Guild Wars 2

Mock everyone who has a problem with thieves? What are we, politicians now? Then we can stick our heads in the sand or ignore the elephant in the room. Sounds like a good game plan to insure the future of this game.

Is the thief OP? Yes it is. But Anet surely realise this. Spvp is FULL of thiefs. No other class is so prevelant. Having 5 players and usually 2 of them are thiefs show how OP they are.

Does Anet realise this? Yes. They do. They already said they realise they need to nerf backstab. I do ok vs thiefs but my build is perfect to play vs them. Still with my character I find it hard due to all the stealth and then crazy damage. Its hard to play vs them with any character but some characters can do ok. I never kill thiefs unless they are pure bad or I have help. But I can usually control them long enough so we both disengage though.

Waffler

I question the rationale for adding stealth in a game without any direct/indirect counters, especially if that game is striving for e-sports. Unfortunately, the majority of players (who I assume play thief) love to use the l2p argument and say aoe counters stealth

AoE isn’t the logical counter to stealth, reading movements and acting accordingly are the logical counter to stealth. If you understand how your opponent operates you can just auto attack where you know they’ll be to get hits much of the time. This creates a meta wherein thieves are forced to act more deceptively in stealth to get the most out of it, while the person attacking the thief has to adjust for this. This is a good skill dynamic, both player-wise and mechanical, and is the sort of thing that adds good depth to PvP.

The problem is that it hasn’t been allowed to develop as much as it should because so many players react like NPCs to stealth, either wandering off or standing still as soon as they lose their tab target. I’m quite happy to fight heavy-stealth thieves because time spent positioning in stealth is time not spent on offense while I can freely do damage to the thief.

Northlander

Now dagger storm itself is fine. What I’ve a problem with is that I’m not sure which trait/skill thiefs combine it with but it cannot be interrupted.

Dagger Storm is a channeled elite, part of its effect is stability for the duration, otherwise it’d be trivial to interrupt.

Commissar

I agree thieves are strong on killing players in wvwvw, but only are useful for ganking, They’re useless when it comes to the seizing of towers and keeps

You’re correct about specific builds, but thieves can fill either role with different builds. A ganking setup will have a hard time in other roles, but it doesn’t mean the thief is bad at those roles, they just didn’t bring the right build.

SoPP.7034:

<3 my guardian and it can handle all professions.

Sadly invisi rendering thiefs are just boring.

If they catch me off guard they will no doubt pride themselves on how ‘l33t’ they are. Usually tho it turns into a scrappy affair. They attempt to take me down without luck and once they realise this they ‘invisi render combo’ run off to find something squishy so they can feel ‘l33t’ again.

Wash repeat

My thoughts exactly.

Its the combo of damage and the ability to stealth and always get away. Thats the issue. And they cant remove the get out of jail free card – stealth – because it is part of the class. However they can reduce the burst slightly.

Katsumoto.9452:

If you can’t do something in the time it takes to steal, cnd and backstab you have really poor reactions and should never complain about balance based on your own anecdotal evidence.

You seem to be missing the fact that you can precast C&D, then steal mid-use and backstab on contact. The whole 3-hit combo takes under half a second. Reaction is possible, but this is a nearly instant combo, not a simple chain of three abilities.

Lordrosicky.5813:

SoPP.7034:

<3 my guardian and it can handle all professions.

Sadly invisi rendering thiefs are just boring.

If they catch me off guard they will no doubt pride themselves on how ‘l33t’ they are. Usually tho it turns into a scrappy affair. They attempt to take me down without luck and once they realise this they ‘invisi render combo’ run off to find something squishy so they can feel ‘l33t’ again.

Wash repeat

My thoughts exactly.

Its the combo of damage and the ability to stealth and always get away. Thats the issue. And they cant remove the get out of jail free card – stealth – because it is part of the class. However they can reduce the burst slightly.

Stealth isn’t a get out of jail free card as much as thief superior mobility. If you’re more mobile than the thief they won’t get away stealth or no. Similarly if they’re more mobile than you they’re going to get away stealth or no.

Tulisin.6945:

Katsumoto.9452:

If you can’t do something in the time it takes to steal, cnd and backstab you have really poor reactions and should never complain about balance based on your own anecdotal evidence.

You seem to be missing the fact that you can precast C&D, then steal mid-use and backstab on contact. The whole 3-hit combo takes under half a second. Reaction is possible, but this is a nearly instant combo, not a simple chain of three abilities.

I’m fully aware of the combo. I manage to dodge it though. When I run glass cannon Thief I SURVIVE THE COMBO because I dodge it. Think about that for a second, the squishiest setup in the game surviving one of the hardest hitting ones. Half a second is ages. The average reaction time for a human is considerably less.

As for mr they just come back after mist form. Yes but without steal. Aka the gap closer and main part of the combo. If you can’t dodge someone just walking up to you and hitting CnD then again, you have no right to complain.

If they wish to close the gap they then have to use quite a heavy amount of initiative from heartseeker or shortbow 5, at which point the initiative bar is half drained. At least know what you’re talking about before moaning…

Tulisin.6945:

Lordrosicky.5813:

SoPP.7034:

<3 my guardian and it can handle all professions.

Sadly invisi rendering thiefs are just boring.

If they catch me off guard they will no doubt pride themselves on how ‘l33t’ they are. Usually tho it turns into a scrappy affair. They attempt to take me down without luck and once they realise this they ‘invisi render combo’ run off to find something squishy so they can feel ‘l33t’ again.

Wash repeat

My thoughts exactly.

Its the combo of damage and the ability to stealth and always get away. Thats the issue. And they cant remove the get out of jail free card – stealth – because it is part of the class. However they can reduce the burst slightly.

Stealth isn’t a get out of jail free card as much as thief superior mobility. If you’re more mobile than the thief they won’t get away stealth or no. Similarly if they’re more mobile than you they’re going to get away stealth or no.

Yeh but stealth is coupled with the best mobility in the game.

The best thing to do vs thiefs is to make them run away though.

I fully agree thiefs need a nerf. But people need to remember that wvw isnt a deathmatch. You dont have to kill them. If you make the thief run off then thats almost as good as killing them.

I never have much problem with thiefs due to my tanky control warrior build. However it is a little frustrating that if you make a mistake – even 1 – then a thief can down even a strong toughness charcter like me. I wouldnt ever want to be a ranger with all these thiefs roaming around.

Anet has already said that rangers will be buffed and thiefs nerfed in the next big update. This is spot on imo. Thiefs are OP and rangers are underpowered. Everything else is fine. The other classes are all powerful which is nice. But not OP

I love how people are like “dodge” the thief, or your reaction time isn’t good. You do notice that by the time you actually see the thief your on the floor fighting for your life because of rendering issues

Soo many people in this game would rather complain and ask for nerfs rather than man up and develop a counter strategy or just accepting that they arent gods gift to PvP.

Why is it that some people like myself has 0 problems with thieves and the rest of you do? The only answer is that your not any good. Shocker right?

Same whiners here as in the dungeon section. Whaa dungeons are too hard, whaa bosses 1 shot me. I have my dungeon master title. Where is yours?

Oh thats right. Your too busy posting to get nerfs so you and your mediocre skill can handle it.

That is amusing Ruien. I have zero problem with any other profession. They seem to function just fine in WvW without being overpowered. Even mesmers who also happen to share a lot mechanics with thieves. Namely ability to mislead and vanish. The thing is: mesmers don’t one shot other players and their ability to escape is much more limited.

The only profession I’ve a problem with is the thief. Judging from all the forum posts I’m not alone. Maybe people should man up and admit there is a problem with the thief.

Anyhow this is a moot point considering ArenaNet is planning to balance the thief.

Northlander.4619:

Anyhow this is a moot point considering ArenaNet is planning to balance the thief.

They said they would likely reduce backstab instakill combos and buff other parts of thieves, so the majority of thieves will likely be getting a buff.

I’m with the people that say you need to learn to play, but don’t that as an insult, take it is constructive feedback. I’ll explain more. Those thieves that can deal the heavy damage are considered glass cannons. Glass is notorious for breaking easy. As a glass cannon thief that deals those 6-8k crits, I can easily say it takes a lot of work to even get into that position. Then again, I don’t try to exploit the culling issue. I can’t backstab in a proper zerg. If you are getting backstabbed, then you are indeed playing the game wrong.

As a warrior you should easily be able to take down a thief. Set up new utilities if thieves are becoming a huge problem. You should have enough survivability to survive the backstabs and to get away from a thief. Once they pop out of stealth you can easily own them. One common trick is to use frenzy, bulls change, and a hundred blades. If you successfully bullcharge a thief, they’re easily dead, even with a tank build. My build that’s all DPS has 12k health with hardly any toughness. Yeah, I kill just about anything but just about anything equally kills me.

The only problem is thieves that abuse the culling issues, but that’s not just thieves. Mesmers and other classes do that as well. The best way to destroy a zerg at one of your towers/keeps is to simply rush in the middle or Portal bomb them leaving them confused to hell as to what’s attacking them.

One thing that badly needs to be removed is stomping in stealth. Once you hit F near an enemy it should unstealth you the second you start channeling your finishing move. That’s just simply too OP.

yiannit.2083:

I love how people are like “dodge” the thief, or your reaction time isn’t good. You do notice that by the time you actually see the thief your on the floor fighting for your life because of rendering issues

Or the fact that dodging a Thief’s attacks is pretty much moot, as their attack skills aren’t on a cool down like a Warriors Backbreaker.

But hey, who cares about Thieve’s being OP? It’s not like pvp is dead, right?

Oh wait.

Raven Paradox.1860:

I’m with the people that say you need to learn to play, but don’t that as an insult, take it is constructive feedback. I’ll explain more. Those thieves that can deal the heavy damage are considered glass cannons.

please teach me to play then because i’m obviously so bad that i end up taking 8k heartseekers

Hit V, use slowing AoE (I donno what the skills called I hardly have played a mesmer), make a clone. The 8k damage isn’t the problem. It’s quite easy to defeat a thief that can do 8k heartseekers because they likely have hardly any health.

The issue with thieves in WvW isn’t their damage, but the culling issues with the game. This isn’t WoW where your gear will protect you from everything. You have to use skill. Mesmers have enough to survive, and many thief players will tell you that mesmers are actually the most difficult enemy.

dont be a glass cannon and learn to dodge. if he misses the first attack the thief is done.
way to complain about a l2p issue. maybe a good thing you are moving on.
I get hammered by warr for 12k do i run in and complain on that forum? no
If i wasnt able to dodge and he hit for a big crit then so be it – it happens and I say cudos for nailing me. Not wahhh wahh QQQQ i quit.

Narkosys.5173:

dont be a glass cannon and learn to dodge. if he misses the first attack the thief is done.

Correction:
if he misses the first attack the thief runs away and starts over.

And I love how you all tell people to not be glass cannons. Apparently thieves are the only ones allowed to be a glass cannons.

Mesmers are the only class that tears me up. They are almost specifically built to counter my build. Do I whine and ask for mesmer nerfs? Nope. I am actively watching pvp vids and other research to come up with a counter strat. I made a mesmer and played it to get a working knowledge on class mechanics and most likely skill rotation.

Do i still lose to mesmers? Yup. I just dont lose 100% of the time now and my k/d ratio is improving. I put in a lot of work and time into getting to that point, to improve myself. Maybe thats too much effort for you.

Only two types of people in the world.

Those that achieve and those that don’t. Its your decision on which you are.

@muh, i run sword +shield / gs warrior for mobility in wvw (i like mace shield in spvp)

if a thief misses cnd he is usually vunerable to a followup stun, if he tries to disengage, i’m faster than him and ill catch him anyway.

Theorycraft is fun and all, but when it comesdown to the real thing I dont think theif comes out on top all the time vs warrior.

thieves defending a broken class, that’s new!

and if you think i’m a glass cannon you should really take a look at what a glass cannon is, if i was i’d have 15k health and about 900 toughness, i’m at 19k health and 1400 toughness and i’m taking 8k hits from enemys i can’t see (even steal + cnd is an 8k combo) but hey, apparently improving my self is too much effort and that doing that much damage in 1 second is totally acceptable