Guild Wars 2

Lol. WvWvW was never meant to be balanced for professions, that’s my entire point. The developers have stated it themselves. The q.q here is silly. Go complain in the sPvP forums, there they deserve to be q.q’d against.

In WvWvW, with armies fighting, having a guy who can 2 shot you solo but dies in 2 seconds from an enemy squad/siege weapon or whatever WvWvW throws out at you… it really doesn’t mean kitten.

That’s completely wrong. ANet has always strived for balance in all game modes, although it’s true some will be more important than others.

Also, stop posting myths such as “it’s ok to two-shot because you die in 2 shots”. Mind explaining to me how does thief die faster than professions with weaker armor, with no defensive skills being used? You’re talking nonsense and probably playing thief.

How about this, give me a profession with 1 hit point, and ability to one shoot anything. Don’t even need stealth. Would you consider this balanced? Do you really think this would be balanced? I would be able to slaughter entire zergs in no time.

Seriously, I might as well delete my thief because it seems the profession attracts braindead people with superiority complex “look at me im super turbo cool awesome and skilled, I kill people in 2sec i rule”. It’s like that guy hacking orb who thinks he’s a Superman. Except he isn’t, it’s just the mechanics he uses that make him powerful.

28k total damage is 5.6k damage to 5 different targets.

That isn’t exactly groundbreaking.

Ok, so from the damage log it appears that most of the damage comes from a skill called Dancing Dagger. Let me explain how that skill works. A dagger is thrown in the direction of the target and if it hits it will deal damage, cripple and bounce to additional targets in the area. Now here’s the important part. The dagger does not have an explicit number of bounces before it disappears, it is on a timer system. This means the closer together the targets are, the more bounces there will be and the more damage the skill will cause. Additionally, the skill can and frequently does bounce back to it’s original target so the skill can hit you more than once. The typical amount of times the skill can hit you is two, but I’ve seen it hit three times if you are practically on top of an ally.

So here’s my theory on what happened to you. You are a ranger, so you always have your pet around you. The thief likely used Dancing Dagger on you, hitting you for about 1.5k had it bounce to your pet and then back to you for another roughly 1.5k. A 1.5k per hit with Dancing Dagger isn’t that strange for a high power thief build or a crit, but the fact that the skill is hitting you multiple times in quick succession due to the bouncing is racking up the damage.

So here’s my advice to you. If you’re on the ramparts, stow your pet to prevent skills bouncing back and forth. If that isn’t a preferable option, the skill is a direct projectile so you can counter that with skills that block or reflect projectiles (reflection is particularly nasty as the thief in question is likely sacrificing survivability for power for those kinds of hits). If that fails, the projectile can easily be obstructed by the ramparts themselves or by dodging the skill (dodging the first bounce will stop any further bounces). At the very least, either spread out from your allies or stand together with a group of more than 2 targets. Dancing Dagger does the most damage to one target when there are exactly two targets present because it guarantees bounces back and forth so if you’re by yourself or in a group of 3 or more the skill won’t do as much damage to you.

Ianervan.3415:

Seriously, I might as well delete my thief because it seems the profession attracts braindead people with superiority complex “look at me im super turbo cool awesome and skilled, I kill people in 2sec i rule”. It’s like that guy hacking orb who thinks he’s a Superman. Except he isn’t, it’s just the mechanics he uses that make him powerful.

The reason I stopped leveling up my thief long ago.
The class is unreasonable easy to play and ridiculously rewarding for that. It literally has “make me win and save my neck” skill, which I’m finding most disgraceful to all other classes.

Play a dagger/dagger Thief then get your “iwin” button on and tell me how it goes in WvW, there is trade off’s, but as far as I know because I can drop someone in 2 sec means that they can drop me in 2 sec. If you can’t do that then you made your role do something else in WvW/PvP.

Sorry that thief caught you with your pants off but get better awareness.

Today I was hit for 17K by one thief cluster bomb (short bow no. 2 skill slot). My hp is only 13K and that is it. One hit instant death. By the way, I was naked at that time to save on repair bill in WvW so the damage was unmitigated. But still 17K per hit is a big number especially when it come from a AOE spell.

People may feel thief is op. I would thought so. However, when I log in to play my thief char. OMFG. I can’t do more than 1K dmg on enemy before he kills me. The only explanation I can offer is because of my connection lag. I am playing from oceanic region and hence what I see on my screen is 2 second late. This would also mean I would have been dead 2 seconds earlier while I still think I am fighting at the moment.

Just qq-ing about my experience and frustration of GW2 pvp and thief class.

Here’s a thought. Maybe you got hit for 17k because you were naked. You’ll be missing around 1k armor just as a cloth wearer. I can only imagine how much if medium or heavy.

Keiel.7489:

Play a dagger/dagger Thief then get your “iwin” button on and tell me how it goes in WvW, there is trade off’s, but as far as I know because I can drop someone in 2 sec means that they can drop me in 2 sec. If you can’t do that then you made your role do something else in WvW/PvP.

I’m talking about skill requirements, not pants. Your “2 seconds” it’s two, maybe three skills. For us to pull out those “2 seconds” (which is not really 2, more like 10) we must use 5 to 7 skills. If we messed up – we’re dead for sure. But you can always run away pretty easily.

Halo.8976:

Keiel.7489:

Play a dagger/dagger Thief then get your “iwin” button on and tell me how it goes in WvW, there is trade off’s, but as far as I know because I can drop someone in 2 sec means that they can drop me in 2 sec. If you can’t do that then you made your role do something else in WvW/PvP.

I’m talking about skill requirements, not pants. Your “2 seconds” it’s two, maybe three skills. For us to pull out those “2 seconds” (which is not really 2, more like 10) we must use 5 to 7 skills. If we messed up – we’re dead for sure. But you can always run away pretty easily.

I am an engineer main and I did the Jinzu’s backstab build for spvp on my alt thief. Its not as hard as I thought and it does pop the enemy before he can even react. With the heal that comes with the stealth, the bow that evades you backwards and the dancing daggers that evade everything I find it hard to even die when I mess up the rotation. Its a very simple rotation (yeah, preemptively hitting two coating spells is not hard work, hitting a few buttons and remembering to hit the signet before backstab isnt as well), highly rewarding but with the stealth heal very low risk.

I find it sad that such a powerful build is so easy that it can be learnt in one day and look forward to the nerfhammer. The skill requirement is a lie, it is nothing compared to the kit swapping or atunement juggling of engineer and elementalists. Simple builds like this must be punished, more complex thief builds rewarded so the better player wins.

Im obviously salty so ill be rolling backstab thief for awhile.

EasymodeX.4062:

swilkers.5938:

EasymodeX.4062:

Oh, I thought this was going to be about CND-Mug-Signet-Backstab.

You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

So what does that mean? You can do more damage than 28K in two seconds?

Warriors can Kill Shot for >20k on glass 80s, and that’s at 1500 range.

rifle warriors die to a sneeze coming at their direction, with absolutly no way to avoid it
the problem is not the utterly ridiulous burst that thieves have. its that they have it in the class with most mobility and best “out of jail cards” in the game. a half competent thief will do that damage while being wildly survivable at the same time.

its having your cake and eating it too

Question, how long does it take for those skills to recharge (haven’t started playing my Thief yet). Its the answer is “awhile” then its no OP

@Xpiher:

Thief skill recharges do not work like other classes, thieves have an initiative system to manage their weapon skills. They can use the same skill multiple times in a row if they have initiative to pay for it, but the drawback it that this will disable their other skills until the initiative recharges. So yes, I can hit Dancing Dagger (the skill that did the most damage to the OP) a maximum of three times in less than a second because it costs 4 initiative and the maximum initiative pool is 13 units. The tradeoff then is that all other skills that use initiative (weapon skills 2-5) will be disabled until the iniative regenerates. So if the thief uses only Dancing Dagger they can use it three times in quick succession then they have to wait approximately 3-4 seconds before being able to use the skill again and cannot use any other weapon skill except auto attack in the meantime.

I also gave a detailed examination of the skill used and what the OP could have done to prevent the damage above here so you can check that out if you’re interested.

6 auto attacks and 2 dancing dagger casts. More than 2 seconds even with quickness.

Then again that was a glass cannon thief practically just auto attacking you till dead. Could probably do it faster than 2 seconds with perfect rotation signet backstab build.

Xpiher.5209:

Question, how long does it take for those skills to recharge (haven’t started playing my Thief yet). Its the answer is “awhile” then its no OP

Bad argument. If I had a nuke that killed everyone on the map, it wouldn’t be balanced even if it had a week long cooldown.

Cooldowns don’t mean anything in terms of balance.

Assassinin.4963:

Today I was hit for 17K by one thief cluster bomb (short bow no. 2 skill slot). My hp is only 13K and that is it. One hit instant death. By the way, I was naked at that time to save on repair bill in WvW so the damage was unmitigated. But still 17K per hit is a big number especially when it come from a AOE spell.

People may feel thief is op. I would thought so. However, when I log in to play my thief char. OMFG. I can’t do more than 1K dmg on enemy before he kills me. The only explanation I can offer is because of my connection lag. I am playing from oceanic region and hence what I see on my screen is 2 second late. This would also mean I would have been dead 2 seconds earlier while I still think I am fighting at the moment.

Just qq-ing about my experience and frustration of GW2 pvp and thief class.

30/30 thief with berserkers gear and scholar runes, maybe a orb buff, food buff and assassins signet with might stacks definitely doable. Tho that takes pretty special conditions.

I would say the projected damage for a cluster arrow with 30/30 build in berserkers gear is something between 2 to 7k being tough heavy armor wearers to scaled up light armor wearers.

Scribbles.7493:

Xpiher.5209:

Question, how long does it take for those skills to recharge (haven’t started playing my Thief yet). Its the answer is “awhile” then its no OP

Bad argument. If I had a nuke that killed everyone on the map, it wouldn’t be balanced even if it had a week long cooldown.

Cooldowns don’t mean anything in terms of balance.

Hyperbole

Cool downs do matter. Because if anything in the chain is messed up, then they have to wait a LONG TIME to do it again, meaning in the interim they are kittened.

2 seconds is enough time to interrupt at least 1 skill in the chain. If that stops you from dying while making the chain useless, then the chain isn’t op.

My Ele is sitting at around 2.3k toughness when in earth attunement, I’ve been hit by a 8.9k Backstab, my health is around 13.4k, that is a hit for over half my health pool and I am stacking toughness…sureley they need the spike damage toning down a bit.

If I was in some kind of glass cannon spec with hardly any toughness, that probably would have one shot my character. When I look through my combat log in WvW, which I do regularly to see how much damage I am taking, the biggest hits are always from thieves, it’s usually Backstabs or Clusterbombs. I also do see big hits from warriors too, but mainly thieves.

The melee in WvW is bad, if you are with a zerg and get picked off without them killing him and ressing you, well that is sad, you know you can res even after downed state which is weird. If thiefs don’t have the best burst in the game then they are just kitten warriors. thief ranged is useless.
They need to give melee anti aoe and group target or massive damage.

If you can’t understand that glass cannon builds have like 11k hp and only do that dmg to OTHER glass cannons.. Then i’d say you are out of wack

These builds can be 1-shot. If you’re with friends, and you should be in WvW, then they’ll die after.

If you’re solo, then this is going to happen vs. any glass cannon.

Coolmoos.8546:

If you can’t understand that glass cannon builds have like 11k hp and only do that dmg to OTHER glass cannons.. Then i’d say you are out of wack

I have 17k HP and I can do ~25k with a single pistol whip, I have seen warriors and guardians say that who are spec’d to tank.

It isn’t because of Pistol Whip I am doing this damage. It’s because I know how to get Might stacks. (Or plan out how I can get as many as possible before a fight)

Every class can do fine vs a Thief. They are just the best class for stomping on bads and people who don’t understand mechanics, which happens to be the vast majority of WvW players.

Stiv, that makes no sense. I can jump on a thief char and destroy anyone I come across in 2 seconds flat. when I jump on another class that isnt a bunker guardian, I am on the recieving end of the same situation.

I cannot be an awesometastic player on a thief, and the next minute suddenly forget how to play on a non-thief.

ergo, the thief class is remarkably easy to pwn with, which is the definition of overpowered, and they deserve the inmense, crippling nerf that is about to hit them…

@OP: Showing the combat log do not show that thief hit you for 28k in 2sec

Well I play a bunker Thief and have zero problems with glass thieves. They are actually the easiest setup to kill (if they get nerfed it won’t effect me at all)

People need to stop with the loldps specs and builds because yes those will be wrecked by other loldps and seeing as a thief’s mobility will almost always give them the first strike, it’s going to be a bad time.

Slot defensive cooldowns and gear some toughness/vit. If you don’t have a way to break a thief’s stun or root they will get a nice backstab after C&D/mug and if they are all crits, you are dead.

If you have something you can pop the instant they mug you, you can avoid the backstab. If you survive at all with any amount of health, you should be able to destroy them in a few seconds.

Sometimes you have to slot things just for whatever is bothering you. I hate the downed state so I slot quickness to stomp faster most of the time. Just change your utilities a bit to counter what your biggest problem is at the moment. Whatever class you are playing I’m sure has a counter to a glass thief’s opener.

Thieves are designed to be dominant in 1v1 combat. There is no intended 1v1 ocmbat in this game so it is not a balancing issue. If you are running around WvWvW all alone, you are not playing it right and have no room to complain about being ganked because you should be.

Thieves are not the only class that can down you in half a second. But any player who can will also die to you in 2 seconds if you are as talented as they are. Also those same players hurt their server in large scale battles and even somewhat in anything 5v5 or bigger which is most of the WvWvW combat.

TLDR: You are complaining about balancing around a situation that is not the normal for the game type that you were playing at the time. If 1 v 1 dueling was a regulated game type I would agree with you.

Well I play a glass cannon build and from my point of view A-Net should nerf bunker builds cos they are difficult for me to kill 1v1..
what’s the point? everyone here has a counter build, so everyone complain and cry for a nerf of that build..
cry more please

I think I was attacked once by one such solo thief, he got me to half health in like 1 second, but I managed to drink elixir S and get invulnerable for 3 sec, so his burst failed, and then few of my allies came and the ganker got ganked :P It was obvious though if my elixir were on CD or if i used it too slow, I’d be down in 2 seconds.

OMG please A.NET nerf dem!!! i play glass canon and wanna do massive aoe damage but those nasty thiefs always come from behind and do thier thief-ish stuff (my kitten hurts afterwards for some reason btw). please-please-please with cherry on top NERF DEM, remove stealth from the game omg coz i cant see them!! last day i was backtabbed by greatsword wielding thief for 100k dmg in less in 1 second!!! cant play at all!!

Fun fact: when I made my thief, ALL the people in Tutorial area were thieves except one person.

I feel this is BY FAR THE BEST solution to the Thief issue. Everyone makes a Thief.

Worst case scenario: They realize that playing a Thief is not all mai-tais and yahtzee.
Best case scenario: 50%+ of active players end up as thieves, which will finally force ANet to do something to address the issue. Unless they want to rename the game Thief Wars 2.

Best case scenario n.2: 50%+ of active players end up as squishy thieves and finally realize it’s not the thief being OP and maybe they’ll call for a glass cannon warrior nerf again

I also got mugged this morning:

Thief hit me with a 3,387 steal, 8,294 cloak and dagger, followed by a 13,798 backstab. Instantaneous damage. I was dead before I hit the ground.

MrSilver.5269:

I also got mugged this morning:

Thief hit me with a 3,387 steal, 8,294 cloak and dagger, followed by a 13,798 backstab. Instantaneous damage. I was dead before I hit the ground.

Yes and many of us told you the basics behind avoiding this. Guess it didn’t help or you don’t care to try?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/How-do-I-counter-this/first#post403790

btw Engs can do about 20K dmg in a couple seconds as well. Been done to me.

bunker Engs can easily counter any glass cannon squishy thief

Halo.8976:

Ianervan.3415:

Seriously, I might as well delete my thief because it seems the profession attracts braindead people with superiority complex “look at me im super turbo cool awesome and skilled, I kill people in 2sec i rule”. It’s like that guy hacking orb who thinks he’s a Superman. Except he isn’t, it’s just the mechanics he uses that make him powerful.

The reason I stopped leveling up my thief long ago.
The class is unreasonable easy to play and ridiculously rewarding for that. It literally has “make me win and save my neck” skill, which I’m finding most disgraceful to all other classes.

^^ I did this exact same thing. Flat out, easy-mode win class.

Stiv, with all due respect, dropping a smoke bomb, or bursting a thief down when you are jumped from stealth and dead in an instant really isn’t much of a suggestion.

But as for your comment, I HAVE tried full defensive trait builds, with all exotic power, toughness, vitality gear and jewels. I’ve speced into inventions and alchemy, taking the major defensive traits in the process. I’ve equipped all defensive utility skills. I’ve tried pretty much everything, as I’ve been playing since BWE1.

Against a backstab D/D thief…

Not so much.

They can just stealth and rest the fight.

My current glass cannon build allows be to beat virtually every other profession and spec by outplaying them. Not so with a thief. If they touch me, I die. PERIOD.

I regularly see thieves destroy in 3-1 odds against seasoned mmo gamers. I’ve been pvping in mmos since ’99. The people I play with have also been playing at least as long. Bottom line, I know OP when I see it…

…and I’ve seen it.

And yes, engineers can do massive damage in a short period of time, but that short period is 3-5 seconds, not <1. there is time to evade, to counter, and most importantly to react.

I guess that cuts to the core of my issue: against a backstab thief, there simply is no time to react.

But thanks again for your kind response.

No class should be killing another in two seconds. Quite a few classes currently do way too much damage. The thief is the worst offender, but not by as much as you’d think.

What makes thieves truly overpowered are the rendering issues in wuvwuv.

MrSilver.5269:

Stiv, with all due respect, dropping a smoke bomb, or bursting a thief down when you are jumped from stealth and dead in an instant really isn’t much of a suggestion.

But as for your comment, I HAVE tried full defensive trait builds, with all exotic power, toughness, vitality gear and jewels. I’ve speced into inventions and alchemy, taking the major defensive traits in the process. I’ve equipped all defensive utility skills. I’ve tried pretty much everything, as I’ve been playing since BWE1.

Against a backstab D/D thief…

Not so much.

They can just stealth and rest the fight.

My current glass cannon build allows be to beat virtually every other profession and spec by outplaying them. Not so with a thief. If they touch me, I die. PERIOD.

I regularly see thieves destroy in 3-1 odds against seasoned mmo gamers. I’ve been pvping in mmos since ’99. The people I play with have also been playing at least as long. Bottom line, I know OP when I see it…

…and I’ve seen it.

And yes, engineers can do massive damage in a short period of time, but that short period is 3-5 seconds, not <1. there is time to evade, to counter, and most importantly to react.

I guess that cuts to the core of my issue: against a backstab thief, there simply is no time to react.

But thanks again for your kind response.

I don’t know what to say other than those defensive abilities work for me. Since I don’t run that spec I have to worry about them just as much.

If you look at the sPvP forum they are complaining about defensive bunker builds and the fact glass cannons can’t kill them. I run a bunker build and only die when surprised by a glass cannon while I’m already fighting someone else. Smoke bombs, teleports and my Hp/Toughness allow me to survive the burst then outlast them /shrug

I really think a lot of people are complaining about dying in a distracted or outnumbered situation as well which should be a legit death.

@Stiv,

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

I guess I can give a power toughness build another go, but in WvW I find it to be so much less effective than an offensive spec, which obviously opens you up to one-shotting. In spvp a bunker build is much more viable, if not preferable.

In any event, thanks again.

Vorpal.4683:

No class should be killing another in two seconds. Quite a few classes currently do way too much damage. The thief is the worst offender, but not by as much as you’d think.

What makes thieves truly overpowered are the rendering issues in wuvwuv.

Pretty much sums it up. In the meantime, the guy who explained the dancing dagger mechanics gave some really good advice. Any skill that bounces is going to hurt you twice as badly when you’ve got exactly 1 other friendly beside you. I do this to rangers all the time with trick shot.

And yes, the really scary combo is the CnD -> Mug -> Signet + Backstab, that’s the one that is capable of dropping people 100-0 before they know they’re being attacked lol.

1. Dodge roll does not take 2 seconds and neither do most defensive moves.

2. We have 10k hp. you have double that. You hit us for 2k, we hit you for 4k, you do the math.

3. Pls stop cry and l2play this is just one of many threads crying about how hard thieves hit or how OP stealth is. Be real. I have a ranger as well, never had a problem killing thieves on it, even the fully geared ones. All my comrades, no problem killing thieves, especially the plate ones.

4. Anet is not going to nerf thieves based on a whole bunch of threads where people openly prove they either have a bad build to counter a certain thief build or they are simply not experienced enough to play their class and build correctly in order to beat a thief. Mind you, Anet also tests balance in Structured PVP, where theives are actually considered one of the weakest classes to play with aside from AOE hide and haste for rezzing.

Yes. In Spvp, thieves are considered Rezzers because people with experience who play their classes correctly can chew through 10k health and deal with the stealth just fine.

If you can’t, then you need to maybe try another class, or better yet, another game that doesn’t involve having forethought, strategy, and evades.

Anyone who thinks thieves aren’t easy mode haven’t played the other classes. It takes no thought or “skill” to dominate. You never have to die as a thief either.

Quit fooling yourselves. You aren’t better players – you are bringing a gun to a knife fight.

“4. Anet is not going to nerf thieves based on a whole bunch of threads where people openly prove they either have a bad build to counter a certain thief build or they are simply not experienced enough to play their class and build correctly in order to beat a thief. Mind you, Anet also tests balance in Structured PVP, where theives are actually considered one of the weakest classes to play with aside from AOE hide and haste for rezzing.”

Let’s hope not. I hope ANet sticks to their guns on this one. Playing a thief and a ranger, I feel like it is pretty balanced in sPvP. People who are more skilled generally play there instead of WvW.

And yeah, thief in sPvP is definitely not overpowered against able foes.

Killing people in 2 seconds from stealth is not fun and doesn’t make for good gameplay. Whether it can be countered or not.

This is simply a fact. Thief fanbois will continue to ignore this fact but hopefully arenanet will be smart enough to realize 2 second TTK does not make for a good game.

Two things – first, not everyThief can do this kind of damage. In fact, most can’t. You have to put everything into it, and in WvW, it’s not worth being useless in siege situations. So claiming it’s easy to be a Thief isn’t true for most builds.

And secondly, I agree that the glass cannon backstab build thieves are overpowered (my solution would be to nerf Assassin’s Signet and adjust CnD so it can’t be precasted with Steal), but the fact that so many people hate the Thief is a sign that ArenaNet did a good job designing the class. You’re supposed to hate them – they’re thieves! They are supposed to be, to quote someone in this thread, the “most disgraceful” class. Get rid of the instant kills, but leave their peskiness. They should be able to get away easily- that’s what makes a Thief a thief. This hatred is a sign that ArenaNet actually made a class that is more than a set of skills and weapons. I wish every class could rouse this kind of emotion – people should think warriors are dumb but strong, they should be weirded out by Necromancers, Mesmers should give everyone migraines…

Also, I doubt even a single one of you have a fully geared level 80 thief that you play on as well as another.

If so, go ahead, prove it and still personally complain about it.

I’m sure the devs will be busy at work filling out your hurt feelings form over all these QQ threads.

That was fun, BTW. good to pass my class time away!

See you all tomorrow when you cry some more!

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve seen such an obvious /meltdown on these forums. Congratulations I guess.

Again, the bottom line is 2 second TTK isn’t fun and doesn’t promote good gameplay. It’s got nothing to do with theives in particular. It’s just bad game design. People don’t like dying in 2 seconds to a stealthed character because it isn’t fun for anyone involved.

levelnine.7036:

OMG please A.NET nerf dem!!! i play glass canon and wanna do massive aoe damage but those nasty thiefs always come from behind and do thier thief-ish stuff (my kitten hurts afterwards for some reason btw). please-please-please with cherry on top NERF DEM, remove stealth from the game omg coz i cant see them!! last day i was backtabbed by greatsword wielding thief for 100k dmg in less in 1 second!!! cant play at all!!

Edjumacashun-get one.