Guild Wars 2

It’s currently doing too much damage to people
It constantly hits me for 5-7k each hit and that is with around ~1700 armor.
I don’t think any abilities should be able to constantly hit this much, especially spammable ones.

EDIT:
1653 – Toughness
2572 – Armor

Didn’t you make this exact thread like half a day ago

Thieves are exempt from the normal rules of balance.

ykyk.2740:

Didn’t you make this exact thread like half a day ago

No his OTHER post was to ban portals in wvw. Apparently a thief killed him today so he wants that nerfed also. Tomorrow I hope he doesn’t run into a guardian…cause that will be another rage thread.

No I remember seeing this EXACT post like a few hours ago…either there’s some hardcore deja vu going on or his old thread got deleted and he just made an exact some one with a slightly different title.

ykyk.2740:

Didn’t you make this exact thread like half a day ago

No I didn’t ? However it wouldn’t surprise me if someone else made a thread though because its a pretty ridiculous ability.

Dude, I have my reasons to dislike Thieves in their current incarnation, as do a lot of people, but Heartseeker is not part of the problem.

Multiple chances to stealth, heal and reset the fight or simply run away so easily are why Thieves are problematic. Their damage is actually fine. The problem is having built-in failsafes to the Thief class which allow them to compensate for poor playing ability, it’s genuinely unfair to survive their initial burst from stealth, beat them in the aftermath and then have them just disappear for a ridiculous amount of time while they heal up and then get to attack you again. When you look at the total package of the Thief, they actually have the best survivability in the game, best single target burst damage, best single target CC and best/most escape abilities (Ele escape is close but it doesn’t involve them going completely invisible, so at least you get to see where they are running). I used to play a Guardian in many different builds and after playing a Thief for a while, I can say I feel safer on my glass cannon Thief than I ever did on my bunker Guardian.

Also try not to do what so many people do which is blame a Thief for jumping them in the middle of a fight with a backstab combo. It didn’t matter that it was a Thief, it mattered that you got jumped in the middle of a fight, any class jumping into your 1v1 would have killed you. The constant crutch of fight resets are what make Thieves stupidly unfair, because it is entirely possible for a Thief to do their job out of initial stealth, they don’t actually need as much invisibility as they have access to. This makes Thief players, whether they’re skilled or not, way too aggressive and gutsy, the supposedly squishy assassin class shouldn’t be brazenly attacking someone in a group, groups should deter them. But as it stands, you will commonly see a Thief try to jump another squishy even if they’re rolling with a few of their guild mates, because the Thief knows if it fails, he can just leave. Since there is no risk involved in these ambushes, it means the balance is off, the Thief class should be entirely about risk vs reward.

Stealth in general is a bad mechanic in MMOs. In every MMO I’ve played that involved any amount of long term stealth abilities, the classes that had them were always either overpowered or underpowered, it is incredibly hard to balance classes around this mechanic. Anet chose to stick with this cookie cutter assassin mechanic and now GW2 is yet another game where the Thief/Rogue/Assassin/whatever class will probably never see proper balance.

ashleydoll.8563:

Dude, I have my reasons to dislike Thieves in their current incarnation, as do a lot of people, but Heartseeker is not part of the problem.

Multiple chances to stealth, heal and reset the fight or simply run away so easily are why Thieves are problematic. Their damage is actually fine. The problem is having built-in failsafes to the Thief class which allow them to compensate for poor playing ability, it’s genuinely unfair to survive their initial burst from stealth, beat them in the aftermath and then have them just disappear for a ridiculous amount of time while they heal up and then get to attack you again. When you look at the total package of the Thief, they actually have the best survivability in the game, best single target burst damage, best single target CC and best/most escape abilities (Ele escape is close but it doesn’t involve them going completely invisible, so at least you get to see where they are running). I used to play a Guardian in many different builds and after playing a Thief for a while, I can say I feel safer on my glass cannon Thief than I ever did on my bunker Guardian.

Also try not to do what so many people do which is blame a Thief for jumping them in the middle of a fight with a backstab combo. It didn’t matter that it was a Thief, it mattered that you got jumped in the middle of a fight, any class jumping into your 1v1 would have killed you. The constant crutch of fight resets are what make Thieves stupidly unfair, because it is entirely possible for a Thief to do their job out of initial stealth, they don’t actually need as much invisibility as they have access to. This makes Thief players, whether they’re skilled or not, way too aggressive and gutsy, the supposedly squishy assassin class shouldn’t be brazenly attacking someone in a group, groups should deter them. But as it stands, you will commonly see a Thief try to jump another squishy even if they’re rolling with a few of their guild mates, because the Thief knows if it fails, he can just leave. Since there is no risk involved in these ambushes, it means the balance is off, the Thief class should be entirely about risk vs reward.

Stealth in general is a bad mechanic in MMOs. In every MMO I’ve played that involved any amount of long term stealth abilities, the classes that had them were always either overpowered or underpowered, it is incredibly hard to balance classes around this mechanic. Anet chose to stick with this cookie cutter assassin mechanic and now GW2 is yet another game where the Thief/Rogue/Assassin/whatever class will probably never see proper balance.

My thread is about heartseeker not about any other thief related problem you might have. please keep on topic.

ashleydoll.8563:

Dude, I have my reasons to dislike Thieves in their current incarnation, as do a lot of people, but Heartseeker is not part of the problem.

Multiple chances to stealth, heal and reset the fight or simply run away so easily are why Thieves are problematic. Their damage is actually fine. The problem is having built-in failsafes to the Thief class which allow them to compensate for poor playing ability, it’s genuinely unfair to survive their initial burst from stealth, beat them in the aftermath and then have them just disappear for a ridiculous amount of time while they heal up and then get to attack you again. When you look at the total package of the Thief, they actually have the best survivability in the game, best single target burst damage, best single target CC and best/most escape abilities (Ele escape is close but it doesn’t involve them going completely invisible, so at least you get to see where they are running). I used to play a Guardian in many different builds and after playing a Thief for a while, I can say I feel safer on my glass cannon Thief than I ever did on my bunker Guardian.

Also try not to do what so many people do which is blame a Thief for jumping them in the middle of a fight with a backstab combo. It didn’t matter that it was a Thief, it mattered that you got jumped in the middle of a fight, any class jumping into your 1v1 would have killed you. The constant crutch of fight resets are what make Thieves stupidly unfair, because it is entirely possible for a Thief to do their job out of initial stealth, they don’t actually need as much invisibility as they have access to. This makes Thief players, whether they’re skilled or not, way too aggressive and gutsy, the supposedly squishy assassin class shouldn’t be brazenly attacking someone in a group, groups should deter them. But as it stands, you will commonly see a Thief try to jump another squishy even if they’re rolling with a few of their guild mates, because the Thief knows if it fails, he can just leave. Since there is no risk involved in these ambushes, it means the balance is off, the Thief class should be entirely about risk vs reward.

Stealth in general is a bad mechanic in MMOs. In every MMO I’ve played that involved any amount of long term stealth abilities, the classes that had them were always either overpowered or underpowered, it is incredibly hard to balance classes around this mechanic. Anet chose to stick with this cookie cutter assassin mechanic and now GW2 is yet another game where the Thief/Rogue/Assassin/whatever class will probably never see proper balance.

I keep getting the impression that much of the community believes thieves get long term stealth. Barring culling issues, most thief stealth lasts 3 seconds, 4 if they’re traited for it (which heavy offense bursty thieves are not). That isn’t “long term stealth” by any standard set by any other game. Even in GW2’s generally more fast-paced combat, that isn’t long-term. The only ways to achieve longer stealth are chaining together abilities (in which case they’re burning their heal + multiple utilities to “escape”) or Shadow Refuge (in which case you let them stand around in a giant obvious circle getting that stealth). What most often happens when people accuse thieves of stealthing for a huge amount of time is that the thief is actually using a 3~ second stealth, breaking contact completely and moving out of sight/range, then returning later on.

As for Heartseeker, what you’re seeing with those high damage hits is usually a combination of a couple traits that make thieves much more effective vs. low-health enemies, along with Heartseeker’s innate executioner-type damage. Heartseeker does 50 % more than “base” damage vs. targets at <50 % HP, and double vs. targets at <25 % HP. Furthermore, popular thief traits give Fury (20 % extra crit chance) and 20 % extra damage vs. targets below 50 % HP. This makes Heartseeker especially potent against low base HP professions (assuming OP was playing the elementalist in their signature), because it only takes a few hits to bring them to <50 % HP. Heartseeker is an excellent example of one of the only abilities in the game that is actually countered better by Vitality/Healing than it is by Toughness. The key to combating Heartseeker (and associated low-HP traits) is to keep it relatively impotent by fighting at >50 % HP. When fighting a target they can’t quickly reduce to low HP a thief that is so invested in executioner-style damage is wasting a lot of trait power.

ashleydoll.8563:

Dude, I have my reasons to dislike Thieves in their current incarnation, as do a lot of people, but Heartseeker is not part of the problem.

Multiple chances to stealth, heal and reset the fight or simply run away so easily are why Thieves are problematic. Their damage is actually fine. The problem is having built-in failsafes to the Thief class which allow them to compensate for poor playing ability, it’s genuinely unfair to survive their initial burst from stealth, beat them in the aftermath and then have them just disappear for a ridiculous amount of time while they heal up and then get to attack you again. When you look at the total package of the Thief, they actually have the best survivability in the game, best single target burst damage, best single target CC and best/most escape abilities (Ele escape is close but it doesn’t involve them going completely invisible, so at least you get to see where they are running). I used to play a Guardian in many different builds and after playing a Thief for a while, I can say I feel safer on my glass cannon Thief than I ever did on my bunker Guardian.

Also try not to do what so many people do which is blame a Thief for jumping them in the middle of a fight with a backstab combo. It didn’t matter that it was a Thief, it mattered that you got jumped in the middle of a fight, any class jumping into your 1v1 would have killed you. The constant crutch of fight resets are what make Thieves stupidly unfair, because it is entirely possible for a Thief to do their job out of initial stealth, they don’t actually need as much invisibility as they have access to. This makes Thief players, whether they’re skilled or not, way too aggressive and gutsy, the supposedly squishy assassin class shouldn’t be brazenly attacking someone in a group, groups should deter them. But as it stands, you will commonly see a Thief try to jump another squishy even if they’re rolling with a few of their guild mates, because the Thief knows if it fails, he can just leave. Since there is no risk involved in these ambushes, it means the balance is off, the Thief class should be entirely about risk vs reward.

Stealth in general is a bad mechanic in MMOs. In every MMO I’ve played that involved any amount of long term stealth abilities, the classes that had them were always either overpowered or underpowered, it is incredibly hard to balance classes around this mechanic. Anet chose to stick with this cookie cutter assassin mechanic and now GW2 is yet another game where the Thief/Rogue/Assassin/whatever class will probably never see proper balance.

I couldn’t agree more…the ability to reset the fight and escape so easily is what makes the thief so frustrating.

But about heartseeker…dude you armor is really low…I know it’s lame though when used with quickness and you got 5 heartseekers on you in less than 2 seconds. But to be honest, I dont care for it until something is done about the constant stealthing/reseting the fight/having a spamable escape ability that surpasses every other escape ability in the game…even the ones with big cooldowns like blink.

Tulisin.6945:

I keep getting the impression that much of the community believes thieves get long term stealth. Barring culling issues, most thief stealth lasts 3 seconds, 4 if they’re traited for it (which heavy offense bursty thieves are not). That isn’t “long term stealth” by any standard set by any other game. Even in GW2’s generally more fast-paced combat, that isn’t long-term. The only ways to achieve longer stealth are chaining together abilities (in which case they’re burning their heal + multiple utilities to “escape”) or Shadow Refuge (in which case you let them stand around in a giant obvious circle getting that stealth). What most often happens when people accuse thieves of stealthing for a huge amount of time is that the thief is actually using a 3~ second stealth, breaking contact completely and moving out of sight/range, then returning later on.

As for Heartseeker, what you’re seeing with those high damage hits is usually a combination of a couple traits that make thieves much more effective vs. low-health enemies, along with Heartseeker’s innate executioner-type damage. Heartseeker does 50 % more than “base” damage vs. targets at <50 % HP, and double vs. targets at <25 % HP. Furthermore, popular thief traits give Fury (20 % extra crit chance) and 20 % extra damage vs. targets below 50 % HP. This makes Heartseeker especially potent against low base HP professions (assuming OP was playing the elementalist in their signature), because it only takes a few hits to bring them to <50 % HP. Heartseeker is an excellent example of one of the only abilities in the game that is actually countered better by Vitality/Healing than it is by Toughness. The key to combating Heartseeker (and associated low-HP traits) is to keep it relatively impotent by fighting at >50 % HP. When fighting a target they can’t quickly reduce to low HP a thief that is so invested in executioner-style damage is wasting a lot of trait power.

I think you missed the point about thieves stealth…it’s not just the culling or thief running away….I have not played a game that gives a class the ability to stealth multiple times DURING combat…at least not a game that didn’t also provide ways to knock them out of stealth so easy. In GW2 you dont even see the numbers if you hit something in stealth so it’s all luck. Thieves can use stealth both offensively and defensively at the same time in fights and feel completely safe…and have the ability to restart fights multiple times with short cooldowns it makes fighting them frustrating because it’s impossible to win if you dont have big CC or burst.

As for heartseeker again, yes I totally get your point, don’t think though any ability or build should give a level 80 that sense of hopelessness that they can be bursted down in seconds by any build or class.

Let me combine these 2 points for you; those glass cannons the thief bursts in seconds with heartseeker, can they do the same to the thief? No…of course not, the thief has better utility than them with stealth and things like daggerstorm (that completely counters my glasscanon rifle warrior). Yet heartseeker deals better damage than any other burst in the game that is not a channeling ability….with no cooldown. So, you can argue all you want that this heartseeker build only works against squishies…but the classic argument will stay that if the thief can kill a squishy that easy, then the squishy must be able to kill the thief just as fast and easy since they are both glass canons.

Bunzy.8674:

My thread is about heartseeker not about any other thief related problem you might have. please keep on topic.

I did stay on topic, I told you Heartseeker and Thief damage in general is fine, that is my view. Heartseeker barely does anything more than auto attack damage when someone has adequate HP, it is simply a waste of initiative then. It is effective to finish low HP enemies, that is the intention. If a Thief is spamming Heartseeker on you, it means they’re not using more effective abilities.

Ekove.4586:

Tulisin.6945:

I keep getting the impression that much of the community believes thieves get long term stealth. Barring culling issues, most thief stealth lasts 3 seconds, 4 if they’re traited for it (which heavy offense bursty thieves are not). That isn’t “long term stealth” by any standard set by any other game. Even in GW2’s generally more fast-paced combat, that isn’t long-term. The only ways to achieve longer stealth are chaining together abilities (in which case they’re burning their heal + multiple utilities to “escape”) or Shadow Refuge (in which case you let them stand around in a giant obvious circle getting that stealth). What most often happens when people accuse thieves of stealthing for a huge amount of time is that the thief is actually using a 3~ second stealth, breaking contact completely and moving out of sight/range, then returning later on.

As for Heartseeker, what you’re seeing with those high damage hits is usually a combination of a couple traits that make thieves much more effective vs. low-health enemies, along with Heartseeker’s innate executioner-type damage. Heartseeker does 50 % more than “base” damage vs. targets at <50 % HP, and double vs. targets at <25 % HP. Furthermore, popular thief traits give Fury (20 % extra crit chance) and 20 % extra damage vs. targets below 50 % HP. This makes Heartseeker especially potent against low base HP professions (assuming OP was playing the elementalist in their signature), because it only takes a few hits to bring them to <50 % HP. Heartseeker is an excellent example of one of the only abilities in the game that is actually countered better by Vitality/Healing than it is by Toughness. The key to combating Heartseeker (and associated low-HP traits) is to keep it relatively impotent by fighting at >50 % HP. When fighting a target they can’t quickly reduce to low HP a thief that is so invested in executioner-style damage is wasting a lot of trait power.

I think you missed the point about thieves stealth…it’s not just the culling or thief running away….I have not played a game that gives a class the ability to stealth multiple times DURING combat…at least not a game that didn’t also provide ways to knock them out of stealth so easy. In GW2 you dont even see the numbers if you hit something in stealth so it’s all luck. Thieves can use stealth both offensively and defensively at the same time in fights and feel completely safe…and have the ability to restart fights multiple times with short cooldowns it makes fighting them frustrating because it’s impossible to win if you dont have big CC or burst.

As for heartseeker again, yes I totally get your point, don’t think though any ability or build should give a level 80 that sense of hopelessness that they can be bursted down in seconds by any build or class.

Let me combine these 2 points for you; those glass cannons the thief bursts in seconds with heartseeker, can they do the same to the thief? No…of course not, the thief has better utility than them with stealth and things like daggerstorm (that completely counters my glasscanon rifle warrior). Yet heartseeker deals better damage than any other burst in the game that is not a channeling ability….with no cooldown. So, you can argue all you want that this heartseeker build only works against squishies…but the classic argument will stay that if the thief can kill a squishy that easy, then the squishy must be able to kill the thief just as fast and easy since they are both glass canons.

You don’t see numbers pop up when hitting a stealthed enemy, but you do see combat log, hit procs, and auto chains. Good players know when they’re hitting enemies in stealth, and I get the majority of my thief kills by downing them while they’re stealthed. If you’re more mobile than the thief is, killing them during stealth is not that difficult. If you’re less mobile, you wouldn’t be able to catch them stealth or not. Mobility is the culprit here, not stealth.

Heartseeker is not a very effective method of bursting someone down, but it is an effective finisher after opening with something else.

And glass cannon thieves do die quickly to anyone that can match their mobility. A full-on assassin-type thief that stacks offense for a quick kill will literally die in 2/3 auto attack chains. As for Dagger Storm hard-countering your glass warrior, that is exactly what reflect does to projectile type attacks, just switch to melee and smash them while they’re spinning around. Dagger Storming thieves are especially vulnerable if anyone actually takes the time to melee them, I usually consider it a free kill unless they’re good enough to cancel it when someone closes with them.

Tulisin.6945:

I keep getting the impression that much of the community believes thieves get long term stealth. Barring culling issues, most thief stealth lasts 3 seconds, 4 if they’re traited for it (which heavy offense bursty thieves are not). That isn’t “long term stealth” by any standard set by any other game. Even in GW2’s generally more fast-paced combat, that isn’t long-term. The only ways to achieve longer stealth are chaining together abilities (in which case they’re burning their heal + multiple utilities to “escape”) or Shadow Refuge (in which case you let them stand around in a giant obvious circle getting that stealth). What most often happens when people accuse thieves of stealthing for a huge amount of time is that the thief is actually using a 3~ second stealth, breaking contact completely and moving out of sight/range, then returning later on.

As for Heartseeker, what you’re seeing with those high damage hits is usually a combination of a couple traits that make thieves much more effective vs. low-health enemies, along with Heartseeker’s innate executioner-type damage. Heartseeker does 50 % more than “base” damage vs. targets at <50 % HP, and double vs. targets at <25 % HP. Furthermore, popular thief traits give Fury (20 % extra crit chance) and 20 % extra damage vs. targets below 50 % HP. This makes Heartseeker especially potent against low base HP professions (assuming OP was playing the elementalist in their signature), because it only takes a few hits to bring them to <50 % HP. Heartseeker is an excellent example of one of the only abilities in the game that is actually countered better by Vitality/Healing than it is by Toughness. The key to combating Heartseeker (and associated low-HP traits) is to keep it relatively impotent by fighting at >50 % HP. When fighting a target they can’t quickly reduce to low HP a thief that is so invested in executioner-style damage is wasting a lot of trait power.

By long term, I mean chaining all of their stealth abilities. It can also apply to the fact they can pop in and out by spreading them out slightly. What it does is allow Thieves to use a high damage opener multiple times while you’re stuck being unable to really do anything to them because you lose the target.

Since you can’t knock a Thief out of stealth by damaging them or by any other means, it gives them a huge advantage over anyone except for another Thief.

Also, about Shadow Refuge, one class can not really do enough AoE damage to bother a Thief who is in it, as you recall, Shadow Refuge will also heal the Thief, which negates the damage one or two people are doing to them. Not entirely, but it weakens it by a lot. Couple it with the fact once they’re in SR for 8 seconds, they can leave it and gain the remaining 4 seconds of stealth outside of the circle.

I have used AoE knockback abilities on SR and it rarely, if ever, knocks the Thief out of the circle, it usually misses entirely. There is also the fact a lot of AoEs do not have as large of a radius as SR has, meaning a Thief can walk out of your AoE and simply stay in SR unharmed.

You’re right, they don’t have permanent stealth like in WoW or some other games, but that’s not really the point. I would say Thieves in GW2 are actually better stealthers than in any other game I’ve ever played, because stealth can not be broken by anyone and they can use it over and over in-combat. In other games it provided a recon ability and once you were in combat, you really couldn’t re-stealth except for a few, long cooldown special abilities.

I think a few classes could do with some ability to remove stealth from a Thief. Remember how Hunters could cast flare in WoW? It didn’t even always force a Rogue out of stealth in that game, a Rogue could avoid it, but it also allowed people to sit within the flare to gain some protection for a while. Something as simple as that would benefit GW2 greatly. I say give it to Rangers, Guardians and Mesmers, because it fits those classes the best. Rangers are outdoorsmen and survivalists, Guardians are stalwart fighters based on defensive abilities and “light” type magic, and Mesmers are masters of illusion (which ironically Thieves still do better) so would have magic capable of dealing with lightness/darkness.

I know Thieves do not have ultra long term stealth, but I’ve played my Thief enough to see the class is entirely based around crutches, my Thief is level 80 with moderate gear and I still have the easiest time in the world in WvW. In S/T PvP anyone can roll one, look up a build and practice for 5 minutes and top scoreboards. The class has too much going for it.

Full Power/Vit/Toughness Build, (Elementalist)
1500+ Toughness and Vitality
Weapons also are Power/Toughness/Vitality

Level 80 gear (All Exotics)

I still take 7,500 – 7,600 from Heartseeker
and 10,500 damage from KillShot.

I wonder if these two skills Ignore Defense Power/Armor since I ran Glass Cannon and I sustained the same thing from the very same player last night on Heart Seeker.

Tulisin.6945:

You don’t see numbers pop up when hitting a stealthed enemy, but you do see combat log, hit procs, and auto chains. Good players know when they’re hitting enemies in stealth, and I get the majority of my thief kills by downing them while they’re stealthed. If you’re more mobile than the thief is, killing them during stealth is not that difficult. If you’re less mobile, you wouldn’t be able to catch them stealth or not. Mobility is the culprit here, not stealth.

Heartseeker is not a very effective method of bursting someone down, but it is an effective finisher after opening with something else.

And glass cannon thieves do die quickly to anyone that can match their mobility. A full-on assassin-type thief that stacks offense for a quick kill will literally die in 2/3 auto attack chains. As for Dagger Storm hard-countering your glass warrior, that is exactly what reflect does to projectile type attacks, just switch to melee and smash them while they’re spinning around. Dagger Storming thieves are especially vulnerable if anyone actually takes the time to melee them, I usually consider it a free kill unless they’re good enough to cancel it when someone closes with them.

What kind of Thief gets hit while stealthed? Even in short term stealth, I can completely avoid taking damage on my Thief, you just need to do the least obvious movement pattern.

Heck, when I play my Mesmer, I can avoid damage on my paltry short stealth abilities as well. If anyone is getting hit for a lot of damage while stealthed, they’re not really experienced yet with stealth strategy.

Again, the big problem stems from the constant stealth chaining by Thieves or the constant popping in and out of combat to use backstab over and over. You can effectively play the class without doing these things, that means it is something the class doesn’t actually need, but it is a crutch. For new or inexperienced players a crutch can be good, but for veteran Thieves, it just makes the class have way too much utility. The issue is, also, I feel anyone can become a “veteran” Thief in about 1 hour of practice, it is a pretty simplistic class.

I say these things for the sake of game balance, not because I die to Thieves too often or anything. As I say, I have an 80 Thief, as well as an 80 Guardian and 80 Mesmer and I’ve played with all the other classes for a good amount of time in S/T PvP. The easiest thing to play out of all my experience is a Thief, it also happens to be incredibly powerful with little tradeoff for time investment in learning the class.

But since the Thief is already designed the way it is, I am not suggesting outright nerfs or removal of abilities, I am suggesting giving some other classes more ways to deal with stealth. Things a Thief could handle and adapt to, but also things which would give some classes the ability to counter stealth once in a while or slow down the stealth popping in and out with high damage backstab openers. It would better balance the game overall while not drastically affecting the Thief class. In my previous suggestion with giving Ranger, Guardian and Mesmer such abilities, it would give more benefit to the Ranger and Mesmer, which are both underplayed classes, and it would give Guardian more group support to help others deal with Thieves.

I would suggest Ranger get a flare type ability similar to what WoW had, which would allow them to target specific areas at their choosing. Guardian should get a pulsing close range stealth reveal which would cause Thieves to want to avoid being close to the Guardian. Mesmer would get a “Twilight Vision” or something which could be cast in a target area to give anyone without the circle the ability to see stealthed people, but if you step out of the circle, the buff is removed, to balance it, it would be a fairly long cooldown, maybe even an elite, and last about 5 seconds.

Can you say with honesty you feel any of these suggestions would truly make the Thief too weak? I feel they would just give people some options to deal with it while not making the Thief any weaker per se, but requiring more thought for the Thief.

Thieves are still ridiculous.

Heartseeker needs the movement component removing at the very least. Or a significant damage reduction and a re-use timer. 1 ability that does massive damage and is a gap closer/escape tool and is spammable. Can anyone seriously argue thats balanced?

I think that burning speed should be spammable too.

ashleydoll.8563:

By long term, I mean chaining all of their stealth abilities. It can also apply to the fact they can pop in and out by spreading them out slightly. What it does is allow Thieves to use a high damage opener multiple times while you’re stuck being unable to really do anything to them because you lose the target.

This, right here, is what makes stealth so effective. People assume they can’t do anything because they lost their tab target. GW2 combat is not target-based. Many people have still not learned that reacting like an NPC (standing around and then wandering off) when presented with stealth is the best way to hand a massive advantage to the stealthed enemy. Stay aggressive and stealth works against the thief instead of in their favor, forcing them to avoid/mitigate damage and not allowing them to attack unless they want to break stealth early.

Also, about Shadow Refuge, one class can not really do enough AoE damage to bother a Thief who is in it, as you recall, Shadow Refuge will also heal the Thief, which negates the damage one or two people are doing to them. Not entirely, but it weakens it by a lot. Couple it with the fact once they’re in SR for 8 seconds, they can leave it and gain the remaining 4 seconds of stealth outside of the circle.

Stop trying to cover Shadow Refuge with AEs. AEs are not particularly effective vs. stealthed enemies, despite the common advice. Any one class can down a glass cannon thief standing in SR with auto attacks before the thief gets the full effect, forcing them out or downing them. SR heals 1,000~ HP total, it does very little to mitigate incoming damage. SR only lasts 4 seconds, so they can’t stand in it for 8. Shadow Refuge is another ability I’m always gleeful to see on the field, it means a free kill on bad thieves, and a wasted utility on good thieves (who don’t stand in it and die). This isn’t entirely your fault, though, the community keeps wanting to give the terrible advice of “throw AEs everywhere because you don’t have a tab target!” which is a waste of resources and time.

I know Thieves do not have ultra long term stealth, but I’ve played my Thief enough to see the class is entirely based around crutches, my Thief is level 80 with moderate gear and I still have the easiest time in the world in WvW. In S/T PvP anyone can roll one, look up a build and practice for 5 minutes and top scoreboards. The class has too much going for it.

This is due to s/tPvP scoreboards being terrible at tracking s/tPvP effectiveness. Anyone who focuses on assassinating players and roaming exclusively is going to “top the scoreboards”. But looking up a build and being able to kill one person a minute by burning all your utilities does not a good PvP build make.

ashleydoll.8563:

What kind of Thief gets hit while stealthed? Even in short term stealth, I can completely avoid taking damage on my Thief, you just need to do the least obvious movement pattern.

What kind of thief gets hit while stealthed? Nearly all of them. Most thieves don’t learn any sort of deception meta while stealthed because the vast majority of people they come into contact with have no idea how to effectively fight stealth. There’s room there for a lot of skill on both sides, but the stealth fighting metagame gets thrown out the window when the thief gets to kill players like NPCs because players act like NPCs.

Several issues:

1. It is impossible to kite a thief as they have a spammable high-damage gap closer. That ain’t right.
2. They need to up the time to re-enter stealth from 3 seconds to something like 15. Being able to re-stealth multiple times in a 10 second window is broken.

I’m fine with having the high initial burst damage opener if those things are done, it will make fights a lot more tactical. Still folks running a full toughness build should not be taking 7k+ damage from an opener, another option may be to re-evaluate toughness’s interactions with crit damage so if you go defensive you actually have a bit more survivability. A full toughness build should not be taken down in less than 5 seconds by any class.

I would not even mind an increase on stealth CD, nor would any thief who has a clue how to build for PvP. Glass cannon builds simply do not exist in high level PvP for a reason, they are ineffective vs something that can’t be bursted in 2-3 hits (and this applies to ANY profession; glass cannon = clueless noob).

Bunzy.8674:

ashleydoll.8563:

Dude, I have my reasons to dislike Thieves in their current incarnation, as do a lot of people, but Heartseeker is not part of the problem.

My thread is about heartseeker not about any other thief related problem you might have. please keep on topic.

Someone actually writes a thoughtful and decent post on your crap thread and you say the above……..

ashleydoll.8563:

Bunzy.8674:

My thread is about heartseeker not about any other thief related problem you might have. please keep on topic.

I did stay on topic, I told you Heartseeker and Thief damage in general is fine, that is my view. Heartseeker barely does anything more than auto attack damage when someone has adequate HP, it is simply a waste of initiative then. It is effective to finish low HP enemies, that is the intention. If a Thief is spamming Heartseeker on you, it means they’re not using more effective abilities.

This a thousand times.

Not to mention 1700 armor is VERY low for PvP. My mesmer has 2000 if I’m not mistaken. My necro; even more. However my main is a Warrior.

My main problem with thieves like Ashley said isn’t their damage; I can go toe to toe with a thief, survive their burst and win almost every skirmish with them. The problem lies in my inability to kill them. I get close to killing them they just stealth away and reset the fight; only to come in and lose again, but only to reset the fight yet again.

The ONLY chance I have to kill a Thief is to run a Longbow and HOPE I land Pin Down; and that requires deviation from my GS/Axe+Shield PvP build.

For my thief i had around 14k health once and was somewhat 70-80% glass cannon. My heartseeker was never that close to that amount of damage to anyone.

HS only sucks when your cooldowns are up. HS spamming thieves are generally kitten tunnel-visioned players who are more than happy to blow all of their initiative against your (block, invuln, doges, or while theyre chilled, crippled or rooted).

Its not balance, it is l2p

brandon.6735:

For my thief i had around 14k health once and was somewhat 70-80% glass cannon. My heartseeker was never that close to that amount of damage to anyone.

If you want I can get video/picture proof of how much it hits me for, i can also get proof of a thief build that can kill me in 0.5-1 second.

Bunzy.8674:

brandon.6735:

For my thief i had around 14k health once and was somewhat 70-80% glass cannon. My heartseeker was never that close to that amount of damage to anyone.

If you want I can get video/picture proof of how much it hits me for, i can also get proof of a thief build that can kill me in 0.5-1 second.

Rebuild your toon is all i can say. We have the technology and means to create better defense. Heartseeeker increases in damage the lower the health of the target is. Take time to learn from this.

That’s what I’m saying….ppl go all glass for OMG BIG NUMBERS!!!11!! But a dead player makes no numbers at all afaik :-P

Bunzy.8674:

It’s currently doing too much damage to people
It constantly hits me for 5-7k each hit and that is with around ~1700 armor.
I don’t think any abilities should be able to constantly hit this much, especially spammable ones.

If you run around with 1700 armor then you deserve to be hit for stupidly high amounts.

Ender.3508:

HS only sucks when your cooldowns are up. HS spamming thieves are generally kitten tunnel-visioned players who are more than happy to blow all of their initiative against your (block, invuln, doges, or while theyre chilled, crippled or rooted).

Its not balance, it is l2p

You are missing the point of the argument, it shouldn’t be doing that much regardless of if they kitten tunnel-visioned players or not. No other ability can be spammed over and over and hit for that much damage, not to mention its also a gap closer.

Bunzy.8674:

If you want I can get video/picture proof of how much it hits me for, i can also get proof of a thief build that can kill me in 0.5-1 second.

Please do. Out of every class I encounter in WvW, D/D Ele is by far the hardest to take down if played right.

Twinklefairy.6739:

Bunzy.8674:

It’s currently doing too much damage to people
It constantly hits me for 5-7k each hit and that is with around ~1700 armor.
I don’t think any abilities should be able to constantly hit this much, especially spammable ones.

If you run around with 1700 armor then you deserve to be hit for stupidly high amounts.

I don’t know what profession you are, but I happen to have light armor. Every single one of my gear stats has toughness on it. I can’t stack anymore armor then I have right now without going 30 into the toughness tree, which only increases it to around ~1900

I’m not missing the point. Any thief who can hit for that much damage will drop to any other glass cannon who gets their burst off, they will fail to kill any of a number of bunker specs if they over commit. They will leave themselves initiative starved and vulnerable requiring the use of long CD utilities for any hope of escape.

Having played lots of thief in sPvP I can tell you that they are next to useless against any class who knows how to counter them.

Just because I disagree with you does not mean that I missed the “point”. It’s nothing more than a “NERF THIS NAO” qq thread instead of actually being willing to learn how to counter them.

Ender.3508:

I’m not missing the point. Any thief who can hit for that much damage will drop to any other glass cannon who gets their burst off, they will fail to kill any of a number of bunker specs if they over commit. They will leave themselves initiative starved and vulnerable requiring the use of long CD utilities for any hope of escape.

Having played lots of thief in sPvP I can tell you that they are next to useless against any class who knows how to counter them.

Just because I disagree with you does not mean that I missed the “point”. It’s nothing more than a “NERF THIS NAO” qq thread instead of actually being willing to learn how to counter them.

THieves are easy to repel; almost impossible to kill. Assassin in GW1 had it right; no stealth and shadow steps so that it took some skill to properly retreat.

Bunzy.8674:

Twinklefairy.6739:

Bunzy.8674:

It’s currently doing too much damage to people
It constantly hits me for 5-7k each hit and that is with around ~1700 armor.
I don’t think any abilities should be able to constantly hit this much, especially spammable ones.

If you run around with 1700 armor then you deserve to be hit for stupidly high amounts.

I don’t know what profession you are, but I happen to have light armor. Every single one of my gear stats has toughness on it. I can’t stack anymore armor then I have right now without going 30 into the toughness tree, which only increases it to around ~1900

Then you mean 1700 toughness, as if you have 1700 armor you can’t really have any toughness whatsoever.

Twinklefairy.6739:

Bunzy.8674:

Twinklefairy.6739:

Bunzy.8674:

It’s currently doing too much damage to people
It constantly hits me for 5-7k each hit and that is with around ~1700 armor.
I don’t think any abilities should be able to constantly hit this much, especially spammable ones.

If you run around with 1700 armor then you deserve to be hit for stupidly high amounts.

I don’t know what profession you are, but I happen to have light armor. Every single one of my gear stats has toughness on it. I can’t stack anymore armor then I have right now without going 30 into the toughness tree, which only increases it to around ~1900

Then you mean 1700 toughness, as if you have 1700 armor you can’t really have any toughness whatsoever.

Yes you were right. I have fixed it now.

thanks

Twinklefairy.6739:

Bunzy.8674:

Twinklefairy.6739:

Bunzy.8674:

It’s currently doing too much damage to people
It constantly hits me for 5-7k each hit and that is with around ~1700 armor.
I don’t think any abilities should be able to constantly hit this much, especially spammable ones.

If you run around with 1700 armor then you deserve to be hit for stupidly high amounts.

I don’t know what profession you are, but I happen to have light armor. Every single one of my gear stats has toughness on it. I can’t stack anymore armor then I have right now without going 30 into the toughness tree, which only increases it to around ~1900

Then you mean 1700 toughness, as if you have 1700 armor you can’t really have any toughness whatsoever.

This with Knight’s Gear You can have a max of 1168 Toughness from Gear (Total includes Earth Runes) 1700 armor is low.

ashleydoll.8563:

Also, about Shadow Refuge, one class can not really do enough AoE damage to bother a Thief who is in it, as you recall, Shadow Refuge will also heal the Thief, which negates the damage one or two people are doing to them. Not entirely, but it weakens it by a lot. Couple it with the fact once they’re in SR for 8 seconds, they can leave it and gain the remaining 4 seconds of stealth outside of the circle.

I have used AoE knockback abilities on SR and it rarely, if ever, knocks the Thief out of the circle, it usually misses entirely. There is also the fact a lot of AoEs do not have as large of a radius as SR has, meaning a Thief can walk out of your AoE and simply stay in SR unharmed.

I know Thieves do not have ultra long term stealth, but I’ve played my Thief enough to see the class is entirely based around crutches, my Thief is level 80 with moderate gear and I still have the easiest time in the world in WvW. In S/T PvP anyone can roll one, look up a build and practice for 5 minutes and top scoreboards. The class has too much going for it.

This is hilarious. You obviously have never used Shadow Refuge if you truly think Shadow Refuge can outheal AoE. It heals like 400 health per second and lasts 4 seconds. There is literally no way that this is “more damage than one player can deal.”

Also, anyone who knows how to play sPvP/tPvP can roll any class and get top score board. It’s really not hard to get top score in sPvP. All you have to do is flip positions and/or participate in large team fights. A thief running around killing people 1v1 isn’t going to get them top unless they’re playing with and against bad players.

Alsonia.4753:

Twinklefairy.6739:

Bunzy.8674:

Twinklefairy.6739:

Bunzy.8674:

It’s currently doing too much damage to people
It constantly hits me for 5-7k each hit and that is with around ~1700 armor.
I don’t think any abilities should be able to constantly hit this much, especially spammable ones.

If you run around with 1700 armor then you deserve to be hit for stupidly high amounts.

I don’t know what profession you are, but I happen to have light armor. Every single one of my gear stats has toughness on it. I can’t stack anymore armor then I have right now without going 30 into the toughness tree, which only increases it to around ~1900

Then you mean 1700 toughness, as if you have 1700 armor you can’t really have any toughness whatsoever.

This with Knight’s Gear You can have a max of 1168 Toughness from Gear (Total includes Earth Runes) 1700 armor is low.

Yes I have corrected it to toughness but thanks.

Heartseeker makes some thief player (especially bad player) become dumb. They dont explore more what a thief can do. (It very easy to defeat this player, evade at right time, bind them, and /laugh).

All they do: Heartseeker 3 times, if their enemy does not die or quickness does not proc, they will flee/hide/alt+f4 (their initiative is wasted).

HS spammers are the best.. I laugh so hard when I’m on Ele and immobile them and they just stay in place HS over and over.. Or on my thief I blinding powder right as they use th first HS and they just go leaping 5 times across the map behind me..

brandon.6735:

For my thief i had around 14k health once and was somewhat 70-80% glass cannon. My heartseeker was never that close to that amount of damage to anyone.

This can’t be right, I’m in full knights armor and I regularly get backstabbed/heartseekered for 6k+. I’ll grab you some screenshots if you like on my next engagement.

U guys do realize that once the cullin issue is fix thiefs r gonna b easy to kill right?

Real problem with Thieves is the ratio of Risk over Gaining atm, rendering problem is just making it worse.

Dps is a minor (or even not) a problem imo.

Bunzy.8674:

If you want I can get video/picture proof of how much it hits me for, i can also get proof of a thief build that can kill me in 0.5-1 second.

well now you’re just being silly. but thank you, i can disregard all your other posts because you just have no idea what you’re talking about lol

Why ppl still complain about thief?
In MMO history there is NO success sample for stealth class to get well balanced.
It’s simply mission impossible due to its mechanism.
Thief can only be either TOP or BOTTOM. Right now thief is on top, but some day a certain patch comes, thief will become underdog. This is what happened in all MMOs and will happened in GW2 soon.

Why would anyone play a thief if they removed the current stealth mechanic?

Warrior does everything else better.

When did 5k become a lot of damage? I guess if you have 1700 armor (or was it defense? or maybe toughness?) then that would seem like a lot.

Nilgoow.1037:

When did 5k become a lot of damage? I guess if you have 1700 armor (or was it defense? or maybe toughness?) then that would seem like a lot.

It’s a lot of damage when it can be applied every 0.8 seconds and there is no way to kite. Damage is fine if there were realistic escape options.