Guild Wars 2

LionZero.3479:

That last example is wrong using shadowstep after refuge goes down will break stealth again. so you don’t have 10s stealth after you use a step.

What does work is using shadowstep dropping refuge then porting back after refuge goes down that doesn’t break stealth, the other example does.

No, stepping doesn’t break stealth. The animation’s just broken. You appear visible to yourself (and allies, I believe). But if you check your buff bar, the stealth icon remains.

Snoxx.7943:

Even in WoW with all the new speed increases to stealth, you have no chance to catch up to a mounted enemy while stealthed

It’s been quite a while since I last played WoW, but I’m pretty sure if you’re specced for stealth speed, you can catch up to a mounted player with sprint (with glyph maybe?) or rocket boosters. Just sayin’

You know stealth stacks right so you can have multiple stacks of stealth put a great deal of distance between you and whoever, shadowstep and bam waypoint out…

Not everyone who kills you exploits… Id venture to say 99.99 percent of the game doesn’t….

Do people use the game mechanics to their advantage??? Of Course….

LionZero.3479:

That last example is wrong using shadowstep after refuge goes down will break stealth again. so you don’t have 10s stealth after you use a step.

What does work is using shadowstep dropping refuge then porting back after refuge goes down that doesn’t break stealth, the other example does.

Now how the hell would shadowstep break stealth in any of your given example ?
You sit in refuge for 4 seconds, stack up stealth, house drops and you can step all over the place.

For people who don’t know, Heartseeker doesn’t break stealth when it doesnt hit anything. So yeah i can put distance from you and break combat mode within 3 seconds of stealth and 1 or 2 shadowsteps plus speed buffs from dodge. Voila! i can wp out. No hacks needed. lol L2p op. Not everything has to be spoonfed to you. Same as any class, know your opponents.

Also, the only thing Thief classes are actually overpowered at… are BAD WvW players.

Generally all you need to do is bring a stun/immobilize and a stunbreak/invunerability skill and you’re good to go. When thieves hit you, stunbreak, and then stun/immobilize the poor kitten. Dump whatever you can on them. If it’s a glass cannon, the thief will either die or start running EVERY TIME.

Once you break their initial combo and start dishing out the hurt, they go into “oh kitten” mode and try to get away from you as fast as possible. Also, your stun/immobilize is extremely useful for killing virtually anything in WvW.

If you’re still dying, it’s because you aren’t using any gear that increases survivability. Honestly, it seems like every new player runs a glass cannon build and wonders why they die all the time in 1v1s. Having equipment that gives +vitality or +toughness is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. This game isn’t just about DPS.

OP, when you say kill 2-3 players and then disappears and teleports away, does the thief actually finish those player off or are they in downed state? because if he finished them off it would take a lot longer than a few seconds and your group really should have take. care of him by then. If they were all downlevelled and running poor builds with average gear and the thief was 80 and geared well….

The main point here is, if a thief runs, you have won the fight. Just because you didn’t kill him doesn’t mean you lose. You win be forcing him to Stealth and Shadow return.

well, 900 heal, 1800 tough, 2800 armor here, and I still die to thieves in a few seconds without ever seeing them. I dodge within 2 seconds of them stealthing, i use aoes, I have my pets protect me, I constantly move, I don’t knowingly expose my back to them. all to no avail.

easy to say it’s a l2p issue if you are a thief.

thewanderer.8561:

For people who don’t know, Heartseeker doesn’t break stealth when it doesnt hit anything. So yeah -> I can put distance from you and break combat mode within 3 seconds of stealth and 1 or 2 shadowsteps plus speed buffs from dodge. Voila! i can wp out. No hacks needed. lol L2p op. Not everything has to be spoonfed to you. Same as any class, know your opponents.

Also, the only thing Thief classes are actually overpowered at… are BAD WvW players.

Funny.

Columba.9730:

well, 900 heal, 1800 tough, 2800 armor here, and I still die to thieves in a few seconds without ever seeing them. I dodge within 2 seconds of them stealthing, i use aoes, I have my pets protect me, I constantly move, I don’t knowingly expose my back to them. all to no avail.

Hi Columba, nice to see you making comments about thief here Is Anet ignoring your ‘feedbacks’ on Thief sub-forum, again?

Now the new Thief trend in WvW is trying out smoke screen to absorb treb/catapult shots XD

Columba.9730:

well, 900 heal, 1800 tough, 2800 armor here, and I still die to thieves in a few seconds without ever seeing them. I dodge within 2 seconds of them stealthing, i use aoes, I have my pets protect me, I constantly move, I don’t knowingly expose my back to them. all to no avail.

easy to say it’s a l2p issue if you are a thief.

I play engineer and mesmer. Engineer is arguably the weakest class in WvW, and yet I kill thieves reliably. Playing mesmer is a complete glass-cannon roflstomp. Honestly, best solution against thieves is having stunbreaks and a “panic-button” skill that either completely disables them or makes you invulnerable somehow.

It honestly amazes me how many people don’t bring stunbreak skills to WvW. A 1 to 2 second stun is usually enough of an opening to completely destroy someone with your nastiest skills.

Also, level 80 characters with decent (rare or better) equipment and a good build will walk all over seriously upleveled (level-70 or below) characters. It’s an unfortunate fact of WvW. No way around it given the current game mechanics.

kazi.6438:

Columba.9730:

well, 900 heal, 1800 tough, 2800 armor here, and I still die to thieves in a few seconds without ever seeing them. I dodge within 2 seconds of them stealthing, i use aoes, I have my pets protect me, I constantly move, I don’t knowingly expose my back to them. all to no avail.

easy to say it’s a l2p issue if you are a thief.

I play engineer and mesmer. Engineer is arguably the weakest class in WvW, and yet I kill thieves reliably. Playing mesmer is a complete glass-cannon roflstomp. Honestly, best solution against thieves is having stunbreaks and a “panic-button” skill that either completely disables them or makes you invulnerable somehow.

It honestly amazes me how many people don’t bring stunbreak skills to WvW. A 1 to 2 second stun is usually enough of an opening to completely destroy someone with your nastiest skills.

Also, level 80 characters with decent (rare or better) equipment and a good build will walk all over seriously upleveled (level-70 or below) characters. It’s an unfortunate fact of WvW. No way around it given the current game mechanics.

plenty of panic buttons, all level 80 exotics. 2 stun breakers. thanks though.

Columba.9730:

kazi.6438:

Columba.9730:

well, 900 heal, 1800 tough, 2800 armor here, and I still die to thieves in a few seconds without ever seeing them. I dodge within 2 seconds of them stealthing, i use aoes, I have my pets protect me, I constantly move, I don’t knowingly expose my back to them. all to no avail.

easy to say it’s a l2p issue if you are a thief.

I play engineer and mesmer. Engineer is arguably the weakest class in WvW, and yet I kill thieves reliably. Playing mesmer is a complete glass-cannon roflstomp. Honestly, best solution against thieves is having stunbreaks and a “panic-button” skill that either completely disables them or makes you invulnerable somehow.

It honestly amazes me how many people don’t bring stunbreak skills to WvW. A 1 to 2 second stun is usually enough of an opening to completely destroy someone with your nastiest skills.

Also, level 80 characters with decent (rare or better) equipment and a good build will walk all over seriously upleveled (level-70 or below) characters. It’s an unfortunate fact of WvW. No way around it given the current game mechanics.

plenty of panic buttons, all level 80 exotics. 2 stun breakers. thanks though.

Well then in this case your kungfu sucks.

OP: Stealth does not break you out of combat, if thief is able to WP out then he was not hit by anyone still living.

Let’s be realistic. Every game has difficulty settings, in this game the easy mode is the Thief profession. As a Thief it’s very hard to die and you play with several advantages vs. other players.

That said, i’m glad there is a easy mode! (Because it’s good to know where all the bads are)

But even then the bads will argue, that it’s all fair and game and even post videos how they “pwn n00bs” – same as bads of every game post videos how they beat games on the easy setting or exploit weaknesses of different game mechanics.

The result is, nobody cares and nobody respects you. If nobody respects a Thief as opponent, then what’s the point in playing one?

As WvW player i respect challenging opponents of all classes. I play for hard fought battles, as it rewards me with enjoyment, no matter if i win or lose. Battles against Thiefs are shrugged off however. It’s the well known troll profession that doesn’t add much to WvW, runs around single or with the D/D Ele buddy for easy kills. Everyone knows this and we don’t even care by now.

TLDR: Pity the easy mode thieves instead of getting all fussed over something that’s there for a reason.

I have a thief that I thoroughly enjoying playing in WvW that is built around stealth and mobility. That being said, he is probably the weakest 80 I have in WvW. The thieves that have the highest damage output ability have to sacrifice mobility/stealth. No offense to any thieves out there but I can’t remember the last one killed me 1v1 that was built around using stealth – of course, it may be because I have one and know how to fight them. Regardless, I am always against nerfing – I tend to follow the novel train of thought that if a class is ‘op’ then bring everyone else up! It’s a video game, weakening people isn’t fun.

As a whole though I think it’s hard for people to really determine the impact of stealth on WvW. I run the game on the highest settings (with room to spare) and at any given time I realize suddenly there is a whole zerg on standing on top of me and they all did not stealth in for sure. Until the culling issue is resolved it’s hard to tell if someone is really exploiting stealth or they just caught a lucky break and stop getting rendered on your screen.

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind seeing thieves get a damage buff if their mobility abilities were removed. Catching a thief once they’ve decided to run off is the only hard part about fighting them.

IMO, WvW should get its own balancing just like PvP. Some professions (Ranger/Engineer/Necro) could really use some WvW buffs. Right now, it’s just "Oh you play engineer? That’s adorable! … STOMP "

MattMesa.8401:

Regardless, I am always against nerfing – I tend to follow the novel train of thought that if a class is ‘op’ then bring everyone else up! It’s a video game, weakening people isn’t fun.

Yes, but if every class could teleport to a target from 1,200 range from invisibility, drop a relatively inescapable 15,000 in 2 seconds (primarily referring to the fact that you can’t “outmaneuver” a thieves melee attacks like you can most other melee attacks), and then stealth away and/or stealth stomp if not just teleport away the game might as well be called Call of Duty: Guild Warfare 2.

While ideally a buff is better then a nerf because of the perception in reality they are essentially the exact same thing. A buff to one class is an indirect nerf to every other class while a nerf to one class is an indirect buff to every other class.

What should never be done is to “nerf” the number of valid options available to a player. Sometimes “nerfing” one option can actually increase the number of valid options available. The issue is more often then not when ANet is nerfing things they are actually decreasing the number of valid options.

That being said, I do think there does need to be some way to “dodge” Heartseeker without having to roll just like nearly every other melee ability. Leap finishers are supposed to be gap closers so that you can get up close to your opponent then use your melee skills on the opponent. Not a spammable inescapable homing high damage attack itself! It’s be like if Bull Rush itself did as much damage as 100 Blades (slight exaggeration, but you should get the idea).

I mean part of why melee attacks do more then range attacks is because of their “escapability” since they can only hit at something like range 100. Ranged attacks hit because of their ability to hit farther back. The issue is because oh how movement speed and swiftness can essentially increase the “range” of this attack is closer to 600 then the listed 450.

The damage that Heartseeker does for a range 600 attack is absurd. Sure, the thief is squishy and ends up in the opponents face, but that hardly enough to justify it. That’s like saying a Ranger can spam a melee damage attack from 1,200, but the only down side is that the Ranger is teleported to the foe where he can continue using his melee damage ranged attack. Yeah, good luck running away from that terror.

I just think it isn’t too unreasonable to be able to dodge a spammable 600 range high damage attack by outmaneuvering my opponent as opposed to the heat seeking missile it currently is.

I myself play as a Thief and I wouldn’t mind if they added something so that Thiefs couldn’t teleport when they’re in stealth even if they were not in combat. It just makes it that much more challenging using that class. Example: being chased down by a group of people when your health is low you have no choice but to run.

Daendur.2357:

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

[cut]combat mode is only broken by putting distance between you and your enemy.[cut]

this is not completely true.
Combat also ends when the target is defeated.
So if this Über-thief pops out of stealth kills 2-3 opponents, finishes them before everyone can react and hit him, after the third stomp he will be out of combat and can use waypoint.

Yep I know this but assumed it wasn’t the case because the OP was ‘in pursuit’ but couldn’t catch him before thief WP out.

There is a lot of ignorance here. Just reroll a thief, learn its strenght and weaknesses, and you will be able to deal with thieves.

GeniusBrain.7436:

There is a lot of ignorance here. Just reroll a thief, learn its strenght and weaknesses, and you will be able to deal with thieves.

yeah I did that and now I don’t wanna play any other class coz OP thief ruined them
quick kills, easy spiking, best burst dmg, great dps, invisibility, fantastic mobility… etc…
true thiefs die easy but if you are lucky to actually see them

Seriously?

OK, fyi, every mmo has a thief/assassin/ninja class. Why? ‘Cuz they’re just too cool!! Who DOESN’T want to come out of the shadows and strike fear into their target?

And it seems to be working.

As intended.

To OP: wahahahahaha while you were no doubt twirling like an out of control ballerina, trying desperately to hit the thief, he no doubt used Shadow Step, Shadow Return, Shadow Refuge, switch to bow, Infiltrator’s Arrow. Bye bye ballerina.

As for the thief being op: really? I run around with 15kish hp, which is tankish for a thief. This said, I avoid “the zerrrrrrrg” because let’s face it, I don’t last long in there. My role, no, the role of a good thief is to catch the people running supplies to make siege weapons, report intel on in coming and the movements of the enemy, deny supplies to enemy strongholds, ninja supplies to sieged points, etc, etc, etc. Getting the picture?

I usually run with another thief who stays ranged. We zap the two/three man supply runners, take out the yaks, turn supply camps and sometimes go deep into enemy territory to split up their forces and generally cause chaos. Ten people chasing me is ten less sieging against my tower/keep/garrison. Understanding now what it is to play a thief?

GeniusBrain.7436:

There is a lot of ignorance here. Just reroll a thief, learn its strenght and weaknesses, and you will be able to deal with thieves.

I did that.

Now I know thieves have next to zero weaknesses, but many many overpowered advantages.

I’m glad so many thieves are crappy players (that’s another thing I learned by playing one myself) otherwise I’d never manage to beat them. About once a week I meet a really competent thief in WvW who shows me what crappy noobs all the other thief players actually are …

Cast refuge and hide to the side. The uninitiated attack the middle of refuge, the more knowledgeable will attack the outskirts of the ring. Its usually a combination of both that brings you undone. Safely doing that the hackers out there can then teleport/speed/fly and whatever else away, because no one sees it.

You should right click on them, assuming you can before they stealth and report them for botting. I mean botting, it is kinda like hacking?

I <3 my thief, I do so much with so little.

Don’t hate me, because I’m beautiful.

Even if what you say is true, and they waypoint out in stealth (which they cannot, they must run far enough to be out of combat first), who gives a kitten

Seriously, a dudes ran in and killed a couple of people and ran away. Res them and carry on as you were, he’s taken himself out of the fight and is a non-threat.

It’s not just me right?

It takes a little luck to get them. One really good way is to pop some AOE around a downed ally because they love running up and stealth finishing. It’s like crack to them.

Anyone know why this thread was moved to linksville? lol
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/links/Thieves-rule-W3/page/6#post1485494

Otaur.9268:

If you cannot waypoint in stealth, then there have been a lot of teleport hackers recently… Cause I am not the only one seeing this.

yup and apparently they don’t only teleport themselves but a;so u out of a tower in the middle of them.happened to me yesterday and no there is no way i was pulled from the bottom of the ramp near the lordsroom, all the way through the gate,not ebven just outside the gate but all the way in the middle of them.

lol I love ho all the thieve come out to give op kitten. Truth is most likely those thieves aren’t hacking simply stealth away and wp or just get far away enough it seems he is gone. But stealth is pretty broken, the irony is that the more people out looking for the thief the easier it is for him to get way . Just more targets to cnd off to get extra stealth. That + all the random mobs everywhere in WvW it’s really really hard to catch a thief.
As for downing 2 – 3 people, all you thieves out there know any none 80 will not live past 1 chain of attack . kill 1 guy stealth stomp. Go away kill another guy , stealth stomp. I do that on my thief all the time .

brogarn.8723:

Snoxx.7943:

Can you run away from a thief? No!
Can a thief run away from you? Yes!
Do you think this is fair?

That’s easy: No, there’s absolutely nothing about the Thief’s combination of stealth, mobility, and DPS design that’s fair. ANet apparently doesn’t think so, though, so we have to put up with it. Either stick with a group or make sure you have money for repairs. /shrug

It’s because they’re ‘supposed’ to be like this, as sad as it sounds. A class that will assassinate people, avoid everything and get out of trouble. Engies, Warriors, Necros, Rangers, and maybe even Guardians are food for these killhungry roamers looking to make their next superownag3 Thief WvW video nobody will care about.

Now I’m not going to complain, Thieves are fightable, but stealth is way too forgiving.

A thief can spec and build for permanant stealth, but this is not a “full glass cannon build”. I run a “full glass cannon build” and your looking of a gap of around 20 seconds between skills that you can chain together stealth. If you run a dagger you can potentially get another 6 seconds of stealth. The downside is there are a large amount of things that can one hit kill you, even when your in stealth.

As a thief you have to be really careful, particularly around Guardians and Warriors. If a guardian hits you with 5 skill on his greatsword, you should be dead, if not he screwed up. Warrior can knock you down in multiple ways and kill you before you can get back up, if he has a mace/shield I am running away, otherwise Ill only kite him from max range with pistols and only in the right circumstance (IE hes at the back of a zerg committed to attacking my allied zerg).

SoPP.7034:

Anyone know why this thread was moved to linksville? lol
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/links/Thieves-rule-W3/page/6#post1485494

Because a mod saw the video, and the post wasn’t like, “ZOMG THIS IS BROKEN FIX THIS NOW ANET COMEON”, so its a “link for the community to watch.”

Also, this thread is 20 days old. Why did you necro it?

Snoxx.7943:

SilverWF.4789:

Snoxx.7943:

And btw, in any other game, stealth has a movement speed penalty

Wow, really? What game?

The list is long, let’s say DAoC, WAR, and yes WoW of course.

Also stealth isn’t perfect “invisibility” there, you still have a chance to spot a stealthed char, there are tools to reveal a stealthed enemy, damage breaks stealth, and usually you cannot go back to stealth once in combat (there are exceptions but few and with long cooldowns).

And then comes GW2, which was even advertised as a game without perma-stealth classes, and yet introduces the best “stealth” (aka “invisibility”) I’ve ever seen since playing MMOs for 15 years.

On top of that, we get a graphic engine with bad culling mechanics, allowing them to even attack while still being invisible. OMG!

Question: There is a trait to increase stealthed speed by 50%, does this really make invisible thieves move faster than a visible char with 33% haste?

Am I the only one who thinks stealth is broken in GW2?

Amen 1000% Snoxx. Every friend I came to this game with quit because of thieves. They need to lose perma stealth or get a nerf to their damage. One or the other. It is just not fun to a casual player, like my friends, to pvp in this game when classes like thieves exist as they are. /shrug My friends went back to playing DAoC and so did I except I play this game still now an then on my ele, mesmer an guardian.

Loki.4139:

Currently in our match up there’s been TONS of Ele’s, they take one person down then they run across the whole map then waypoint.

Shredder!!!! Yah and lets not forget the thief using the perma stealth ability in our keep… :/

Causic.3798:

thewanderer.8561:

For people who don’t know, Heartseeker doesn’t break stealth when it doesnt hit anything. So yeah -> I can put distance from you and break combat mode within 3 seconds of stealth and 1 or 2 shadowsteps plus speed buffs from dodge. Voila! i can wp out. No hacks needed. lol L2p op. Not everything has to be spoonfed to you. Same as any class, know your opponents.

Also, the only thing Thief classes are actually overpowered at… are BAD WvW players.

Funny.

What’s funny is that the thief class prolly has the most synergistic trait trees in the game… Sure they can go full GC and one shot people no prob… Anyone with a moniker of toughness will at least survive this… And if they don’t then they were GC and it comes down to just who can duel like a boss (draw their attacks out faster). The annoying thief (the ones I hate fighting most) are the ones that usually completely ignore their first two trait trees and go 30 into shadow arts and 20 into the bottom two… These guys will not one shot you but will just wear you down… more and more… And the blind on stealth trait is easily one of the most useful (annoying for everyone else in the game) especially if you play a class like a Mesmer where you require a target for 90% of your skills to work and they can’t be used while blind anymore… So is the burst damage of a thief OP? I think it is in a way… But the thief has many MANY other things that it has going for it not to mention thief class has some of the best inherent condition removal in the game.

GC Thieves are incredibly easy if you can twitch react.

As a Guardian, the moment I hear the hiss of the daggers(You know, the “shing” sound, and chunk of health missing), I pop protection. I stun break if necessary. I hit them twice, use Ring of Warding, switch to GS and down them before RoW expires. If they don’t teleport away, I’ll have them hooked with my Binding Blades if they do survive. If they use Shadowstep, then good game, they don’t try again, and my RoW will be off CD before their SS is.

On my thief, the moment I hear the hiss, I’ll use Death Blossom twice. They just blew their entire burst into air, as well as have 6 stacks of bleed for 20secs. If I am stunned, then I use Blinding Powder and their Heartseeker can’t touch me.

On my Ele, Shocking Aura, which also grants Protection. I can often times auto-attack them to death afterwards because they are still spamming Heartseeker =/

I personally feel like Thieves hit just a little too hard, but not absurdly much. Even while I played a heavily defensive Guardian, 3300 armor and 21k health, I still had to twitch away from thieves. Playing the most defensive profession to the defensive extreme should allow for some survivability against anything. I’ve recently become a much more offensive Guardian, and I find thieves much easier to handle, since I can drop most within the duration of RoW.

I find the easiest way of handling thieves is to know the thief. Make one yourself and learn the tells. Having stuns, immobilization, denials, chills, cripples, pulls, and knock backs go a long way in killing a thief. Prevent that Shadow Refuge and most thieves go panic mode.

Well, thieves for have really killed WvW for me. When I first jumped into WvW I was excited, and how quickly that changed. No other profession is unreasonably strong except thieves. I play a ranger and have had no trouble dealing with any other class. d/d eles and all included. Sure, these meta-build folks are sturdier than most, but they’re not all but impossible like a thief is. Tonight was the final straw. It’s at present downtime for our server, so there’s only about three-four defenders present right now as is. A single thief alone is capping all our homeland camps/sentries, and all the NPC’s and additional reinforcements (Quaggans, Ogres, etc) are of no help for the three of us against ONE thief… Props to him/her I guess, whoever they are.

I’m not suggesting perma-stealth should be nerfed. By all means I think it’s cool they can get around unseen. They however, should not be able to:
1. Attack while cloaked.
2. Finish an opponent while cloaked.
3. Remain cloaked while under certain conditions, bleeding/burning/etc (anything else just doesn’t make sense, “Oh look! Profuse blood trail… and it’s still trailing.”).

Adaneshade.2409:

Fair or not, this was the intended design as has been stated several times even in these forums by devs. They want the thief to be slippery and very difficult to pin down.

Every class has builds capable of killing any thief or forcing them to run, the fact that players choose not to use those builds is no one’s fault but their own.

The only builds a thief has at the moment which are any good vs a build with adequate defense also lack the crazy mobility you mention here.

So where’s the diversity in this? We’re all supposed to be relegated to one specific build to be able to deal with a single profession? That makes sense. So it just happens that I’m half-useless with the one specific weapon that this build requires, be it ranged or melee, I’m just overall out of luck? As mentioned above, I’ve had little trouble with everyone else minus thieves. Meta-build eles, mes, etc. As a ranger I consider myself half decent as a player, I’m not the best, but I’m pretty good. 95% of the time a 1v1 with a thief spells death… And the one or two instances it didn’t I almost felt bad about it afterward cause I’m certain they were either a newb player exploring or simply a baby-thief.

If you can’t tell, I’m not a voter for the “lets all just meta-build and wail on each other” school of thought. =D

I personally like the fact thieves can finish off while cloaked. It makes killing them so much easier. Often times, I even let one of my allies go down, instead of blowing a CD to save them, because now I know exactly where the thief will be, or will be trying to get to.

Hello,

Since this thread is not inviting to constructive and healthy discussion, it is now closed.

Thank you.