Guild Wars 2

I have been playing GW2 since early beta. I have spent the majority of my time playing in WvW and have earned some level of respect commanding in WvW. I have reached the point, though, where I will no longer be able to recommend GW2 as a game where someone can go to have a fair chance at one on one battles. It seems that your development team has taken the stance they want to ignore the input from the players of the game. Since the early days of this games release players have been telling you that the thief class is overpowered and needs to be adjusted to allow all players an equal chance on the battlefield.

I will state this as simply as I can so your development team will not be able to misinterpret my points.

1. Thief’s should not be able to spike while stealthed. No other class has this ability and it makes defense against a thief while down impossible.
2. Thief’s should not be able to heal others while stealthed. Again, no other class has this ability and makes it impossible to defend against this tactic.
3. Thief’s are able to remain virtually invisible 100% of the time. There are various threads on the internet that confirm this. Your team needs to take the time to read a bit.
4. It is not uncommon for a single thief to overpower and defeat 4 or 5 experienced WvW players, and that is simply not right. It demonstrates how overpowered the class is!

We have complained to your staff on numerous occasions about these characteristics and yet your team seems to think that thieves need additional abilities not reduction of abilities. Case in point this latest patch where you increase the damage a thief can do with daggers! What are you thinking? Is your team composed entirely of theif’s? Was someone a thief in another life and felt left out of things?

Seriously, it is time for you to take positive action to bring the abilities of the thief class back in line with other classes so there can be honest one on one fights. This is possible for most other classes but not the thief class and hasn’t been since the release of the game.

There are other games with greater WvW battlefield size, which eliminates the problems of the zerg’s that plague GW2, there are other games that allow a more varied use of siege equipment, there are other games that offer good Pve content in the WvW arenas. Even with all of this many of us still like to play GW2 but this lack of attention to the thief class has done much to degrade the ratings one gives to GW2’s execution of the WvW concept.

It has been said before that the squeeky wheel always gets the most attention, so perhaps we just need to be as vocal as the thieves are when someone mentioned nurfing their characters.

I hope that your development team will take an honest look at the thief class an make the adjustments necessary to bring this class into line with the other classes. Make it possible for an honest one on one battle in the open field, theif vs any other class. Make it so the skill of the player dominates the battle not one-sided abilities that the development team overlooked.

“1. Thief’s should not be able to spike while stealthed. No other class has this ability and it makes defense against a thief while down impossible.”

Mesmers, engineers, rangers can all spike from stealth.

“3. Thief’s are able to remain virtually invisible 100% of the time. There are various threads on the internet that confirm this. Your team needs to take the time to read a bit.”

Only at the expense of doing damage or with the powder-jumping ploy that other players can see and interrupt.

“4. It is not uncommon for a single thief to overpower and defeat 4 or 5 experienced WvW players, and that is simply not right. It demonstrates how overpowered the class is!”

It, and much of this post, demonstrates how little time WvW players spend in the sPvP arenas.

First of all: Ask the thief community if we think any of the devs have even played a thief. Short answer: No. Dagger doesn’t hit harder, the fact that you believe this just show how much time you have spent reading the patch notes. We can now hit two enemies with our auto attack chain only, which is easily countered by not stacking on top of each other. This is also completely irrelevant in 1v1 (unless we are fighting mesmers, but this will actually hurt the thief more than the mesmer).

1. Thief’s should not be able to spike while stealthed. No other class has this ability and it makes defense against a thief while down impossible.

All professions can stomp while stealthed, if they have access to stealth. Mesmer, thief, guardian, ranger and Elementalist have a counter to stealth stomp. In 1v1 it is cheap, but if you are downed you have already lost m8, so crying about this in 1v1 is just stupid. Have a friend close? He should be able to pressure the thief enough to get him off you or just use AoE cc.

Also want to mention: stability stomp. Immunity stomp. DS stomp.

2. Thief’s should not be able to heal others while stealthed. Again, no other class has this ability and makes it impossible to defend against this tactic.

Again, not relevant to 1v1. Very easily countered by pressuring the thief at his location (if a person is revived, where’s the thief at?) or just some cc.

3. Thief’s are able to remain virtually invisible 100% of the time. There are various threads on the internet that confirm this. Your team needs to take the time to read a bit.

This got nerfed long ago without using long cooldowns or completely wasting all initiative. Not a problem since the thief need to blow his cooldowns and doesn’t do anything to harm you or your friends while he is invisible.

4. It is not uncommon for a single thief to overpower and defeat 4 or 5 experienced WvW players, and that is simply not right. It demonstrates how overpowered the class is.

Agreeing with the previous poster: this really show how much time WvW players have spent in PvP… The only build I have seen that can do this effectively without he thief being one of the top players are P/D condition tank, but thief isn’t the only profession that can do this. The normal glass cannon builds can’t and should not be able to take on 4-5 opponents and actually win. Funny how people complain about the thief while I wreck thieves regularly on my other professions. Is it a l2p issue? I honestly think so.

The fact that you want thieves nerfed even more just show how much time you have logged on a thief. We are forced into either glass cannons that melt with any focus or a condition tank (boring). In WvW we melt if we are focused. In PvP we melt in seconds if focused. In PvE we were wanted for black powder, not sure about that any more…

Also want to mention that I have seen longbow rangers post patch that crit with Rapid Fire for over 13.000 at 1500 range, with haste in just 1 second… And people still cry about a backstab hitting for 4-7k…

Non Toxic
I appreciate your viewpoint and was unaware that the other classes you mention have this capability. It does little to negate the argument that defense against this tactic is imossible. The classes without this ability have an unfair advantage in an one on one fight. This needs to be balanced.
No 3. Thief’s are able to remain stealthed continually. When was the last time you were successful in interrupting a pistol dagger thief in the midst of a powder jump? What percentage of the time 1 out of 10, 1 out of 20. Certainly in the space limited spvp arena this might be a bit more practical, but it is not practical in open field wvw contests. I have never seen a thief pop out long enough to cast an interrupt of any kind. Ask the average experience wvw player how many times they have seen a thief pop a powder jump. I would imagine you would get a positive response from maybe 1% of the players. Yes the damage was reduced, but to no significant level, and now with the latest patch thiefs can do additional damage with daggers, increasing the disproportionate damage the thief can do.
No 4. Here you are simply trying to put distance yourself from the wvw player. Many of us have absolutely no interest in spvp, yet we enjoy wvw very much. I for one do not like the repetitive, space limited, flag capture concept of spvp, so why should I have to spend time in spvp in order to enjoy wvw? Your right I shouldnt.
The points I addressed above still are valid. The thief class needs balancing.

“No 4. Here you are simply trying to put distance yourself from the wvw player. Many of us have absolutely no interest in spvp, yet we enjoy wvw very much. I for one do not like the repetitive, space limited, flag capture concept of spvp, so why should I have to spend time in spvp in order to enjoy wvw? Your right I shouldnt.
The points I addressed above still are valid. The thief class needs balancing.”

Here, you try to distance WvW from the rest of the game. If the thief isn’t nutso in the ‘space limited’ 5v5s, he isn’t nutso in ‘just run infinitely in any other direction and find one of your 45 allies’ spacious WvW.

Whether or not the median player has or can interrupt the powder jumping is totally irrelevant. The median player is a green-rarity longbow ranger that can’t dodge roll. If those players start influencing the balance of classes in this game we’re all doomed.

You have to spend time in sPvP because it teaches you the concepts you are wholly missing. I dare you to bring this discussion to the Profession Balance subforum, where many laughs will be had.

Giir,
Thank you for your input to the conversation.
I play a necro and have for over 2 years now. I also have a level 80 thief that I no longer play for the reasons stated in my original post, so I do know something about playing a thief. As a necro I do not have access to stealth, neither do warriors or guardian, I have level 80 on both of those also. On my necro I can drop to death shroud but this is easily countered as I am not invisible and am subject to cc attacks which interrupt many DS skills. So again I state no class should be able to spike while stealthed. Simple really, remove this capability from all players then if you wish.
2. The ablility to heal others while stealthed is relavant. Many 1v1 fights turn to a 2v1 very quickly and the ability of a stealthed theif reviving their comrade puts an unfair advantage on the 2v1 team.
3. Come on now, do you honestly expect me to believe that theifs are underpowered, heartseeker, dagger storm combinations are underpowered. Really?
4. As I stated above why should we have to spend time in spvp in order to play wvw? The concept of spvp is totally different from wvw, in spvp you are in a small confined area, playing capture the flag. In wvw you are in a large open battlefield taking control of a much larger area. Open field fights are significantly different that those of a closed arena. Trying to compare the two is rather childish.

NonToxic you still play this game?

On topic: Mesmers, Engineers, Rangers all have access to stealth… The last two not as much, but Mesmers are comparable to Thief in that regard.

About thief being able to be invisible all the time…

If it’s one of those D/D thieves that count to 4 and press 5, you can pretty much prevent him of doing so by following the same pattern (Count to 4, dodge roll), preventing the CnD from hitting (and stealthing) and giving you an opening to attack.

If it’s the D/P “521521521”, you can knock him out of the blinding powder before he goes invisible.

If you have a strong AoE, you can nuke a thief that try to stealth away on shadow refuge. If you have an AoE knockback (like mesmer GS 5) you can even push him out of the refuge, making his cd go wasted.

You can even put a godkitten stealth trap on ground and make the poor sod revealed for 30s.

There are so many way to counter a thief that it’s nothing more than a nuissance these days dealing with them… If you’re seeing a thief defeating 4-5 “experienced players”, I supose these players aren’t as experienced as you claim. Yes, a thief can easily destroy 4-5 scrubs, but not experienced players.

hmm… well i didnt expect an open letter to be pure thief qq… especially from a self proclaimed commander, which typically means leading groups larger than havoc where thieves are but mere mosquitos compared to the lions and tigers and bears of GWEN.

I….what hte hell did I just read… Okay let me start with the fact that I only played thief long enough to learn how to kill them..im a ranger…

Im an effing longbow ranger… And ill say that you are… a fool.

I can NOT support this post in anyway..shape..or form.

I have NEVER in my time on these forums seen such a pure…undiluted..form of WHINING.

You have stated MANY things that….are simply not true. In any way. You make thieves to be these magical assassins while also claiming to be a well known and respected commander.

Have….have you ever even made a thief? If so youd realize a few things…

Yes.. There pretty effing annoyign to fight but they can also be annoying to play.

Yes. When played properly they can achieve results that many of classes struggle to.

But the punishment for a single mistake can be instantaneous leaving you little to know time to react.

I have main’d a ranger since day one. A class that for the longest time was a chew toy to them. And I have NEVER…NEVER thought that thieves in any way shape or form unbalanced the game in the way you are insinuating.

… I don’t have your back on this…at all. I hope your trolling. I really do. Because if your serious. And your actually leading people in this game. Then its no wonder were in a rut in WvW.

Just because you have a lvl 80 thief doesn’t mean you have played him enough to understand the profession thoroughly. Not saying that you don’t, but having a lvl 80 does in no way say that you are experienced.

1. As I already said: in 1v1, if you go down you have already lost. And as you said, 1v1 quickly turns into a 2v1, whereas it should be very easy for your ally to pressure or cc the thief while he tries to stomp you.

2. The thief can heal/revive while stealthed. But as you said, if this end up in a 1v2 and you down one of the players and he suddenly start to revive; just pressure or AoE fear the thief. We have very little hp and are therefore easily pressured away.

3. Heartseeker is OP? Long time since I have heard that one… Dagger Storm OP? Never heard that one!

4. I play both on a regular basis and I have no trouble fighting thieves on any other professions – simply because I know what to do and how the thief thinks. Thief is very predictable and easy to counter if you know how.

And how much damage do the thief do while he keeps popping in and out of stealth? If he damages you from stealth then he will get revealed for 3 seconds, so he can’t immideately restealth. No, daggers do not hit harder! Their damage coefficient hasn’t changed at all. What we got was the same as necros did; cleave on dagger auto attack. Not higher damage, but cleave.

Here is how to counter his so called perma stealth:
See a thief dropping black powder and you know he will repeatedly use heartseeker in it to gain as much stealth as possible? Move into that field and see the thief cry as he land a heartseeker on you from stealth and reveal himself. Heartseeker while you are above 25% hp also hits for close to nothing, so don’t be afraid of the damage. I for one would rather eat a heartseeker than a backstab.

NonToxic.9185:

"
It, and much of this post, demonstrates how little time WvW players spend in the sPvP arenas.

Pointless.
Only balancing factor is you lose point if you stealth in PvP.

Welcome to capture point balance.

Thieves in WWW will forever be OP until they do something about stealth.
Its not only the burst.

Just stealthing and equipping some defensive items let you troll and slow down entire zergs at their spawnpoints.

Can get easy points on doliaks and camps.
Can keep a player in fight.
Can kill easily zerg builds.
Can use traps
Can scout with total impunity.
I’m not even saying what happens if a thief stealth other professions…).

Unless you are going to tell me a whole map can t play WWW on SFR you can t really defend that point.

You can survive a thief if you are good often (not Always).
You CAN’T kill a decent thief (as thief forum says, if you kill a thief in WWW its a bad thief).

Its not that ANET doesn t know it since even in the past a dev said “if you make a thief run away, you won” (shortsighted and unexperienced statement imho…. because www woarks differently).

Its more 100% balance is pvp centered disregarding everything else.

Shadelang.3012:

I have NEVER in my time on these forums seen such a pure…undiluted..form of WHINING.

First time on the forums eh?

LordByron.8369:

NonToxic.9185:

"
It, and much of this post, demonstrates how little time WvW players spend in the sPvP arenas.

Pointless.
Only balancing factor is you lose point if you stealth in PvP.

Welcome to capture point balance.

Thieves in WWW will forever be OP until they do something about stealth.
Its not only the burst.

Just stealthing and equipping some defensive items let you troll and slow down entire zergs at their spawnpoints.

Can get easy points on doliaks and camps.
Can keep a player in fight.
Can kill easily zerg builds.
Can use traps
Can scout with total impunity.
I’m not even saying what happens if a thief stealth other professions…).

Unless you are going to tell me a whole map can t play WWW on SFR you can t really defend that point.

You can survive a thief if you are good often (not Always).
You CAN’T kill a decent thief (as thief forum says, if you kill a thief in WWW its a bad thief).

Its not that ANET doesn t know it since even in the past a dev said “if you make a thief run away, you won” (shortsighted and unexperienced statement imho…. because www woarks differently).

Its more 100% balance is pvp centered disregarding everything else.

Thief is not balanced much around PvP imo….

There is a good reason why thieves have little trouble killing zerglings; because we spec ourself for duels! A zerg build is usually built for something completely different than a 1v1, which means that when a zergling meet any roamer of any profession they are most likely to be defeated. Thieves are best at this because we pretty much have only 1v1 builds. The fact that a single thief can keep an entire zerg occupied for more than a few seconds just show how unorganized or simply bad the zerg or players are… 20+ players shouldn’t have any trouble locking a thief down and kill him. Any form of coordination and brain usage should make it possible to chain cc the thief and just nuke him (Analyze from an engie and Rapid Fire from one or two Rangers should be sufficient). If a thief effectively can troll a zerg, then it is the commanders fault for letting the thief harass them. 99% of the time they should be able to just keep going and ignore the thief.

ITT: PLayer can’t beat a thief.

This is a L2Play issue, nothing more.

Geiir.7603:

99% of the time they should be able to just keep going and ignore the thief.

It was told too many times already why this statement is totally wrong.
If you ignore a roamer your server lose points.

Also explain me how roamers build themselves for zergs…
We already know since forever why many classes can go full berserker in WWW like stealth professions do.

I know you fear anet balance, because their answer is usually nerfing to the ground rather than giving you a balanced gameplay, yet is not a good excuse.

As i said many times, if you are in a guild, you almost certainly had some beginners using a thief, and for sure you heard what they said when they tried an alt in WWW.

i am playing a lot guardian , war , eng , thief …..

while i am roaming with thief i stay away from shout/concentrate guards and eng …. all other classes are ok to play against them .

if i see med guards it is my favorite time. i know they are most of the times spvp players … they are doing burst damage and thats all . nothing more . i am killing them softly

p.s. my build is both for zerging and roaming . i am not doing extremely damage but nobody can instant kill me…. skill and time bring the winner and maybe i am not the winner but i want have all the times good fights , not serial killing

OP got me on item #1, didn’t read the rest.

irishrose.9580:

Giir,
On my necro I can drop to death shroud but this is easily countered as I am not invisible and am subject to cc attacks which interrupt many DS skills. So again I state no class should be able to spike while stealthed. Simple really, remove this capability from all players then if you wish.
2. The ablility to heal others while stealthed is relavant. Many 1v1 fights turn to a 2v1 very quickly and the ability of a stealthed theif reviving their comrade puts an unfair advantage on the 2v1 team.
3. Come on now, do you honestly expect me to believe that theifs are underpowered, heartseeker, dagger storm combinations are underpowered. Really?

This misconception is so mindblowing I still don’t understand how this still goes around the forums. Just because a thief is in stealth, they are not invulnerable. They can still be hit by cc, they can still be hit by aoe, they can still be tracked by skills with a casting animation if you got them before they stealth. Sure, a thief can stomp in stealth, but eles can mist away and if timed properly vapor form will outlast a steal stomp, mesmers can teleport and stealth away long enough, guards and engis have access to aoe knockbacks, there are so many ways to prevent this. Complaining about a class that is invisible but still susceptible to damage and control makes no sense when when other classes can put up stability or even invulnerability when stomping. Which no, those are not OP either because you always make a choice about what you give up to complete a stomp if it’s a 1vX fight.

In regards to stealth reviving, as mentioned just sit on their ally and cleave or drop aoe. If every thief is as crazy with their “heartseeker, dagger storm combinations” (what even is that?), they are most likely unable to tank the damage being done to the downed ally and them.

LordByron.8369:

Geiir.7603:

99% of the time they should be able to just keep going and ignore the thief.

It was told too many times already why this statement is totally wrong.
If you ignore a roamer your server lose points.

Also explain me how roamers build themselves for zergs…
We already know since forever why many classes can go full berserker in WWW like stealth professions do.

I know you fear anet balance, because their answer is usually nerfing to the ground rather than giving you a balanced gameplay, yet is not a good excuse.

As i said many times, if you are in a guild, you almost certainly had some beginners using a thief, and for sure you heard what they said when they tried an alt in WWW.

If you ignore a roamer, then yes, that player will cap a camp or kill some dolyaks, or even scout for his servers zerg. I mean ignore when the thief do nothing else but teasing the zerg, trying to occupy them. And as I said; every zerg should have no problem locking down and killing a thief. Especially post patch when engineers have Analyze that can reveal the thief for 6 seconds. Chain cc, analyze and some burst should kill the thief within seconds.

I never said that roamers build themself for zergs, they build themself for dueling and surviving. And thief was designed to excel at that role – and they do. Which is why I said that they have little trouble killing zerg builds – which is also why zerglings shouldn’t complain when their zerg build got wrecked by a dualist build….

Yes I am in a guild, and we have all had players trying out thieves. One thing all say first are that it is easy and stuff. Most because they face up levels (free kills) and zerg builds. But the second these guys meet a seasoned roamer or a havoc group they rage and delete their thief. All players that are new to this game is having a hard time against thieves – but this is until they learn how to counter us. Thief is by far one of the easiest professions to predict, and therefore counter. As I said; I wreck thieves with my other professions. Simply because I know what the thief is about to do and how to counter it.

Here I thought this is a post about the non-love for wvw from the devs….

Today I’m starting a new game and thought this is the post to say goodbye to all my fellow wvw players..but alas

(I have over 3k hours on this game, 1.5k on thief, 700+ on gaurd and the rest on my other chars and 90% of my game-time was wvw as I dont like gw2 pve. )

So all I can say is, goodbye to all my fellow wvw players. Two years of epic fun, with no love from devs, but to you OP, my last words ever on GW2……..

L2P!!

Geiir.7603:

I know what the thief is about to do and how to counter it.

Still have to find a SINGLE PLAYER explaining me how to kill a thief with anything but another thief or engi.

Not much different against a warrior…except the war ignore the engi, but has less Killing potential itself.

Not less OP for that…issue is being immortal.
If you are immortal even doing 1 Damage is too much.

LordByron.8369:

Geiir.7603:

I know what the thief is about to do and how to counter it.

Still have to find a SINGLE PLAYER explaining me how to kill a thief with anything but another thief or engi.

Not much different against a warrior…except the war ignore the engi, but has less Killing potential itself.

Not less OP for that…issue is being immortal.
If you are immortal even doing 1 Damage is too much.

If you really think thief is immortal, then you can’t have ever played one. A thief with dagger main hand probably have between 14-18k health in WvW. Any focus can and will kill the thief, unless he run away.

What I said is true, but I do that on all my alts. On my thief it is just a game of hide and seek, but I don’t have problems with thieves on my alts either. As I said; thief is insanely easy to predict. Once you learn their rotations you will find them much easier to deal with, unless you meet a very skilled player – but those are far between.

Geiir.7603:

LordByron.8369:

Geiir.7603:

I know what the thief is about to do and how to counter it.

Still have to find a SINGLE PLAYER explaining me how to kill a thief with anything but another thief or engi.

Not much different against a warrior…except the war ignore the engi, but has less Killing potential itself.

Not less OP for that…issue is being immortal.
If you are immortal even doing 1 Damage is too much.

If you really think thief is immortal, then you can’t have ever played one. A thief with dagger main hand probably have between 14-18k health in WvW. Any focus can and will kill the thief, unless he run away.

What I said is true, but I do that on all my alts. On my thief it is just a game of hide and seek, but I don’t have problems with thieves on my alts either. As I said; thief is insanely easy to predict. Once you learn their rotations you will find them much easier to deal with, unless you meet a very skilled player – but those are far between.

Since it comes from many known WWW thieves in thief section i would try a better answer maybe….

LordByron.8369:

Geiir.7603:

LordByron.8369:

Geiir.7603:

I know what the thief is about to do and how to counter it.

Still have to find a SINGLE PLAYER explaining me how to kill a thief with anything but another thief or engi.

Not much different against a warrior…except the war ignore the engi, but has less Killing potential itself.

Not less OP for that…issue is being immortal.
If you are immortal even doing 1 Damage is too much.

If you really think thief is immortal, then you can’t have ever played one. A thief with dagger main hand probably have between 14-18k health in WvW. Any focus can and will kill the thief, unless he run away.

What I said is true, but I do that on all my alts. On my thief it is just a game of hide and seek, but I don’t have problems with thieves on my alts either. As I said; thief is insanely easy to predict. Once you learn their rotations you will find them much easier to deal with, unless you meet a very skilled player – but those are far between.

Since it comes from many known WWW thieves in thief section i would try a better answer maybe….

Show me these well known thieves that think thief is immortal… You just made a blind statement without any proof, so please, show me the proof. When I look at the thief forums now I see nothing but thieves, well known and unknown, sick of being weak, have our weapon sets destroyed and getting hard countered by silly abilities. Please, show me these thieves that claim that we are immortal.

Roll ranger and use Sic Em. The 4sec reveal could already be devastating but now it is 6sec it is a deaths sentence. If used on the right moment it is. I used to have lots of problems with thieves but ever since i get to used to them and their rotation/stealth spam i dont think theyre much of a trouble anymore. Ofcourse i get killed by them but i also kill them.

Any warrior build → capable of fighting a thief

Meditation Guardian → can very easily blow up a thief in under 2 seconds.
Shout/Bunker Guardian → probably can’t kill it, but can out-sustain usually.

Engi → Bombs Grenades GG

Condi-trapper Ranger → easily win
Power-longbow Ranger → has a very good chance of winning, as long as you land your burst.

Mesmer → PU Phantasm GG

Necro → Wear the thief down a bit with marks, then deathshroud can basically 1-shot him.

Honestly, have you even tried playing a thief? Yeah, you can 1-shot bad players easy, but it’s actually a relatively difficult class to play against anybody who knows what they’re doing. And no, I don’t play thief. I tried it, didn’t like it. If the person you’re trying to gank keeps their cool and pressures you back, rather than panicking and running in circles, then the thief has no choice but to back away or die, since most classes will kill a thief in 3-4 hits.

I hope this is a troll, because this is soooooo 2012

Strictly in WvW, I think stealth is a problem since launch. That mechanic is overpowered being a “get out of jail” free card with no counter at all. That would be okay if it was under long CD, like a Warrior stance, but stealth can be acquired from multiple sources and so can be spammed … which becomes a problem.

The worst experience I’ve had as a beginner in wvw was when I tried to solo a bit as a Mesmer for the first times and encountered a very good roaming thief. He ganked me multiple times, which was pretty fine as I was just a scrub and he outplayed me. I took it on me, changed some things, tried to learn. When I finally managed to dodge its almost invisible spikes, I put him on 20%. I thought I had him, then the guy popped 3 stealth on a row to remain invis for 15s and cross half the map to reset. 20s later he was back trolling me again at full health. Sour taste.

Imo :
- There should be a cooldown for stealth. Or you just apply reveal for 3-4s systematically after each stealth.
- Only very specific skills should not remove stealth. All attacks (including zones like Thieves Pistol), Teleports, summoning pets/clones, … all that should remove stealth instantly. A player should not be able to use half his skillbar 2m from you and remain invisible. It makes no sense.

For the rest, in Pvp at least, it’s much less of a problem.
1. The maps are smaller so they cannot always flee like that.
2. The matches are fast-paced. Resetting duels each minute makes no sense.
3. Under stealth, they cannot cap/contest. If you can just tank a captured point for 40s+ against a thief, you are the long term winner even if you lose the duel.

Stealth is not invincible.
1. Stealth stomp: If your downed skill requires you to target something before using it yes… you’re pretty much screwed. If you’re up and you see a thief stealth near a downed ally do some kind of AOE CC next to the guy before trying to rez him. You’ll knock the thief away and probably get the rez off.

2. Similar to stealth stomp. If in a match you see a shadow refuge pop up on a downed enemy immediately use a knockback CC on it. You’ll destealth the thief and probably the downed guy. You can also unload all your AOE damage (and auto attack) on the location where that downed guy was. Chances are you’ll kill the downed guy and probably down the thief too.

3. Perma-stealth requires a lot of resources from the thief to maintain and has even been nerfed recently. The trait which restores 2 initiative when you go stealth only triggers if you were out of stealth before, not again while in stealth when you re-apply it. Using Shadow Refuge while trying to maintain perma stealth around players is incredibly risky. If they see the refuge they’ll knock you out of it and know to wait around until you unstealth.

In order to maintain P-stealth inside a keep a thief would have had to use powder shot (pistol 5) then heartseeker through it next to a destroyable wall. You can’t damage the wall and you won’t move from where you started, letting you rapidly stack stealth from the finisher. The best place for stealth traps in WvW hence is near the base or on the center of the top of a destroyable wall. The thief will eventually hit it when he tries to maintain p-stealth.

Defeating permastealth is indeed a learn to play issue. Skilled players can know what the thief is going to do when he stealths and know how to counter it.

4. All those videos you see of a thief soloing down 4-5 players is a difference of skill rather than class balance. Thief has a very high skill requirement to play right but once you’re able to play it right you can destroy unskilled players. Thieves are the ultimate newbie troll. Put a thief 1v5 against skilled pvpers and he’ll get ripped apart.

TL;DR
Play a thief in spvp and learn how their builds really work, more importantly how players defeat you when you’re on thief. What defeated you will defeat other thieves you fight. Then you can retract this “open letter” and get back to the game.

Good news… you are on a forum that only has gentle flaming. I thought we were past the whole thief thing and finally moved on to PU mesmers and condi-bunkers.

Thieves don’t have access to stability so they basically require stealth to stomp in a group fight. They can still be knocked around/damaged. If they teleport stomp they just used one of their best survival skills and a stealth to do so. Pretty much every other class has access to some “trick” stomp.

One thief does not beat 4-5 experienced WvW players unless they are scrubs. There are some exceptionally well played ones that are incredibly slippery but you can say that about any number of classes.

The only thing wrong with the thief is the P. D/P has too much stealth. P/D is too slippery able to apply a vast array of conditions from a safe range. Everything else is just fine and IMO hard to play compared to several other classes. Roll a D/D thief, play it for a few hours then come back in here.

On my power lock down build with mesmer I have fairly often interrupted thieves while powder jumping as they want to get away. 1v1s are already quite easy against the common thief player for me (not talking about common sPvP thieves, they are another story^^). And I usually roam with a friend, who plays often condition necro. So that one daze/stun that interrupted the thief often proves to be deadly^^

Straegen.2938:

Good news… you are on a forum that only has gentle flaming. I thought we were past the whole thief thing and finally moved on to PU mesmers and condi-bunkers.

Thieves don’t have access to stability so they basically require stealth to stomp in a group fight. They can still be knocked around/damaged. If they teleport stomp they just used one of their best survival skills and a stealth to do so. Pretty much every other class has access to some “trick” stomp.

One thief does not beat 4-5 experienced WvW players unless they are scrubs. There are some exceptionally well played ones that are incredibly slippery but you can say that about any number of classes.

The only thing wrong with the thief is the P. D/P has too much stealth. P/D is too slippery able to apply a vast array of conditions from a safe range. Everything else is just fine and IMO hard to play compared to several other classes. Roll a D/D thief, play it for a few hours then come back in here.

Thieves do have the ability to gain stability and it’s granted when they attack from stealth. It’s called Assassin’s Equilibrium and is a grandmaster trait in the Acrobatics line. I don’t agree with all the points the OP makes but if you’re going to argue with him at least get your facts straight.

As far as stealth stomping I have no problem with that but I think a change should be made that all downed skills should be useable without needing a target.

I thought this was meant to be serious business, I was wrong.

kitten why so mad? If your team got beaten by 1 teef I’d take them to do some pvp lol

irishrose.9580:

4. It is not uncommon for a single thief to overpower and defeat 4 or 5 experienced WvW players, and that is simply not right. It demonstrates how overpowered the class is!

All i needed to read to tell me everything about the OP.

Thank you for the laugh

For heaven’s sake the plural or Thief is Thieves and not Thief’s or Thiefs.

Now that I have that off my chest I can put most thieves down with my Ranger quite easily and they will usually run from me unless they are sure they can get their burst off and kill me outright. For those adept thieves the wife and I will both run our Rangers and since we can hear each other’s “Sic Em” we time it so the poor thing has almost 12 seconds of reveal. They have a habit of dying a grotesque death at that point.

Wow. It seemed like a good start and it turned out to be the usual thief QQ thread.

BTW If a thief can take over 4-5 EXPERIENCED wvw players I would really much like to meet them so i can laugh at how experienced they are

Healing people from stealth? Taking out 5 people?

You guys have been trolled.

I was hoping for something more epic. Just another thief qq thread to go on the smoldering heap of thief qq threads. Oh well.

I’d like to remember you guys that WvW has “a problem” concerning builds and the role you want to play in WvW.
I think the most people out here in the forums or in general on the internet complaining about thieves in WvW are built for some intense zerg-fighting.

Every now and then the leading commander will order a few people to protect the camp or the dolly. Most people that are “going to do the job” are not skilled for small-scale-fighting.

This happened ~2hours ago on my server and borderland. —> I was one of those 2-3 people that raised their hands “ok sir I’ll accept the job and kill the thief”. I know with my build I don’t stand a chance, but who knows maybe the goddess of luck grands me her favor and I’m able to kill the roamer.

The outcome was that because of stealth every few seconds my “teammates” left me alone with the thief, because it was just to tiresome to kill him.
This happens all day long, at least on my server (and no it’s not a bad server).

You may think now: “well good job, maybe you shouldn’t try it in the first place”. The problem is that if no roamers are there in the right moment to stop other roamers you have just a few options left:
1. change you built and crush the thief <— really really tiresome
2. outnumber him and try to kill him <— can be really tiresome too
3. just leave him alone and hope some roamer shows up and “does his job”

Depending on the role YOU are playing in WvW it may be the case that you never saw this problem. Maybe your server has enough roamers, or the players are overall just the crasiest godlike players out there, maybe you are a roamer for yourself.

Just one last word:
if I would have been on my ranger I could have killed him, but I was playing my heal-guard and am a sitting duck in small-scale. 50% because of my build and the other 50% are that I’m just plain bad with other builds and guards in genral concerning small-scale (but I do my healing job pretty kitten well).

TL’DR:
Most hate/flame/qq, or however you may call it, comes from WvW-players wih builds for zerging and not killing roamers (my hypothesis).

Stealth is and was an issue in EVERY pvp game or mode. Since pvp exist. The difference is in GW2 you can spam it without penalty.

Stealth shouldn’t exist in PvP.

Dear Devs,

Thieves make me act like I have a big ole’ poop in my diaper, please help change me!

@OP:

Thanks for the laugh. I am guessing you were just looking for a laugh. If so, you did really well.