Zefyres – Ele | Maguuma | (ex) top100 solo/teamQ casual | Youtube
(edited by Zephyrus.9680)
[How To] FIX WvW Thief Stealth
They have to much ways of escaping in stealth only to return with full hp. I think that when a ticking condition is applied on thiefs ( bleed/poison/torment for examp ), they cannot go in stealth,and are revealed to everyone untill the condition is removed or the duration is over.
Revealed debuff should be 60s. If you start a fight, finish it.
it is almost impossible to kill even 1v2 or 1v3….. Particularly in 1v3s, 1v4s, 1v5s, 1v2s in enemy supply camps, etc….
This is such a small part of WvW i dont see why anyone would care. No changes needed.
Stealth isn’t the problem. Initiative regen is. You mention a thief in your sig, but do you play it with any regularity? I’m guessing not because even if we pretend stealthing is the problem, you’re nerfing the burst build far more heavily than the stealth builds.
No, initiative regen is the problem. Perma stealth is only possible with the Dagger + Pistol combo and specific skill choices. But at face value, there’s nothing wrong with perma stealth because it should come with a significant drop in damage. You’d expect it to because of the loss of CnD’s damage + vulnerability, but the simple fact of the matter is it doesn’t. Why doesn’t it? Because initiative regen can be elevated to such a degree that losing CnD+vuln in favor of blackpowder+heartseeker+backstab doesn’t result in a net drop in damage despite the significantly higher initiative cost, significantly higher utility, significantly higher regen/condition removal.
You then go on to try to nerf skills and traits (one that no one even uses btw) that most would consider mandatory additions to the thief class. This leads me to believe that you don’t really play the thief class because if any of your changes went through without ENORMOUS buffs in other areas, the entire class would be dead in the water.
Initiative regen is the problem. Remove all the excess regen from all skills and traits. Leave a trait to give initiative on crit with a cooldown and a trait to increase the initiative cap. All other methods of initiative regen can be removed.
“But Ath, even with these changes the Thief would be dead on arrival too!?” — Well yes, of course it would.
So the question then becomes how do you improve it?
Well for starters, you could give it the same health as Rangers. You mentioned the condition removal is high (it is…) but you completely fail to recognize that the thief class has the lowest health in the game and the least amount of regen out of stealth of any class. There’s a reason condition removal is so strong…. because a single burn will deal 50% of a Thief’s health.
Given the enormous drop in burst potential due to the loss of stealth (which means hidden killer, backstab, etc become much less valuable) you could increase auto attack damage and/or introduce a third state for stealth moves where if they’re used from the back they deal 50% more damage (in stealth they deal 100% more) and can be used without stealth (like in WoW).
You get the idea. The point I’m trying to make is that if your focus is stealth and not the root of the problem all you’re doing is quieting the QQ and they’ll simply move to another topic. The vast majority of complaints aimed at the Thief aren’t warranted. Burst isn’t that great because many classes can do more for less effort. They have no mitigation, only avoidance, outside of toughness/armor. They have no real stability option. They have no where near the best regen in the game.
The only legitimate complaint is how much utility they gain from pistol off-hand over dagger with no appreciable loss in damage or mobility.
Thief is fine.
Black Thunders [BT] – Gandara
Stealth is fine.
It is not broken.
It does not need fixed.
The thief trait line is fine and does not need to be messed with.
I speak for my self and no one else. Only fools believe they speak for a majority.
Shadow’s Embrace trait (condition removal in stealth): way overpowered because it almost makes thief immune to condition damage but I can’t think of how to nerf it without overnerfing.
Move it to Grandmaster tier where it belongs so that it’s onpair with the condition removal traits other classes have.
? <(^-^><)>^-^)> <(^-^)> ?
MARATHON CIV 5 DIFFICULTY 10 STILL GOING
I can’t count on how many of those I’ve stepped and still gotten away. :P
? <(^-^><)>^-^)> <(^-^)> ?
I can’t count on how many of those I’ve stepped and still gotten away. :P
no one cares if you run
if you are running you arent doing anyone any harm youre just waisting your own time
MARATHON CIV 5 DIFFICULTY 10 STILL GOING
Because countering a thief should totally cost 15 badges, 10 supply, exposing yourself for 4 seconds and praying to all the higher powers he actually triggers it.
Just so he then has to run away, and you can pat yourself on the back because there is no way those 15badges and 10 supply couldve been better spend….
Because countering a thief should totally cost 15 badges, 10 supply, exposing yourself for 4 seconds and praying to all the higher powers he actually triggers it.
Just so he then has to run away, and you can pat yourself on the back because there is no way those 15badges and 10 supply couldve been better spend….
the thing is countering a thief is completely voluntary. youre not winning any keeps and towers by roaming alone and fighting thieves. .youre the one who wants to go fight thieves in wvw. if youre off fighting thieves then you have no right to complain about needing to use your supply for something thats actually useful.
MARATHON CIV 5 DIFFICULTY 10 STILL GOING
I agree D/P needs some adjustment. A bit of well played stealth is a good thing in the game, but D/Ps that simply stay stealthed forever give their opponents very few chances to attack them. The skill level required to make it work is laughable.
Shadow’s Embrace is pretty much many thieves only condition removal. They only have two skill options past that and most condition classes can put up way more condi than a thief can remove.
Shadow Refuge already got its nerf when a thief is push/pulled/leaves they get immediately revealed regardless of their stealth status. So a player has to sit in the “hut” for a few seconds often under heavy fire or lose all stealth and be revealed for 3 seconds. IMO Blinding Powder is significantly better in combat.
Sarcasm For Hire [SFH]
“Youre lips are movin and youre complaining about something thats wingeing.”
“Youre lips are movin and youre complaining about something thats wingeing.”
(edited by Straegen.2938)
I agree with the OP in the single points he made but implementing all of the suggested changes would be too much in my opinion. Plus, you should not just nerf one thing and give nothing in exchange.
The problem is, in my eyes, that too many of Thief’s strongest tools are connected with stealth while stealth itself is already a very strong mechanic (especially in WvW). Stealth-focused builds rely on stealth heavily while making stealth “features” (stealth attacks, Shadow’s Embrace, regen, initiative gain, invisibility, mobility/port skills making it impossible to predict your position in stealth etc.) very strong or even too strong.
The initiative mechanic allows Thiefs to abuse their access to stealth in certain weapon sets nearly unlimited, since it makes it possible to focus on one-sided playstyles. (kudos to Atherakhia for his post)
Also, stealth lacks downsides / counters. There’s no situation where being in stealth would be a disadvantage.
I don’t necessarily consider Thiefs as OP but they unify too many mechanics that are a balance nightmare imo. Traits that may be perfectly fine used in one playstyle might be broken in another, skills which is are just a solid escape / defense in one build can be the make or break of others. I guess stealth and everything connected with it does not get changed significantly, it is doomed to be either borderline OP or borderline UP. Its a problem of synergy, like many balance issues in GW1 were.
Now if Anet would fix OP’s #2 suddenly #1 and #3 would be less of an issue and fixing these two points additionally on their own could be the end of stealth-focused Thiefs (which need change, not extinction). As much as I would like to see #2 changed, because it often makes counter play obsolete or even punishes you for it, Thief requires overall attention and maybe a bit love in other aspects if they revise stealth mechanics, related traits and skills. It is easy to come up with ideas to tone down stealth, but it is difficult to think of a balanced and fair trade-off for Thiefs.
2. Fix Stealth Attack Mitigation: Attacks from stealth that result in block, dodge or reflection need to break stealth as a normal attack.
Reason: The way it is now is anti-skill because an attack burns the damage mitigation (e.g. aegis) without even breaking stealth. It’s impossible to counter an attack from stealth which is stupid. Anticipation/prediction which is player skill should also play a role.
This is the point I agree with. This is skill based counter-play and should be encouraged. Blind and aegis were made to counter the next incoming attack. I do not see why an attack from stealth should be able to circumvent this mechanic. I think this change would give people an option to deal with stealth.
Stealth isn’t the problem. Initiative regen is. You mention a thief in your sig, but do you play it with any regularity? I’m guessing not because even if we pretend stealthing is the problem, you’re nerfing the burst build far more heavily than the stealth builds.
No, initiative regen is the problem. Perma stealth is only possible with the Dagger + Pistol combo and specific skill choices. But at face value, there’s nothing wrong with perma stealth because it should come with a significant drop in damage. You’d expect it to because of the loss of CnD’s damage + vulnerability, but the simple fact of the matter is it doesn’t. Why doesn’t it? Because initiative regen can be elevated to such a degree that losing CnD+vuln in favor of blackpowder+heartseeker+backstab doesn’t result in a net drop in damage despite the significantly higher initiative cost, significantly higher utility, significantly higher regen/condition removal.
You then go on to try to nerf skills and traits (one that no one even uses btw) that most would consider mandatory additions to the thief class. This leads me to believe that you don’t really play the thief class because if any of your changes went through without ENORMOUS buffs in other areas, the entire class would be dead in the water.
Initiative regen is the problem. Remove all the excess regen from all skills and traits. Leave a trait to give initiative on crit with a cooldown and a trait to increase the initiative cap. All other methods of initiative regen can be removed.
“But Ath, even with these changes the Thief would be dead on arrival too!?” — Well yes, of course it would.
So the question then becomes how do you improve it?
Well for starters, you could give it the same health as Rangers. You mentioned the condition removal is high (it is…) but you completely fail to recognize that the thief class has the lowest health in the game and the least amount of regen out of stealth of any class. There’s a reason condition removal is so strong…. because a single burn will deal 50% of a Thief’s health.
Given the enormous drop in burst potential due to the loss of stealth (which means hidden killer, backstab, etc become much less valuable) you could increase auto attack damage and/or introduce a third state for stealth moves where if they’re used from the back they deal 50% more damage (in stealth they deal 100% more) and can be used without stealth (like in WoW).
You get the idea. The point I’m trying to make is that if your focus is stealth and not the root of the problem all you’re doing is quieting the QQ and they’ll simply move to another topic. The vast majority of complaints aimed at the Thief aren’t warranted. Burst isn’t that great because many classes can do more for less effort. They have no mitigation, only avoidance, outside of toughness/armor. They have no real stability option. They have no where near the best regen in the game.
The only legitimate complaint is how much utility they gain from pistol off-hand over dagger with no appreciable loss in damage or mobility.
I can’t really reply to most of that because clearly you didn’t understand my original suggestion. It would reduce survivabilty from passive CnD ‘trolling’ which in practice is the same as perma stealth in combat, and would absolutely NOT nerf thief burst at all — which I see no problem with. (d/d thief is the weakest thief)
There’s strategic issues with a d/p perma stealth thief being able to hide indefinitely in an inner keep and then res a dead mesmer when no one’s looking. Which will then portal a zerg right to the lord.
I have hundreds of hours on my thief. It’s my main.
Vulnerability? That matters in PvE for bosses.
Initiative regen has no problems. What you’re suggesting there would destroy d/p completely. Try playing the build without extra regen…
Every good thief I see uses Shadow’s Embrace. And definitely any thief that even has the slightest chance of beating me.
it is almost impossible to kill even 1v2 or 1v3….. Particularly in 1v3s, 1v4s, 1v5s, 1v2s in enemy supply camps, etc….
This is such a small part of WvW i dont see why anyone would care. No changes needed.
If you visited these forums a little more you would see a huge amount of ‘care’ given to the inability to kill thieves. And btw the majority of my fights roaming are more than 1v1, e.g.:
Zefyres – Ele | Maguuma | (ex) top100 solo/teamQ casual | Youtube
(edited by Zephyrus.9680)
Because countering a thief should totally cost 15 badges, 10 supply, exposing yourself for 4 seconds and praying to all the higher powers he actually triggers it.
Just so he then has to run away, and you can pat yourself on the back because there is no way those 15badges and 10 supply couldve been better spend….
the thing is countering a thief is completely voluntary. youre not winning any keeps and towers by roaming alone and fighting thieves. .youre the one who wants to go fight thieves in wvw. if youre off fighting thieves then you have no right to complain about needing to use your supply for something thats actually useful.
For starters, why on earth is it okay to have 1 profession that can pretty much not get caugth and killed. Thats just bs.
Is it “voluntary” to try and prevent your Keeps from getting locked down by constantly being contested? Or to actually have a dolly make it anywhere so you can actually upgrade something?
Roaming players are not useless.
You have to be kidding me. Really? 15 badges + 525karma + 10sup just to be on the same level with one class? Hey, I want some uber abilities for my engi then, that will require people to spend 25 badges just to have a shot at killing me. Like, 2k/sec regen maybe?
Because countering a thief should totally cost 15 badges, 10 supply, exposing yourself for 4 seconds and praying to all the higher powers he actually triggers it.
Just so he then has to run away, and you can pat yourself on the back because there is no way those 15badges and 10 supply couldve been better spend….
the thing is countering a thief is completely voluntary. youre not winning any keeps and towers by roaming alone and fighting thieves. .youre the one who wants to go fight thieves in wvw. if youre off fighting thieves then you have no right to complain about needing to use your supply for something thats actually useful.
For starters, why on earth is it okay to have 1 profession that can pretty much not get caugth and killed. Thats just bs.
Is it “voluntary” to try and prevent your Keeps from getting locked down by constantly being contested? Or to actually have a dolly make it anywhere so you can actually upgrade something?
Roaming players are not useless.
i can go tap keeps as my warrior or guardian. i can also kill dolyaks. im failing to see why a thief is so much more op than other people are even with stealth.
MARATHON CIV 5 DIFFICULTY 10 STILL GOING
I like your ideas, especially #2.
About Shadows Embrace, perhaps it should remove 2 conditions upon entering stealth, rather than passively removing conditions while in stealth. That would act against permastealth thieves but still alow thieves who make use of stealth to cleanse themselves with it.
Cufufalating – Ranger / Part-Time Mesmer
Gunnar’s Hold
Gunnar’s Hold
You have to be kidding me. Really? 15 badges + 525karma + 10sup just to be on the same level with one class? Hey, I want some uber abilities for my engi then, that will require people to spend 25 badges just to have a shot at killing me. Like, 2k/sec regen maybe?
you dont get that thieves running around in wvw dont really turn the tide of any kind of battle. they dont do anything aside from killing baddies who are not with a group. theyre not singlehandedly taking over every objective in wvw. theyre killing the occasional stray player. killing these thieves provides no benefit for your side. If a player really didnt like them, they have the option to buy a stealth trap, which is what i do. yet i know that killing one or two thieves is my own business and my own choice and im not really helping my side at all by doing so.
MARATHON CIV 5 DIFFICULTY 10 STILL GOING
Thieves are a terrible profession, one of the weakest in the game. Please buff their BS damage back to 15k+ so that I will won’t be able to kill them while half-asleep anymore.
I have played my thief for a long time in WvW running d/p lastly. And I have to admit trolling other players, without running the risk of being killed is delicious.
But Im surprised that d/p has not been nerfed yet, since there is no real counter to it as long the thief isnt mentally handicapped.
Sure you can run into the smoke field hoping the thief is dumb enough to HS you. Or you can try to chain-cc and burst him down. But this would most likely result in a shadowstepping-away-thief going to soft-reset the fight, since you just burned all your ccs.
Either way some adjustments for thiefs wouldnt be amiss.
I like the suggestion to change Shadows Embrace towards only removing 2 conditions on entering stealth.
Or moving it in the current state to the grandmaster tier, forcing thiefs to choose either regen or contition removal.
Right now its like Berserkers Power or Heightened Focus for warriors pre patch – too good to ignore.
As a trait in the adept tier Shadows Embrace is definitely too strong and should be looked at.
Also not being punished for spamming/missing stealth attacks only favours noob playstyle.
If a mesmer shatters his illusions and the opponent dodges, blocks or throws invul the illusions are gone. Same counts for engineers and their tool belt abilities/static discharge or warriors burst skills going on cd.
Either missing stealth attacks should reveal the thief or cost a significant amout of initiative (5-6), being restored if actually hitting the target.
If the thief needs two attempts (such as removing aegis and hitting with backstab afterwards) he will only get 5-6 initiative back (for hitting with backstab), while he has spent 5-6 on removing aegis. Sounds fair imo.
Condition damage numbers should still be visible on a stealthed thief imho.
Why? If I encounter a ninja at home and I smack him hard before he stealths, I just have to follow the trace of blood..
:)
The Hatreidis family: Freya / Nina / Demonica / Athena / Faith / Arya / Angie / Sansa
Commander – Jam Death [Jd]
Fissure of Woe
Commander – Jam Death [Jd]
Fissure of Woe
killing these thieves provides no benefit for your side. If a player really didnt like them, they have the option to buy a stealth trap, which is what i do. yet i know that killing one or two thieves is my own business and my own choice and im not really helping my side at all by doing so.
So basically you’re saying “if a thief attack, you have to die, because killing thieves don’t help your side”… nice logic.
“they dont do anything aside from killing baddies who are not with a group”
Baddies? Oh god, I suppose that every time you die, you wait the blob and hug the commander. Anyway, the thieves are very useful in WvWvW, if you do not know how to use the class, it’s just your fault ;-)
Kareha Silverwind – mesmer of Clan McBenwick (Gunnar’s Hold)
(edited by Edeor.9720)
There are 2 very simple fixes to stealth that do not nerf thieves into the ground.
1. Reduce increased stealth speed to 33%. As to why my thief can permanently (depends on build) run around at 50% I could not tell you, but It is game breaking (until this is fixed all your yaks are belong to me).
2. Reduce the amount of health regenerated from the final tier trait in shadow arts by 20%. A huge reduction is not needed as thieves are already the most squishy players in WvW.
I definitely agree that you should become revealed after hitting aegis or a block, seems strange that it isn’t already a mechanic.
The main thing that people forget when they post another silly (which this post isn’t) “thieves are OP” thread is that thief is most probably one of the most used classes in the game especially for WvW. Stealth confuses the majority of new or less skilled either because they are casual players or just not so good at the game. There are a lot of great thief players, that can use stealth intelligently and tactically to confuse a great number of opponents but there are also a huge number of terrible thieves that think that stealth makes them invincible and they get flattened by anyone with a brain. This is the same with any class, there are great elementalists that can destroy groups of players, but others that can hardly face one, great mesmers that can take on large groups, also using stealth but others that can’t do anything without a zerg handy to help. This goes for all classes i’ve seen necros, guards warriors, rangers, engys the lot take on large groups of people and win. Yet you see very little posts about these other classes being ‘OP’ and I attribute that not to class balance but to the larger number of thief players that solo roam and the large amount of inexperienced players that do not understand stealth and get frustrated as soon as they use it more than once.
What i’m getting at is that the mass of ‘thief is OP’ posts come from being frustrated by stealth and not understanding it through lack of skill and/or experience. Thieves that are well played should not be nerfed into eternity and that is why Anet hasn’t. More players play them and therefore there are a larger number of skilled players on the field usually solo roaming or in small groups. If they do get nerfed too much then they will be boring to fight, I for one as a D/D ele have a great time fighting thieves of all levels as much as I do other classes and if they take me down I attribute that to their expertise in using the profession skills at their disposal, not cheating, being cowardly or OP mechanics.
Does no one else enjoy the current level of thieves, the ease of taking on less experienced thieves the challenge of taking on a skilled player?
Does no one else enjoy the current level of thieves, the ease of taking on less experienced thieves the challenge of taking on a skilled player?
Nope, there’s just so many kitten thieves. Id prefer a larger variety of professions to fight.
We kinda have it a bit easy though, you and I, as D/D eles and i am finding it hilarious when i can get CE+LF off on a stealthed thief but often it just feels like im against an army of them.
The thing is, all other class mechanics of other classes have a way of countering them. Stealth does not. It’s not thieves that are OP, stealth is just a broken mechanic the way it was implemented in this game. Just about every other game that has some sort of stealthing class has some way of countering it. And no, all you people saying just AoE or swing where they vanished, that is NOT a counter. Pick up a kitten dictionary and look up the word counter. Countering would be a way to outright stop them from doing it or a way of removing it from them after they do it. All other class mechanics have a way to stop them from doing it. Stealth does not. And that is what makes it unbalanced. They don’t need to nerf thieves. They just need to give other classes a way of revealing them. Hitting someone who’s stealthed should reveal them. that’s never made any sense to me. in other games when you take damage while stealthed,, you get revealed. That actually requires skill to stay permanently stealthed and not get hit and thus being revealed, unlike in this game where its just a reset button for people to troll with. It has far too many advantages and far too few drawbacks.
The thing is, all other class mechanics of other classes have a way of countering them. Stealth does not. It’s not thieves that are OP, stealth is just a broken mechanic the way it was implemented in this game. Just about every other game that has some sort of stealthing class has some way of countering it. And no, all you people saying just AoE or swing where they vanished, that is NOT a counter. Pick up a kitten dictionary and look up the word counter. Countering would be a way to outright stop them from doing it or a way of removing it from them after they do it. All other class mechanics have a way to stop them from doing it. Stealth does not. And that is what makes it unbalanced. They don’t need to nerf thieves. They just need to give other classes a way of revealing them. Hitting someone who’s stealthed should reveal them. that’s never made any sense to me. in other games when you take damage while stealthed,, you get revealed. That actually requires skill to stay permanently stealthed and not get hit and thus being revealed, unlike in this game where its just a reset button for people to troll with. It has far too many advantages and far too few drawbacks.
How do you counter someone from doing anything? You use your attacks? You want to counter stealth? Use a stun/knockdown/knockback/daze/immobilise, stay ranged if they are d/d, p/d or burst them as they come out of stealth. OR like you say AoE the area.
What is the counter to a mesmer shatter? A block? Use that for a stealth attack. Stealth has plenty of counters exactly the same as other technicques of other classes have plenty of counters, the majority of them being stuns, immobilise, knockdowns, blocks and damage.
The thing is, all other class mechanics of other classes have a way of countering them. Stealth does not. It’s not thieves that are OP, stealth is just a broken mechanic the way it was implemented in this game. Just about every other game that has some sort of stealthing class has some way of countering it. And no, all you people saying just AoE or swing where they vanished, that is NOT a counter. Pick up a kitten dictionary and look up the word counter. Countering would be a way to outright stop them from doing it or a way of removing it from them after they do it. All other class mechanics have a way to stop them from doing it. Stealth does not. And that is what makes it unbalanced. They don’t need to nerf thieves. They just need to give other classes a way of revealing them. Hitting someone who’s stealthed should reveal them. that’s never made any sense to me. in other games when you take damage while stealthed,, you get revealed. That actually requires skill to stay permanently stealthed and not get hit and thus being revealed, unlike in this game where its just a reset button for people to troll with. It has far too many advantages and far too few drawbacks.
Considering the amount of aoes flying around reveal on taking damage could be akin to taking stealth out of the game.
As fun as that heartseeker + black powder combo is I have to agree that it’s a little crazy how easily you can run rings around large groups of enemies with minimal effort. I’m kind of expecting a nerf on that combo at some point in the future but I’d hate to see it taken too far (i.e. removing the combo field). Perhaps smoke field finishers should grant ‘Hide in Shadows’ (not the heal skill) instead of traditional stealth, that way heartseeker + black powder cannot stack with other sources of stealth. I could live with that.
Gandara
Revealed should be 1 second when a thief comes out of stealth, attack or not. Then everytime after 1 more second is added on.
The longer the fight the more risk a thief should have to stealth.
(edited by koopatroopa.5360)
You have to be kidding me. Really? 15 badges + 525karma + 10sup just to be on the same level with one class? Hey, I want some uber abilities for my engi then, that will require people to spend 25 badges just to have a shot at killing me. Like, 2k/sec regen maybe?
On the same level? Really? So when you hit a thief with stealth trap, does he gain your ridiculous access to conditions? Does he gain your access to protection and stability? Does he gain your higher health pool or 1500 range attacks? On the same level, Yeah right, do you even play this game?
The thing is, all other class mechanics of other classes have a way of countering them. Stealth does not. It’s not thieves that are OP, stealth is just a broken mechanic the way it was implemented in this game. Just about every other game that has some sort of stealthing class has some way of countering it. And no, all you people saying just AoE or swing where they vanished, that is NOT a counter. Pick up a kitten dictionary and look up the word counter. Countering would be a way to outright stop them from doing it or a way of removing it from them after they do it. All other class mechanics have a way to stop them from doing it. Stealth does not. And that is what makes it unbalanced. They don’t need to nerf thieves. They just need to give other classes a way of revealing them. Hitting someone who’s stealthed should reveal them. that’s never made any sense to me. in other games when you take damage while stealthed,, you get revealed. That actually requires skill to stay permanently stealthed and not get hit and thus being revealed, unlike in this game where its just a reset button for people to troll with. It has far too many advantages and far too few drawbacks.
How do you counter someone from doing anything? You use your attacks? You want to counter stealth? Use a stun/knockdown/knockback/daze/immobilise, stay ranged if they are d/d, p/d or burst them as they come out of stealth. OR like you say AoE the area.
What is the counter to a mesmer shatter? A block? Use that for a stealth attack. Stealth has plenty of counters exactly the same as other technicques of other classes have plenty of counters, the majority of them being stuns, immobilise, knockdowns, blocks and damage.
not every class has access to on demand wide area knockdown/knockback/stun/daze/or immobilize and not to mention immobilize can be easily cured or shadow stepped out of.
and most immobilizes need a target to cast, and with the range they can move staying ranged is a poor solution, and no theives aren’t squishy enough to just burst down in 3 seconds or less.
you’re only solution to killing these people is needing a large group that is able to chain control skills, i.e needing a group thats only good at killing 1 to 2 people.
the main problem is that thieves have access to stealth fields, take those out or change it so heartseeker is no longer a leap finisher, or shortbow 2 is no longer a blast finisher, and that will be 90% of the problem people have with thieves
When I use D/P Infusion of Shadow is the trait most responsible for my permanent stealth. Get 2 ini each time you HS the powder, that + Blinding Powder, Hide in Shadows and Quick Recovery means you literally never run out of initiative to spam stealth with. You can be in stealth without ever leaving it thanks to Infusion.
D/P is incredibly broken – but Anet will not change anything because all these months the only real balance changes they’ve made have been in response to things top players whine about in TPvP. Even the nerfs to Retal and Confusion were based on changes made for TPvP ages before they were implemented in WvW.
IE. Reroll Thief is the only proper response anyone should be doing right now, to be honest. Once you realize you never have to pay repairs it’s hard to go back.
The thing is, all other class mechanics of other classes have a way of countering them. Stealth does not. It’s not thieves that are OP, stealth is just a broken mechanic the way it was implemented in this game. Just about every other game that has some sort of stealthing class has some way of countering it. And no, all you people saying just AoE or swing where they vanished, that is NOT a counter. Pick up a kitten dictionary and look up the word counter. Countering would be a way to outright stop them from doing it or a way of removing it from them after they do it. All other class mechanics have a way to stop them from doing it. Stealth does not. And that is what makes it unbalanced. They don’t need to nerf thieves. They just need to give other classes a way of revealing them. Hitting someone who’s stealthed should reveal them. that’s never made any sense to me. in other games when you take damage while stealthed,, you get revealed. That actually requires skill to stay permanently stealthed and not get hit and thus being revealed, unlike in this game where its just a reset button for people to troll with. It has far too many advantages and far too few drawbacks.
How do you counter someone from doing anything? You use your attacks? You want to counter stealth? Use a stun/knockdown/knockback/daze/immobilise, stay ranged if they are d/d, p/d or burst them as they come out of stealth. OR like you say AoE the area.
What is the counter to a mesmer shatter? A block? Use that for a stealth attack. Stealth has plenty of counters exactly the same as other technicques of other classes have plenty of counters, the majority of them being stuns, immobilise, knockdowns, blocks and damage.
not every class has access to on demand wide area knockdown/knockback/stun/daze/or immobilize and not to mention immobilize can be easily cured or shadow stepped out of.
and most immobilizes need a target to cast, and with the range they can move staying ranged is a poor solution, and no theives aren’t squishy enough to just burst down in 3 seconds or less.you’re only solution to killing these people is needing a large group that is able to chain control skills, i.e needing a group thats only good at killing 1 to 2 people.
the main problem is that thieves have access to stealth fields, take those out or change it so heartseeker is no longer a leap finisher, or shortbow 2 is no longer a blast finisher, and that will be 90% of the problem people have with thieves
A lot of Thieves are absolutely squishy enough to burst down, maybe not always in 3 seconds but depending on their skills and cooldowns and your own skills and cc’s you can have way more than 3 seconds to get them. My solution is not having to be in groups at all its being intelligent with your skill use if you want to beat them. You can’t win every fight with the skills you select, some classes and builds will be able to beat you based on your own build, thieves don’t have the ultimate build to counter every class and everyones build.
I’m against Aegis droping stealth, for two reasons; one Aegis is already a warning in and of itself, you hear the “pong” and dodge roll away, let them screw up and destealth on the miss of the second try; two, because the Guardian has perma aegis, I play a Guardian and they already can practically faceroll most content in this game, they don’t need anymore freebies, however, they could add a 13 millisecond aftercast to Backstab. The average person takes about 12 milliseconds to react to sound, I’ve clocked myself between 11 and 14.
Registered Altaholic
Part-time Kittenposter
Part-time Kittenposter
(edited by Dual.8953)
I’m against Aegis droping stealth, for two reasons; one Aegis is already a warning in and of itself, you hear the “pong” and dodge roll away, let them screw up and destealth on the miss of the second try; two, because the Guardian has perma aegis, I play a Guardian and they already can practically faceroll most content in this game, they don’t need anymore freebies, however, they could add a 13 millisecond aftercast to Backstab. The average person takes about 12 milliseconds to react to sound, I’ve clocked myself between 11 and 14.
It appears that you don’t know what a millisecond is. No way you react to sound in 12 msec.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_chronometry
http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/stats.php
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2006/reactiontime.shtml
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Reaction+Time+Human
http://www.colorado.edu/eeb/courses/1230jbasey/abstracts%202005/5.htm
D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]
I’m against Aegis droping stealth, for two reasons; one Aegis is already a warning in and of itself, you hear the “pong” and dodge roll away, let them screw up and destealth on the miss of the second try; two, because the Guardian has perma aegis, I play a Guardian and they already can practically faceroll most content in this game, they don’t need anymore freebies, however, they could add a 13 millisecond aftercast to Backstab. The average person takes about 12 milliseconds to react to sound, I’ve clocked myself between 11 and 14.
It appears that you don’t know what a millisecond is. No way you react to sound in 12 msec.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_chronometry
http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/stats.php
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2006/reactiontime.shtml
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Reaction+Time+Human
http://www.colorado.edu/eeb/courses/1230jbasey/abstracts%202005/5.htm
My bad, I was out a decimal point. Yes 120 milliseconds, add that to Backstab’s 250 ms cast time for a total of 370 ms. How do I know I’m 110 to 140 ms? A reaction game I used to play clocked me at it.
Registered Altaholic
Part-time Kittenposter
Part-time Kittenposter
Haha they will never fix thief. You can quote me on that till day they take servers down. Stealth in its current form is insanely OP and has been since game release. They have been told it countless times. Even their own dev statements said they did not want stealth to be used all time. Combine the OP stealth in the game with very high damage spammable skills used when stealthed with no cooldown = dumb poor game design. There is a reason no competitive gamers take this game seriously, this being one of them. WvW thiefs to me are like pub stomping spies in TF2, terrible players that get cheap kills based on the class design itself and not their own skill. At least there is a counter to stealth in that game.
You have to be kidding me. Really? 15 badges + 525karma + 10sup just to be on the same level with one class? Hey, I want some uber abilities for my engi then, that will require people to spend 25 badges just to have a shot at killing me. Like, 2k/sec regen maybe?
On the same level? Really? So when you hit a thief with stealth trap, does he gain your ridiculous access to conditions? Does he gain your access to protection and stability? Does he gain your higher health pool or 1500 range attacks? On the same level, Yeah right, do you even play this game?
you absolutely don’t get the point.
kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten
OP has some really great ideas here that would help with a lot of the wvw cheese builds. Unfortunately devs don’t pay much attention to small-scale wvw balance (or wvw balance at all). Since most of these issues aren’t really relevant in pvp, I doubt you’ll ever see them fixed.
That said, I do really like the idea of upping the cast time on refuge.
Also I, too, don’t agree with revealing a thief when they miss an attack out of stealth, but there should be an initiative penalty.
Finally, not sure if OP’s suggestions are the way to go about it, but obviously in wvw something needs to be done about CnD / BP+HS spam. The BP+HS spam is particularly terrible now that blinds were buffed. Again though, it’s not a big deal in s/tpvp so devs just don’t care.
Cyyrix | Marypoppins Deathsquad [mds] | Team Riot [RIOT] | Blackgate
killing these thieves provides no benefit for your side. If a player really didnt like them, they have the option to buy a stealth trap, which is what i do. yet i know that killing one or two thieves is my own business and my own choice and im not really helping my side at all by doing so.
So basically you’re saying “if a thief attack, you have to die, because killing thieves don’t help your side”… nice logic.
“they dont do anything aside from killing baddies who are not with a group”
Baddies? Oh god, I suppose that every time you die, you wait the blob and hug the commander. Anyway, the thieves are very useful in WvWvW, if you do not know how to use the class, it’s just your fault ;-)
im saying if youre spending your time running fighting thieves instead of taking and defending objectives thats your own problem not anyone elses. in all honesty what is a lone thief or 2 going to do points wise? do you think he gains your server thousands of points? WvW isnt for dueling, Spvp is where you go for dueling servers if you want to duel.
just because you are mad you cant beat them (and if you really wanted to counter their stealth buy some freaking stealth traps) doesnt mean theyre actually making a difference.
MARATHON CIV 5 DIFFICULTY 10 STILL GOING
Basically thieves are the GW2 built in cheat class, if you are really bad at PvP, then use a thief.
Why are you guys suggesting stealth traps as a counter to thieves? Are forgetting how incredible thief mobility is? Nothing short of a warrior (specced for it) or another thief will catch me.
Shadowstep + 4 Heartseekers = 3120 distance.
Archonicable – Thief
0/6/6/0/6 – D/D + D/P
Crystal Desert
0/6/6/0/6 – D/D + D/P
Crystal Desert
i wonder why there are ppl that don’t have problems with thieves and other ppl that think thieves are a sort of cheating-unbeatable-ninja-warriors…
Anet gives you traps to counter stealth but you don’t want to use ‘em because they cost too much.
You can’t consider a l2p issue because you are pro and skilled and it doesn’t matter if the same thief that kills both you and your pro and skilled friend after that die against someone else in a fair 1vs1…
Do you have problems with thieves? roll one and learn the clkitten
qq more pewpew
Black Thunders [BT] – Gandara
im saying if youre spending your time running fighting thieves instead of taking and defending objectives thats your own problem not anyone elses. in all honesty what is a lone thief or 2 going to do points wise? do you think he gains your server thousands of points? WvW isnt for dueling, Spvp is where you go for dueling servers if you want to duel.
They can do plenty. Killing dolys guarded by multiple players with little risk of dying, keeping waypoints contested and staying in a taken keep so they can res a mesmer there who then can port zergs in.
1&2 can be done by other professions as well, but they’ll get killed faster because they lack stealth-access. Especially #3 is annoying, because you kind of have to chase the thief down which is not an easy task, even with multiple people.
Thiefs are also strong spotters/scouts. They can keep an eye on a hostile zerg like nobody else since few commanders will waste time running after one whereas other professions probably get killed by some stragglers soon.
In my opinion thief’s stealth abilities can indeed have a noticeable effect in WvW.
Why are you guys suggesting stealth traps as a counter to thieves? Are forgetting how incredible thief mobility is? Nothing short of a warrior (specced for it) or another thief will catch me.
Shadowstep + 4 Heartseekers = 3120 distance.
as i said before
no one cares if you run
you arent hurting anyone when you run
running = losing
youre wasting nobody’s but your own time if you run.
MARATHON CIV 5 DIFFICULTY 10 STILL GOING