Guild Wars 2

The fact is stealth mechanics are stupid.

It’s both a defensive and offensive tool which allows the thief to completely control the flow of battle. And if he gets in a bad situation, he can reset forever until his opponent is out of cooldowns to counter him.

It’s incredible that a backstab can be blocked or hit someone invulnerable and the thief can continue spamming it.

It’s incredible you have to swing wildly around the air and there’s not even a blurred hint that your ability was wasted or connected, because the only counterplay against a thief by non-thieves is sheer guesswork and luck.

Backstab burst can be repeated so frequently compared to other classes’ burst sequences, and on top of it all your burst is invisible. If an ele switches to air attunement and I see him closing in I know he’s gonna do a lightning strike into phoenix combo and can react properly. Hell, I can even see his hardest hitting skill on a 35+ sec cd winding up before it lands.

But really, it’s the ability for effortless reset that gets me. If I make a mistake on any other class, I’m dying. On the thief, all I need is a bp>HS reset to run away even if I can’t win, and nobody except another thief can chase me down.

Zenith.7301:

It’s incredible that a backstab can be blocked or hit someone invulnerable and the thief can continue spamming it.

Backstab burst can be repeated so frequently compared to other classes’ burst sequences, and on top of it all your burst is invisible. If an ele switches to air attunement and I see him closing in I know he’s gonna do a lightning strike into phoenix combo and can react properly. Hell, I can even see his hardest hitting skill on a 35+ sec cd winding up before it lands.

The elementalist’s phoenix + lightning strike and electric discharge deals up to twice as much damage as a heartseeker + backstab. I think this should be noted.

Slim.3024:

Zenith.7301:

It’s incredible that a backstab can be blocked or hit someone invulnerable and the thief can continue spamming it.

Backstab burst can be repeated so frequently compared to other classes’ burst sequences, and on top of it all your burst is invisible. If an ele switches to air attunement and I see him closing in I know he’s gonna do a lightning strike into phoenix combo and can react properly. Hell, I can even see his hardest hitting skill on a 35+ sec cd winding up before it lands.

The elementalist’s phoenix + lightning strike and electric discharge deals up to twice as much damage as a heartseeker + backstab. I think this should be noted.

Yeah, no. I have both. Not close to twice the damage.

And that’s assuming you land all three, and that involves 3 different cooldowns, all with a base 15+ sec cd.

And none of those 3 disable your opponent from hitting you, because all thieves like to behave as if every class runs a melee weapon they can spam aoe with, when reality is that most classes don’t have the spammable aoe to really threaten a stealthed thief outside the engineer and necromancer or warrior.

Zenith.7301:

Yeah, no. I have both. Not close to twice the damage.

And that’s assuming you land all three, and that involves 3 different cooldowns, all with a base 15+ sec cd.

Well, yeah. Numbers don’t lie. Take some steady weapons and test it on a dummy. 10/30/0/0/30 for both builds.

And none of those 3 disable your opponent from hitting you, because all thieves like to behave as if every class runs a melee weapon they can spam aoe with, when reality is that most classes don’t have the spammable aoe to really threaten a stealthed thief outside the engineer and necromancer or warrior.

I was really only pointing out that the damage can not be compared. Stealth is a very strong defensive mechanic. Though the very moment you can not use it effectively against an opponent, the thief has to disengage as quickly as possible.

D/P thieves have two defensive mechanics. Blinds and stealth. One of the two usually works, both are however very much active defenses that do not last long and can be repeated more frequently, as opposed to classes with a few bullet-proof defenses on a long cooldown.

What bulletproof defense? My ele has mist form, during which he cannot do anything as opposed to thief and warrior, and if we bring up armor of earth it means necro corrupt boon bait or flanking strike spam got rid of a 75+ sec cd.

There is no comparison whatsoever. Thief shadowstep is a double stun breaker, with condition cleanse, and a double port. That alone makes it one of the most broken defensive cd’s for a mere 50 sec cd. What other utility skill condenses two mobility aspects with a stun break, and condition cleanse all rolled in?

And then we have the issue of elites with lyssa where a thief gets another 45 sec cd full condi cleanse alongside stability.

What’s more, it’s not only in the department of burst and defensives where thieves easily push eles and mesmers out (not to mention poor rangers and zerker rifle engineers and power necros).

It’s the fact that thieves alongside warriors also have far superior sustained damage when you look at the autoattack doing so much damage versus the ele’s and mesmer’s pathetic autoattacks.

Nobody seems to really notice just how strong thief and warrior autoattacks are relative to the other classes, and how that aspect allows them to pressure so effectively after they’ve landed their burst versus a class like the ele or mesmer where if you can heal their burst they’re pretty much screwed until their long cooldowns come back up.

see nyqwist video on this matter.
turns out things are bad indeed.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Thief-Interrupts-Maybe-a-bit-broken

The only real counter-play to thieves is being a bunker and holding the point.

the theif is all around broken in pvp and wvw the stealth is just OP

Run for the hills! Turns out there are a lot of experts on thieves even though they’ve never played one!

What’s up with that new trend, threads about uninterruptible thieves popping everywhere like it’s some kind of nerf thieves spring.

If you people are so concerned about the state of interrupts in GW2, ask yourself first if stability uptime is not a bit to high and easily accessible on some specs. Ask yourself if many if not most devastating attacks, single target or AoE, should really be instant, i.e uninterruptible.

Expressing your concern about the lack of penalty ensuing a successful interrupt on a thief skill without even mentionning how this is actually an issue related to interrupts in general against every class, let alone a few skills here and there, feels extremely biased and narrow minded to me.