Guild Wars 2

lunyboy.8672:

Obscure One.4357:

What’s that you say? Can thieves do anything other than spam stealth and massive damage?

They really don’t have to, even in “real” pvp. I have run across at least 10 “small teams” in WvW who are 4 bunkers and a glass thief, and while you are fighting the bunkers with 10+ people, the thief is picking you off, one at a time. And they win more often than they should, because stealth.

What can a thief do in WvW?

Focus down eles, guards, siege, etc., follow zergs – O&R, cut supply, gank slowpokes, contest every tower on a BL map in less than 4 min, group stealth… the only limit is the player ability.
-snip-

First, the rebuttal entirely agrees with my statement…stealth spam and massive damage. These groups of thieves are griefing squads that camp out in towers after they flip, or just roam around in permanent stealth to gank people doing exactly what I said they do: “spam stealth and do massive damage.”

Player ability is irrelevant. The skill ceiling is set incredibly low. All that player talent and knowledge is a waste of time better spent just spamming stealth and ROFLSTOMPING with skill spam.

If you can name one role a thief can fill that doesn’t involve stealth spamming or massive damage that allows it to the support, bunker, or roam with the efficiency of ANY other class, I will concede the point and send you 5 gold in game.

No one will ever take a class seriously in terms of skill that can stealth every 3 seconds….Esp one that can perma stealth at will while in combat.

Esp one that has high damage, great condition removal, heals, amazing mobility.

I doubt it’ll be fixed, mainly because Anet has a kitten for SPvP which has things like Spirit Rangers being complained about.

But want an example of an actual Stealther Video with actual good Stealthers…You won’t find them in this game

Nope

You have to go back before WoW muddied everything up with god awful concept of a stealther

I love the cute “just stand in the black power circle to stop the thief from stealthing” comments. The heartseeker puts him into stealth while hitting you and does NOT apply reveal. Yes, you heard that correct.

I have a thief and so do most of my guildies and every single one of them agree that this blackpowder + heartseeker needs to be taken out.

EvilSardine.9635:

I love the cute “just stand in the black power circle to stop the thief from stealthing” comments. The heartseeker puts him into stealth while hitting you and does NOT apply reveal. Yes, you heard that correct.

I have a thief and so do most of my guildies and every single one of them agree that this blackpowder + heartseeker needs to be taken out.

Thief is just a license to an open season of trolling…it makes a mockery of the entirety of the game mechanics and it a blatant slap in the face to skilled players of all classes in trivializing our efforts to play a game with skill that provides a path that doesn’t require us to do so.

EvilSardine.9635:

I love the cute “just stand in the black power circle to stop the thief from stealthing” comments. The heartseeker puts him into stealth while hitting you and does NOT apply reveal. Yes, you heard that correct.

I have a thief and so do most of my guildies and every single one of them agree that this blackpowder + heartseeker needs to be taken out.

I’m a guildie and a thief. And I approve this message.

I have a thief. He was my first character leveled. When I go to WvW, about 60% of the time I’m on my thief.

Oddly enough, I’m okay with the idea of bp+hs spam being inhibited in some way.

EvilSardine.9635:

I love the cute “just stand in the black power circle to stop the thief from stealthing” comments. The heartseeker puts him into stealth while hitting you and does NOT apply reveal. Yes, you heard that correct.

This is correct. I could have sworn the leap finisher didn’t work if they didn’t exit the circle but it does and they still stealth. In fact running into the circle is about the worst thing a player can do as it blinds the player, frequently they get a HS and if not careful will find a BS hitting in short order.

EvilSardine.9635:

I have a thief and so do most of my guildies and every single one of them agree that this blackpowder + heartseeker needs to be taken out.

Agreed. The original complaint about this being too powerful at least for such a spamable combo is on point. The rest of the whiners talking about thieves in general are really not contributing to this thread.

More people complaining about thieves stealth?
For the people complaining about it, have you actually played the Thief class?
Let me answer that for you.

No, no you haven’t.

You are asking Anet to nerf a class that you have little to no knowledge about?

Mesmers should be nerfed, and not have clones or phantasms, and guardians? Lose the virtues. Oh, what about warriors? They should be nerfed because 100 blades hits too hard.

Thieves are FAR from OP, and in most cases/builds, stealth is the only thing keeping a thief alive. If you have played the class, you would know that thieves are easily counterable, even if stealthing. Please STOP these whining threads on how thieves are OP, stealth is OP, remove stealth, remove thieves, rework the class…. You either need to get better at the game, or play the class to actually learn to counter the class, because in all honesty, it’s really not hard.

Dan.2940:

More people complaining about thieves stealth?
For the people complaining about it, have you actually played the Thief class?
Let me answer that for you.

No, no you haven’t.

You are asking Anet to nerf a class that you have little to no knowledge about?

Mesmers should be nerfed, and not have clones or phantasms, and guardians? Lose the virtues. Oh, what about warriors? They should be nerfed because 100 blades hits too hard.

Thieves are FAR from OP, and in most cases/builds, stealth is the only thing keeping a thief alive. If you have played the class, you would know that thieves are easily counterable, even if stealthing. Please STOP these whining threads on how thieves are OP, stealth is OP, remove stealth, remove thieves, rework the class…. You either need to get better at the game, or play the class to actually learn to counter the class, because in all honesty, it’s really not hard.

There are more evil damage sources in wariror than 100b, i kinda agree with you, as thiefs need this mobility and at the momment thief is far from being the OP class from the game, one thing that makes tiefs reset combat or retreat is the damage players can make to them as example guardian with hammer 5 to lock thiefs and then change to 2h sword and blend, with a zerk+valk build for sure will kill or down most of the thiefs.

Now the problem is outside the 2h weapon set and with a bunker build (~25k health ~3.4k armor)i dont have many counter to it otherwise just being a punch bag and eventyally die due meditations or shouts being recharging and im w/o any defenses but that is the gw2 mechanics thats forces professions to use more some weapons than others IMO, hope the add of new traits and skills on further versions will solve this.

P.S sorry about the bad English.

Aeolus.3615:

Dan.2940:

More people complaining about thieves stealth?
For the people complaining about it, have you actually played the Thief class?
Let me answer that for you.

No, no you haven’t.

You are asking Anet to nerf a class that you have little to no knowledge about?

Mesmers should be nerfed, and not have clones or phantasms, and guardians? Lose the virtues. Oh, what about warriors? They should be nerfed because 100 blades hits too hard.

Thieves are FAR from OP, and in most cases/builds, stealth is the only thing keeping a thief alive. If you have played the class, you would know that thieves are easily counterable, even if stealthing. Please STOP these whining threads on how thieves are OP, stealth is OP, remove stealth, remove thieves, rework the class…. You either need to get better at the game, or play the class to actually learn to counter the class, because in all honesty, it’s really not hard.

There are more evil damage sources in wariror than 100b, i kinda agree with you, as thiefs need this mobility and at the momment thief is far from being the OP class from the game, one thing that makes tiefs reset combat or retreat is the damage players can make to them as example guardian with hammer 5 to lock thiefs and then change to 2h sword and blend, with a zerk+valk build for sure will kill or down most of the thiefs.

Now the problem is outside the 2h weapon set and with a bunker build (~25k health ~3.4k armor)i dont have many counter to it otherwise just being a punch bag and eventyally die due meditations or shouts being recharging and im w/o any defenses but that is the gw2 mechanics thats forces professions to use more some weapons than others IMO, hope the add of new traits and skills on further versions will solve this.

P.S sorry about the bad English.

My statement about warriors, mesmers, and guardians was just sarcasm to show how the whiners on the forums sound like. I did not mean for that line to be serious at all.

All classes can counter a thief, so there should be no excuse about having low HP or toughness which leads to a thief 1 Hitting you. If you decide to specc glassy, you can’t expect to stay alive for a long time, thieves that backstab for huge damage are also glassy. It’s true that thieves can be glassy and have stealth to protect them, but AoEs work wonders in those situations.

Dan.2940:

More people complaining about thieves stealth?
For the people complaining about it, have you actually played the Thief class?
Let me answer that for you.

No, no you haven’t.

You are asking Anet to nerf a class that you have little to no knowledge about?

Mesmers should be nerfed, and not have clones or phantasms, and guardians? Lose the virtues. Oh, what about warriors? They should be nerfed because 100 blades hits too hard.

Thieves are FAR from OP, and in most cases/builds, stealth is the only thing keeping a thief alive. If you have played the class, you would know that thieves are easily counterable, even if stealthing. Please STOP these whining threads on how thieves are OP, stealth is OP, remove stealth, remove thieves, rework the class…. You either need to get better at the game, or play the class to actually learn to counter the class, because in all honesty, it’s really not hard.

The same counter argument to the same argument. I nearly didn’t need to even read the post to know what it said.

Your ignoring the design flaws of the class in your admission of them. A visible thief quickly becomes a dead thief if he stays that way for any great length of time. It’s the basis for the class’ entire defensive mechanic. When I come out of stealth its when I’m immobilizing or basilisk stunning them in a smoke field off of a Backstab. If I cant get that setup, I don’t engage, and this no-skill-required class will let me stay in stealth until the end of time if that’s how long I need to wait for the opening. Everything else is just a blurr of HS spamming it which normally goes 8-9k backstab, ~4k heartseeker, ~5k heartseeker, ~6k heartseeker, ~7k heartseeker, and then I break off because that last HS rolls in as the revealed debuff comes off which puts me back in stealth (smoke fields for the win). If they survived that spike, one more backstab for 8-9k normally puts them down and then I refuge stomp. If initiative is ever looking like a problem I just activate a Signet and get at least another HS out of it (Signet Use trait).

You want to know how I know this is broken? I straight decimate people with it and I have a grand total of about 14 hours of play experience with the class. The skill ceiling is so low to master, yet the skill floor to counter it is so high that the problem is obvious yet time and time again the thief zealots show up waving their pitchforks and chanting its fine and everyone who loses to a thief is just a nub that needs to learn to play.

The class does one thing extremely well, and that’s be a petty one-trick-pony troll. Oh look…the thief stealthed…oh look he backstabbed again…oh look he’s spamming 2 again….oh look he stealthed yet again…oh look he’s using unload now…f’n troll.

I took the advice that you and those like you give and played the class and mastered it’s most optimal DPS build in one Saturday afternoon. The class is an unchallenging licence to troll, nothing more. The sooner you thief zealots realize that, the sooner we can band together and fix the !@#%ing class and its myriad of bad designs.

I’m especially pleased they buffed thiefs heals last patch or two ago…if you are expecting any sort of nerf to thiefs, dream on- all their skill adjustments so far are entirely spvp based (they even consult with top spvp players, ignoring wvw entirely), where capping and holding points is king and hence the nerfs to all and sundry if it interferes with that.

A mod should just close the thread, nothing will change, or if they do change it they will give thiefs another buff at the same time.

I think the annoying part about this (and other) threads regarding Thief in WvW is that main Thief players constantly roll out the “Oh, you must not have ever played a Thief!” excuse. Interestingly, I’m assuming the reverse of “Oh, you’ve only ever played a Thief so you are clearly biased” argument wouldn’t go over too well.

I have played Thief, Mesmer and Engineer (at level 80, and in that order) in WvW, and I just want to put my name in on the opinion that the skill required to play most Thief builds is incredibly low. This is in part due to the ridiculous ease of access to stealth that the class has, but I’d say that it’s not too much of a problem on any build except D/P.

While CnD can be avoided, Shadow Refuge can be countered (either knock them out or it gives you a clear AOE target rather than a 360-degree guessing game), and things like Blinding Powder and even HiS are on actual cooldowns, the spammability of Black Powder + Heartseeker is just absurd.

It cannot reliably be countered because the Thief is usually not near you when he executes it. It is usually done after a Shadowstep (because you landed a substantial burst or condition combo on him), or after/during a HiS in which the Thief has gained substantial ground away from you due to no mobility penalty for being in stealth.

This takes any sort of counterplay out of the picture because it’s absurd to try and predict the backstab (either by dodging or blocking) during an 8+ second stealth. Most classes have limited (if any) blocks and many builds don’t have a high vigor uptime. This is made worse by the fact that blocks (including Aegis) and dodges don’t reveal the Thief anyway upon a failed backstab. In my case, at least with a normal 4 second stealth, I can reliably block it with my Gear Shield or Static Shield or dodge due to perma-vigor giving me enough dodges if I plan accordingly.

I don’t think Thief is broken or OP overall. In fact, I think Thief in general needs some serious rethinking because lots of its builds are essentially terrible (P/P since release…) and the only ones that are really good (D/P and S/D) rely on cheesy mechanics of spamming (due to the initiative system) stealths and/or evades/teleports.

But to the topic of the thread, D/P is currently a terrible design due to how trivial it is to reset the fight the second something doesn’t go your way. If a Thief wants to win, they should have to play skillfully by being forced to land CnD or something that has real counterplay.

I wont pretend to know how best to adjust the Thief moving forward, but something needs to be done. Less of an emphasis on stealth? Removing the initiative system? I’m not sure.

Xsorus.2507:

No one will ever take a class seriously in terms of skill that can stealth every 3 seconds….Esp one that can perma stealth at will while in combat.

Esp one that has high damage, great condition removal, heals, amazing mobility.

I doubt it’ll be fixed, mainly because Anet has a kitten for SPvP which has things like Spirit Rangers being complained about.

But want an example of an actual Stealther Video with actual good Stealthers…You won’t find them in this game

Nope

You have to go back before WoW muddied everything up with god awful concept of a stealther

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT8rFyQgYg0

The saddest part about the Dark Age of Camelot stealth video… Is 3 of the Team members from Mythic/DAoC are working on Guild Wars 2….

Colin Johanson: “Mike Ferguson and Matt Witter are our two lead designers working on the WvWvW project, from a lead design perspective. Both of them are ex-Mythic employees. Mike was heavily involved in Dark Age of Camelot back when I was at Mythic. Mat was heavily involved in Warhammer Online and so the two of them have a lot of experience with world PvP. We also have a lot of staff who give them a great deal of feedback and suggestions. We are big PvP players across the board. I played a lot of Dark Age of Camelot. Our lead designer Eric Flannum would say one of his favourite games of all time was Dark Age of Camelot. We certainly draw inspirations from those areas, but we want to take that and make it our own too.”
http://tap-repeatedly.com/2011/09/exclusive-interview-arenanets-colin-johanson/

Obscure One.4357:

Dan.2940:

More people complaining about thieves stealth?
For the people complaining about it, have you actually played the Thief class?
Let me answer that for you.

No, no you haven’t.

You are asking Anet to nerf a class that you have little to no knowledge about?

Mesmers should be nerfed, and not have clones or phantasms, and guardians? Lose the virtues. Oh, what about warriors? They should be nerfed because 100 blades hits too hard.

Thieves are FAR from OP, and in most cases/builds, stealth is the only thing keeping a thief alive. If you have played the class, you would know that thieves are easily counterable, even if stealthing. Please STOP these whining threads on how thieves are OP, stealth is OP, remove stealth, remove thieves, rework the class…. You either need to get better at the game, or play the class to actually learn to counter the class, because in all honesty, it’s really not hard.

The same counter argument to the same argument. I nearly didn’t need to even read the post to know what it said.

Your ignoring the design flaws of the class in your admission of them. A visible thief quickly becomes a dead thief if he stays that way for any great length of time. It’s the basis for the class’ entire defensive mechanic. When I come out of stealth its when I’m immobilizing or basilisk stunning them in a smoke field off of a Backstab. If I cant get that setup, I don’t engage, and this no-skill-required class will let me stay in stealth until the end of time if that’s how long I need to wait for the opening. Everything else is just a blurr of HS spamming it which normally goes 8-9k backstab, ~4k heartseeker, ~5k heartseeker, ~6k heartseeker, ~7k heartseeker, and then I break off because that last HS rolls in as the revealed debuff comes off which puts me back in stealth (smoke fields for the win). If they survived that spike, one more backstab for 8-9k normally puts them down and then I refuge stomp. If initiative is ever looking like a problem I just activate a Signet and get at least another HS out of it (Signet Use trait).

You want to know how I know this is broken? I straight decimate people with it and I have a grand total of about 14 hours of play experience with the class. The skill ceiling is so low to master, yet the skill floor to counter it is so high that the problem is obvious yet time and time again the thief zealots show up waving their pitchforks and chanting its fine and everyone who loses to a thief is just a nub that needs to learn to play.

The class does one thing extremely well, and that’s be a petty one-trick-pony troll. Oh look…the thief stealthed…oh look he backstabbed again…oh look he’s spamming 2 again….oh look he stealthed yet again…oh look he’s using unload now…f’n troll.

I took the advice that you and those like you give and played the class and mastered it’s most optimal DPS build in one Saturday afternoon. The class is an unchallenging licence to troll, nothing more. The sooner you thief zealots realize that, the sooner we can band together and fix the !@#%ing class and its myriad of bad designs.

You’re quick to judge a class by a few popular builds, there are many builds that don’t rely on stealth. Doesn’t mean that you should nerf stealth when there is an option to use it or not. You mastered 1 DPS build in one day? How does that work? You playing against a bunch of low levels or hotjoin heroes? Any decent player won’t be easily ganked by a DPS thief build. That’s like me playing the class you normally play, beating a bunch of people who aren’t good at the game and me coming here to say that i mastered the class and it needs a nerf. It’s quite obvious that, unless you’re some kind of ESports pro, you went against less than decent players.

I’d love to see footage of your mastery with this class!

You say that people like me say that you guys are noobs because you can’t counter thieves, but if you’re seriously complaining that thieves stealth is OP and is design flawed, you must have been ran over by enough thieves to complain about it right?
I have 5 level 80’s i’m not biased to thieves, i just KNOW the class enough to understand that it’s not OP, and with thieves running glass builds, easily counterable. So i mean, if you’re having problems with them, you can only see why we believe you are inexperienced players. What class do you main? I’d love to know.

I think the simplest fix would be to put a 5 second icd on the smoke field leap finisher proc.

Xenon.4537:

I think the simplest fix would be to put a 5 second icd on the smoke field leap finisher proc.

Thieves don’t have cooldowns, increasing the initiative use on that skill would nerf D/P S/P and P/P thieves into the ground. Then you’ll get thieves complaining that their class needs a huge buff.

The actual simplest fix would be to remove the “leap finisher” from “heartseeker”. That is the single component that allows unskilled players to thrive with the thief class. Someone running away from you? 22222, Somone chasing you? 22222, Need perma-stealth? 522222, Want to DPS someone without having to worry about positioning or LOS? 22222. Don’t care if they are given buffs in other areas to compensate.

Removing the leap finisher would once again nerf thieves to the ground.
Increasing the amount of initiative on heartseeker would be the easiest fix, it would prevent people from spamming 2, and allow for a shorter stealth duration… HOWEVER, even doing that risks nerfing the weapon set drastically.

Dan.2940:

You’re quick to judge a class by a few popular builds, there are many builds that don’t rely on stealth.

Dan.2940:

Thieves are FAR from OP, and in most cases/builds, stealth is the only thing keeping a thief alive.

So many builds don’t use stealth to stay alive only most of them.

Truly you have a dizzying intellect.

But, but, but i wanna use full berserker. It would be so unfair if thief would need toughness and vitality like other professions.

a warrior doesn’t need toughness and vitality for roaming. i see tons of zerk warriors about, especially with the latest patch that made them op.

Obscure One.4357:

Dan.2940:

You’re quick to judge a class by a few popular builds, there are many builds that don’t rely on stealth.

Dan.2940:

Thieves are FAR from OP, and in most cases/builds, stealth is the only thing keeping a thief alive.

So many builds don’t use stealth to stay alive only most of them.

Truly you have a dizzying intellect.

EDIT

Taking my sentences out of context would make me sound confusing wouldnt it? I was first referring to glass builds, which rely on stealth, then i was making note that there are tons of builds that don’t rely on stealth. If you were to nerf the builds that DO rely on stealth, you destroy those builds all together.

Dan.2940:

Obscure One.4357:

Dan.2940:

You’re quick to judge a class by a few popular builds, there are many builds that don’t rely on stealth.

Dan.2940:

Thieves are FAR from OP, and in most cases/builds, stealth is the only thing keeping a thief alive.

So many builds don’t use stealth to stay alive only most of them.

Truly you have a dizzying intellect.

EDIT

Taking my sentences out of context would make me sound confusing wouldnt it? I was first referring to glass builds, which rely on stealth, then i was making note that there are tons of builds that don’t rely on stealth. If you were to nerf the builds that DO rely on stealth, you destroy those builds all together.

There’s no context presented for which I could have removed them from. You made two conflicting statements, I pointed it out and now your attempting to defend yourself from an indefensible position.

Now, if I may provide you with crucial information that all the typical thief zealots always assume when anyone calls for a nerf to that class. I never once said OP or that I have any problem with fighting a thief…go ahead…scroll up…snoop around. I main Engineer, I shred thieves like a twinkie tossed into a fat camp, but it took months of dedicated play to learn to counter thieves…and when I say thieves I mean the only ones that’re a threat, the big damage ones that constantly stealth. A thief I come across better !@#$%ing stealth and do so frequently or he’s dead faster than you can say loot bag. If it doesn’t stealth and doesn’t do massive damage and its a thief, its what we call a “bad thief” and I’m sorry but I won’t consider sucking a viable build.

Now, the principal is it should take a sizable amount of skill and complex understanding of a class to do something that requires the same to counter. Well as I mentioned I was replicating the results of the highest DPS build in probably 6 hours of play, and by 10 hours was doing it consistently, and by 12 hours I was straight wrecking kids…but apparently everyone who plays hot join is trash has no skill and doesn’t count…

Obscure One.4357:

If you can name one role a thief can fill that doesn’t involve stealth spamming or massive damage that allows it to the support, bunker, or roam with the efficiency of ANY other class, I will concede the point and send you 5 gold in game.

Equip PVT for survival, spec for maximum init generation, and be a source of constant blast finishers. In essence playing support for a well coordinated team who uses combo fields intelligently. No stealth needed, only medicore damage.

Klawlyt.6507 or Doubleoh Nothing. I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you.

Junkpile.7439:

But, but, but i wanna use full berserker. It would be so unfair if thief would need toughness and vitality like other professions.

this guy/girl summarized thief mentality in a sentence and why they keep trying to justify their broken mechanics.

I think alot of thieves miss the point. Yes, it’s fun to troll entire groups of people by spamming stealth and black powder/heartseeker until a situation arrives allowing you to gank one of them.

However abilities like this are actually keeping thief from being buffed in the ways that it needs. It’s very difficult to buff thief to be more viable in a team/zerg setting without imbalancing it thanks to some of it’s stealth shenanigans.

If you think that’s fine, then ok. Just be aware there are plenty of thieves out there that actually want to have builds allowing them to be a respectable member of a large force, instead of the token thief out of 20 players.

Klawlyt.6507:

Obscure One.4357:

If you can name one role a thief can fill that doesn’t involve stealth spamming or massive damage that allows it to the support, bunker, or roam with the efficiency of ANY other class, I will concede the point and send you 5 gold in game.

Equip PVT for survival, spec for maximum init generation, and be a source of constant blast finishers. In essence playing support for a well coordinated team who uses combo fields intelligently. No stealth needed, only medicore damage.

Klawlyt.6507 or Doubleoh Nothing. I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you.

No credit for half answers. Gimme the build and give you your gold.

10/0/0/30/30

I take the damage/health on steal trait in the first line.

Acrobatics I have fall damage reduction, extra init every 10 seconds, and the third one changes pretty frequently, usually the heal on init usage lately.

I have fury/might/swiftness on steal, vigor on steal/boon steal (I think that one is Bountiful Theft), and the interrupt on steal/steal CD reduction. These three further allow me to play supportively, but overall the build isn’t completely useless ins small scale battles. You just have to play… wait for it… intelligently and skillfully. I can keep swiftness on a slow (mesmer) commander (or yak, or back of the tail…) for 13 out of every 21 seconds all by myself, too.

And no, I can’t ever remember the names of the actual traits.

I use SB in large group engagements for the aforementioned blast finishers, and use D/P for more personal fights. Yes, I use HS, no it is not all I use, that gets you dead to good players. No, I don’t “abuse” stealth, but I’m not above using it if I need it. For 9 init a whack, I’m definitely not spamming it.

I use Withdraw for my heal. I use Scorpion Wire since it’s cooldown was reduced. It’s nice for dragging called targets into your zerg, or a great interrupt in smaller fights, even if the pull kitten s out. Roll for initiative for additional stunbreak/init regeneration. Sig of Shadows for… well speed. Dagger Storm because it’s WvW and I’m not made for venom sharing.

It grants survivability, utility, and enough damage output to be on even footing with any given player in a 1v1.

Very little use of stealth, certainly nothing close to spamming. Far from zerker damage. Crazy utility for my group.

Pin me. Pay me. 1-2-3 4 Life.

Edit: Really? The D word that rhymes with burp is a censorable word?

Waffler.1257:

The actual simplest fix would be to remove the “leap finisher” from “heartseeker”. That is the single component that allows unskilled players to thrive with the thief class. Someone running away from you? 22222, Somone chasing you? 22222, Need perma-stealth? 522222, Want to DPS someone without having to worry about positioning or LOS? 22222. Don’t care if they are given buffs in other areas to compensate.

This would probably be the best solution, Ability is to good.

The fact that blackpowder makes your finishing move uninterruptable in a 1vs1 is something that really bothers me.

kokiman.2364:

The fact that blackpowder makes your finishing move uninterruptable in a 1vs1 is something that really bothers me.

hate that to when i try to save a downed player with shield 5 and theres no KB on targets w/o stability boon.

Obscure One.4357:

Dan.2940:

Obscure One.4357:

Dan.2940:

You’re quick to judge a class by a few popular builds, there are many builds that don’t rely on stealth.

Dan.2940:

Thieves are FAR from OP, and in most cases/builds, stealth is the only thing keeping a thief alive.

So many builds don’t use stealth to stay alive only most of them.

Truly you have a dizzying intellect.

EDIT

Taking my sentences out of context would make me sound confusing wouldnt it? I was first referring to glass builds, which rely on stealth, then i was making note that there are tons of builds that don’t rely on stealth. If you were to nerf the builds that DO rely on stealth, you destroy those builds all together.

There’s no context presented for which I could have removed them from. You made two conflicting statements, I pointed it out and now your attempting to defend yourself from an indefensible position.

Now, if I may provide you with crucial information that all the typical thief zealots always assume when anyone calls for a nerf to that class. I never once said OP or that I have any problem with fighting a thief…go ahead…scroll up…snoop around. I main Engineer, I shred thieves like a twinkie tossed into a fat camp, but it took months of dedicated play to learn to counter thieves…and when I say thieves I mean the only ones that’re a threat, the big damage ones that constantly stealth. A thief I come across better !@#$%ing stealth and do so frequently or he’s dead faster than you can say loot bag. If it doesn’t stealth and doesn’t do massive damage and its a thief, its what we call a “bad thief” and I’m sorry but I won’t consider sucking a viable build.

Now, the principal is it should take a sizable amount of skill and complex understanding of a class to do something that requires the same to counter. Well as I mentioned I was replicating the results of the highest DPS build in probably 6 hours of play, and by 10 hours was doing it consistently, and by 12 hours I was straight wrecking kids…but apparently everyone who plays hot join is trash has no skill and doesn’t count…

What are you even talking about? You took a quote from one response i had, and then a quote from another response and merged them together… In one case i was referring to glass thieves, in the other i was referring to thieves in general…

Why are you here complaining about thieves if you are able to easily kill them? If they are no problem for you, why does it bother you so much that you believe they need to be nerfed?

Unless i am missing something, from the guy that played thief for 14 hours and seems to know the class inside and out, what you’re saying is comparable to me saying:

" I have no problem fighting engis, they are easy to counter, but they have too many kits, nerf please."

There are 2 reasons that “thief zealots” as you call them, like to defend their class…

1. In most cases, they know their class the best (most experience playing thief) and everyone complaining about the class has yet to play it, or has played it for a short period of time. You main Engi right? So if a bunch of random people on the forums who have little to no experience on an engi started shouting that engis were OP and needed a nerf, just because they got rolled by one or can’t beat them, how would you react to that?

2. They obviously want to defend the class they play the most.

Now for me, i’m defending thieves because I have seen way too many of these posts complaining or overreacting on how thieves need a nerf. I said it before, but i play 5 different classes, I’m not biased to thieves. I PREVIOUSLY mained thief and didn’t consider ever playing anything else, since then i have changed, but i still know the class really well.

So please, explain to me how you know what needs to me nerfed, and WHY you think it needs to be nerfed, because right now it looks like you just want thieves to stop being annoying, even though you can kill them easily. Which to me, doesn’t sound like a valid reason for a nerf.

Dan.2940:

So please, explain to me how you know what needs to me nerfed, and WHY you think it needs to be nerfed, because right now it looks like you just want thieves to stop being annoying, even though you can kill them easily. Which to me, doesn’t sound like a valid reason for a nerf.

Not looking for a nerf. Looking for a complete overhaul from the ground up on the entirety of that infantile class.

Obscure One.4357:

The problem is not what the thief can do it’s what the thief can’t do.

Why do thieves spam stealth and heartseeker/unload/clusterbomb? Because the devs designed this class so !#$%ing poorly that this is all they can do. Don’t point at the player and say “oh you just have no skill, and that’s why you play a thief.” you need to point at ANet and say “oh you just have no skill, and that’s why you made the thief.”

The class is terribad, so bad in fact that it can only do one thing well (so well it borders on exploitation of game mechanics causing thread after thread of “QQ nerf thief!”) and be about as effective as a pile of hot sick horse !#$% at literally anything else.

The whole class is over-specialized to the point of absolute infantile simplicity, that’s the problem. Saying you want ANet to nerf stealth and HS spam is taking away the only !#$%ing thing the class can do, which is why Thief zealots will troll you every time you mention a nerf to spamming and stealth.

Problem: the whole Thief class stinks worse than a week old diaper wrapped in burnt hair and crammed inside a road killed skunk that got hit by a gravel truck four or five times. Save for one hyper specialized, game breaking, and childishly simple play style, the thief is a horrible class.

Solution: kill it and burn it…or just kill it with fire…then like the mighty Phoenix let it rise from it’s ashes as a valid, well rounded, and challenging class to play.

If you wanted to understand where I was coming from you could’ve actually just read this thread so I didn’t need to repost old news.

Obscure One.4357:

Dan.2940:

So please, explain to me how you know what needs to me nerfed, and WHY you think it needs to be nerfed, because right now it looks like you just want thieves to stop being annoying, even though you can kill them easily. Which to me, doesn’t sound like a valid reason for a nerf.

Not looking for a nerf. Looking for a complete overhaul from the ground up on the entirety of that infantile class.

Obscure One.4357:

The problem is not what the thief can do it’s what the thief can’t do.

Why do thieves spam stealth and heartseeker/unload/clusterbomb? Because the devs designed this class so !#$%ing poorly that this is all they can do. Don’t point at the player and say “oh you just have no skill, and that’s why you play a thief.” you need to point at ANet and say “oh you just have no skill, and that’s why you made the thief.”

The class is terribad, so bad in fact that it can only do one thing well (so well it borders on exploitation of game mechanics causing thread after thread of “QQ nerf thief!”) and be about as effective as a pile of hot sick horse !#$% at literally anything else.

The whole class is over-specialized to the point of absolute infantile simplicity, that’s the problem. Saying you want ANet to nerf stealth and HS spam is taking away the only !#$%ing thing the class can do, which is why Thief zealots will troll you every time you mention a nerf to spamming and stealth.

Problem: the whole Thief class stinks worse than a week old diaper wrapped in burnt hair and crammed inside a road killed skunk that got hit by a gravel truck four or five times. Save for one hyper specialized, game breaking, and childishly simple play style, the thief is a horrible class.

Solution: kill it and burn it…or just kill it with fire…then like the mighty Phoenix let it rise from it’s ashes as a valid, well rounded, and challenging class to play.

If you wanted to understand where I was coming from you could’ve actually just read this thread so I didn’t need to repost old news.

Ah, i had yet to see this post of yours, i had assumed you were like the many other thread posters complaining for a thief nerf…. I was defending the class because nerfing the class the way it is now would pretty much destroy the class. A total rework of the class, as long as it’s done the right way, would be interesting, but i doubt Arenanet would scrap what they have and make thieves work completely different.

Dan.2940:

Xenon.4537:

I think the simplest fix would be to put a 5 second icd on the smoke field leap finisher proc.

Thieves don’t have cooldowns, increasing the initiative use on that skill would nerf D/P S/P and P/P thieves into the ground. Then you’ll get thieves complaining that their class needs a huge buff.

I don’t think you understood me. The stealth from executing a leap finisher in a smoke field isn’t exclusive to the thief. Putting a 5 second internal cooldown on that proc would affect everyone equally, and it has nothing to do with initiative. The only thing it would do is prevent stacking stealth from the same combo field.

Xenon.4537:

Dan.2940:

Xenon.4537:

I think the simplest fix would be to put a 5 second icd on the smoke field leap finisher proc.

Thieves don’t have cooldowns, increasing the initiative use on that skill would nerf D/P S/P and P/P thieves into the ground. Then you’ll get thieves complaining that their class needs a huge buff.

I don’t think you understood me. The stealth from executing a leap finisher in a smoke field isn’t exclusive to the thief. Putting a 5 second internal cooldown on that proc would affect everyone equally, and it has nothing to do with initiative. The only thing it would do is prevent stacking stealth from the same combo field.

Lol, do you know how choppy that would make thieves? Why should other classes be able to stack invis in a smoke field but not thieves, the stealthy class?

Klawlyt.6507:

10/0/0/30/30

I take the damage/health on steal trait in the first line.

Acrobatics I have fall damage reduction, extra init every 10 seconds, and the third one changes pretty frequently, usually the heal on init usage lately.

I have fury/might/swiftness on steal, vigor on steal/boon steal (I think that one is Bountiful Theft), and the interrupt on steal/steal CD reduction. These three further allow me to play supportively, but overall the build isn’t completely useless ins small scale battles. You just have to play… wait for it… intelligently and skillfully. I can keep swiftness on a slow (mesmer) commander (or yak, or back of the tail…) for 13 out of every 21 seconds all by myself, too.

And no, I can’t ever remember the names of the actual traits.

I use SB in large group engagements for the aforementioned blast finishers, and use D/P for more personal fights. Yes, I use HS, no it is not all I use, that gets you dead to good players. No, I don’t “abuse” stealth, but I’m not above using it if I need it. For 9 init a whack, I’m definitely not spamming it.

I use Withdraw for my heal. I use Scorpion Wire since it’s cooldown was reduced. It’s nice for dragging called targets into your zerg, or a great interrupt in smaller fights, even if the pull kitten s out. Roll for initiative for additional stunbreak/init regeneration. Sig of Shadows for… well speed. Dagger Storm because it’s WvW and I’m not made for venom sharing.

It grants survivability, utility, and enough damage output to be on even footing with any given player in a 1v1.

Very little use of stealth, certainly nothing close to spamming. Far from zerker damage. Crazy utility for my group.

Pin me. Pay me. 1-2-3 4 Life.

Edit: Really? The D word that rhymes with burp is a censorable word?

Now I cant say the build is bad but it’s not as efficient in a party as a full clerics gear staff/hammer guardian 0/0/30/30/10 that can bring fire and light fields that it can blast in every 5 seconds, have huge durations off of the granted boons and pump out 21 stacks of might on up to 5 people by itself…which also heals it. It’s boon count exceeds your builds capability with just core class design…which is dumb.

Your build brings poison and smoke fields. To be efficient, spamming your blast finishers in your fields will cause weakness or stealth…otherwise you’re useless to the party when there’s no field around that the devs decided not to give the thief because they’re !#$%ing bad at creating a rogue archetype class.

When it comes down to raw utility the build is bested by a vast array of Engineers who have a better pull than scorpion wire (unblockable, unreflectible, shorter CD, one of five skills they get for that same 1 utility slot) and bring every field except for dark and ethereal to the fight. They can not only provide more utility but also do not have to give up mid-high damage to do so…another failure in the core design.

Is the build playable? Sure why not. Is it as efficient as any other class filling a support role? !@$% no, if I have a choice between that and the guardian build I mentioned, its a no brainer I’m going with the guardian every time its a heal and boon factory on a level the thief couldn’t dream of. If you’d like the build I can post it in its entirety for you since I’d also want the same given our friendly wager.

Lets cut to the chase, does anyone think this is not one of the more powerful, relatively cheap and easy to use combos in all of WvW? Can you name another that is more powerful with similar convenience?

Straegen.2938:

Lets cut to the chase, does anyone think this is not one of the more powerful, relatively cheap and easy to use combos in all of WvW? Can you name another that is more powerful with similar convenience?

As soon as you can name something else the thief can do thats as effective as those other classes to which you compare them, I will continue to deem it the no-skills-thrills design of an overall unchallenging, easy mode, bull!@$% troll class.

Obscure One.4357:

bull!@$% troll class.

This seems relevant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faLlUbJdJQU

Dan.2940:

A total rework of the class, as long as it’s done the right way, would be interesting, but i doubt Arenanet would scrap what they have and make thieves work completely different

I’d like the focus to shift off stealth and be placed on shadowstepping, steal, and hit and run tactics. In the place of a class you cant hit because you cant see, a class you cant hit because its more mobile based on well timed teleports and evades. Coupled with the ability to directly support it’s allies in a straight fight with boons like vigor, swiftness, retaliation, and frost auras it could rapidly become a welcomed addition to any party.

If we look at GW1 we can see ANet has a track record of totally overhauling a class due to poor core design, with the Dervish being the first that comes to mind.

It’s more infantile keep complaining about a class becouse of your lazyness “months of dadicated learn to play blablabla” this kind of people want the easycake, no matters what kind of nerf about thieves they will keep QQing, they want to press a skill and kill thieves.
Forumwarriors “i dont have problem to kill thieves, delete them” who can mastering a class in an afternoon and all the other bullkittens.
This is the worst egostormkitten thread. The problem isnt the thief but this kind of player. Play more (and enjoy your masterkillerthieves) and cry less man.

Obscure One.4357:

Dan.2940:

A total rework of the class, as long as it’s done the right way, would be interesting, but i doubt Arenanet would scrap what they have and make thieves work completely different

I’d like the focus to shift off stealth and be placed on shadowstepping, steal, and hit and run tactics. In the place of a class you cant hit because you cant see, a class you cant hit because its more mobile based on well timed teleports and evades. Coupled with the ability to directly support it’s allies in a straight fight with boons like vigor, swiftness, retaliation, and frost auras it could rapidly become a welcomed addition to any party.

If we look at GW1 we can see ANet has a track record of totally overhauling a class due to poor core design, with the Dervish being the first that comes to mind.

They should’ve just carried over the assassin class from GW1 in the first place, much more interesting than this rogue-imitator designed to get all the kiddies from WoW to switch to GW2.

Waffler.1257:

They should’ve just carried over the assassin class from GW1 in the first place, much more interesting than this rogue-imitator designed to get all the kiddies from WoW to switch to GW2.

Why you gotta dog on my class, bro? :P

Also,

Why you never roam wid us, bro?

JakobGW.5730:

Waffler.1257:

They should’ve just carried over the assassin class from GW1 in the first place, much more interesting than this rogue-imitator designed to get all the kiddies from WoW to switch to GW2.

Why you gotta dog on my class, bro? :P

Also,

Why you never roam wid us, bro?

The way you play thief is more similar to how the assassin was designed so I’m pretty sure you would’ve enjoyed it more :P

Also,

I can if you want, I’ve been mostly playing around with builds in sPvP this week since the match is beyond boring, but will probably start doing more WvW when we get a new match-up.

Obscure One.4357:

If you can name one role a thief can fill that doesn’t involve stealth spamming or massive damage that allows it to the support, bunker, or roam with the efficiency of ANY other class, I will concede the point and send you 5 gold in game.

Obscure One.4357:

Now I cant say the build is bad but it’s not as efficient in a party as a full clerics gear staff/hammer guardian 0/0/30/30/10 that can bring fire and light fields that it can blast in every 5 seconds, have huge durations off of the granted boons and pump out 21 stacks of might on up to 5 people by itself…which also heals it. It’s boon count exceeds your builds capability with just core class design…which is dumb.

Your build brings poison and smoke fields. To be efficient, spamming your blast finishers in your fields will cause weakness or stealth…otherwise you’re useless to the party when there’s no field around that the devs decided not to give the thief because they’re !#$%ing bad at creating a rogue archetype class.

When it comes down to raw utility the build is bested by a vast array of Engineers who have a better pull than scorpion wire (unblockable, unreflectible, shorter CD, one of five skills they get for that same 1 utility slot) and bring every field except for dark and ethereal to the fight. They can not only provide more utility but also do not have to give up mid-high damage to do so…another failure in the core design.

Is the build playable? Sure why not. Is it as efficient as any other class filling a support role? !@$% no, if I have a choice between that and the guardian build I mentioned, its a no brainer I’m going with the guardian every time its a heal and boon factory on a level the thief couldn’t dream of. If you’d like the build I can post it in its entirety for you since I’d also want the same given our friendly wager.

First off, I don’t really need your gold, nor did we make a wager. You made an offer.

Second, you said with the efficiency of ANY other class. (emphasis yours) I never said I could support as well as a guardian, few classes can. Saying I have to be as good as a guardian is just moving the goalposts. I didn’t set out to prove thieves were the best support class, that’s ludicrous. I just wanted to show that when specced right, even a thief can be a valuable asset to a large, organized zerg.

Also, you overlooked how useful it is to have a thief with dagger storm in the initial push. That’s a lot of cripples, and some respectable damage, especially since those blasts helped spread plenty of Might. Plus I can do it again 90 seconds later. Lot’s of big fights last that long.

And while I’m nitpicking, the build still has ~ 2200 power. Annnnd, even though my base crit is just 10%, I have about 60% fury uptime all by myself, plus whatever I get from anyone else running around. It’s not like I’m throwing wet noodles out there.

Yeah, I’d probably be better off rolling an alt. I have 4 of em under level 15, and another at 29. I just don’t usually play a bunch of alts, in any game. That’s just me. So I took the tools at my disposal, and I made myself as useful as I could. Keep your money, man, but at least concede that I met your challenge.

Edited for grammar

Stealth and the overall thief mechanism has to be rework. It’s not a nerf it’s a balance. Why this class would be the only one relying on damage mitigation much more efficient than any other kind available to other classes that allow them to run full berserker while other need sustain and others ways to hold high dps running in ptv gears while not being able to do as much dps as thieves. This need a balance.

Thief invisibility isnt damage mitigation, he continues to take damage, the only problem i found with thief is their stealth finish that dont get KB, if they dont have stability on, they should be knockbacked.

advice: Thief atm is not the OP class of the game, actually is by far from that.

Altough theres is needed some harmless rework on the class, wich i hope gona be solved when more traits will be added to the game, after that Anet can make a better balance, before that i cant see any class balance.

:sorry about the bad English

im actually hyped for teh new traits.

Aeolus.3615:

the only problem i found with thief is their stealth finish that dont get KB, if they dont have stability on, they should be knockbacked.

Stealth does not provide invulnerability to knockback…