Guild Wars 2

Stealth is fine, so is the heartseeker black power combo.

Not sure why you all still have so much trouble.

And before you all accuse me of playing a thief, I play a warrior.

It isn’t that difficult to deal with.

The tears… Wonderful. Bravo. Splendid.

Nikkinella.8254:

the same response is always L2P.

Maybe because the ones who did it aren’t complaining anymore? And the only problem against thieves is that you do NOT know how they work, how they can reach perma stealth, or boon stripping or high damage or great mobility or anything else.

Yes, thieves can do a lot of things, but they cannot do all of them with a single build, without side effects.

Playing a thief will open up your mind and you’ll be able to recognize which kind thief you are facing at the very first glance and react in the proper way.

You don’t want to ? Again, your problem. There is a lot of people saying they have no problems facing thieves… that must mean something, don’t you think ?

This field combo falls onto the highly annoying spectrum and feels cheap. A class should not be able to create and use a field this effectively for so little cost. I don’t think it is game breaking, but it is very frustrating mostly because it has so few counters.

Stealth and other powerful abilities work best in the game when it is limited. Imagine if something like retaliation or chaos armor could be applied in a never ending solo stream and not really negatively effect other aspects of the build.

And the simple fix – make it impossible for combo fields to be activated by a single finisher more than once. But that would hurt all other professions too, like mass healing, speed and retaliation, so I guess there’s no way anyone would see that as a possible solution.

Geiir.7603:

And the simple fix – make it impossible for combo fields to be activated by a single finisher more than once. But that would hurt all other professions too, like mass healing, speed and retaliation, so I guess there’s no way anyone would see that as a possible solution.

An even simpler one that wouldn’t hurt everyone is make it so Smoke Leap doesn’t stack stealth. I’d still like to see, all stealth ends in revealed too.

On a side note, Retal already kind of does do that. See Guardian Hammer.

Or you can all become better players.

/inB4judging
I don’t use stealth and I still kill the thieves that attack me.

Dual.8953:

Geiir.7603:

And the simple fix – make it impossible for combo fields to be activated by a single finisher more than once. But that would hurt all other professions too, like mass healing, speed and retaliation, so I guess there’s no way anyone would see that as a possible solution.

An even simpler one that wouldn’t hurt everyone is make it so Smoke Leap doesn’t stack stealth. I’d still like to see, all stealth ends in revealed too.

They could make it so stealth in general doesn’t stack, which I highly support. This means that you can’t chain Blinding Powder, Hide in Shadows and Shadow Refuge. Having revealed apply each time the Thief leave stealth, wether he attack or not, would really force thieves to think twice before stealthing. This would heighten the skill level, and it’s also something I’ve supported for a long time.

Geiir.7603:

Dual.8953:

Geiir.7603:

And the simple fix – make it impossible for combo fields to be activated by a single finisher more than once. But that would hurt all other professions too, like mass healing, speed and retaliation, so I guess there’s no way anyone would see that as a possible solution.

An even simpler one that wouldn’t hurt everyone is make it so Smoke Leap doesn’t stack stealth. I’d still like to see, all stealth ends in revealed too.

They could make it so stealth in general doesn’t stack, which I highly support. This means that you can’t chain Blinding Powder, Hide in Shadows and Shadow Refuge. Having revealed apply each time the Thief leave stealth, wether he attack or not, would really force thieves to think twice before stealthing. This would heighten the skill level, and it’s also something I’ve supported for a long time.

As a control thief, I could live with that myself. I’d be happy if in return our Support and Control roles saw some love. Maybe make Venoms behave like mantras. Make traps into something useful.

Geiir.7603:

They could make it so stealth in general doesn’t stack, which I highly support. This means that you can’t chain Blinding Powder, Hide in Shadows and Shadow Refuge. Having revealed apply each time the Thief leave stealth, wether he attack or not, would really force thieves to think twice before stealthing. This would heighten the skill level, and it’s also something I’ve supported for a long time.

None of the skills are really problematic. BP is 3s stealth with a 40s cool down. HiS is 3s with 30s cool down. Shadow Refuge, long stealth but 60s cool down and if knocked out of the hut immediate revealed debuf. So in about a minute a thief could be stealthed for about 15s with skills. CnD makes that higher but CnD has to hit and missing leaves a thief very vulnerable. These are working as intended and leave a thief player kill-able with decent play.

The problem really is the combo field Black Powder/Heart Seeker which adds stealth for 9 initiative and a lot less once traits are factored in. This combo also doesn’t require any particular player skill to use and a player can chain these together to get near infinite stealth. The combo itself isn’t wrong but the speed and ease at which it can be accessed is.

i cant believe how easy Anet nerf Ele: RTL due the amount of people asking for a ele nerf, but they dont even wanna touch Black Powder + Heartseeker combo.

Stealth should be a Once: enter combat -out combat mechanic and no a permanent benefits over the opponent. You cannot fight what you can see, and this gentlement is a clean advantage and imbalance mechanic.

kishter.9578:

i cant believe how easy Anet nerf Ele: RTL due the amount of people asking for a ele nerf, but they dont even wanna touch Black Powder + Heartseeker combo.

Stealth should be a Once: enter combat -out combat mechanic and no a permanent benefits over the opponent. You cannot fight what you can see, and this gentlement is a clean advantage and imbalance mechanic.

They nerfed Ele because they were good at everything, and dominating TPvP. Thief nerfs have been hard to justify because they’ve never been the strongest in any mode. Only thing they’re currently strong at is roaming, which is a role created by the players. Aside from intel and minor disruptions, they have very little effect on how well their server performs over the week. Especially when compared to Guardian, Mesmer and Ele who’s presents can be make or break in a large battle.

As for your nerf ideas. They aren’t very good. They’d break the non-burst sets and pretty much force all thieves to go with a GC alpha strike build which would be only useful in WvW roaming, half as useful in TPvP and useless in PvE.

Dual.8953:

kishter.9578:

i cant believe how easy Anet nerf Ele: RTL due the amount of people asking for a ele nerf, but they dont even wanna touch Black Powder + Heartseeker combo.

Stealth should be a Once: enter combat -out combat mechanic and no a permanent benefits over the opponent. You cannot fight what you can see, and this gentlement is a clean advantage and imbalance mechanic.

They nerfed Ele because they were good at everything, and dominating TPvP. Thief nerfs have been hard to justify because they’ve never been the strongest in any mode. Only thing they’re currently strong at is roaming, which is a role created by the players. Aside from intel and minor disruptions, they have very little effect on how well their server performs over the week. Especially when compared to Guardian, Mesmer and Ele who’s presents can be make or break in a large battle.

As for your nerf ideas. They aren’t very good. They’d break the non-burst sets and pretty much force all thieves to go with a GC alpha strike build which would be only useful in WvW roaming, half as useful in TPvP and useless in PvE.

I dont want or intend to get thief nerfed, i just want as most of the people around this game is that anet FIX the current state of the stealth mechanic.

Best way to deal with the stealth mechanic is to introduce an anti-stealth condition, and give said condition to classes which have the toughest time with thieves (since there are some professions which have no trouble).

How the condition could work:
-Cannot be cleansed through stealthing or while in stealth
-Every 1.5s in stealth the victim gets a 1s shimmer (allowing targeting)
-Add some other effect to make the condition not-useless against non-stealth (i.e., shimmering causes the victim to lose his targets, or drains some endurance, etc)

Candidates for said condition:
Ranger
Staff Ele
Minion Necro
Mesmer

XII.9401:

Gotta congratulate the Anet team on the stellar design of the class. They will be remembered in the MMO community for years to come as the guys who came up with the most broken stealth class in history.

Oh by the way..it was not what they intended initially. Takes a special dev to kitten up that much.

+1

On WvW this combo is clearly broken, anyone who dares to argue about this never ever played another class,

Zacchary.6183:

Omg!
I can’t kill everything!
Nerf it Anet!

^^

Daendur.2357:

Nikkinella.8254:

the same response is always L2P.

Maybe because the ones who did it aren’t complaining anymore? And the only problem against thieves is that you do NOT know how they work, how they can reach perma stealth, or boon stripping or high damage or great mobility or anything else.

Yes, thieves can do a lot of things, but they cannot do all of them with a single build, without side effects.

Playing a thief will open up your mind and you’ll be able to recognize which kind thief you are facing at the very first glance and react in the proper way.

You don’t want to ? Again, your problem. There is a lot of people saying they have no problems facing thieves… that must mean something, don’t you think ?

I do have a thief myself actually. Was the 2nd character I leveled up. It’s currently my bank mule/crafting monkey parked in Rata Sum almost permanently because the class is so boring to me to play as. It’s easy mode in WvW.

BP-HS is clearly broken as a combo given how utterly easy it is to perform. Most important, there is not counter-play. Sure, CND is annoying, but there is plenty of counter-play available: if I am smart about blocking/evading the CND, theif is a sitting duck and ready to eat some burst. That is working as intended. If he hits CND, he enjoys a short stealth to set up or start to run. A very fair trade in my mind.

Now BP-HS: there is no realistic counterplay. The “counterplay” is to run to wherever the BP got dropped and jump into it and eat a HS. I wish I had so much movement ability as the theif to pull this off. In actuality, the thief will already have a good 6s of stealth stacked up to get away to another safe place and stack up some more stealth. This causes a real problem because it makes players feel helpless.

In spvp, I don’t care 1 bit if someone wants to stand around invisible for a minute. That is a minute he isn’t doing anything useful. If a thief uses a short-invis skill, I have an idea of where he is, so I can defend. The burst in spvp is WAY less as damage is significantly scaled down. This build is very strong at dueling (if you go on a dueling server), but isn’t so good at actually doing anything in a small arena where 1v1-3v3 dominate.

In wvw, it is gamebreaking and a part of why we have so many zergs. Pugs want to roam, but when they start, they get insta-gibbed a few times against essentially air before deciding to stick with the group for protection. The open world and lack of “stand in the circle” mechanics make stealth a much greater advantage, on top of the increased damage potential. Sure, other cheese builds (phantasm mesmers) can be very hard to play against, but there is at least the option to run. Not happening against the fastest class.

Now, after all that, I will say that thieves could use a few options for more team support besides just venoms and stealth resses (which are very good btw). Perhaps some short-range cc (like pulling a “rug” out from under enemies) could make thieves better at peeling some more before starting counter-pressure.

BlackBeard.2873:

In wvw, it is gamebreaking and a part of why we have so many zergs. Pugs want to roam, but when they start, they get insta-gibbed a few times against essentially air before deciding to stick with the group for protection.

I completely disagree. Thieves aren’t what get in the way of pug roaming, it’s the lack of ability that other professions have to slip out when suddenly outnumbered. Thieves haven’t pushed out the other professions from solo roaming, they are just the only class really good at it which is why you see more of them.

If thief stealthing suddenly got neutered, then guess what, you’d see even less solo roaming outside of the classes that are already alright at it (ele/mesmer and some ranger/warrior/engie builds), and it would just water down WvW and make it less interesting.

Geiir.7603:

No-stealth Thief saying hi! I’ll challenge you to make a thief and see how EZ mode it is… The most squishy class in the game – by far. We are a profession designed for one thing – eliminating our enemy, and that fast.

Oooh little off topic, but what you running? Shadowstepping is amazing though I haven’t clocked many hours yet in W3 and leveled with P/P – SBow cos I was lazy. Thief isn’t so called ‘EZ mode’ unless you perma rely on near perma stealth Kinda knew before I finally made thief, but experiencing firsthand just reaffirmed it. It’s these thieves giving the class bad rep.

roamzero.9486:

I completely disagree. Thieves aren’t what get in the way of pug roaming, it’s the lack of ability that other professions have to slip out when suddenly outnumbered. Thieves haven’t pushed out the other professions from solo roaming, they are just the only class really good at it which is why you see more of them.

If thief stealthing suddenly got neutered, then guess what, you’d see even less solo roaming outside of the classes that are already alright at it (ele/mesmer and some ranger/warrior/engie builds), and it would just water down WvW and make it less interesting.

I do agree with you that mobility is #1 in importance for roaming, but you named 5 other classes that have the required mobility to do it if thief wasn’t so head-and shoulders better. Only guard/necro lack the speed, and their toughness/brawler arrangment is sub-optimal for roaming.

That said, I think you would see a lot more classes out-and-about (engie w/ rocket boots/speedy kits, mes w/ runes of centaur, x/d ele, warrior gs-s/x, ranger gs, any thief arrangement) if this aspect were more balanced. It would also encourage those 1v1 and other small-scale fights that are easy to learn through observation (sight).

I’m alright with thieves going in and out of stealth in combat with cloak and dagger (etc.), but constantly stacking tons of stealth at almost any time and any location is pretty ridiculous. I just avoid D/P thieves because fighting them just feels pointless.

Most methods of cloaking have some sort of restriction that makes it difficult/impossible to constantly maintain stealth. The stealth utility skills have lengthy cool-downs and cloak and dagger requires proximity to an enemy (or wall apparently…), a successful tag, and briefly becoming visible. Heartseeker + Blinding Powder has no such restriction. I’ve seen D/P thieves stay invisible for minutes at a time whereas D/D thieves at least have to briefly become visible (while staying close to their enemy) to maintain stealth.

I’m alright with Black Powder + Heartseeker remaining a viable way to gain stealth in combat, but it needs some sort of limitation to prevent permanent stealth and bring it more in line with Cloak and Dagger. Leaps through smoke fields while not in stealth should apply 3 seconds of stealth (4 with Meld with Shadows?) and leaps through smoke fields while in stealth should only apply 1 second of stealth. This would essentially make Black Powder + Heartseeker a slightly more costly (in terms of initiative) way of gaining stealth, however I think this is fair because it’s much easier to pull of than cloak and dagger and Black Powder is more versatile anyway.

BlackBeard.2873:

roamzero.9486:

I completely disagree. Thieves aren’t what get in the way of pug roaming, it’s the lack of ability that other professions have to slip out when suddenly outnumbered. Thieves haven’t pushed out the other professions from solo roaming, they are just the only class really good at it which is why you see more of them.

If thief stealthing suddenly got neutered, then guess what, you’d see even less solo roaming outside of the classes that are already alright at it (ele/mesmer and some ranger/warrior/engie builds), and it would just water down WvW and make it less interesting.

I do agree with you that mobility is #1 in importance for roaming, but you named 5 other classes that have the required mobility to do it if thief wasn’t so head-and shoulders better. Only guard/necro lack the speed, and their toughness/brawler arrangment is sub-optimal for roaming.

That said, I think you would see a lot more classes out-and-about (engie w/ rocket boots/speedy kits, mes w/ runes of centaur, x/d ele, warrior gs-s/x, ranger gs, any thief arrangement) if this aspect were more balanced. It would also encourage those 1v1 and other small-scale fights that are easy to learn through observation (sight).

I actually tried that engie build and it’s pretty fun imo. Got up to some crazy hijinx at bay. It makes me wonder, maybe we see so many thieves soloing because they’re subpar in zergs, rather then seeing so few other classes roaming because their subpar at it. In any case, the changes to Jump Shot, Slick Shoes and Rocket Boots have added some new toys to Engie’s roaming kit, so we may see more of them.

I laugh at the people who honestly think those stealth traps were built to counter a thief. Does this same rational apply to AC’s and their toxic shot with revealing stealth? Come on now, do you really think Anet added something that costs 15 badges, 500 karma, and 10 supply was meant to counter a thief? Do you think Anet specifically added that 5th AC mastery ability for 75 world ability points to counter a thief?

Neither of these were meant to counter a thief, though they can technically be used as such. You can also technically swim across the ocean if you wanted to, but it really isn’t an effective measure to reach the other side. One is far more effective at revealing whole zergs that are veiled, and the other seems it was made to stop groups from mass/veil reviving.

Then you have to ask yourself this; what other class/build exactly requires a chunk of badges, karma, and supply to stop? What other class requires a mastery of some sort that requires 75 ability points? Stop and think about that one for a second before even considering that either the stealth trap or toxic shot was meant as a counter to a thief..

A big factor, why I consider this combo to be OP, is the blind, which almost complety negates the damage from melee players. The only clue left of the thiefs location is the black power field, but theres a very low chance to actually damage him there and you can just wait for the thief to repeat the combo until he decides to attack you out of stealth for some massive damage. He is most likely not able to kill you, but you can’t kill him for sure (if he’s good, not even with a multiple allies if they lack channeled ranged abilities).

Now you might say, that if you can’t kill each other, everything is fine. But this is about WvW and here comes the second reason: You can’t kill the thief, but the thief can kill the dolyak or contest your waypoint and may even revive a dead mesmer in a keep. So you actually need to kill the thief in many situations.

I think the Black Powder and Heartseeker combo is a big reason for this imbalance, because it’s often up and not only grants stealth (and all of it’s traited benefits) but also allows to mitigate a big amount of melee damage. If such a powerful ability is spammable, it’s clearly OP.

Oh and the stealth disruptor trap is a joke, because it’s way too expensive and only works against inattentive players or complete noobs. And if it helps with killing the thief, you can take a walk to the next camp to restock your supplies. Let’s see if you’re able to return faster than the thief…

My only real complaint about thieves.
They should not be allowed to Finish a downed player while Stealthed…

In my opinion, in a game like this, there should always be a balanced amount of risk and reward while attacking a foe and with the thief class, there is very little risk in attacking an enemy, especially with the dagger/pistol set-up.

D/P also promotes such inactive play which will get your allies killed before you can land the backstab that I think the stealth spam with it should just be done away with so thief players can move onto actually making the thief class useful. A little more vulnerable perhaps but more active and more useful in a group fight.

The thief is as good a group fighter as any but it has been made to look otherwise due to the fact that 90% of thieves play like cowards because the class allows you to get away with anything and many players get away with a very low level of skill and support. As a thief I use my stealth skills to take aggro off allies who are low on HP or stacked with condition, steal to grant boons to my allies, and rip boons off tanky guards or elementalists who are keeping their team alive in a fight.

The shortbow alone creates a lot of pressure in the enemy since it bounces off multiple opponents, along with an AoE poison and AoE cluster bomb combo finisher, and once you get enemies low you can go onto rip their boons with steal/larcenous strike and finish them off.

D/P set-up will look for enemies that are low on HP, upleveled or running glass, but they don’t participate actively in the play to take an actual coordinated team down.

I could do with a lot less stealth and a lot less damage and I believe my thief would still be very useful in a fight.

ITT:

People ganked by thieves – Thieves have access to more core damage and survivability than any other profession, this is very difficult to fight, as there are no defined counter skills outside of a “trap” gimmick. Stealth is a somewhat broken mechanic that allows for very imbalanced fights, and should be addressed, especially considering the high movement ability intrinsic to the profession. Crafting a build around countering thieves leaves us with good defense, but not enough damage to kill a thief before they perma-stealth away, no matter how bad they are.

People who main/love thieves – We are much harder to play than this thread is making it seem, and we must sacrifice quite a bit for “perma-stealth” that isn’t really perma. While we do have good combat movement, and good damage, we must build with glass gear to get the numbers you are talking about, and even when stealthed, we can still take massive damage and die quickly. Try actually rolling a thief and playing with some builds before assuming that thieves have it so easy, this will allow you to understand the profession a bit better, and make it easier to counter.

Both camps have some valid arguments, but what I am seeing as a big problem with the small group roamers is the “sword/shield” party, with a guard, war, ele, and 2 thieves that you don’t see. You can’t do enough damage to kill the guard or ele, the Hammer warrior is perma-stunning, and the next thing you know, 2 9k back stabs down you and they either stomp from stealth, or Shadow stomp.

I know thieves are supposed to be the perfect predator and what not, but if there were some balancing, what would both camps like to (reasonably) see? Here is a short list of a few that seem to be mentioned every time this thread comes up, feel free to add to it:

1. Reveal on block, aegis, invul., et. al. – This would allow a non-connecting attack (outside of a miss, of course) to stop a thief from being able to remain stealthed until one of his or her attacks connects, and rewards a opponent for a well-timed block against an invisible thief. Thieves can read the status of their opponents from stealth, so this requires thieves to have the skill to read combat status.

2. Reveal on damage. – This seems like the most divisive of the possible balancing solutions, as taking damage AND getting revealed seem like the worst possible combo for any thief. If it were mitigated with more access to boons, no “revealed” debuff (just for this situation), and/or something else on the thief wish list, I still don’t see it happening. This would also allow certain classes an advantage with ground-targeted AoEs, not necessarily balancing things, but creating counter builds.

3. Profession access to reveals – A possible solution that would buff certain under-represented professions, or under-utilized trait or skill lines, creating “thief/mesmer” sweeps that would be even more effective, and would show entire hidden zergs(at least 5 at a time). This creates the problem of how the “reveal” would work, if only certain professions could see it? Or would it be a debuff trigger, like the trap? Since Anet has basically said they were adding new skills, I would be curious if they would add PvE content that relied on the use of some of these mechanics, and then spread the “revealed” functionality throughout the whole game. I would think that professions already OVER utilized would have less access to this, since we are actually trying to balance things, but maybe rangers, engies, or even thieves themselves would have easier access to it, over Guards, Mesmers, and Eles.

My personal opinion: I am partial to the last one, since it requires people to equip or trait for anti-stealth, and that investment would have to bear some consideration. I like the first one because it seems to be a simple, yet balanced change, but no. 2 would immediately shift every thief QQ thread into a “Why do I get revealed when I take damage?!” thread overnight.

Um, stand in the blind field maybe and wait for him to hit you and burn his initiative? Aoe the blind ring? CC the blind ring? Wait for him to cast the blind field then immobilize him? Daze him right before he heartseeks?

Bethryn.4087:

When you see Black Powder go down, maybe you should try standing inside it so that they can’t HS without hitting you, which, amazingly enough, breaks their stealth and gives them Revealed.

this is not true.. HS can land and still stealth – ive had it happen and done it myself many times. It’s one of the benefits. What you need to understand though is that BP + HS takes a lot of initiative for only a couple seconds of stealth and is not really the best thing to use, unless you have some plan. It’s only useful against classes like warriors and guardians who can drop lots of dps very quickly if they catch you – so often you BP + dps, then heartseeker before the field goes away.

Only way to reveal BP + HS is if blinding powder triggers (at low hp and the thief doesn’t realize) and the bullet from BP hits or HS hits, then it’s a reveal. Otherwise without interrupts or the thief screwing up you can’t get reveal on it. It’s pretty strong I admit, but it comes at a huge cost in terms of initiative. Every class has very strong ways to beat thieves.

What is op now though, is a condition thief with torment. Only classes with regular condition cleansing or high hp can deal with them. The venoms can be really troublesome and traited to be applied twice every 30s. Add stealth to it and it’s very tough to counter. Burst thieves should not be bothering anyone at this stage in the game unless it’s your second month tho imo

Alchemist.3692:

this is not true.. HS can land and still stealth – ive had it happen and done it myself many times. It’s one of the benefits.

HS damage happens after the stealth and should fire reveal every time it hits a player. If it is not, that is a bug and in my experience when HS hits the thief is revealed. BP+HS isn’t like CnD. With CnD the damage happens before the stealth.

Looking straight down when HS is launched reduces the chance of HS landing but doesn’t eliminate it. Even when a player does get revealed in this manner the thief can dodge a couple times and re-stealth in most cases. This mechanic is broken in my opinion.

Wanna nerf stealth? sure. give thieves heavy armor, over 3000 base toughness+ warrior HP. But if not, L2P QQ more and stop wasting my time. That is all.

Straegen.2938:

Alchemist.3692:

this is not true.. HS can land and still stealth – ive had it happen and done it myself many times. It’s one of the benefits.

HS damage happens after the stealth and should fire reveal every time it hits a player. If it is not, that is a bug and in my experience when HS hits the thief is revealed. BP+HS isn’t like CnD. With CnD the damage happens before the stealth.

Looking straight down when HS is launched reduces the chance of HS landing but doesn’t eliminate it. Even when a player does get revealed in this manner the thief can dodge a couple times and re-stealth in most cases. This mechanic is broken in my opinion.

If it’s from the first HS it won’t reveal. If you’re already stealthed (after the first hs) it will.

The HS needs to be completed (including damage) for the leap finisher to count.

This is a good thing for both sides though. The thief can hit with the first hs. For the opponent it gives them more time to stop the leap. It’s not a bug, it’s working as intended.

Heartseeker shouldn’t do more damage than a meteor shower. It’s a single weapon attack that can be used while mobile.

OP!

Lol im shocked this thread has this many views when its just someone raging cause he was jumped by a thief… the weakest class in the game right now. I main ranger but also play a thief in tpvp and I promise you that you have 2x more to worry about from a ranger than you do a thief so buck up buddy cause it sounds like your in for a ride lol.

Edit: Thieves can be dropped in one second by some classes and can’t touch others but they do ok dmg under 50%. Now most of my exp is in tpvp so the stat values are not the same so I am sure that there dmg is more impressive in wvw but so is everyone elses dmg and def. Also keep in mind that thiefs can not really take part in zerg v zerg play cause they are soo squishy and most people won’t take them in pve (myself included). So right now they are one of the weakest tpvpers, wvwers,and pvers in the game. You got took by a thief it happens friends don’t let friends yak alone.

Using spvp as a measure of thief balance is ridiculous.

spvp and pve is balanced separately, wvw being balanced together with pve, allows thieves MUCH more dps AND survivability.

Traited properly HS BP stealth can be perma chained with 1 or 2 strikes in between stealths, that is the issue, a thief can essentially strike you once with impunity and then skip away, regening health, initiative AND stacking might.

It feels cheap and understandably so.

First off heart seeker is only used once your target hits 50% period and a thieves stealth skills cooldowns are 30 32 and 48 if traited for it. He should be tapped from trying to get you down to 50% if he even can and he should have already used both his hide in shadows and blinding powder to heal so he pops shadow refuge and if you don’t aoe the refuge in the 4s you have or heal in the 8-10 seconds you have you will prolly get heart seeker to death, but if you did either of those things the thief is prolly going to run away or die. It isn’t that I don’t wvw I just don’t wvw on my thief cause its lv 30 I kill thieves with one rapid fire on my ranger pre ranger buff Or with one shatter on my utility/lyssa mesmer. I am not saying that thieves are complete push overs cause if they catch you off guard can be a real pain, but thieves are sooo far from op or even on the radar… this is how bad they are right now my friend that only tpvp and wvw switched to a warrior months ago cause of how weak thief is… a warrior and keep in mind this was before all the buffs war has gotten. The op also made a thread about how op snow leopard is maybe we should focus on that skill cause its obviously imbalanced.

Jabberwock.9014:

And last time I checked, thieves had ranged aoe for attacking towers so don’t give me that.

I had met one skilled thief who used SB to solo clear our overlook siege (cannon, treb). Since the SB attack can bounce, it end up clearing other sieges near the cannon as well. By doing so, he was rooting for the following zerg attack to our overlook for his server. Took him 10 min but he did it since we couldn’t get him going into stealth when people jump at him. He managed to kill 2 of our guy too.

So thief is good at many thing if playing right. Skirtmish, ct wp, clear siege, escort yak, scouting, track enemy zerg safe and pick up a few heads who fall behind, troll people to rage quit, etc. XD And thief is good at zerg fight too by picking off some people who is away from main group and reduce their number. Dagger storm is nice.

If you look closely, most of those are achieved by the stealth skill. If you nerf stealth, it’s equivalent to kill the thief class. As much as stealth is annoying when you are not on the receiving end, we should talk more about how to counter instead of nerfing it imo.

If possible, plz just change the thief name to assassin. Beacuse the above mentioned tasks sounds like what an assassin does. It will justify many things XD.

sure they can do those things but if your scouting for your team there is room for one scout to speak on ts and that is if you are that teams scout. The clearing siege isn’t viable because of the time it takes and if there are a few players there should be little issue downing a thief if he killed two of you its because you guys made large mistakes.

lunyboy.8672:

I know thieves are supposed to be the perfect predator and what not, but if there were some balancing, what would both camps like to (reasonably) see?

I did a Main class as a thief and then diverted to playing other classes so I’m able to adapt to different situations in WvW by changing class but I was toying with the idea before swapping all my classes that maybe “Stealth” should be set as a boon.

Boon removal is now a lot more available to other classes if you set Stealth as a high end boon for removal?

Examples of some of these removals, Well of Corruption, Remove on Mesmer shatter, Thief has the steal boon sword strike, I think the Warrior got a trait to but I’m not sure.

Jscull.2514:

EZ mode class- allows bad players to feel like they can compete.

Put the same player on a warrior/guardian, and see how good they are in open field without stealth. TERRIBLE.

put them into a ranger for tears of blood

lol if you guys really have this much trouble with them carry a reveal trap with you and its game over for any thief but from some of the stuff i see here though that may not even help you lol.

Change it to a poison shot with a poison field.

Jscull.2514:

EZ mode class- allows bad players to feel like they can compete.

Put the same player on a warrior/guardian, and see how good they are in open field without stealth. TERRIBLE.

I would tend to agree with ya.

Jscull.2514:

EZ mode class- allows bad players to feel like they can compete.

Put the same player on a warrior/guardian, and see how good they are in open field without stealth. TERRIBLE.

The same can be said the other way.

BTW I have a guard and I am doing pretty well on it.

Thesilentflute.8761:

lol if you guys really have this much trouble with them carry a reveal trap with you and its game over for any thief but from some of the stuff i see here though that may not even help you lol.

Listen to this guy. Top advice.

In order to beat a Thief you need to buy a Stealth Trap for 15 badges and carry around 10 supply. If you run into a Thief you need to then spend 4seconds placing the trap. Using up that 10supply.

This next part is really important.

PRAY the Thief is actually stupid enough to walk into the fairly small range at which the trap triggers.
Well, now he has Revealed for 30seconds so he’ll just run away. He’ll be back shortly however… So, yah.

And there you have it, as you can see Thieves are perfectly balanced as there are totally, perfectly reasonable, counters.

Terrahero.9358:

Thesilentflute.8761:

lol if you guys really have this much trouble with them carry a reveal trap with you and its game over for any thief but from some of the stuff i see here though that may not even help you lol.

Listen to this guy. Top advice.

In order to beat a Thief you need to buy a Stealth Trap for 15 badges and carry around 10 supply. If you run into a Thief you need to then spend 4seconds placing the trap. Using up that 10supply.

This next part is really important.

PRAY the Thief is actually stupid enough to walk into the fairly small range at which the trap triggers.
Well, now he has Revealed for 30seconds so he’ll just run away. He’ll be back shortly however… So, yah.

And there you have it, as you can see Thieves are perfectly balanced as there are totally, perfectly reasonable, counters.

Think you forgot that the stealth trap is wasted if you are blinded, though.

For fighting a thief, you need to think like one of them to understand what they are trying to do

Playing against thieves is like fighting against a wolf trying to sneak up on a sheep group

The thieves are deadly in 1v1, so most of them in WvW are solo roaming and trying to find lonely players that are far away from safe points (tower, keeps, castle, spawn). When they see such a careless player, they go stealth ninja mode and burst the crap out of you before you even notice them, and you’re dead in 5 seconds

Knowing this, you just need to follow a simple rules and they will never ever be a threat to you: never stay far away from a group of players of your team.

Problem solved, enjoy!

As a warrior I’ve gone full condition/some CC and cond removal, and have killed a lot of thieves since, however, I have to play with far greater skill and timing than they do just to have a hope of competing, because their skills are so kitten insane. Seriously I can dodge attacks I can’t see coming but they still don’t reveal themselves, so I just lose endurance and they lose nothing. The thief class disgusts me, has wrecked anets reputation post gw1, and is easily the most broken class I’ve seen in an MMO, which is saying something considering how many screwups I’ve seen.

My comments pertain to WvW, where stealth is basically the entire meta of roaming.

You guys still didn’t roll thieves? 0.0

Never have I seen a community complain about something so much. My god, this combo has an infinite amount of counters that multiple people have listed throughout this thread. Clearly this is everyone’s first MMO and first experience with a stealth mechanic because thieves are easily countered by every class.

Shut up and learn from your mistakes. The combat in this game is so simplistic compared to basically every MMO ever, yet people want their hands held because being a brainless ham is too easy.