Guild Wars 2

So someone please tell me where the balance is? Thiefs jump in outnumbered and end up killing ppl, jump out and have almost full hp. And then just repeat it.

Right now im looking at 1-2 thiefs basicly toying with 6-8 enemies. It is just dumb.

If 2 thief can kill 6/8 enemy I think that those enemy are really bad….
First thing to do in that case is to regroup, never chase thief, stay together and the thief won’t be able to kill you… It may be hard to kill the thief, but they won’t kill you…

Sich.7103:

If 2 thief can kill 6/8 enemy I think that those enemy are really bad….
First thing to do in that case is to regroup, never chase thief, stay together and the thief won’t be able to kill you… It may be hard to kill the thief, but they won’t kill you…

This is true.
You can’t chase a thief.
You must stay tight in a group of 6-8 people.
You can’t kill a thief.
If you don’t stay in group, thief kills you.

What a wonderfully balanced profession.

I don’t think thief itself is the problem. Stealth on the other hand tho…

Sic em – gank em. Works most of the times, unless they run away ants in mah pants style.

welcome to GW2 and plz visit ur class forum to learn how to pvp.

Zenith.6403:

Sich.7103:

If 2 thief can kill 6/8 enemy I think that those enemy are really bad….
First thing to do in that case is to regroup, never chase thief, stay together and the thief won’t be able to kill you… It may be hard to kill the thief, but they won’t kill you…

This is true.
You can’t chase a thief.
You must stay tight in a group of 6-8 people.
You can’t kill a thief.
If you don’t stay in group, thief kills you.

What a wonderfully balanced profession.

Play a Dragon Hunter. Then you can chase thieves to your heart’s content (you’ll never catch him, but he’ll keep running).

Offair.2563:

Sic em – gank em. Works most of the times, unless they run away ants in mah pants style.

I never found Sic-em to be very useful on thieves but I have found my Axes to be a life saver especially the whirling move they usually arnt expecting it when they rolll up on me all stealthy like doing their twinkle toes moves..once ive smacked them around a bit and taken half their life I hit the binding vines and maybe a few traps it usually finishes them off nicely thieves use to be a big issue until I learned how to deal with them..seams most just arnt expecting a ranger to pull out any kind of melee..lol

If you play a character without good mobility, you are gonna have bad time.

I tried fighting 1v2 thieves while defending a camp on my revenant yesterday. Stealth wasn’t really a problem, but when one of them got low health they could just run off into the distance. I basically only had one chance with Phase Traversal to try and down either of them, but usually never had enough energy.

Unlike me I’m sure they never had to worry about running out of initiative. Even if they couldn’t use Infiltrator’s Arrow they’d still have Withdraw, Shadowstep, or Dash to escape. Then after a few seconds their intiative is refilled and they can re-engage me with Steal, Shadow Shot, or Infiltrator’s Strike.

I wish 3 years ago thieves got the same treatment that revenants are having now. They’d probably have 4 or 5 weapon skills with cooldowns tacked onto them, or maybe something worse, like only starting with 6 initiative out of combat. Fortunately for them it’s too late in the game now to address the poor design of the initiative mechanic.

…….get better?
Seriously, I don’t know what other advise to give you. Thieves are pretty mediocre 1v1 and have been for awhile. If they are going 2v8 and beating you…… yeah, get better.
Or just stick with your zerg and stop squirreling. You guys can just power rez each other while cc/aoe bombing over your downed ally and the thieves won’t be able to do anything.

As a thief main—

Thief disengage is strong, so either bring strong cc or pile up wells/traps to focus down their HP quickly.

Other than that, rule number 1 of any 3v1 (which seems to have been more 4v1 odds in your case) is to always rez downed quickly. If you don’t, expect to have them continue taking down people one at a time. Why would they stop if you can’t be bothered to play as a team?

Meh used to have trouble with thieves so I rolled 1. Pretty easy to kill thieves accidentally now that I know what they’re trying to do.

Reh.5986:

Meh used to have trouble with thieves so I rolled 1. Pretty easy to kill thieves accidentally now that I know what they’re trying to do.

This is honestly the best advice I can give. To really know how to beat a thief, you need to play one and learn its nuances.

Reh.5986:

Meh used to have trouble with thieves so I rolled 1. Pretty easy to kill thieves accidentally now that I know what they’re trying to do.

It’s almost like this thread is a L2P issue.

get better at dealing with thieves, applying pressure, and remaining in groups
stop dying in 1 hit

Clownmug.8357:

Unlike me I’m sure they never had to worry about running out of initiative. Even if they couldn’t use Infiltrator’s Arrow they’d still have Withdraw, Shadowstep, or Dash to escape. Then after a few seconds their intiative is refilled and they can re-engage me with Steal, Shadow Shot, or Infiltrator’s Strike.

A few seconds? It takes over twelve seconds for the entire initiative pool to refill, unless you select a utility to enhance refresh, which means it only takes 11 seconds to refill. From that refill, a thief can get two or three attacks or escape mechanics off and then has to wait another twelve (or eleven) or more seconds. Steal is on a 30 second-cool down. Shadowstep is on a 50 second cool down. Withdraw is on an 18 second cool down. In that time, any other class can get 8 attacks off, or even more if they have cool downs less that 12 seconds (or 11) and all three utilities and their heal off. Basically, more actions than a thief can undertake in the same period of time.

Use CC and you’ve just ruined the thief’s day.

Another thief or mesmer can catch them, or a LB ranger really and CC before they even stealth, if they run d/p.

Jiminy.8340:

Clownmug.8357:

Unlike me I’m sure they never had to worry about running out of initiative. Even if they couldn’t use Infiltrator’s Arrow they’d still have Withdraw, Shadowstep, or Dash to escape. Then after a few seconds their intiative is refilled and they can re-engage me with Steal, Shadow Shot, or Infiltrator’s Strike.

A few seconds? It takes over twelve seconds for the entire initiative pool to refill, unless you select a utility to enhance refresh, which means it only takes 11 seconds to refill. From that refill, a thief can get two or three attacks or escape mechanics off and then has to wait another twelve (or eleven) or more seconds. Steal is on a 30 second-cool down. Shadowstep is on a 50 second cool down. Withdraw is on an 18 second cool down. In that time, any other class can get 8 attacks off, or even more if they have cool downs less that 12 seconds (or 11) and all three utilities and their heal off. Basically, more actions than a thief can undertake in the same period of time.

Use CC and you’ve just ruined the thief’s day.

12-15 seconds to fully refill initiative, only 6 seconds needed to use most of the weapons skills. I have to wait 5 seconds for Phase Traversal’s cooldown plus potentially 2-3 more seconds for enough energy to use it, and that’s only if I’m auto attacking the whole time. I don’t think a thief player would completely run out initiative anyways unless they were spamming Unload or something.

Steal is rarely 30 second cooldown since most thief builds use Trickery and sometimes Sleight of Hand. Shadowstep isn’t used often enough for the 50 second cooldown to matter, plus if I try to reach them they can just use the return skill and I’m out of energy. Withdraw is also rarely untraited in this condi heavy meta, so the 18 second cooldown is irrelevant.

There isn’t really any chance to attack a thief if they’ve already run away at 1200+ range, let alone attacking 8 times. As for CC I don’t know how I’m supposed to do that when Phase Traversal used up my energy just to reach them. If I did have energy there’d still be a 1-2 second windup for anything that’s not melee range.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Another thief or mesmer can catch them, or a LB ranger really and CC before they even stealth, if they run d/p.

I’m sorry but long bow rangers were like buffet when I used to main a thief.

Hexalot.8194:

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Another thief or mesmer can catch them, or a LB ranger really and CC before they even stealth, if they run d/p.

I’m sorry but long bow rangers were like buffet when I used to main a thief.

Most rangers should be able to beat thieves, especially druids. As OP describes, 2 trolling 8 random players, which are probably bad.

They can’t dodge and stealth everything, especially when a druid has 1500 range attacks, CC and pets, there’s little LOS in WvW, apart from some camps. Anyway, 1 or even 2 skilled players and they should be downed easy, or they completely run away.

Clownmug.8357:

SNIP

12-15 seconds to fully refill initiative, only 6 seconds needed to use most of the weapons skills. I have to wait 5 seconds for Phase Traversal’s cooldown plus potentially 2-3 more seconds for enough energy to use it, and that’s only if I’m auto attacking the whole time. I don’t think a thief player would completely run out initiative anyways unless they were spamming Unload or something.

Steal is rarely 30 second cooldown since most thief builds use Trickery and sometimes Sleight of Hand. Shadowstep isn’t used often enough for the 50 second cooldown to matter, plus if I try to reach them they can just use the return skill and I’m out of energy. Withdraw is also rarely untraited in this condi heavy meta, so the 18 second cooldown is irrelevant.

There isn’t really any chance to attack a thief if they’ve already run away at 1200+ range, let alone attacking 8 times. As for CC I don’t know how I’m supposed to do that when Phase Traversal used up my energy just to reach them. If I did have energy there’d still be a 1-2 second windup for anything that’s not melee range.

So basically the thief is good at running away and you can’t catch them to kill them. If they however engage you (they have a max 900 range), everything is in your favour. I can’t really see your issue here.

The problem is exist since the first day of the game. After a few hours of practice you are unkillable with thief (exclude if you seriously kitten things up or your cat jumps on your keyboard). Stealth, jump in, stealth jump out and you are out of combat

McWolfy.5924:

The problem is exist since the first day of the game. After a few hours of practice you are unkillable with thief (exclude if you seriously kitten things up or your cat jumps on your keyboard). Stealth, jump in, stealth jump out and you are out of combat

There are multiple ways to see through stealth. There are multiple ways to CC a thief. There a multiple ways to PBAoE.

If they’re unkillable, why are there so few thief builds in the PvP or WvW meta?

stealth trap help a lot… Just place the trap on you and wait…
Then you can CC and kill them…

Ahhh, good ol’ stealth-thieves, love them…
Was playing pre-HoT my favorite SD-engi and a thief tried to annoy our group… he died in 4 seconds ’cos Analyze… Then I got rage-whispers for using cheating/OP/etc. build…
I love stealth-spammer thieves!

Bubi.5237:

Ahhh, good ol’ stealth-thieves, love them…
Was playing pre-HoT my favorite SD-engi and a thief tried to annoy our group… he died in 4 seconds ’cos Analyze… Then I got rage-whispers for using cheating/OP/etc. build…
I love stealth-spammer thieves!

wow, you use a skill other than ‘inflict X damage now’ and it provides you utility and an advantage in combat? I wonder if this novel idea will ever take off?

Been playing thief a bit more since HoT and quite frankly the escape with unhindered combatant is absolutely stupid and now we have marauder stats I can be sitting on 18k health while still dishing out 8-10k back stabs.

In my opinion only thing that really counters 3 thieves running as a pack is excessive amounts of hard CC and dragon hunters tbh. Even then you can run off and find other targets if you encounter enough dragon hunters to be a problem. Sure reveal is annoying but outside of a stealth disruptor trap I can back off for a little bit then jump back in.

Just burst targets down one at a time, poison the downed (good thing it’s on dagger auto) and cleave if they try to rez.

Quite frankly all elite specs are full of complete BS aspects and thief is certainly no exception with unhindered combatant.

It isn’t just thieves that do this. Mesmers are capable of such things too. Just the other day, me as stealthless s/d thief (apart from cnd) and a guildy druid constantly harassed a grp of 8 people, 3 dh 3 necros and 2 eles. We downed many of them as they wasn’t intrested in us but was forced to slowly retreat from waters back to their garrison. I was close to being downed a few times, but my guildy dried was untouched. Either have a freindly theif with you or just suck it up and hope to down the thief when he comes in for repeative gank because he will slip up advenrually.

It isn’t just d/p thives that can do this but they are the most efficient class/build to do it.

Now thievs are starting to comeback in to pvp meta and might even make it in taunaments they might give us the nerf bat. Dash is a pest but that impact trait is stupid. Steal from a necro, that’s mug dmg then 3.8k pi, then I feared him and that’s another 3.8k….

nothing depends on class, everything depends on build. balance in WvW is a joke and class design in gw2 is a great big gimmicky cheesy steaming pile of kitten which is constantly getting added to by the devs. get used to it.

If you can’t kill 1-2 thieves with 6-8 people, well the problem lies with you, saying that when it comes to roaming thief is probably the biggest example of breaking a basic PvP fundamental in WvW – risk vs reward, which is why it is the most popular roaming class, lamers flock to it, in roaming terms (along with condi mes) it is the equivalent of turret engi, shoutbow, etc in PvP, it is also a fine example of at least one of the reasons this game has been terrible for roaming.

The class is broken as kitten, so it’s hilarious reading all this l2p nonsense.

What’s next? “Just dodge” to avoid condi reapplication by a perplexity chrono?

As a mesmer, never had a problem with them. They try to gank me, I simply drop radiation field right on top of me, and throw the conditions right back at em, and I have thrown moa at em, thats fun to do. So I never worry about em, and if all else fails, I simply stealth out myself, and poof im gone.

The problem I have with thiefs as a staff ele when they jump me is this: venom, attack, attack, attack, attack, attack, backstab, poof and all in 0.1 seconds whilst I’m unable to do anything. If there are two of them (or 3, or even 4, hunting as a pack) and they have any skill at all, I’m dead meat before I can even move or react. This is if I don’t see them coming- otherwise a single thief isn’t really that much of an issue unless they get really lucky. It’s usually not bad if there are friendlies around so I can throw heals around and generally make the area a bad place for thiefs to be.

As a mes, 1v1 isn’t a problem, but condi thiefs become a problem very fast as they apply condis faster than necros and with way higher ticks too!

As a guard, you can happily ignore them or if you want to be really annoying, wonder around spamming staff 1 and laughing at them:-)

Ranger can be a pain if you’re not set up for wondering around but a condi SB/melee set up is a good laugh against thiefs.

Engineers should just /laugh if a thief attacks them, or switch to flamethrower and troll more!

Other classes can cope quite well with thiefs too.

The only OP thing about them is the huge number of skills they can macro off in milliseconds before disappearing, and the fact they can always disengage if things go wrong and wipe off condis, etc before coming back with full HP.

They are annoying in packs- but then so would 3-4 of anything be if they are decent players.

Only nerf I’d make is slight cooldown on skill activation/casting speed and make it so stealth slows you down to 50% speed (to start with, maybe 33%, see how it goes), so you don’t get both amazing mobility and not being seen, you would get one or the other.

I think the record for a thief hitting me with individual skills/attacks in between one cast of my fire 1 skill is 12. I wish I’d screenshotted that one.

Coming back to GW2 after almost 3 years away and spending a lot of my time roaming, the OP’s reaction was the same as mine while playing a zerk burst shatter Mesmer. For me, it was such a volatile machup that pretty much any misplay on my end lead to death. I got so sick of it I swapped to a staff condi shatter build and now I lol all over thieves.

I think the thing to remember is that its ok if things are not meant to be balanced across all professions in all situations. The challenge is figuring out what is an acceptable tradeoff such that you are able to play the way you like. For example, if you run a build that sacrifices condi-cleanse for damage you have to accept that if you run into an enemy with a condi heavy build, you are probably going to die.

tym.3791:

As a mesmer, never had a problem with them. They try to gank me, I simply drop radiation field right on top of me, and throw the conditions right back at em, and I have thrown moa at em, thats fun to do. So I never worry about em, and if all else fails, I simply stealth out myself, and poof im gone.

This is kind of funny to read

15 second duration aoe that damages and breaks stealth… Unbreakable Moa for 6 seconds that prevent further stealth… Access to stealth to escape if all else fails…

Easy peazy

On a serious note, the continuous mid combat stealth design is not good. It is also the Achilles heel for thief, and to a lesser degree Mesmer, when broken.

I think we need to start moving away from stealth in general, and limit access to emergency use slot skills only. This would allow for profession improvements in other ways.

The thief has very little AoE, all of one decent sustain skill, is not the best stealth class in the game (arguably 3rd) and isn’t even a big hitter these days.

Straegen.2938:

The thief has very little AoE, all of one decent sustain skill, is not the best stealth class in the game (arguably 3rd) and isn’t even a big hitter these days.

Surely someone hired you for sarcasm?

Crono.3486:

So someone please tell me where the balance is? Thiefs jump in outnumbered and end up killing ppl, jump out and have almost full hp. And then just repeat it.

Right now im looking at 1-2 thiefs basicly toying with 6-8 enemies. It is just dumb.

People are complaining about thieves now???

Lol

If you’re losing in a 2v6 against thieves….it’s not the thieves. Your skill level is seriously lacking.

msalakka.4653:

The class is broken as kitten, so it’s hilarious reading all this l2p nonsense.

What’s next? “Just dodge” to avoid condi reapplication by a perplexity chrono?

Well it actually is l2p issue so……

Swagger.1459:

On a serious note, the continuous mid combat stealth design is not good. It is also the Achilles heel for thief, and to a lesser degree Mesmer, when broken.

I think we need to start moving away from stealth in general, and limit access to emergency use slot skills only. This would allow for profession improvements in other ways.

Agreed.

I would like to see some other way to make thief play more interesting than just “poof ninja bomb” all the time. Example: Making backstabs trigger on position (back, 50% flank), trigger when enemy is imbo or blinded, so you have to setup the backstabs properly or get help. And stop this whole “peekaboo war”.

apharma.3741:

Surely someone hired you for sarcasm?

Mesmers have far more more stealth up-time and certainly the best group stealth abilities in the game. It can also focus around stealth and be just as deadly.

Bunker scrapper builds are far more of a handful than all but the most skilled stealth thieves. Their Elite is impressive even after the nerfs with an uptime of 30s every 40s. Even better is that their gyro is an AoE group stealth. Add in the elixir and they easily have stealth running for most of a fight.

Even the Druid now has access to a decent amount of stealth with Hunters Shot, Celestial Shadow and Smokescale. It isn’t as good as the thieves stealth but it sits on one of the most bunker small scale classes in the game.

The thief… outside of Hidden Thief or a stolen ability has to pay a fairly high cost to stealth. D/P has to burn nearly half their init to get a few seconds. Refuge is on a 60s timer and the thief has to stay in that AoE bomb spot for 4s. Cloak and Dagger… hardly anyone runs that due to the cost of misses. Blinding Powder… yeah that is 40s.

Thanks to Dare Devil mobility, most of the truly dangerous thief builds have moved away from stealth as the Shadow trait line is an unnecessary DPS drop. Most that have clung to the D/P stealth builds are easily dispatched by decently skilled players or they run with numbers.

Straegen.2938:

apharma.3741:

Surely someone hired you for sarcasm?

Mesmer has far more more stealth up-time and has easily the best group stealth abilities in the game. It can also focus around stealth and be just as deadly.

Bunker scrapper builds are far more of a handful than all but the most skilled stealth thieves. Their Elite is impressive even after the nerfs with an uptime of 30s every 40s. Add in the elixir and they easily have stealth running for most of a fight.

Even the Druid now has access to a decent amount of stealth. It isn’t as good as the thieves stealth but it sits on one of the most bunker small scale classes in the game.

The thief… outside of Hidden Thief or a stolen ability has to pay a fairly fairly high cost to stealth. D/P has to burn nearly half their init to get a few seconds. Refuge is on a 60s timer and the thief has to stay in that AoE bomb spot for 4s. Cloak and Dagger… hardly anyone runs that due to the cost of misses. Blinding Powder… yeah that is 40s.

Thanks to Dare Devil mobility, most of the truly dangerous thief builds have moved away from stealth as the Shadow trait line is an unnecessary DPS drop. Most that have clung to the D/P stealth builds are easily dispatched by decently skilled players or they run with numbers.

Clearly we are not comparing in all aspects. If running the SA line you get 4s per application and can regen an extra 1 ini per 3s in stealth so generally it’s not that costly. Additionally a thief on their own can keep a group stealthed for much greater periods while leaving much less signs. That’s without mentioning the cool down trait that few people use.

Scrapper it’s obvious they’re there, there a big enemy icon announcing to the world where they are. Mesmer…group stealth is pathetic, 7.5s if trained PU on a 72s CD, double with CS but still not a hair on thief for stealthing groups..

When I think of stealth I don’t just think of in combat jumping in and out, I also think of passing by zergs, hiding in structures and actually trying to be completely unnoticed. Only thing that can truly achieve that is 10 mesmers staggering their MI as they have no tell, second would be a tie between condi mesmer personal stealth and thief as they both have tells that they are there either by big fiery explosions or small red circles. I’d give it to the latter though as they can do that while also hiding 4 others so long as they aren’t in combat but can still perma stealth personally in combat.

Yes, I agree a lot have dropped SA (thankfully) so we see much less stealth uptime in most builds however thief has and always will be the master of stealth if they want to be.

Thieves and mesmers should be deleted from the game.

apharma.3741:

Clearly we are not comparing in all aspects. If running the SA line you get 4s per application and can regen an extra 1 ini per 3s in stealth so generally it’s not that costly.

Black Powder costs 6 and HS costs 3. That is 9 init for 4s of stealth. If a player is really good they can stack about 8s or 9s of stealth for all their init. A high cost to deliver maybe one shot that deals slightly more damage than the AA on a dagger and must hit from a flanking position.

apharma.3741:

Additionally a thief on their own can keep a group stealthed for much greater periods while leaving much less signs. That’s without mentioning the cool down trait that few people use.
…
Mesmer…group stealth is pathetic, 7.5s if trained PU on a 72s CD, double with CS but still not a hair on thief for stealthing groups…

The Mesmer has Veil arguably the best group stealth in the game as it can cloak an entire zerg. Add in PU and TE and the skill gets really good. Mass Invis comes with a whopping 1200 range and hits 10 targets.

Outside of a blast finisher the thief has ONE group stealth ability on a 60s timer that as stated is an AoE bomb spot and only effects 5 players.

apharma.3741:

When I think of stealth I don’t just think of in combat jumping in and out, I also think of passing by zergs, hiding in structures and actually trying to be completely unnoticed.

I am not sure of the point you are making here. Avoiding a zerg requires zero stealth for a thief as their mobility is cheaper and easier. What is the point of staying in a structure for a thief? With new lord HP powering one down takes a long time. A mesmer can portal but doesn’t need full stealth up time just needs to be slippery for 3 minutes which is pretty easy.

apharma.3741:

Yes, I agree a lot have dropped SA (thankfully) so we see much less stealth uptime in most builds however thief has and always will be the master of stealth if they want to be.

To be the “master” I consider that to be how effective a build is with stealth. Mesmers are highly potent in their stealth builds and far scarier and more slippery than all but the best stealth thieves.

Scrappers equip stealth almost as a byproduct and that gyro often comes with an AoE daze, lightning field, super speed and Detection Pulse. Even their Elixir S AoE group stealth is superior to Shadow Refuge as it has no cast time, 50s timer (usually 40s), can be done from range, gets a lot of trait buffs and is tied to a stun break/3s invuln.

I spend a considerable amount of time on a thief, mesmer and some time on a scapper. I can say both fighting as one and fighting against one, I would rather fight a stealth thief than a non-stealth thief, stealth mesmer, scrapper or a partial stealth druid. In fact stealth thieves are about the easiest class to blow up right now.

Thief isn’t hard to beat, but they just run away and they’re impossible to catch. Shortbow 5 should cost a lot more initiative and range shorter so that it can’t just be spammed to get away though.

Josh XT.6053:

Thief isn’t hard to beat, but they just run away and they’re impossible to catch. Shortbow 5 should cost a lot more initiative and range shorter so that it can’t just be spammed to get away though.

if its hard to beat but no run away ability u would still QQ about it and its ur own fault u dont spec cc and teleport to catch thief.

Josh XT.6053:

Thief isn’t hard to beat, but they just run away and they’re impossible to catch. Shortbow 5 should cost a lot more initiative and range shorter so that it can’t just be spammed to get away though.

The thief mostly sucks at large group play, sPvP, dueling, PvE and GvG. It is marginal in skirmish. So the plan would be to gut its scouting and roaming capability? Basically remove its ability to decap in sPvP?

Thieves are so far down the totem pole now any changes to their mobility would effectively eliminate the class from play. Even more so gutting the SB teleport would turn an already pathetic weapon into a complete piece of trash much like they have already done to D/D, S/D and P/P.

Taxidriver.2043:

Josh XT.6053:

Thief isn’t hard to beat, but they just run away and they’re impossible to catch. Shortbow 5 should cost a lot more initiative and range shorter so that it can’t just be spammed to get away though.

if its hard to beat but no run away ability u would still QQ about it and its ur own fault u dont spec cc and teleport to catch thief.

I said it isn’t hard to beat. If someone has to run away from me, they lost the fight – I don’t really care if they didn’t get killed lol.

Straegen.2938:

Josh XT.6053:

Thief isn’t hard to beat, but they just run away and they’re impossible to catch. Shortbow 5 should cost a lot more initiative and range shorter so that it can’t just be spammed to get away though.

The thief mostly sucks at large group play, sPvP, dueling, PvE and GvG. It is marginal in skirmish. So the plan would be to gut its scouting and roaming capability? Basically remove its ability to decap in sPvP.

Thieves are so far down the totem pole now any changes to their mobility would effectively eliminate the class from play. Even more so gutting the SB teleport would turn an already pathetic weapon into a complete piece of trash much like they have already done to D/D, S/D and P/P.

See, I disagree. There are just so many bad thief players that rely heavily on 2 shotting people and if that doesn’t work, they rely on their their mobility and stealth to get away. I’m not going to act like I’m any kind of expert thief player, but I’ve met some good ones and they don’t need to heavily rely on mobility or stealth to win fights.