Guild Wars 2

if flanking strike was on 15 sec CD they would give thieves warrior lv of HP and invuls~
i don’t think you would like that

1, Withdraw should have its cd increased by 5seconds,
2, Chill should effect initiative regen.
3, Headshot should have a cast time of 3/4 second.
4, And Infiltrators arrow should have its initiaitive increased by 1.

Then we have decent balance. Thief will still be OP, but it can be nerfed further if needed.

Cynz.9437:

if flanking strike was on 15 sec CD they would give thieves warrior lv of HP and invuls~
i don’t think you would like that

they gonna rework FG(and basicly whole acro) mate so, traditional (2-0-0-6-6) s/d playstyle gonna change a bit more like to a nowdays 2-6-0-0-6 one. big damage lower endurance pool… also dont get the new proc traits either… but i think this shoud be discussed in another topic…

Lordrosicky.5813:

1, Withdraw should have its cd increased by 5seconds,
2, Chill should effect initiative regen.
3, Headshot should have a cast time of 3/4 second.
4, And Infiltrators arrow should have its initiaitive increased by 1.

Then we have decent balance. Thief will still be OP, but it can be nerfed further if needed.

1.Hell to the no burst damage,cc is getting stronger and it’s finally a trick
2.Against design, if chill isn’t already strong vs thieves would they have skills dedicated to remove movement conditions not worshiping RNG cleansing gods on top of teleports??
3.Meh
4.Against design

Sagat.3285:

Lordrosicky.5813:

1, Withdraw should have its cd increased by 5seconds,
2, Chill should effect initiative regen.
3, Headshot should have a cast time of 3/4 second.
4, And Infiltrators arrow should have its initiaitive increased by 1.

Then we have decent balance. Thief will still be OP, but it can be nerfed further if needed.

1.Hell to the no burst damage,cc is getting stronger and it’s finally a trick
2.Against design, if chill isn’t already strong vs thieves would they have skills dedicated to remove movement conditions not worshiping RNG cleansing gods on top of teleports??
3.Meh
4.Against design

So their “design” is that they are brokenly OP with no counter play?

Lordrosicky.5813:

Sagat.3285:

Lordrosicky.5813:

1, Withdraw should have its cd increased by 5seconds,
2, Chill should effect initiative regen.
3, Headshot should have a cast time of 3/4 second.
4, And Infiltrators arrow should have its initiaitive increased by 1.

Then we have decent balance. Thief will still be OP, but it can be nerfed further if needed.

1.Hell to the no burst damage,cc is getting stronger and it’s finally a trick
2.Against design, if chill isn’t already strong vs thieves would they have skills dedicated to remove movement conditions not worshiping RNG cleansing gods on top of teleports??
3.Meh
4.Against design

So their “design” is that they are brokenly OP with no counter play?

Answer #2, #4 is against design because baseline thief has only 12 initiative if Inf. Arrow cost 7 you can’t use it twice in a row, you have to at least be possible to use a skill twice in a row from thief’s design point of view, answer #2. Stop thinking duels.

While I do agree stealth is a very important concept, and disagree with limiting stealth cap to 5 sect, I think I found a solution that has to do with initiative instead of any mechanics that affect other classes.
When thieves are not stealthing, leave the recharge rate of initiatives as it is. However when they do stealth, reduce the recharge rate of initiatives by 33% so that thieves will trade initiative over steatlh. This also reduces the undodgeable stealth openers as thieves will have to aim for that one perfect opportunity instead of attacking then freely disengaging. Also increase the cooldown on Shadow Refuge from 60 seconds to 75 seconds. Such a powerful ability that can also be recharged through improvisation does not deserve such a short cool down. Other skills are fine as they are imo, and this would at least give other zerker classes an opportunity to strike back at thieves.

TheFamster.7806:

Also increase the cooldown on Shadow Refuge from 60 seconds to 75 seconds. Such a powerful ability that can also be recharged through improvisation does not deserve such a short cool down.

Ignoring all the other atrocities of your response why this?? This remind of dhuumfire when they nerf condition necro as whole instead of only dhuumfire…if the trait is a problem adjust the trait and don’t kitten the skill for every other build/mode. If 60 CD is so short necro will like to have a word with you.

Thieves playing the victim game again. What a joke.

Its funny how thieves’ arguments are all biased and can’t seem to answer the OPs arguments without getting too emotional. lol.

You gotta remember mesmers have a GM trait that does not affect thieves’ weapon skills. And yet thieves still play the victim!

At first I thought this was a very nice troll post.

Then I read the entire thing and realized you all are serious about this lol

You got one fella who last played thief 2 years ago well before a whole slew of nerfs who believes this some how entitles him to have his class killing nerfs implemented.

Then we got others who are complaining about stealth camping in PvP….lol

1. Thieves are far from OP.
2. There are plenty if zerker specs that destroy thieves
3. Conquest limits builds
4. Thief is meta ONLY because of mobility
5. A stealthing thief is detrimental to a team

These can’t be argued. These are the facts. Now I’m not going thru everyone’s wild claims because it’s all l2p issues. Yes that age old line applies here….specially when someone complained about getting ganked due to failing to pan their camera lol.

I’m sure ppl will try to refute what I said but it’ll fail. Specially in the simple fact that the devs have stated all these complaints are l2p

Thx

Sagat.3285:

TheFamster.7806:

Also increase the cooldown on Shadow Refuge from 60 seconds to 75 seconds. Such a powerful ability that can also be recharged through improvisation does not deserve such a short cool down.

Ignoring all the other atrocities of your response why this?? This remind of dhuumfire when they nerf condition necro as whole instead of only dhuumfire…if the trait is a problem adjust the trait and don’t kitten the skill for every other build/mode. If 60 CD is so short necro will like to have a word with you.

Because shadow refuge is such a clutch skill and with improvisation it is shorter than 60 CDs. There are a lot of skills that have a longer CD than shadow refuge but has less impact over all. Also shadow refuge without traits is 60 CD which is way too short for stealthing 5 people (including the downed) for 12 seconds. I don’t see why tweaking initiative is a problem when its only unique to thieves.

Ignoring my disdain for Shadow Arts and having a stealth combo on a weapon set (outside of cloak and dagger which requires being in melee and to actually hit something), Shadow Refuge isn’t a major concern. What is annoying though is Improvisation. getting multiple RNG resets on Refuge can be VERY problematic.

T raw.4658:

At first I thought this was a very nice troll post.

Then I read the entire thing and realized you all are serious about this lol

You got one fella who last played thief 2 years ago well before a whole slew of nerfs who believes this some how entitles him to have his class killing nerfs implemented.

Then we got others who are complaining about stealth camping in PvP….lol

1. Thieves are far from OP.
2. There are plenty if zerker specs that destroy thieves
3. Conquest limits builds
4. Thief is meta ONLY because of mobility
5. A stealthing thief is detrimental to a team

These can’t be argued. These are the facts. Now I’m not going thru everyone’s wild claims because it’s all l2p issues. Yes that age old line applies here….specially when someone complained about getting ganked due to failing to pan their camera lol.

I’m sure ppl will try to refute what I said but it’ll fail. Specially in the simple fact that the devs have stated all these complaints are l2p

Thx

1.) OP is subjective
2.) Medi Guard is the only one who eat thieves
3.) True
4.) FALSE. Thief eats any zerker class except medi guard, so any zerker on an enemy comp is subject to deleting and training in a match. If mobility here is the issue, Mesmer’s have blink, PR, Portal but We see less mesmers than thieves. (<——FACT, not every team runs mesmer, but most teams if not all run thief)
5.) So delete stealth then if it is detrimental to the team.

CMON MAN, STOP PLAYING VICTIM AND GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT.

TheFamster.7806:

Sagat.3285:

TheFamster.7806:

Also increase the cooldown on Shadow Refuge from 60 seconds to 75 seconds. Such a powerful ability that can also be recharged through improvisation does not deserve such a short cool down.

Ignoring all the other atrocities of your response why this?? This remind of dhuumfire when they nerf condition necro as whole instead of only dhuumfire…if the trait is a problem adjust the trait and don’t kitten the skill for every other build/mode. If 60 CD is so short necro will like to have a word with you.

Because shadow refuge is such a clutch skill and with improvisation it is shorter than 60 CDs. There are a lot of skills that have a longer CD than shadow refuge but has less impact over all. Also shadow refuge without traits is 60 CD which is way too short for stealthing 5 people (including the downed) for 12 seconds. I don’t see why tweaking initiative is a problem when its only unique to thieves.

It’s location and animation is counterplay and again that would be the trait. Your suggestion about initiative is directed to a certain spec ignoring others I also the devs will go with the idea of stealth with cons.

@StickerHappy They are adding weakness to PB.

Sagat.3285:

TheFamster.7806:

Sagat.3285:

TheFamster.7806:

Also increase the cooldown on Shadow Refuge from 60 seconds to 75 seconds. Such a powerful ability that can also be recharged through improvisation does not deserve such a short cool down.

Ignoring all the other atrocities of your response why this?? This remind of dhuumfire when they nerf condition necro as whole instead of only dhuumfire…if the trait is a problem adjust the trait and don’t kitten the skill for every other build/mode. If 60 CD is so short necro will like to have a word with you.

Because shadow refuge is such a clutch skill and with improvisation it is shorter than 60 CDs. There are a lot of skills that have a longer CD than shadow refuge but has less impact over all. Also shadow refuge without traits is 60 CD which is way too short for stealthing 5 people (including the downed) for 12 seconds. I don’t see why tweaking initiative is a problem when its only unique to thieves.

It’s location and animation is counterplay and again that would be the trait. Your suggestion about initiative is directed to a certain spec ignoring others I also the devs will go with the idea of stealth with cons.

@StickerHappy They are adding weakness to PB.

So? It still does not affect thieves weapon skills. Weakness is for ALL classes, CD increase is for ALL EXCEPT thieves weapon skills. Anyway I just used this an example how thieves play victim all the time, yet instances such as a semi exclusion from a GM trait is clearly not being a victim.

StickerHappy.8052:

Sagat.3285:

TheFamster.7806:

Sagat.3285:

TheFamster.7806:

Also increase the cooldown on Shadow Refuge from 60 seconds to 75 seconds. Such a powerful ability that can also be recharged through improvisation does not deserve such a short cool down.

Ignoring all the other atrocities of your response why this?? This remind of dhuumfire when they nerf condition necro as whole instead of only dhuumfire…if the trait is a problem adjust the trait and don’t kitten the skill for every other build/mode. If 60 CD is so short necro will like to have a word with you.

Because shadow refuge is such a clutch skill and with improvisation it is shorter than 60 CDs. There are a lot of skills that have a longer CD than shadow refuge but has less impact over all. Also shadow refuge without traits is 60 CD which is way too short for stealthing 5 people (including the downed) for 12 seconds. I don’t see why tweaking initiative is a problem when its only unique to thieves.

It’s location and animation is counterplay and again that would be the trait. Your suggestion about initiative is directed to a certain spec ignoring others I also the devs will go with the idea of stealth with cons.

@StickerHappy They are adding weakness to PB.

So? It still does not affect thieves weapon skills. Weakness is for ALL classes, CD increase is for ALL EXCEPT thieves weapon skills. Anyway I just used this an example how thieves play victim all the time, yet instances such as a semi exclusion from a GM trait is clearly not being a victim.

Successful burst and evades are more important to thief but the hard counter is only vs 1 spec even if it’s the only one considered conquest meta.

Sagat.3285:

StickerHappy.8052:

Sagat.3285:

TheFamster.7806:

Sagat.3285:

TheFamster.7806:

Also increase the cooldown on Shadow Refuge from 60 seconds to 75 seconds. Such a powerful ability that can also be recharged through improvisation does not deserve such a short cool down.

Ignoring all the other atrocities of your response why this?? This remind of dhuumfire when they nerf condition necro as whole instead of only dhuumfire…if the trait is a problem adjust the trait and don’t kitten the skill for every other build/mode. If 60 CD is so short necro will like to have a word with you.

Because shadow refuge is such a clutch skill and with improvisation it is shorter than 60 CDs. There are a lot of skills that have a longer CD than shadow refuge but has less impact over all. Also shadow refuge without traits is 60 CD which is way too short for stealthing 5 people (including the downed) for 12 seconds. I don’t see why tweaking initiative is a problem when its only unique to thieves.

It’s location and animation is counterplay and again that would be the trait. Your suggestion about initiative is directed to a certain spec ignoring others I also the devs will go with the idea of stealth with cons.

@StickerHappy They are adding weakness to PB.

So? It still does not affect thieves weapon skills. Weakness is for ALL classes, CD increase is for ALL EXCEPT thieves weapon skills. Anyway I just used this an example how thieves play victim all the time, yet instances such as a semi exclusion from a GM trait is clearly not being a victim.

Successful burst and evades are more important to thief but the hard counter is only vs 1 spec even if it’s the only one considered conquest meta.

A good thief will have no problem with a zerk ranger or any zerk class except medi guard.

StickerHappy.8052:

Sagat.3285:

StickerHappy.8052:

Sagat.3285:

TheFamster.7806:

Sagat.3285:

TheFamster.7806:

Also increase the cooldown on Shadow Refuge from 60 seconds to 75 seconds. Such a powerful ability that can also be recharged through improvisation does not deserve such a short cool down.

Ignoring all the other atrocities of your response why this?? This remind of dhuumfire when they nerf condition necro as whole instead of only dhuumfire…if the trait is a problem adjust the trait and don’t kitten the skill for every other build/mode. If 60 CD is so short necro will like to have a word with you.

Because shadow refuge is such a clutch skill and with improvisation it is shorter than 60 CDs. There are a lot of skills that have a longer CD than shadow refuge but has less impact over all. Also shadow refuge without traits is 60 CD which is way too short for stealthing 5 people (including the downed) for 12 seconds. I don’t see why tweaking initiative is a problem when its only unique to thieves.

It’s location and animation is counterplay and again that would be the trait. Your suggestion about initiative is directed to a certain spec ignoring others I also the devs will go with the idea of stealth with cons.

@StickerHappy They are adding weakness to PB.

So? It still does not affect thieves weapon skills. Weakness is for ALL classes, CD increase is for ALL EXCEPT thieves weapon skills. Anyway I just used this an example how thieves play victim all the time, yet instances such as a semi exclusion from a GM trait is clearly not being a victim.

Successful burst and evades are more important to thief but the hard counter is only vs 1 spec even if it’s the only one considered conquest meta.

A good thief will have no problem with a zerk ranger or any zerk class except medi guard.

I’m talking mesmer and I mentioned before that zerkers are not the only existing specs if you are not confident of encounters vs a thief as a zerker don’t put yourself in duel situations then. It’s a rock,paper,scissors concept but conquest does play a role as well.

StickerHappy.8052:

T raw.4658:

At first I thought this was a very nice troll post.

Then I read the entire thing and realized you all are serious about this lol

You got one fella who last played thief 2 years ago well before a whole slew of nerfs who believes this some how entitles him to have his class killing nerfs implemented.

Then we got others who are complaining about stealth camping in PvP….lol

1. Thieves are far from OP.
2. There are plenty if zerker specs that destroy thieves
3. Conquest limits builds
4. Thief is meta ONLY because of mobility
5. A stealthing thief is detrimental to a team

These can’t be argued. These are the facts. Now I’m not going thru everyone’s wild claims because it’s all l2p issues. Yes that age old line applies here….specially when someone complained about getting ganked due to failing to pan their camera lol.

I’m sure ppl will try to refute what I said but it’ll fail. Specially in the simple fact that the devs have stated all these complaints are l2p

Thx

1.) OP is subjective
2.) Medi Guard is the only one who eat thieves
3.) True
4.) FALSE. Thief eats any zerker class except medi guard, so any zerker on an enemy comp is subject to deleting and training in a match. If mobility here is the issue, Mesmer’s have blink, PR, Portal but We see less mesmers than thieves. (<——FACT, not every team runs mesmer, but most teams if not all run thief)
5.) So delete stealth then if it is detrimental to the team.

CMON MAN, STOP PLAYING VICTIM AND GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT.

OP is not subjective. Anet has gone on record that when teams start to run 2 of 1 class on a team that’s OP.

Medi guard hard counters thief yes. Think outside of conquest.

This is important to remember. Conquest limits builds of this we all agree. Remember that it’s very important.

Take away a thief’s mobility and it is gone from PvP. The only reason you see thieves “eat” other zerkers is because those builds are conquest builds. Remember what I told you to remember?

Delete stealth but what do they get in return? You would have to give them an entire defensive trait line full of invulns/blocks/goodies. You also have to redo lots of weapon skills, utilities, and combo finishers.

In other words no dev team gonna touch it.

thief just needs to be punished when spamming or attacking blindly when hitting blocking players or attacking while blinded

making them reveal for 3s after hitting a blocking player
have their stealth auto attack skill go into 2-3s cooldown when atacking while blinded(thief remains stealthed but cant use the skill that replaces auto attack on stealth for 2-3s)
and have chill slower their initiative gain should be enough

this way thief is still the assasin class but requires actual skillful thought out play

Sidenote…

Azure The Heartless.3261:

3) Chill reduce Initiative regeneration

This one is not. Initiative is a shared cooldown for all thief weapon skills. Chill should not cripple them more than it already does.

Tell that to an Elementalist and his atunement recharge …

On original intent of this thread – counter play:

It would be beneficial for global balance to give all professions a way to reveal a stealthed Thief. The Ranger’s “Sic’Em” did not have the revealed ability initially (Sept. 2014), so why not add that to an existing (underused) skill for more professions?

The “reset problem” could be partly tackled by revealing a Thief after he has finished an opponent (he scored, so good for him anyway).

IMHO: The problem is around since launch and has been perceived by a majority of non-Thief-players as a problem (together with the clunky targeting system, but that’s another topic). Anet Dev’s have done practically nothing to address it (including other problems of balance).
We are stuck in a Meta game that the Devs probably consider “stable enough”, so they make no move to change that (core class changes e.g.). We have to play GW2 how it is now or leave it be.

Rezzet.3614:

thief just needs to be punished when spamming or attacking blindly when hitting blocking players or attacking while blinded

making them reveal for 3s after hitting a blocking player
have their stealth auto attack skill go into 2-3s cooldown when atacking while blinded(thief remains stealthed but cant use the skill that replaces auto attack on stealth for 2-3s)
and have chill slower their initiative gain should be enough

this way thief is still the assasin class but requires actual skillful thought out play

And what exactly can such a thief do when blinded in stealth? Break the stealth and waste more initiative? Because in that case, everyone’s AA should go on cd when attacking while in blinded.

OP with your poor suggestions everyone might as well play guardians, which is what thieves would be doing if you had your way. Why not play the game better rather than ask for more passive play? Because that is all you are promoting.

This is not counterplay. It is shut down.

Rezzet.3614:

Terrorsquad.2349:

Rezzet.3614:

Terrorsquad.2349:

Rezzet.3614:

Volrath.1473:

Ofc thieves should be punished for missing attacks!! After all, all other professions get punished with conditions for missing their skills right?!… Right?!….

/facepalm

Other professions are indeed punished if they get blinded and miss their skills their skills enter cooldown if other professions use skills on a blocking players their skills enter cooldown , thief is the only profession that has access to easy stealth and shadowsteps and ontop of that a non cooldown system and to top it off their auto attack skills become stealth high damage skills so being auto attack skills means they dont cost initiative thus thief is not being punished in any way .

this thread isnt even asking for thief nerfs but simply make stealth be counterable .

Thieves get punished other ways when non-thieves are not:

• You can stand on point and stay for cleave DPS midst teamfight
• You can contest the point if teammate is low (to keep it yours)
• You have more chances surviving while reviving a downed teammate
• You can pressure a whole point with AoE’s + doom/geomancy sigil
• You have more survivability vs attacks head-on
• You can survive better while performing more auto-attackchains in 1v1 or teamfights
• You can win vs low to average thieves without even noticing he’s trying to attack you (AoE DPS/Condi/Peel)
• You are easier to cleanse/heal compared than a thief midst teamfight
• A Thief can easier be seen useless to your team due wrong rotation (if team has equally good experienced players)
• List can go on and on..

Im sure u can find some things about what Thief can and others not but if you think about it, other burst classes can do lots of things thief can, while this list shows what a thief cannot do reliably while others can (excluding mesmer, ofc)

FYI: people who cannot stop attacking whilst blinded or getting blocked, should be punished with CD’s.. (Stow Weapon FTW)

the only profession that can do all those things you mentioned would be pretty much shoutbow warrior

True, but most classes excl thief/mesmer (and maybe necro lol) can atleast do 70-80% of the list. Unless you’re doing something wrong. A thief can’t do anything reliably, while another one can.

Every class has pro & contras, even a shoutbow.
But thief has a good amount of both.

as a matter of fact thieves can do most of what you listed if anything condi cleanse would be the only thing thief cant do as reliably as other professions

need aoe use a shortbow
wanna revive someone stealth and revive them heck stealth the downed person in some cases
being able to stealth 90% of the time invalidates your previous counter arguments

Ok, now Im sure.. You don’t play thief on a decent scale, do you?
If you keep trying one of the above from the list in a match vs decent opponents, you’re done for. No way you played thief vs decent teams before.

Or you’re trolling, which is what i’m thinking.. certainly with your very poor nerf-suggestions. Only thing why thieves are still in teams are due their mobility to decap and bring +1, nothing more, nothing less.

You also have no PvP History data, not from last LB nor pre 16 december 2014..
So then again, who are you?

Gorani.7205:

It would be beneficial for global balance to give all professions a way to reveal a stealthed Thief. The Ranger’s “Sic’Em” did not have the revealed ability initially (Sept. 2014), so why not add that to an existing (underused) skill for more professions?

The “reset problem” could be partly tackled by revealing a Thief after he has finished an opponent (he scored, so good for him anyway).

This is all that is needed 100%. Give classes more ways to apply revealed (especially as aoe) so they can punish thieves for being predictable while in stealth. For a lot of classes, even when the know exactly where the thief is and what his next attack is, can do little more than eat his burst and hope to counter-attack. If, for instance, null-field applied revealed for 3-4s, a mesmer could drop null-field and flip the script on the thief trying to burst.

Also, I would personally put a very small hit on the teleport bullet of shadow-shot, so that it can’t be cancelled mid-cast while in stealth for a free teleport without getting revealed. As it is, you can keep track of their CD’s (o.k. he blew inf. signet, and steal, meaning he should only have shadow-step), but it doesn’t do any good b/c you can’t even punish them when they stupidly blow them (…oh wait he has a no-risk shadow-shot to hop on me, and nbd if he misses b/c he can just wait to regen init). Alternatively, make the skill blockable, so classes with projectile hate and know this is coming while in stealth have counter-play. This is one of the major reasons why thieves seem unkitable, even during stealth.

Withdraw is stupid OP as a heal, imo, b/c it also completely lacks counterplay (you can’t interrupt it, even when you know it is coming). 90% of thieves, when jumped, immediately stunbreak and start spamming withdraw, which gives them a huge leg-up in a fight. Compare this to a mesmer when jumped, who has to cast ether feast and is easily interrupted unless the heal gets covered. It is also incredibly strong ever since immobilize-stacking, and allows thieves to get out of the ONE type of CC that they would otherwise struggle with.

The problem isn’t that thieves need nerfs, they just need to increase counterplay.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Sagat.3285:

Lordrosicky.5813:

1, Withdraw should have its cd increased by 5seconds,
2, Chill should effect initiative regen.
3, Headshot should have a cast time of 3/4 second.
4, And Infiltrators arrow should have its initiaitive increased by 1.

Then we have decent balance. Thief will still be OP, but it can be nerfed further if needed.

1.Hell to the no burst damage,cc is getting stronger and it’s finally a trick
2.Against design, if chill isn’t already strong vs thieves would they have skills dedicated to remove movement conditions not worshiping RNG cleansing gods on top of teleports??
3.Meh
4.Against design

So their “design” is that they are brokenly OP with no counter play?

You would be a very poor Anet Dev balancer, tbh..
Thieves can live with ONE of those things, but not all. It’s not like chill effects your Life Force, does it?

BlackBeard.2873:

Gorani.7205:

It would be beneficial for global balance to give all professions a way to reveal a stealthed Thief. The Ranger’s “Sic’Em” did not have the revealed ability initially (Sept. 2014), so why not add that to an existing (underused) skill for more professions?

The “reset problem” could be partly tackled by revealing a Thief after he has finished an opponent (he scored, so good for him anyway).

This is all that is needed 100%. Give classes more ways to apply revealed (especially as aoe) so they can punish thieves for being predictable while in stealth. For a lot of classes, even when the know exactly where the thief is and what his next attack is, can do little more than eat his burst and hope to counter-attack. If, for instance, null-field applied revealed for 3-4s, a mesmer could drop null-field and flip the script on the thief trying to burst.

Also, I would personally put a very small hit on the teleport bullet of shadow-shot, so that it can’t be cancelled mid-cast while in stealth for a free teleport without getting revealed. As it is, you can keep track of their CD’s (o.k. he blew inf. signet, and steal, meaning he should only have shadow-step), but it doesn’t do any good b/c you can’t even punish them when they stupidly blow them (…oh wait he has a no-risk shadow-shot to hop on me, and nbd if he misses b/c he can just wait to regen init). Alternatively, make the skill blockable, so classes with projectile hate and know this is coming while in stealth have counter-play. This is one of the major reasons why thieves seem unkitable, even during stealth.

Withdraw is stupid OP as a heal, imo, b/c it also completely lacks counterplay (you can’t interrupt it, even when you know it is coming). 90% of thieves, when jumped, immediately stunbreak and start spamming withdraw, which gives them a huge leg-up in a fight. Compare this to a mesmer when jumped, who has to cast ether feast and is easily interrupted unless the heal gets covered. It is also incredibly strong ever since immobilize-stacking, and allows thieves to get out of the ONE type of CC that they would otherwise struggle with.

The problem isn’t that thieves need nerfs, they just need to increase counterplay.

If you give all the classes reveal debuff and remove withdraw, what does the thief have left really? Complaining about heal that has no counter play while Healing Signet and Signet of restoration are in game. Or Shelter if you don’t have any unblockable interrupts, you’re screwed, too.

If you want to take the defensive mechanisms of a thief, then give them Blurred Frenzy, Distortion…any invuln, blocks and we’ll see how that goes. There’s no counterplay to that either. Pople just don’t complain about that because it has a high cooldown, thinking thief can stealth infinitely, which is not true either.

You guys are so bad you don’t know what is OP and what isn’t.
Turret engi used to be op. The most cheese comp at the time was to run 5 engineers and wreck everything.

When was the last time you saw a team winning with more than 1 thief?

What a sad little thread….

Ravenmoon.5318:

You guys are so bad you don’t know what is OP and what isn’t.
Turret engi used to be op. The most cheese comp at the time was to run 5 engineers and wreck everything.

When was the last time you saw a team winning with more than 1 thief?

What a sad little thread….

Turret engi was only OP against Condi only runners, i won against several 5 engi parties myself

the biggest L2P case in the game and anet listened to the brainded scrubs running glass builds now that is Sad

First off, you can interrupt withdraw. the chances of it succeeding are pretty low, but ive done it before. Withdraw is countered by poison and chill. It is not spam-able for it has a cool down. you should consider using focus on your mesmer, it eats thieves when mixed with GS 5… remember thieves have poor access to stability. immobilize stacking is the fault of arena net. not thieves…

Engineer’s don’t have a high burst spec because it was nerfed at launch…

We are not emotional at all. We all understand no matter what we do we are going to get nerfed. the reason is simple, Revolving door population. thieves excel at killing new player’s/bad player’s. we will always look like top dog’s but in reality your better of rolling something else. Metrics are a horrible way to balance a game when it’s revolving door.

Finally, how can you have problems killing thieves at this point. it is literately mind boggling. Stealth is good for losing target lock (not channeling) and that’s pretty much it. stealth rez/spiking is pointless and dangerous. it is much easyier to pop invulerability to spike, drop a banner to rez, or a signet.

Rezzet.3614:

Ravenmoon.5318:

You guys are so bad you don’t know what is OP and what isn’t.
Turret engi used to be op. The most cheese comp at the time was to run 5 engineers and wreck everything.

When was the last time you saw a team winning with more than 1 thief?

What a sad little thread….

Turret engi was only OP against Condi only runners, i won against several 5 engi parties myself

the biggest L2P case in the game and anet listened to the brainded scrubs running glass builds now that is Sad

And here you are rooting for the same thing.

How many top leaderboard players are exclusively thieves? Not much, not much at all. Because thief does not wreck everything and anyone.

Few months ago, 5 out of 10 in top 10 were turret engineers.
Do maths…

Or wait, maybe there’s global conspiracy between us thieves. “We shall never appear on the leaderboard, for we might eat the nerfbat. Learn it, live it, love it!”

Highlie.7641:

First off, you can interrupt withdraw. the chances of it succeeding are pretty low, but ive done it before. Withdraw is countered by poison and chill. It is not spam-able for it has a cool down. you should consider using focus on your mesmer, it eats thieves when mixed with GS 5… remember thieves have poor access to stability. immobilize stacking is the fault of arena net. not thieves…

Engineer’s don’t have a high burst spec because it was nerfed at launch…

We are not emotional at all. We all understand no matter what we do we are going to get nerfed. the reason is simple, Revolving door population. thieves excel at killing new player’s/bad player’s. we will always look like top dog’s but in reality your better of rolling something else. Metrics are a horrible way to balance a game when it’s revolving door.

Finally, how can you have problems killing thieves at this point. it is literately mind boggling. Stealth is good for losing target lock (not channeling) and that’s pretty much it. stealth rez/spiking is pointless and dangerous. it is much easyier to pop invulerability to spike, drop a banner to rez, or a signet.

i want to play one of this channeling skill warriors you fight where do buy the profession, seriously i ve noticed every argument thief players have made in this thread are towards warriors or one or chanelling skills not everyone plays a warrior or ranger, or scepter ele

and what class do you play.. i will give you a bullet list of how to kill a thief on it…

Ravenmoon.5318:

Rezzet.3614:

Ravenmoon.5318:

You guys are so bad you don’t know what is OP and what isn’t.
Turret engi used to be op. The most cheese comp at the time was to run 5 engineers and wreck everything.

When was the last time you saw a team winning with more than 1 thief?

What a sad little thread….

Turret engi was only OP against Condi only runners, i won against several 5 engi parties myself

the biggest L2P case in the game and anet listened to the brainded scrubs running glass builds now that is Sad

And here you are rooting for the same thing.

ok as a defending player what justifies I AM punished for using a block skill on a thief ?
why is it ok for a thief to spam auto and not only stay stealthed but loses no initiative nor his stealth burst auto skill go on cooldown , thus garanteeing a huge hit ?

this is a diferent thing altogether this has no counterplay

Block used to reveal you from stealth….
Arena net changed it, do try again.

Highlie.7641:

and what class do you play.. i will give you a bullet list of how to kill a thief on it…

its not a matter of simply killing thieves its thiefs :
A) completely ignoring a game mechanic because of initiative (chill)
B)having no counterplay when they stealth aside from timing chanelled skills
B2)Ignoring another mechanic while stealthed being able to spam stealth burst auto attack and not be penalized (Block)

You will not kill a thief unless he makes the first move and in most cases screws up badly

All in all at this point everyone is just barking at each other arenanet wont change nor consider changing anything at least until the specialization changes hit so thats minimum time of about a 8 months at this rate

plus we dont know exactly what will be changed in everyone’s professions

Chill destroy’s thieves, If you would watch some gameplay footage of a thieve getting hit by chill you will notice he will always try and clear it. Movement speed is locked into animation speed. so things like heartseeker / flanking strike / death blossom ect all lose distance. get a friend to log on to class that can chill, you roll a s/d thief, your IAS is so slow that he can litterly walk out of all your attacks. this includes instants like inf strike though your window is much shorter. (range 130 on sword (150 in reality) plus the other point is are initiative is locked between wpn bars. once where out we are dead. This is why we have decent auto attack dmg vs compared to other classes (though not the best)

b) Auto attacks will turn over, this will tell you the location. this is the time to spam AA. Air/Fire will also proc and give the thieves location. Besides for blinding powder and stealth on steal you have enough time to pull/push a thief when he is trying to cast a stealth skill.
c) it is impossible to block a invisable target, you wouldn’t know when to raise your shield. the only eceptions to this would be shelter or any other dome type invulerable.

Edit: going to log on so you will have to wait for a rebuttal for your next statement

Laraley.7695:

If you give all the classes reveal debuff and remove withdraw, what does the thief have left really? Complaining about heal that has no counter play while Healing Signet and Signet of restoration are in game. Or Shelter if you don’t have any unblockable interrupts, you’re screwed, too.

Revealed on a skill with a CD that has to be fired blindly…your counterplay is to not be predictable or be more patient. Being able to give revealed in some way simply removes thief from ALWAYS having the 1st burst in a fight, which gives other burst an option. It is the same concept as “covering your heal” that other classes (like mesmer) have to consider, rather than just being able to do your own thing without your opponent being able to do anything.

As far as heals: healing signet IS getting nerfed so that it has to be cast, shelter is very strong, but has a long CD and is countered by unblockable skills, Signet of Restoration is weak to burst and doesn’t do anything while cc’d (as why ele dies to burst), and only really works when eles stack burst-heals from water attune/dodges, but that is its own problem.

If you want to take the defensive mechanisms of a thief, then give them Blurred Frenzy, Distortion…any invuln, blocks and we’ll see how that goes. There’s no counterplay to that either. Pople just don’t complain about that because it has a high cooldown, thinking thief can stealth infinitely, which is not true either.

I am not saying to remove ANY defensive mechanic from thief AT ALL. I am simply asking for ways to counter-stealth so that the only option isn’t “eat it.” Not even asking for revealed on block/blind/evade. Even if other classes can still give revealed, you still have instant ports that ignore LOS, blinds, and high evasion uptime to patiently wait out revealed.

Please try to be open to other viewpoints. Personally, I would really like for thief to be given some other defensive capabilities to stick in fights more (such as healing-on-crit). It just becomes restrictive if they are going to leave all the current defensive mechanics with so little counter-play.

Rezzet.3614:

Highlie.7641:

and what class do you play.. i will give you a bullet list of how to kill a thief on it…

its not a matter of simply killing thieves its thiefs :
A) completely ignoring a game mechanic because of initiative (chill)
B)having no counterplay when they stealth aside from timing chanelled skills
B2)Ignoring another mechanic while stealthed being able to spam stealth burst auto attack and not be penalized (Block)

You will not kill a thief unless he makes the first move and in most cases screws up badly

Yes, because invulnerability has a counterplay.

teef so OP
pls anet give us stealth trap in pvp as well so that there is at least one way of countering teefs!

If thieves are so OP why do people kitten about how many bad thieves there are on their PUG teams?

Jekkt.6045:

the best one is this one though:

How about a thief using Shadow Arts in conquest to heal up & keep you in combat? Chances are you were actually beating it down and it hid and has to heal for a long time if not just run away and reset or just leave entirely

try and do that on a necro and you’ll see how fast this living punching bag is and how well he can disengage or reset a fight. oh and a dead necro can’t do anything for his team either.

I wouldn’t try that as a necro because then I can’t shadow refuge when I’m getting my butt whipped and then run away to stop from at least feeding the enemy team five additional points on top of being useless to the team.

Geeze, where do some of you people get your logic. :l

Jesiah.2457:

Jekkt.6045:

the best one is this one though:

How about a thief using Shadow Arts in conquest to heal up & keep you in combat? Chances are you were actually beating it down and it hid and has to heal for a long time if not just run away and reset or just leave entirely

try and do that on a necro and you’ll see how fast this living punching bag is and how well he can disengage or reset a fight. oh and a dead necro can’t do anything for his team either.

I wouldn’t try that as a necro because then I can’t shadow refuge when I’m getting my butt whipped and then run away to stop from at least feeding the enemy team five additional points on top of being useless to the team.

Geeze, where do some of you people get your logic. :l

Shadow Refuge = 5 seconds of AoE here to kill the thief.

Or you know, this ^

Ravenmoon.5318:

Endless teleports? Please … blow initiative and utilities to teleport around and you are sitting duck. What can you do with low initiative and utilities in reuse? Absolutely nothing, that’s what you can do. Pray for your passive traits to trigger on time. That’s all you can do

And please, the guy above that played thief 2 years ago. You do realize the fact that thief has been nerfed almost exclusively on every patch every since. Did this thought ever cross your mind? When was the last time you saw pistol whip thief owning everything in 2 attacks? The player skill bar in thief is super high. A single mistake can get you killed. Don’t twist it around because it is a fact. The thief has no blocks so if they kitten up and you know how to press anything other than auto attack, you win.

QFT, also, would just like to add that Thieves don’t have a mode where they can become invulnerable to damage and keep fighting. We can stealth but that means there’s a pause in fighting not pop actual temporary god-mode and try to melt someone as fast as possible. Warriors and Guardians primarily are the ones who do this, but other classes can as well.

But hey, because Thief has stealth longer duration stealth but with no truly powerful AI, pretty much the only thing separating them from mesmers, they’re OP as hell! The tears in this thread … we might need to channel the tears into a new lake, the current one is too full. >:

Jesiah.2457:

Or you know, this ^

Ravenmoon.5318:

Endless teleports? Please … blow initiative and utilities to teleport around and you are sitting duck. What can you do with low initiative and utilities in reuse? Absolutely nothing, that’s what you can do. Pray for your passive traits to trigger on time. That’s all you can do

And please, the guy above that played thief 2 years ago. You do realize the fact that thief has been nerfed almost exclusively on every patch every since. Did this thought ever cross your mind? When was the last time you saw pistol whip thief owning everything in 2 attacks? The player skill bar in thief is super high. A single mistake can get you killed. Don’t twist it around because it is a fact. The thief has no blocks so if they kitten up and you know how to press anything other than auto attack, you win.

QFT, also, would just like to add that Thieves don’t have a mode where they can become invulnerable to damage and keep fighting. We can stealth but that means there’s a pause in fighting not pop actual temporary god-mode and try to melt someone as fast as possible. Warriors and Guardians primarily are the ones who do this, but other classes can as well.

But hey, because Thief has stealth longer duration stealth but with no truly powerful AI, pretty much the only thing separating them from mesmers, they’re OP as hell! The tears in this thread … we might need to channel the tears into a new lake, the current one is too full. >:

By God mode I’m assuming you’re talking about berserker stance And endure pain yes? Endure pain is on a 60 second cool down after use so if you see a warrior PPP that, I assume you can just back out using your stealth to wait it out, then come back in with full or near full initiative again. Of course this is for if the warrior pops it at the beginning of a fight, mid way in he pops it, you might be in a bit more trouble if you haven’t managed your initiative and cool downs right. And also the warrior will probably try some AoE attacks to keep pressure applied.

Now if you’re talkiing about the guardian, you might mean his elite, during which he nor you can really do anything until his elite ends. But bothersome, but if you know what you’re doing, not saying you don’t you should be in a position to take and vantage of that slight downtime.

Now finally if you mean necro and deathshroud, well this is pretty easy to counter, just back off a bit and he’ll have to exit out or loose precious life force. Now you still need to avoid the tainted shackles of course and the 3 second channel of life transfer, but getting out of range again shouldn’t be too much of a problem, especially since necros in ds have no teleports or gap closers excet for dark path which requires a target to hit, is slow to cast, and is a slow moving projectile.

^ are you really implying that warriors and guardians have issues fighting thieves o.O Given the amount of heal shoutbow provides or the stunlock hambow provides. Those 20k HP monsters in heavy armor are absolute hell to fight off as a thief and i mostly avoid them if they have no berserker amulet because I’d be better off decaping some other point….

Also keep in mind that a good thief always attacks a target he knows he can get down. So it might seem to you that they kill everything, but really most attacks are well planned out beforehand. As I said above, if it takes too much killing someone or no chance of winning just wait out a +1 and mostly move away.

While other builds engage all types of targets…D/D cele ele can keep point contested in 1on1 indefinitely vs most builds (except S/D thief because they rob them of their boons and chill them and immobilize so they can’t dodge heal so easily)

P.S: Wouldn’t it be awesome if thieves could get 3k+ HP heal on dodge xD

I main a thief in sPvP and I think that points 1 and 3 would be perfectly reasonable to implement.

It seems silly that you can be smashing on a warriors shield and him having no idea that you’re standing right by him.

Reveal on misses seems a little much as there’s “attacks” like steal that can both deal damage and apply stealth. Sometimes I’ll want it for the damage, other times I’ll use it for the buffs and stealth. It seems silly that using it to add another 3s of stealth on top of what I have would just ruin the whole thing.

The chill not affecting initiative already seems a little slow as initiative is the thiefs version of weapon skill cooldowns, so that the regen should be reduced by the same amount as regular skill recharges are increased.

Terrorsquad.2349:

Jekkt.6045:

Cynz.9437:

people complain about stealth in pvp? wat?

thief went to reset? good… you got point, enjoy your match points~

also i love how people cry “omg thief can reset”…. and somehow forget to mention that the moment thief goes ooc their target is also ooc and gets to heal up…

i think it is hilarious to say that thief doesn’t get punished for failed attack… if anything thieves get punished the most for single mistake in game atm….

you don’t reset as a thief. you sit in stealth until crucial skills are off cooldown, like steal or withdraw, and then you go at it again. or you sit out invul skills in stealth, another gimmick that renders other classes’ defensive skills useless. thieves don’t get punished for single mistakes at all. thieves have on demand teleports that can save their kitten s in most situations and make cc useless if you don’t force the 2 stunbreaks before.

thief is also the only class in the game that is unkiteable as they have teleports that are not tied to cooldowns while other classes’ teleports are on a 30-40s cooldown. so if a thief wants to chase you he will do so and you will not get away most of the time.

the only classes that can face a thief are celestial classes that bring self sustain and a mix of direct damage and condition attrition or guardians because they have the needed aoe damage with good sustain and blocks, this will change though as soon as thieves will be able to run 3 traitlines, in fact thieves with vampire runes can already kill guardians because mist form will save them when they eat a mighty blow combo or get trapped by the ring.

the thief’s class design is broken and to fix it they would have to overhaul the whole class which is obviously not gonna happen.

they learned their lesson with energy ressource or why else do revenants have actual cooldowns on their skills + the energy cost.

I respect you as a player but thats totally wrong in any way possible.
How many games do you have on Thief, I wonder? Can you play it well like it should rotation and mechanically wise?

Thief has a much lower error margin than any cele build + dps guard (in 1v1 and teamfights)

Either you need to consider having a good thief in your team to counter opponent’s thief or you must be doing something wrong.

Never had a problem vs comps with thieves at all, except vs very good thieves & teams, who can actually peel for their Thief.

the only classes that can face a thief are celestial classes that bring self sustain and a mix of direct damage and condition attrition or guardians because they have the needed aoe damage with good sustain and blocks..

If you’re looking at it this way, I think thief has a good amount of counters, considering over 60-70% of the community is running this in teams and certainly 80%+ in ESL/Top Tier play:

• Cele Shoutbow
• Cele Engi
• DPS Guard
• Cele Ele + 2nd Cele Shoutbow
• Thief and/or Mes (instead of Cele Ele or 2nd Shoutbow)

= that’s already 3 to 4 to 5 counterplayers for one single person, which is the opponent Thief

Thieves can’t fight head-on 1v1 for a point vs 90% of the meta builds while most other classes/builds actually can.

If the problem is that thief can disengage too easily, I would honestly say its in your advantage (match-wise)

Some builds have way less counters, really.

uhm thing is…zerker thief forces kind of all other zerker classes out of the game…meaning this: we don’t always want to play cele spec’s on other classes to stand a chance…we want fastpaced zerker builds as well and be viable on them…you’re just coming up with reasons to why thief is “fair” so it can be the only viable zerker build….tbh idc about cele builds but I have to cause of zerker thieves

Sagat.3285:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Sagat.3285:

Lordrosicky.5813:

1, Withdraw should have its cd increased by 5seconds,
2, Chill should effect initiative regen.
3, Headshot should have a cast time of 3/4 second.
4, And Infiltrators arrow should have its initiaitive increased by 1.

Then we have decent balance. Thief will still be OP, but it can be nerfed further if needed.

1.Hell to the no burst damage,cc is getting stronger and it’s finally a trick
2.Against design, if chill isn’t already strong vs thieves would they have skills dedicated to remove movement conditions not worshiping RNG cleansing gods on top of teleports??
3.Meh
4.Against design

So their “design” is that they are brokenly OP with no counter play?

Answer #2, #4 is against design because baseline thief has only 12 initiative if Inf. Arrow cost 7 you can’t use it twice in a row, you have to at least be possible to use a skill twice in a row from thief’s design point of view, answer #2. Stop thinking duels.

this is totall nonsense…no you should not have the luxury to always use the same 2 skills 2x in a row cause of design…you can always use skills faster then most other classes cause of no 15-20 sec or more cd’s….the thief ini costs on some skills needs be increased…tho you can’t spam in a row anymore you still have significant less cd’s then most classes do and some skills will remain spammable….nothing against design here…just pure balancing. the excuses and false reasoning some people use here to keep their class OP as kitten is hilarious and to me transparant as water