help anyone beat thieves, it just does not make sense and it eradicates any smart counterplay.

“Punish” in this case is being revealed which makes absolute sense since the thief in question attacked after all.

This is guild wars 2, not call of duty.
But using your analogy. Please enlighten me how are you going to stop a sniper bullet with a sword. This kitten is viable only in bollywood movies.

Also the thief doesn’t attack from 2 miles away. They are in your melee range and after the block popup you very well know where the said thief is.

If you don’kittens L2P issue.

They can use shortbow auto from stealth to immob (even double-immob). I can dodge three of theese om my mes, get hit by the fourth one and still die. That is why people don’t like it.

Or you could distort it and reflect it right back into his face…

Sizzle Hint.1820:

Quadox.7834:

Ravenmoon.5318:

serenke.4806:

Ravenmoon.5318:

WhiteCrow.5310:

serenke.4806:

It’s really hard to see why you would defend the mechanic that you can attack from stealth and get blocked and then not get revealed. How is that not absolutely broken?

It’s the shining example of their forgiving gameplay. If you’re dumb enough to attack someone with a block up, you should be punished. But alas ..

If the block has a counter (E.g. ranger gs block or warrior sword block) it does counter properly.

If it doesn’t then it doesn’t punish. Simple as that.

Also define punish. Why should someone be punished because you decided to go invulnerable? Which class actually gets punished for attacking blocking character? Every decent player auto-attacks until your block/mist is gone.

This change makes absolutely 0 sense. It won’t help you beat thieves. You’ll still die to them. If you can’t see that, you are a baddie.

Just my 2 cents.

Quite simple. Have you ever seen a movie about snipers? It’s usually about hiding and hoping that you notice the enemy before they notice you. The one who shoots reveals his location (in the movies anyhow) and the other one has an advantage. That’s how you feel when you know the thief went into stealth. If you block a thief when he is attacking from stealth he is like the sniper that gave away his location. He should be forced to hide again/switch location, but no, in our case he can just shoot again and again until he finally headshots you (you ran out of blocks). It’s not that he should be “punished” or that this would help anyone beat thieves, it just does not make sense and it eradicates any smart counterplay.

“Punish” in this case is being revealed which makes absolute sense since the thief in question attacked after all.

This is guild wars 2, not call of duty.
But using your analogy. Please enlighten me how are you going to stop a sniper bullet with a sword. This kitten is viable only in bollywood movies.

Also the thief doesn’t attack from 2 miles away. They are in your melee range and after the block popup you very well know where the said thief is.

If you don’kittens L2P issue.

They can use shortbow auto from stealth to immob (even double-immob). I can dodge three of theese om my mes, get hit by the fourth one and still die. That is why people don’t like it.

Or you could distort it and reflect it right back into his face…

Or the thief could wait until the distortion wears off then try again…

And even if you reflect it (good counter) the thief is still not revealed for poor play.

serenke.4806:

Quite simple. Have you ever seen a movie about snipers?

Have you ever seen a shield? When was the last time you saw someone raise a shield in front of his face, and by that process block a dagger applied on his back?

Maybe backstab should be unblockable when applied to the back.

Thieves don’t need a fix. We can get two shot by any class and god forbid theres an aoe we can’t get out of. Our abilities are tied down to shadowstep because it’s ESSENTIAL if we want any survivability at all. We have 1 Elite skill that grants us stability, takedowns are kitten near impossible so we’re forced to jump in, hit really hard and fast and then jump out. If you have trouble with a thief, it’s because you’ve never played one. Thief of course is hands down my favorite profession, but I find myself running Warrior way more in groups because… well Kitten, Warriors destroy.

Murmaider.1805:

Thieves don’t need a fix. We can get two shot by any class and god forbid theres an aoe we can’t get out of. Our abilities are tied down to shadowstep because it’s ESSENTIAL if we want any survivability at all. We have 1 Elite skill that grants us stability, takedowns are kitten near impossible so we’re forced to jump in, hit really hard and fast and then jump out. If you have trouble with a thief, it’s because you’ve never played one. Thief of course is hands down my favorite profession, but I find myself running Warrior way more in groups because… well Kitten, Warriors destroy.

If your berserker thief gets two shot by any class, then a berserker Ele, with even less armor, will get one shot by any class?

Thief needs:

• reveal on block/miss/evade
• affected by Chill. Generate one initiative per 1.66s

Sunshine.5014:

Murmaider.1805:

Thieves don’t need a fix. We can get two shot by any class and god forbid theres an aoe we can’t get out of. Our abilities are tied down to shadowstep because it’s ESSENTIAL if we want any survivability at all. We have 1 Elite skill that grants us stability, takedowns are kitten near impossible so we’re forced to jump in, hit really hard and fast and then jump out. If you have trouble with a thief, it’s because you’ve never played one. Thief of course is hands down my favorite profession, but I find myself running Warrior way more in groups because… well Kitten, Warriors destroy.

If your berserker thief gets two shot by any class, then a berserker Ele, with even less HP, will get one shot by any class?

Thief needs:

• reveal on block/miss/evade
• affected by Chill. Generate one initiative per 1.66s

I completely misread this at first. As a Thief I do think we should be revealed if we screw up an opener, but I’m not so sure about the Chill. I could live with that, as I’ve spent enough time learning my profession to know when to hit somebody haha

Sizzle Hint.1820:

Quadox.7834:

Ravenmoon.5318:

serenke.4806:

Ravenmoon.5318:

WhiteCrow.5310:

serenke.4806:

It’s really hard to see why you would defend the mechanic that you can attack from stealth and get blocked and then not get revealed. How is that not absolutely broken?

It’s the shining example of their forgiving gameplay. If you’re dumb enough to attack someone with a block up, you should be punished. But alas ..

If the block has a counter (E.g. ranger gs block or warrior sword block) it does counter properly.

If it doesn’t then it doesn’t punish. Simple as that.

Also define punish. Why should someone be punished because you decided to go invulnerable? Which class actually gets punished for attacking blocking character? Every decent player auto-attacks until your block/mist is gone.

This change makes absolutely 0 sense. It won’t help you beat thieves. You’ll still die to them. If you can’t see that, you are a baddie.

Just my 2 cents.

Quite simple. Have you ever seen a movie about snipers? It’s usually about hiding and hoping that you notice the enemy before they notice you. The one who shoots reveals his location (in the movies anyhow) and the other one has an advantage. That’s how you feel when you know the thief went into stealth. If you block a thief when he is attacking from stealth he is like the sniper that gave away his location. He should be forced to hide again/switch location, but no, in our case he can just shoot again and again until he finally headshots you (you ran out of blocks). It’s not that he should be “punished” or that this would help anyone beat thieves, it just does not make sense and it eradicates any smart counterplay.

“Punish” in this case is being revealed which makes absolute sense since the thief in question attacked after all.

This is guild wars 2, not call of duty.
But using your analogy. Please enlighten me how are you going to stop a sniper bullet with a sword. This kitten is viable only in bollywood movies.

Also the thief doesn’t attack from 2 miles away. They are in your melee range and after the block popup you very well know where the said thief is.

If you don’kittens L2P issue.

They can use shortbow auto from stealth to immob (even double-immob). I can dodge three of theese om my mes, get hit by the fourth one and still die. That is why people don’t like it.

Or you could distort it and reflect it right back into his face…

Or you could realise that i said “people” not me. This applied to all.

Sunshine.5014:

If your berserker thief gets two shot by any class, then a berserker Ele, with even less HP, will get one shot by any class?

Thief needs:

• reveal on block/miss/evade
• affected by Chill. Generate one initiative per 1.66s

Do you play the game at all? Thief got the same HP as Elementalist. They also only get a tiny slight bit more of armor so practically not mentionnable.

stof.9341:

Sunshine.5014:

If your berserker thief gets two shot by any class, then a berserker Ele, with even less HP, will get one shot by any class?

Thief needs:

• reveal on block/miss/evade
• affected by Chill. Generate one initiative per 1.66s

Do you play the game at all? Thief got the same HP as Elementalist. They also only get a tiny slight bit more of armor so practically not mentionnable.

Eles depending on spec and rotation can easily live through stuff too with the buttload of boons they can keep up

stof.9341:

Sunshine.5014:

If your berserker thief gets two shot by any class, then a berserker Ele, with even less HP, will get one shot by any class?

Thief needs:

• reveal on block/miss/evade
• affected by Chill. Generate one initiative per 1.66s

Do you play the game at all? Thief got the same HP as Elementalist. They also only get a tiny slight bit more of armor so practically not mentionnable.

Fixed. Armor. Now, do you agree?

The armor difference is so tiny it barely doesn’t change the effective HP vs non conditions. In sPvP, pure zerk no toughness trait lines light vs medium has the light user taking 8% more direct damage than the medium user.

Nightshade.2570:

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.

Yes, I also want to say thank you, sir! :-D

starbreath.8597:

KaporHabakuk.6219:

2nd isue i see with not only thieves but also guard,is porting skills not needing LoS “Line of sight,not pathing,like a thief behind pillar porting through it without even seeing his target”.Again not a big deal,but its quite annoying,especially on sword thief,if he starts to abuse the 2nd abil.Port,hit,port back and repeat and u just stand there on point and wonder where on earth is the thief porting from.
“remmember mostly that map with npcs and mid point with stairs,where thief was porting from below to point and back,almost imune to anything”

^this
Someone pls let me teach me how to counter LOS port spam, eg teef sword 2 at khylou clock tower.
Pls!

Oops, sorry, that may have been me, haha! That’s one of my favorite things to do! :-D

Sadly, with my level of skills, it’s about as effective as playing a “hide-in-stealth and litter the area with caltrops” build. It’s lots of fun to troll people with, but I can’t actually do much to damage them.

So if it is me, the best way to counter is to do what you’re doing. I spend most of the time healing on the first floor… or waiting for my heal to cooldown. If it’s against more skilled thieves, well… I’d suggest asking them. Maybe I’ll become more effective with it soon, so I can help you then! :-D