Guild Wars 2

Leger.3724:

The perma stealth isn’t the problem. The problem is there’s one counter and it sucks.

AOE doesn’t reveal them, damage doesn’t reveal them. A 10 honor badge joke of an item does – and it barely works.

Give some options outside of permastealth that output high damage – perhaps lots of blinks/teleports. Don’t allow them to finish off downed state players in stealth.

Giving them other options won’t do much if, as you’ve already stated, permastealth has no viable counter.

The solution is to make it possible to in some way counter stealth itself, like flicker-on-hit, retaining condition particle effects, etc

Though this would only create other problems- the best thing to do in this situation is for Anet to redesign stealth from the bottom up. There is no way to balance it properly as a boon (at least not on thief)- it should be a different type of mechanic. (Or be made thief’s special ability, separated from boon-stealth that other classes would keep)

Sunflowers.1729:

Amurond.4590:

I beat 90% of thieves I run into on my Guardian (a small % of this would include those that run away/call in the support) however the very good ones still cause me some problems. That’s working as intended imo, better players beating lesser players. I have high DPS and an abundance of retaliation though so the glass cannon types are laughable for the way I run my Guardian.

However, I think the main problem with thieves above all else is their ability to dis-engage the fight whenever the hell they want and come back with pretty much full health. Their high mobility makes them very hard to successfully keep pinned down so they re-engage the fight back at full health while you’re still being beaten on for the second they’re in your range.

This is coming from the perspective of a guardian though whose range DPS is lols and general mobility is pretty weak.

I don’t know about you but they would have to be really terrible Thief players to die to any Guardian

How to escape from a Guardian
1) Press Shadowstep
2) If Guardian somehow catches up to you, use Shadow Return.
3) If he still is on your tail, stealth and run somewhere.

Simple and fail proof. I don’t even use Shadowstep, and can count on one hand the number of times I’ve died to a solo Guardian. Obviously I don’t always win, but dying is just out of the question.

I’m not going to write a long post about why roaming Thieves are broken, but it really should be obvious from the massive number of Thieves that something is wrong.

Of the ones I successfully kill:

Some are downed on their first assault on me (the complete glass cannons) when I put my symbol down and hit whirling wrath (I am a DPS heavy guard).

Some stick with me because I’m getting low and don’t get away quick enough, I change to scepter and although it sucks I can immobilise them and finish them off with scepter 2.

Some again stick with me because I’m getting low but underestimate how much damage I can and get downed instead of me.

But yeah the rest pretty much just run away if they’re in trouble. For what it’s worth, and maybe I play in some bizarro universe, most thiefs I “beat” in a 1v1 stick around for death rather than run away.

I would just like to add that my main is a thief, and I’m scared of nerfs, so I think they are fine.

Dont nerf them anet, they’re fine.

oZii.2864:

Aaruhn.7049:

fix it. No reason that a class should have so much mitigation (i.e. stealth) in it and damage burst. No way a class should be able to go into a 20 man zerg without fear of dying. Get in trouble? Go into stealth and run.

Mitigation =! Stealth

OP doesn’t know what mitigation is therefore I can’t take his thread seriously.

You mean because you’re being pedantic you cant take his thread seriously? You understand what he means, so why pretend you dont?

Iluth.6875:

I would just like to add that my main is a thief, and I’m scared of nerfs, so I think they are fine.

Dont nerf them anet, they’re fine.

anyone who mains a class is going to defend it. simple as that, but what i ask of you, is to make an alt and see just how OP your class is.

Here’s something to chew on for those crying for a stealth nerf: It makes the thief momentarily much more survivable, but in those seconds you’re also completely safe from them. So use the time, lay an effect field or two, buff yourself, switch weapons, use the terrain, escape into the water. If the thief was at high health count the seconds down and after 3-4 dodge.
If the thief was low and stealths in 9 cases out of 10 he’s fleeing. Yes sadly you probably wont get your loot bag, but if he was most other classes you wouldn’t have gotten that bag just as easily as with that thief if he hadn’t stealthed to begin with, don’t forget that.

wanna kill a thief in wvw?
Got AOE? if not forget about it. 5 points in SA will make you feel useless to a thief.
If you have AOE, you also need good dps/burst, thieves are at the top of sustainability.
If you got AOE and dps, chances are if you are squishy, thief most likely will get you first.
Even if you are tough and bursty at the same time, which is quite possible for an dd ele or condition engi, as long as thief has shadow refuge, s/he can still reset a fight which you are already winning. Even if thief dont have SR, s/he can still do many other things such as smokefied/leap combo or CnD at wild animal/wall to reset the fight.
Is thief possible to kill? Definitely yes, it requires a good sized zerg to kill a sober thief when the zerg is lucky.
In general, it requires significantly more skills to escape from a zerg if you play a ranger or any other classes while the same task for a thief requires 0 skill at all.

Thieves are fine in spvp.
They are ok in WVW zerg fight.
Way too op in small group fight or wvw roaming.
It takes too much effort to kill a roaming thief while the thief can tag the WP, CnD occupied siege, CnD tower wall and ress dead mesmers and etc. The risk/benefit ratio is ridicules.
Thief provides way too much support in small group fight than other classes. Ability of safekeeping downed allies is priceless and key to wipe the other group.
If you stay with the zerg 100% of the time, yes, thief is ok in wvw.
But if you roam either alone or in small groups, thief is hella op.

Jamais vu.5284:

Here’s something to chew on for those crying for a stealth nerf: It makes the thief momentarily much more survivable, but in those seconds you’re also completely safe from them. So use the time, lay an effect field or two, buff yourself, switch weapons, use the terrain, escape into the water. If the thief was at high health count the seconds down and after 3-4 dodge.
If the thief was low and stealths in 9 cases out of 10 he’s fleeing. Yes sadly you probably wont get your loot bag, but if he was most other classes you wouldn’t have gotten that bag just as easily as with that thief if he hadn’t stealthed to begin with, don’t forget that.

… sadly you won’t get the loot bag? In other words you can’t win vs a thief. In small groups or 1v1s that aren’t staged.

You can ‘draw’ or lose… oh and maybe 1 time in 50 the thief overcommits and you get a lootbag of junk. If the thief was most other classes, I’d win.

Whats funny is I have had players playing thief rage when I stay in the area they are obviously going to try to take, when they try to stealth and run away, threats of reporting me etc cause I stay by the camp they are trying to take, I think thief players depend way too much on stealth, and the other mechanics possible with thief are overlooked. If stealth was tuned down a notch, it would encourage wider builds and creativity with the thief, which has more to offer than just stealth and run away.

The Game Slayer.7632:

Iluth.6875:

I would just like to add that my main is a thief, and I’m scared of nerfs, so I think they are fine.

Dont nerf them anet, they’re fine.

anyone who mains a class is going to defend it. simple as that, but what i ask of you, is to make an alt and see just how OP your class is.

I thought it was pretty obvious by my post that I was being sarcastic.

I’ve played all the classes. And traditionally always been a rogue/thief, but the way they work in GW2 is disgustingly overpowered and more importantly boring to play.

Stealth mechanics in an multiplayer online game are cheap and in every single game with a stealth class, which mostly attracts the same type of players (“luk mum aim invisibol”), PvP in any form suffers from that.

Show me one who likes Thiefs and I show you 20 who dont….

Nerf? No!

Class redesign? Yes!

Will it happen? No!

Solution? Ignore or stomp them to oblivion (which isnt that difficult) :>

iCryptik.1496:

Well I would agree stealth would be op if thieves had access to regeneration, protection, stability, retaliation, confusion…

Oh wait, they don’t.

If stealth was taken away from thieves, what you would have is a class without any defensive capabilities.

And if you took stealth away and gave them most of the boons that i mentioned, and gave them a pet, then you would have a ranger…

Some Regen on Health skill but not much. Btw you would have a class that is much more powerful than a Ranger thus it being better. If you want to talk about those boons – why does a frontline class (Warrior) not have any of those? Hmm? And Thieves can just run around any Warrior if they want to and just burst. Thieves are unbalanced and need tweaking at least.

Thiefs are definitely OP:

ha,
ha,
ha ha,
ha ha ha ha ha

Your video is good! But i killed 2 guardians and a thief yesterday on my thief.. now you could argue that they.. were bad lol but i would say the same of those thieves!

It all depends on the players..

Lets face it.. what i just said above is true! Unless its a d/p thief

they break the law of bad player /good player

NERF EM to the ground where they should/ would be IF they played any other class or weapon set BWAHAHA

read my above post to continue laughing with me (then read down from there)

Not my video.

Those thieves were reasonable. Just a good guardian is extremely strong in small group fights (not to mention can contribute a lot more to group fights than a thief can). The issue here you do touch on. The problem is the vast majority of WvW players are “scrubs”. I’ve also killed 3 thiefs on my Necro and multiple thiefs on my thief and multiple guardians on my thief etc etc. My approach to a guardian, I test him to see if hes good, usually in WvW he isn’t so I stick around and kill him. But the good ones will kill me and its only a matter of time before they do.

nirvana.8245:

Thiefs are definitely OP:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgAgqcgdZ5A

two noob thieves.
first they both over-committed to the fight
Charr uses dp pd build, which doesn’t make sense
Human hits on sanctuary like drunk probably doesn’t know what sanctuary is.
Later half of the match they were outfocused probably just trying to party and talk to the guardian.

Stop whining. Roll a thief. I thought Anet made that obvious by now.

I think if we merged this topic with all the others about this topic, it would probably break the forums.

I am not trying to make light of peoples issues particularly with d/p thieves which are annoying, but decent players don’t regularly die to thieves. Thieves generally cannot kill a player without a compromised solo build, poor play or being caught wounded. There are some awesome thieves that can clock most players, but those are great players who would probably do the same with any number of other classes.

Daecollo.9578:

….
Engineers have Burst/Mitigation.
….

One or the other, but we definitely not at the same time. And while it seems bursty to the guy who has played an Engie main, rolling a thief or a warrior is eye-opening.

Engie Burst at level 80 is like Warrior burst at level 20.