Guild Wars 2

So im curious if any have had thiefs kite 10 or so poeple around in WvW.
Honestly saw a guy pop out of stealth for 4 seconds do some burst, go back to stealth for 4 seconds, pop out do some burst immediatly back to stealth rinse repeat. If he ever got down to half health simply would stealth up and come out full health.The guy was simply not killable even with a group of 8-10 (pub not talking to each other) trying to kill him.

It seemed slightly OP that he could seriously go into stealth continously and he was never in any danger of dyeing when facing 10x the numbers. Unless you can get off a chain CC until he is dead there was no killing this guy. And that seems OP to me, considering his burst potential.
So my question is this…. how do you counter a thief that can go into stealth at any time, multiple times, non stop? Is this a bug? if not what counter is there? Its very frustrating so im asking for help in a 1v1, 2v1 and xv1 situation. FYI this is coming from a Mesmer and i thougth i had a ton of survivablity but this was just insane.

Did he kill any of you?

cc him and aoe around where he stealth. and swing wildy for lucky hits.

Haha, what server are you from, because it might have been me. Thieves can spec to gain regeneration every time they enter stealth, drop conditions while they are in stealth, and regenerate health in stealth (seperate from the boon). A good thief is hard to catch, and even harder to kill, and he’ll use every advantage he has to do so.

The best advice I can give you is to use load up conditions on him, confusion in particular annoys thiefs, and hope he doesn’t drop it in stealth. And don’t bother using cripple or chill, use stun or daze, if it’s a good thief, it’s likely he will have the trait that drops them when he dodges.

lol ima thief and i do this all the time. He’s either hybrid and does mediocre dmg w/ full set of exotic sets and an awesome pair of weapons, or pure burst dmg which sends fear into you, thus leaving u to hesitate. Mesmers are awesome, they are really good for everything.. You should prolly upgrade your armor or something with that mesmer set that lets you daze them for a longer amount of time and chain ur daze skills. Once doing so, any class including a thief is pretty much dead if they wanna solo u while there’s a group with u.

He actaully managed to kill me 1v1 later on, funny part is he was stealthed the entire time he was going for the killing blow. 75% health (downed) to dead with nothing near me. There was no way to kill him 1v1 either as he could disengage at any time. Only two outcomes: he runs away or i die.

Then make him run away, if you do enough burst to him or lock him down long enough, he’ll run if he thinks he is going to lose.

were you both lvl 80’s? Plus the element of surprise is a big advantage** Edit**

As mesmer I stealth a little bit later than 1 second after the thief, makes him unstealth bevor I do.

bladie.5084:

lol ima thief and i do this all the time. He’s either hybrid and does mediocre dmg w/ full set of exotic sets and an awesome pair of weapons, or pure burst dmg which sends fear into you, thus leaving u to hesitate. Mesmers are awesome, they are really good for everything.. You should prolly upgrade your armor or something with that mesmer set that lets you daze them for a longer amount of time and chain ur daze skills. Once doing so, any class including a thief is pretty much dead if they wanna solo u while there’s a group with u.

No its the way lag influences unstealthing in WvW. You can often attack for 2-3 seconds bevor the victim sees something he can target. If you abuse it, like attacking and stealthing again after 3 sec on a laggy WvW server its abuse and they can send in a ticket that a thief expoits stealth lag.

Probably a bug, but I’ve noticed that engineer turrets seem to “see” stealthed thieves. My net turret will magically net something invisible near me, then my rocket turret shoots it, then I flamethrower the area.

But just in general I think the secret is to be quick on the cripple conditions and then use a lot of AE. I imagine that escaping the wide-angle attack of a Guardian staff’s #1 ability would be difficult, as it’s even more effective than the flamethrower for doing wide area cone attacks. (I’d bet you had a guardian, and I’d bet they were trying to hit him with a hammer instead of the ultra-wide-angle staff…)

Im on Fort Aspenwood. my gear is mediocre at best around lvl 65-75 blue/green/ some yellow im lvl 80. I also had a bit to drink haha. But it just made me mad(jealouse?) that a class could go up against a large group pick off the squishies without fear of actually dieing. I understand a CC chain would be the end of him but what class wouldn’t it?
seriosuly kiting a large group within range of attacks and living because he can stealth non-stop is very annoying.

Slamz.5376:

Probably a bug, but I’ve noticed that engineer turrets seem to “see” stealthed thieves. My net turret will magically net something invisible near me, then my rocket turret shoots it, then I flamethrower the area.

I’ve made several posts about NPCs ignoring stealth. It happens with many player-created NPCs, like turrets, mesmer clones, even ranger pets sometimes. It’s EXTREMELY annoying to a thief that relies on stealth to stay alive.

As for the 1v10 situation described earlier, it sounds like a case of a high-survival specced thief harassing a group of disorganized and undergeared players. This isn’t an issue of the thief class being broken, it’s an issue of one player absolutely capitalizing on his classes’ strengths, and absolutely exploiting the weaknesses of the people he was up against.

Don’t confuse the two.

Furthermore, people need to acclimate themselves to the idea that skill plays so much more of a role in PvP for this game. It’s not a simple matter of who has more people(to an extent), or who has better gear. If a player is talented and skilled and practiced, he/she is going to be able to pull off some amazing feats like the one that was described.

Daze, Stun or knock down. If one of the allies in group could have pull this off the thief is as good as dead or to a point where he is forced to use his skills. If he’s forced to use the majority of his survivability skills, just chase him down. This game isn’t like other MMO’s where assassin classes can cloak as long as they want. Even if he specialized in cloaking, then that means his dmg shouldnt be as good as a pure bust dmg. So he’s either got a super good build that works his playstyle or ur just gonna have to hit up the books and do more studying.

Eliteseraph.4970:

I’ve made several posts about NPCs ignoring stealth. It happens with many player-created NPCs, like turrets, mesmer clones, even ranger pets sometimes. It’s EXTREMELY annoying to a thief that relies on stealth to stay alive.

As for the 1v10 situation described earlier, it sounds like a case of a high-survival specced thief harassing a group of disorganized and undergeared players. This isn’t an issue of the thief class being broken, it’s an issue of one player absolutely capitalizing on his classes’ strengths, and absolutely exploiting the weaknesses of the people he was up against.

Don’t confuse the two.

Mesmer pets dont attack you in stealth, they attack the milisecond when you unstealth, they do the same if you run into their attack range. Its working as intended.

I guess the OP discripes the problem that on a laggy WvW server people often see the unstealhing 2-3 AFTER the thief started to attack. Its a lag issue, people cant target the thief, they get attacked by thin air. You really think it has something to do with skill if you abuse lag? I would call it exploiting.

I play a lvl80 Thief in WvW. You’re overstating the length and amount of times he can stealth, it’s based on initiative (depending on weapon setup) and cooldowns… if you play a thief yourself to a reasonable level so you get used to those cooldowns and the length of the stealths you will find that Thieves are extremely easy to predict and counter in WvW, most of the time it’s a matter of counting to 3.

Thieves are incredibly mobile / slippy, so they can appear in the middle of a group and cause a bit of a ruckus, or if someone is low quickly snipe them, but they most definitely have to gtfo with a cooldown fairly soon afterwards it, then won’t be able to again for a little while.

Also if a Thief is stupid enough to use Shadow Refuge (the big house icon stealth) in PvP… as a tip to all those people who don’t know about that, it lasts 10 seconds, but if he leaves the field he is immediately unstealthed and has a debuff preventing him from restealthing for a couple more seconds… even worse, if he doesn’t leave the field, he is still there and capable of taking damage, so just keep spamming attacks / aoe into the area and you will get the kill.

Xonal.5426:

Also if a Thief is stupid enough to use Shadow Refuge (the big house icon stealth) in PvP… as a tip to all those people who don’t know about that, it lasts 10 seconds, but if he leaves the field he is immediately unstealthed and has a debuff preventing him from restealthing for a couple more seconds… even worse, if he doesn’t leave the field, he is still there and capable of taking damage, so just keep spamming attacks / aoe into the area and you will get the kill.

I was surprised the first time I used this. I had a bunch of enemies following me like blood hounds until refuge was the only skill I had left at my disposal. Placed it down at near death and stood in it. They all continued on my last known direction thinking I’ve run off in stealth again. It’s amazing how many people don’t know about it.

I always smile when I spam cluster bombs into refuge. Knowing I’m going to find find a downed thief soon after.

Thiefs in GW2 take all the annoying cowardly aspects of theifs in other MMOs and multiply them massively, Not only have the stupid burst, they also have stealth and can run away incredibly quickly.

So if their opening attack does not work, they can run with impunity. Only really really bad thiefs ever die.

They need sorting so that if they dont win the fight, they can be killed, they shoudl not be able to always get away.

Cameirus.8407:

They need sorting so that if they dont win the fight, they can be killed, they shoudl not be able to always get away.

Again though, cooldowns, soon as the Thief has none hes finished. His cooldowns are pretty much all based around him being able to GTFO as they’re squishy and clearly meant for a more ‘hit & run’ playstyle in WvW.

It’s THIEVES. Seriously, it’s so easy.

All stealth needs to go, and yes I am a thief

And I would say that Mesmer is much more OP than thief.

I used to troll some people from FR server. Just picked some shadowsteps, stunbreakers and short bow for teleport – they were chasing me for like 20 minutes in number of +10. They finally caught only because I lagged to death.

Was it me? Cause I am from dragonbrand and I do that all the time but usually score a few kills in the process. lol.

complaining about a talented thief? just knock him down and insta kill him lol

Mesmer pets dont attack you in stealth, they attack the milisecond when you unstealth, they do the same if you run into their attack range. Its working as intended.

I quite understand the difference between the server controlled pet attacking me the moment I destealth, and the pet sticking to me the ENTIRE time I’m stealthed. It doesn’t happen all the time, and I’ve noticed it a lot less recently. So maybe they fixed the issue.

Thiefs in GW2 take all the annoying cowardly aspects of theifs in other MMOs and multiply them massively, Not only have the stupid burst, they also have stealth and can run away incredibly quickly.

So if their opening attack does not work, they can run with impunity. Only really really bad thiefs ever die.

They need sorting so that if they dont win the fight, they can be killed, they shoudl not be able to always get away.

Cowardly? You’rekittenright! Ever heard the saying “All’s fair in love and war”? If you can destroy your enemy while denying them the chance to fight back, you’re honestly telling me that you wouldn’t do it? What, then, do you call stuns, knockdown, and blinds? What about kiting?

Stealth is just another tool in the massive array of abilities each player has to use. You don’t have to like it, but it is a part of the warfare of PvP combat.

Also, if a thief specs for pure damage, they are squishy as hell. They’re not gonna have the utility abilities that get them out of CC effects, so you can stun or immobilize them for the kill. And if they spec for survivability and escape, they’re probably aren’t going to hit anywhere near as hard as you seem to believe ALL thieves are capable of.

Before people go spouting off about how broken and overpowered or unbalanced ANY class is, try playing it for 40 levels or so to get some real understanding of how it works. The strengths, the weaknesses. Because I assure you that no class, not even thief, is the 1-shotting, ten foot tall, immortal god of destruction that some of you guys make them out to be.

Good players over bad players. There is more to warfare than tab targetting and activating all of your abilities.

Thieves have no stabilty….. thats a hint for countering him.

There is an exploit documented in another thread that explains how he does it.

using scorpion wire and shadow refuge while assaulting a keep have to be the most fun I have had in a while…throw up the shadow refuge invisibility…scorpion them down and watch em drop in 2 seconds.

I’ve sat and watched, with great entertainment, as a thief disappeared over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over – while killing 3 trebuchets, a ballista, and an arrowcart. I found a very high level of humor watching people aoe and run around chasing him. WIthout a doubt the best thief I have ever seen, and the one and only time I have ever seen a good thief. Noting: his death only came from falling off cliff.