Guild Wars 2

In forum you’ll only hear thieves crying. In the real game play you will always see them gloating.

I have been a full time mesmer for almost 3k hours until I tried thief a few weeks back.

Two words.

EASY MODE

I can gear up full berserk and put ALL my trait points into everything that caters stealth.

Result => Constant 3k++ backstab, constant condi cure, 10+ might stack, 50% running speed 60-70% of the time, almost immortal against other melee classes (blind spam), unshakable pursuit with d/p 3, cooldown-less interrupt, on-demand stealth, and the list goes on… and that’s just pvp without food and gear tweak.

Stealth ain’t that powerful if you know what to do! It’s rather annoying…

It’s annoying to face one if it’s constantly stealth, hit, stealth, hit.
It’s annoying when they train mobs into you and then stealths.
It’s simply annoying…

But i love how stupid thieves rely on Stealth and forget everything else…
- Blind AoE, block and counter effects, retaliation, confusion and torment… lol..
I could say a good amount of thieves dies from their own stupidity…
/cheers

DavyMcB.1603:

In forum you’ll only hear thieves crying. In the real game play you will always see them gloating.

I have been a full time mesmer for almost 3k hours until I tried thief a few weeks back.

Two words.

EASY MODE

remember kids, 99/100 times when someone says “I was X but tried thief for a day and lemme tell you, EASY MODE”…no, he didnt. he doesnt have a thief, and if he does, he died like a moron constantly

DavyMcB.1603:

In forum you’ll only hear thieves crying. In the real game play you will always see them gloating.

I have been a full time mesmer for almost 3k hours until I tried thief a few weeks back.

Two words.

EASY MODE

I can gear up full berserk and put ALL my trait points into everything that caters stealth.

Result => Constant 3k++ backstab, constant condi cure, 10+ might stack, 50% running speed 60-70% of the time, almost immortal against other melee classes (blind spam), unshakable pursuit with d/p 3, cooldown-less interrupt, on-demand stealth, and the list goes on… and that’s just pvp without food and gear tweak.

You get blind spammed only if you stay in one place and fight. l2p
And remember, with such high damage, you are glass and can be taken down just as easily as you can kill.

BlackBeard.2873:

Stealth is a get-out-jail-free card 99% of times for thieves, and like you said, has no actual counterplay. So many times I have outplayed thieves so hard just see them say “peace” and reappear far away at full health.

This here, Is the absolutely most annoying part of thieves. 95% of thief players are bad, period. Play a thief for a week and learn them and you’ll agree with me. Its simply annoying though to have them stealth then appear so far away and see their health regenerating again cause they are out of combat. Any who, Have you guys ever heard of leaving the thief alone instead of fighting them for 10+ minutes when you could have gotten 50+ more kill if you stayed on the zerg in that time, or at least 4-5 if you’re roaming lolol.

A simple solution is damage break stealth, so if a player do a AEO damage skill were a stealth player is the stealth is removed.

Lol :-)
One thief = no problém
Two thiefs = nice dancing :-)
Three and more thiefs in one party = instant death for anybody :-)

Me personally, I believe in the risk-reward philosophy of such things. Take the ubiquitous 100b for example. Powerful ability if seen all the way through the channel. To balance this, it roots the player, and usually requires the assistance of either the other weapon set or 1 or more utilities to land. As such, it is fairly balanced in this regard.

Things like blinking and stealth while cool in practice, don’t subscribe to this risk-reward formula. It just doesn’t.

The fact that many of these blinks/stealths exist on weapon abilities is all the more mind boggling to me.

But then again, apparently it was never the intention to balance this game 1v1 from the get-go according to anet, so l2p.

DavyMcB.1603:

In forum you’ll only hear thieves crying. In the real game play you will always see them gloating.

That is very true. On here it seems thieves are the hated class. In competive play though many of them are the “come at me bro” types.

With all due respect, blind spamming aoe is not a strategy. Its a dice roll.

I have no issues with stealth per say, but its the combination of it being a great defensive utility as well as an offensive one which kinda ticks me off.

Konrad Curze.5130:

DavyMcB.1603:

In forum you’ll only hear thieves crying. In the real game play you will always see them gloating.

I have been a full time mesmer for almost 3k hours until I tried thief a few weeks back.

Two words.

EASY MODE

remember kids, 99/100 times when someone says “I was X but tried thief for a day and lemme tell you, EASY MODE”…no, he didnt. he doesnt have a thief, and if he does, he died like a moron constantly

Except that I didn’t die. And got at least 2 people whine after every match. Thief is my full time pvp now. Get your facts straight or kitten. Plz. For us all.

DavyMcB.1603:

Except that I didn’t die. And got at least 2 people whine after every match. Thief is my full time pvp now. Get your facts straight or kitten. Plz. For us all.

They love to much the easy mode, it’s just impossible to discuss with them
I’m still waiting for one of those pro thiefs to show me he can kill lots of good thiefs with a ranger, they say its easy job, not gonna happen.

DavyMcB.1603:

In forum you’ll only hear thieves crying. In the real game play you will always see them gloating.

I have been a full time mesmer for almost 3k hours until I tried thief a few weeks back.

Two words.

EASY MODE

I can gear up full berserk and put ALL my trait points into everything that caters stealth.

Result => Constant 3k++ backstab, constant condi cure, 10+ might stack, 50% running speed 60-70% of the time, almost immortal against other melee classes (blind spam), unshakable pursuit with d/p 3, cooldown-less interrupt, on-demand stealth, and the list goes on… and that’s just pvp without food and gear tweak.

Full zerk? Sounds like a very easy free lootbag to me…

You can dodge the d/p3 shot and the thief doesn’t teleport… it’s hardly unshakeable.

With D/P you give up burst (compared to DD) and need to allocate traits + a utlity to be able to maintain the 5,2 due to the higher ini cost. It’s more of a pressure set up than it is a burst set up. I literally can not remember the last time a D/P thief downed me in WvW.

Then again I know how to mitigate damage and can recover from a 8k “burst” if needed (3k backstab in full zerk? What is this… I don’t even)… and don’t just act like a grazing cow when faced with stealth. Seriously… most of the time it’s such an easy fight that I purposefully allow them to get in a couple of decent hits so that they over-commit then I just rotflstomp them.

Alhadin.4032:

Lol :-)
One thief = no problém
Two thiefs = nice dancing :-)
Three and more thiefs in one party = instant death for anybody :-)

And this is different than any other class how? A 1v3 you shouldn’t expect to survive regardless of the classes involved… unless they are very very bad.

Meh. You lot have reasonable complaints, RE: Stealth. I personally run Evasion-spec on my own Thief, because I’ve got a couple issues with how it was implemented. However, to “bring down” Thief Stealth, you would have to enhance either their Health, access to defensive Boons (Prot/Stability, for instance), and/or their overall Armor level. Let alone how changing Stealth impacts the Shadow Arts Traits.

The “big” issues on Thief Stealth are honestly minor:

1. TBH, hitting an opponent’s Block should de-stealth you. If only because you have physically contacted their body. Who wouldn’t notice being struck?
2. Assuming full “Troll-Mode”: it’s too easy to chain Stealth abilities. However, lowering that ability goes back to my mention of why it’s set that way on Thieves. Stealth and Evasion are the twin pillars of Thief defense. We can’t honestly “nerf” one without doing something positive to the other.
3. As many posters have mentioned in past threads of this nature, this is probably why the GW1 Assassin focused on movement, as opposed to “Ninja-Vanish!” abilities. Too hard to balance multiple Stealth routines and keep it fair for both Stealth-User and Stealth-Victim.

TL;DR:
It’s A-OK to have an issue with Stealth in specific, or the focused variant used by Thieves. But, any change to bring Stealth’s power down WILL have troublesome consequences. Especially when one considers how many Traits Thieves utilize that directly involve Stealth.

Zacchary.6183:

Here is the problem with stealth….

Huh, I don’t get it. Whats the pic supposed to represent?

DavyMcB.1603:

Konrad Curze.5130:

DavyMcB.1603:

In forum you’ll only hear thieves crying. In the real game play you will always see them gloating.

I have been a full time mesmer for almost 3k hours until I tried thief a few weeks back.

Two words.

EASY MODE

remember kids, 99/100 times when someone says “I was X but tried thief for a day and lemme tell you, EASY MODE”…no, he didnt. he doesnt have a thief, and if he does, he died like a moron constantly

Except that I didn’t die. And got at least 2 people whine after every match. Thief is my full time pvp now. Get your facts straight or kitten. Plz. For us all.

first, I still call bs, please make a video of you owning so hard that you get 2 QQs per match…I bet you’ll provide that video the day after the end of the world. all mouth no trousers

regardless, you are a total moron if your basing your opinion on a prof on hot join pvp

I dont know absolutly anyone that still plays hot join, everybody I have met in the game just laughs when mentioned.

I stopped playing hot join the day I realized I had forgot to put runes and sigils in my char and still was destroying everyone…such abyssmally low is the skill ceiling there.
btw, I was playing a mesmer, not a thief

maybe one of this days you’ll try it in high end pve, large scale wvw, or tPvP, and realize that its probably the worst prof in the game bar none in all those

in the meantime keep rocking hot join, your such a pro, show em kid!

…you are laughable. no, seriously. laughable

DavyMcB.1603:

Two words.

EASY MODE

I can gear up full berserk and put ALL my trait points into everything that caters stealth.

Result => Constant 3k++ backstab, constant condi cure, 10+ might stack, 50% running speed 60-70% of the time, almost immortal against other melee classes (blind spam), unshakable pursuit with d/p 3, cooldown-less interrupt, on-demand stealth, and the list goes on… and that’s just pvp without food and gear tweak.

Video or it didn’t happen.

Constant backstabs? Yeah no… initiative regen prevents that if you are going to be stealthing frequently.

High run speed during stealth… 33% faster in combat and it does not stack with speed buff so no way a player gets +50% or more on their speed.

I assume you HS (number 2 not 3) for pursuit which is good but right after you catch that warrior tell me how low initiative works.

Blind spam… you do realize blind is a condition and with the current anti-condi build necessity lasts about .05 seconds.

The vaunted condition removal… you mean the kind that only works when a thief disengages from the fight? We get 1 stack removed on stealth, one 3 seconds later. If we use Shadow Return we get 3 stacks removed (every 50s). Sword adds one more. All of these make the thief leave combat to remove and any condi build these days can stack more than 1.05 conditions every 3 seconds. I have to use food and runes to manage conditions now like many other melee classes.

There is no easy mode on a thief outside of up levels or against total glass builds. Anything with any kind of bunker or heavy condi is a serious threat. Every class can be dangerous to a thief… all of them. If you don’t know that, you haven’t played long enough (or at all).

skullmount.1758:

Zacchary.6183:

Here is the problem with stealth….

Huh, I don’t get it. Whats the pic supposed to represent?

Look up the acronym.

Heizero.9183:

WvW is the only game mode with a direct counter to stealth in tactically necessary situations, so this whole thread is busted. Stealth traps people. If thieves are ruining your sieges learn to drop them and problem solved. If this is an issue with personal 1v1 battles against thieves though, this is the wrong place, and frankly it is more of a personal L2P issue at that point.

Ok, we do that, while we do a slight change to thieves, nothing what hurts you really.

With next patch thieves need to pay 15 badges of honor, 525 karma and 10 supply every time they want to enter stealth. Shouldn’t be a big thing for you.

You obviously don’t know how stupid stealth traps are to use against thieves, do you?

Advent.6193:

The “big” issues on Thief Stealth are honestly minor:

1. TBH, hitting an opponent’s Block should de-stealth you. If only because you have physically contacted their body. Who wouldn’t notice being struck?
2. Assuming full “Troll-Mode”: it’s too easy to chain Stealth abilities. However, lowering that ability goes back to my mention of why it’s set that way on Thieves. Stealth and Evasion are the twin pillars of Thief defense. We can’t honestly “nerf” one without doing something positive to the other.
3. As many posters have mentioned in past threads of this nature, this is probably why the GW1 Assassin focused on movement, as opposed to “Ninja-Vanish!” abilities. Too hard to balance multiple Stealth routines and keep it fair for both Stealth-User and Stealth-Victim.

Bam. Nail on Head.

ZERO Risk vs Great Reward.

Poor form Anet. Poor Form

Advent.6193:

Meh. You lot have reasonable complaints, RE: Stealth. I personally run Evasion-spec on my own Thief, because I’ve got a couple issues with how it was implemented. However, to “bring down” Thief Stealth, you would have to enhance either their Health, access to defensive Boons (Prot/Stability, for instance), and/or their overall Armor level. Let alone how changing Stealth impacts the Shadow Arts Traits.

The “big” issues on Thief Stealth are honestly minor:

1. TBH, hitting an opponent’s Block should de-stealth you. If only because you have physically contacted their body. Who wouldn’t notice being struck?
2. Assuming full “Troll-Mode”: it’s too easy to chain Stealth abilities. However, lowering that ability goes back to my mention of why it’s set that way on Thieves. Stealth and Evasion are the twin pillars of Thief defense. We can’t honestly “nerf” one without doing something positive to the other.
3. As many posters have mentioned in past threads of this nature, this is probably why the GW1 Assassin focused on movement, as opposed to “Ninja-Vanish!” abilities. Too hard to balance multiple Stealth routines and keep it fair for both Stealth-User and Stealth-Victim.

TL;DR:
It’s A-OK to have an issue with Stealth in specific, or the focused variant used by Thieves. But, any change to bring Stealth’s power down WILL have troublesome consequences. Especially when one considers how many Traits Thieves utilize that directly involve Stealth.

Agreed with almost all. I think it’s not ok to have stealth in a player vs player game. Call it pve but it’s still more players vs players. And if one of those can do stealth and choose unsuspecting foes whenever they want, I call that bad gamedesign.

Zacchary.6183:

skullmount.1758:

Zacchary.6183:

Here is the problem with stealth….

Huh, I don’t get it. Whats the pic supposed to represent?

Look up the acronym.

Ahh. Didn’t know it was supposed to be an acronym. Interesting.

gebrechen.5643:

Heizero.9183:

WvW is the only game mode with a direct counter to stealth in tactically necessary situations, so this whole thread is busted. Stealth traps people. If thieves are ruining your sieges learn to drop them and problem solved. If this is an issue with personal 1v1 battles against thieves though, this is the wrong place, and frankly it is more of a personal L2P issue at that point.

Ok, we do that, while we do a slight change to thieves, nothing what hurts you really.

With next patch thieves need to pay 15 badges of honor, 525 karma and 10 supply every time they want to enter stealth. Shouldn’t be a big thing for you.

You obviously don’t know how stupid stealth traps are to use against thieves, do you?

I actually know all about them. they can work well when implemented properly. I have been kited into my share of them and i can tell you a 30 sec reveal debuff among a group of 5 or more players is death anyway you look at it for a thief. I end up outmanned alot on my server and tend to suicide bomb enemy siege setups while defending towers. i would estimate a good 30% of the time they hit me with a stealth trap and it’s instant game over.

Shadow.3475:

A simple solution is damage break stealth, so if a player do a AEO damage skill were a stealth player is the stealth is removed.

Do you not realize how stupid that would be?

Thats just like saying if you hit a mesmer all its clones should instantly die.

@mr. 3k crit backstab

I dont honestly believe you know what your talking about if you went full zerker and could only manage a 3k backstab

solution? they had it but didn’t have the balls to bring it live. Revealed debuff no matter what . No chain stealth = balanced stealth .

Mogar.9216:

solution? they had it but didn’t have the balls to bring it live. Revealed debuff no matter what . No chain stealth = balanced stealth .

If you read the dev posts at the time they were considering that… they quickly realized that this change would require a large overhaul of the thief class. I’m not against this change if thieves were buffed to be made viable within that… but that was the reason why.

stealth is a strong thief mechanic, it’s to balance our class. You see ele’s get tons of boons like permanent regen, lots of healing skills, and a handful of cond cleansers. Anet has given the squishy classes mechanics like these to help balance their class because thief’s unlike warrior have about 12k health when built for max damage. A warrior could literally one shot a thief with axe f1 if the warrior was running the same build. To sum it up all classes have atleast one good defensive mechanic, and since thief’s are kinda forced into traiting for glass cannon our defensive mechanic is stealth. Listed defense mechanic’s below:

thief – stealth
mesmer – illusions/stealth
guardians – heavy armor/boons
warriors – heavy armor/high health/optional but a healing signet
necros – high health/deathshroud
rangers – really high regen
eles – lots of heals/boons

FYI, they are adding the ability “Sick Em” to to be able to apply revealed to targets (as in pets sniffing out stealthed targets). Its a good start:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview

BlackBeard.2873:

FYI, they are adding the ability “Sick Em” to to be able to apply revealed to targets (as in pets sniffing out stealthed targets). Its a good start:

I hate to be a debbie downer when ANet is trying to fix a problem but the stealth problem lies in being able to activate it and achieve a near permanent stealth situation. They really need to make stealth an ability that happens occasionally in a fight much like block (i.e. the way many non D/P thieves fight). The unbalanced and annoying part of stealth is that some builds use it a frequency which is much greater than Sick’Em’s cool down.

Clearly it s a bit overpower at the current states, something Anet will deal with someday.

Straegen.2938:

BlackBeard.2873:

FYI, they are adding the ability “Sick Em” to to be able to apply revealed to targets (as in pets sniffing out stealthed targets). Its a good start:

I hate to be a debbie downer when ANet is trying to fix a problem but the stealth problem lies in being able to activate it and achieve a near permanent stealth situation. They really need to make stealth an ability that happens occasionally in a fight much like block (i.e. the way many non D/P thieves fight). The unbalanced and annoying part of stealth is that some builds use it a frequency which is much greater than Sick’Em’s cool down.

This is true, but it is a start. Actual counterplay opportunities, while small, are appreciated.

Being able to put your pet on them before they go into stealth (i.e. activating it just before) and making them get revealed (maybe its longer than 4s) can really help rangers become a natural counter to thieves. Most thieves stealth when they start losing, not when they could still survive another kitten .

Also, it will be hilarious when most newb thieves get revealed at the start of their BP—>HS combo, and you can watch them stupidly keep HS back and forth and wasting all their initiative before they die.

BlackBeard.2873:

This is true, but it is a start. Actual counterplay opportunities, while small, are appreciated.

Being able to put your pet on them before they go into stealth (i.e. activating it just before) and making them get revealed (maybe its longer than 4s) can really help rangers become a natural counter to thieves. Most thieves stealth when they start losing, not when they could still survive another kitten .

Would be nice if it ran for say 30s or until the pet finds any invis character in range. Lets hope its duration isn’t short and requires targeting. This would make Rangers THE go to class for sweeps and you are right a step in the right direction (maybe 2-3).

nostyle.3279:

mysticque.6182:

everything else have something that can counterbalance.

Oh well, tell me what can counterbalance Invulnerability?
Tell me what can counterbalance Death Shroud?
Tell me what can counterbalance Myst Form?

You want to counter stealth? Use your brain, interrupt, control, hit in the air, don’t stay immobile.

The difference between stealth and those 3 abilities is they can not be maintained for more than a few seconds and you can track the target till they expire (or in DS case just burst through it). Unless they are very close to a safe spot they can duck into those abilitys at most delay the inevitable if they are outmatched

thief stealth on the other hand has none of those drawbacks as a thief has several potential sources that can be chained long enough to escape or reset the fight. A good thief will take at most a hit or two from random air flailing before they get out of reach. For every second they are stealthed the potential area they could be in increases exponentially and hitting them after the first second is more luck than skill. If a thief wants to disengage from a fight all they have to do is stealth, purge CC if needed, dodge out of reach of any blind fired CC and run for it and there is nothing their foes can do to stop them. Short of blind luck runing in the same direction as the thief by the time he’s visable agian they will never be able to catch up before he either stealths agian or just gets out of visual range. Thats what really anoy’s people about stealth.

Without really needing to go into detail there is no con to stealth and that is a major issue. Also to address some points, thiefs and in fact anyone who goes full zerker is ‘squishy’. This is mostly allowed in thiefs due to stealth mechanics having no counter. And no traps that are expensive and take a long time to set up are no counters. Personally there should be ways to cancel stealth such as being hit by an aoe or pets. As there is none anyone in a stealth heavy build has an easy time of it. And yes they are easy mode, this will continue until there is a way for someone to actively counter it. And yes I also have a thief, no I don’t play it anymore as they are boring.. I only die if I kitten a kitten kitten that hard.

MrFluffy.9307:

stealth is a strong thief mechanic, it’s to balance our class. You see ele’s get tons of boons like permanent regen, lots of healing skills, and a handful of cond cleansers. Anet has given the squishy classes mechanics like these to help balance their class because thief’s unlike warrior have about 12k health when built for max damage. A warrior could literally one shot a thief with axe f1 if the warrior was running the same build. To sum it up all classes have atleast one good defensive mechanic, and since thief’s are kinda forced into traiting for glass cannon our defensive mechanic is stealth. Listed defense mechanic’s below:

thief – stealth
mesmer – illusions/stealth
guardians – heavy armor/boons
warriors – heavy armor/high health/optional but a healing signet
necros – high health/deathshroud
rangers – really high regen
eles – lots of heals/boons

we all know stealth is a balancing mechanic for some OP class, but how is the ability to be a god in wvw without counter, balancing?
not to mention thieves can steal boons, and for a mesmer to stealth as much as a theif they have to give up alot of things.
a thief can literally run any build and still have ultimate control of any fight thanks to stealth and no ability to counter it.

You can anticipate theif attacks even when they are stealthed. To all who have trouble with thieves, you should run theif, especially the builds that annoy you so much and learn how they work.

Stealth is close to be balanced. The issues one should think about is stealth stacking. Mesmers have to live without stealth stacking since forever and it works. Thieves could do too. For a skilled player it would not change much, for a lower skilled one, it would bring them more in line with the other professions for stealth is strong especially in lower skill levels of players.

The issue with not being reviled when missing, blind, blokced and stuff is another matter. Be carefull about that, cuz if theives would be revealed on a missing attack, it would make them very very vulnerable. Fighting a guardian would be close to impossible, if traited right. While I am being annyoed by this thing too, it would need carefull reconsideration when the thief suffers from revealed after a missing attack.

Recently I got bored to death of thief and switched to ele again for roaming. The funny thing is d/p thief is so much easier to kill on my ele than thief (while d/d is easy regardless). Ele has knockdowns, AoE, sustain, and better defense (protection).

Fact is, when two very good players of thief and another class face off, the thief is not disproportionately the winner. This is the case in every fight club or impromptu duel session I’ve attended as well.

It’s just that serious roamers will tend to gravitate to a class that can disengage when a 1v2, for example, becomes a 1v10. And any roamer knows how often this happens in WvW. I would imagine most thief players are much more skilled at 1v1 and small scale combat than the average Joe of any other class (since small scale/roaming is the only thing thief can effectively do).

The fact that stealth and mobility are two of the strong points in the class and you can’t kill them with just button mashing all the big skills (unless you’re a condition bomb necro), or zerging them down with 5+ people like you can with other roamers, is not actually a balance issue. Bad thief players will run from 90% of their fights regardless and will disengage if you seem even a little bit scary. Rather than be annoyed they could ran away, laugh and move on – it’s one of their class strengths and an annoyance at most, not a balance issue. Ele and mesmer have no problems disengaging fights either if they save the resources to do so.

I have to disagree Zphyrus, while I think its cute every thief tries to spread the usual false info of thiefs can only roam that is far from the truth. Anyone who can press 1 and use any range does just dandy in a zerg. And I have yet to hear anyone who defends the stealth mechanics actually name a con. There is no con to stealth and its just that simple. Invuln,shroud etc by their very mechanics have the con of long recast time so they cant be spammed. Stealth however, has no downside in the least or mechanic to keep it in check. That is why they had to change it slightly to keep thiefs from perma contesting points. AND fyi it is also false they do poorly in structure, I have had no issues and many others do just dandy in thief structure.

^Eng is the same way as well… and will have even more options as to how after this upcomming patch (on demand stability/stealth instead of a 50/50 chance).

Thieves and stealth can be annoying… especially if you’re new… but annoying =/= OP

Still not hearing a con Aberrant, engies can be annoying but only slightly. They still don’t measure up to the damage/survivability of thiefs. Engies do great in zergs tho, but lets face it, the more popular classes are popular for a reason no matter how we try to defend them.

Eihder.8961:

Still not hearing a con Aberrant, engies can be annoying but only slightly. They still don’t measure up to the damage/survivability of thiefs. Engies do great in zergs tho, but lets face it, the more popular classes are popular for a reason no matter how we try to defend them.

The con to stealth on a thief is that they pretty much need to stealth in order to survive. SO much of a thief’s defense is tied to stealth. Other classes don’t have that limitation. I really wish it wasn’t so much so on thief.

Not sure if serious as far as damage/survival….

My eng can survive just as much as a thief can… if not more so. He just does it in a different way. More blocks/invulns/reflects/knockbacks/knockdown/daze/pulls/stun/immobil. As far as damage the conditions might not do as much burst damage (although there are high burst eng builds that will bounce you around continuously while dealing high damage), but it’s far stronger sustained damage… and it’s aoe.

Even with just PP + Toolkit I can escape. It’s not always about being the fastest thing… just faster than your opponent. Eng has a LOT of cc (as I mentioned before) knockbacks, cripples, chills, and roots make him faster than his opponent without even needing swiftness (although eng can get perma swiftness with ease via a 10 point trait) or relying on stealth.

Eng is also one of the strongest roamers out there right now (on par with mes… which also blows thief out of the water in combat). There are far more classes that one can reliably kill with eng/mes than thief… unless it’s the players fault for acting like grazing cattle when faced with stealth… then yes thief is superior against those types of players.

Eng does have a higher learning curve though… and if you just want some easy escapes then thief is your go to class (along with war). IMO that difference in initial learning curve is why you see more thieves than eng’s roaming around. As of late I’m seeing far more warriors than thieves running around… and wars have no access to stealth.

It’s like saying ohhh look at all of these players in COD using the noob tube. It must be OP because so many are playing it… without looking to see if there are stronger things out there, but require more practice to be more effective (why they aren’t used in higher skilled gameplay as much).

This is a very typical thief Vs. eng fight in WvW btw…

So wrong they do not need stealth to survive, having actually played a thief i can easily give you a suggestion on what to use to survive without stealth. Try shortbow and your 15 sec recharge evade/heal. Stealth is just the preferred method due to NOT having any cons. This is why most are in panic due to supposed leaked notes, but i woulnt hold my breath on those really making a big difference if true. And fyi I also have engi/guardian/thief/necro so i call bs on your ‘engi can survive just as easily’. The last engi i fought died in about 5 seconds after a stun and quick melee. Had they the ability to port or stealth away im pretty sure they would have survived.

Eihder.8961:

So wrong they do not need stealth to survive, having actually played a thief i can easily give you a suggestion on what to use to survive without stealth. Try shortbow and your 15 sec recharge evade/heal. Stealth is just the preferred method due to NOT having any cons. This is why most are in panic due to supposed leaked notes, but i woulnt hold my breath on those really making a big difference if true. And fyi I also have engi/guardian/thief/necro so i call bs on your ‘engi can survive just as easily’. The last engi i fought died in about 5 seconds after a stun and quick melee. Had they the ability to port or stealth away im pretty sure they would have survived.

You’re not going to kill anything of worth with shortbow… or probably be able to outdamage a decent heal. When you swap to SB you give up SO much damage, but you do gain mobility. If you die to a shortbow… then idk what to tell you. I guess maybe Vs. a squishy ranger since the shots can bounce?

If he died in 5 seconds then he was a bad eng or not set up for roaming… and what roamer doesn’t bring a stunbreak? >.< There are a lot of bad players of all classes and few people set up for roaming outside of thieves (because they lack other options). If they gave thief better group options I’m sure you would see fewer roaming thieves. One of the big problems with group viability and thief is their high reliance on stealth.

Btw the last thief I fought died in one cond burst from pistol pistol… maybe slightly more… but the burns melted him and he couldn’t cleanse enough by going into stealth… he was a typical d/p thief (which so many complain about)

I actually don’t think its wise to remove stealth completely like some people have in mind. I think what Arenanet should have done was add something that can counter the skill to begin with. Perhaps some classes should have “Detect Hidden” or actually added a 30sec debuff to stealth before receiving another buff. As of now, people have several mesmers/thieves and abused the skill to maximize its effectiveness especially in WvW.

mysticque.6182:

I actually don’t think its wise to remove stealth completely like some people have in mind. I think what Arenanet should have done was add something that can counter the skill to begin with. Perhaps some classes should have “Detect Hidden” or actually added a 30sec debuff to stealth before receiving another buff. As of now, people have several mesmers/thieves and abused the skill to maximize its effectiveness especially in WvW.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first#post2832788

“Ranger
Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.”

In addition you can stop a thief from entering stealth in the first place (the only exception being Blinding Powder).

Get ready to see many more theifs out after the update. This is the first update where theifs can conrtibute to the PPT.

well lets see how is that going to be effective… but i highly doubt that… you are telling me 4 classes have stealth abilities 2 of which can give Mass Invis? And this is all what they can pull off?

Seigfried.5938:

Get ready to see many more theifs out after the update. This is the first update where theifs can conrtibute to the PPT.

I’ve seen fewer every patch… especially since the cond meta kicked into WvW. No real large buffs to thieves in this patch… while other classes are being buffed and one will be given an anti-stealth skill… so I don’t see why this would be the case.

mysticque.6182:

well lets see how is that going to be effective… but i highly doubt that… you are telling me 4 classes have stealth abilities 2 of which can give Mass Invis? And this is all what they can pull off?

But you can already stop them from entering stealth as is… and when you do stop them the thief is kittened in terms of Ini lost (their lifeblood)… so I really don’t see the problem.

What do you consider mass invis btw (as I’m sure that you don’t mean the actual skill)? More than 5 players?

Aberrant.6749:

Seigfried.5938:

Get ready to see many more theifs out after the update. This is the first update where theifs can conrtibute to the PPT.

I’ve seen fewer every patch… especially since the cond meta kicked into WvW. No real large buffs to thieves in this patch… while other classes are being buffed and one will be given an anti-stealth skill… so I don’t see why this would be the case.

mysticque.6182:

well lets see how is that going to be effective… but i highly doubt that… you are telling me 4 classes have stealth abilities 2 of which can give Mass Invis? And this is all what they can pull off?

But you can already stop them from entering stealth as is… and when you do stop them the thief is kittened in terms of Ini lost (their lifeblood)… so I really don’t see the problem.

What do you consider mass invis btw (as I’m sure that you don’t mean the actual skill)? More than 5 players?

you can wiki the skills if you need to I’m sure it will tell you alot about it.

mysticque.6182:

Aberrant.6749:

Seigfried.5938:

Get ready to see many more theifs out after the update. This is the first update where theifs can conrtibute to the PPT.

I’ve seen fewer every patch… especially since the cond meta kicked into WvW. No real large buffs to thieves in this patch… while other classes are being buffed and one will be given an anti-stealth skill… so I don’t see why this would be the case.

mysticque.6182:

well lets see how is that going to be effective… but i highly doubt that… you are telling me 4 classes have stealth abilities 2 of which can give Mass Invis? And this is all what they can pull off?

But you can already stop them from entering stealth as is… and when you do stop them the thief is kittened in terms of Ini lost (their lifeblood)… so I really don’t see the problem.

What do you consider mass invis btw (as I’m sure that you don’t mean the actual skill)? More than 5 players?

you can wiki the skills if you need to I’m sure it will tell you alot about it.

Well I wasn’t sure if you were trying to include things like people mass blasting smoke fields or not (which could stealth larger groups of players than 5 as well).. which would then include more skills than 2 (hence the question), but yes I’m well aware of veil and mass invis on mes (although Mass invis has that 10 player limit). I was just going to point out/get into toxic shot on the AC and stealth traps (which thieves are awesome for placing) if you were going to get into large numbers of stealthed players.

If it’s an open field fight there are tons of ways to counter a large group of stealthed players…

Aberrant.6749:

Well I wasn’t sure if you were trying to include things like people mass blasting smoke fields or not (which could stealth larger groups of players than 5 as well).. which would then include more skills than 2 (hence the question), but yes I’m well aware of veil and mass invis on mes (although Mass invis has that 10 player limit). I was just going to point out/get into toxic shot on the AC and stealth traps (which thieves are awesome for placing) if you were going to get into large numbers of stealthed players.

If it’s an open field fight there are tons of ways to counter a large group of stealthed players…

Ok let me put it this way. Have you fought against SoR/JQ in WvW as of recently? They are quite very good at coordinating their entire pact and getting everyone inside Lords room hidden for lets say good 5minutes before they bombed everyone by surprise. Imagine that 2x the number you have defending the keep. Not saying they are not easy to defeat. But the whole idea of them getting inside lords room from outside inner gate is just pretty pathetic.