Guild Wars 2

Hello,

Some figures from an encounter with a standalone thief.
All happened in 3 sec maximum.
I blinked and dodge twice.
I am full rabid: thus I am supposed to mitigate a lot of direct damage.

I find the figures crazy. How can he reach such numbers

How to deal with such spammy insane damage ?

Thanks for your help.

Just read the title.
I would bet that it was another crythread about how OP are thieves ahah.

Ah just a thing. With 1600 toughness you DONT mitigate A LOT of direct damage.
And stop with this silly kind of thread pls, it’s boring. Really.

And people insist conditions are the problem in WvW. Thief isnt even alone in this kind of burst.

How you “deal” with this is just going full bunker, leaving very little room for you to deal some damage outside some conditions. Then come back to the forums and watch everyone complain about people playing super bunker with condition damage.

I havn’t logged on to Gw2 in a few weeks here (burned out and not happy with the direction it’s going). With that said, I run a full berserker build… and though I can’t remember my toughness offhand.. I don’t think it was far off your numbers OP. Thieves easily 2-4 shot me quickly, you should expect the same with that toughness.

Play a thief in spvp for a few matches. You will now find next encounters very predictable.

Make sure your build, trait spec and playstyle can counter bursts dmg, condi spams and crowd control.

Once you got this dominated Wvw is a piece of cake.

Thieves are one of the most imbalanced professions at the moment. It’s not because of their damage (even though initiative allows them to spam their skills A LOT) but because of stealth. The only way to counter it is to spend karma and badges on traps which also cost supply to deploy. To me the only way to balance them is to either nerf their dmg (which is the worse scenario as it will hit their pve) or give every profession a skill to deal with stealth.

CodexG.7593:

Thieves are one of the most imbalanced professions at the moment. It’s not because of their damage (even though initiative allows them to spam their skills A LOT) but because of stealth. The only way to counter it is to spend karma and badges on traps which also cost supply to deploy. To me the only way to balance them is to either nerf their dmg (which is the worse scenario as it will hit their pve) or give every profession a sill to deal with stealth.

Thats not true… thieves are horrible for group play, and a few cc’s can get the stealth lovers down in a few hits. No offense but this is more of a l2p scenario

Natronix.9827:

CodexG.7593:

Thieves are one of the most imbalanced professions at the moment. It’s not because of their damage (even though initiative allows them to spam their skills A LOT) but because of stealth. The only way to counter it is to spend karma and badges on traps which also cost supply to deploy. To me the only way to balance them is to either nerf their dmg (which is the worse scenario as it will hit their pve) or give every profession a sill to deal with stealth.

Thats not true… thieves are horrible for group play, and a few cc’s can get the stealth lovers down in a few hits. No offense but this is more of a l2p scenario

I play vs a lot of thieves in spvp. Some are still imbalanced but never I faced such an amount of damage. Moreover I play full zerk in spvp.

I feel difference is hudge between wvw and spvp. It is out of control.

And no I don’t think it is a l2p issue. While I am not a great player, I am used to deal with plenty of thieves in spvp / tpvp and I have some success.

No no I meant play a thief to see how they work from their PoV, believe me it works.

lul.. wut… Thieves entire gameplay on that build comes from backstabs. You know where they are going, Dont be an idiot about your back, Constantly move and dodge just before they for the the stab. Play thief for a week or so, you’ll know when to dodge trust me. Those numbers are kittenty as well. 3.4k armor, 3k attack damage, 16% crit, 21k hp on my Guardian

Bottom line, Play thief, They suddenly become the worst class in the game when you know how they play. I only die to really good thieves anymore, and props to them for that. :P Most thieves I can stand around and out heal/boon/dps XD

The combat log numbers seem higher than expected, but I wont comment as I don’t know French and exactly what skill did what. I will answer the question about what to do when fighting theives, if you are serious in wanting to counter them this so do for a rabid mesmer build.

As for this situation, switch Signet of Inspiration to Decoy. If you know the thief is about to hit you with a backstab, use scepter 2 to block – most thieves don’t recognize he block animation and still try to backstab. Then once you see the ‘block’ text, DODGE IMMEDIATLY. If you have clone dodge on, it helps a lot.

If the thief opens with basi and catches you off guard, immediately use decoy, not blink, dodge then heal. You will be back at decent health. Then keep 3 clones up and keep pressure up.

I presume your other weapon is staff? If you think you will be caught, cast Chaos Storm on yourself, it will mess with the thieves and provide ageis to you. Keep using phase retreat while the thief is stealthed so they cannot get behind you easily.

You need to keep clones up to keep up the pressure and mess with the theif. Also why are you using time warp? Unless your in a group, switch to mass invis. If the theif uses shadow refuge, use focus 4 to pull them out, then summon the phantasm immediately on them.

Yes, thieves are completely imbalanced in WVW, partially as a class, partially due to their mechanics, but mainly as their setup is based on their PVE balance, rather than their PVP setup which is a little fairer. I used to hate fighting thieves but the guys in GF on Ebay taught me, now most thieves I fight are predictable and use the same pointless rotations. The thieves with skill who don’t run 521 builds… they are actually fun to fight.

Good luck~