Guild Wars 2

There is nothing left at equal skill level that can reliably kill a thief at equal skill level.
Despite roaming being largely considered irrelevant from a wvw point of view, it’s still represent a big chunk of the overall fun for your average wvwer.

But Thieves have now reached a status of untouchable Apex Predator, any class stands no chance 1vs1 at equal skill level…no one except a well played Dragon Hunter

This is how a thief wins every 1vs1..except vs dh

Elementalist: Most fights I can win unless the person is running a sustain build with lots of condition clear. Most people run a lighter build to do more damage so I can win these fights regularly. Always a good target, but in group fights can be problematic with mist form allowing more time for the team to res them.
Necromancer: Most fights I can win, a few necromancers run dangerous condi transfer builds that can pose a problem, but mostly they lack the mobility to catch me, especially in reaper form. Good ranged damage can shut them down. Harder with shroud to break, but a good target in group fights because other players aren’t worried about the necro’s HP going low because of shroud.
Mesmers: Good mesmers are hard but if the mesmer isn’t using high stealth uptime it quickly becomes a game of burst and stealth. The mesmer goes down pretty fast. Mesmers are annoying if they can get their balance and start attacking, so in group fights mesmers are high priority to take down.
Engineers: Good engineers have sustain but the stolen skill interacts with finishers really well. The main thing with scrappers is just waiting out the defensive abilities and then bursting. Using boonsteal in generally makes engineers easier to kill and control.
Rangers: I’ve been matched once by a greatsword ranger and a staff druid. Both had strong sustain, powerful damage, and good mobility. I find that rangers and druids that stand still to do their damage, because they “can,” tend to die easily. Using the stolen skill to gain regeneration and heals helps to negate their damage by quite a bit. Rangers pets are also gold for offhand dagger use because the pet won’t move much so it is easy to CnD off that to regain stealth for another attack.
Thief: I find most thieves run insane condi clear. They are easy kills if they don’t. With teleport and enough condi clears getting a kill can be a challenge. Most will run Escapist’s Absolution, which means timing a burst and then not attacking is key to decreasing their HP. Having an enemy NPC, like a sentry nearby is helpful to maintain the advantage by being in stealth more than them. “Winning” against a thief often means forcing it to retreat so you can take the objective.
Warrior: Hit the warrior enough to force them to use their immunities. Also evade their adrenal abilities, both because of the damage and because they will probably heal from it. Basically, burst and retreat, burst and retreat. If you never get locked down you can win. That said, you can tell a good warrior from a bad one pretty quickly. A good warrior will maintain pressure and will catch you with his/her abilities. A bad warrior will let you hit and run until death.
Guardians: hit and run until their passives/blocks are gone. Then melt them. Guardians have such small HP that medium constant pressure will win. Even bunkers should melt to a combination of boonsteal and careful pressure. Also, some well timed interrupts from stolen skill are powerful tools to shutting them down.
Revenants: die. They have a few powerful heals and some chasing ability, but boonspam is the most common type. They are built for group support and quickly die against focused 1v1 fire. It is also more rare for me to encounter good rev players. I’ve seen maybe one who had built for solo roaming and was amazing. Most others I see are running in groups so their build is not designed, perhaps, for solo roaming.

…RIP Roaming

I don’t see anything new here, really… This is just the description of what thieves been doing since 2012.

They are weaker now, they were a real pain when they dominated the roaming scene for 3 years b4 hot, they suffer a lot more from the current power- & condiecreep HoT introduced (they were even unplayable shortly after HoT b4 some buffs)

Teef op anet nurf plez!

Well if equally skill opponents ends with thief always winning, there must be alot of bad thieves.

Thief is the weakest class for any scale battle that involves an equal amount of participants from both sides. If a thief wins a duel it either means that his skill is miles above the other player or the other player did not have a proper 1v1 build and the thief had.

Equal skill level if the theif using a gimmick duel build else the theif need to be 3x better.
You know what else can effectively stop thieves? pew pew rangers the ones all hate.

It depends what the thief is playing and what he’s fighting and where.

I’d say thief (daredevil) is one of the stronger “roamers” just because of it’s reset potential and ability to escape pretty much every class except another thief and maybe a well played druid. They’re also not weak in duels a lot of the time if they build for it, bandits defense has a ridiculous cool down for a stunbreak and block as well as being immune to all soft CC.

With the introduction of marauder stats too there is simply no reason for a thief to be one shot anymore unless the other player has gone balls out full damage.

They are usually my first target on my base power shatter mesmer if only because left unchecked they have a natural advantage and can shut me down more so than other classes. You certainly don’t have to be that good to play thief well, just know your limits, anyone with a lot of experience on other burst builds should transition very well to thief and could be nearly unkillable.

Dragonhunter? Hahahahaha… Condi gyro scrapper pretty much hardcounter thieves. Dragonhunters are squishy in comparison.

I’ll admit that when I find one that’s skilled I’m usually toast but fortunately WvW isn’t exactly filled with skilled players, myself included. Most people are mediocre at best and even more of them are greedy and push their luck chasing when they should be recovering.

Although some classes thrive more effectively in the roaming scene than others, such as Thieves primarily for their evasion and stealth, any profession can work when you have only yourself to depend on. It’s all about how well you play the field and your profession. Thief might have a lot of powerful tools at it’s disposal but I fear a good Tempest, Scrapper and Chrono a lot more than I fear a good Thief. Because those ones are hard enough to kill even if they’re bad, when they’re good, there isn’t much point in trying.

Bahaha a well played DH is only counter to thieves? When a crap played DH can kill most thieves due to it being one of Thieves many Hardcounters, list of Thief Hardcounters, DH, Engie, Druid. To a smaller extent Mesmers, Cele Ele and Warriors.

Classes Thieves are favored in match ups, Thieves, Reapers, and Revenant

There are more classes that thieves have to massively outplay the class more so than the opponent to be able to have a chance to kill them.

Supreme thanks for quoting me in OP

As it stands, winning vs all classes is possible. Just because I outlined a possible path to victory doesn’t make it easy or automatic. Check my signature for video of some of my gameplay. I fight a DH at the end of the video. I win. shrug

That’s condi thief. Condi thief has strong 1v1 potential. Even then, winning all of those 1v1s is easier said than done. Roaming is more than 1v1s on a flat field.

Cecilia.5179:

That’s condi thief. Condi thief has strong 1v1 potential. Even then, winning all of those 1v1s is easier said than done. Roaming is more than 1v1s on a flat field.

Honestly I find condi thieves more a nuissance than a threat. Power thieves in the other hand can be dangerous.

Jeknar.6184:

Cecilia.5179:

That’s condi thief. Condi thief has strong 1v1 potential. Even then, winning all of those 1v1s is easier said than done. Roaming is more than 1v1s on a flat field.

Honestly I find condi thieves more a nuissance than a threat. Power thieves in the other hand can be dangerous.

Depends on how much cleanse you have.

A lot of people are just bad at fighting thief because they’ve never played it, tbh. The better you are at a class, the better you are at fighting against it. DH has a lot of natural counters, but it’s very far from the only thing that can beat it.

I’d actually have to argue that most professions when played well can beat a thief. I say can, because that also depends on builds and the skill level of the thief.

I consistently beat most thieves on my reaper using a greatsword, which is is supposed to be the the least favorable matchup and the weakest weapon against them.

And a lot of the thieves in the game are very far from their potential, and subsequently very, very weak.

The only truly broken thief build imho is dire/TB condi D/D. But that’s still more of an issue of Dire/TB being so safe and Death Blossom horribly-designed.

DeceiverX.8361:

A lot of people are just bad at fighting thief because they’ve never played it, tbh. The better you are at a class, the better you are at fighting against it. DH has a lot of natural counters, but it’s very far from the only thing that can beat it.

I’d actually have to argue that most professions when played well can beat a thief. I say can, because that also depends on builds and the skill level of the thief.

I consistently beat most thieves on my reaper using a greatsword, which is is supposed to be the the least favorable matchup and the weakest weapon against them.

And a lot of the thieves in the game are very far from their potential, and subsequently very, very weak.

The only truly broken thief build imho is dire/TB condi D/D. But that’s still more of an issue of Dire/TB being so safe and Death Blossom horribly-designed.

So very much agree with the part in bold. However when you get someone who is skilled at the role (whether it be on thief or another class) and understands thief they are very deadly.

The question is what has favorable and unfavorable match ups vs what thief?

Ok so to sum up how this thread is going to go down so you don’t have to bother reading updates.

-Non thief players will agree or disagree and say they beat them all the time because 90% of thieves are baddies or they get rekt by them all the time because they are worse then the 90% of baddy thieves.
-Thief players are going to disagree because most of them are terrible.
-The other thief players are going to say their main class is X and they don’t play a thief and that you are wrong because they beat thieves all the time on X class.

Now my opinion, a good thief should win every 1 vs 1 they come across. The ability to reset fights at a whim makes for no risk and all reward for any competent thief, the problem is there really isn’t that many competent thieves.

@apharma:

And quite frankly, I’d like to think it’s okay for someone who excels at the profession to be rewarded in doing the only thing the profession is mechanically capable of doing at the moment: killing.

The matchup lists really shouldn’t exist at all imho. It’s always pretty much been a matter of assumptions based on the meta which is derived from popular builds. The thief is no different in this respect, but the dealio is that it has different builds which do different things which get countered at different levels and by different classes. There really isn’t a be-all-end-all meta thief build at the moment across all skill levels, since currently any such build can be countered by different things, and can do certain things better than other builds, which of course changes based on the context of the match and the opponents’ builds. There are some dominant ones, and ones which are objectively weaker (D/D power, being the prime example when compared to D/P), but even this is finicky.

I’m going to say now that quantifying precisely what a favorable and unfavorable matchup is in respects to any given thief is quite difficult to do. Because the class is so skill-driven and thus has a massive performing curve, paired with a massive amount of potential choice in build paths, it’s kind of all over the place. A thief can build to handle pretty much anything specifically, down to even the opposing player, but this is a very far cry from building to handle most things, or as something abstract as power versus conditions. The breakdown of even this could swing wildly based on how they decide to try and counter said conditions or hits, and isn’t as sweeping as just “this is good against x universally”. The thief isn’t really balanced as a consequence, but just scattered tremendously in its capabilities with so many odd little nuances that make it hard to place what it can and can’t do.

This design is definitely an oddball in that not all of the other professions are really designed to perform this way or handle performing against something designed this way. It can make encounters seem very binary both ways; if the thief’s opponent is rotation-based, and the thief knows the rotations and how to counter them, and has a build capable of countering them, then the rotation-based player is effectively at a loss.

I think this is the reason why Ele and Engi are also so hard to balance, being either tremendously overpowered or underpowered, too. Rotation-heavy play ensures more or less rock-paper-scissors design with some degree of skill, which by many is considered poor design, exacerbated by the possibility of more dynamism from other wildcards like the thief, which by build may or may not have the guns to counter it, be it through skill or build. Of course, if this design is kept, then the rotation-based actors are going to be at a strict disadvantage, since their effective skill ceiling and potential will be out-done by those with more dynamism, even if not countered by build, allowing the dynamic class to succeed in objectively more scenarios.

This is the scenario I think we’re in, and why there’s a problem in respects to balance game-wide. As a means of keeping rotation-heavy builds viable, they’re potential-stat-wise overpowered (Ele, Scrapper, Druid, and to some extent, warrior), while dynamic builds, like the thief, have some of the worst innate stat capabilities. Of course, this then creates a very odd scenario of the skill requirements and stat advantages of each profession, and how to handle the requirements of each, not even considering the mechanisms of the sPvP game mode which further confuse the balance on both numerical and conceptual levels.

In my opinion, the most skilled player/person who plays best should win in a PvP setting. Of course, this is then contrary to many facets of the existing game’s design (in that the thief, for example, may require objectively more skill to play at a level of competency than a rotation-based class), and thus, begs the question of how to handle the entire conundrum.

Nuzt.7894:

Ok so to sum up how this thread is going to go down so you don’t have to bother reading updates.

-Non thief players will agree or disagree and say they beat them all the time because 90% of thieves are baddies or they get rekt by them all the time because they are worse then the 90% of baddy thieves.
-Thief players are going to disagree because most of them are terrible.
-The other thief players are going to say their main class is X and they don’t play a thief and that you are wrong because they beat thieves all the time on X class.

Now my opinion, a good thief should win every 1 vs 1 they come across. The ability to reset fights at a whim makes for no risk and all reward for any competent thief, the problem is there really isn’t that many competent thieves.

This is extremely naive.

Nuzt.7894:

Ok so to sum up how this thread is going to go down so you don’t have to bother reading updates.

-Non thief players will agree or disagree and say they beat them all the time because 90% of thieves are baddies or they get rekt by them all the time because they are worse then the 90% of baddy thieves.
-Thief players are going to disagree because most of them are terrible.
-The other thief players are going to say their main class is X and they don’t play a thief and that you are wrong because they beat thieves all the time on X class.

Now my opinion, a good thief should win every 1 vs 1 they come across. The ability to reset fights at a whim makes for no risk and all reward for any competent thief, the problem is there really isn’t that many competent thieves.

This is extremely naive.

[/quote]

Not at all, it’s the format for 99.9% of all class balance arguments on this forum.

Nuzt.7894:

Now my opinion, a good thief should win every 1 vs 1 they come across. The ability to reset fights at a whim makes for no risk and all reward for any competent thief, the problem is there really isn’t that many competent thieves.

I don’t know if the fact that a thief can reset a fight at will can be considerated good for winning 1v1. Just as you get out of combat, your oponent also do, so if you go back you’re just starting over a fight that you are likely to lose (as you already were threatened with a defeat once).

Sure, some people will say that you only lose when you die, but if you are forced to tuck your tail and disengage completely (go ooc) it’s a loss in my book.

Speak for yourself OP. I kill teefs easily on my ranger. Although some may be lucky when i get the lovely obstructed message on flat terrain.

Offair.2563:

Speak for yourself OP. I kill teefs easily on my ranger. Although some may be lucky when i get the lovely obstructed message on flat terrain.

Are you still using the old melee spec, Babs?

Riko.9214:

Thief is the weakest class for any scale battle that involves an equal amount of participants from both sides. If a thief wins a duel it either means that his skill is miles above the other player or the other player did not have a proper 1v1 build and the thief had.

PvPers in WvW. A farmfest until the zerg arrives to save us all.

The safety of the zerg will save us from gankers!

Nope Svarty, just the good ole pewpew lbow/staff build.

Jeknar.6184:

…Sure, some people will say that you only lose when you die, but if you are forced to tuck your tail and disengage completely (go ooc) it’s a loss in my book.

Thieves have one ability over all other classes, Mobility. As a thief you have no idea how many people have whispered me hateful things about resetting fights. “Stealth is a crutch, you go ooc you lose, try fighting me fair”, etc etc. It’s almost irrelevant to them that you killed them after the third opener. That’s the goal when I play thief, to kill you on the second or third opener. You guys see it as a quick and dirty 30 second slug fest, I play it as a 2 minute dissection of your skills and cooldowns. Also I don’t play condi, I play generic power d/p d/d.

The basic idea of thief, that few seem to accept, is that its entire design is based around it being a mobile, stealthy, killer. It will and should be able to assassinate enemies who are alone, wandering the wilderness. What you guys are doing by complaining about these things is slowly homogenizing the game. If your a slow, bulky, whatever class/build that gets ganked by thieves, probably don’t go out alone. We can either have an asymmetrical unbalanced game about fun and flavor and different classes, or we can have WoW.

Pixid.2817:

What you guys are doing by complaining about these things is slowly homogenizing the game. If your a slow, bulky, whatever class/build that gets ganked by thieves, probably don’t go out alone. We can either have an asymmetrical unbalanced game about fun and flavor and different classes, or we can have WoW.

I’m not complaining… I’m just pointing that it’s annoying when a thief keep comming back 5-6 times and failing at what he should have done at best on the second try.

Unlike some stupid people here, when a thief moves out to gain space, I don’t chase. Instead I make that gap even bigger by using my mobility to the oposite direction. That way the thief will have to burn all his initiative to reach me, or when he finally get back my cds will problably be all ready again.

Pixid.2817:

Jeknar.6184:

…Sure, some people will say that you only lose when you die, but if you are forced to tuck your tail and disengage completely (go ooc) it’s a loss in my book.

Thieves have one ability over all other classes, Mobility. As a thief you have no idea how many people have whispered me hateful things about resetting fights. “Stealth is a crutch, you go ooc you lose, try fighting me fair”, etc etc. It’s almost irrelevant to them that you killed them after the third opener. That’s the goal when I play thief, to kill you on the second or third opener. You guys see it as a quick and dirty 30 second slug fest, I play it as a 2 minute dissection of your skills and cooldowns. Also I don’t play condi, I play generic power d/p d/d.

The basic idea of thief, that few seem to accept, is that its entire design is based around it being a mobile, stealthy, killer. It will and should be able to assassinate enemies who are alone, wandering the wilderness. What you guys are doing by complaining about these things is slowly homogenizing the game. If your a slow, bulky, whatever class/build that gets ganked by thieves, probably don’t go out alone. We can either have an asymmetrical unbalanced game about fun and flavor and different classes, or we can have WoW.

you see, the game could be asymetrical but must be balanced. Otherwise you end up like the thief, a class that can condibomb you while staying invisible for all the fight in a tanky build.

If every single class would have a trait or skill to deal with stealth\invisibility somehow instead just guessing where the thief could be, then the low skill the thiefs needs right now would go away with the complains it generates.

Jeknar.6184:

Pixid.2817:

What you guys are doing by complaining about these things is slowly homogenizing the game. If your a slow, bulky, whatever class/build that gets ganked by thieves, probably don’t go out alone. We can either have an asymmetrical unbalanced game about fun and flavor and different classes, or we can have WoW.

I’m not complaining… I’m just pointing that it’s annoying when a thief keep comming back 5-6 times and failing at what he should have done at best on the second try.

Unlike some stupid people here, when a thief moves out to gain space, I don’t chase. Instead I make that gap even bigger by using my mobility to the oposite direction. That way the thief will have to burn all his initiative to reach me, or when he finally get back my cds will problably be all ready again.

I train and practice so that I don’t give them the chance to go ooc. Training and knowing how and when to burst is the key.
If a thief resets a fight against me, I count it as my loss. I let him escape.

EremiteAngel.9765:

I train and practice so that I don’t give them the chance to go ooc. Training and knowing how and when to burst is the key.
If a thief resets a fight against me, I count it as my loss. I let him escape.

Unless your signature is outdated, I find hard to belive that you actually do that as a reaper, honestly… Necro is problably the slowest class in the game.

Jeknar.6184:

EremiteAngel.9765:

I train and practice so that I don’t give them the chance to go ooc. Training and knowing how and when to burst is the key.
If a thief resets a fight against me, I count it as my loss. I let him escape.

Unless your signature is outdated, I find hard to belive that you actually do that as a reaper, honestly… Necro is problably the slowest class in the game.

i did the same as a Reaper/Necro. If i fail to burst him, and let him go ooc, I start the next round with less Lifeforce. and less. and less. until he kills me. And each time I fail, I chide myself for failing.

A necro will have a much better chance bursting a good thief down than a reaper though, with its range fear and range lifeblast.

I practice a dragonhunter now and I do the same thing. Practice how and when to burst and if I fail, I lost that round.

EremiteAngel.9765:

I train and practice so that I don’t give them the chance to go ooc. Training and knowing how and when to burst is the key.
If a thief resets a fight against me, I count it as my loss. I let him escape.
…
If I fail to burst him, and let him go ooc, I start the next round with less and less and less until he kills me. And each time I fail, I chide myself for failing.
…
Practice how and when to burst and if I fail, I lost that round.

Exactly! Each enagement is essentially a round in a boxing match. A thief won’t typically get a KO in the 1st round. When you go to swing at them, you need to make it count.

This is what people don’t get (and aren’t typically built for). When everyone’s running around with a tanky, sustain build and then complains that they get guerrilla fought because the thief doesn’t fight them on their terms.

If they were to eliminate the disengage potential for thief (stealth/mobility), they would have to massively boost their defensive options so they could go toe-to-toe. Which means either more evade spam (which no one wants) or an innate toughness buff (homogenization). I don’t think anyone wants that.

anduriell.6280:

you see, the game could be asymetrical but must be balanced. Otherwise you end up like the thief, a class that can condibomb you while staying invisible for all the fight in a tanky build.

If perma-stealth trapper kills you, you messed up. Trying playing that build sometime, it has zero options against someone who just keeps running wherever they were going. It only kills squishy builds who try to fight what they can’t see & run little condi-clear/sustain.

anduriell.6280:

If every single class would have a trait or skill to deal with stealth\invisibility somehow instead just guessing where the thief could be, then the low skill the thiefs needs right now would go away with the complains it generates.

Good opponents are already able to successfully deal with low-skill thieves in stealth. I successfully evade the Backstab and Steal of thieves consistently. The timing is very predictable if they don’t mix it up.

I consider a reset to be a draw. Both the thief and the target go out of combat, so the regeneration and skills going off cooldown is the same for both. The thief doesn’t want to need to reset the fight, because burning their cooldowns is important to create openings against many classes. For tanky classes their heal will be back up the fastest, which creates more of a pain for the thief trying to get the kill.

It isn’t a loss because thief mobility is a part of the class, as is stepping out of combat when things aren’t working out. But it certainly isn’t a win either. If the question is victory there are two standards: getting them down and stomping them. Getting them down is far easier, the stomp is harder when dealing with multiple people.

And roaming is all about dealing with multiples. Server 1 v Server 2 is always a risk that Server 3’s zerg comes along to try and flatten you both. Years ago I saw a thief take on 3 or four people at once. It was impressive to watch—as his enemy—and gave me something to aspire to. That is what roaming is to me. Aspiring to be good enough to stand before four people alone and strike fear into their hearts.

saerni.2584:

I consider a reset to be a draw. Both the thief and the target go out of combat, so the regeneration and skills going off cooldown is the same for both. The thief doesn’t want to need to reset the fight, because burning their cooldowns is important to create openings against many classes. For tanky classes their heal will be back up the fastest, which creates more of a pain for the thief trying to get the kill.

It isn’t a loss because thief mobility is a part of the class, as is stepping out of combat when things aren’t working out. But it certainly isn’t a win either. If the question is victory there are two standards: getting them down and stomping them. Getting them down is far easier, the stomp is harder when dealing with multiple people.

And roaming is all about dealing with multiples. Server 1 v Server 2 is always a risk that Server 3’s zerg comes along to try and flatten you both. Years ago I saw a thief take on 3 or four people at once. It was impressive to watch—as his enemy—and gave me something to aspire to. That is what roaming is to me. Aspiring to be good enough to stand before four people alone and strike fear into their hearts.

A reset is not a draw. 99% of the time a reset is the thief running out of combat because they realize they are losing and it’s time to bail.

We will just have to disagree then.

saerni.2584:

I consider a reset to be a draw. Both the thief and the target go out of combat, so the regeneration and skills going off cooldown is the same for both. The thief doesn’t want to need to reset the fight, because burning their cooldowns is important to create openings against many classes. For tanky classes their heal will be back up the fastest, which creates more of a pain for the thief trying to get the kill.

It isn’t a loss because thief mobility is a part of the class, as is stepping out of combat when things aren’t working out. But it certainly isn’t a win either. If the question is victory there are two standards: getting them down and stomping them. Getting them down is far easier, the stomp is harder when dealing with multiple people.

And roaming is all about dealing with multiples. Server 1 v Server 2 is always a risk that Server 3’s zerg comes along to try and flatten you both. Years ago I saw a thief take on 3 or four people at once. It was impressive to watch—as his enemy—and gave me something to aspire to. That is what roaming is to me. Aspiring to be good enough to stand before four people alone and strike fear into their hearts.

You don’t stall 4 people because you skillfully dodge their attacks, timing your next move to perfection..

You simply go stealth, stack stealth upon stealth..while your opponent can only haplessly aoe around trying to guess your location..meanwhile you have no CD skills and can easily reset fight after fight until the enemy is out of CD

It’s an easy mode-huge reward playstyle..which explain why wvw is saturated with thieves outside pure zerging.

I just hate how this class monopolize all the fun in this game being the Apex predator of glass build and being able to run away from anything..only to come back fully refreshed.

Go read how stealth is implemented in other games…

Pixid.2817:

Jeknar.6184:

…Sure, some people will say that you only lose when you die, but if you are forced to tuck your tail and disengage completely (go ooc) it’s a loss in my book.

Thieves have one ability over all other classes, Mobility. As a thief you have no idea how many people have whispered me hateful things about resetting fights. “Stealth is a crutch, you go ooc you lose, try fighting me fair”, etc etc. It’s almost irrelevant to them that you killed them after the third opener. That’s the goal when I play thief, to kill you on the second or third opener. You guys see it as a quick and dirty 30 second slug fest, I play it as a 2 minute dissection of your skills and cooldowns. Also I don’t play condi, I play generic power d/p d/d.

The basic idea of thief, that few seem to accept, is that its entire design is based around it being a mobile, stealthy, killer. It will and should be able to assassinate enemies who are alone, wandering the wilderness. What you guys are doing by complaining about these things is slowly homogenizing the game. If your a slow, bulky, whatever class/build that gets ganked by thieves, probably don’t go out alone. We can either have an asymmetrical unbalanced game about fun and flavor and different classes, or we can have WoW.

You’re 100% wrong about stealth. It’s a huge crutch in more ways than one.
The first is obviously that your opponent can no longer see you, but the second is that your victim loses target.

Frankly, I believe Karl McLain has a lot of explaining to do. This isn’t fun for your victim at all.

I’d rather have WoW combat than this crap system.

Actually there is quite a bit of dodging involved. And no stealth stacking. The thief I saw was popping in and out of stealth regularly. It was impressive from my, then newbie, perspective. This was back when backstab did 12k+ so people were dying left and right.

And I see far more people roaming on mesmer, on warrior, on DH, and other classes than I see thieves. Honestly, if you actually played thief you would understand that there aren’t that many running around, and certainly not more than other classes proportionally.

And that wasn’t stall. That was fight and kill. And if you are defending an objective that is part of WvW as well. And it’s not easy. That’s why I said “aspire.” It is something that takes practice and timing and knowing your build inside and out. And it takes knowing what they are playing and how their build likely works. (I’m sure that the guy I saw wasn’t fighting the best players either).

BTW, thanks for the title “Apex Predator.” If only that reflected the reality for your average thief.

saerni.2584:

We will just have to disagree then.

If you’d like to think that you running away is equivalent to a draw, be my guest. I suppose it’s the same kind of person who would run condi venom thief.

saerni.2584:

Actually there is quite a bit of dodging involved. And no stealth stacking. The thief I saw was popping in and out of stealth regularly. It was impressive from my, then newbie, perspective. This was back when backstab did 12k+ so people were dying left and right.

And I see far more people roaming on mesmer, on warrior, on DH, and other classes than I see thieves. Honestly, if you actually played thief you would understand that there aren’t that many running around, and certainly not more than other classes proportionally.

And that wasn’t stall. That was fight and kill. And if you are defending an objective that is part of WvW as well. And it’s not easy. That’s why I said “aspire.” It is something that takes practice and timing and knowing your build inside and out. And it takes knowing what they are playing and how their build likely works. (I’m sure that the guy I saw wasn’t fighting the best players either).

BTW, thanks for the title “Apex Predator.” If only that reflected the reality for your average thief.

There are 3-4 thieves every 10m here on gandara vs deso..didn’t see a DH or mesmer roaming in weeks what are you on about?

Are you actually serious saying that there are more DH than thieves roaming?..lol what??

It’s kittening annoying because people would like to do something else outside 24/7 zerging..but you can’t because there are thieves behind every kittening corner, 90% of them playing D/P stacking stealth for days and resetting fights till they win

Just explain where is the skill? heartseeker into shadow field at 2m away from the target? keep repeating the process till you’re not full HP again? How the kitten the enemy can reach or keep track of you?

You suck the fun out of the game with this BS stealth stacking..

Jeknar.6184:

EremiteAngel.9765:

I train and practice so that I don’t give them the chance to go ooc. Training and knowing how and when to burst is the key.
If a thief resets a fight against me, I count it as my loss. I let him escape.

Unless your signature is outdated, I find hard to belive that you actually do that as a reaper, honestly… Necro is problably the slowest class in the game.

I do the same.

I absolutely insist most reapers are clueless on how to beat the thief or really anything that moves in WvW, moreso than that the thief massively hard-counters reaper. Druid actually has a much scarier move set when it comes to mobility access, betted ranged damage, more resilience, and almost as much stealth uptime available to it. You can typically expect to know exactly when you’ll be engaged and disengaged by a thief if you play and study the thief for a while. Obviously the reaper has a mobility disadvantage, but it’s not as huge and glaring as most people seem to insist. If the thief is good and built for disengages, he’ll exploit this. But I assure you most thieves do not do so, and in WvW particularly, most thieves are not built for disengagement, because other builds on other classes are built for much more aggressiveness and chase potential than you see in sPvP.

Most reapers aren’t built to be quick, either, and think they’re going to AA people to death, which is the reason why they can’t do much. Try speed of shadows, try onslaught. LEARN GREATSWORD. Try making a real, hard-hitting, “I’m going to f*** you up” reaper build. Let yourself get engaged and prep for that engagement, rather than trying to run a thief down. Keep your aces pocketed for when you use them to just win the fight.

Did I miss something in the last “balance” patch? Since when did thieves become the apex predators? Is the op complaining about packs of thieves ganking solo players or something?

@Supreme

Your OP (quoting me), was based on P/D weapon set in WvW. So complaining about D/P stealth stacking is fine with me, just so long as you don’t pretend that what I said has anything to do with D/P. P/D doesn’t stack stealth, and in fact cannot stack stealth. Nor do I run Shadow Refuge. You will see me many times before the fight is over.

And yes, I see plenty of roamers on NSP (currently SoS) who are not thieves. I’m more likely to encounter solo roaming Druid or Necro than I am a thief. Just today I ran into multiple solid Herald (rev) players. Dueled them both and was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the fight. I can’t speak for your server’s experience.

@ventusthunder

You are free to think of it as a win for you. Most of the time I don’t need to hard disengage unless there is outnumbered situation. I also think of victory in terms of killing the yak the people are running into SM, or tying up fighters at a camp so my team faces smaller zergs. Keeping me from an objective is certainly a loss for me, however, so it cuts both ways. If you run a yak I’m trying to kill successfully, then it was well played on your part.

Haha supreme is there any class that isn’t OP to you other than yours?

Thieves are only a threat to me (revenant) when they’re condi, and only when there’s 3 or more focusing me. Power thieves are ez.

Thieves have become a real pain in the kitten in the last time. To be specific: Daredevils are. The amount of dodge chains is simply incredible. In a fight it’s basically like this from the DD side: get your combo ready→burst→dodge/port away→kite with 200 evades until combo is ready again→repeat. Alternatively use some stealth and if very critical port away like 5000 units so you are instantly (yes, instantly out of fight)
I’ve met a lot of daredevils in the past days (right now it feels like every second guy you meet roaming around is Daredevil) and it’s really ridiculous.

One thing I recognised especially is that Anet should take away the immobilize removal on dodge since this is basically your goto counter against a class that needs movement to stay alive.
Also the sheer amount of evades is really incredible. When I played with friends it basically went like this: trying to hit the thief with 3-4 guys while he is evading everything, not beeing affected by immobilize and after like 30 seconds of CONSTANT evading they either port away so that you will never see them again or make a crucial mistake that actually costs their life. The only other class capable of that is Berserkers but don’t even get me started on those….

Entenkommando.5208:

One thing I recognised especially is that Anet should take away the immobilize removal on dodge since this is basically your goto counter against a class that needs movement to stay alive.

While I agree that this trait is pretty strong (Immobilize removal, swiftness and 10% dmg reduction on dodge), I honestly think bound is much more annoying as it’s a leap finisher which allow the thief to stealth by executing it on top of black powder.

I would suggest that connection latency and a variety of other factors need to be considered in who can beat what and when. Each person’s experiences in WvW will vary, as will their preferred playstyles. We only control our own.

I have the considerable talent of being able to lose to most professions.

Now and then I have also beaten all professions. BUT I do have several thousand hrs muscle memory. ( and not all enemy are equal) Pucker factor is why I play.

Play the builds and professions you enjoy, I will do the same and will be on SoS if you seek me.

Most thieves are nothing but pure cheap stealth anymore even going into it to do the finisher..That said unless they are cheating on a good day when I dont feel like kitten and am on my game I can kill them with my ranger

The dueling crown belongs to Mesmers. Generally speaking, thieves are good for killing far less skilled players, blowing up poor roaming builds and capitalizing on injured players. Straight up fight, they lose or run. Their best modes are scouting and gank… two thieves on comms can be extremely effective.

DH is strong against some thief builds but S/P nukes them easily, particularly trap builds.

Straegen.2938:

DH is strong against some thief builds but S/P nukes them easily, particularly trap builds.

I’ve heard this a couple times. What about S/P gives DH a hard time that D/P doesn’t?
Is it just the evade-frames on PW messing with trap damage?

I play a lot of D/P and can beat DHs consistently. But it’s a lot of resetting & baiting out their high CD blocks. It’s a pretty tedious fight with little room for error.

Blaqatak.1395:

Straegen.2938:

DH is strong against some thief builds but S/P nukes them easily, particularly trap builds.

I’ve heard this a couple times. What about S/P gives DH a hard time that D/P doesn’t?
Is it just the evade-frames on PW messing with trap damage?

I play a lot of D/P and can beat DHs consistently. But it’s a lot of resetting & baiting out their high CD blocks. It’s a pretty tedious fight with little room for error.

The IS/IR to Proc traps, Combo’d with PW and Steal allow for you to avoid the brunt of the damage while deal pretty decent damage while interrupting which can Proc PI as well.