Guild Wars 2

Just ignore them—don’t feed and it’ll go away and look for responses elsewhere. Roaming WvW thieves are looking to feed on your rage. Thief is the Troll class, anet got completely carried away making them and people have taken that to the next level, as the players always take things further than the devs can envision.

Mesmers are pretty slow, at least from what I’ve seen/heard, so maybe you should roll a class more suited to escaping from others, like a… oh yeah, have you tried a Thief?

I think phantasm mesmer with sword/pistol and GS is one of the stonger counters to roaming wvw thiefs that currently exists.

Both phantasms do multi hit attacks that can mostly bypass the thiefs blinds. And the duellists lock on and channel their unloads through stealth even if the thief only re-appears for a moment.

Remember to hit your 1 attack (into the thin air) to remove their blind on you before you cast a phant.

And the GS knockback can stop them from escaping in a shadow refuge. Make sure to invis before you cast it so they dont see your 1/2 sec windup and easily dodge it.

(Sword/Sword (or scepter/sword) + Sword/Pistol is a stronger phantasm build but it lacks the ability to stop them escaping in a shadowrefuge)

Hey Rain
Coming from another mesmers perspective who spends most of my time scouting, yes they can be hard to fight and even more difficult to kill as a very good player playing the perma stealth build can normally chose to disengage and reset the fight whenever they want. I have seen 1 highly skilled thief from another server troll upwards to 8 average to decent players while being almost untouchable and doing decent damage for over 10 min before being taken down ( was in party with him at the time ). For me the only time i have killed a perma stealth thief build is when either they make a mistake and underestimate my burst , overwhelming numbers or in a organised duel where running away and resetting the fight was not an option.

As for how to deal with a thief of any kind mesmers have so many options but it really comes down to build, practice and an instinct on when to block/dodge/knock back/apply defensive boons even when they are in stealth. ( i have a good video of me dueling a perma stealth thief which i will post for you to watch when i get off work in 5 hours which may help )

As for what i do most of the time i run across one I generally just fight for around 30 sec and then just move on as it is not worth my time/effort ( though this can be difficult if they are intent in killing you ) and i could be doing better things with my time like scouting a zerg for my server or taking yaks/supply camps

As for balance on the thief class as a whole that is for anet to decide and i will just play and adapt to whatever comes ( im looking at you confusion nerf )

You come across one. You tango. The thief realizes he’s in the kitten. The thief runs away. You’ve won, so you continue to your objective. Thief returns? Sure, rinse repeat.

Interestingly enough I’ve heard rumors of future conditions that’ll target things like mobility spam. So thieves will get to keep their cake, but sometimes instead of eating it it’ll be smooshed into their face. Good times.

It’s annoying. Thieves are weak at everything but minor feats in wvw like killing dolyaks, and weakened opponents. They’re practically more newbie check then they an actual class. In PvE, they’re that damage class with less dps and support then warrior. In Spvp, they’re that dueling class that can’t hold a point. Yet that doesn’t stop people from demanding that they get nerfed at the one thing they’re good at.

Howdy Rain,
I think in honesty you will get a mix of answers. You will have the ones who state there is an issue and the ones who will defend the current state of the class as if " its your fault you can’t hit us… oh err them." :P, That in addition with little or no evidence to back up the claims". I use a lot of confusion and traps to counter them, sometimes it works and sometimes not. Locking onto them being a ranged class is very very difficult and its something I would like clarification on too, if stealthed classes can be hit by ranged classes without a lock. I wish you all the best that you find an answer.

Thieves though don’t have it easy in other terms, we have to be fair on them on that respects. You get some really great guys playing thieves, the perm stealthers are the troll class and always have been. The perm stealth thief to me is the chickens way out, you fight them, they lose health, they run away and hide for a bit so you can’t clip them on the ear and then come back to win when you least expect it = TROLL. When you lose they are running about dancing on your corpse, then they lose its Meryl Streep time. Why you think most thieves take the perm stealth build as is? The thief that fights you on limited stealth are the coolest guys going, there are some good eggs going about and the fights are awesome. The rest are just banking on the fact they can’t stand losing and want the best way to get the edge . That is pretty much a chickens ways out. You won anyway for choosing a class that takes a bundle of skill to use, mesmers are kitten hard to play. WTG.

In the grand scheme of WvW, theives are nearly worthless. They contribute far less to large group fights and sieges than any other class.

They only excel at scouting and killing yaks/sentries, but wouldn’t you rather have a ranger/ele that can also solo fully upgraded camps and kill elevated siege?

Class needs a massive overhaul for WvW.

Thieves useless in wvw apart from scouting, killing Dolyaks and sentries? This thread is going places; it’s insulting to skilled thieves who don’t run zerker and perma stealth to kitten and troll around.

Again Shadow’s Embrace removes only ONE condition if you can access stealth which depends on your build, under shadow refuge it’s more efficient is quite easy to notice with that house icon hanging above it – You just need to FOCUS AOE or damage on that circleand you can also push us out of it unless we dodge between the circle.

You might want to rethink that part about conditions and these being useful vs thieves. Shadow’s Embrace nearly every thief have that and it remove condition when thief enter stealth and another condition 3 seconds after that, so stealth spamming thief is removing conditions very fast.

I think maybe OP lacks some perspective since he plays a Mesmer. Thief has an advantage against any class that summons AI bots because those are free CnD targets. Just about any class with some mobility can run from a Mesmer as well, not just Thieves that stealth to get away. Some classes are just naturally weak against others. I have a terrible time against Mesmers on my Engineer for example but no problems with Thieves, its just the way the game is.

However, with abilities like the focus pull, the sword immobilize/leap combo, the greatsword knockdown, the pistol phantasms, Mesmers have all the tools they need to take care of a Thief that chooses to stick to the fight.

Thieves IMO are a minor nuisance. I main a necro in WvW, and any thief attacking me by himself is just asking to be brushed off. With several times the statistical bulk, access to weakness and retaliation, as well as fear and pull skills I have downed many, many thieves that have tried to ambush me.

What you have to remember is that WvW isn’t about randomly pwning n00bs. It is about capturing and defending objective points. Individual kills mean very little as far as progress goes.

Thieves kittening suck at WvW, maybe you should stick with zerg that way thief cant try and get a cheap kill off of you.

Reason why they suck in WvW is because they run too much, you can only run so much in WvW that sooner or later you will have nothing to defend because you ran away from all fights.

Elementalist is hands down best profession for WvW, they can AoE walls, block treb shots, unlimited swiftness, AoE stuns.

A zerg of elementalist would destroy a zerg of thieves, that’s for sure.

A few things about the original post stood out to me so I’ll address each, as someone who plays both mesmer and thief in equal amounts in wvw and pve.

One, you start saying you’re not here to whine, and although you phrase it fairly politely (which I do appreciate), you’re still asking for a nerf. You also started your own thread for this, when there is a nearly identical thread like two posts below, and hundreds of similar threads on the thief forums….so just know that it will likely be received in kind. Also, many posts in both the thief and mesmer forums offer simple counters to thieves, and as mentioned here, mesmers have them in droves. I would really appreciate if before demanding nerfs, you would check and look for counters on the forums. As a fellow mesmer player, I hope you would understand the frustration of having your core mechanics nerfed into uselessness…the confusion nerf for example was completely excessive, and was there just to appease complainers who couldn’t master concepts like “stop auto-attacking” (also a heavyhanded super-nerf to glamour builds, which were sort of op’d in wvw…but could have been handled better).

Second, you said that you are pretty confident in most 1v1 and 1v2 scenarios. Yet you are simultaneously complaining about the one class that gives you trouble, being OP’d. Yet you have a build that is consistently able to simultaneously take on two opponents. Do you not see the irony there? Now I get that it all depends on the opponent’s skill level, and once anyone gets to a decent skill level, working with a build with a high skill ceiling, 1v2s or 1vXs become possible. Still, every build has a few builds that give it trouble, and in a balanced game, this is how it should be…unless it is an intentionally balanced build that then should be balanced by having a fair shot at any class, but having to work for it.

Lastly, thieves don’t really give decent mesmers a hard time. Just had a short duel with a mesmer in wvw on my thief and wound up running away. Between the chaos storms/chaos shields, phantasm damage, distortion and confusion, it was difficult to bring him down at all, meanwhile I was taking all kinds of damage every time I uncloaked. I played well with terrain and positioning, using line of sight to avoid greatsword hits, but still wound up having to run for it. I was outplayed by someone who knew his build, and being a half decent thief, I managed to get out while the getting was good. Your build seems like it’s in the mid-range with armor, but otherwise fairly survivable, as a mesmer player, I know that mesmers can also be very survivable. I also know the joy of using focus to pull thieves out of shadow refuge, among other things. I also know about using blink and staff 2 to chase down fleeing thieves and elementalists. I also know that mesmers can pack either very good consistent and easy to apply single target damage in a phantasm build, which will completely protect you from a thief…or that mesmers can do amazing burst damage with shatter builds, which will outright kill a thief. You just need to land one shatter.

uberkingkong.8041:

Thieves kittening suck at WvW, maybe you should stick with zerg that way thief cant try and get a cheap kill off of you.

Reason why they suck in WvW is because they run too much, you can only run so much in WvW that sooner or later you will have nothing to defend because you ran away from all fights.

Elementalist is hands down best profession for WvW, they can AoE walls, block treb shots, unlimited swiftness, AoE stuns.

A zerg of elementalist would destroy a zerg of thieves, that’s for sure.

It’s the little things that show you don’t play a lot of WvW.

It doesn’t take significant skill to stealth than press 2222222 with maybe another stealth, you have to be decent for that and that’s it, most really skilled thieves I’ve seen actually use anything besides d/d mainly p/p…but regardless thieves are annoying especially when theirs 2 of them

I am a thief and YES you are right.

The main point is that if I am losing I can just stealth and go away. You have absolutely no chance to catch me unless you are more than 5 people (and you are organized and skilled) or I make a mistake.

As I said in the thief forum, though, the problem is that everything “good” a thief has comes from stealth. It’s simply: the better condition removal we have is stealth, the best way to do dps is via stealth, our best defense is regen through stealth.
As you can now understand without stealth we have a meh condition removal (1 condition removed every 30 seconds or shadowreturn) and a meh dps (to reach the average backastab damage output a S/D thief has to go glass cannon).

Since we don’t have other playable (and good, of course) builds, nobody will ever think about abandoning D/P permastealth in WvWvW.

dunnberry.2964:

It doesn’t take significant skill to stealth than press 2222222 with maybe another stealth, you have to be decent for that and that’s it, most really skilled thieves I’ve seen actually use anything besides d/d mainly p/p…but regardless thieves are annoying especially when theirs 2 of them

Sorry, I gotta point this out, heartseeker out of stealth is wasteful, really wasteful. After the cost of CnD, you’d 3 maybe 4 Heartseekers, then be out of initative and be unable to use CnD for about 3 or 4 seconds. On top of that, it wouldn’t do much damage at all.

Nah, you’ve got it backwards.

As a newbie, I rolled a thief first time out because I thought it would be like WoW, where Rogue is the easiest class to play PvP.
But it isn’t. It’s tricky to maintain stealth, not for reasons of skill, but simply because you have to keep pressing buttons in the right order and at the right moment. It isn’t difficult, it’s just boring.

Then again 1v1 you can probably kill someone if you hit them hard enough right away. If not, you have to run away and maybe try again. That gets old pretty rapidly.

Against more than 1 opponent, all you can do is troll. Anyone you can down will get rezzed and there’s not a lot you can do about it.

My lvl 80 thief is gathering dust in LA, relegated to bank mule. Trust me, anything’s better than thief.

Thieves aren’t easy to play, and isn’t always a “l2p issue” deals with them.

The only things to pay attention are the d/p thieves around, built on fast initiative regen that leaves them hit, combo skill 5+3x3-4 (4 times using the visual abuse that cuts off the range of heartseeker and leave you do 4 leap on smoke field instead of 3), wait initiative regen, hit and go on.

They simply get a too easy, fast and safe access to stealth instead of a common cnd build.

I really appreciate all the comments here, I guess it will just take more practice for me to become better at fighting them. Perhaps the biggest problem I have with them is that once I realize what they are, I just rage and my timings get all thrown off. I would love to use a pistol against them, which is what I do in PvP, but in WvW I find it almost necessary to use a focus instead. Without the focus I have no speed buff whatsoever. My 2nd problem may be that I don’t use much as far as conditions, besides the bleeds my phantasms inflict or the small amounts of confusion I stack on them, I don’t really focus on getting enough to actually balance the fight out. I just don’t want to change up my build too much and make it less effective against other classes that I handle with relative ease currently. There are a few things I will change up and try out, and if at the end of the day they’re still the only thing that tears me up, so be it. I guess 7 out of 8 is pretty good.

Again, thanks everyone! I’ll keep checking up on this for new tips and such that could help me out.

I watched a player get stomped by a thief in a camp the other day (he mentioned it wasnt the first lose to that thief).
I spent 5 minutes teaching him a few tricks and he won 2/3 of the next fights.
Is thief op because they can run away? i think not many classes can outrun my guardian but if they stay…

Perma-stealth thieves are over the top in WvW, which is why Anet created the stealth trap. They couldn’t nerf thieves directly because their 3-node capping game is still their main focus when it comes to PvP and class balance, and in that game mode perma-stealth thieves are completely useless. At first I was doubtful that the stealth traps would actually be useful, but after trying them out for a bit they are actually quite good for countering stealth abusing thieves. I’ve found they are most effective for defending camps as the thief is almost certain to trip the trap while running around kiting the npcs, but I’ve also used them in open field. Sometimes if I’m roaming in a certain section of a map I’ll place a stealth trap in a location off the main path a bit, and when a thief starts trailing me I can just bait him into the trap and easily kill him. Another good use is when a thief’s first attempt at killing you fails, they almost invariably use shadow refuge to regenerate health and get a long duration stealth for some breathing room. Thieves almost always stay in refuge for the full duration of 4 seconds, and it takes exactly 4 seconds to plant a stealth trap so the second a thief uses refuge you can just plant a stealth trap right on top of him which I’ve found almost always results in a trigger and the thief dying. I’ve actually planted several stealth traps right in front of thieves that were attacking me, and they still run right into them and end up dying. Anyway, my advice would be to try out using the stealth traps a bit, also it is ridiculously funny watching a thief run around in circles frantically trying to CnD mobs for stealth and using their stealth heal or shadow refuge while they have that 30 second reveal on.

RAIN.1238:

I would love to use a pistol against them, which is what I do in PvP, but in WvW I find it almost necessary to use a focus instead.

Again, thanks everyone! I’ll keep checking up on this for new tips and such that could help me out.

Get a set of superior runes of the centaur, then use mirror heal to buff aoe swiftness every 15 sec. This is very useful in wvw as you can also buff allies and yaks.

Rather then gut your current gear set, you can buy a spare set of armor from the exotic temple karma vendors in orr, then try it out. I recommend getting a set of power/toughness/vit just to have both a glass cannon and a bunker armor set so you can swap depending on situations.

I want to counter the “Thieves are useless in WvW” sentiment. For the past month I’ve been running a GC d/d+sb thief. Of course, there is being able to take out a guarded yak in 6 seconds, and usually the mobility to GTFO as well.

The amount of siege I’ve stripped from occupied towers is staggering. Cluster bomb and some clever angles / hill placement can remove ridiculous amounts of decently placed siege. I’m sure Elementalists can do a similar job, but thieves are probably equally (and situationally better with the bounce on short bow autoattack). Stripped towers fall much easier than ones with 5 ACs on the walls (for some odd reason).

Camps – with this build, I can have all the NPCs dead before the swords appear on the map.

In a keep defense/attack, a thief can get, unnoticed, to spots directly below or behind the enemy zerg, and timed appropriate can dish out 20k damage per second for 8 to 10 seconds with cluster bomb (and the trait that has a chance to restore initiative on crit). I can often get a zerg to drop most of their healing cooldowns before our zerg even engages, and it makes a world of difference.

In open field zerg clashes, a thief in the back ranks can be kittenedly useful. With the gap closer combo of shadowstep + steal, you can get to their back ranks and poison field + dagger storm and cause mass confusion while downing the people pulling out from the front lines for healing.

Anyway, for a thoughtful thief – like pretty much every character – can be quite useful. In EB, I feel extremely useful when I shut down all supply for one side, take their camps, strip their towers, and keep both towers + keep contested at once, and I can do it all solo.

Your title contains the answer, OP. Reroll is the correct action to take in these circumstances. This state of affairs have happened in many games before and the answer is always the same – reroll. If you hate Thief? Roll one. Think it’s unfair that they can pick and choose their engagements at will? Roll one.

Once everyone that isn’t in a zerg is a Thief; maybe, just maybe, Anet might decide something is amiss with the ratio of risk and reward in the class. Until then, happy stealthing.

I genuinely like the Thief class, so them being amazingly easy to use and abuse doesn’t bother me, but I can sympathize with players that have to watch as their loot bags run away while they get run over by zergs. I’ve been in those shoes in other games. I rerolled to the FOTM class in those cases and found that it preserved my sanity and enjoyment of the game. It really is a completely different game – I love being able to do whatever I want knowing that unless I consciously overextend I can’t be caught.

I can’t comment much on p/d thieves, but I’ve been playing glass cannon d/d, d/p, and s/d weapon sets in WvW while I’m waiting for buffs to my Necro main. I consider myself slightly above average at playing the Thief, which I only say because I’ve made a habit of killing bad thieves, and it appears I still can on this alt, too. Anyway, here are a few tips to kill me and others like me:

- CC. Dazes, immobilizes and stuns are the death of me. I don’t have much health or defense, so this is a good place to start.
- If you can tell they have a dagger mainhand weapon, kite them a lot. It’s hard to land a backstab if you’re running away. Don’t just stand there. Keep moving. If you’re kiting, my stealth will likely run out and I lose my surprise and a lot of damage. Could I catch you? Yes, but I will have some trouble dealing as much damage if/when I do.

As a mesmer you have a lot of access to movement and dazes so use them.

I’m mostly very good at killing people who stand around when I’m coming for a backstab, people who are engaged in a fight with others, and people who aren’t aware enough to look around and see that I’m coming. Or just players who are bad.

Again I’m no spectacular thief player but that should help you out.

I agree that our burst needs to be reduced. The stealth and especially movement however I deem completely fine in their current incarnation. If you take both and juxtapose them, a class that has stealth/movement but not excessive burst damage seems much healthier than one that has excessive burst damage but not the current survival mechanisms of thief (i.e. a pure glass cannon).
And if you remove both … well, you won’t have thief anymore.

Dual.8953:

In PvE, they’re that damage class with less dps and support then warrior.

If we take your unverified claim at face value for argument’s sake, that still makes it the second best DPS class, and in a meta where DPS rules supreme that’s not half bad.
Support =! spamming boons. Show me where a warrior can absorb projectiles, give party-wide venoms, constantly blind, remove boons, or reliably revive people without firing an elite.

In Spvp, they’re that dueling class that can’t hold a point.

They can hold a point excellently. You don’t have to be a bunker to prevent your enemy from capping a point.

All in all the words of a player who has not much experience with thief.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Thieves useless in wvw apart from scouting and killing Dolyaks and sentries? This thread is going places and it’s insulting to skilled thieves who don’t just run zerker and stealth spam.
Again Shadow’s Embrace removes only ONE condition if you can access stealth which depends on your build it removes more under shadow refuge which you can easily see and push us outside the circle.

Rubio! :p

Yes, this was my comment.
I have nothing else to say, as I think these threads are pretty much useless

Thief useless in WvW, there’s a laugh.

Singlehandedly keep enemy Keeps (and waypoints) contested, with ease.
Single-handed supplytrap a whole zerg, draining their supply rapidly before they’ve even left the camp.
No better profession for roaming, so that means scouting and taking out Dollies. Denying the enemy towers and keeps that supply is critical to prevent them from upgrading anything.

And in a zerg they have a spammable blast combofinisher for all your AoE Retaliation and AoE Healing needs.
And lets not forget a Thief trolling around a keep in Stealth, rezzing Mesmers to get zergs a lift inside.

Thieves are very good in WvW, you just get a diminished return if you stack to many. So you only want a bunch, instead of stacking your whole zerg.

Waffler.1257:

Perma-stealth thieves are over the top in WvW, which is why Anet created the stealth trap. They couldn’t nerf thieves directly because their 3-node capping game is still their main focus when it comes to PvP and class balance, and in that game mode perma-stealth thieves are completely useless. At first I was doubtful that the stealth traps would actually be useful, but after trying them out for a bit they are actually quite good for countering stealth abusing thieves. I’ve found they are most effective for defending camps as the thief is almost certain to trip the trap while running around kiting the npcs, but I’ve also used them in open field. Sometimes if I’m roaming in a certain section of a map I’ll place a stealth trap in a location off the main path a bit, and when a thief starts trailing me I can just bait him into the trap and easily kill him. Another good use is when a thief’s first attempt at killing you fails, they almost invariably use shadow refuge to regenerate health and get a long duration stealth for some breathing room. Thieves almost always stay in refuge for the full duration of 4 seconds, and it takes exactly 4 seconds to plant a stealth trap so the second a thief uses refuge you can just plant a stealth trap right on top of him which I’ve found almost always results in a trigger and the thief dying. I’ve actually planted several stealth traps right in front of thieves that were attacking me, and they still run right into them and end up dying. Anyway, my advice would be to try out using the stealth traps a bit, also it is ridiculously funny watching a thief run around in circles frantically trying to CnD mobs for stealth and using their stealth heal or shadow refuge while they have that 30 second reveal on.

15 badges is hard to justify spending on a single kill, I have yet to use one of these. 30s reveal is quite good though, I could see it being handy if you’re expecting a veiled zerg.

dunnberry.2964:

most really skilled thieves I’ve seen actually use anything besides d/d mainly p/p…

Interesting…

Kincaidia.3192:

order camp upgrade (draining the supply)

Unless I’m having a told brain malfunction, don’t supply camps always start with 100 supply after being flipped regardless of how much supply they had beforehand?

That said, I don’t even remember the last time I ordered a camp upgrade, so I have no idea if this affects supply post-flip.

capmasterflash.5690:

My bit of advice for OP would be to dry those tears and stop being a noob. Each class is different if you’re tired of getting ganked 1v1 then fix your build and L2P. I can’t tell you how many duels I lose against great players who know how to outlast and how to counter a thief. L2P L2P

While i agree it is mostly a learn to play issue try not calling people noobs with no justification and instead try help them by giving them tips on how to L2P L2P as you put it 0.o

Anyway as i said about 9 hours ago i would upload a clip for the OP so he can get a few tips from a mesmers perspective. The fights were mostly reaction on my part to what the thief was doing and if this was a real 1v1 in wvw and not a duel he would of been able to escape any time he wanted and the only reason i got him a few times was he overextend but still.

P.S. I dont claim to be the best mesmer there is and the conditions were not ideal for the duel ( aka on a slope ) plus i made a lot of mistakes and yes i was running a OP 1v1 phantom build at the time but still i hope this helps. Also it is completely unedited so no fancy electro music and captions.

It’s not the 1v1’s being annoying or too hard, it’s the massive population of thieves at roaming that gets so annoying. 1 thief to beat in 1v1 is already hard enough due their huge advantage, not to mention 2 thieves. I’ve seen the most skill-less thieves beating me in a 1v2 just because they could easily, and I mean like really easy, keep up stealth and just spam 2 to win. It’s not that they would even have a chance beating me in 1vs1, but then again theres a 50% chance of thieves running away in 1v1 once they hit below 50% health which I still see more as a loss than a win.

I could (and actually have been) count the amount of roamers I meet in a few hours of roaming on different maps. My last count was around 70% and I even counted a few non roamers in there. It’s just amazing how easy it is for a thief to be effective in an outnumbered small scaled situation.

Xirin.8593:

Kincaidia.3192:

order camp upgrade (draining the supply)

Unless I’m having a told brain malfunction, don’t supply camps always start with 100 supply after being flipped regardless of how much supply they had beforehand?

That said, I don’t even remember the last time I ordered a camp upgrade, so I have no idea if this affects supply post-flip.

I’m fairly confident that it does. Sorry that my post is gone – moderator thought I was calling someone a troll something…. here was my post so people aren’t lost. It would be a wonderful day if moderators read and comprehended posts before yanking stuff willy nilly.
___________
Terrahero.9358:
Thief useless in WvW, there’s a laugh.
….
Single-handed supplytrap a whole zerg, draining their supply rapidly before they’ve even left the camp.
…
________
I replied:
OMG, yes, this. About a half dozen times now I’ve been guarding a camp I took (denying that supply and killing any small group that tries to take it) – and then a whole zerg comes in. Drop supply trap, order camp upgrade (draining the supply) and then bail.
Congratulations, you just denied a possible total of 200 supply from that zerg.
Anyone else troll-upgrade camps about to be taken?

BlackDevil.9268:

It’s not the 1v1’s being annoying or too hard, it’s the massive population of thieves at roaming that gets so annoying. 1 thief to beat in 1v1 is already hard enough due their huge advantage, not to mention 2 thieves. I’ve seen the most skill-less thieves beating me in a 1v2 just because they could easily, and I mean like really easy, keep up stealth and just spam 2 to win. It’s not that they would even have a chance beating me in 1vs1, but then again theres a 50% chance of thieves running away in 1v1 once they hit below 50% health which I still see more as a loss than a win.

I could (and actually have been) count the amount of roamers I meet in a few hours of roaming on different maps. My last count was around 70% and I even counted a few non roamers in there. It’s just amazing how easy it is for a thief to be effective in an outnumbered small scaled situation.

Couldnt agree more.
Everyone knows this but we sill have to read oneliner l2p answers fron darkshadowkittens.

edit: like the one just above me.

Because im the only one that is complaining?
If you could speak more then 1 language, what i highly doubt then go on and check gw2 forums around the planet. Troll.

thiagoperne.7340:

How many accounts do you have? Just out of curiosity, and don’t lie to us.

So basicly what you’re saying is that there is 1 person with hundreds of accounts is complaining about thief and that I am kontrolle, is that right?

Also, I’m not whining about thiefs being overpowered, because they’re not. They’re more likely anti-fun which people transform into OP really fast.

That and the fact that they’re able to hit a massive amount of damage without actually doing something that requires a combo or personal skill makes thief just a kittened up profession.

Probably the thing I hate the most about thief is that they can basicly spam backstab while being stealthed. Aegis, immunity or any form of avoiding damage does not get the thief out of stealth, which is pretty stupid cause basicly you have to avoid 4+ seconds every time they go in stealth to not get backstabbed.

Rain, I always suggest to newer players on our server to not waste any time on thieves. They are very, very good at getting people to waste time chasing a shadow.

I have to say though, if anyone thinks that thieves are useless in large engagements, WvW, that a permastealth thief cant actually do any damage, or that the class in general is “weak,” they probably need to L2P… These are the most common arguments against the complaints about thieves, and most that I read, all I can think is “you really need to learn to play the thief class.” Ironically, this is usually the meme that gets parroted towards those who know the class is extremely, extremely strong.

In the end, I suppose they are just yelling at themselves. I heard a quote from someone once; “That which we speak most fervently tends to be directed towards ourselves.” Maybe applicable, maybe not.

I used to play an ele (changed to a guardian after the dramatic nerf). A Thief gets an ele down in 1 sec.
Still I don’t care, since in group battles the thief can do less. I find it’s a necessary imbalance and that the thief is fine as it is. What they need to do is, boost other classes, for example they should remove AoE limit on Ele to compensate for the ridiculously low damage the staff does (and the very long cast times). That would also put an end to the ridiculous stacking.

My best suggestion, as with any class, you should play that class in PvP. Try to get into a thief mindset so you understand them better when fighting them. Now let me pick apart your post. 1. This post is whining no matter how you look at it. 2. Stealth = Invulnerable. When you are fighting a thief and he stealths, you would be an idiot to sit around waiting for the backstab. Run around trying to hit them, many thieves that rely on backstab damage tend to be incredibly glassy. 3. All classes can have enormous damage if spec’d correctly, not just thieves. Lastly I’d like to point out that mesmers, especially clone mesmers can be very effective against thieves. With all the combined damage and not being able to figure out which clone is the real one at points, mesmers can melt a thief’s health down in no time.

Jamais vu.5284:

I agree that our burst needs to be reduced. The stealth and especially movement however I deem completely fine in their current incarnation. If you take both and juxtapose them, a class that has stealth/movement but not excessive burst damage seems much healthier than one that has excessive burst damage but not the current survival mechanisms of thief (i.e. a pure glass cannon).
And if you remove both … well, you won’t have thief anymore.

Dual.8953:

In PvE, they’re that damage class with less dps and support then warrior.

If we take your unverified claim at face value for argument’s sake, that still makes it the second best DPS class, and in a meta where DPS rules supreme that’s not half bad.
Support =! spamming boons. Show me where a warrior can absorb projectiles, give party-wide venoms, constantly blind, remove boons, or reliably revive people without firing an elite.

In Spvp, they’re that dueling class that can’t hold a point.

They can hold a point excellently. You don’t have to be a bunker to prevent your enemy from capping a point.

All in all the words of a player who has not much experience with thief.

Allow me to amend that. In PvE, thieves are considered a step above Ranger in Dungeons. Show me a party that will kick a warrior because a thief wants to join. Or a party that cares about venoms, blinds, boon removal and safe revives.

In Spvp, a thief who’s holding a point can’t stealth, and aside from smoke wall and daggerstorm, they have little to defend themselves when being kited. Thieves are slotted exclusively into the Roamer Role.

Xillllix.3485:

I used to play an ele (changed to a guardian after the dramatic nerf). A Thief gets an ele down in 1 sec.
Still I don’t care, since in group battles the thief can do less. I find it’s a necessary imbalance and that the thief is fine as it is. What they need to do is, boost other classes, for example they should remove AoE limit on Ele to compensate for the ridiculously low damage the staff does (and the very long cast times). That would also put an end to the ridiculous stacking.

False. An ele with decent toughness and skills can hold their own against a thief 1v1.

capmasterflash.5690:

False. An ele with decent toughness and skills can hold their own against a thief 1v1.

… Sure some bunker D/D ele can survive a thief, but about 5% of experienced eles can bring one down – and only sometimes. Meanwhile a relatively unexperienced thief can bring down any fully ascended-gear non-bunker ele in 2 seconds.

A couple things surprise me here:
1) OP is saying Stealth Thieves are good at dueling – Yes they are, that is one of the strengths of a stealthy/quick class. If you like roaming a lot consider picking a class that is better at it. Stealth thieves will not be impressive in zerg battles (5+)

2) Others saying Thieves are useless – How misunderstood is the Thief? It is like no one is aware of their Shortbow. Shortbow is great for zerg; massive aoe damage with Cluster Bombs (if they are mid-range/melee), good wall aoe (again, Cluster or poison), and a short cooldown Ult that is decent for group cripple and damage. No love for the zerg spec Shortbow Thief.

Never play a thiefs game, make them chase you down.

I play a thief d/d no stealth traits. When I face the flavor of the month d/p I exploit the build or thief. If he wants to stealth and take pop shots at me. He better have nikes on cause I’m stretch the fight out. Or if I’m by some water ill jump in and make his traits useless. Shame the thief most of them will get all tunnel vision. Use players greed to get them killed.

And if you still have troubles with thieves move to SOR ill be your wingman / ice man out

Mammoth.1975:

Waffler.1257:

Perma-stealth thieves are over the top in WvW, which is why Anet created the stealth trap. They couldn’t nerf thieves directly because their 3-node capping game is still their main focus when it comes to PvP and class balance, and in that game mode perma-stealth thieves are completely useless. At first I was doubtful that the stealth traps would actually be useful, but after trying them out for a bit they are actually quite good for countering stealth abusing thieves. I’ve found they are most effective for defending camps as the thief is almost certain to trip the trap while running around kiting the npcs, but I’ve also used them in open field. Sometimes if I’m roaming in a certain section of a map I’ll place a stealth trap in a location off the main path a bit, and when a thief starts trailing me I can just bait him into the trap and easily kill him. Another good use is when a thief’s first attempt at killing you fails, they almost invariably use shadow refuge to regenerate health and get a long duration stealth for some breathing room. Thieves almost always stay in refuge for the full duration of 4 seconds, and it takes exactly 4 seconds to plant a stealth trap so the second a thief uses refuge you can just plant a stealth trap right on top of him which I’ve found almost always results in a trigger and the thief dying. I’ve actually planted several stealth traps right in front of thieves that were attacking me, and they still run right into them and end up dying. Anyway, my advice would be to try out using the stealth traps a bit, also it is ridiculously funny watching a thief run around in circles frantically trying to CnD mobs for stealth and using their stealth heal or shadow refuge while they have that 30 second reveal on.

15 badges is hard to justify spending on a single kill, I have yet to use one of these. 30s reveal is quite good though, I could see it being handy if you’re expecting a veiled zerg.

Maybe so, but I have over 8k badges and nothing to spend them on since ascended still cost predominately laurels, so I’ll happily spam stealth traps on troll thieves all day long to free up some inventory space.

Lifewaster.5912:

RAIN.1238:

I would love to use a pistol against them, which is what I do in PvP, but in WvW I find it almost necessary to use a focus instead.

Again, thanks everyone! I’ll keep checking up on this for new tips and such that could help me out.

Get a set of superior runes of the centaur, then use mirror heal to buff aoe swiftness every 15 sec. This is very useful in wvw as you can also buff allies and yaks.

Rather then gut your current gear set, you can buy a spare set of armor from the exotic temple karma vendors in orr, then try it out. I recommend getting a set of power/toughness/vit just to have both a glass cannon and a bunker armor set so you can swap depending on situations.

Thank you Lifewaster! I don’t know why I never thought of this, but finally no more focus!

It’s hard not to make this seem like a “L2P” post, but honestly, I play a warrior and thieves are no trouble to me. I’ve played every profession and have 50 tourny wins with each using the most used builds for each of them as well as extensive research into each class. There are so many ways to counter thieves and mitigate their bursts it isn’t even funny.

Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity was attempting the same thing over and over expecting a different result. If you go into a fight with a thief without the know how to best them, you’re going to fall flat on your face.

I main a warrior, and I don’t know what you play, but here are a tips from my personal playstyle:

I generally start any thief fight by throwing down my longbow burst fire field combined with pin down when the thief reveals themselves. I follow that up with my burst AoE, and when that rotation is on cooldown and the thief stealths, I dodge after a second or so and follow it up with endure pain since the thief is guaranteed to use backstab within that time. By that point I can use eviscerate and my whirl attacks timed right to mess up a backstab again.

The key to beating burst thieves is simple. Negate their backstab and all they’re left with are auto attack and cooldowns. Generally they’ll never use anything but heartseeker and autoattack. As for heartseeker, if you’re hit by the first one, dodge twice in quick succession and the thief will perform 4-5 heartseeker a due to the sensitivity of spamming the attack, something every burst thief will do.

And honestly, despite all of that, rolling a thief as an alt to educate yourself is the best decision you can make if you want to learn to exploit their weaknesses and mitigate their strengths. This goes with any class you have trouble with.