Guild Wars 2

perma stealth, and they burst you donw in every open i mean how the hell do you stop this

Field awareness and a sense of twitch.

nice suggestion, lets kill what you cant see

gezz.5618:

nice suggestion, lets kill what you cant see

Gain some reflex.

ya mang wtf dey so op i was lke runnign around this guy came outa nowhere and hit me for like idk but i was like stun or something then iwas waitign for it to wear off and then boom 7k dmg couldnt even reactiomn in time nice job anet

Thieves are fine although when your not paying attention its just insta death (unless your an ele ofc) with 1 mistake. Like some days I just play terrible and thieves insta kill me when I am just lacking all twitch.

Having said all this, if you are talking about wvw (with perma stealth you must be?) then I agree with you. In wvw thieves are beyond OP but this is purely down to culling. They keep having to re-render and so 3 second stealth becomes 5 second stealth and so they can literally heartseeker u 3 times whilst invisible to you when actually they should be visible.

If you are alone they can burst you down easily. Even though I main engie I have started trying thief, and if they don’t have defensive utility, they’re screwed.
basilik venom —> steal —> backstab+haste means your dead.

I’ve never been able to kill so easily on an engineer…

Penguin.5197:

If you are alone they can burst you down easily. Even though I main engie I have started trying thief, and if they don’t have defensive utility, they’re screwed.
basilik venom —> steal --> backstab+haste means your dead.

I’ve never been able to kill so easily on an engineer…

and you never will engineer as it stands is the weakest class .

Rezzet.3614:

Penguin.5197:

If you are alone they can burst you down easily. Even though I main engie I have started trying thief, and if they don’t have defensive utility, they’re screwed.
basilik venom —> steal --> backstab+haste means your dead.

I’ve never been able to kill so easily on an engineer…

and you never will engineer as it stands is the weakest class .

100nades says “hi”

@OP: thieves aren’t bad in sPvP, they only get one good burst that’s easy to ruin if you are paying attention.

Dont really have much trouble with thiefs.
In hotjoins they are annoying bc there can be alot of them.
But, what class are you , if u want advice on how to deal w theifs, tell us ur class and we can give u the ways to beat them.

Thieves in SPVP where culling issues are non-existent are absolutely fine.

Thieves in WvW where they can nail you for their burst, render for .5 seconds (if you’re lucky) before stealthing again due to culling issues are insanely broken and stupid.

Please clarify which area of pvp you are talking about, OP.

*inb4 elitists and ‘wvw isn’t pvp dawg’ bullkitten

Braxxus.2904:

Thieves in SPVP where culling issues are non-existent are absolutely fine.

Thieves in WvW where they can nail you for their burst, render for .5 seconds (if you’re lucky) before stealthing again due to culling issues are insanely broken and stupid.

Please clarify which area of pvp you are talking about, OP.

*inb4 elitists and ‘wvw isn’t pvp dawg’ bullkitten

Ha ty, that’s should explian why these thieves were able to stealth for so long

Arheundel.6451:

Braxxus.2904:

Thieves in SPVP where culling issues are non-existent are absolutely fine.

Thieves in WvW where they can nail you for their burst, render for .5 seconds (if you’re lucky) before stealthing again due to culling issues are insanely broken and stupid.

Please clarify which area of pvp you are talking about, OP.

*inb4 elitists and ‘wvw isn’t pvp dawg’ bullkitten

Ha ty, that’s should explian why these thieves were able to stealth for so long

Ah, WvW thieves are brokenly OP because they literally have perma stealth (something ANET clearly doesn’t want seeing as how they nerfed thieves perma stealth back in beta), only thing I can say is wear soldiers armor and laugh as they bounce off your skin of steel and laugh as you kick them around.

PS: AoE + cripple/chill wreck thieves in WvW.

Over time you develop a spidey sense for invisible thieves, and i just instinctively start 100b whirlwinding around when i get the feeling, and i usually drop/deter most thieves.
(hotjoins only, since thieves, like warriors (though less so) are mostly banned from tpvp unless you are descended from the first class elite upper class that sailed on the titanic)

Burst thieves are indeed annoying. But I personally have more problems with permastealth condi thieves.

Seeing as I’m a warrior and thus have extremely limited condi removal (realistically).

Replying in a thread where many people (who probably play thieves) actually think ANY burst combo that can drop someone before the packets hit their game client is “balanced” or “fun”.

In every other game bursts like that are hotfixed within the week, but apparently not at ANet.

ANet: You are not develping an FPS here. We don’t have “head” hit boxes, and weaving and bunnyhopping don’t stop thief attacks connecting!

I’d just be happy if stealth in this game worked like stealth in all games.

direct damage unstealths you.

It’s really sad. Perma stealth is made able by the trait for initiative gain during stealth using d/p with skill 5(black powder) and skill 2 (heart seeker) this allows constant backstabbing and perma stealth while heartseeker can damage the enemy while putting you in stealth. When you add regen during stealth and Condi remove every three seconds from other traits its way op. Literally they can never die and will kill you if you can. Plz fix Anet

You must not have gotten the memo…the game was called Thief Wars II until D/D elementalist trumped even the most kitten thief mechanics.

You should have seen Thieves at release prior to 3 major nerfs.

sPVP is corrupted by the overpopulation of thieves.

It’s quite head scratching how beta and alpha didn’t diagnose the obvious problems with thieves.

Swotr had almost the exact same problem with their stealth class – Operatives – at release, but they fix thing much faster and effectively.

Ye thieves like these take away PvP points because they are almost impossible to find and kill in tourneys or 8v8

Zelulose.8695:

It’s really sad. Perma stealth is made able by the trait for initiative gain during stealth using d/p with skill 5(black powder) and skill 2 (heart seeker) this allows constant backstabbing and perma stealth while heartseeker can damage the enemy while putting you in stealth. When you add regen during stealth and Condi remove every three seconds from other traits its way op. Literally they can never die and will kill you if you can. Plz fix Anet

Am I missing something or is someone complaining about thieves who spec into shadow arts? I think this discussion should at least be bring up semi-viable tournament builds not hot-join hero thiefs.

The reason why most thieves build into burst is because of how thief gameplay works in the format. You can either bring someone down quickly and benefit your team with quicker caps or troll around in stealth all day thinking you’re cool while your team dies around you and they cap the point because your worthless kitten can’t.

Anet should make other lines support less stealth reliance for straight up brawls with evasive movements. Though rangers seem to have that kittenick down pretty well already.

Braxxus.2904:

Thieves in SPVP where culling issues are non-existent are absolutely fine.

Thieves in WvW where they can nail you for their burst, render for .5 seconds (if you’re lucky) before stealthing again due to culling issues are insanely broken and stupid.

Please clarify which area of pvp you are talking about, OP.

*inb4 elitists and ‘wvw isn’t pvp dawg’ bullkitten

WvW isn’t PvP, it’s glorified PvE.

Valkyriez.6578:

WvW isn’t PvP, it’s glorified PvE.

Funny the roamers in WvW going 2-5 vs 8-20 (often winning) are fighting and killing far more players than you guys standing in your colored circles all day long playing games of tag do.

Guys this is the PvP Discussion forum, please Take wvw Discussion to the forum just below, no need to start these flamewars about who’s game mode is better.. It just derails the thread and ultimately gets it closed.

Because pvp is all about capturing points. Stealth isn’t really a problem. They can sure live, but they if you know your class well enough you can hold your ground against bursts or very stealth oriented thieves until they run away.

Braxxus.2904:

Valkyriez.6578:

WvW isn’t PvP, it’s glorified PvE.

Funny the roamers in WvW going 2-5 vs 8-20 (often winning) are fighting and killing far more players than you guys standing in your colored circles all day long playing games of tag do.

Funnily enough when I’ve gone in WvW with a group of sPvPers we usually wreck players in zergs because most WvW players aren’t very good(There are plenty of pros and guilds in there to be sure). Its certainly fun but I can’t dedicate to the mode long because how boring it can get with the mindless zergs roaming around all day, and the lack of relevance for smaller group play combined with PvE balance.

“Its like all right we can reset this camp…..so we can barely budge the meter that has been tallying points for days….Blah.”

Too bad sPvP doesn’t reward players either.

condiments.8043:

Zelulose.8695:

It’s really sad. Perma stealth is made able by the trait for initiative gain during stealth using d/p with skill 5(black powder) and skill 2 (heart seeker) this allows constant backstabbing and perma stealth while heartseeker can damage the enemy while putting you in stealth. When you add regen during stealth and Condi remove every three seconds from other traits its way op. Literally they can never die and will kill you if you can. Plz fix Anet

Am I missing something or is someone complaining about thieves who spec into shadow arts? I think this discussion should at least be bring up semi-viable tournament builds not hot-join hero thiefs.

The reason why most thieves build into burst is because of how thief gameplay works in the format. You can either bring someone down quickly and benefit your team with quicker caps or troll around in stealth all day thinking you’re cool while your team dies around you and they cap the point because your worthless kitten can’t.

Anet should make other lines support less stealth reliance for straight up brawls with evasive movements. Though rangers seem to have that kittenick down pretty well already.

I agree here. When I actually had people to group with and when I played my thief it felt almost pointless to run anything other than a one-hitter-quitter build.

With shadow arts you are actually able to stay inside of a fight for more than 5 seconds without shadowstepping to some far off corner of the universe. Downside is that it now takes you 2 hours to kill any competent elementalist(which is usually why you are there in the first place). So with the semi-viable build my gameplay boils down to shortbowing someone until they are low enough to one-shot – which to me, is super boring.

While I will admit fighting a thief on my warrior (and mesmer for that matter as well) was painfully annoying and frustrating, I love fighting them on my Guardian using hammer / scepter & torch. 5 sec total worth of immobilize + tons of aoe damage is fantastic since I don’t have to see you to know you’re getting hurt just trying to get close to me lol.

Darnis.4056:

Guys this is the PvP Discussion forum, please Take wvw Discussion to the forum just below, no need to start these flamewars about who’s game mode is better.. It just derails the thread and ultimately gets it closed.

Agreed. Also why limit yourself to only one form of pvp in this game? Both WvW and sPvP are lots of fun. Just different playstyle mentalities. (Zerging is pretty dumb though, personally prefer going with 2-5 people doing havoc squad runs)

OP you must be new here.

Braxxus.2904:

Valkyriez.6578:

WvW isn’t PvP, it’s glorified PvE.

Funny the roamers in WvW going 2-5 vs 8-20 (often winning) are fighting and killing far more players than you guys standing in your colored circles all day long playing games of tag do.

SHOTS FIRED <3

Braxxus.2904:

Valkyriez.6578:

WvW isn’t PvP, it’s glorified PvE.

Funny the roamers in WvW going 2-5 vs 8-20 (often winning) are fighting and killing far more players than you guys standing in your colored circles all day long playing games of tag do.

Oh look! You can outgear and out level people to kill them! That’s cute!

@Rest of topic: I love how a lot of people here seem to think that a thief can both be a burst thief AND have 30pts in shadow arts…. because i’ve yet to see that happen.

The burst is fine. The Thief is suppose to be the best 1v1 profession. The only problem is the stealth. Stealth should be toned down for the Thief, and then be replaced with some more protective boons. This would allow for more visual combat, which is a lot more fun to play against. Also, give the Thief some more support skills.

Kasama.8941:

The burst is fine. The Thief is suppose to be the best 1v1 profession. The only problem is the stealth. Stealth should be toned down for the Thief, and then be replaced with some more protective boons. This would allow for more visual combat, which is a lot more fun to play against. Also, give the Thief some more support skills.

This would also make thieves have a lot more viability in higher tier PvP because they wont have to rely on stealth (thus be more effective at capping/neutralizing points and helping in team fights), and could give a few more options for thief gameplay, all around a good thing.

PS: I still think that super stealthy builds should be possible, just not as baseline.

Kasama.8941:

The burst is fine. The Thief is suppose to be the best 1v1 profession. The only problem is the stealth. Stealth should be toned down for the Thief, and then be replaced with some more protective boons. This would allow for more visual combat, which is a lot more fun to play against. Also, give the Thief some more support skills.

When did the thief become the best 1vs1 prof ? ( unless you build for stealth and become totally useless in high end PvP, and still on par with ranger/ele levels).

If you want to be useful to your team ( because this is a kittenING TEAM GAME), then you’re kinda the weakest 1vs1 proff in the game, and , guess what, that’s how 90% of thieves build themselves.

So no, in current meta the thief is absolutely not the strongest 1vs1 prof, even when specced to be ( no meta build, so unviable).

@OP

Complaining about thief burst is legit ( if everything crits you’re pretty much dead), but the C&D→steal→backstab combo is easy to avoid and the thief is totally useless after that.

If you’re referring to that combo, it’s a L2P issue.

If you’re referring to the Steal-Backstab from stealth, than i agree with you it’s broken, maining a thief myself.

But thieves have really nothing else aside their burst, it’s really not our fault.

Please tell me how you avoid a teleport skill outside of anticipation.

I understand it’s all he had going for him, since he ran when I was downed. but dang… That was 20k damage in the 2 seconds before he became visible, via what I assume to be use of quickness.

Mug just really needs to be toned down somehow. Steal is a gap closer that gains an ability, can buff you with traits, can steal boons, can gain stealth, etc. 10 points shouldn’t also slap a 4k-7k damage attack on top of it.

Hanzo.9624:

Mug just really needs to be toned down somehow. Steal is a gap closer that gains an ability, can buff you with traits, can steal boons, can gain stealth, etc. 10 points shouldn’t also slap a 4k-7k damage attack on top of it.

Yeah… mug deals way to much damage for a 10pt trait they really do need to either A) push that further back, or nerf it down.

Same with QZ in the ranger BM tree, i mean kitten, 2s quickness on a 20s CD? how did -that- become a 5pt trait? (i play a ranger mind you)

Razor.6392:

ya mang wtf dey so op i was lke runnign around this guy came outa nowhere and hit me for like idk but i was like stun or something then iwas waitign for it to wear off and then boom 7k dmg couldnt even reactiomn in time nice job anet

you should get some axes and smash, smash, sa-maaash!

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Please tell me how you avoid a teleport skill outside of anticipation.

I can , so you also can.

Watch out for its animation, if he’s casting basilisk, 90% of the times he’s going to hit you with Steal.

If he doesn’t ( D/P) you won’t see it happening, unless he tries do fake burst with a basilisk + BP.

If a thief goes into stealth WHILE fighting to do a stealth burst ( more skilled than normal scrubs) remember that stealth expires after 3 secs UNLESS he uses his healing to prolong it for another 3 secs.

Just try to dodge while he’s stealthed, there’s a chance he will miss the whole burst combo and you’ll be able to get the jump on him.

Don’t randomly use stunbreaker while panicking, he whille just leave stealth, re-enter, and burst you and you won’t have no dodges/stunbreakers to handle its burst.

AOE/Autoattack as much as you can near you, place traps, place marks and watch out for the triggering. Don’t stay still, you can easily kill a thief WHILE he’s stealthed.

This works with 90% of thieves out there: the restant 10 % is totally unpredictable and you won’t be able to avoid his burst ( you’ll still be able to stunbreak if you’re a superrobot and are not totally squishy).

If you’re losing to a thief 1vs1 it’s your fault, since a good player will NEVER lose to a thief 1vs1 unless he catches you off guard ( D/P thieves can handle their owns in 1vs1 tough), and all serious thieves play total glass cannons because we have no other choice.

It’s all about timing, and altough i agree that stealth-oneshotting is not fine, remeber that thieves have no other choice but to play glass cannon build, thanks to aNet giving us crappy options and nerfing the kitten out of us from beta till now.

I know this is anecdotal, but a lot of my friends have been turned off from PvP by insta-gibbing thieves in hotjoin matches. If new players keep dying instantly, they’d most likely give up.

Anyone who complains about thieves backstab burst and brings no stun breaker is an idiot. I just port away and gone is his burst. He has to wait 45s give or take to do it again.

Btw, I play a thief among other classes and my backstabs hit for 6.2k max on glass cannons though I’m not fully glass myself. I don’t consider it OP at all if you can see mesmers doing a shatter burst combo every 10 seconds.

While I dont have issue personally on my bunker ranger and glass cannon guard, the thief just isnt fun to fight against for newer players. Nobody should be able to put out more than 8-10k on a squishy. Both mesmer and thief burst needs to be toned down for a more enjoyable experience. Culling makes thieves pretty ridiculous in wvw

Thieves are annoying in spvp, maybe slightly OP. But wvw they are absolute bs. The insta kill, perma stealth, one thief holding up 5 people… Really encouraging for new people to try wvw.

The biggest problem is that they can dish out upwards of 20K in under a second, due to the increased lag in spvp and the wub, this can mean you are dead before your client even reports damage to you.

No amount of skill makes up for that.

The only thing that does comparable damage is a GC warrior doing 100B, but the setup for that is significantly longer.

IF this game had local servers where everybody had <50 ping, getting gibbed under a second wouldn’t as hard to avoid as it is, but given this is an MMO here, that simply isn’t going to be the case.

Burst in general as far as I see it, as a design flaw that needs to be addressed.
But then again, spvp is riddled with design flaws right now.

EDIT:
To add just one more delicious paragraph, your best bet, specifically with thieves is to try and predict the burst happening and blocking, via aegis or whatever you have available to you. A Mug>CnD>BS frontloads everything they have into that burst.
Thankfully, 90% of Thief players are awful at video games and hit their gib macro as soon as you are in range which makes avoiding it fairly easy if you know they are around.

As for the ones that aren’t, Id say roll a thief and spam CnD, get a feel for the animation so you can spot it in a fight, decent Thieves wont open up with their burst, they will try to bait you into using your defence skills/wear you down first so its really a matter of getting lucky at point.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Please tell me how you avoid a teleport skill outside of anticipation.

There will be certain situations where you’re low on health and the opportunistic thief will 1-shot you. It happens to everyone.

That said, most people who play thieves in hot-join (I assume this is where you’re playing or you wouldn’t be asking this question) are usually pretty bad at the prof, so if you see one approaching you and he suddenly disappears, he’s probably just used Steal on you. Dodge (stun-break if necessary) and run away, and lay down an AOE if you can. The AOE just hurt him, and you’ve ruined his opener. He’s now relatively useless for the next 45 seconds.

I’m not going to comment on the rest of the issues at hand here regardless of my opinions, but I’m pretty sure the problem is anticipating what a well-played Thief can do. Not what 90% of the hotjoin population does. I don’t think anyone is advocating we balance based off 90% of the hotjoin performance.

I mean I agree I can dodge most Thief burst too simply by watching the Basilisk go up. What happens when the Thief knows that you watch their buffs, and waits for that dodge to end though? The general assertion that instant attacks are by far to the advantage of the user in terms of accuracy is a sound argument, and to be nitpicked at like this is petty. You cannot react to something that is instant, you can only anticipate. Which is exactly what was said. Sometimes there are clues to use for anticipation, but that’s not always the case and still goes along with what was said.

Ayestes.1273:

I’m not going to comment on the rest of the issues at hand here regardless of my opinions, but I’m pretty sure the problem is anticipating what a well-played Thief can do. Not what 90% of the hotjoin population does. I don’t think anyone is advocating we balance based off 90% of the hotjoin performance.

I mean I agree I can dodge most Thief burst too simply by watching the Basilisk go up. What happens when the Thief knows that you watch their buffs, and waits for that dodge to end though? The general assertion that instant attacks are by far to the advantage of the user in terms of accuracy is a sound argument, and to be nitpicked at like this is petty. You cannot react to something that is instant, you can only anticipate. Which is exactly what was said. Sometimes there are clues to use for anticipation, but that’s not always the case and still goes along with what was said.

I think the problem with what you’re asserting lies in your words well-played. If you’re beaten by someone who played they’re profession well then you should just chalk it up to being outplayed. Assuming that two players are at the same skill-level (well-played), then the other person will still be able to set-up a counter to the thief’s opener.

I think the issue most people have is the perceived low skill-to-success ratio that the thief profession offers. What most people don’t realize is that the pay-off of that play-style does not last long, once you start encountering players who have a reasonable idea of how to play their class.

Prana.8690:

Ayestes.1273:

I’m not going to comment on the rest of the issues at hand here regardless of my opinions, but I’m pretty sure the problem is anticipating what a well-played Thief can do. Not what 90% of the hotjoin population does. I don’t think anyone is advocating we balance based off 90% of the hotjoin performance.

I mean I agree I can dodge most Thief burst too simply by watching the Basilisk go up. What happens when the Thief knows that you watch their buffs, and waits for that dodge to end though? The general assertion that instant attacks are by far to the advantage of the user in terms of accuracy is a sound argument, and to be nitpicked at like this is petty. You cannot react to something that is instant, you can only anticipate. Which is exactly what was said. Sometimes there are clues to use for anticipation, but that’s not always the case and still goes along with what was said.

I think the problem with what you’re asserting lies in your words well-played. If you’re beaten by someone who played they’re profession well then you should just chalk it up to being outplayed. Assuming that two players are at the same skill-level (well-played), then the other person will still be able to set-up a counter to the thief’s opener.

I think the issue most people have is the perceived low skill-to-success ratio that the thief profession offers. What most people don’t realize is that the pay-off of that play-style does not last long, once you start encountering players who have a reasonable idea of how to play their class.

That’s true you should be beaten by someone who is better then you. This is however pertaining to the specific discussion on whether a teleport can be reacted to or is only anticipated. There is also the fundamental issue of determining what is well-played comparatively to what is just a relative skill difference between players.

I’d argue in this case that the only thing a Thief needs to be well-played is to simply recognize that they do not have to start their combo immediately after activating Basilisk Venom. That doesn’t mean a Thief isn’t well-played if they perform an instant combo after Basilisk Venom, they need only realize it as an option.

Now dodging in reaction to the burst because Basilisk Venom has just been used will work on the vast majority of the player-base. It’ll even work on most well-played (given the above dentition in this specific instance) Thieves once or twice. At that point though, they will have recongized that they need not play into that pattern and could simply wait to see what the opponent does first. This makes it so even though you are reacting to the Basilisk Venom, it’s clearly only in reaction to the Basilisk Venom. You cannot reactively dodge a Steal. Instead, you are only anticipating it.

That’s all I’m pointing out in this discussion, is that shadowsteps and teleports need to be anticipated in order to be dodged. It’s impossible to reactively dodge these skills. What I intended to point out is that, and that alone. The only way you can avoid it is with anticipation which is a part of skill no doubt, but the advantage by far goes to the user of the aforementioned instant abilities.

I did not mean to assert that well-played meant anything beyond a Thief played at what would be an acceptable high level, nor did I mean for it to imply that one side of the fight would in the end win over the other. Anticipation instead of reaction influences the factors that lead to the success rate, but that is incredibly complicated and as you mentioned has more to do with overall skill then this single instance. What was brought up was about this specific situation, and I merely wanted to comment on that very specific situation.