Guild Wars 2

mechanics mechanics mechanics…yeah the mechanics of the thief are broken. To me, it seemed like anet was against the idea of the typical perma stealth thief that is guaranteed to have the opening in the fight, so instead they just gave the thief several short stealth skills….

This turned out to be worse than the traditional way because the thief can stealth multiple times in combat, while the traditional why, while provided the thief with perma stealth, only 1 or 2 skills allowed him to go stealth in combat.

why is it frustrating? because regardless of the thieves build (most of which currently are ahead of every other build available to most classes in burst or survivability) even if you somehow manage to “win” a fight, the thief will just stealth and walk away. And dont let me even start on culling issues.

I think stealth should be redesigned…right now it’s too spamable, the thief should have a choice between using it defensively for a near guaranteed escape, or offensively to deal more damage than I can deal in 10 seconds in less than 2 seconds before I can even see them. Most classes that have such fight determining abilities (e.g. aoe stun, stability etc) have to make the choice between using them offensively or defensively.

By the way, people complain about the thief more than any other class for a good reason. You can build a guardian/engi to be unkillable, even an ele for that matter…but you’ll deal crap damage…and you’ll insta die against 3 or more people. Stealth doesn’t care about the number of players you are fighting, you just stealth and they cant target you…

Ekove.4586:

mechanics mechanics mechanics…yeah the mechanics of the thief are broken. To me, it seemed like anet was against the idea of the typical perma stealth thief that is guaranteed to have the opening in the fight, so instead they just gave the thief several short stealth skills….

This turned out to be worse than the traditional way because the thief can stealth multiple times in combat, while the traditional why, while provided the thief with perma stealth, only 1 or 2 skills allowed him to go stealth in combat.

why is it frustrating? because regardless of the thieves build (most of which currently are ahead of every other build available to most classes in burst or survivability) even if you somehow manage to “win” a fight, the thief will just stealth and walk away. And dont let me even start on culling issues.

I think stealth should be redesigned…right now it’s too spamable, the thief should have a choice between using it defensively for a near guaranteed escape, or offensively to deal more damage than I can deal in 10 seconds in less than 2 seconds before I can even see them. Most classes that have such fight determining abilities (e.g. aoe stun, stability etc) have to make the choice between using them offensively or defensively.

By the way, people complain about the thief more than any other class for a good reason. You can build a guardian/engi to be unkillable, even an ele for that matter…but you’ll deal crap damage…and you’ll insta die against 3 or more people. Stealth doesn’t care about the number of players you are fighting, you just stealth and they cant target you…

The thief excels at 1v1 combat so yes he can stealth repeatedly. In WvW the problem is people being stupid and not stacking up. It is giving the thief the option to remain stealthed because you refuse to do a simple counter tactic. I play thief but I don’t use stealth and I facepalm every time a thief does this to a group. If you complain about being 1v1ed by a thief I don’t know what to say to you other than the class is designed to be that way.

You’re entirely mistaken about stealth. Regardless of build I can stealth and walk away? The stealth circle maybe but if you remain still for a moment and anticipate where he may run off to you might be able to counter him which is precisely what myself and a guildie did outside of dreaming bay.

Learning the mechanisms of your enemy leads to greater success when dealing with them.

“By the way, people complain about the thief more than any other class for a good reason. You can build a guardian/engi to be unkillable, even an ele for that matter…but you’ll deal crap damage…and you’ll insta die against 3 or more people. Stealth doesn’t care about the number of players you are fighting, you just stealth and they cant target you…”

Misleading and wrong you can die in stealth. I’ve pistol whipped thieves to death who’ve stealthed. AoE can and will hurt them. Flames from guardians reported as sticking despite stealth. EVERY class that stealths in EVERY game gets this sort of crap poured on them and it boils down to learning how to effectively play, understanding that Thieves are 1v1 classes, and knowing that despite all your luck and skill you will lose some fights. I urge you all to research thieves.

I said before, I found it the hardest class to play effectively and I am still bad at the class. It isn’t as easy as it looks and I seriously urge you all to just try to accept that for a moment and either roll one or watch videos to get a look on the other side.

The main problem with thieves is they can use stealth not only to open the fight but at the same time to end the fight.

Low on health? Poof, Im stealthed. Poof, Im teleported. Poof, Im gone.

Way to much escape abilities imo.

Stealth opener? OK. Massive damage? OK. Massive escape abilities? NO. Not all with the same build!

teg.1340:

The main problem with thieves is they can use stealth not only to open the fight but at the same time to end the fight.

Low on health? Poof, Im stealthed. Poof, Im teleported. Poof, Im gone.

Way to much escape abilities imo.

Stealth opener? OK. Massive damage? OK. Massive escape abilities? NO. Not all with the same build!

THAT IS A SINGLE BUILD. I can’t stealth. I cannot run away. You are talking about the one trick pony stealth build but you wanna destroy the class for everyone else? You’re talking about an infiltration class. Report the damage done and then ORGANIZE and AoE on them. It is that simple. From one thief player to the game, it is as simple as that. Stop complaining that stealth spec’ed players can stealth away. If I took the house stealth thingy I’d lose my crit chance, my speed buff, or my power buff. So I’d be less effective but able to run off.

You’re talking about one or two builds here that in WvW as you’re posting in WvW forums can be countered by AoE. You don’t see the damage done but you do hit them if you aim where they are and if they break off and run to regen you disengage and regen as well.

Polaritie.4851:

Basically this. Sitting on the camp with 10 people, one thief blocks the capture for twenty minutes. We killed a number of Dolyaks, the group that came to try and push us off (twice), but we couldn’t get the capture bar past 1/5 because a single thief was able to permastealth and line of sight around buildings until the group finally gave up. It’s beyond stupid. The capture circle is large enough that you can’t smoke the thief out with AoEs, and any group of enough size to not get pushed off easy has so many targets for Cloak and Dagger that the thief doesn’t get caught. Even landing stuns isn’t enough.

Then why do you make it so easy for the thief? Have all but one or two move OUT of the circle and keep 2 in the circle – a good combo would be Necro + Guardian or Ele + Guardian. Lay AoE around them (or pack a Ranger in as well and trap) the rest of the group moves out of the circle and spreads a bit.

(1) With you not being all clustered so tightly the culling issues will be against the thief so you have a chance of seeing him whenever he comes out of stealth

(2) If the thief goes for the middle target he’ll be damaged – if Necro marks or traps are used people will see them go off and can AoE the spot

(3) If thief goes for someone outside of the circle he will have to leave it and thus capping proceeds

Unless you’re up against a cheater (I see many thieves in WvW use hacking tools – it’s probably because anyone accepts that they can perma stealth which they can’t) you’ll get him and/or your capping point.

People having problems with thieves is soooo Sept. 20th….

Get w/ the times its mesmers now kids.

teg.1340:

The main problem with thieves is they can use stealth not only to open the fight but at the same time to end the fight.

Low on health? Poof, Im stealthed. Poof, Im teleported. Poof, Im gone.

Way to much escape abilities imo.

Stealth opener? OK. Massive damage? OK. Massive escape abilities? NO. Not all with the same build!

Careful here … I’ve run into quite a few thieves in WvW recently who use hacking tools. I guess it is because everyone believes thieves to be (1) able to perma stealth and (2) to get out of combat and heal so that they can get away with it.

Stealth lasts for 4 seconds if skilled right and if you used a cripple/snare/slow skill on the thief he cannot get very far in those 4 seconds. In the worst case he stealthed via stealing then used blinding powder and then his heal – if he didn’t attack in between that’s all he can do – 3x 4 seconds of invisibility – now he either has to build his “house” shadow refuge which is a giveaway or attack to regain stealth.

As a thief myself – it’s not very easy to escape if you’re slowed ^^

But those micro teleport, invisibility on demand and full heal on demand hackers can bypass this. If you see a Necro pulling off such a number you’re sure to report him – if you see a thief ddoing it you just believe it is normal – that’s why so many exploiters feel save with the thief class in WvW.

Anyone saying thieves run away in stealth by using SB #5 or Shadowstep doesn’t know a kitten thing about thieves… If you are in stealth and use SB #5 or Shadowstep you unstealth at the landingpoint and in the case of SB #5 they can even target you the moment you fire the skill.

Again: Thieves are fine. In situations up to 5v5 I have no problems with culling atleast not 2-3 seconds. I will see the ring appear and within a second the thief is visible on my screen.

For the poster above me (HtFde) do you have any proof to these accusations of hacks?
If you spec right you can easily be in and out of stealth every 3s for 4s WHILE damaging your opponent. If you only do CnD you can be in stealth for 4s everytime stealth runs out (depending on how well you time your next CnD this could be every 0,1-1s). If you run D/P you can be perma stealth by using #5 followed by #2.
Last option is limited because if you are near a player while using either #5 or #2 you will hit that person because of targetting and get the 3s debuff.

4s is alot of time when you cannot see your enemy. When you move in one direction thief moves in the opposite direction. In best case for the thief thats 2x the distance.

Im playing solo WvW since months, so I know a little bit what Im talking about.

Dont get me wrong. I dont want to see thieves nerfed into oblivion. I just think it shouldnt be so easy for thieves to escape a fight THEY have started!

The only people defending the broken thief class ARE thieves themselves. Sorry but your class is broken, played right you have 50% stealth up time, always getting first hits and worse comes to worse peace I’m out. I agree yes they should excel at one vs one fights, but at this point in time, the class is broken.

Cloud.7613:

The only people defending the broken thief class ARE thieves themselves. Sorry but your class is broken, played right you have 50% stealth up time, always getting first hits and worse comes to worse peace I’m out. I agree yes they should excel at one vs one fights, but at this point in time, the class is broken.

Fight Cute Lil Pookiebear on Stormbluff Isle. I never stealth and I defend the class because I understand that those who suggest we’re perma-stealthed have no understanding of the class itself. If a thief is perma-stealthing off of you he is hitting you with I believe Cloak and Dagger which refreshes his stealth.

You would know this if you put even an ounce into researching the class.

As a sword/pistol whip thief the guy who suggested we could perma stealth is just asinine. I think we have one stealth ability which is a utility skill I don’t use so excuse the lack of name, its the one with the house icon and small sphere radius. And that is not perm stealth.

You also forget that if a thief disengages you ALSO gain health or have access to your health skill.

I urge both sides to be reasonable. To research the classes and to form an understanding. I play a thief. I also play other classes, Betty Whites Monkey was out there earlier. Please, lets build on our community with understanding and knowledge and ease off accusations that buckle and bow before logic and truth.

Raehvyn.4530:

Cloud.7613:

The only people defending the broken thief class ARE thieves themselves. Sorry but your class is broken, played right you have 50% stealth up time, always getting first hits and worse comes to worse peace I’m out. I agree yes they should excel at one vs one fights, but at this point in time, the class is broken.

Fight Cute Lil Pookiebear on Stormbluff Isle. I never stealth and I defend the class because I understand that those who suggest we’re perma-stealthed have no understanding of the class itself. If a thief is perma-stealthing off of you he is hitting you with I believe Cloak and Dagger which refreshes his stealth.

You would know this if you put even an ounce into researching the class.

As a sword/pistol whip thief the guy who suggested we could perma stealth is just asinine. I think we have one stealth ability which is a utility skill I don’t use so excuse the lack of name, its the one with the house icon and small sphere radius. And that is not perm stealth.

You also forget that if a thief disengages you ALSO gain health or have access to your health skill.

I urge both sides to be reasonable. To research the classes and to form an understanding. I play a thief. I also play other classes, Betty Whites Monkey was out there earlier. Please, lets build on our community with understanding and knowledge and ease off accusations that buckle and bow before logic and truth.

If you’re going to respond to me at least get it right, I said 50% up time and that is correct. It is an over powered ‘ultility’ because even if you get dotted, you can still run around like it doesn’t even matter. Please choose a class who doesn’t wear heavy armor and vs a thief, then get the understanding AND knowledge what it is to face someone who you can rarely even see. High damage? Fine. High damage while you can rarely see him? No.

Cloud.7613:

The only people defending the broken thief class ARE thieves themselves. Sorry but your class is broken, played right you have 50% stealth up time, always getting first hits and worse comes to worse peace I’m out. I agree yes they should excel at one vs one fights, but at this point in time, the class is broken.

Thieves are not broken, you just don’t know how to deal with them. I get my kitten whooped plenty of times by people who know what they are doing.
Go watch high level PvP play and you will see why you are wrong, thieves aren’t a faceroll class at all.

Say that to a non aoe class pls? That type of thief is OP, what is OP for me? something u cannot counter, the only class i have problems with is thief and mainly cause i cant aoe… i cant see them, would have to change my built because of 1 class? How does 1 single target dps has so much burst damage and cant be seen? Ranger is single target dps too, we dont 2 shot ppl… and dont talk to me about range, cause they have pistol too…
Pls tell me how to fight something u cannot see if u dont have aoe?
Yeah, root him, sure, he can just go out of it lol.

This is pointless. You are saying that a stealth based 1 trick pony beat you 1v1 so it is overpowered. There is no arguing that because you refuse to acknowledge even the basest of truths. The thief class will excel 1v1. They will not excel or be able to prolong their stealth period with a competent group with competent being the key word.

You cannot complain a ranger killed you at range nor can you complain a guardian healed in a fight with you but you willingly complain about a thief killing you and turning invisible during a fight with you. I have stood by thieves not being able to prevent caps despite being a thief myself mainly. I refuse to accept that because a select few complain about factors outside of that that the class is OP, despite not even using stealth as a mechanic myself. I bet none of you considered the steal command and the skill gained through that which allows stealth. Hair tuft anyone?

This becomes pointless and stale. One side will not budge and accept that thieves cannot do what they say while the other side will insist that their class cannot do as proclaimed and through ignorance it should be assumed that neither side can or will submit to the logic of the other thus rendering this entire thread and the contents within pointless.

The point is thieves are the only ones how decide when the fight is over. Either they’ve won or they poof away. And THAT is pointless!

Do you know any other PVP oriented game where stealth does not break when doing or getting damage? Me neither!

yesterday was fighting a thief, we fought like 20 mins, he was 2 pistol build, but problem was rendering again?they fix it? i dont think so when he was at 20% he used stealth and he was gone for like 10 sec and he reappeared with full hp. but 10 sec of stealth?

teg.1340:

The point is thieves are the only ones how decide when the fight is over. Either they’ve won or they poof away.

Only if the opponent is unable to kill them. So its not the thieves to blame here.

Do you know any other PVP oriented game where stealth does not break when doing

Get your facts straight. Dealing damage does break stealth and gives a ‘Revealed’ debuff, so you cannot restealth immediately.

Can’t take half these posts seriously…

1) We cannot have great burst and great stealth
a) Backstab build = great burst, 2 stealth abilities (CnD and our Heal)
b) The stealthy condition build doesn’t do such great damage, and the repeated stealths are dependent upon hitting something with CnD

2) Guy saying pistol whip builds have loads of stealths. Leave. Sword/Pistol is not a stealth weapon set, and with haste as one of your skills you won’t have great stealth utilities either.

3) Why is stealth less fun to fight than say, invulnerability? Or Warriors getting up from downed with ability 3? Or elementalists being impossible to catch for any class? Mesmers being a pain to find the real one (and stealthing themselves)? Rangers making traps every couple of steps to endlessly kite you? Guardians blocking off points with staff 5/hammer 5? I don’t mind any of these but honestly find them equally as annoying as stealth.

4) If you put a 10 sec timer on stealth, the thief is instantly ruined. Loads of our traits are based on stealth, every weapon set has a stealth alternate to ability 1 which is our main utility/damage on each weapon set, stealth is our only way to cleanse conditions and stealth is our survival mechanic. To make stealth take more than 3* longer to be available is to kill the thief.

a) Long stealth timer = half traits useless
b) Long stealth timer = sustained battles impossible, as we cannot survive nor use our damage/utility skill
c) Long stealth timer = no bunker builds
d) Long stealth timer = condition builds can’t put enough conditions on
e) Long stealth timer = anything less than full glass cannon backstab damage isn’t enough to be useful as you’ll die straight after

You are talking a ridiculous nerf of 333% extra stealth debuff. Never be on a balancing team. Ever.

Katsumoto.9452:

3) Why is stealth less fun to fight than say, invulnerability? Or Warriors getting up from downed with ability 3?

because you can see them and time your attacks or develop a strategy…..
Also because server issues is giving unfarir advantage to stealth….

Just fyi: for lot less many skills of other classes were temporarily removed or ubernerfed to unusable….

Or elementalists being impossible to catch for any class?

here i m just givng you the same advice you gave to another user regarding sword/pistol:
LEAVE……

Every MMO has classes that excel 1v1 and other classes that excel 20v20. Don’t expect an ele to be able to own every class 1v1 when you have meteor shower to blast huge zergs or keeps.

I have a theif, but I also have a ranger and working on an ele. Once you play a theif you realized that there is less stealth options than you might think (If you don’t own one) and you have to think ahead a little more or strategize.

LordByron.8369:

Katsumoto.9452:

3) Why is stealth less fun to fight than say, invulnerability? Or Warriors getting up from downed with ability 3?

because you can see them and time your attacks or develop a strategy…..
Also because server issues is giving unfarir advantage to stealth….

Just fyi: for lot less many skills of other classes were temporarily removed or ubernerfed to unusable….

Or elementalists being impossible to catch for any class?

here i m just givng you the same advice you gave to another user regarding sword/pistol:
LEAVE……

You’re saying it is easy for most classes to catch a D/D elementalist? They are incredibly mobile lol. + Way to ignore more than half the post…

Also, invuln is way more anti fun than stealth, and elementalists can, if specced for it, have it up for a fairly long time. As said, I don’t mind but frankly these things are just as annoying.

Katsumoto.9452:

LordByron.8369:

Katsumoto.9452:

3) Why is stealth less fun to fight than say, invulnerability? Or Warriors getting up from downed with ability 3?

because you can see them and time your attacks or develop a strategy…..
Also because server issues is giving unfarir advantage to stealth….

Just fyi: for lot less many skills of other classes were temporarily removed or ubernerfed to unusable….

Or elementalists being impossible to catch for any class?

here i m just givng you the same advice you gave to another user regarding sword/pistol:
LEAVE……

You’re saying it is easy for most classes to catch a D/D elementalist? They are incredibly mobile lol. + Way to ignore more than half the post…

Also, invuln is way more anti fun than stealth, and elementalists can, if specced for it, have it up for a fairly long time. As said, I don’t mind but frankly these things are just as annoying.

Are you trying to prove that most thief users thinks they are fair just because they don t have a minimum idea of other classes? (Aka “unexperienced players” in order to be politically correct)
If so you are doing well…very well.

And why i skipped half of your post?
because you said so many wrong thing in the first half that wasn t needed and also because i talk about things i know….differently from you.

Sorry if i cannot add more details but the lacks of basic would require a wall of text nobody would like to read….

You can just check wiki for skills and elementalist page for builds……just to notice what you say simply doesn t exists….

Only tip i will say is ….that with the staff in hand in heavy armor with invulnerability skills is not an elementalist…

Unless 3 seconds every 75 in wich you are invulnerable and cannot attack is for you a faitrly long time…
In that case i d love to see stealth applied with the same criteria….3 seconds of stealth with 75sec cooldown and no ability to attack.

This is just unnecessary. If you stun a thief or knock them down they are dead pretty much instantly in most cases. Also, they take damage while in stealth…. just don’t sit there scratching your head when they stealth.

As someone called for a bunker eles experience fighting glass cannon BS thieves, heres mine.

1) Since i play d/d ele i have never died to a BS glass thief once. I can just soak up the dmg and heal up. Yesterday i even managed to dodge the steal + cnd (trust me i was as surprised as the thief^^). And no i wasnt fast enough to hit the print button ;-)

2) My main char since prelaunch was a thief (s/d). I totally disagree with the OP about the nerf to stealth. This would kill the thief class completely. Stealth is a survival tool for thieves that is indeed necessary to survive. Most people cant understand this because atm they get killed by the BS thief who either kills them extremely fast or, if he doesnt, can easily get away from them/reopen the fight. For my balanced stats thief (again s/d) stealth is necessary to survive.

3) What needs to be done is some scaling to the burst dmg in this game. Even as a bunker there are several skills that hit you for a very high amount of dmg. This doesnt attribute to one class only but to several. The hig burst dmg in this game makes it very often burst>skill. If burst gets a scaling i am fine with bunker nerfs.

4) Culling: Theres a big problem. Anet has stated they can fix this issue. I have heard from others they cant and wont tell because they fear people will quit the game. People say they dont want thieves to be nerfed (at all or before) culling is taken care of. My point is: If culling is here to stay it has to be taken into consideration (in WvW) and then there must be found a way to scale thieves stealth (again in WvW only). But definitely not to a 10 sec cd on stealth. For those fighting against thieves in smaller fights or 1 on 1: tab targetting saves lives. For people who like zerging i cant give any tips. I occasionally do zerg diving on my ele and i can say idc whether its a BS thief that kills me then or the 20 other enemies focusing me. Its part of the “fun” playing in a zerg.

I’d imagine a Greatsword would be good for a Mesmer to use on thieves. Stealth can’t break channels so the basic attack would point them out until it ended lessening the amount of time they’re hidden, and the shockwave (5 iirc) could knock them out of thier Shadow Refuge.

The stealth needs a nerf period. I’m sorry but you can’t have a player invisible 80% of the time doing massive damage. You have a group of 5 players and a thief running around invisible and no one can kill him, ok there is a problem.

“Not being able to target the enemy” becomes much less of an issue when you stop relying on tab target. GW2 doesn’t have the most dynamic combat, but this isn’t EQ in 1999, you don’t need a target to swing your sword. Most players (in my experience) act like NPCs when faced with a stealthed opponent. “Oh well, better wander off”.

Too many people in this thread keep claiming that stealth is equivalent to invulnerability, this could not be further from the truth. Stealth offers zero protection from damage. What allows thieves to survive so well is not stealth as much as it is mobility. I can track down stealthed enemies that are slower than I am fairly easily, most are easy to read. If the enemy can stealth but is more mobile than you are, you aren’t going to be able to kill them. However, if the enemy can’t stealth and is more mobile than you are, you still aren’t going to be able to kill them. The ability to dictate range, not the inability to tab-target, is what wins and loses these fights.

When a thief stealths, they’re doing one of two things:
1. Using stealth offensively, to position for the next attack.
2. Using stealth defensively, to disengage or otherwise give themselves R&R.

In the former, you know exactly where they’re going to be (if they’re using melee) and can act accordingly. If you’re less mobile than they are, this is not your chance to run, this is your chance to get in some solid hits because they’re telling you where they’re going to be (on top of you).

In the latter you have to put more thought into likely hiding places and avenues of escape. Again, if they’re more mobile than you are you might as well give up. But, again this has nothing to do with stealth. An unstealthed thief will also get away from you if you can’t match their speed.

Bottom line: I get the majority of my thief kills by downing them while they’re stealthed because I am more mobile than they are, attempt to read stealth movements, and don’t give up when I can’t tab target.

Disclaimer: For the purposes of this post speed/mobility are catch-all terms that not only mean the ability to travel distance, but the ability to evade, and dictate range via applying/clearing movement-affecting conditions. If you’re both crippling like crazy but your opponent brought condition removal and you didn’t, he’s still more mobile than you are even with zero runspeed boosts.

lOKI.8152:

I totally disagree with the OP about the nerf to stealth. This would kill the thief class completely. Stealth is a survival tool for thieves that is indeed necessary to survive.

Guess what? Other classes have to stack toughness and vitality to gain necessary survivability.

In case you dont know: those are the stats you never find on a thieves equipment. Never mind…

kelman.9451:

The stealth needs a nerf period. I’m sorry but you can’t have a player invisible 80% of the time doing massive damage. You have a group of 5 players and a thief running around invisible and no one can kill him, ok there is a problem.

This is also a misconception. The builds that are extremely stealth-heavy and hard to kill are not the same ones capable of “massive” damage. There is a tradeoff for heavy stealth and survivability.

teg.1340:

lOKI.8152:

I totally disagree with the OP about the nerf to stealth. This would kill the thief class completely. Stealth is a survival tool for thieves that is indeed necessary to survive.

Guess what? Other classes have to stack toughness and vitality to gain necessary survivability.

In case you dont know: those are the stats you never find on a thieves equipment. Never mind…

Other professions also benefit more from those stats. Measuring thieves on their benefit from toughness/vitality is like measuring other professions on their benefit from endurance. Different professions utilize differing defensive mechanics. Pumping vitality and standing in place as a thief is just as folly as a warrior going glass-cannon and trying to evade everything.

teg.1340:

Guess what? Other classes have to stack toughness and vitality to gain necessary survivability.

In case you dont know: those are the stats you never find on a thieves equipment. Never mind…

lOKI.8152:

For my balanced stats thief (again s/d) stealth is necessary to survive.

And i agree with Tulisin

The biggest problem with stealth is still that culling still happens. This makes culling very powerful.

A thief one-on-one with noone else around is manageable. The culling is very minor here, and you find the thief quickly after he attacks from stealth. However, once more people get involved, the culling lasts longer and the thief starts to benefit greatly from this false stealth. It gets easier for him to dive in and out of stealth, attack, and shift back into stealth before anyone can lock onto him and cause him enough damage.

Necromancers and rangers can offset the culling a little bit because their NPC pets will immediately see when a thief pops out of stealth. If you have a pet or a pet minion, use them. Hell, surround yourself with friendly-aggressive NPCs to help you find the thief when he comes out of hiding.

I know there are thieves who are VERY good at hopping in and out of stealth. These won’t be hit very hard when culling gets fixed, and will make the class shine. I salute those guys.

It’s the ones that can’t fight for kitten that are taking advantage of the culling and reaping great benefits in WvW. Those guys will probably run away from the class once this culling issue gets fixed. They’ll be the same guys who will hop on the exploit bandwagon of another class. You can’t get rid of them, so hopefully mother nature will do us great benefit and get rid of them herself.

TL;DR – The combination of culling and players who exploit it in WvW PvP make stealth painful and thieves powerful. Use NPCs and pets to find them. Hopefully they’ll fix the culling soon.

Stealth is a mechanic that force you to invest in vit/toughness
Because its a one side utility in a 2 player combat…….

If the thief does something wrong against lets say a glass cannon ele, the thief dies…..
If the thief does it well…ele dies without any chance to do anything……..

A single class due to a single skill makes lot of builds unviable….while being versatile….

Its true that you can hit him while on stealth but your skill goes on cooldown and you don t know if they hit or not….so basically you gives a second free chance to thief to kill you based only on luck….

That is the reason why thief cannot understand what s wrong with invisibility…it takes in account their skill but not opponent skill….

On the other hand most player have been forced in ANTI THIEF builds….like tanky DD (that i remebre doesn t have invulnerability…..but lot of toughness/vit gear and many cure skills).

Tulisin.6945:

teg.1340:

lOKI.8152:

I totally disagree with the OP about the nerf to stealth. This would kill the thief class completely. Stealth is a survival tool for thieves that is indeed necessary to survive.

Guess what? Other classes have to stack toughness and vitality to gain necessary survivability.

In case you dont know: those are the stats you never find on a thieves equipment. Never mind…

Other professions also benefit more from those stats. Measuring thieves on their benefit from toughness/vitality is like measuring other professions on their benefit from endurance. Different professions utilize differing defensive mechanics. Pumping vitality and standing in place as a thief is just as folly as a warrior going glass-cannon and trying to evade everything.

Other professions do NOT benefit more from those stats. Other professions just don’t have another option due to missing oh-kitten buttons like stealth or teleports for getting oor instantly. Other professions have to stack all that defense stats because they get hit all the freaking time.

Do you think its balanced when thieves can run full berserker due to stealth and other professions have to stack tough/vit for surviving spikes?

I hate to break it to you guys, but each class has its own area of expertise, and in some cases various areas depending on weapon-set (i.e. d/d ele combat vs siege ele with staff).

World vs world is NOT a 1v1 arena, just in-case you didn’t know. There is nothing ‘unfair’ about a class being good at not dying in a 1v1 fight. If you and group of people can’t kill a stealthed thief then well…. l2p.

My main is an elementalist and since I made my alt thief, guess how often I die to thieves? Also, since I’ve made my thief and understood how stealth works, I almost never have thieves successfully run away. I find that a grand portion (the not amazingly good ones) of thieves typically don’t run away until they are literally about to lose the fight. I will toy with them and as soon as they get around half health I fire off all my burst along with 2 immobilize; Then simply litter the spot where they were and… bam = dead thief.

Its not hard people, seriously. If YOU dont’ have to tools to catch them, then your build simply isn’t built to fight a stealth-based thief, just like my elementalist can’t fight against guardians well b/c they have a lot of defenses and I don’t run full bunker or full cannon.

The only solution to your grief: Play a thief yourself.

Whenever I am hurted by enemy thief, I will observe and learn how they do it. Thereafter, I will login to my thief char and applies the same learning back to their comrades.

This is karma in action. You grief me, I will grief your comrade back using exactly the methods which you have used on me.

Assassinin.4963:

The only solution to your grief: Play a thief yourself.

Whenever I am hurted by enemy thief, I will observe and learn how they do it. Thereafter, I will login to my thief char and applies the same learning back to their comrades.

This is karma in action. You grief me, I will grief your comrade back using exactly the methods which you have used on me.

Yes because the solution to broken mechanics and griefing, is more broken mechanics and griefing.

These are the kinds of things that make a game unfun and unplayed.

I have an 80 Thief, which was my third class. First was a ranger, then an engineer. I’m back to playing my ranger now. I only rolled a thief to see how they changed from BWE, and don’t play my thief very often.

Is stealth annoying? Sure. It is in every game. Is it game breaking? Only if you think that a thief running away from you is game breaking. After playing a thief, i learned so much about the class, that even rendering isn’t a problem anymore. I won’t explain why, because that’s up to you to figure out. Needless to say, even though Rangers are pretty much crap right now, thieves don’t give me any trouble. 3 traps on the ground, a couple dodges and that thief will run as fast as they can. Often, not fast enough.

I’m not defending a thief, because i don’t have to. The class mechanic isn’t broken, it’s different than anything else. If you so choose not to learn how to deal with it, that’s your problem.

p.s. please don’t tell me i’m only defending thieves because I play one, because as i mentioned, i rarely play my thief

im laughing from bottom of my heart
just cuz 10% of the thief is good, we should nerf them when 90% of them are just bad.

It’s always a knee jerk reaction when you’ve just been stomped into the ground by another class to come to the forums to point out how OP they are. I will put money down a glass cannon thief taking out 5 player scenario was 1) The Thief was full exotics/sigils/runes and food buffed 2) The Thief was level 80 3) Those 5 players weren’t 80 and in blues and greens 4) Those 5 players never used their evades (try it when you know there is a glass cannon thief nearby but don’t see him, odds are he’s behind you) 5) AoE was not used to cover the 1st or 2nd downed player. There’s a ton more but I’ll spare the wall of text. I’ve played the build and it was extremely boring and easily countered by intelligent players/groups. My advice is to look at the points I’ve listed above and use them to your advantage, also don’t try and solo things. 1v1 you’re gonna have a bad time if you aren’t geared/leveled, WvWvW was designed to play in small parties and zergs. Also to anyone whose like “kitten please your a Thief and will always defend your class”, I run P/P condition build in WvWvW and have only lost 1v1 to 2 glass cannons thieves. I dislike the glass cannons too but I dislike more players who can’t find ways to adapt and overcome.

LordByron.8369:

Katsumoto.9452:

LordByron.8369:

Katsumoto.9452:

3) Why is stealth less fun to fight than say, invulnerability? Or Warriors getting up from downed with ability 3?

because you can see them and time your attacks or develop a strategy…..
Also because server issues is giving unfarir advantage to stealth….

Just fyi: for lot less many skills of other classes were temporarily removed or ubernerfed to unusable….

Or elementalists being impossible to catch for any class?

here i m just givng you the same advice you gave to another user regarding sword/pistol:
LEAVE……

You’re saying it is easy for most classes to catch a D/D elementalist? They are incredibly mobile lol. + Way to ignore more than half the post…

Also, invuln is way more anti fun than stealth, and elementalists can, if specced for it, have it up for a fairly long time. As said, I don’t mind but frankly these things are just as annoying.

Are you trying to prove that most thief users thinks they are fair just because they don t have a minimum idea of other classes? (Aka “unexperienced players” in order to be politically correct)
If so you are doing well…very well.

And why i skipped half of your post?
because you said so many wrong thing in the first half that wasn t needed and also because i talk about things i know….differently from you.

Sorry if i cannot add more details but the lacks of basic would require a wall of text nobody would like to read….

You can just check wiki for skills and elementalist page for builds……just to notice what you say simply doesn t exists….

Only tip i will say is ….that with the staff in hand in heavy armor with invulnerability skills is not an elementalist…

Unless 3 seconds every 75 in wich you are invulnerable and cannot attack is for you a faitrly long time…
In that case i d love to see stealth applied with the same criteria….3 seconds of stealth with 75sec cooldown and no ability to attack.

1) The argument is directly against the OP’s. He states the stealth isn’t a fun mechanic and should be removed/nerfed into utter oblivion. I stated things I find equally as annoying as stealth and questioned why they shouldn’t suffer also, if you follow that line of reasoning. Incidentally I don’t seek nerfs on any of those things.
b) Very interested to hear what is wrong about backstab builds doing epic burst and lacking stealths. Also interested to hear about condition builds lacking such epic damage but having more stealths. Even more interested to hear how condition builds don’t rely a fair bit on CnD.

2) That bit wasn’t unnecessary. Some people utterly fail with their understanding of what a thief can do.

3) I nowhere said that an ele can use all the invuln spells and be as mobile as dagger dagger, or indeed have them and be using dagger dagger. Incidentally on the conjure earth shield you have another invuln ability. Not to mention mist form. I play all 8 classes. Your argument about my lack of knowledge of the ele is based on conflation. I did not say you can have all those things on one build anywhere, ever.
a) Invuln isn’t fun to play against. That is the sole point I was making.
b) D/D elementalists can be really frustrating to catch. Deny it, I dare you.

Finally, I never said anything should be nerfed or otherwise. And the latter half of my post has still been ignored regarding how terrible a thief would be with 10 sec debuff on stealth. If you want to do that the entire class needs reworked, not just little things.

The difficult part is this:

if rendering remains an issue they can’t solve, than stealth remains overpowered in it’s current form in WvW, and lesser but still in spvp.

Not stealth by itself, but stealth + slow rendering.

As in most games they decided to couple high damage to a class with stealth.
So we get stealth + high damage.
That’s always part of the issue as well: the unnecessary reasoning that a stealth class should be a burst class because they have low uptime.
Guess what: they don’t have low uptime, their OPPONENTS have low uptime on them

So we get stealth + high damage + slow rendering as the result.
You need to lower at least one of these 3.
Slow rendering is the obvious choice, seeing as that is a bug.
But what if they can not fix that part?

If they can’t adress slow rendering, they are forced to adress the other 2 parts.

Even if those 2 parts by itself might be ok: stealth + high damage might have counters, but that becomes irrelevant when there is also slow rendering.

Kimbald.2697:

The difficult part is this:

if rendering remains an issue they can’t solve, than stealth remains overpowered in it’s current form in WvW, and lesser but still in spvp.

Not stealth by itself, but stealth + slow rendering.

As in most games they decided to couple high damage to a class with stealth.
So we get stealth + high damage.
That’s always part of the issue as well: the unnecessary reasoning that a stealth class should be a burst class because they have low uptime.
Guess what: they don’t have low uptime, their OPPONENTS have low uptime on them

So we get stealth + high damage + slow rendering as the result.
You need to lower at least one of these 3.
Slow rendering is the obvious choice, seeing as that is a bug.
But what if they can not fix that part?

If they can’t adress slow rendering, they are forced to adress the other 2 parts.

Even if those 2 parts by itself might be ok: stealth + high damage might have counters, but that becomes irrelevant when there is also slow rendering.

Ok Thieves are fine if rendering issues were not there? Do we agree thus far?

With rendering issues they can be a pain, I agree.
Trouble is, stealth isn’t just stealth.

Rendering is effective stealth as far as your opponent is concerned. Stealth is stealth as far as your opponent and you are concerned.

By that I mean to your enemy if you are in stealth you know a big attack is coming and that you cannot see them.

To the Thief, stealth prepares a big attack, is stealth, and also can be a healing tool, cleansing tool, initiative regeneration tool etc. If you nerf stealth you don’t just make us visible longer, you make us lose all those other things too.

To nerf stealth to the ridiculous extent stated by the OP would totally ruin the class frankly. That is out of the question.

So yes, they should fix the issue of rendering in WvW. Note how it really isn’t much of an issue in s/t/pvp or pve because in PvE who gives a crap if you cannot see some random thief backstab a moa.

So the balance of stealth is purely a WvW issue as it is the only area where rendering is problematic. Do we still agree? If the Thief is actually reasonably balanced and only rendering throws this off balance, then as spvp or tpvp don’t have the issue, and pve it really doesn’t matter, the issue is purely wvw.

If it is only the WvW that is the issue then you, making the assumption you have that culling cannot be fixed, may well have to make a nerf. However said nerf should affect wvw only, or be an option I propose here:

1) Make names visible in WvW even if character models aren’t. Not ideal but at least you’d know what is what. Ofc names vanish upon actual stealth.
2) Give numbers on the screen when hitting a stealthed thief. This lets you know if you’re on the right track.

You cannot really nerf stealth duration because in some cases the rendering issue outlasts the entire length of stealth, and that is just unfair to thieves. It’s impossible to put a number on a direct thief nerf based on rendering issues due to rendering affecting people to differing extents. Some don’t get it, some literally never see a thief. So people who don’t get it thieves become trash and easy kills. To those who never see them, what’s changed?

I have to say I personally think thieves are very broken and hate playing against them. Stalling a camp take for 30 min, is BS, deny that.

BUT, they do not need to be nerfed, thieves (and to a lesser extent warriors) need to be changes/adjusted. I have a thief as well, I have one of every class. I wouldn’t mind seeing more survivability and less stealth. Maybe some form of acrobatics, or different traps who knows. The whole class feels kind of disjointed and thrown together.

Stealth in GW 2 doesnt work very well it never did, it probably shouldn’t have been put in the game in the first place, heck their game engine cant even handle it.

Katsumoto.9452:

Kimbald.2697:

The difficult part is this:

if rendering remains an issue they can’t solve, than stealth remains overpowered in it’s current form in WvW, and lesser but still in spvp.

Not stealth by itself, but stealth + slow rendering.

As in most games they decided to couple high damage to a class with stealth.
So we get stealth + high damage.
That’s always part of the issue as well: the unnecessary reasoning that a stealth class should be a burst class because they have low uptime.
Guess what: they don’t have low uptime, their OPPONENTS have low uptime on them

So we get stealth + high damage + slow rendering as the result.
You need to lower at least one of these 3.
Slow rendering is the obvious choice, seeing as that is a bug.
But what if they can not fix that part?

If they can’t adress slow rendering, they are forced to adress the other 2 parts.

Even if those 2 parts by itself might be ok: stealth + high damage might have counters, but that becomes irrelevant when there is also slow rendering.

Ok Thieves are fine if rendering issues were not there? Do we agree thus far?

With rendering issues they can be a pain, I agree.
Trouble is, stealth isn’t just stealth.

Rendering is effective stealth as far as your opponent is concerned. Stealth is stealth as far as your opponent and you are concerned.

By that I mean to your enemy if you are in stealth you know a big attack is coming and that you cannot see them.

To the Thief, stealth prepares a big attack, is stealth, and also can be a healing tool, cleansing tool, initiative regeneration tool etc. If you nerf stealth you don’t just make us visible longer, you make us lose all those other things too.

To nerf stealth to the ridiculous extent stated by the OP would totally ruin the class frankly. That is out of the question.

So yes, they should fix the issue of rendering in WvW. Note how it really isn’t much of an issue in s/t/pvp or pve because in PvE who gives a crap if you cannot see some random thief backstab a moa.

So the balance of stealth is purely a WvW issue as it is the only area where rendering is problematic. Do we still agree? If the Thief is actually reasonably balanced and only rendering throws this off balance, then as spvp or tpvp don’t have the issue, and pve it really doesn’t matter, the issue is purely wvw.

If it is only the WvW that is the issue then you, making the assumption you have that culling cannot be fixed, may well have to make a nerf. However said nerf should affect wvw only, or be an option I propose here:

1) Make names visible in WvW even if character models aren’t. Not ideal but at least you’d know what is what. Ofc names vanish upon actual stealth.
2) Give numbers on the screen when hitting a stealthed thief. This lets you know if you’re on the right track.

You cannot really nerf stealth duration because in some cases the rendering issue outlasts the entire length of stealth, and that is just unfair to thieves. It’s impossible to put a number on a direct thief nerf based on rendering issues due to rendering affecting people to differing extents. Some don’t get it, some literally never see a thief. So people who don’t get it thieves become trash and easy kills. To those who never see them, what’s changed?

Thieves were nerfed in sPvP and tPvP already. They didn’t carry over to WvW for no apparent reason.

Katsumoto, I’m not sure if thieves are fine woithout rendering issues.
They might be.

Thieves have one big advantage though: it is far easier to burst as a thief than it is to defend against that thief.

I would make their damage more complicated to pull of.
Just to match the same ‘difficulty’ it takes to defend.

But in general I think we can’t really judge thieves as long as rendering issues exists.
Your idea of names appearing sooner could work.
But what if those render too slow as well? You can’t give them nameplates in stealth, now can you

It’s a technical issue and I fear that the dev’s and programmers can come up with better solutions than us.
The fact that they haven’t solved it makes me wonder if they can solve it at all..

As for your steps in the reasoning: if the problem is more or less solved in tpvp with the latest changes (not sure, is it?) than of course it would have to be a WvW solution only.

I’m not here to nerf thieves without reason.
I just want things to be balanced and currently in WvW slow rendering + stealth is a big issue.

Kankikana, not for no reason. WvW is as much PvE and it is PvE as far as devs are concerned.

Kimbald, they have confirmed they are working on it, and that it is hard. That’s all we know. Based on s or tpvp and the lack of Thieves at the top level of play, implies that when people know what they are doing, and therefore the game balances are most evident, that thieves aren’t overpowered.

Also if you make something like a backstab rotation, which is not easy to hit verses someone who is actually good, harder to pull off, you make a thief build useless at the top level of play. I don’t believe in balance for the masses because it is not balance, it’s just inexperience.

Same.4687:

For the poster above me (HtFde) do you have any proof to these accusations of hacks?
If you spec right you can easily be in and out of stealth every 3s for 4s WHILE damaging your opponent. If you only do CnD you can be in stealth for 4s everytime stealth runs out (depending on how well you time your next CnD this could be every 0,1-1s). If you run D/P you can be perma stealth by using #5 followed by #2.
Last option is limited because if you are near a player while using either #5 or #2 you will hit that person because of targetting and get the 3s debuff.

I followed the Dude I suspected of foul play and saw him micro teleporting when he thought noone was watching – I reported him.

Unfortunately that was the only one close enough to tag to be able to report him but the micro teleport is a dead giveaway especially if they have 10% health at teleport 1 and 100% like 5 seconds later without the bar filling up gradually but the bar jumps to 100% immediately.