Guild Wars 2

I can’t figure it out. 2 classes have easy( mesmer and engi) self-access to stealth and any combination of classes that has a smoke field and leap/blast finishers can get it. Heartseeker spam doesn’t make since (especially on Haste) because dodge rolling once cancels 2 (haste 4 or 5) of them and reduces Thief initiative by a large amount which leaves them vulnerable. No cooldowns makes Thieves consistently use hard hitting combos which require large initiative. Boon stealing is only because of the meta. Dodge spam means Aoe or field of some kind.

So confused. I try to be a better player than any of those (Dagger/Dagger Shortbow) and have managed to figure out a lot of other classses since I play all of them and I personally think I am doing alright (fully nullified a Mesmer and Hammer/Greatsword Warrior recently though Hambow is a problem). Just need clarification. Makes me sad when I use Heartseeker once or twice in a row (target below HP threshold means they receive much higher damage and its the best gap closer for most fights) and get raged at. Hope that makes sense.

Mesmer and Engineer are both harder to play than thief, I was doing well on my thief in about 10 hours of playing one for the first time.

However thief isn’t an easy class relative to the others, it’s just it’s mechanics allow it to bypass what every other class has to deal with, I mean you can actually use HS 4 times in a row. People get frustrated at the thief class because of this, once you learn it you can counter thieves but people really cba to learn. Also the top thieves in S/D wont ever die. They will just run if they are losing which is irritating.

Benjamin.8237:

Mesmer and Engineer are both harder to play than thief, I was doing well on my thief in about 10 hours of playing one for the first time.

Ha, ha ha ha ha…

I play Turret engi with one hand, while im eating a sandwich

girien.1209:

Benjamin.8237:

Mesmer and Engineer are both harder to play than thief, I was doing well on my thief in about 10 hours of playing one for the first time.

Ha, ha ha ha ha…

I play Turret engi with one hand, while im eating a sandwich

In all fairness he mentioned thieves getting hated for examples such as heartseeker spam. Turret Engineer is the equivalent of this and it only works vs scrubs, like spamming heart seeker. I meant in my post about real builds, we’re talking 20066 thieves, 44006 mesmers or 60062 engineers. But I agree that turret engie is imba easy.

No one who is any good complains about most thief specs right now. The thief is no longer a required member of top tier teams at this point.

The one exception to the rule is a S/D thief. The amount of evades there is a bit over the top.

Benjamin.8237:

Mesmer and Engineer are both harder to play than thief.

Are you trolling?

Only exception I’d say is P/D, easy to learn and play, but also P/D has its difficulties.

for me is the hate against thief the class and their mechanic itself.
For me its like everything that someone can hate Comes together in one class
Spamming, Stealth, condi kitten, so many evades, coming unmanly from behind and running away like a lightning when they got too much dmg and come back after using shadow refuge aka “reset button” and feel like king when they beat u surprisingly even we wrecked them in 1v1.
what i hate the most, when they cant beat u, they come in between in a 1v1, help killing u and finish to feel like a Boss-.
for me its unhonourable class mechanic and for me its no wonder that many Players dislike thiefes

Ghostwolf.9863:

Benjamin.8237:

Mesmer and Engineer are both harder to play than thief.

Are you trolling?

Only exception I’d say is P/D, easy to learn and play, but also P/D has its difficulties.

Well personally, Thief was the easiest class for me to pick up as I mentioned in my OP. None of the classes are hard, but on my thief I seem to escape every fight and I can down people very quickly with S/P.

Thiefs (or more accurate name Assasin) are being hated because its the most frustrating class to play against. Either you get insane amounts of dmg in short amount of time and nothing you can do but spam AoE and hope you hit. OR you fight a thief that does nothing but spam condi while non stopd dodging and going invis. And the wurst kind is the thief that only atks when you are fighting a battle with other players and you hit 50% HP and they are like trolololo die HS spam. And yes, even if you can “win” or better them in battle, they say tata and run off. Whats even more hate is 2 thiefs ganging up and killing everything with ease.

Can only second Grenix,
the most frustrating build is that one with permaevades and permablinks.

You cant throw them down etc, cause if they just port ahead, you can not hit then yet they can hit you, and yet whats even more frustrating everytime they blink around they heal themselves and if they realize they are about to lose they just run away and you cant follow them.

Considering the Playstyle Thiefs can be categorized as TROLLS

I can usually beat thieves with my warrior, this evade thief I fought… It was just kitten ridiculous not a single hit. Just evade/blind spam.

I just about ate my keyboard after dying from that atrocity….

arenanet own me 2 keyboard and 1 razer molten core edition mouse due the rage of the thief.

None of the classes I play have ever had a problem with thief. Even the current S/D thieves that everyone is complaining about. I actually rolled a thief because I felt that they were under-powered and I like a challenge. Guess I was wrong judging by all these forum posts XD

From my short experience though thief is one of the more challenging classes to play well and the people who complain about them usually don’t understand how the thief works. Now that’s just my experience! lol and for reference I play Ranger, Mesmer, Guardian, Engineer, and now Thief.

The people don’t hate thieves, they hate stealth and the evadeeffect on some weaponskills.

Benjamin.8237:

girien.1209:

Benjamin.8237:

Mesmer and Engineer are both harder to play than thief, I was doing well on my thief in about 10 hours of playing one for the first time.

Ha, ha ha ha ha…

I play Turret engi with one hand, while im eating a sandwich

In all fairness he mentioned thieves getting hated for examples such as heartseeker spam. Turret Engineer is the equivalent of this and it only works vs scrubs, like spamming heart seeker. I meant in my post about real builds, we’re talking 20066 thieves, 44006 mesmers or 60062 engineers. But I agree that turret engie is imba easy.

That spec has given engis as a whole a bad rep.

snow.8097:

for me is the hate against thief the class and their mechanic itself.
For me its like everything that someone can hate Comes together in one class
Spamming, Stealth, condi kitten, so many evades, coming unmanly from behind and running away like a lightning when they got too much dmg and come back after using shadow refuge aka “reset button” and feel like king when they beat u surprisingly even we wrecked them in 1v1.
what i hate the most, when they cant beat u, they come in between in a 1v1, help killing u and finish to feel like a Boss-.
for me its unhonourable class mechanic and for me its no wonder that many Players dislike thiefes

“You don’t fight with honor!”
“No, but he did…”

We’re a thief, we’re assassins, we’re the shadow upon your body, we’re the gust of wind on your back, as I pull my dagger from your back.. I will laugh at you dying with your honor..

Katelynnlovescarlos.8051:

snow.8097:

for me is the hate against thief the class and their mechanic itself.
For me its like everything that someone can hate Comes together in one class
Spamming, Stealth, condi kitten, so many evades, coming unmanly from behind and running away like a lightning when they got too much dmg and come back after using shadow refuge aka “reset button” and feel like king when they beat u surprisingly even we wrecked them in 1v1.
what i hate the most, when they cant beat u, they come in between in a 1v1, help killing u and finish to feel like a Boss-.
for me its unhonourable class mechanic and for me its no wonder that many Players dislike thiefes

“You don’t fight with honor!”
“No, but he did…”

We’re a thief, we’re assassins, we’re the shadow upon your body, we’re the gust of wind on your back, as I pull my dagger from your back.. I will laugh at you dying with your honor..

Ah, kitten, son! You just got RPed trolled. GG.

Because as annoying as some other builds are, and how hard they are to beat, if I can see what the hell is going on, I can counter it, and if I don’t, at least it feels like it was on me, not just the luck of the fight. It’s not fun to swing at air for an entire fight and hope you’re hitting something, and the evade uptime on one particular build is just plain goofy.

Most thieves are not that hard to handle (as a class, player skill notwithstanding) if you know how, but it’s like swatting a gnat buzzing around your eyes… even if it was never a threat to you, but it still annoys you.

Hmm…let me see why. Playing a mesmer I’ve found that thieves specifically seek me out in WvW (in zergs and solo) and sPvP, because they find most mesmers are easy kills to unexpected high burst damage. Our main attack dps and defense comes from phantasms and illusions, but this is nullified when initially struck from stealth when you have nothing out, and also because them re-stealthing means there is no target to activate a phantasm on.

Also in sPvP I see some thieves only joining battles that are already underway, bursting down whoever has the lowest health from stealth and going onto the next light armour/lowest health player for easy kills.

But the most annoying thing about thieves is it is the only class I have to change builds for (as a mes) to effectively counter them, which shouldn’t be the case. If you are a mes leaning zerker an average to good thief will eat you for breakfast in little time.

Katelynnlovescarlos.8051:

snow.8097:

for me is the hate against thief the class and their mechanic itself.
For me its like everything that someone can hate Comes together in one class
Spamming, Stealth, condi kitten, so many evades, coming unmanly from behind and running away like a lightning when they got too much dmg and come back after using shadow refuge aka “reset button” and feel like king when they beat u surprisingly even we wrecked them in 1v1.
what i hate the most, when they cant beat u, they come in between in a 1v1, help killing u and finish to feel like a Boss-.
for me its unhonourable class mechanic and for me its no wonder that many Players dislike thiefes

“You don’t fight with honor!”
“No, but he did…”

We’re a thief, we’re assassins, we’re the shadow upon your body, we’re the gust of wind on your back, as I pull my dagger from your back.. I will laugh at you dying with your honor..

Best quote everrrrr!

Vague Memory.2817:

Hmm…let me see why. Playing a mesmer I’ve found that thieves specifically seek me out in WvW (in zergs and solo) and sPvP, because they find most mesmers are easy kills to unexpected high burst damage. Our main attack dps and defense comes from phantasms and illusions, but this is nullified when initially struck from stealth when you have nothing out, and also because them re-stealthing means there is no target to activate a phantasm on.

Also in sPvP I see some thieves only joining battles that are already underway, bursting down whoever has the lowest health from stealth and going onto the next light armour/lowest health player for easy kills.

But the most annoying thing about thieves is it is the only class I have to change builds for (as a mes) to effectively counter them, which shouldn’t be the case. If you are a mes leaning zerker an average to good thief will eat you for breakfast in little time.

So what you are saying is that the thief do what he is supposed to do? Being a roamer and burst profession it is our job to burst down other low health/armor professions or weakened players and then move on to the next target, decap / whatever. We have the ability to turn the tide of the fight or just end an ongoing fight within seconds, why shouldn’t we do that?

You think it is wrong that you need to change your build to counter a thief? Why? Are the Mesmer meant to be a god profession that can defeat everything? All builds/professions have counters. To defeat your counter build/profession you simply need to be a better player – if you are equal of skill then you will die because of build/profession supremacy against you.

On topic:
There are a lot of hate thrown around because the thief is very confusing to fight if you are new. It is also very annoying to die against one. There are a lot of hate for the thief that has been built up from the start of the game when spamming heartseeker was effective and when backstab could nearly one shot people. Therefore people have a tendency to say things like you’re a HS spammer if you used it twice to finish someone off or used backstab. People in general tend to get angry when their “immortal” builds is killed, hence some of their ego died and they don’t realize they either met their counter or was simply out-played and need to get better.

is that a real Quote from a book or movie? goT maybe? xD
when not then respect for dat lyric xD

I think Anet does not want classes to be able to burst like that. Thiefs were named thiefs for a good reason, and not assasin like in gw1. Their whole class is centered around their specialty: stealing. Thats all fine and fun, but saying that a thief is supposed to be played like hit and run or join the kill sound all wrong to me. All classes should be able to win an “honarable” 1 on 1 battle and STAND their man. Thiefs are just being played as a troll class by most ppl and this is why they are hated. Most of the time i prefer actually NOT teaming up with thieves because all they do is roam and go for easykils in a map, and this makes them actually loose the match often.

Grenix.1576:

I think Anet does not want classes to be able to burst like that. Thiefs were named thiefs for a good reason, and not assasin like in gw1. Their whole class is centered around their specialty: stealing. Thats all fine and fun, but saying that a thief is supposed to be played like hit and run or join the kill sound all wrong to me. All classes should be able to win an “honarable” 1 on 1 battle and STAND their man. Thiefs are just being played as a troll class by most ppl and this is why they are hated. Most of the time i prefer actually NOT teaming up with thieves because all they do is roam and go for easykils in a map, and this makes them actually loose the match often.

Well that’s thieves task, easy kills and de-/capping far in situations where it can stall the game and buy time or force opponents to leave mid to recap their close. They work similar to Dragoons during the 17-19th century, they run quickly to fill out where they are needed and do various tasks.

They are not a bulletproof 1v1 class, and experienced thieves tend to avoid 1v1’s that can lead to outdrawn fights that might not even be possible to win, engineers with nearly any build will for instance always have the odds in their favor against thieves.

If your team composition needs something else like for instance a zerker staff ele or a power necro with lich form who can destroy a team quickly at mid that’s ofc better than picking up a thief.

Thief’s themselves are not OP, the problem is with the hard counter they have to particular classes (ele and mesmer). Yes, I am biased in saying this maining a mesmer and all, but if I want to run the most effective build for my team, it’s shatter. The current thief meta is s/d. Mesmers rely on teleports for there defensive, s/d teleports better. Unless I SERIOUSLY outplay an s/d in 1v1 or I manage to get a gank first while the thief is distracted during a teamfight then I am utterly defensless against a half competent s/d.
Thiefs are not OP at all, it’s just the design which allow them to hard counter certain classes to the point where they virtually are on extinction in the meta. As you can imagine a few of those players would qq. as for the Wars/guards/engis complaining. It’s L2P.

A Thief once stole my cookie.