Guild Wars 2

lol.
I love all the typical thief defenders.
“Oh we’re not broken, just use 14 dodges, call a psychic to predict stealthed movements, have 47000 toughness and 25k+ hp and always always roll in a group and you’ll be safe from thieves. See, balanced! Oh, no you won’t KILL the thief, oh goodness no. He’ll just stealth and speed off into the distance if something looks bad, but you’ll feel safe!” Yeah, I can kill thieves fine. If they’re stupid and don’t stealth properly to abuse culling, don’t move 2 steps back out of melee range when they stealth and never use their movement skills to get away and heal up while all my crap is on CD before getting to alpha strike again because they don’t have CD’s.

Point is that thieves only lose when they WANT to lose (or are played by paint chip eating plebs). Also invisibility is a stupid mechanic, and has been a stupid mechanic since UO.

Beyondthelol.9504:

Do some spvp?
Like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh5zjK7ITpQ
Seriously, stop kidding yourself.

Actually this is hysterical and at the same time so true. When i rolled my thief that was how i perceived it, there cant be a more easy mode profession in this game.

Lol, good one.

MarzAttakz.9608:

Azure Prower.8701:

Zerg at your door? Rain down fire and light them up! Get downed on the walls of the structure you’re defending? No problem! Vapour form hover away to safety!

Zerg at your door? Rain down deadly poison and blow them up with cluster bomb. Get downed on the walls of the structure you’re defending? No problem! Teleport out of the red circles to safety!

Azure Prower.8701:

Zerg planting down catapults from a short distance? Get your thief engines ready!

Step 1: Block with Smoke Bomb.
Step 2: Shadow Refuge run to their siege. Dagger Storm twirls of death!
Step 3: Survive.
Step 4: Stealth and run back into the keep!

Truly thieves are balanced too…

Any thief that shadow refuges by siege and players manning that siege is a bad thief. Any players that lets that thief shadow refuge next to their siege and not do anything about it are bad players.

Even if that thief shadow refuged a bit away from those players, it only lasts 14 seconds traited so they have given up DPS to get that stealth length and they also have to stay inside that shadow refuge for 3 or 4 seconds(can’t remember) to get that buff. It doesn’t work the way you are thinking and if it did, the players defending against that one thief are not very good because it takes a bit longer that you are stating to down siege with a thief.

I love to run into that shadow refuge and knock that thief out.

Here is a tip…if you leave shadow refuge before the house goes away, you get put on revealed and cannot stealth for 3 seconds.

The purpose is to Shadow Refuge out of sight BEFORE you hit the siege, you know stealth the entire hit party not use Shadow Refuge to get away. You have enough mobility and stealth skills to get back inside alive as a thief.

We run a hit squad consisting of two thieves + 3 ele’s or three thieves + 2 ele’s. One thief will clusterbomb spam in a fire field to stack might, once done, we Shadow Refuge the party so we have the full duration of stealth, one of the ele’s switch to air for swiftness and we get into position. Just before we hit the ele in air applies shocking aura for further swiftness and fury stacks while the other applies frozen aura, again stacking fury and swiftness duration. Then the ele’s switch to earth (protection boon up) begin channeling Churning Earth and Lightning Flash onto the siege. Our thieves will either Dagger Storm or go full single target on the equipment depending on the density of defenders. Ele’s go fire and drop what we can and we all make our own way back. Repeat when cooldowns have expired.

I’ll admit BAD elementalists will use Vapor Form (downed skill) to get back inside(gladly remove it from the downed skill, but not the utility skill), good elementalists on the other hand know when to pull out and will use a combination of Ride the Lightning, Armor of Earth, Lightning Flash and Mist Form to get back inside.

On the other hand if AOE actually did proper damage we wouldn’t have to resort to wading through 25 people stacked outside the gate.

MarzAttakz.9608:

The purpose is to Shadow Refuge out of sight BEFORE you hit the siege, you know stealth the entire hit party not use Shadow Refuge to get away. You have enough mobility and stealth skills to get back inside alive as a thief.

I’ll admit BAD elementalists will use Vapor Form (downed skill) to get back inside(gladly remove it from the downed skill, but not the utility skill), good elementalists on the other hand know when to pull out and will use a combination of Ride the Lightning, Armor of Earth, Lightning Flash and Mist Form to get back inside.

On the other hand if AOE actually did proper damage we wouldn’t have to resort to wading through 25 people stacked outside the gate.

I’ve not yet seen anyone able to shadow refuge within that 14 second window out of sight unless they were inside a keep. Even then, they still don’t have enough DPS to break the siege by themselves and survive while I was manning siege in the open.

Bad players would let it happen. Good players understand right away and will deal with it usually requiring the other side to portal bomb the siege then because their thief died.

Spacchiuso.5230:

Kormona.7156:

Stealth finishing is something i hope get removed.

While stealth the thief can take damage, knockback ecc… we don’t have access to stability while finishing… and what do u think for example for the Invulnerable Engi stomp with Elixir S?

at least you can see them stomping.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Bad players would let it happen. Good players understand right away and will deal with it usually requiring the other side to portal bomb the siege then because their thief died.

You missed an edit explaining what I meant, yet again I’ll state thieves think too much in terms of “ME” and not enough in terms of “WE”. Of course a solo thief won’t have the dps to take down siege singlehandedly, no class can, but working in conjunction it is possible.

I’m quoting the bit you missed (sorry about that).

We run a hit squad consisting of two thieves + 3 ele’s or three thieves + 2 ele’s. One thief will clusterbomb spam in a fire field to stack might, once done, we Shadow Refuge the party so we have the full duration of stealth, one of the ele’s switch to air for swiftness and we get into position. Just before we hit the ele in air applies shocking aura for further swiftness and fury stacks while the other applies frozen aura, again stacking fury and swiftness duration. Then the ele’s switch to earth (protection boon up) begin channeling Churning Earth and Lightning Flash onto the siege. Our thieves will either Dagger Storm or go full single target on the equipment depending on the density of defenders. Ele’s go fire and drop what we can and we all make our own way back. Repeat when cooldowns have expired.

Heck replace a thief or an ele with a mesmer in the hitsquad I’ve outlined and you have a safe portal delivery with maximum initial first contact.

The problem is that thieves are both the ultimate DPS and the ultimate tanks.

Their WvW tankiness comes from the fact that you can’t consistently hit them. It makes them the hardest to kill class. It’s harder to down a thief than it is to down a bunker elementalist. Honestly, bunker elementalists don’t even stand out in most fights because once 10 people focus on them, they go down very fast anyway. When 10 people turn on a thief it can still take several minutes to down him, if you ever can, as he flits in and out of stealth and avoids just about all roots, conditions and hits by simply vanishing over and over.

I also don’t get why Daggerstorm is one of the most effective elites in the game with one of the shortest cooldowns (and why must it also reflect all projectiles AND give stability??)

Thief is a ridiculous class and more and more people are flocking to it.

Slamz.5376:

I also don’t get why Daggerstorm is one of the most effective elites in the game with one of the shortest cooldowns (and why must it also reflect all projectiles AND give stability??)

Because it’s thief wars 2 man.

I play warrior, thief and elementalist in WvW, warrior most of the time now. I can’t think that I’ve ever lost a 1v1 with a thief while on my warrior. Sometimes they escape, and sometimes I have to back off, but never lost. And the reason is simply that I used to play thief alot and I know its strengths and weaknesses, unlike alot of the posters spreading mis-information in this thread. I’m not trying to brag, I’m really not particularly good at PvP, I’ve just taken the time to learn how other classes work. There are so many people on this forum claiming that you can’t be damaged in stealth, or that you can perma-stealth, or that daggerstorm is an absurdly powerful elite. Using daggerstom in a 1v1 or any melee situation is the surest and fastest way to get yourself killed as a thief. When I see a thief start daggerstorm while I’m on my warrior, I smile inside, ‘cos I’ve as good as won at that point. Most don’t even seem to be aware that the Revealed debuff exists.

Thief’s stealth is supposed to be limited by the Revealed debuff, and the only problem with the class is that rendering issues are making a joke of Revealed. The only “nerf” needed is either to fix the rendering issue, or increase the uptime of Revealed slightly (maybe from 3 seconds to 5 or 6) so that it can do its job properly.

They’re definitely not a weak class, and if played well can be amazing, but equally they have plenty of counters if people would only learn them. If you’re roaming and you encounter a thief, they’ll most likely stealth at about 800-1000 range. Wait 2 seconds, throw up a block/invul, let them waste their steal/CnD, use any single immobilize/knockdown, and congrats, you’ve just beaten about 90% of the thieves in WvW by using a grand total of 2 moves. And if they’re in the 10% of good players who really know how to play, why shouldn’t they be able to beat you just because they’re thief?

Ragnar.4257:

I play warrior, thief and elementalist in WvW, warrior most of the time now. I can’t think that I’ve ever lost a 1v1 with a thief while on my warrior. Sometimes they escape, and sometimes I have to back off, but never lost. And the reason is simply that I used to play thief alot and I know its strengths and weaknesses, unlike alot of the posters spreading mis-information in this thread. I’m not trying to brag, I’m really not particularly good at PvP, I’ve just taken the time to learn how other classes work. There are so many people on this forum claiming that you can’t be damaged in stealth, or that you can perma-stealth, or that daggerstorm is an absurdly powerful elite. Using daggerstom in a 1v1 or any melee situation is the surest and fastest way to get yourself killed as a thief. When I see a thief start daggerstorm while I’m on my warrior, I smile inside, ‘cos I’ve as good as won at that point. Most don’t even seem to be aware that the Revealed debuff exists.

Thief’s stealth is supposed to be limited by the Revealed debuff, and the only problem with the class is that rendering issues are making a joke of Revealed. The only “nerf” needed is either to fix the rendering issue, or increase the uptime of Revealed slightly (maybe from 3 seconds to 5 or 6) so that it can do its job properly.

They’re definitely not a weak class, and if played well can be amazing, but equally they have plenty of counters if people would only learn them. If you’re roaming and you encounter a thief, they’ll most likely stealth at about 800-1000 range. Wait 2 seconds, throw up a block/invul, let them waste their steal/CnD, use any single immobilize/knockdown, and congrats, you’ve just beaten about 90% of the thieves in WvW. And if they’re in the 10% of good players who really know how to play, why shouldn’t they be able to beat you just because they’re thief?

excellent post!

thieves have a few things to tweek as you say but the level to which people claim they are overpowered is just pure misinformation.

MarzAttakz.9608:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Bad players would let it happen. Good players understand right away and will deal with it usually requiring the other side to portal bomb the siege then because their thief died.

You missed an edit explaining what I meant, yet again I’ll state thieves think too much in terms of “ME” and not enough in terms of “WE”. Of course a solo thief won’t have the dps to take down siege singlehandedly, no class can, but working in conjunction it is possible.

I’m quoting the bit you missed (sorry about that).

We run a hit squad consisting of two thieves + 3 ele’s or three thieves + 2 ele’s. One thief will clusterbomb spam in a fire field to stack might, once done, we Shadow Refuge the party so we have the full duration of stealth, one of the ele’s switch to air for swiftness and we get into position. Just before we hit the ele in air applies shocking aura for further swiftness and fury stacks while the other applies frozen aura, again stacking fury and swiftness duration. Then the ele’s switch to earth (protection boon up) begin channeling Churning Earth and Lightning Flash onto the siege. Our thieves will either Dagger Storm or go full single target on the equipment depending on the density of defenders. Ele’s go fire and drop what we can and we all make our own way back. Repeat when cooldowns have expired.

Heck replace a thief or an ele with a mesmer in the hitsquad I’ve outlined and you have a safe portal delivery with maximum initial first contact.

So you are talking about an organize party then. Big deal.

If your small party is still able to survive through a larger force to get to their siege, then the other force isn’t very bright. You are not being over powered, they are not playing smart.

You are also getting combo buffs off the ele.

I love ele in my party also. They have great combo buffs. My DPS goes up when I get their buffs.

Ragnar.4257:

They’re definitely not a weak class, and if played well can be amazing, but equally they have plenty of counters if people would only learn them. If you’re roaming and you encounter a thief, they’ll most likely stealth at about 800-1000 range. Wait 2 seconds, throw up a block/invul, let them waste their steal/CnD, use any single immobilize/knockdown, and congrats, you’ve just beaten about 90% of the thieves in WvW by using a grand total of 2 moves.

I play a thief and know how to counter them, but if I am distracted (say fighting someone else), or have taken any damage, or didn’t see them coming (it is impossible to see all around you at all times), or have my abilities on cool down, or get CC’d by a thief’s ally, or make one mistake I am dead almost instantly with about 1.5 seconds to react or recover (based on videos). Outside of a couple of classes, even investing into defensive specs and gear wont help much, as many testimonies and videos will attest. The burst is just OP currently in WvW.

And if you don’t have any of those disadvantageous and you know how to counter a thief, a good thief knows how to reset fights.

Ragnar.4257:

And if they’re in the 10% of good players who really know how to play, why shouldn’t they be able to beat you just because they’re thief?

I disagree the 10% you spoke of should win just by nature of being good at play a thief. That almost makes the case that the class is too powerful when you say a good thief should win for sure.

I don’t want thieves nerfed to the ground, but they need to be adjusted. I am not sure how to do this, because the initiative system gives them a huge advantage in flexibility and that combined with all the other advantages of a thief like the best mobility, easy access to stealth, the best burst ect. makes them too powerful.

I don’t have as much of an issue with the whole stealth thing as a lot of people do. There are ways to counter it and ways that you will be susceptible to it based on how you are built. That is the way it is going to be whenever two people face off – somebody will have an advantage because of how each is built.

However, what I do have a problem with in thieves is the whole zero-risk attack mechanic. They can come out of nowhere, try to burst you down, and if it fails for whatever reason, jet the hell out of there, no harm done. Too good of a player for me? So long! Allies of the enemy show up? Oh crap, I’m out! It’s ridiculous. And what’s worse is that you can do that perpetually. Harass, get out, harass, get out, on and on until the person makes a mistake or mentally fatigues.

Thankfully most thief builds are still extremely glassy and rely on melee. It’s the tankier ones that utilize range that you need to watch out for.

Learn to out-think the thief’s next step and utilize auto-attack and AoE to reveal where they are hiding. Once you get good at predicting their next step, dealing with the thief becomes a lot easier. Usually it comes down to me hitting them at the same time as they are attacking me, relying on my tankiness, and most of the time I win those confrontations.

I also have lots of channel skills which hit the thief even while they are stealthed.

Theres a reason most of what you fight in wvw is Thief/Mesmer/Ele

Developers made a huge mistake letting thieves get invisibility during fight.
The concept of assassin is sudden attack, OP damage and fast retreat.
The concept of GW2 thief is totally wrong because of stealth spamming during fight.
If anyone of you have played Aion you should remember their stealth feature — only one possibility to get stealth during fight, assassins used that for retreat.
Honestly, I don’t know how to make such concept in GW2. You have a definite skill set. And all of them can be blocked only during their CD. Nothing can be blocked based on condition «combat mode» – «normal mode». Giving stealth skills very long CD is a bad idea also.

The only solution I can offer is putting permanent Revealed debuff on thieves during combat and giving them elite stealth skill with long CD which breaks Revealed debuff so they can retreat.

I don’t mind current thieves’ dps though, considering their weak defence capabilities

1 on 1 Thieves are supposed to be good, so I don’t recommend attacking them unless your experienced (I don’t do it).
But I would like to add that Rifles “Volley” skill still hits thieves in stealth so try and time it to when they are about to go into stealth so you know where they are going (you can see the bullets flying in the direction he’s in).
“Kill Shot” also follows thieves in stealth so use this when they are around under at least under 50% health. Do not use it if they are in full health or else it won’t do enough damage to kill them in one hit (at least it wont for me in full knights gear).
Its so funny to see them get out of stealth on the floor, I bet they are thinking “what happened?”

I don’t get it why people keep focusing on thief nerf, seems to me that you guys just don’t understand WvW :/

MarzAttakz.9608:

The purpose is to Shadow Refuge out of sight BEFORE you hit the siege, you know stealth the entire hit party not use Shadow Refuge to get away. You have enough mobility and stealth skills to get back inside alive as a thief.

We run a hit squad consisting of two thieves + 3 ele’s or three thieves + 2 ele’s. One thief will clusterbomb spam in a fire field to stack might, once done, we Shadow Refuge the party so we have the full duration of stealth, one of the ele’s switch to air for swiftness and we get into position. Just before we hit the ele in air applies shocking aura for further swiftness and fury stacks while the other applies frozen aura, again stacking fury and swiftness duration. Then the ele’s switch to earth (protection boon up) begin channeling Churning Earth and Lightning Flash onto the siege. Our thieves will either Dagger Storm or go full single target on the equipment depending on the density of defenders. Ele’s go fire and drop what we can and we all make our own way back. Repeat when cooldowns have expired.

I’ll admit BAD elementalists will use Vapor Form (downed skill) to get back inside(gladly remove it from the downed skill, but not the utility skill), good elementalists on the other hand know when to pull out and will use a combination of Ride the Lightning, Armor of Earth, Lightning Flash and Mist Form to get back inside.

On the other hand if AOE actually did proper damage we wouldn’t have to resort to wading through 25 people stacked outside the gate.

You do realize that most of the damage dealt to that siege.. comes from the ele and not the thief right

Only thing a thief can do is poke whoever using that siege maybe down him and try to stay alive.

I don’t know what server you play.. but on mine.. going on a single party against a 20+ zerg would end up on a really sad day.

Jade quarry by the way

BroScientist.9875:

I think thieves being able to stealth finish is the most aggravating mechanic in the game, makes me rage every time it happens.

At least a thief can still be killed with AoE when he uses stealth to defeat. Unlike professions that use invulnerability skills like elixir S, Mist Form, Aegis etc.

Ragnar.4257:

I play warrior, thief and elementalist in WvW, warrior most of the time now. I can’t think that I’ve ever lost a 1v1 with a thief while on my warrior. Sometimes they escape, and sometimes I have to back off, but never lost.

One of the chief points of the thread is not 1v1, but the ability to stop a thief from destroying siege engines.

With their ability to constantly stealth, it’s virtually impossible to keep them off of siege. The best you can do is AE the area and get them to move away but that’s only going to keep them off for about 5 seconds, and then they’ll be back.

Net result is always the same:
10+ siege defenders are running around swinging wildly at the air while the thief pops around slowly killing all the siege in the field. 1 thief can still be there dealing damage long after a group of 5 bunker elementalists (or any other class or combo) would have been killed.

Invisibility is simply the best “tank” ability in the game, and it’s on the highest DPS class.

Slamz.5376:

Ragnar.4257:

I play warrior, thief and elementalist in WvW, warrior most of the time now. I can’t think that I’ve ever lost a 1v1 with a thief while on my warrior. Sometimes they escape, and sometimes I have to back off, but never lost.

One of the chief points of the thread is not 1v1, but the ability to stop a thief from destroying siege engines.

With their ability to constantly stealth, it’s virtually impossible to keep them off of siege. The best you can do is AE the area and get them to move away but that’s only going to keep them off for about 5 seconds, and then they’ll be back.

Net result is always the same:
10+ siege defenders are running around swinging wildly at the air while the thief pops around slowly killing all the siege in the field. 1 thief can still be there dealing damage long after a group of 5 bunker elementalists (or any other class or combo) would have been killed.

Invisibility is simply the best “tank” ability in the game, and it’s on the highest DPS class.

Done this a million times on my thief.. I have the timing down perfectly that I run across the siege one direction, CND keep going, turn back, by the time I reach the seige again I’m casting CND just as stealth’s wearing off. (dodge rolls included to avoid most damage <3 acro). If I feel like I got the attackers scattered enough to pull off a string of autos or a kill on the operator(or if I just have my stealthing utils available) then I do that, which happens quite often.

I’ve ran around countless times in 30 man attacker zergs doing this.. I’ve done it inside towers when defenders are sieging a choke point (ty steal.shadowstep for getting me in the backline). I’ve done it against countless situations and it almost always works.

I realize it’s cheesy and mostly due to culling.. But I say all this to point out that as a thief player, no just spamming AOE or CC’s is not going to stop it unless you get very lucky or the thief is not very good. As someone who runs a more balanced build, the aoe’s are laughable and the CC’s unless chained aren’t going to get me low enough that I can’t survive and heal back up.

About the only thing that ever really hinders me is multiple necros spamming marks and Mesmers using focus pulls at just the right time along with other people reacting fast to it.

Oh btw the thing that really makes this shine is that even when I get in trouble on the siege.. I shadow step away and out of EVERY 30 man zerg even if there is 20 aware players, there are at least 5-10 inexperienced easy to spot CND fodder players.

Slamz.5376:

Ragnar.4257:

I play warrior, thief and elementalist in WvW, warrior most of the time now. I can’t think that I’ve ever lost a 1v1 with a thief while on my warrior. Sometimes they escape, and sometimes I have to back off, but never lost.

One of the chief points of the thread is not 1v1, but the ability to stop a thief from destroying siege engines.

With their ability to constantly stealth, it’s virtually impossible to keep them off of siege. The best you can do is AE the area and get them to move away but that’s only going to keep them off for about 5 seconds, and then they’ll be back.

Net result is always the same:
10+ siege defenders are running around swinging wildly at the air while the thief pops around slowly killing all the siege in the field. 1 thief can still be there dealing damage long after a group of 5 bunker elementalists (or any other class or combo) would have been killed.

Invisibility is simply the best “tank” ability in the game, and it’s on the highest DPS class.

An ele can block trebs from hitting the door/wall. Whats the point again?

skupuz.6940:

Slamz.5376:

Ragnar.4257:

I play warrior, thief and elementalist in WvW, warrior most of the time now. I can’t think that I’ve ever lost a 1v1 with a thief while on my warrior. Sometimes they escape, and sometimes I have to back off, but never lost.

One of the chief points of the thread is not 1v1, but the ability to stop a thief from destroying siege engines.

With their ability to constantly stealth, it’s virtually impossible to keep them off of siege. The best you can do is AE the area and get them to move away but that’s only going to keep them off for about 5 seconds, and then they’ll be back.

Net result is always the same:
10+ siege defenders are running around swinging wildly at the air while the thief pops around slowly killing all the siege in the field. 1 thief can still be there dealing damage long after a group of 5 bunker elementalists (or any other class or combo) would have been killed.

Invisibility is simply the best “tank” ability in the game, and it’s on the highest DPS class.

An ele can block trebs from hitting the door/wall. Whats the point again?

It takes multiple Ele’s coordinating on VOIP to actually prevent the wall/gate from going down. It takes 1 thief to kill the siege, I think that’s the point.

teg.1340:

xKedge.5493:

I was talking of Ele daggers.. and I can get around 14+stacks of might on ele with 3 times the survivability of a thief and faceroll 3-4 people while i cant do that on a thief unless they bad.

No matter which ele you meant, your statements are plain wrong. Ele is the profession with the lowest HP + Toughness. But ele is forced to compensate by running full PVT + clerics.

So pls stop pretending thief has so few HP + toughness. The reason most thieves have lower HP + toughness is because they run full glass canon. The reaons is thieves – as the ONLY profession – dont have to rely on defensive stats because stealth is such a powerful defensive tool without any counter (aoe is no counter to stealth because it does not break stealth).

you do realize that zerk build 11k hp with less than 2k thoughness..

And any ele that don’t use daggers build.. is just horrible for running on staff roaming.

I can bet you all my money that dagger ele would break zerk thief any day of the week. If you know how to play.

Zerk thief actually one of the worst builds and only gets rewarded by people running bad builds.

If you can’t burst down 11k hp in seconds.. I duno what anet can do for you.

Now the topic was about guardian, warrior and ele not being available to kill 1 person. Giving that “thief” kills one of them. Other 2 have enough cc to get him up and ress him Then kill the thief.

Shadow refugee has 1 min cd and blinding powder 40 sec. That means cant really be spammable. Sure you can cloak and dagger but also can be block by aegis/dodge/miss.

On my logic.. Warrior will have around 2-5 cc, guardian 2-5 and ele around 2-3. If you cant burst down 11k hp with that much cc and lack of stability. I duno what you can do.

Zerk build actually not great on more than 3 vs 1. Feel free to play a thief on spvp and try 1v1 anyone or make one to 80. You will notice the difference when you actually the one trying to survive. Its not a “stealth” full hp instant.

skupuz.6940:

An ele can block trebs from hitting the door/wall. Whats the point again?

Exaggeration.

I don’t like elementalists being able to block treb shots either but the only way to reliably stop a treb from damaging a wall is to stand in front of the wall, which isn’t going to be tolerated for long. The real use of swirling winds is to stop a treb from being hit by another treb. Then you can stand beside it (likely on top of a wall or inside a tower), block shots AND be perfectly safe.

dank.3680:

skupuz.6940:

Slamz.5376:

Ragnar.4257:

I play warrior, thief and elementalist in WvW, warrior most of the time now. I can’t think that I’ve ever lost a 1v1 with a thief while on my warrior. Sometimes they escape, and sometimes I have to back off, but never lost.

One of the chief points of the thread is not 1v1, but the ability to stop a thief from destroying siege engines.

With their ability to constantly stealth, it’s virtually impossible to keep them off of siege. The best you can do is AE the area and get them to move away but that’s only going to keep them off for about 5 seconds, and then they’ll be back.

Net result is always the same:
10+ siege defenders are running around swinging wildly at the air while the thief pops around slowly killing all the siege in the field. 1 thief can still be there dealing damage long after a group of 5 bunker elementalists (or any other class or combo) would have been killed.

Invisibility is simply the best “tank” ability in the game, and it’s on the highest DPS class.

An ele can block trebs from hitting the door/wall. Whats the point again?

It takes multiple Ele’s coordinating on VOIP to actually prevent the wall/gate from going down. It takes 1 thief to kill the siege, I think that’s the point.

I don’t know how in your server.. you don’t get punish but in my server when i do that to a good guild. I be spam with everything they got. Its nearly impossible getting 1-100% siege just by yourself and in case you do it.. Theres probably gonna be more than 1 cata.. most likely will be 2-4 cata + treb + arrowcart/ballista.

Gl with all the mesmer pulls and warrior/guardian hammers.

Slamz.5376:

skupuz.6940:

An ele can block trebs from hitting the door/wall. Whats the point again?

Exaggeration.

I don’t like elementalists being able to block treb shots either but the only way to reliably stop a treb from damaging a wall is to stand in front of the wall, which isn’t going to be tolerated for long. The real use of swirling winds is to stop a treb from being hit by another treb. Then you can stand beside it (likely on top of a wall or inside a tower), block shots AND be perfectly safe.

As a thief how do I protect my treb from getting hit by another treb?

xKedge.5493:

dank.3680:

skupuz.6940:

Slamz.5376:

Ragnar.4257:

I play warrior, thief and elementalist in WvW, warrior most of the time now. I can’t think that I’ve ever lost a 1v1 with a thief while on my warrior. Sometimes they escape, and sometimes I have to back off, but never lost.

One of the chief points of the thread is not 1v1, but the ability to stop a thief from destroying siege engines.

With their ability to constantly stealth, it’s virtually impossible to keep them off of siege. The best you can do is AE the area and get them to move away but that’s only going to keep them off for about 5 seconds, and then they’ll be back.

Net result is always the same:
10+ siege defenders are running around swinging wildly at the air while the thief pops around slowly killing all the siege in the field. 1 thief can still be there dealing damage long after a group of 5 bunker elementalists (or any other class or combo) would have been killed.

Invisibility is simply the best “tank” ability in the game, and it’s on the highest DPS class.

An ele can block trebs from hitting the door/wall. Whats the point again?

It takes multiple Ele’s coordinating on VOIP to actually prevent the wall/gate from going down. It takes 1 thief to kill the siege, I think that’s the point.

I don’t know how in your server.. you don’t get punish but in my server when i do that to a good guild. I be spam with everything they got. Its nearly impossible getting 1-100% siege just by yourself and in case you do it.. Theres probably gonna be more than 1 cata.. most likely will be 2-4 cata + treb + arrowcart/ballista.

Gl with all the mesmer pulls and warrior/guardian hammers.

Good luck hitting me with all that when I have near endless dodges with acrobatics, vigor on heal, vigor from steal and endurance regen food. And like I said before, if I do get hit, shadowstep to the nearest noob and get a stealth and run around CND the clueless till I have my “oh shiat” cd’s again.

Oh btw I’ve played on pretty much every server.. Including multiple T1 servers.

The funny thing about it is, the more ppl there is, the harder it is for a class like ele to do anything.. The more people there is, the easier it is for a thief.

xKedge.5493:

I don’t know what server you play.. but on mine.. going on a single party against a 20+ zerg would end up on a really sad day. Jade quarry by the way

I know what server you play.. but on mine.. going a single party that knows what they’re doing against a 40+ zerg sometimes end up on a really sad day. Desolation by the way.

The other day Wild Bill posted a (thief) video soloing a Tower & Keep lord group.
I’m sure he is playing his class excellently. But I think no class should be able to solo
these groups and if they can, something is wrong and broken. I don’t know how other classes would look attempting the same task.

Mesmer here. Basilisk d&d thiefs who know what they are doing, are very strong opponents indeed.
Fortunately most thiefs out there don’t understand how to take full advantage of stealth. Some of them even start to spin during a fight for who knows what reason. That always make me shake my head and say “You aren’t serious are you ?”.

My opinion is that thief isn’t op. They are strong when played right, like they should be.

I think the real reason why thief seems op is this: thiefs roam and seek duels. They are very experienced in fighting 1v1, 2v1 or even 3v1. Is it really a suprise an experienced roamer thief beats a couple of zerger-badge-farmers?

teg.1340:

xKedge.5493:

Do damage?

Most of the classes you mention can outlast a thief and even burst him.

Lets see..

Warrior/Guardian/Ele CC > thief CC
Warrior/Guardian/Ele HP > Thief Hp
Warrior/Guardian/Ele Though> Thief Though

Wrong. Ele has lowest HP + Toughness of all professions.

Lol and these thieves are trying to tell us to get our facts straight before complaining about thieves?

ROOOFLLLLL

Master of Timespace.2548:

I think the real reason why thief seems op is this: thiefs roam and seek duels. They are very experienced in fighting 1v1, 2v1 or even 3v1. Is it really a suprise an experienced roamer thief beats a couple of zerger-badge-farmers?

No, sorry. The whole defense that you guys have on the silly powerful classes of “Oh, see, we’re just all more skilled than people on other classes, that’s why. It’s not the class balance at all man. Like, we’re just soooooo amazing and everyone on other classes is terrible. For cereal bro.” Yeah, it’s a bullkitten argument full of absurdity.

I mean I could really care less how the balance hammer swings tbh, that’s just how these games are, but silly defenses are silly.

MarzAttakz.9608:

Azure Prower.8701:

Zerg at your door? Rain down fire and light them up! Get downed on the walls of the structure you’re defending? No problem! Vapour form hover away to safety!

Zerg at your door? Rain down deadly poison and blow them up with cluster bomb. Get downed on the walls of the structure you’re defending? No problem! Teleport out of the red circles to safety!

Azure Prower.8701:

Zerg planting down catapults from a short distance? Get your thief engines ready!

Step 1: Block with Smoke Bomb.
Step 2: Shadow Refuge run to their siege. Dagger Storm twirls of death!
Step 3: Survive.
Step 4: Stealth and run back into the keep!

Truly thieves are balanced too…

On top of that none is mentioning here that you can stay in stealth almost indefinitely in freshly captured structures and rez the mesmer who is dead followed by portaling the entire team in.

But NEVERMIND that would required the full time thieves to think about something else than themselves.

I mean have you ever seen a thief blocking siege shots? lol

erza.2537:

I mean have you ever seen a thief blocking siege shots? lol

Come to CD BL/EB at most evening (GMT+8), where you can see one not-so-stealthy thief & one ele tag team defending treb/catapult fr incoming catapult/ballista shots during breakout events ^^

loneknight.8425:

erza.2537:

I mean have you ever seen a thief blocking siege shots? lol

Come to CD BL/EB at most evening (GMT+8), where you can see one not-so-stealthy thief & one ele tag team defending treb/catapult fr incoming catapult/ballista shots during breakout events ^^

Hey i’m sure there are some but i have honestly never ever seen one been playing since beta and mostly wvw. Blackgate.

Ragnar.4257:

I play warrior, thief and elementalist in WvW, warrior most of the time now. I can’t think that I’ve ever lost a 1v1 with a thief while on my warrior. Sometimes they escape, and sometimes I have to back off, but never lost. And the reason is simply that I used to play thief alot and I know its strengths and weaknesses, unlike alot of the posters spreading mis-information in this thread. I’m not trying to brag, I’m really not particularly good at PvP, I’ve just taken the time to learn how other classes work. There are so many people on this forum claiming that you can’t be damaged in stealth, or that you can perma-stealth, or that daggerstorm is an absurdly powerful elite. Using daggerstom in a 1v1 or any melee situation is the surest and fastest way to get yourself killed as a thief. When I see a thief start daggerstorm while I’m on my warrior, I smile inside, ‘cos I’ve as good as won at that point. Most don’t even seem to be aware that the Revealed debuff exists.

Thief’s stealth is supposed to be limited by the Revealed debuff, and the only problem with the class is that rendering issues are making a joke of Revealed. The only “nerf” needed is either to fix the rendering issue, or increase the uptime of Revealed slightly (maybe from 3 seconds to 5 or 6) so that it can do its job properly.

They’re definitely not a weak class, and if played well can be amazing, but equally they have plenty of counters if people would only learn them. If you’re roaming and you encounter a thief, they’ll most likely stealth at about 800-1000 range. Wait 2 seconds, throw up a block/invul, let them waste their steal/CnD, use any single immobilize/knockdown, and congrats, you’ve just beaten about 90% of the thieves in WvW by using a grand total of 2 moves. And if they’re in the 10% of good players who really know how to play, why shouldn’t they be able to beat you just because they’re thief?

Ill pretty much call BS on the entire post.

1. Never losing to a thief: kitten please. You lose to all classes. More to some but to all at some point.
2. DS is a win vs. bad ranged classes 1v1 or in a zerg cause they keep spamming their ranged attacks while you just swirl there and laugh.
3. Revealed is good. Culling is the problem. Its not as bad 1v1 but there is still some latency in rendering.
4. Stealth 800-1000: lol that is fail thief. Most are traited for mug and stealthing before stealing you get debuffed, CnD fails, backstab fails=gz you just failed your entire opener combo, and if you play like this i thank you for the badges.
5. CC: yes its a good counter, but I run shadowstep that is 1200 range instantly and most players blow all their CC in a row so i make em blow their CDs and step, heal come back. Yes sometimes its on CD, so i die, sometimes its on CD and still get away from CC.

I run a fairly glassy build with some valk in the mix, and its enough to get away when i need to. To anyone saying this build is bad, that gear is bad for WvWvW: No, your playstyle doesnt fit your gear. If you have crap reflexes and run beserk gear you will die. A lot. The best counter to any player is to learn your playstyle, polish it, get appropriate gear for it. I see ppl going full beserk and then never learn to dodge and position themselves, and then complain about dying. That is a fail on your part.

Dont pay attenition to what other players say. Every build, and every gear is viable for every part of the game provided you know how to play it.

You know what’s funny when a thief try’s to venom/steal/bs a bunker Mesmer then realizes “CRAP! He didn’t die I’m screwed!”

Cosmic.6047:

The other day Wild Bill posted a (thief) video soloing a Tower & Keep lord group.
I’m sure he is playing his class excellently. But I think no class should be able to solo
these groups and if they can, something is wrong and broken. I don’t know how other classes would look attempting the same task.

So now we have issues about p/d condi thief being OP at PvE ? And i thought the real issue is him geting into keep in first place … which has nothing to do with him being a thief. Oh and try doing the same with any other thief build exept p/d + caltrops and we shall give u a medal.

dank.3680:

xKedge.5493:

dank.3680:

skupuz.6940:

Slamz.5376:

Ragnar.4257:

I play warrior, thief and elementalist in WvW, warrior most of the time now. I can’t think that I’ve ever lost a 1v1 with a thief while on my warrior. Sometimes they escape, and sometimes I have to back off, but never lost.

One of the chief points of the thread is not 1v1, but the ability to stop a thief from destroying siege engines.

With their ability to constantly stealth, it’s virtually impossible to keep them off of siege. The best you can do is AE the area and get them to move away but that’s only going to keep them off for about 5 seconds, and then they’ll be back.

Net result is always the same:
10+ siege defenders are running around swinging wildly at the air while the thief pops around slowly killing all the siege in the field. 1 thief can still be there dealing damage long after a group of 5 bunker elementalists (or any other class or combo) would have been killed.

Invisibility is simply the best “tank” ability in the game, and it’s on the highest DPS class.

An ele can block trebs from hitting the door/wall. Whats the point again?

It takes multiple Ele’s coordinating on VOIP to actually prevent the wall/gate from going down. It takes 1 thief to kill the siege, I think that’s the point.

I don’t know how in your server.. you don’t get punish but in my server when i do that to a good guild. I be spam with everything they got. Its nearly impossible getting 1-100% siege just by yourself and in case you do it.. Theres probably gonna be more than 1 cata.. most likely will be 2-4 cata + treb + arrowcart/ballista.

Gl with all the mesmer pulls and warrior/guardian hammers.

Good luck hitting me with all that when I have near endless dodges with acrobatics, vigor on heal, vigor from steal and endurance regen food. And like I said before, if I do get hit, shadowstep to the nearest noob and get a stealth and run around CND the clueless till I have my “oh shiat” cd’s again.

Oh btw I’ve played on pretty much every server.. Including multiple T1 servers.

The funny thing about it is, the more ppl there is, the harder it is for a class like ele to do anything.. The more people there is, the easier it is for a thief.

I don’t need good luck to hit acro thief, thief was my 1st character and I tried lot of build (PvE and sPvP), so I pretty much know this class in and out. All I need to is to watch your steps and hit when you’re vulnerable. Then you’ll be eating dirt after 3rd swing of my hammer. Oh and please, use SR, it’s very nice way how to tell me where you are and where should I land my Burst

Sure there are good thieves which is alway welcome fight on any of my characters, but 95% of thieves don’t utilize their class to it’s maximal potential.

To the rest of discussion:

1) PLEASE STOP USING BORKED CULLING FOR UNCALLED STEALTH NERF! I have to add that latest patch made this lot better, now I can see thieves right after their opener (maybe not exactly at that time, but it wont take more then 0.5s for them to appear).

2) SR does not grant 14s of invis, as far as I know, last time I played my thief, it was still capped at 10s.

3) Only advice I can give to guys who can’t deal with thieves is: Make one, level it, try builds, learn how to counter them. If you can’t do that, stop kittening about it on forums.

Personally I stopped playing thief, it’s not bad class, but I tried War and I like it much more… I’m not going back

P.S. Even two stab / venom thieves can’t take down one war (who is mainly in zerk gear, but not glass build), while I took both down right after they tried SR to escape (probably their biggest mistake in that fight, after the the fact they should have run when their opening combo didn’t take me into lower parts of my HP pool).

Slamz.5376:

The problem is that thieves are both the ultimate DPS and the ultimate tanks.

Their WvW tankiness comes from the fact that you can’t consistently hit them. It makes them the hardest to kill class. It’s harder to down a thief than it is to down a bunker elementalist. Honestly, bunker elementalists don’t even stand out in most fights because once 10 people focus on them, they go down very fast anyway. When 10 people turn on a thief it can still take several minutes to down him, if you ever can, as he flits in and out of stealth and avoids just about all roots, conditions and hits by simply vanishing over and over.

I also don’t get why Daggerstorm is one of the most effective elites in the game with one of the shortest cooldowns (and why must it also reflect all projectiles AND give stability??)

Thief is a ridiculous class and more and more people are flocking to it.

Daggerstorm? That skill’s only as effective as the enemy makes it. Don’t shoot at it and the damage is neglegible. Focus the user with AoE and Melee and they’ll be forced to cancel it early or die. Honestly, Thieves’ Guild is usually the better in most situations.

Thief > Chuck Norris

Hepan.2709:

Ragnar.4257:

snip

Ill pretty much call BS on the entire post.

1. Never losing to a thief: kitten please. You lose to all classes. More to some but to all at some point.
2. DS is a win vs. bad ranged classes 1v1 or in a zerg cause they keep spamming their ranged attacks while you just swirl there and laugh.
3. Revealed is good. Culling is the problem. Its not as bad 1v1 but there is still some latency in rendering.
4. Stealth 800-1000: lol that is fail thief. Most are traited for mug and stealthing before stealing you get debuffed, CnD fails, backstab fails=gz you just failed your entire opener combo, and if you play like this i thank you for the badges.
5. CC: yes its a good counter, but I run shadowstep that is 1200 range instantly and most players blow all their CC in a row so i make em blow their CDs and step, heal come back. Yes sometimes its on CD, so i die, sometimes its on CD and still get away from CC.

I run a fairly glassy build with some valk in the mix, and its enough to get away when i need to. To anyone saying this build is bad, that gear is bad for WvWvW: No, your playstyle doesnt fit your gear. If you have crap reflexes and run beserk gear you will die. A lot. The best counter to any player is to learn your playstyle, polish it, get appropriate gear for it. I see ppl going full beserk and then never learn to dodge and position themselves, and then complain about dying. That is a fail on your part.

Dont pay attenition to what other players say. Every build, and every gear is viable for every part of the game provided you know how to play it.

1. I said in 1v1. My warrior is the toon I have my commander badge on, so granted I don’t 1v1 that often on it. Absolutely thieves have killed me plenty of times, but always in group situations. So if you’re gonna call me a liar, at least read what I said first.

2. So you agree with me that daggerstorm is only useful in certain situations, and is only ever really effective against bad players who don’t know how to deal with it? Thanks for your agreement!

3. Again, that’s exactly what I said. You say what I said was BS, and then proceed to post exactly what I said. I don’t understand you at all.

4. Again, what I said. Alot of thieves are easy to beat if you make their opening combo fail, because many don’t know how to , or don’t want to, do anything else.

5. If someone blows all their CC at once and lets you break away to heal up, then that is a bad player. Doesn’t mean there aren’t counters to thieves for good players to use.

And your last paragraph again agrees with me ^^ If you’re going to say I’m full of crap, don’t then go and post the exact same stuff.

Thieves are easy to counter, here goes:

Against all:
Root/stun
AOE

Against dagger offhand:
Blind
Daze

Against glass cannon:
Toughness
Break Stun
AOE

Tadaaaaaaaaaaaa

I love the Thief is easy to kill posts, clearly the problem is lack of skill by every other class besides the thief.

I kill thieves as my Mesmer, I kill thieves as my Necromancer, I kill thieves as my Thief.

It’s not the professions, it’s knowing how to use them.

If you haven’t tried to daze a thief or stun them, try it, it’s grand. There is also nothing more satisfying than surviving a GC’s initial burst and then seeing their CnD whiff as you blind them and watch them melt under your barrage.

did we all go into the stereotype of there is only d/d burst thief in wvw?

i havent seen a post about how to defeat a s/d or p/d thief and there are a lot of them in wvw and their builds and traits are the ones capable of chain cnd siege

Binafus.8153:

I love the Thief is easy to kill posts, clearly the problem is lack of skill by every other class besides the thief.

No it’s not a lack of skill with other classes a lot of people on other classes have no problem fighting thief. No what most of the people here are saying is the problems sits between the chair and the keyboard.