Guild Wars 2

Do they really change the outcome of the match at all? I don’t think so. Some guy that is a waste of time to kill I ignore him. If he kills me I wp and carry on my way. Whatever.

Slither Shade.4782:

Do they really change the outcome of the match at all? I don’t think so. Some guy that is a waste of time to kill I ignore him. If he kills me I wp and carry on my way. Whatever.

Killing Dolyaks, Capping Camps, Contesting Waypoints.

These are things they do well, which effect the outcome of a match.

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

Tulisin.6945:

Secondly, reality check: Procs trigger and your combat log records hit like any other hit in the game. The constant arguments “I can’t tell if I’m hitting” and “You can’t use ranged attacks against stealthed targets” go to show that a large portion of people having issues with stealth do not understand how to play GW2.

Right… So, aside from the second swing of your weapon in the auto-attack (if there is one, depending on the weapon and class) or looking at your combat log and hoping to catch a glimpse of some damage against an opponent that very likely isn’t there, how are people supposed to know they just hit someone that’s Stealthed? And ranged attacks? Again, how to you target something that can not be targeted, and has the highest mobility in the game?
Again, nothing that anyone does can remove an enemy from Stealth once they have gone into it. Once there, the Thief is basically 1 or 2 Infiltrator’s Arrow shots away from running off and ‘Derp! Fight reset! Hur hur!’

Again, you don’t, aside from a very few skills GW2 doesn’t require a target to attack. You use your screen to aim ranged attacks. The fact that a large portion of the community is still 100 % reliant on tab-locked autotargets in a combat system that doesn’t require them shows that the issue is much less “X profession is good” and much more “I don’t want to learn how to play”. It’d be akin to someone saying “I don’t want to use dodge” and then complaining that they’re getting destroyed. If you don’t use the tools at your disposal, and refuse to learn how to do so, you have no ground to stand on.

You get to the core of the issue in your second paragraph here though. Infiltrator’s Arrow, while a great example, could be replaced with any type of thief mobility advantage. The important think to note here, though is that those mobility advantages do not require stealth to use. Stealth gets blamed for thieves escaping whenever it is used, even though the real culprit to thief escapes is almost always mobility. The fact is that stealth has very little to do with whether you’ll catch a thief or not. Having played a non-stealthing thief quite a bit myself, if I have the mobility advantage there’s still no chance that I’m going to be caught. Having played high-mobility professions against stealth heavy thieves that don’t have a mobility advantage, it isn’t difficult to track, down, and kill them regardless of stealth.

Most stealth threads devolve into this issue: People are really annoyed that thieves are hard to catch, but don’t understand that thieves escape due to mobility, not stealth. What you really want is thieves to be slower and less mobile, not less stealthy.

Having played high-mobility professions against stealth heavy thieves that don’t have a mobility advantage, it isn’t difficult to track, down, and kill them regardless of stealth.

Really? Well do explain me what you are going to do when I just spam cloack and dagger on the nearest forest animal? Will you start farming them with me, because that’s what people seem to do. Then when they get really desperate they use a stealth trap. Unfortunately my thief has both extreme mobility and perma stealth xD

Master of Timespace.2548:

Having played high-mobility professions against stealth heavy thieves that don’t have a mobility advantage, it isn’t difficult to track, down, and kill them regardless of stealth.

Really? Well do explain me what you are going to do when I just spam cloack and dagger on the nearest forest animal? Will you start farming them with me, because that’s what people seem to do. Then when they get really desperate they use a stealth trap. Unfortunately my thief has both extreme mobility and perma stealth xD

LOL. I use CnD on animals to troll groups of players when I obviously can’t win the fight. Hey why not, get my opponents to farm minotaurs with me!

I’d challenge any dev to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge any 3 developers to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge 5 to try solo a good perma-stealth thief.

Thedenofsin.7340:

I’d challenge any dev to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge any 3 developers to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge 5 to try solo a good perma-stealth thief.

So are they each soloing the thief or attacking him together?

Thedenofsin.7340:

I’d challenge any dev to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge any 3 developers to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge 5 to try solo a good perma-stealth thief.

Guard, Mes, Eng > Thief solo.

Aberrant.6749:

Thedenofsin.7340:

I’d challenge any dev to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge any 3 developers to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge 5 to try solo a good perma-stealth thief.

Guard, Mes, Eng > Thief solo.

dueling wise maybe, condition engi rules 1v1, guardian counters burst thief well enough. But ‘solo’ does not equal to dueling.

Thief has the best escape mechanismS in game, spammable stealth and spammable teleport, and spammable leap. They don’t need to win a single duel to be the best roamer in wvw.

noobftw.9654:

Aberrant.6749:

Thedenofsin.7340:

I’d challenge any dev to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge any 3 developers to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge 5 to try solo a good perma-stealth thief.

Guard, Mes, Eng > Thief solo.

dueling wise maybe, condition engi rules 1v1, guardian counters burst thief well enough. But ‘solo’ does not equal to dueling.

Thief has the best escape mechanismS in game, spammable stealth and spammable teleport, and spammable leap. They don’t need to win a single duel to be the best roamer in wvw.

So they can travel fine, not much to write home about. People complain that Thieves are OP, yet Gaurdians can out do pretty much every class in almost everything important in WvW, (not to mention are considered extremely viable in all modes) and no one screams nerf at them. Double Standard much. (Well back to WvW, Staff 4 and hammer to win ppl)

Dual.8953:

noobftw.9654:

Aberrant.6749:

Thedenofsin.7340:

I’d challenge any dev to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge any 3 developers to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge 5 to try solo a good perma-stealth thief.

Guard, Mes, Eng > Thief solo.

dueling wise maybe, condition engi rules 1v1, guardian counters burst thief well enough. But ‘solo’ does not equal to dueling.

Thief has the best escape mechanismS in game, spammable stealth and spammable teleport, and spammable leap. They don’t need to win a single duel to be the best roamer in wvw.

So they can travel fine, not much to write home about. People complain that Thieves are OP, yet Gaurdians can out do pretty much every class in almost everything important in WvW, (not to mention are considered extremely viable in all modes) and no one screams nerf at them. Double Standard much. (Well back to WvW, Staff 4 and hammer to win ppl)

Becareful on the thief op accusation. They are just fine in spvp, a little weak in tourny, does ok in wvw zerg fight. But ridiculously OP in wvw roaming. Maybe you should really think about what thieves can do as wvw roamers.

What’s frustrating about thieves in WvW is not that they are powerful fighters in a solo encounter. They are powerful soloers, but so are several other classes.

What’s frustrating about thieves is that, when played defensively, they are extraordinarily difficult to kill. If they feel they are in danger of dying they can very frequently escape, even from large numbers of enemy players. No other class can do this with anywhere near the same reliability.

This leads to a dynamic where a fight with a skillful and defensive-minded thief in WvW has only two likely outcomes: they kill you or they escape. It’s a lose-lose situation for whoever their opponent is, and that is frustrating.

Of course, many thieves are neither skillful nor defensive-minded, and those ones can actually die sometimes when they wait too long to disengage against an opponent who plays well. And stomping on those thieves is usually the highlight of every other class’ roaming WvW sessions.

noobftw.9654:

Dual.8953:

noobftw.9654:

Aberrant.6749:

Thedenofsin.7340:

I’d challenge any dev to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge any 3 developers to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge 5 to try solo a good perma-stealth thief.

Guard, Mes, Eng > Thief solo.

dueling wise maybe, condition engi rules 1v1, guardian counters burst thief well enough. But ‘solo’ does not equal to dueling.

Thief has the best escape mechanismS in game, spammable stealth and spammable teleport, and spammable leap. They don’t need to win a single duel to be the best roamer in wvw.

So they can travel fine, not much to write home about. People complain that Thieves are OP, yet Gaurdians can out do pretty much every class in almost everything important in WvW, (not to mention are considered extremely viable in all modes) and no one screams nerf at them. Double Standard much. (Well back to WvW, Staff 4 and hammer to win ppl)

Becareful on the thief op accusation. They are just fine in spvp, a little weak in tourny, does ok in wvw zerg fight. But ridiculously OP in wvw roaming. Maybe you should really think about what thieves can do as wvw roamers.

So far all I’ve got is killing Dolyaks, Scouting, Killing Sentries, killing newbies, harrassing veterns, contesting places, running supplies, hiding mesmers, setting traps. Really apart from the mesmer and traps thing, there’s not much thieves can do to contribute to their server’s points tick.

Dual.8953:

noobftw.9654:

Dual.8953:

noobftw.9654:

Aberrant.6749:

Thedenofsin.7340:

I’d challenge any dev to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge any 3 developers to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge 5 to try solo a good perma-stealth thief.

Guard, Mes, Eng > Thief solo.

dueling wise maybe, condition engi rules 1v1, guardian counters burst thief well enough. But ‘solo’ does not equal to dueling.

Thief has the best escape mechanismS in game, spammable stealth and spammable teleport, and spammable leap. They don’t need to win a single duel to be the best roamer in wvw.

So they can travel fine, not much to write home about. People complain that Thieves are OP, yet Gaurdians can out do pretty much every class in almost everything important in WvW, (not to mention are considered extremely viable in all modes) and no one screams nerf at them. Double Standard much. (Well back to WvW, Staff 4 and hammer to win ppl)

Becareful on the thief op accusation. They are just fine in spvp, a little weak in tourny, does ok in wvw zerg fight. But ridiculously OP in wvw roaming. Maybe you should really think about what thieves can do as wvw roamers.

So far all I’ve got is killing Dolyaks, Scouting, Killing Sentries, killing newbies, harrassing veterns, contesting places, running supplies, hiding mesmers, setting traps. Really apart from the mesmer and traps thing, there’s not much thieves can do to contribute to their server’s points tick.

There are a couple of more nasty tricks thieves can do.

But even in your list of crimes alone, reliable scouting contributes big time to the outcome of zerg fight. And WP contesting greatly hinders the sustainability of enemy zerg. What makes things worse is often time a small group of zerg would try to take care of the roaming thief in pointless fights instead of doing what they are supposed to do. Of course most likely they will failed to get him, which is kinda bad on morale. All other things you mentioned helps too. Even killing upleveled noobs would help send them to sleep.

noobftw.9654:

Dual.8953:

noobftw.9654:

Dual.8953:

noobftw.9654:

Aberrant.6749:

Thedenofsin.7340:

I’d challenge any dev to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge any 3 developers to pick any class/spec other than perma-stealth thief and try to solo a perma-stealth thief.

I’d challenge 5 to try solo a good perma-stealth thief.

Guard, Mes, Eng > Thief solo.

dueling wise maybe, condition engi rules 1v1, guardian counters burst thief well enough. But ‘solo’ does not equal to dueling.

Thief has the best escape mechanismS in game, spammable stealth and spammable teleport, and spammable leap. They don’t need to win a single duel to be the best roamer in wvw.

So they can travel fine, not much to write home about. People complain that Thieves are OP, yet Gaurdians can out do pretty much every class in almost everything important in WvW, (not to mention are considered extremely viable in all modes) and no one screams nerf at them. Double Standard much. (Well back to WvW, Staff 4 and hammer to win ppl)

Becareful on the thief op accusation. They are just fine in spvp, a little weak in tourny, does ok in wvw zerg fight. But ridiculously OP in wvw roaming. Maybe you should really think about what thieves can do as wvw roamers.

So far all I’ve got is killing Dolyaks, Scouting, Killing Sentries, killing newbies, harrassing veterns, contesting places, running supplies, hiding mesmers, setting traps. Really apart from the mesmer and traps thing, there’s not much thieves can do to contribute to their server’s points tick.

There are a couple of more nasty tricks thieves can do.

But even in your list of crimes alone, reliable scouting contributes big time to the outcome of zerg fight. And WP contesting greatly hinders the sustainability of enemy zerg. What makes things worse is often time a small group of zerg would try to take care of the roaming thief in pointless fights instead of doing what they are supposed to do. Of course most likely they will failed to get him, which is kinda bad on morale. All other things you mentioned helps too. Even killing upleveled noobs would help send them to sleep.

I suppose, but I feel much more productive hopping on my Guard or Engie and running with a zerg. We’ve got some pretty disiplined zergs on our server.

Personally I hate Thieves and due to the OP stating his class, Mesmers.

But this is coming from someone that isn’t very good at PvP. I have trouble tracking targets so Thief with stealth and Mesmer with clones, warps, and mini stealth give me a lot of trouble. More so with Mesmers than thieves actually.

Thief comes by and kills me. Mesmer comes by and we fight. I die, okay same as thief. I start winning only to find out that for the last 10 seconds I’ve been fighting clones.

So we went from thieves being overpowered to being pretty meh but able to run away. I’m sorry, but stealth is a powerful mechanic. The class as a whole compensates for the great power in stealth by having no real damage mitigation. Just like the thief gives up stability in favor of mobility.

There are only 2 legitimate complaints people can raise with the thief class.

1.) Initiative regen isn’t properly balanced.
2.) Movement skills for all classes can be used when incapacitated.

For 1, if you actually played a thief, you’d know that any changes to initiative regen would need to be offset with enormous boosts in other areas because the class simply doesn’t have the tools to stand toe to toe with others for long and its burst potential outside of stealth is limited.

For 2, it’s a global problem and if you’re going to change it for the thief you’re going to have to change it for everyone.

But seriously, the thief is a strong roamer, but hardly better than Guardians, Mesmers, Elementalists, and Rangers offensively. Defensively the only complaint is the ability to run away. Which the class apparently bought by being useless in groups as opposed to the other classes.

Atherakhia.4086:

So we went from thieves being overpowered to being pretty meh but able to run away. I’m sorry, but stealth is a powerful mechanic. The class as a whole compensates for the great power in stealth by having no real damage mitigation. Just like the thief gives up stability in favor of mobility.

There are only 2 legitimate complaints people can raise with the thief class.

1.) Initiative regen isn’t properly balanced.
2.) Movement skills for all classes can be used when incapacitated.

For 1, if you actually played a thief, you’d know that any changes to initiative regen would need to be offset with enormous boosts in other areas because the class simply doesn’t have the tools to stand toe to toe with others for long and its burst potential outside of stealth is limited.

For 2, it’s a global problem and if you’re going to change it for the thief you’re going to have to change it for everyone.

But seriously, the thief is a strong roamer, but hardly better than Guardians, Mesmers, Elementalists, and Rangers offensively. Defensively the only complaint is the ability to run away. Which the class apparently bought by being useless in groups as opposed to the other classes.

no real damage mitigation? lol, how about spammable dodge, spammable teleport (that breaks stun and cleanse)?

Players seem to underestimate what reliable escape can do for wvw roamers. I can kinda agree with you if it’s spvp. But in wvw a reliable escape is the business, only when you know how to play a wvw roamer thief you can understand why though.

noobftw.9654:

Atherakhia.4086:

So we went from thieves being overpowered to being pretty meh but able to run away. I’m sorry, but stealth is a powerful mechanic. The class as a whole compensates for the great power in stealth by having no real damage mitigation. Just like the thief gives up stability in favor of mobility.

There are only 2 legitimate complaints people can raise with the thief class.

1.) Initiative regen isn’t properly balanced.
2.) Movement skills for all classes can be used when incapacitated.

For 1, if you actually played a thief, you’d know that any changes to initiative regen would need to be offset with enormous boosts in other areas because the class simply doesn’t have the tools to stand toe to toe with others for long and its burst potential outside of stealth is limited.

For 2, it’s a global problem and if you’re going to change it for the thief you’re going to have to change it for everyone.

But seriously, the thief is a strong roamer, but hardly better than Guardians, Mesmers, Elementalists, and Rangers offensively. Defensively the only complaint is the ability to run away. Which the class apparently bought by being useless in groups as opposed to the other classes.

no real damage mitigation? lol, how about spammable dodge, spammable teleport (that breaks stun and cleanse)?

Players seem to underestimate what reliable escape can do for wvw roamers. I can kinda agree with you if it’s spvp. But in wvw a reliable escape is the business, only when you know how to play a wvw roamer thief you can understand why though.

There’s a difference between mitigation and avoidance. Mitigation can be used to increase your effective hitpoints. Avoidance mechanics can’t be measured.

I’m not trying to say stealth probably isn’t the single strongest skill when it comes to roaming. I’m trying to say that even with it, the thief is hardly the single strongest roaming class.

How can you hope to maintain the thief’s role as a competetive roamer if you remove the only tool available to it to properly defend itself?

Iluth.6875:

Straegen.2938:

At this point pretty much every class is dangerous in the right hands.

“All the classes are equal but some are more equal than others.”

WvW is not one dimensional. Most classes serve important roles. Necros are great at zerg busting, nothing beats a mesmers utility (portal, veil), guardians are group buffs/monster tanks, elementalists are agile/field generating machines, on and on. Most of these class properties go right out the window in a debate as soon as somebody goes toe to toe with the best roamer class in the game.

IMO if a person is playing a group oriented class/build, don’t run to the forums after getting beat 1v1 by a class that is designed to 1v1. Most classes can now handle even good thieves in 1v1 fights they just have to build for it, play better or keep their group builds with the herd. Every good player already knows this and likely has little worry of a thief and its abilities since they already know how to counter it.

Why are we still having these threads? Why haven’t these ppl rerolled as a thief? Anet is encouraging it so why are you defying logic?

If you don’t like playing a cheap class then go complain somewhere else since Anet won’t do anything about it.

PS: Aren’t you using those sexy stealth traps yet and making Anet some money yet??

Elementalist Owner.7802:

Master of Timespace.2548:

Unfortunately my thief has both extreme mobility and perma stealth xD

But you probably can’t kill anyone.

Oh I sure can. It’s a p/d thief, so it suffers the natural drawbacks of all condition builds though, that is, it isn’t able to burst. But, it is also tanky and can dodge forever.
Well actually my burst thief has fairly excellent mobility and perma stealth via cloack and dagger spam, as well. But in turn it can’t dodge forever and nor is it very tanky.
Really perma stealth isn’t special for thieves. All it takes is x/D or D/P and 15 points in shadow arts to get essential perma stealth. Gods sake, roll a thief and try it in spvp lobby.

Advice for those who have undue trouble with thieves:

• travel to the heart of the mists

• fix your build and improve your skills through playing sPvP

• realise you were probably just bad

• enjoy killing thieves

thieves with near perma stealth are a total kitten, and hopefully will be slightly adjusted with mesmer (the other berserker class), but it’s a fine line and thereforetheyare still very much defeatable

Tulisin.6945:

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

Tulisin.6945:

Secondly, reality check: Procs trigger and your combat log records hit like any other hit in the game. The constant arguments “I can’t tell if I’m hitting” and “You can’t use ranged attacks against stealthed targets” go to show that a large portion of people having issues with stealth do not understand how to play GW2.

Right… So, aside from the second swing of your weapon in the auto-attack (if there is one, depending on the weapon and class) or looking at your combat log and hoping to catch a glimpse of some damage against an opponent that very likely isn’t there, how are people supposed to know they just hit someone that’s Stealthed? And ranged attacks? Again, how to you target something that can not be targeted, and has the highest mobility in the game?
Again, nothing that anyone does can remove an enemy from Stealth once they have gone into it. Once there, the Thief is basically 1 or 2 Infiltrator’s Arrow shots away from running off and ‘kitten ! Fight reset! Hur hur!’

Again, you don’t, aside from a very few skills GW2 doesn’t require a target to attack. You use your screen to aim ranged attacks. The fact that a large portion of the community is still 100 % reliant on tab-locked autotargets in a combat system that doesn’t require them shows that the issue is much less “X profession is good” and much more “I don’t want to learn how to play”. It’d be akin to someone saying “I don’t want to use dodge” and then complaining that they’re getting destroyed. If you don’t use the tools at your disposal, and refuse to learn how to do so, you have no ground to stand on.

So what you’re saying is fire at thin air with ranged attacks… Now I am mildly curious… what ranged weapons are you using? Because quite frankly, if I’m on my Thief and someone is trying to shoot at me while I’m in Stealth, they are just giving me more time to basically do what I want. Shooting blindly is still shooting blindly…

Tulisin.6945:

You get to the core of the issue in your second paragraph here though. Infiltrator’s Arrow, while a great example, could be replaced with any type of thief mobility advantage. The important think to note here, though is that those mobility advantages do not require stealth to use. Stealth gets blamed for thieves escaping whenever it is used, even though the real culprit to thief escapes is almost always mobility. The fact is that stealth has very little to do with whether you’ll catch a thief or not. Having played a non-stealthing thief quite a bit myself, if I have the mobility advantage there’s still no chance that I’m going to be caught. Having played high-mobility professions against stealth heavy thieves that don’t have a mobility advantage, it isn’t difficult to track, down, and kill them regardless of stealth.

Most stealth threads devolve into this issue: People are really annoyed that thieves are hard to catch, but don’t understand that thieves escape due to mobility, not stealth. What you really want is thieves to be slower and less mobile, not less stealthy.

And here indeed is the very crux of the problem with Thieves.
Having the ability to basically vanish at will and stay that way is one thing.
Giving them high mobility is really another.
Hell, lets throw in the ability to do extremely high burst damage as well.
Each by themselves is not over-powered. (My opinion there, take it or leave it…)

Now put those all together into a class that can attack with extremely high burst from invisibility and then vanish again and have the mobility to run off faster then anyone else in the game.

The counter I keep hearing is that the weakness of Thieves is how fragile they are. And yes, they /do/ have some of the lowest HP in the game, granted. But that’s hardly much of a weakness if they can’t be hit.

It is simply too much advantage for too little disadvantage on the part of even a mildly competent Thief.

Brew Pinch.5731:

Advice for those who have undue trouble with thieves:

• travel to the heart of the mists

• fix your build and improve your skills through playing sPvP

• realise you were probably just bad

• enjoy killing thieves

thieves with near perma stealth are a total kitten, and hopefully will be slightly adjusted with mesmer (the other berserker class), but it’s a fine line and thereforetheyare still very much defeatable

I do partially disagree with this approach but this will improve overall skill. Thieves in WvW are not constrained by a soft cap on crit damage meaning they hit for a lot more damage in WvW. This damage can still be mitigated by almost every class in one way or another but thieves in sPvP are a completely different animal. I don’t believe builds/skills dominating thieves in sPvP will transfer in whole to WvW at least not 1 for 1.

Brew Pinch.5731:

Advice for those who have undue trouble with thieves:

• travel to the heart of the mists

• fix your build and improve your skills through playing sPvP

• realise you were probably just bad

• enjoy killing thieves

thieves with near perma stealth are a total kitten, and hopefully will be slightly adjusted with mesmer (the other berserker class), but it’s a fine line and thereforetheyare still very much defeatable

If you think you can improve your combat skill in WvWvW through playing pvp then you’re the only one who need to l2p.

It seems you do not know how the stats work in W3 and Spvp.

Edeor.9720:

If you think you can improve your combat skill in WvWvW through playing pvp then you’re the only one who need to l2p.

It seems you do not know how the stats work in W3 and Spvp.

Improving combat skill itself has very little to do with stats. Playing sPvP, while not an exact replica of the WvW environment, will help you grow as a player especially in 1v1’s. Think of it as an athlete working out in the gym and then going to play the game. The gym practice might not be the game situation but it sure does help when it comes to that game situation.

That being said, I find it hard to believe people have such an issue with thieves. If you build correctly (as in 1v1 or small group) you should win the fight against an average thief at least 50% of the time (if you yourself are an average player), which is exactly what you should look for unless you’re building towards a hard counter of a build.

Lastly, I know its been said a hundred times but roll a thief and try out the class mechanics. I’m not saying level it to 80 or anything, but play it long enough to get a sense for the timing of the skills since that will greatly help you as you fight them and time your dodges.

I actually believe that thieves are weak in 1v1s. Even though I win 90% of my 1v1 fights in WvW, a lot of them can be attributed to weaker stats/armor/weapons or the player just being experienced at PvP. I can usually tell if I am facing a good player almost straight away. What I enjoy most about thieves is I can avoid those 1v5s. Seems everytime I play all I witness is players trying to outnumber other players. They don’t want a fair fight in WvW like I do. So I stealth and run away or troll them with CnD to waste there time for being aHats for needing to bring 10 players to kill 1.

Oh thieves…

Basically, the best way to fight a thief is to either become one yourself (reroll) or run away. You are able to watch if a chain attack progresses, and also note damage in the combat log, but thats not actually a feasible solution. There are much more attacks that require a target than many thieves would like to admit, as well. Yes, you can fire a ranger SB without a target, but actually hitting something that isnt stealthed is difficult enough. Doing so with an invisible target is a waste of time, without a doubt.

You will not beat even a mildly competent thief unless they make a mistake. I have seen people say this rings true for every class, but that is far from the case. The risk a thief takes jumping into a fight, any fight, is very low.

If a thief player feels their class is weak, or anything like that, I would suggest they practice more until they understand the actual capabilities of the class better. If they feel that someone who has access to high amounts of stealth will be useless in the damage department, I think exploring builds would prove to be quite an educational experience. And lastly, if a player feels that a thief is useless in group engagements, there is probably an enormous amount to learn about the game for that player.

I think the core issue is just that turning invisible requires no skill whatsoever and it also negates high levels of skill from the opposing player, especially with some of the weaponsets.

If a player like me (a bit above average) is able to absolutely dominate on a class, it says something.

My biggest issue is that both playing against and playing with the current stealth mechanics is both boring (easy) and extremely powerful. I really think that anet could come up with a solution that doesnt necessarily negate the power, but makes it more challenging to be able to pull off. I have said it before, but I would level a thief again if they did something like that.

As it stands, I deleted my thief, and just run from them in pretty much any engagement because its a waste of time and not fun, regardless of if I win or lose.

This thread, instead, should be titled:

Not a Thief? Whine About Them

Brew Pinch.5731:

Advice for those who have undue trouble with thieves:

• travel to the heart of the mists

• fix your build and improve your skills through playing sPvP

• realise you were probably just bad

• enjoy killing thieves

thieves with near perma stealth are a total kitten, and hopefully will be slightly adjusted with mesmer (the other berserker class), but it’s a fine line and thereforetheyare still very much defeatable

Wvw is not spvp. Thief don’t have to win a single duel to be the most op wvw roamer. Until you can understand this lets not waste others’ time.

Rising Dusk.2408:

This thread, instead, should be titled:

Not a Thief? Whine About Them

I am a thief. I play a incredible cheap one wvw roamer for a long time. I also play a dd ele roamer, Condi engi Zerg fighter, a BM ranger roamer and other all 8 profs. I started as a thief and spent 5 month exclusively on her. It’s not until any thief player start to main other prof so they can admit thief is ridiculously op in wvw roaming. What make the community more frustrated is while anet nerfs down the pillar mechanism of other profs such as cantrip for ele and pet for ranger, it intends to keep the most abused stealth where it is while adding more mobility to the class. It’s funny 1 year after launch the CnD on wall still works while rangers still don’t have a single reliable counter to immobilize.

Oh , but let me be clear, thief is not op in pvp and wvw Zerg fight.

noobftw.9654:

Rising Dusk.2408:

This thread, instead, should be titled:

Not a Thief? Whine About Them

I am a thief. I play a incredible cheap one wvw roamer for a long time. I also play a dd ele roamer, Condi engi Zerg fighter, a BM ranger roamer and other all 8 profs. I started as a thief and spent 5 month exclusively on her. It’s not until any thief player start to main other prof so they can admit thief is ridiculously op in wvw roaming. What make the community more frustrated is while anet nerfs down the pillar mechanism of other profs such as cantrip for ele and pet for ranger, it intends to keep the most abused stealth where it is while adding more mobility to the class. It’s funny 1 year after launch the CnD on wall still works while rangers still don’t have a single reliable counter to immobilize.

Oh , but let me be clear, thief is not op in pvp and wvw Zerg fight.

What’s funny is I can say the exact opposite about Rangers, Eles, and Mesmers as I consider each to be far more faceroll than the Thief is and no less powerful in roaming scenarios.

Stealth is very clearly a powerful mechanic. Probably the most powerful skill for roaming in general. But do I consider the Thief to be on a different playing field than half the other classes in the game? Absolutely not. Or at least not before this patch as I haven’t played anything but my Thief since the last patch.

I do feel that the implemenetation of the thief class in this game is the worst implementation of the thief/rogue/assassin type class I’ve ever seen in any MMO, but I don’t consider stealth in general to be overpowered. What’s overpowered is the initiative system behind it. But I’m also not an idiot… I know that the Thief class would be completely unplayable if the system was adjusted and I have such a low opinion of ANet that I don’t think they’ll be able to change it and rebalance the class to the point where it would even be playable for at least 6 months.

But yea, I’m sorry… if you play an Elementalist, Mesmer, Guardian, or Ranger you really shouldn’t be in this thread complaining about anything because even though stealth is very powerful, the thief class as a whole is no better or worse off than the above. And if we talk about class vs class comparisons and not just roaming in general, I’d add Warriors and Necromancers to the list as well.

Atherakhia.4086:

noobftw.9654:

Rising Dusk.2408:

This thread, instead, should be titled:

Not a Thief? Whine About Them

I am a thief. I play a incredible cheap one wvw roamer for a long time. I also play a dd ele roamer, Condi engi Zerg fighter, a BM ranger roamer and other all 8 profs. I started as a thief and spent 5 month exclusively on her. It’s not until any thief player start to main other prof so they can admit thief is ridiculously op in wvw roaming. What make the community more frustrated is while anet nerfs down the pillar mechanism of other profs such as cantrip for ele and pet for ranger, it intends to keep the most abused stealth where it is while adding more mobility to the class. It’s funny 1 year after launch the CnD on wall still works while rangers still don’t have a single reliable counter to immobilize.

Oh , but let me be clear, thief is not op in pvp and wvw Zerg fight.

What’s funny is I can say the exact opposite about Rangers, Eles, and Mesmers as I consider each to be far more faceroll than the Thief is and no less powerful in roaming scenarios.

Stealth is very clearly a powerful mechanic. Probably the most powerful skill for roaming in general. But do I consider the Thief to be on a different playing field than half the other classes in the game? Absolutely not. Or at least not before this patch as I haven’t played anything but my Thief since the last patch.

I do feel that the implemenetation of the thief class in this game is the worst implementation of the thief/rogue/assassin type class I’ve ever seen in any MMO, but I don’t consider stealth in general to be overpowered. What’s overpowered is the initiative system behind it. But I’m also not an idiot… I know that the Thief class would be completely unplayable if the system was adjusted and I have such a low opinion of ANet that I don’t think they’ll be able to change it and rebalance the class to the point where it would even be playable for at least 6 months.

But yea, I’m sorry… if you play an Elementalist, Mesmer, Guardian, or Ranger you really shouldn’t be in this thread complaining about anything because even though stealth is very powerful, the thief class as a whole is no better or worse off than the above. And if we talk about class vs class comparisons and not just roaming in general, I’d add Warriors and Necromancers to the list as well.

If class A beats thief so class > thief? Again, a thief doesn’t need to win a single duel to be the most OP class in wvw roaming.
It boils down to which game you want to play and what do you want to do in that game. GW2 is really 3 different games in one, pve, pvp and wvw. You can not just generally say some mechanism is not op or op. You gotta be specific to the context. Lets say if you have a skill that grants you perma invulnerability but in the meantime you can not do anything and lose all your dps and mob aggro. Is it op in pve? not really since the goal of pve is to kill the mobs , and kill em fast. But it breaks the game in pvp (if it caps) and wvw. Fortunately there is not such thing as perma invulnerable, But there is perma stealth. I will be quiet if perma stealth is hard to achieve, but the thing is it’s incredible easy. You can even get perma stealth from stationary targets at critical location (such as enemy keeps). It really doesn’t take even a first-grader to think of the stuffs you can do with that in wvw.

Not all thieves are zerkers, im more than able to run p/d + SB blackpowder + HS and backstab most people into the ground.. the only people i have problems with are mesmers who just spam clones and run away without trying to fight, anyone saying perma stealth is easy try throwing down 4-5 heartseekers without macroing anything through blackpowder during a fight and see how well you do.

I rerolled a thief, 5 thief party >> anything else. Get inside towers when it get’s capped and cap it back after a few minutes.

Doing 12k burst damage in 1 hit no problem, pu down smoke field so everything is blinded and can’t hit you so you can go stealth again. New blind made thiefs OP as kitten. And yes I will play only thief now when he hits 80.

All Anet has to do is look at how the Rogue in WoW uses stealth, or even the witch hunter in Warhammer online, and try to copy that system.

Brew Pinch.5731:

Advice for those who have undue trouble with thieves:

• travel to the heart of the mists

• fix your build and improve your skills through playing sPvP

• realise you were probably just bad

• enjoy killing thieves

thieves with near perma stealth are a total kitten, and hopefully will be slightly adjusted with mesmer (the other berserker class), but it’s a fine line and thereforetheyare still very much defeatable

I just want to point out what I find funny about this response and I in no way am trying to start an argument.

I took my thief into sPvP for the first time since launch a couple of weeks ago and after a couple of matches of adjustment went on a streak of 12+ without dying.

I haven’t returned simply because I don’t really enjoy sPvP very much. Capturing control points is just not fun for me.

I know that many of the people I was playing against were perhaps poorly skilled and so on, but sPvP is not guaranteed to be the best training area for countering a thief in WvW.

I would back the theory of rolling a thief, going to the sPvP area and learning to play one with the build that gives you the most trouble. When you understand their limitations, weaknesses, strengths, and intentions, you will learn how to counter them much more effectively.

In the end though, the really good thieves, the talented ones, will still win most fights or simply get away without dying. Learning to be a difficult kill for them is a giant step in right direction in my opinion.

nirvana.8245:

I actually believe that thieves are weak in 1v1s. Even though I win 90% of my 1v1 fights in WvW, a lot of them can be attributed to weaker stats/armor/weapons or the player just being experienced at PvP. I can usually tell if I am facing a good player almost straight away. What I enjoy most about thieves is I can avoid those 1v5s. Seems everytime I play all I witness is players trying to outnumber other players. They don’t want a fair fight in WvW like I do. So I stealth and run away or troll them with CnD to waste there time for being aHats for needing to bring 10 players to kill 1.

Then again, some people just go all Usain Bolt when they can’t kill you and it goes from a 2vs1 to a 2vs2…

Anet should just disclose “Death” per “total hours played for one class” ratio for all classes. K/D don’t work, since you can just tag a bunch, unless Anet has a way to distinguish it.

hobotnicax.7918:

nirvana.8245:

I actually believe that thieves are weak in 1v1s. Even though I win 90% of my 1v1 fights in WvW, a lot of them can be attributed to weaker stats/armor/weapons or the player just being experienced at PvP. I can usually tell if I am facing a good player almost straight away. What I enjoy most about thieves is I can avoid those 1v5s. Seems everytime I play all I witness is players trying to outnumber other players. They don’t want a fair fight in WvW like I do. So I stealth and run away or troll them with CnD to waste there time for being aHats for needing to bring 10 players to kill 1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSB0Erue4PE

Then again, some people just go all Usain Bolt when they can’t kill you and it goes from a 2vs1 to a 2vs2…

1 of your enemies was lowlevel (maybe even without utilities)
so it was basically a 2 vs 1 for you in the end…

thinkfast.8371:

Not all thieves are zerkers, im more than able to run p/d + SB blackpowder + HS and backstab most people into the ground.. the only people i have problems with are mesmers who just spam clones and run away without trying to fight, anyone saying perma stealth is easy try throwing down 4-5 heartseekers without macroing anything through blackpowder during a fight and see how well you do.

You only need 3 and then you can compensate with utils though In a fight 1 or 2 is also enough unless you for some reason want to sit in stealths.
And very few thieves are full zergers. Thief can run for example valkyrie gear very well since they get 100% critical chance with their burst skill. In fact, unless if you want to farm cof p1, I don’t see any reason you would want to go full zerger as a thief.

Before I got bored with and deleted my thief I used to use a mixture of Valkyrie’s and Cavalier’s. You can occasionally get Cavalier armor from fractals, I don’t know if there’s any other place you can get it from. Is there? Really wish it just stayed account bound and didn’t soulbind when you equipped it. Anyway, it makes you a lot more tanky on the rare occasions you do actually get hit without sacrificing crit damage. As the guy above me said you don’t really need zerkers since you can stay in stealth and get that 100% crit chance, so precision is kinda unnecessary.

nirvana.8245:

I actually believe that thieves are weak in 1v1s. Even though I win 90% of my 1v1 fights in WvW, a lot of them can be attributed to weaker stats/armor/weapons or the player just being experienced at PvP. I can usually tell if I am facing a good player almost straight away. What I enjoy most about thieves is I can avoid those 1v5s. Seems everytime I play all I witness is players trying to outnumber other players. They don’t want a fair fight in WvW like I do. So I stealth and run away or troll them with CnD to waste there time for being aHats for needing to bring 10 players to kill 1.

Assuming you’re not using hyperbole and you really do need to be attacked by 10 players to lose—do you honestly think it’s because you’re a super leet special snowflake, or because your profession mechanics are simply that over powered?

Take your time.

p.s. Why are people a22hats for wanting to stomp your face into the dirt? You admit to trolling people with CnD so take a look in the mirror sometime.

Chaos Storm. On your feet. They now take damage for being near you and you, and you get a chance to get it together.

The moment you notice you’re taking damage, pop distortion. When it wears off phase retreat. When you take it again, just blink.

I’m failing to see why thieves are a problem. The ones who can blow you up in one hit I can see myself having problems with if I’m not on my toes and see the fight actually start, but that’s a cross-class problem, not specific to thieves.

p.s. Why are people a22hats for wanting to stomp your face into the dirt? You admit to trolling people with CnD so take a look in the mirror sometime.

It’s about trolling the chaser monkeys. You are the Robin Hood, they are the Sheriff or his minions!

Grackleflint.4956:

nirvana.8245:

I actually believe that thieves are weak in 1v1s. Even though I win 90% of my 1v1 fights in WvW, a lot of them can be attributed to weaker stats/armor/weapons or the player just being experienced at PvP. I can usually tell if I am facing a good player almost straight away. What I enjoy most about thieves is I can avoid those 1v5s. Seems everytime I play all I witness is players trying to outnumber other players. They don’t want a fair fight in WvW like I do. So I stealth and run away or troll them with CnD to waste there time for being aHats for needing to bring 10 players to kill 1.

Assuming you’re not using hyperbole and you really do need to be attacked by 10 players to lose—do you honestly think it’s because you’re a super leet special snowflake, or because your profession mechanics are simply that over powered?

Take your time.

p.s. Why are people a22hats for wanting to stomp your face into the dirt? You admit to trolling people with CnD so take a look in the mirror sometime.

From a WvW perspective, I believe I am a “super leet special snowflake”. Ive won 1v5s with every class. The thing is, the vast majority of players in WvW are terrible at PvP. Its quite clear that most of them are from a casual PvE background. Rather than wasting my time on them Id rather be working towards objectives because most players I run into are just there to fight in situations where they have a very larger upper hand, usually involving their allies being around helping and outnumbering. It is stealth that allows me to avoid wasting my time with scrubs. I know a lot of thieves are there to own those scrubs, but for me I see it as a waste of my time and my servers. Unless there is a specific reason, such as a tactical reason, I generally avoid fighting bad players.

Orangensaft.7139:

hobotnicax.7918:

nirvana.8245:

I actually believe that thieves are weak in 1v1s. Even though I win 90% of my 1v1 fights in WvW, a lot of them can be attributed to weaker stats/armor/weapons or the player just being experienced at PvP. I can usually tell if I am facing a good player almost straight away. What I enjoy most about thieves is I can avoid those 1v5s. Seems everytime I play all I witness is players trying to outnumber other players. They don’t want a fair fight in WvW like I do. So I stealth and run away or troll them with CnD to waste there time for being aHats for needing to bring 10 players to kill 1.

Perhaps, although I doubt he was under lvl60. But still, why run when numbers get even? They had no problem going 2vs1 on that guy who died…
I’ve noticed this trend lately; if someone can’t kill you within 15s with their bursts or whatnot, they run.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSB0Erue4PE

Then again, some people just go all Usain Bolt when they can’t kill you and it goes from a 2vs1 to a 2vs2…

1 of your enemies was lowlevel (maybe even without utilities)
so it was basically a 2 vs 1 for you in the end…

From the OP:
“Yes, I know that they have to sacrifice a substantial amount of survivability to have such high burst damage, and that would be perfectly fine, if I could attack them. "

This times 1000.

I also ignore thieves, not because I’m afraid of getting killed, but because I know they’re going to stealth and disappear when they get low. There’s no point in wasting 5 min dorking around with a thief when really all we’re doing is waiting for a random zerg to appear and finish things one way or the other.

Perma stealth has gotta go.

Hanibull.5124:

From the OP:
“Yes, I know that they have to sacrifice a substantial amount of survivability to have such high burst damage, and that would be perfectly fine, if I could attack them. "

This times 1000.

I also ignore thieves, not because I’m afraid of getting killed, but because I know they’re going to stealth and disappear when they get low. There’s no point in wasting 5 min dorking around with a thief when really all we’re doing is waiting for a random zerg to appear and finish things one way or the other.

Perma stealth has gotta go.

perma stealth = perma not attacking. Zero threat level. Also. If a thief is permanently stealthed how do you know he is even there? Did the bushes rustle funny, Did you hear a snickering with nobody in sight?