Guild Wars 2

It seems that the thief and mesmer stealth duo (T&M for short) is becoming common tactic for high end wvw. Once the outer wall of a keep breaks down T&M enters and, leaving their main zerg, goes into hiding right away. So even if the defenders wipes the attackers, the attackers can come back inside any time.

T&M can pretty much keep each other stealthed 24/7. No one can find them ever.

When in the keep by themselves T&M can either remain dormant and undetected, or pick off afkers. And when the timing is right, they can teleport whole zergs into the keep to take it very quickly.

What I want to find out is, is this a legit part of the game? Is this the way that the game was intended to be played? Or is this going to be fixed/nerfed?

as long as no hacking/glitching involved, looks OK to me…. working as intended……

Agreed. Working as intended. I just don’t like how the thief can perma stealth and res its mesmer bak up even when he/she’s been stomped already.

i guess it isn’t exploiting, but thieves need a mega nerf.

Well there IS one way to fix this problem, but it’s something nobody will like. When a keep flips, everybody inside of it that isn’t of the server who just flipped it are instantly teleported out of the walls.

If the thief is using the CnD wall exploit, then it’s an exploit.

If not, then working as intended. It shouldn’t be to hard to find them since there will be random smoke aoes, npcs taking damage and randomly aggroing, random shadow refuges, random veils. It’s actually pretty easy if you know how their stealth mechanics work…

random smoke aoes are nearly impossible to see and keeps are huge places.

Columba.9730:

random smoke aoes are nearly impossible to see and keeps are huge places.

Theres a big red circle to help point it out for you. If you can’t see it and your only argument is “the place is too big!”

Then it’s a L2P issue.

Doomdesire.9365:

Columba.9730:

random smoke aoes are nearly impossible to see and keeps are huge places.

Theres a big red circle to help point it out for you. If you can’t see it and your only argument is “the place is too big!”

Then it’s a L2P issue.

I love it when thief players defend their profession with most ridiculous comparisons and use the term “learn 2 play”.

Stealth is utterly broken, especially in WvWvW. Stealth = unfun for all those who are not using it. WvWvW would be better with the stealth and teleportation mechanisms completely removed or reworked.

GW2 has game mechanisms similar to FPS game. Now imagine a FPS game, where there are several professions. One profession, let’s call it infiltrator, can become invisible when he wants and no enemy action can reveal him from invisibility. Even if infiltrator walks into a cloud of smoke or enters water or enemy makes him bleed like hell, infiltrator is still invisible. And enemy with a rifle cannot even target him. While he is invisible the rifle bullets just don’t hit him even if you guess his exact location. He also does huge damage, his attacks are blindingly fast and he can teleport as well, move 50% faster while being invisible. Then we have another profession, let’s call it soldier, who has better armor, higher health, but his high damage attacks are slowly telegraphed and very easily dodged. Would this game be balanced? Hell NO.

Well predator can be invisiblle all the time and Arnie killed him.

Well, if enough weren’t doing it before this thread they will now. In all seriousness though, I don’t think that you need to bring out the nerf bat for this one. Stealth just definitely needs to be touched up before this gets out of hand. Imagine how many people complained about it on release and how much it’s only gotten worse. Game hasn’t been out for a year yet and there are some pretty imaginative players out there. Stealth is only going to cause more problems as time goes on and eventually it will get so bad that it will probably be nerfed beyond the point of uselessness.

Simple solution: extend the Revealed debuff, make it proc no matter how you leave stealth, and give it to the mesmer too. Imho, that would fix a lot of problems in the short term, and when/if culling gets better stealth will still have it’s uses. It will just be more balanced.

Nothing needs buffing or nerfing. The c&d thing on walls is just stupid and should be fixed, but not surprising for ANet.

Hule.8794:

Well predator can be invisiblle all the time and Arnie killed him.

Arnold broke Predator’s stealth by doing damage.

dreztina.4820:

Hule.8794:

Well predator can be invisiblle all the time and Arnie killed him.

Arnold broke Predator’s stealth by doing damage.

lol @ both replies

dreztina.4820:

Arnold broke Predator’s stealth by doing damage.

Really? I thought that he downed him, then stealth breaks, predator as right engineer used skill nr.2 (bomb, or is that skill 3?) so Arnie run away.

At least thats how i kill thiefs. He pops up, I evade and start doing dmg with autoattack while more dodging. He hides, so I start doing big dmg at place he was. Then some downed thief appers, so i kill him.

And in keep, there is always a way how to find a thief. But you must look carefully. If you step into door, look to lords room, noones there and turn away, its your fault.

Hule.8794:

Well predator can be invisiblle all the time and Arnie killed him.

Even the predator would leave behind a blood trail when he is wounded. The thieves and mesmers don’t.

Its easily countered. Make a warrior and run around the keep swinging at the air. If your adrenaline rises you’re onto something.

Deniara Devious.3948:

I love it when thief players defend their profession with most ridiculous comparisons and use the term “learn 2 play”.

Stealth is utterly broken, especially in WvWvW. Stealth = unfun for all those who are not using it. WvWvW would be better with the stealth and teleportation mechanisms completely removed or reworked.

GW2 has game mechanisms similar to FPS game. Now imagine a FPS game, where there are several professions. One profession, let’s call it infiltrator, can become invisible when he wants and no enemy action can reveal him from invisibility. Even if infiltrator walks into a cloud of smoke or enters water or enemy makes him bleed like hell, infiltrator is still invisible. And enemy with a rifle cannot even target him. While he is invisible the rifle bullets just don’t hit him even if you guess his exact location. He also does huge damage, his attacks are blindingly fast and he can teleport as well, move 50% faster while being invisible. Then we have another profession, let’s call it soldier, who has better armor, higher health, but his high damage attacks are slowly telegraphed and very easily dodged. Would this game be balanced? Hell NO.

You can still hit players in stealth.
Your channeled skills still hit (provided LoS and range) even if you loose target
Thief stealth can be countered with blocks/aegis/reflects/retaliation and a series of other working game mechanics.
You can take a thief out of stealth most of the time, mesmers and engis do all the time…

All in all, you should “acquire better knowledge to improve your strategies when performing on the game”, since you dont like l2p

lLobo.7960:

Deniara Devious.3948:

I love it when thief players defend their profession with most ridiculous comparisons and use the term “learn 2 play”.

Stealth is utterly broken, especially in WvWvW. Stealth = unfun for all those who are not using it. WvWvW would be better with the stealth and teleportation mechanisms completely removed or reworked.

GW2 has game mechanisms similar to FPS game. Now imagine a FPS game, where there are several professions. One profession, let’s call it infiltrator, can become invisible when he wants and no enemy action can reveal him from invisibility. Even if infiltrator walks into a cloud of smoke or enters water or enemy makes him bleed like hell, infiltrator is still invisible. And enemy with a rifle cannot even target him. While he is invisible the rifle bullets just don’t hit him even if you guess his exact location. He also does huge damage, his attacks are blindingly fast and he can teleport as well, move 50% faster while being invisible. Then we have another profession, let’s call it soldier, who has better armor, higher health, but his high damage attacks are slowly telegraphed and very easily dodged. Would this game be balanced? Hell NO.

You can still hit players in stealth.
Your channeled skills still hit (provided LoS and range) even if you loose target
Thief stealth can be countered with blocks/aegis/reflects/retaliation and a series of other working game mechanics.
You can take a thief out of stealth most of the time, mesmers and engis do all the time…

All in all, you should “acquire better knowledge to improve your strategies when performing on the game”, since you dont like l2p

Yeah. In fact only a handful of skills in this game require a target to work.

All of Thief’s shared stealths are on cooldowns so they both must sustain themselves at certain points, and 3 of thief’s stealth skills show up when used, so they’d still need a place less traveled. So this trick takes planning an coordination. Both between each other and with their strike team. So long as they aren’t using an exploit hiding place this is fine.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Doomdesire.9365:

Columba.9730:

random smoke aoes are nearly impossible to see and keeps are huge places.

Theres a big red circle to help point it out for you. If you can’t see it and your only argument is “the place is too big!”

Then it’s a L2P issue.

I love it when thief players defend their profession with most ridiculous comparisons and use the term “learn 2 play”.

Stealth is utterly broken, especially in WvWvW. Stealth = unfun for all those who are not using it. WvWvW would be better with the stealth and teleportation mechanisms completely removed or reworked.

GW2 has game mechanisms similar to FPS game. Now imagine a FPS game, where there are several professions. One profession, let’s call it infiltrator, can become invisible when he wants and no enemy action can reveal him from invisibility. Even if infiltrator walks into a cloud of smoke or enters water or enemy makes him bleed like hell, infiltrator is still invisible. And enemy with a rifle cannot even target him. While he is invisible the rifle bullets just don’t hit him even if you guess his exact location. He also does huge damage, his attacks are blindingly fast and he can teleport as well, move 50% faster while being invisible. Then we have another profession, let’s call it soldier, who has better armor, higher health, but his high damage attacks are slowly telegraphed and very easily dodged. Would this game be balanced? Hell NO.

Let’s give the soldier class grenades, rockets, and the ability to call in airstrikes (infiltrator obviously will not have this ability).

Oh and limit the infiltrator to melee, and give him a ranged option that offers far lower burst but better sustained damage.

I think that comparison works out better. But seriously, l2p. Backstab thief is a very gimmicky build, kind of like hundred blades warrior. Just AOE or Area CC the thief to death. Ground target abilities are also awesome.

And also all channeled skills follow thief in stealth. Just for example, volley from warriors. Certain other things follow thief into stealth as well, like binding blade. Also, you can burst down a glass cannon thief as quickly as he can burst you down.

lLobo.7960:

You can still hit players in stealth.
Your channeled skills still hit (provided LoS and range) even if you loose target
Thief stealth can be countered with blocks/aegis/reflects/retaliation and a series of other working game mechanics.
You can take a thief out of stealth most of the time, mesmers and engis do all the time…

All in all, you should “acquire better knowledge to improve your strategies when performing on the game”, since you dont like l2p

It should be obvious from my signature that I play all the 8 professions. And despite not being in a party nor relying on my team mates I kill much more enemy invaders than I die myself (usually 1:10-1:15 kill rate in euro tier #1). You don’t need to explain me how the profession mechanisms work. I know very well that channeled skills like warrior’s rifle volley or greatsword 100blades will continue to hit the stealthed enemy if the enemy wasn’t yet stealthed when the attack was initiated. And AoE (if you guess the location) will damage the theif. But to call this a counter to stealth is a bad joke.

I can kill bad thieves in WvWvW. The moment I see them use their shadow refuge, I just spam AoE attacks there. This assumes the thief is so dumb that he doesn’t carry any stunbreak and literally stands in my red AoE circles for over 10 seconds (“learn 2 play” issue ). But the thing is: one fast AoE will not down a glass cannon thief with 13k-15k health pool. Good thieves have shadowstep: a stun break and 1200 range targetable teleport. If they notice that they are AoE:d during their shadow refuge, they just teleport away while still being invisible and then lurk away or use heartseeker to quickly jump away. End result: a good thief escaped and can come back half a minute later, while my stun break skill is still on cooldown.

Anybody who has played D&D or Pathfinder RPG at very high level (epic level) knows that teleportation (teleport without error, greater teleport, gate, dimension door) and invisibility (greater invisiblity) are hugely problematic spells and spell-like abilities. Basically so game breaking things that some Game Masters put house rule restrictions or make anti-magic common place to counter the constant teleportation spam and constant invisibility. If you can teleport into enemy’s castle, why to build walls in the 1st place? To partially solve this problem both D&D and Pathfinder RPG have hard counters to invisibility and teleport: teleport anchor (preventing teleport), anti-magic (preventing any magic), see invisibility, true seeing, invisibility purge and so on.

In most other MMORPGs a stealthed person becomes visible if he is subject to any damage or suffering from damage over time effect, such as bleeding. This is logical and should be implemented to GW2 as well.

Are you claiming that all these other games have inferior game design and that their game designers were not as smart as the geniuses of Arenanet?

I think Anet failed. Rogue was highly problematic in WoW pvp before the nerfs. Stealth was always know to be a fun killer mechanism in games. Game designers should have learned their lesson. Now it feels that this game has been designed by novices. They forgot all the good stuff from Guild Wars 1 and didn’t study the existing other MMORPGs properly.

If thief, mesmer and D/D elementalist would not be so easy “I always have a free get away card” professions, you would not see so many of them in the game, but you do see them in plenty.

Please see these great WoW videos. Notice similarities how thief players defend their “balanced” profession in these forums?
World of RogueCraft – Episode 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u55vHURPQSw
World of RogueCraft – Episode 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-KMOc_y7xo

Deniara Devious.3948:

Doomdesire.9365:

Columba.9730:

random smoke aoes are nearly impossible to see and keeps are huge places.

Theres a big red circle to help point it out for you. If you can’t see it and your only argument is “the place is too big!”

Then it’s a L2P issue.

I love it when thief players defend their profession with most ridiculous comparisons and use the term “learn 2 play”.

Stealth is utterly broken, especially in WvWvW. Stealth = unfun for all those who are not using it. WvWvW would be better with the stealth and teleportation mechanisms completely removed or reworked.

GW2 has game mechanisms similar to FPS game. Now imagine a FPS game, where there are several professions. One profession, let’s call it infiltrator, can become invisible when he wants and no enemy action can reveal him from invisibility. Even if infiltrator walks into a cloud of smoke or enters water or enemy makes him bleed like hell, infiltrator is still invisible. And enemy with a rifle cannot even target him. While he is invisible the rifle bullets just don’t hit him even if you guess his exact location. He also does huge damage, his attacks are blindingly fast and he can teleport as well, move 50% faster while being invisible. Then we have another profession, let’s call it soldier, who has better armor, higher health, but his high damage attacks are slowly telegraphed and very easily dodged. Would this game be balanced? Hell NO.

Fair point.
In other games (WoW, Warhammer online) thieves could only stealth a once or twice, and LOSE THEIR STEALTH WHEN ATTACKED <—- which is a brilliant idea, but I doubt aNet will consider it. Also the 50% speed in stealth is Bull, since they don’t even get slowed for going in stealth.

When thieves are having a bad duel, they use their house, heartseeker leap away, and jog with 50% boost speed, and when they are revealed, they are half a mile down the road.

So basically they can reset the fight anytime they want.

Too many rookies here complaining about thieves. The only overpowered thief in existence is the pistol/dagger bleed & stealth spam build. The burst one has many counters and can easily screw up, while that p/d nonsense survives through a nuclear war. I’m not sure if any class, except perhaps ele, could win a decent p/d in a fair duel.
But even then, that’s a duel. That thief isn’t very effective when it comes to roaming as say duo because it deals damage slowly and offers little to no support.

So basically they can reset the fight anytime they want.

Yes they can and that is intented. You must finish the thief at once or he will get away just like a thief in the real life would. The game tries to mimic that: thiefs are hated, dishonorable and slippery. Seriously, if you roam around alone, don’t expect a fair fight.

Are you claiming that all these other games have inferior game design and that their game designers were not as smart as the geniuses of Arenanet?

Probably the dumbest straw-man I’ve ever seen on this board xD.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Doomdesire.9365:

Columba.9730:

random smoke aoes are nearly impossible to see and keeps are huge places.

Theres a big red circle to help point it out for you. If you can’t see it and your only argument is “the place is too big!”

Then it’s a L2P issue.

I love it when thief players defend their profession with most ridiculous comparisons and use the term “learn 2 play”.

Stealth is utterly broken, especially in WvWvW. Stealth = unfun for all those who are not using it. WvWvW would be better with the stealth and teleportation mechanisms completely removed or reworked.

GW2 has game mechanisms similar to FPS game. Now imagine a FPS game, where there are several professions. One profession, let’s call it infiltrator, can become invisible when he wants and no enemy action can reveal him from invisibility. Even if infiltrator walks into a cloud of smoke or enters water or enemy makes him bleed like hell, infiltrator is still invisible. And enemy with a rifle cannot even target him. While he is invisible the rifle bullets just don’t hit him even if you guess his exact location. He also does huge damage, his attacks are blindingly fast and he can teleport as well, move 50% faster while being invisible. Then we have another profession, let’s call it soldier, who has better armor, higher health, but his high damage attacks are slowly telegraphed and very easily dodged. Would this game be balanced? Hell NO.

Its the attitude of a typical thief and shows how intelligent they actually are. Most thieves prefer to call you noob for not being able to combat their broken stealth mechanic instead of giving insight on how to fight a thief. That also shows how mature most thieves are too – not very.

Henrik.7560:

In other games (WoW, Warhammer online) thieves could only stealth a once or twice, and LOSE THEIR STEALTH WHEN ATTACKED <—- which is a brilliant idea, but I doubt aNet will consider it.

Well, other game developers actually know balance. Rogues in WoW were a great class in PvE and PvP and didn’t need a broken stealth while in combat every 12 secs mechanic to be good. GW2 thieves are pansies compared to other games. They need to lean on the crutch that is stealth every 12 secs while in combat to be any good at PvP. The fact so many thieves are horrible at PvE is proof that this class is really not all that great and only reason they excel so well at PvP is because they can stealth mid-combat. You will even see thieves say “we’re not that great at huge groups in WvW”. So the point of a thief in WvW is to tag a keep waypoint, randomly kill solo people that are just traversing the map to get somewhere and take camps? Out of those 3, taking out camps is the only useful, non cheap one.

Deniara Devious.3948:

GW2 has game mechanisms similar to FPS game. Now imagine a FPS game, where there are several professions. One profession, let’s call it infiltrator, can become invisible when he wants and no enemy action can reveal him from invisibility. Even if infiltrator walks into a cloud of smoke or enters water or enemy makes him bleed like hell, infiltrator is still invisible. And enemy with a rifle cannot even target him. While he is invisible the rifle bullets just don’t hit him even if you guess his exact location. He also does huge damage, his attacks are blindingly fast and he can teleport as well, move 50% faster while being invisible. Then we have another profession, let’s call it soldier, who has better armor, higher health, but his high damage attacks are slowly telegraphed and very easily dodged. Would this game be balanced? Hell NO.

Err… Team Fortress 2? One of the best FPS games out there.

Master of Timespace.2548:

Are you claiming that all these other games have inferior game design and that their game designers were not as smart as the geniuses of Arenanet?

Probably the dumbest straw-man I’ve ever seen on this board xD.

That is not a straw-man as it is not a argument but a question. See in english language the “?” denotes a question. Well using it at end of his group of words now makes that sentence a question. So it really can not be a argument. So all you do is say No I did not blah blah blah and his question is answered.

Doomdesire.9365:

If the thief is using the CnD wall exploit, then it’s an exploit.

if only you could prove it but sadly it’s hard to take a picture of an invisible person.

see that patch of air? that’s the thief! ban him!

CHIPS.6018:

Hule.8794:

Well predator can be invisiblle all the time and Arnie killed him.

Even the predator would leave behind a blood trail when he is wounded. The thieves and mesmers don’t.

We don’t have time to bleed.

Stealth in any PvP game is just a bad idea on so many levels. I wonder when game developers will figure out stealth can not ever be balanced ? It’s either to powerful or totally useless and causes nothing but problems for both themselves and their customers / players.

nekos.2584:

Stealth in any PvP game is just a bad idea on so many levels. I wonder when game developers will figure out stealth can not ever be balanced ? It’s either to powerful or totally useless and causes nothing but problems for both themselves and their customers / players.

I guess Arenanet is behind the times when it comes to MMOs. They’ve shown quite a few times that they haven’t learned from mistakes other MMOs made early on. Its ok though because Arenanet is new to the MMO market right?

Magiofdeath.2745:

nekos.2584:

Stealth in any PvP game is just a bad idea on so many levels. I wonder when game developers will figure out stealth can not ever be balanced ? It’s either to powerful or totally useless and causes nothing but problems for both themselves and their customers / players.

I guess Arenanet is behind the times when it comes to MMOs. They’ve shown quite a few times that they haven’t learned from mistakes other MMOs made early on. Its ok though because Arenanet is new to the MMO market right?

They are not new to it they just suck at making and balancing MMO’s and i point you to GW2 as an example.

I’d say fix the c/d wall exploit and make the 10 minute afk timeout have no workaround when you are dead. I personally have no problem sitting on a mesmer’s body for 10 minutes. But once the 10 minutes are up and the body is still there I get really annoyed.

As far as a thief/mesmer combo simply hiding in a keep while still alive, I say GG, sweep better.

There’s a difference between it “not being an exploit” and “working as intended”. Just becasue its not an exploit doesn’t mean it is working as intended. And I can’t believe that this is how Anet intended Keeps to be taken. Its just lame.

Solution: Remove Portal from WvW. Or at least make it so it cannot work through walls.

Get revealed when struck or taking damage. Stealth is way too forgiving.

My guild and i always find and kill the thief & mesmers without problems. It’s easy when you know their mechanics.

i think this is, basically, a l2p issue.

nekos.2584:

Stealth in any PvP game is just a bad idea on so many levels. I wonder when game developers will figure out stealth can not ever be balanced ? It’s either to powerful or totally useless and causes nothing but problems for both themselves and their customers / players.

Actually, most games make it so the smallest bit of damage, even from an environmental hazard, can throw you out of stealth. Plus they SHOWED THE NUMBERS whenever somebody in stealth is hit. Show the numbers when they’re hit, and it fixes the problem because you can at least see where the thief’s relative position is due to damage dealt.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Doomdesire.9365:

Columba.9730:

random smoke aoes are nearly impossible to see and keeps are huge places.

Theres a big red circle to help point it out for you. If you can’t see it and your only argument is “the place is too big!”

Then it’s a L2P issue.

I love it when thief players defend their profession with most ridiculous comparisons and use the term “learn 2 play”.

Stealth is utterly broken, especially in WvWvW. Stealth = unfun for all those who are not using it. WvWvW would be better with the stealth and teleportation mechanisms completely removed or reworked.

GW2 has game mechanisms similar to FPS game. Now imagine a FPS game, where there are several professions. One profession, let’s call it infiltrator, can become invisible when he wants and no enemy action can reveal him from invisibility. Even if infiltrator walks into a cloud of smoke or enters water or enemy makes him bleed like hell, infiltrator is still invisible. And enemy with a rifle cannot even target him. While he is invisible the rifle bullets just don’t hit him even if you guess his exact location. He also does huge damage, his attacks are blindingly fast and he can teleport as well, move 50% faster while being invisible. Then we have another profession, let’s call it soldier, who has better armor, higher health, but his high damage attacks are slowly telegraphed and very easily dodged. Would this game be balanced? Hell NO.

Yea what if they were invisible and could one shot anyone, Team Fortress much? L2P issue. Anet even said new players have trouble with Thieves but it gets better at higher skill levels (fancy talk for l2p issue). If one isn’t capable of improving one will always think thieves are OP.

Also this little bit “While he is invisible the rifle bullets just don’t hit him even if you guess his exact location.” is just not true in GW2 so if you are hinting that’s how it works here, you don’t understand mechanics which might be a large part of your problem. Again, points to L2P.

Dual.8953:

lLobo.7960:

Deniara Devious.3948:

I love it when thief players defend their profession with most ridiculous comparisons and use the term “learn 2 play”.

Stealth is utterly broken, especially in WvWvW. Stealth = unfun for all those who are not using it. WvWvW would be better with the stealth and teleportation mechanisms completely removed or reworked.

GW2 has game mechanisms similar to FPS game. Now imagine a FPS game, where there are several professions. One profession, let’s call it infiltrator, can become invisible when he wants and no enemy action can reveal him from invisibility. Even if infiltrator walks into a cloud of smoke or enters water or enemy makes him bleed like hell, infiltrator is still invisible. And enemy with a rifle cannot even target him. While he is invisible the rifle bullets just don’t hit him even if you guess his exact location. He also does huge damage, his attacks are blindingly fast and he can teleport as well, move 50% faster while being invisible. Then we have another profession, let’s call it soldier, who has better armor, higher health, but his high damage attacks are slowly telegraphed and very easily dodged. Would this game be balanced? Hell NO.

You can still hit players in stealth.
Your channeled skills still hit (provided LoS and range) even if you loose target
Thief stealth can be countered with blocks/aegis/reflects/retaliation and a series of other working game mechanics.
You can take a thief out of stealth most of the time, mesmers and engis do all the time…

All in all, you should “acquire better knowledge to improve your strategies when performing on the game”, since you dont like l2p

Yeah. In fact only a handful of skills in this game require a target to work.

All of Thief’s shared stealths are on cooldowns so they both must sustain themselves at certain points, and 3 of thief’s stealth skills show up when used, so they’d still need a place less traveled. So this trick takes planning an coordination. Both between each other and with their strike team. So long as they aren’t using an exploit hiding place this is fine.

Given we know where they are.

So the point of a thief in WvW is to tag a keep waypoint, randomly kill solo people that are just traversing the map to get somewhere and take camps? Out of those 3, taking out camps is the only useful, non cheap one.

Actually, all 3 are useful. In addition to this, we also like to hide out near camps and kill yaks, go around the zerg fight and BS your backline and heartseeker jump you if you are low on health and think you might be able to make it to the tower portal.

The kill solo people walking around WvW to smell the roses are just as likely to get get themselves killed by a d/d ele, or that group of five coming to flip your camp. if you don’t pay attention to your surroundings, you might die. And seriously, if you are a thief and all you do is solo kill loners you need to l2WvW.

The keep door contesting is a bit cheap, yea, so no argument there, but I thought I read Anet is already working on this?

Mattargul.9235:

And seriously, if you are a thief and all you do is solo kill loners you need to l2WvW.

I’m a Thief and all I do is camp the EB Jump puzzle and Peg Leg people off the top to their death. If it is a Stealth pooler caught by tripwire that’s even better. My buddy and I laugh REALLY hard doing it so it seems like a good way to spend our time in WvW. It’s probably good for our health as well.

If they keep on track with the current setup, I think in about 6 months most of WvW will be conducted via 3 classes: Thieves, Mesmers, and D/D Eles. I mean really it’s all you need to be honest. Maybe the occasional necro to be the designated speed bump.

Magiofdeath.2745:

Well, other game developers actually know balance. Rogues in WoW were a great class in PvE and PvP and didn’t need a broken stealth while in combat every 12 secs mechanic to be good. GW2 thieves are pansies compared to other games. They need to lean on the crutch that is stealth every 12 secs while in combat to be any good at PvP. The fact so many thieves are horrible at PvE is proof that this class is really not all that great and only reason they excel so well at PvP is because they can stealth mid-combat. You will even see thieves say “we’re not that great at huge groups in WvW”. So the point of a thief in WvW is to tag a keep waypoint, randomly kill solo people that are just traversing the map to get somewhere and take camps? Out of those 3, taking out camps is the only useful, non cheap one.

There’s a lot of wrong in this post. Thieves in this game are far more balanced than rogues in WoW. I guess you must not have been around for the permanent stunlocking rogues. Those were a real treat to deal with.

Thieves serve other purposes than the ones you listed. I like to put pressure on the tail end of a zerg to either down a few people and/or force as many people as I can to pay attention to me, because if they are looking at me then they aren’t defending against my compatriots any more. I feel like that serves a good purpose.

Also, we don’t lean on stealth because we are “pansies” (good job on making yourself look like a petulant child with that statement though) we rely on it because of the way that our class is designed. If I could go toe to toe with some of these classes and not have to rely on stealth I would gladly do it, but the sad reality is if we don’t use it we won’t have a prayer for surviving. Argue against that point all you want, but I am content that what I have put down matched up with reality from empirical evidence.

I know of the stunlocking you’re talking about. I see little difference, however, when thieves hit a few skills and bring down an opponent’s whole HP bar from stealth. Instead of stunlocking from 100 to 0, you stealth attacked from 100 to 0. So I guess every person saying that stealth in this game is a broken mechanic is wrong? Oh hey, you play a thief, of course you don’t think its broken. 90% of thieves say its not broken.

So you’re ok with going toe to toe with your opponent when they have to make an educated guess on 1) if you are running away or preparing an attack or 2) where you are going to attack from (usually the backside)?

Daokitten618:

Its easily countered. Make a warrior and run around the keep swinging at the air. If your adrenaline rises you’re onto something.

I would not say this is easily countered but nonetheless a good suggestion. +1

Teamkiller.4315:

Deniara Devious.3948:

Doomdesire.9365:

Columba.9730:

random smoke aoes are nearly impossible to see and keeps are huge places.

Theres a big red circle to help point it out for you. If you can’t see it and your only argument is “the place is too big!”

Then it’s a L2P issue.

I love it when thief players defend their profession with most ridiculous comparisons and use the term “learn 2 play”.

Stealth is utterly broken, especially in WvWvW. Stealth = unfun for all those who are not using it. WvWvW would be better with the stealth and teleportation mechanisms completely removed or reworked.

GW2 has game mechanisms similar to FPS game. Now imagine a FPS game, where there are several professions. One profession, let’s call it infiltrator, can become invisible when he wants and no enemy action can reveal him from invisibility. Even if infiltrator walks into a cloud of smoke or enters water or enemy makes him bleed like hell, infiltrator is still invisible. And enemy with a rifle cannot even target him. While he is invisible the rifle bullets just don’t hit him even if you guess his exact location. He also does huge damage, his attacks are blindingly fast and he can teleport as well, move 50% faster while being invisible. Then we have another profession, let’s call it soldier, who has better armor, higher health, but his high damage attacks are slowly telegraphed and very easily dodged. Would this game be balanced? Hell NO.

Let’s give the soldier class grenades, rockets, and the ability to call in airstrikes (infiltrator obviously will not have this ability).

Oh and limit the infiltrator to melee, and give him a ranged option that offers far lower burst but better sustained damage.

I think that comparison works out better. But seriously, l2p. Backstab thief is a very gimmicky build, kind of like hundred blades warrior. Just AOE or Area CC the thief to death. Ground target abilities are also awesome.

And also all channeled skills follow thief in stealth. Just for example, volley from warriors. Certain other things follow thief into stealth as well, like binding blade. Also, you can burst down a glass cannon thief as quickly as he can burst you down.

This thread is about T&M portaling their whole zerg into a keep. Leave the discussion of fights elsewhere please.

If you got killed 100 to 0 in the initial burst attack then I think it’s probably time you invested in some Vitality or Toughness because there’s no way that happened if you’re not built as a glass cannon. I guess if that’s the case then yea you wouldn’t see a difference but like I said then it’s your gear that the problem not thieves.

Personally I would prefer to not be stunlocked over fighting something that goes into the stealth a lot. The key difference is, if you have control of your character you have a fighting chance. The thieves you are describing are built without defense which means a well timed sneeze (even in stealth) will ruin a thief (obviously this is humor, but it’s not so far off from the truth). There’s a reason thieves like to say it’s a L2P issue, and that’s because it is. I have been literally torn apart by people who know how to play against a thief. So based on actual experience I can conclude that if someone else is so easily able to destroy me and another person comes along (you) and makes the claims you did then obviously you are doing something wrong. Take that for what you will, but the only way this will stop happening to you is if you change something about what you’re doing.

I am in fact very OK with that…the same way I’m OK with getting killed by mesmer’s shatter mechanics, or a guardian’s area control abilities. That’s how the mechanics of the game work for that class. It’s class diversity man and it makes playing the game more interesting. If every melee class was a stand there and spam buttons mechanic then there wouldn’t be a point in having a guardian or thief. If every ranged class was as straightforward as a ranger then the Mesmer wouldn’t exist. That educated guess is part of playing against a thief and if your gear was where it should be then it wouldn’t be an immediate fatal mistake when you guess wrong, and if you know that the attack is likely going to come from then an intelligent person would know exactly where they need to defend.

If your response to this is anything but silence or acknowledgement that you probably need to step it up in PvP then there’s obviously no convincing you using logic and you’re a lost cause.

Video games aren’t supposed to be mindless auto pilot forms of entertainment, especially not in games that involve you playing against another human being.

CHIPS.6018:

This thread is about T&M portaling their whole zerg into a keep. Leave the discussion of fights elsewhere please.

You’re right, I apologize everyone. I got carried away trying to defend game complexity…probably wasting my time. Carry on all. :-P

boondocksaint.6529:

Daokitten618:

Its easily countered. Make a warrior and run around the keep swinging at the air. If your adrenaline rises you’re onto something.

I would not say this is easily countered but nonetheless a good suggestion. +1

Easier solution, all melee attack chains progress when you hit someone who is stealthed. So if you run around hitting air and you see your melee chain move to the next stage you hit something.

And I am not a fan of thieves but it isn’t that bad to find a thief and mesmer hiding. They have to use some obvious animations to stealth that often. The tactic of killing a mesmer and having a thief exploit the wall then res is an issue though.

Ok, fair enough Harbinger. I do run PVT on my necro, and while 1 burst set does not down me, it does get me to around 50% hp. I don’t generally have that many problems with thieves on my necro, except when 2 catch me off guard and 2v1 me, which is somewhat hard to combat, especially if you’re caught off guard. That being said, I still think the stealth mechanic needs to be reviewed in some form, because it is broken, and obviously the amount of people agreeing with it being broken (even some thieves), it does prove it needs some reworking. In 1v1, thieves are probably the more powerful class, because of how often they can stealth. Take that as you will, but that’s my opinion and apparently many other players’ opinions. I guess we all need to “learn to play” (kinda getting tired of that argument really).

I’ve killed my fair share of thieves and mesmers in the past.. Even killed them while paired up. The thing people need to get through to their heads is that you’ll need beat a thief/mesmer while stuck in the warrior mindset. Learn what your enemy is capable of, figure out what animation does what.. And practice.

Come back after you’ve tried the above. If not tried, your opinion is invalid to begin with.