Guild Wars 2

honesly. Every time someone says a thief is OP because they can backstab someone for 8k the entire thief community goes into an uproar because if you take away backstab you take away thier burst blah blah blah blah. These same people seem to forget that most classes in order to attain this 8k hit need to prep just as much as a thief does, and requires a rotation of skills that may or may not be countered by the enemy player.
Thieves cry bloody murder if anyone brings up direct counters to stealth ie blocks revealing and missing your backstab revealing or even more subtle ones like backstab costing 1 ini making it less spammable.
Its one skill on a 4 second CD and with many ways to get back into stealth as well as multiple mechanisms to keep alive during the period of revealing you shouldnt even care. So what you got outplayed… go back into stealth and do it again.
There are virtually not enough blocks on one character to block you all of the time. And honestly… agis? Thats like me trying to use my most powerful attack on a guardian knowing he has agis up. its dumb. you strip agis and you proceed to slaughtering him. As a melee class I guess I can share your pain in a way but honestly its your loss if you cant think of a way to hit him 1 time before you initiate.
as for a couple other things. I just wanna clarify that I understand thieves arent the best for pvp since the game mode is based around capping objectives. And I actually do think stealth should work on points since it takes a real idiot not to realize the point isnt being capped anymore (thief is denying him through stealth) or that a ghost is capping the point. Magical things called aoes could be utilized for this situation as a counter.
But honestly, withhold some of your dignity and think about it for a second. Why should going stealth give you guys the power to spam 1 at your heart’s content, burning shields and other things that were meant to directly counter heavy hitting abilities if used at the right time?

heart’s content*

milo.6942:

heart’s content*

fixed :S but hey at least you read my wall of text!

Epic.3950:

hearts content

i gave it to you!! how you still get it wrong?
hahahah

edit: anet why you delete my extra question marks, wtf ? ? ? ?

milo.6942:

Epic.3950:

hearts content

i gave it to you!! how you still get it wrong?
hahahah

edit: anet why you delete my extra question marks, wtf ? ? ? ?

my keyboard does not have this interesting mark you put after the t. Please explain what it is!!!!11!1! It the time It would have taken me to type out ’ I would have let 5 babies die in a house fire. jerk.

Epic.3950:

milo.6942:

Epic.3950:

hearts content

i gave it to you!! how you still get it wrong?
hahahah

edit: anet why you delete my extra question marks, wtf ? ? ? ?

my keyboard does not have this interesting mark you put after the t. Please explain what it is!!!!11!1! It the time It would have taken me to type out ’ I would have let 5 babies die in a house fire. jerk.

wait wait wait we got off on the wrong foot my friend
here, i have some to spare. take as many as you need:
’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’

’’’’’<<<<<fascinating. almost as fascinating as what anet will do when they realize this entire post is 2 people kittening around with ’s

my friend,
this is the best thread on forum page right now
instead of having a boring and pointless discussion of sensible people vs thieves, we have a fun lesson in english

Epic.3950:

So what you got outplayed… go back into stealth and do it again.
There are virtually not enough blocks on one character to block you all of the time. And honestly… agis? Thats like me trying to use my most powerful attack on a guardian knowing he has agis up. its dumb. you strip agis and you proceed to slaughtering him.

If it were only that easy and to go back into stealth since it costs 9 init, as the new current burst build is 10/30/0/0/30 the damage from backstab comes from having a high amount init. 2 stealths leave you with almost no init for anything else and a lot less damage. Obviously, you do not play a thief at a high level.

Aegis? It’s not a problem agaisnt a noob, but what the problem is that when a guardian notices a thief break his aegis and then after he stealths he pops his aegis again, effectively cancelling out our elite and 1 hit from assasin signet. That’s already punishment enough for playing smart, and you people want to reveal the thief on top of that?

L2P. Stop crying.

Epic.3950:

And I actually do think stealth should work on points since it takes a real idiot not to realize the point isnt being capped anymore (thief is denying him through stealth) or that a ghost is capping the point. Magical things called aoes could be utilized for this situation as a counter.

Clearly, you don’t understand anything about spvp at all. This would be completely overpowered and you would see every team with a perma stealth/high survivability thief just to stand on points and stop caps from happening.

EDIT: Thief burst is not #1 skill, it’s a combination of things culminating in the backstab actually landing. Mug, Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft, Sleight of Hand Daze, Steal, Blackpowder or CND. Many if not all trait points built around yielding maximum damage. You can’t just go out there with no traits and spam 1 for the win as you make it sound.

my friend
i am sorry
a thief has found this thread

Just move their burst away from backstab and put it in a skill out of stealth.

The issue has always been a burst that is not telegraphed. Every other class’s burst can be mitigated with certainty. The thief is just guess work and a gamble.

Put the burst chain into leaping death blossom. Change Heartseeker’s bonus damage to <25% HP.

Increase leaping death blossom’s evade to 1/2 seconds.

Change backstab so it does a bit of damage, not much, but instead puts 10-15 stacks of vulnerability and a cripple/weakness on the target.

That way stealth is truly a defensive mechanic with some prepping perks instead of both a defensive and offensive mechanism. It also forces the thief to drop stealth spam if he wants to do the big damage.

Zenith.7301:

Just move their burst away from backstab and put it in a skill out of stealth.

The issue has always been a burst that is not telegraphed. Every other class’s burst can be mitigated with certainty. The thief is just guess work and a gamble.

Scepter Ele.

Mesmer pressing F1.

Also, both of these are far more valued in high end play than Thief has ever been.

Wait, eles’ burst can be mitigated with certainty?
Melee shatters off mirror images can be mitigated?
Melee range whirlwind hitting 4 times can be mitigated with certainty?

Okay.

Archer Henchman.2534:

Wait, eles’ burst can be mitigated with certainty?
Melee shatters off mirror images can be mitigated?
Melee range whirlwind hitting 4 times can be mitigated with certainty?

Okay.

yes,yes all of them should be nerfed, all of them are bad designs, warrior = only good designed class, anet.

Jumper.9482:

Zenith.7301:

Just move their burst away from backstab and put it in a skill out of stealth.

The issue has always been a burst that is not telegraphed. Every other class’s burst can be mitigated with certainty. The thief is just guess work and a gamble.

Scepter Ele.

Mesmer pressing F1.

Also, both of these are far more valued in high end play than Thief has ever been.

What? If you can’t see a telegraphed mind wrack there’s something wrong with you.

And an ele’s air rotation alone is hardly comparable spike compared to thief or warrior spike.

Ele spike requires an air rotation combined with arcane utility use and phoenix into a 45 sec cd firegrab.

Let’s give your thief burst skills 45 sec cd’s and the crappiest consistency ever (try to land fire grabs) and see how you get away with even comparing both.

The scepter ele’s burst also requires that the ele close in distance if he’s doing anything outside of the air rotation.

Ele spike outside scepter air attunement #2 is some of the most easily telegraphed burst in the game, with way higher cd’s than other classes and delievered piecemeal meaning you need to land several in a row instead of one big hit.

Scepter ele is only pushed to the top because he can bring competitive burst on top of his team utility. Key word being the team utility in form of CC and boon share and cleansing.

I’ll take D/P burst any day of the week over ele burst if we’re talking solely of burst and not of the toolkit.

I sure as hell won’t be sending the scepter ele to kill the bunker guard or ranger or engineer over a well played mesmer or thief.

Zenith.7301:

Jumper.9482:

Zenith.7301:

Just move their burst away from backstab and put it in a skill out of stealth.

The issue has always been a burst that is not telegraphed. Every other class’s burst can be mitigated with certainty. The thief is just guess work and a gamble.

Scepter Ele.

Mesmer pressing F1.

Also, both of these are far more valued in high end play than Thief has ever been.

What? If you can’t see a telegraphed mind wrack there’s something wrong with you.

And an ele’s air rotation alone is hardly comparable spike compared to thief or warrior spike.

Ele spike requires an air rotation combined with arcane utility use and phoenix into a 45 sec cd firegrab.

Let’s give your thief burst skills 45 sec cd’s and the crappiest consistency ever (try to land fire grabs) and see how you get away with even comparing both.

The scepter ele’s burst also requires that the ele close in distance if he’s doing anything outside of the air rotation.

Ele spike outside scepter air attunement #2 is some of the most easily telegraphed burst in the game, with way higher cd’s than other classes and delievered piecemeal meaning you need to land several in a row instead of one big hit.

Scepter ele is only pushed to the top because he can bring competitive burst on top of his team utility. Key word being the team utility in form of CC and boon share and cleansing.

I’ll take D/P burst any day of the week over ele burst if we’re talking solely of burst and not of the toolkit.

I play an ele and a warrior and i have to say eles burst is a lot easier because of how all their skills chain up and the fact that their burst is a insta gib. Warriors burst is all about timing and playing defensive then striking at the right time.

Derps.7421:

Zenith.7301:

Jumper.9482:

Zenith.7301:

Just move their burst away from backstab and put it in a skill out of stealth.

The issue has always been a burst that is not telegraphed. Every other class’s burst can be mitigated with certainty. The thief is just guess work and a gamble.

Scepter Ele.

Mesmer pressing F1.

Also, both of these are far more valued in high end play than Thief has ever been.

What? If you can’t see a telegraphed mind wrack there’s something wrong with you.

And an ele’s air rotation alone is hardly comparable spike compared to thief or warrior spike.

Ele spike requires an air rotation combined with arcane utility use and phoenix into a 45 sec cd firegrab.

Let’s give your thief burst skills 45 sec cd’s and the crappiest consistency ever (try to land fire grabs) and see how you get away with even comparing both.

The scepter ele’s burst also requires that the ele close in distance if he’s doing anything outside of the air rotation.

Ele spike outside scepter air attunement #2 is some of the most easily telegraphed burst in the game, with way higher cd’s than other classes and delievered piecemeal meaning you need to land several in a row instead of one big hit.

Scepter ele is only pushed to the top because he can bring competitive burst on top of his team utility. Key word being the team utility in form of CC and boon share and cleansing.

I’ll take D/P burst any day of the week over ele burst if we’re talking solely of burst and not of the toolkit.

I play an ele and a warrior and i have to say eles burst is a lot easier because of how all their skills chain up and the fact that their burst is a insta gib. Warriors burst is all about timing and playing defensive then striking at the right time.

That’s only an issue with the warrior’s problem of uptime. There’s no question that if the warrior does land an eviscerate or 100b, his burst will do a lot more than what the ele could, and he can do it much more often.

It also doesn’t help that Eviscerate doesn’t have good tracking like the new Flanking Strike.

My shaman amulet BM ranger doesn’t fear taking a full burst ele’s rotation. He does fear eating an eviscerate or 100b, let alone a full whirlwind followed by that. It just isn’t happening too often because of the stationary nature of that burst.

I have no doubt that if thieves were given more group/teamfight utility, and warriors had better sustain that they would be competing with scepter eles for the burst position.

Warriors and thieves are NOT lacking in damage. In fact, besides burst, they have the potential for much higher sustained damage if it wasn’t for the fact that they get pressured to retreat early in a fight.

Zenith.7301:

kitten s.7421:

Zenith.7301:

Jumper.9482:

Zenith.7301:

Just move their burst away from backstab and put it in a skill out of stealth.

The issue has always been a burst that is not telegraphed. Every other class’s burst can be mitigated with certainty. The thief is just guess work and a gamble.

Scepter Ele.

Mesmer pressing F1.

Also, both of these are far more valued in high end play than Thief has ever been.

What? If you can’t see a telegraphed mind wrack there’s something wrong with you.

And an ele’s air rotation alone is hardly comparable spike compared to thief or warrior spike.

Ele spike requires an air rotation combined with arcane utility use and phoenix into a 45 sec cd firegrab.

Let’s give your thief burst skills 45 sec cd’s and the crappiest consistency ever (try to land fire grabs) and see how you get away with even comparing both.

The scepter ele’s burst also requires that the ele close in distance if he’s doing anything outside of the air rotation.

Ele spike outside scepter air attunement #2 is some of the most easily telegraphed burst in the game, with way higher cd’s than other classes and delievered piecemeal meaning you need to land several in a row instead of one big hit.

Scepter ele is only pushed to the top because he can bring competitive burst on top of his team utility. Key word being the team utility in form of CC and boon share and cleansing.

I’ll take D/P burst any day of the week over ele burst if we’re talking solely of burst and not of the toolkit.

I play an ele and a warrior and i have to say eles burst is a lot easier because of how all their skills chain up and the fact that their burst is a insta gib. Warriors burst is all about timing and playing defensive then striking at the right time.

That’s only an issue with the warrior’s problem of uptime. There’s no question that if the warrior does land an eviscerate or 100b, his burst will do a lot more than what the ele could, and he can do it much more often.

It also doesn’t help that Eviscerate doesn’t have good tracking like the new Flanking Strike.

My shaman amulet BM ranger doesn’t fear taking a full burst ele’s rotation. He does fear eating an eviscerate or 100b, let alone a full whirlwind followed by that. It just isn’t happening too often because of the stationary nature of that burst.

I have no doubt that if thieves were given more group/teamfight utility, and warriors had better sustain that they would be competing with scepter eles for the burst position.

Warriors and thieves are NOT lacking in damage. In fact, besides burst, they have the potential for much higher sustained damage if it wasn’t for the fact that they get pressured to retreat early in a fight.

Warriors do fine damage its just a lot hard to do your damage. All of your skill are insanely predicable and easy to dodge. With eles you can burst faster and way more effective with the use of lighting flash. With warriors people see the gs and the know you are going to be using 100blades. With warriors you need to use a set up.
like have the player waste both dodges blow all stunbreakers and time the skill right all while that said player is pressuring you and most likely using blind witch is the hard counter to warriors. Warriors are the only actually balanced class.

Archer Henchman.2534:

Wait, eles’ burst can be mitigated with certainty?
Melee shatters off mirror images can be mitigated?
Melee range whirlwind hitting 4 times can be mitigated with certainty?

Okay.

Don’t waste your time.

“spam 1”

Are you kidding me? Look, if you actually, truly believe that thieves can spam backstab, I have some lightly scorched underground property to sell you.

2 Skill:

Backstab with Heart <3

/truth

Archer Henchman.2534:

Wait, eles’ burst can be mitigated with certainty?
Melee shatters off mirror images can be mitigated?
Melee range whirlwind hitting 4 times can be mitigated with certainty?

Okay.

Unless you are an idiot or blind yes.

swinsk.6410:

Clearly, you don’t understand anything about spvp at all. This would be completely overpowered and you would see every team with a perma stealth/high survivability thief just to stand on points and stop caps from happening.

EDIT: Thief burst is not #1 skill, it’s a combination of things culminating in the backstab actually landing. Mug, Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft, Sleight of Hand Daze, Steal, Blackpowder or CND. Many if not all trait points built around yielding maximum damage. You can’t just go out there with no traits and spam 1 for the win as you make it sound.

I do think Stealth should work on points, but only got a very short duration like 2s. After 2s of consecutive stealth you do not count anymore until you get visible.

Other stuff might need tweaking in the process too.

it’s actually more like 5-2-f1-1, tbh it’s not as bad as it used to be now since most thieves run d/p and the black powder is sort of the “telegraph”. Back when it was d/d and mug could crit, thief was just kittened cas it was like instant 15k spikes and there was no way to react or really know when it was coming.
I think thief is fine where it’s at for the most part, maybe blocks or aoe’s could reveal -it’s something that a decent thief could play around, and it would give more counterplay for some classes.
The main problem with thief imo is the frequency at which they restealth combined with the crappy tab targetting system. All a thief has to do is stealth and everyone drops target, in a team fight it can take forever to tab back to find the thief (yeah you can click, but then you either aren’t moving, or you aren’t using skills -which puts you in a vulnerable position). It’s just annoying having to deal with something that hits like a truck when you can’t hold a target on them.

No other class has such forgiving mechanics/tools as a thief does.

You are right, I could do 8k damage with other classes, but I’d suffer the negative consequences of constantly dying/being of little other use, I’d never be able to res or down anyone as I’d be far too easy to simply KO.
Thief on the other hand can dish out that kind of damage and abuse stealth to stay out of dodge and use the time to res/down players. Not to mention the stupid amount of blind/evades available to them as passive.

If the stealth and damage mechanics want to stay in their current form, then thief hp needs to take a large cut

if they take backstab away then all the thieves will be using s/d and its gona be a trollfest

At least s/d is VISIBLE. You can react to it. You can land a cc when they’ve finished flanking strike evade and attempt a larcenous, or you can pressure them with condition fields.

You can have counterplay against s/d because every animation is visible. The evade spam may not be too fun, maybe some initiative costs and regen stuff needs to be adjusted, but I prefer a game where s/d thieves exist even if they’re more painful than a game where a thief is dropping your target every 4 seconds and spiking you for 5-7k crits while spamming you with blind.

Compared to D/P, where only a s/d thief has enough mobility/evasion/dodges to truly foil backstab attempts since none of the other classes can port around/dodge so much as to stall a D/P backstab.

Jackums.3496:

shimmerless.4560:

a thief can’t hit an 8k backstab in spvp without “prepping”. maybe if their target is sheer glass and suffering a bit of vuln or something, but even then i doubt it.

Hardly. I can get 10k Backstabs in PvP, with a 10/30/30/0/0 build, just by activating an Assassin’s Signet in conjunction with Signets of Power prior to attacking. That’s far more than 8k and requires a single utility.

I’ve been hit with 13k Backstabs on my zerker Mesmer in sPvP. Given I had no added toughness, that’s still ridiculous. It’s no wonder Thieves are whine topic #1 with all of the food buffs and potential superior stats in WvW.

Archer Henchman.2534:

Wait, eles’ burst can be mitigated with certainty?
Melee shatters off mirror images can be mitigated?
Melee range whirlwind hitting 4 times can be mitigated with certainty?

Okay.

Yes? You can see them all coming and they’re so FotM that anyone that’s played a little hotjoin will find them all extremely predictable.

All of them literally have zero cast time and can be done from 900 range with blink or lightning flash, with the exception of whirlwind, which the warrior needs to be in melee range to hit.

Ele-Burst and MI-Shatters are more about prediction than anything else. But if the experience comes from Hotjoin, then it’s no wonder why ppl write such things.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Ele-Burst and MI-Shatters are more about prediction than anything else. But if the experience comes from Hotjoin, then it’s no wonder why ppl write such things.

> having to literally predict the future to dodge said instant cast bursts

I don’t see how this makes the claim that they’re undodgeable any less valid. And no, you can’t see this burst coming, it’s seriously instant cast burst damage.

Jzaku.9765:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Ele-Burst and MI-Shatters are more about prediction than anything else. But if the experience comes from Hotjoin, then it’s no wonder why ppl write such things.

> having to literally predict the future to dodge said instant cast bursts

I don’t see how this makes the claim that they’re undodgeable any less valid. And no, you can’t see this burst coming, it’s seriously instant cast burst damage.

I hate it when ppl missunderstand posts and come up with hate-answers back. “To predict a burst” is equal to “an instant burst”. Activate your brain. Also I was not referring to any poster or named one, so there is not need to feel personally attacked.
Thank you for your understanding and remain friendly towards each other.

I wasn’t particularly aiming for anyone either, much less you in particular. Just frustrated at the many posts in the thread that claim so. Sorry if I offended you!

Jzaku.9765:

I wasn’t particularly aiming for anyone either, much less you in particular. Just frustrated at the many posts in the thread that claim so. Sorry if I offended you!

We actually meant both the same, that’s why I’m a bit confused <(^^)>

To anyone who says that mesmer bursts are telegraphed and easily avoidable.
+ I’ve seen Helseth do this with Phase retreat for an instant gap-closer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkITLvrFvd8&feature=youtu.be

swinsk.6410:

Aegis? It’s not a problem agaisnt a noob, but what the problem is that when a guardian notices a thief break his aegis and then after he stealths he pops his aegis again, effectively cancelling out our elite and 1 hit from assasin signet. That’s already punishment enough for playing smart, and you people want to reveal the thief on top of that?

Aegis hmm.. just hit him one time in stealth its gone.. its blocked.. but your still in stealth tho xD

kaplis.7195:

To anyone who says that mesmer bursts are telegraphed and easily avoidable.
+ I’ve seen Helseth do this with Phase retreat for an instant gap-closer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkITLvrFvd8&feature=youtu.be

This seems untelegraphed to you? There’s only one time a mesmer will run up to and dodge into you. And that’s when he’s going to shatter. No mesmer just chooses to come toe to toe you.

Zenith.7301:

This seems untelegraphed to you? There’s only one time a mesmer will run up to and dodge into you. And that’s when he’s going to shatter. No mesmer just chooses to come toe to toe you.

That is kind of assuming both of you are kiting each other. It’s not like melee isn’t a thing that happens in this game, even if the current state of the game is terrible for it. Every class also occasionally drops into melee combat where you can execute this. Not to mention the teleports available to mesmers.

I wouldn’t mind having block reveal the thief. But the best counter to backstab? Evade. It’s a nice little tool tons of people seem forget they have the second the thief stealths. We only have a few seconds to land out backstab, so if the first one is blocked we have one shot left, which 90% of the times won’t land because of evade or just moving out of the way.

Thief is a weak class in sPvP where almost every game is based on spreading boons, conditions and locking down any enemy with knockdowns, interrupts, immobilizes and stuns. As a thief you’re really vulnerable, and one knockdown is often enough time to have it bursted down… A guardian can completely lock down a thief and kill it within seconds.

Actually, once again, stealth is the problem here. When you can see where the Thief is, the high burst is much less of a factor. Partly because the Thief can’t get behind you, and because it’s easier to block and hit with your AoE.

Geiir.7603:

I wouldn’t mind having block reveal the thief. But the best counter to backstab? Evade. It’s a nice little tool tons of people seem forget they have the second the thief stealths. We only have a few seconds to land out backstab, so if the first one is blocked we have one shot left, which 90% of the times won’t land because of evade or just moving out of the way.

Thief is a weak class in sPvP where almost every game is based on spreading boons, conditions and locking down any enemy with knockdowns, interrupts, immobilizes and stuns. As a thief you’re really vulnerable, and one knockdown is often enough time to have it bursted down… A guardian can completely lock down a thief and kill it within seconds.

Not true imo, thief is a very strong class in spvp/tpvp, dont underestimate it. Main is a mesmer, always been a strong class, played ele the normal tourny build 0/20/0/20/30, but playing as a thief now d/p is its a strong build if played correct, if you dont like boons and cond, play a s/d thief with lyssa. ^^

Thief is popular in hot joins. Those thieves I meet in tourneys are just free kills (pistol whipper here). Thief can be really strong if played right. But that means either going for no-stealth or the zerker backstab build (which is the one build everyone hates and the reason for all QQ). If we stealth we doesn’t contest the node, therefore we need to stay out of stealth or eliminate our enemy within seconds.

Jzaku.9765:

Zenith.7301:

This seems untelegraphed to you? There’s only one time a mesmer will run up to and dodge into you. And that’s when he’s going to shatter. No mesmer just chooses to come toe to toe you.

That is kind of assuming both of you are kiting each other. It’s not like melee isn’t a thing that happens in this game, even if the current state of the game is terrible for it. Every class also occasionally drops into melee combat where you can execute this. Not to mention the teleports available to mesmers.

You know not to risk melee range when you see a sword shatter spec mesmer running around, just like nobody would dare toe to toe a warrior in melee without a blind field. Because otherwise you get melted by axe auto or take a whirlwind to the face or make it easier to land a bullscharge/shield bash eviscerate.

And the mesmer teleport is a clone leap you can easily avoid, so if you get trapped in a swap it’s your own fault to begin with.

You are not entitled to melee anyone. Melee should always be an opportunity, not what’s expected.

Geiir.7603:

Thief is popular in hot joins. Those thieves I meet in tourneys are just free kills (pistol whipper here). Thief can be really strong if played right. But that means either going for no-stealth or the zerker backstab build (which is the one build everyone hates and the reason for all QQ). If we stealth we doesn’t contest the node, therefore we need to stay out of stealth or eliminate our enemy within seconds.

d/p here ^^ always at the teamfight! in stealth picking targets out bursting together.. go in stealth again.. We only contest when nobody is on the point.. ^^