Guild Wars 2

Just to add a bit of info. All my fights are in the open , no one around and rendering is NOT an issue. You can still target the thieve even if he doesn’t render , tab target will pick an circle and you can attack the red circle . As for use auto target, it’s a terrible idea. Auto target is so bad you end up targeting mob or clones or pets mid fight. Anyone who does any real roaming would not use auto target. I tab target and I have no problem with rendering, I use aes as soon as they stealth . I use burning. In my experience vs a good thief the only way you can catch him with an ae is a fast insta point blank ae. I have just one of those and it’s on a long kitten timer vs the thief who can hit me with dagger 5 and stealth any time. Not enough.

I have no problem with thief burst, this is about stealth, it’s just plain dumb to fight someone you can’t target 1/2 of the fight.

I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of the ‘dodge’ button? Or perhaps the ‘blind’, ‘immobilize’, ‘cripple’, or ‘chill’ effects? How about ‘blowback’? Surely you have a couple of these available to you? Seriously, do you not know anything about how thief works? If they are stealthing for “1/2 the fight” then you’re clearly doing something wrong and if your not, that means they burnt a LOT of their trait points and select-skills on stealthing, which means they will probably not be able to kill you.

Holes; Your argument has a lot of them.

Kneemin.4235:

I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of the ‘dodge’ button? Or perhaps the ‘blind’, ‘immobilize’, ‘cripple’, or ‘chill’ effects? How about ‘blowback’? Surely you have a couple of these available to you? Seriously, do you not know anything about how thief works? If they are stealthing for “1/2 the fight” then you’re clearly doing something wrong and if your not, that means they burnt a LOT of their trait points and select-skills on stealthing, which means they will probably not be able to kill you.

Holes; Your argument has a lot of them.

exactly my thought…
people just don’t learn the mechanics of the game~
im sure ALL classes have something to counter, stun, slow, stealth, DODGE…
oh sorry, i think im wasting my time since 90% of them just stand there waiting to be stabbed in the back.

Yashino.5713:

Kneemin.4235:

I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of the ‘dodge’ button? Or perhaps the ‘blind’, ‘immobilize’, ‘cripple’, or ‘chill’ effects? How about ‘blowback’? Surely you have a couple of these available to you? Seriously, do you not know anything about how thief works? If they are stealthing for “1/2 the fight” then you’re clearly doing something wrong and if your not, that means they burnt a LOT of their trait points and select-skills on stealthing, which means they will probably not be able to kill you.

Holes; Your argument has a lot of them.

exactly my thought…
people just don’t learn the mechanics of the game~
im sure ALL classes have something to counter, stun, slow, stealth, DODGE…
oh sorry, i think im wasting my time since 90% of them just stand there waiting to be stabbed in the back.

by this logic….nothing would be OP, or need adjustment. I don’t even need stealth…give me a skill that can hit for 50k!….you’ve got dodge right?…so its all good

I don’t care about spike, I do think that some thief builds are too easy to play to mediocre efficacy though relative to other classes (risk/reward is off), and rendering in WvW is an admitted issue – at some point that game engine deficiency needs to stop being an excuse for current challenges in class/game mechanics and become the reason for implementing change (read: CHANGE not NERF class into oblivion).

the culling bug is giving thieves a large advantage that was unintended. fix it or adjust stealth to compensate for this culling advantage.

Yashino.5713:

Kneemin.4235:

I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of the ‘dodge’ button? Or perhaps the ‘blind’, ‘immobilize’, ‘cripple’, or ‘chill’ effects? How about ‘blowback’? Surely you have a couple of these available to you? Seriously, do you not know anything about how thief works? If they are stealthing for “1/2 the fight” then you’re clearly doing something wrong and if your not, that means they burnt a LOT of their trait points and select-skills on stealthing, which means they will probably not be able to kill you.

Holes; Your argument has a lot of them.

exactly my thought…
people just don’t learn the mechanics of the game~
im sure ALL classes have something to counter, stun, slow, stealth, DODGE…
oh sorry, i think im wasting my time since 90% of them just stand there waiting to be stabbed in the back.

lets me add something you should know

Warrior’s kill shot:
Ready, take aim, FIRE, you’re downed from a far distance bro and might take 2 others standing behind with you. and you don’t even know if it was coming at you or someone else.

in a messy fight, a warrior can just stand in a distance and just start sniping randomly.
meanwhile, as for thief, they need to choose a target (one that’s a lil far from the zerg group, your fault!) to hit and run. If he/she chooses the one in the zerg group, ~ chance that they can’t execute the stealth in time or can’t escape due to aoe stun from ele or aoe’d to dead.

we aren’t discussing warriors.

rhonyn.6810:

Yashino.5713:

Kneemin.4235:

I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of the ‘dodge’ button? Or perhaps the ‘blind’, ‘immobilize’, ‘cripple’, or ‘chill’ effects? How about ‘blowback’? Surely you have a couple of these available to you? Seriously, do you not know anything about how thief works? If they are stealthing for “1/2 the fight” then you’re clearly doing something wrong and if your not, that means they burnt a LOT of their trait points and select-skills on stealthing, which means they will probably not be able to kill you.

Holes; Your argument has a lot of them.

exactly my thought…
people just don’t learn the mechanics of the game~
im sure ALL classes have something to counter, stun, slow, stealth, DODGE…
oh sorry, i think im wasting my time since 90% of them just stand there waiting to be stabbed in the back.

by this logic….nothing would be OP, or need adjustment. I don’t even need stealth…give me a skill that can hit for 50k!….you’ve got dodge right?…so its all good

I don’t care about spike, I do think that some thief builds are too easy to play to mediocre efficacy though relative to other classes (risk/reward is off), and rendering in WvW is an admitted issue – at some point that game engine deficiency needs to stop being an excuse for current challenges in class/game mechanics and become the reason for implementing change (read: CHANGE not NERF class into oblivion).

There is quite a big difference between CCing your opponent to increase the time it takes him to get off a CnD than there is dodging effectively every single time your opponent swings a “super overpowered move doing 50k damage”.

If you dodge effectively even ONE time on a CnD they get NOTHING for it, including the +2 initiative they get from going into stealth (due to not going into stealth because it missed). They also lose the 6 init they spent activating it.

You built up a reallllly obvious strawman argument to combat my point about the fact that if you don’t stand there like a deer in headlights while he spams CnD on you then its a heck of a lot harder for the thief to stay in stealth.

Lets not forget that most of you keep crying that its only “us thieves” who are advocating that stealth is fine. Please recall that I main an elementalist, NOT a thief. They aren’t broken.

Fix culling and it’ll just make it a bit harder for really good thieves to stay in stealth, but it will use up all their focus just to do that… let alone kill you as it does now, but a smidge more-so.

Kneemin.4235:

I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of the ‘dodge’ button? Or perhaps the ‘blind’, ‘immobilize’, ‘cripple’, or ‘chill’ effects? How about ‘blowback’? Surely you have a couple of these available to you? Seriously, do you not know anything about how thief works? If they are stealthing for “1/2 the fight” then you’re clearly doing something wrong and if your not, that means they burnt a LOT of their trait points and select-skills on stealthing, which means they will probably not be able to kill you.

Holes; Your argument has a lot of them.

The whole post isn’t about how I was killed. I wasn’t killed. I was fighting a thief that CAN’T kill me but I can’t kill him cause he isn’t visible long enough for me to finish him. Since he is more mobile than me he kept coming back and we fought this endless fight over and over. If you let one class have the ability to never lose I don’t care how kittened you think they are. BTW he wasn’t hitting like wet noodles by a long shot.
There are very few thieves who play this way and I’m thankful for that. Judging by the replies most of you are burst berserk build thieves which require no skill and easy to deal with. It’s funny how many thieves tell people to dodge when most of them don’t dodge themselves . That is another topic for another day.

Kneemin.4235:

Fix culling and it’ll just make it a bit harder for really good thieves to stay in stealth, but it will use up all their focus just to do that… let alone kill you as it does now, but a smidge more-so.

It’s unlikely that culling will ever be fixed in the WvW environment…..class/game mechanics should be designed with that in mind.

rhonyn.6810:

Kneemin.4235:

Fix culling and it’ll just make it a bit harder for really good thieves to stay in stealth, but it will use up all their focus just to do that… let alone kill you as it does now, but a smidge more-so.

It’s unlikely that culling will ever be fixed in the WvW environment…..class/game mechanics should be designed with that in mind.

Where is your evidence for this? Are you a programmer? (I am) Did you not see the post by devs that they are working on it? On the contrary, its quite likely that it be fixed at some point. Whether that be done in the near future or not, they shouldn’t waste a bunch of dev-time rebalancing thieves because a few people can’t adapt to the rendering (which really isn’t that big an issue anyway…. even in large fights its maybe 1.5 seconds where you can target, but not see the enemy). I actually feel bad for thieves when it gets fixed… since I already mop the floor with the majority of them on my elementalist as is.

I hadn’t seen your recent post morgar so this is an edit:

You very explicitly said that CnD spam was unfair. I gave ways around it. SERIOUSLY, If a thief is stealth “half the fight” its your fault. Without hitting you, he can’t stop spamming a stealth combo which involves pistol/SB and leaves him vulnerable every time he fires it off. There is no sure-fire safe way to perma stealth and if you think there is .. do what we’ve all said. go play a thief for 30 levels and figure it out

Also, if he keeps “running away and coming back” then you clearly are alone, which isn’t the intention of wvw anyway. If your in a group, he will take fire ANY time he gets close enough to attack and then run away.

actually, don’t change thief at all. i rather enjoy 2-shotting them while they take forever to fail at dropping me. glass cannon can be countered by excessive armor. their damage gets significantly less problematic once you hit ~2700 armor.

Kneemin.4235:

rhonyn.6810:

Kneemin.4235:

Fix culling and it’ll just make it a bit harder for really good thieves to stay in stealth, but it will use up all their focus just to do that… let alone kill you as it does now, but a smidge more-so.

It’s unlikely that culling will ever be fixed in the WvW environment…..class/game mechanics should be designed with that in mind.

Where is your evidence for this? Are you a programmer? (I am) Did you not see the post by devs that they are working on it? On the contrary, its quite likely that it be fixed at some point. Whether that be done in the near future or not, they shouldn’t waste a bunch of dev-time rebalancing thieves because a few people can’t adapt to the rendering (which really isn’t that big an issue anyway…. even in large fights its maybe 1.5 seconds where you can target, but not see the enemy). I actually feel bad for thieves when it gets fixed… since I already mop the floor with the majority of them on my elementalist as is.

My point is a basic premise: design classes and game mechanics with game engine limitations in mind….not some future build that may or may not ever coming into being and may or may not even actually fix the problem. You say its not worth their time…you’re entitled to your opinion as am I. (and the culling issue is bigger then just “thieves”…its just the topic of this thread)

Anet would never say they can’t fix the culling issue. It will be “being worked on” indefinitely or until fixed. They’ve stated its challenging, and they are hoping to “improve” it in the future (no timelines given). Meh, at some point…. months? year? when? you have to call it and hopefully design the game around what they have imo.

Clearly the fact that you’ve stressed you play Ele several times now, brings some additional weight to your arguments that I am failing to see …but I defer to you…as you are a programmer.

You very explicitly said that CnD spam was unfair. I gave ways around it. SERIOUSLY, If a thief is stealth “half the fight” its your fault. Without hitting you, he can’t stop spamming a stealth combo which involves pistol/SB and leaves him vulnerable every time he fires it off. There is no sure-fire safe way to perma stealth and if you think there is .. do what we’ve all said. go play a thief for 30 levels and figure it out
Also, if he keeps “running away and coming back” then you clearly are alone, which isn’t the intention of wvw anyway. If your in a group, he will take fire ANY time he gets close enough to attack and then run away.

>>>>>>>>>>>
Seriously how many times do you think I can dodge in a fight? I have to save dodge for when he try to backstab me. CND is just one skill that have no real delay in animation how in the hell do you think people can time dodge for when a thief uses cnd? CND has no cooldown as long as the thief have ini he can use it. Even if I manage to dodge one he can use it again .
As for alone in WvW , yes I was alone. I like to roam by myself. If WvW was all zerg then you have never played a real rvr game and most likely you have no idea what I’m talking about anyway. Guards can be soloed and supply camps can be soloed why would I zerg when I can have way more fun solo? Roaming wvw is the hardest part of the game you have to deal with bad odds all the time which requires a lot of planing and gear and skill. Other roamer in wvw are some of the best players you’ll ever see anywhere.

Lightsbane.9012:

actually, don’t change thief at all. i rather enjoy 2-shotting them while they take forever to fail at dropping me. glass cannon can be countered by excessive armor. their damage gets significantly less problematic once you hit ~2700 armor.

Depends on the class. Before I shelved my 80 ranger, all that did was make thieves take 10-15 seconds to drop me instead of 3-4. Problem was, it did such pathetic damage that the thief didn’t even have to heal.

But that’s more a problem with rangers being completely worthless, I suspect. It’d likely work a lot better on a warrior.

LordByron.8369:

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

You can’t learn to counter stealth, no amount of skill will help and you should act like an NPC and wander off randomly whenever you lose your tab target … said no one ever.

Stealth is very counterable if you know what you’re doing. Stealth play is, in fact, one of the better metas in GW2 in terms of scaling with skill. A skilled player can hunt down an unskilled stealther easily, an unskilled player has very little chance to hunt down a skilled stealther, and they’ve both got a good shot if they’re on the same skill level.

teg.1340:

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 do benefit more from defensive stats. Toughness, for instance, has a much greater effect on the higher innate HP pool of warriors, they’ll take more hits to go down and the effectiveness of each point of toughness will be several times that of the same amount on a low-HP profession.

You’re absolutely right about teleports being an exceptional way to get OOR instantly, but people continue to slam stealth when this isn’t what it does. It isn’t a get out of jail free card, it isn’t hard to counter.

Kimbald.2697:

Guess what: they don’t have low uptime, their OPPONENTS have low uptime on them

The opposite is true. A thief relying on stealthing heavily has at least 50 % downtime due to wanting to preserve stealth. His non-stealthed opponent can spam whatever they want 100 % of the time. The difference is whether the unstealthed person has the skill to correctly exploit having twice the time in which to use attacks.

HtFde.3856:

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

You could be correct about the hacking, but keep in mind that thieves also have access to a wealth of shadowstep-type abilities which could also create this behavior. Quickly healing to full is harder to explain, but possible if he dropped a heal skill or healed OOC without your client updating.

Tulisin.6945:

Kimbald.2697:

Guess what: they don’t have low uptime, their OPPONENTS have low uptime on them

The opposite is true. A thief relying on stealthing heavily has at least 50 % downtime due to wanting to preserve stealth. His non-stealthed opponent can spam whatever they want 100 % of the time. The difference is whether the unstealthed person has the skill to correctly exploit having twice the time in which to use attacks.

Twice the time, triple the time, 10x the time… it doesn’t matter; you can’t target what you can’t see, so it’s hardly much of an advantage.

There should be an overhead to maintaining a combat advantage. It makes sense.

Parthis.2091:

Tulisin.6945:

Kimbald.2697:

Guess what: they don’t have low uptime, their OPPONENTS have low uptime on them

The opposite is true. A thief relying on stealthing heavily has at least 50 % downtime due to wanting to preserve stealth. His non-stealthed opponent can spam whatever they want 100 % of the time. The difference is whether the unstealthed person has the skill to correctly exploit having twice the time in which to use attacks.

Twice the time, three times the time, ten times to time… it doesn’t matter; you can’t target what you can’t see.

There should be an overhead to maintaining a combat advantage. It makes sense.

You don’t need to target people to attack them in GW2, that isn’t how the combat system works. I get the majority of my thief kills by downing them while they’re stealthed. Being unable to tab target is an obstacle, but not invulnerability. The “maintaining” of that combat advantage comes from having to refresh stealth every few seconds and being unable to prematurely break stealth without suffering the consequences, thereby reducing viable attack uptime.

Mogar.9216:

I wasn’t killed. I was fighting a thief that CAN’T kill me but I can’t kill him cause he isn’t visible long enough for me to finish him. Since he is more mobile than me he kept coming back and we fought this endless fight over and over. If you let one class have the ability to never lose I don’t care how kittened you think they are.

This is the source of your issue. You cannot kill what you cannot catch. Thieves are exceptionally mobile, but I’ve yet to see a thread attacking thief mobility when that is the real issue, not stealth.

Tulisin.6945:

Parthis.2091:

Tulisin.6945:

Kimbald.2697:

Guess what: they don’t have low uptime, their OPPONENTS have low uptime on them

The opposite is true. A thief relying on stealthing heavily has at least 50 % downtime due to wanting to preserve stealth. His non-stealthed opponent can spam whatever they want 100 % of the time. The difference is whether the unstealthed person has the skill to correctly exploit having twice the time in which to use attacks.

Twice the time, three times the time, ten times to time… it doesn’t matter; you can’t target what you can’t see.

There should be an overhead to maintaining a combat advantage. It makes sense.

You don’t need to target people to attack them in GW2, that isn’t how the combat system works. I get the majority of my thief kills by downing them while they’re stealthed. Being unable to tab target is an obstacle, but not invulnerability. The “maintaining” of that combat advantage comes from having to refresh stealth every few seconds and being unable to prematurely break stealth without suffering the consequences, thereby reducing viable attack uptime.

Sure, but keep in mind not all classes have those options. A fair number of classes in this game have target-required attacks and little in the way of ground targeted AoE. It’s inconsistent.

So, i’m happy that thieves have an overhead in order to manage a combat advantage, which ultimately is what stealth is. You have less change of taking damage; your opponent has no choice but to guess your movement.

Parthis.2091:

Sure, but keep in mind not all classes have those options. A fair number of classes in this game have target-required attacks and little in the way of ground targeted AoE.

I literally do the majority of my stealth-hunting with sword auto attack. It isn’t some kind of crazy toolset, it is just understanding where they’re likely to be and spamming #1. If they’re good enough to not be beaten by that most basic of anti-stealth tactics, then they deserve to live a while, but I assure you most are not.

Having been on both sides of this I have no pity for people who complain about stealth when I still see people either stand around or straight up shrug and wander off as soon as they lose their tab-target.

Tulisin.6945:

Parthis.2091:

Sure, but keep in mind not all classes have those options. A fair number of classes in this game have target-required attacks and little in the way of ground targeted AoE.

I literally do the majority of my stealth-hunting with sword auto attack.

So you play melee. Warrior, Guardian? Which means you’re in range of the thief when they stealth and have a reasonable idea of where they’re going.

Contrast that with a ranger, Greatsword Mesmer, etc. Again, it’s inconsistent and what works for you doesn’t work for others. So I stand by my point; maintaining an advantage should carry an overhead.

EDIT to cover the stuff you added to your post. Personally I don’t have a problem countering thieves in stealth (shatter Mesmer with a 1H sword), but the fact remains; what works for us won’t work for all. We can be in agreement though that people who do NOTHING have no base to complain

The main reason thief’s have a bad name is due to thief’s abusing the rendering bug or hiding in camps for 20 mins.

There day will come, just matter of time most games take around 1 year after release to get some type of balance.

So just give it time guys, I play a ranger “So Called Worst Class In GW2” and I rarely lose to a thief.

So i have to randomly swing my sword which has piss poor range in a huge capping range to “cross my fingers” hit a stealth target to counter them and you people defending this don’t find this flawed? Have fun having no one to play against cause people will quit due to this BS and and you guys can enjoy PVD. If skills have no counters they are OP PERIOD. No if and or buts.

Wow lets nerf thief into oblivion, never mind we have crappy ranged ao or attacks period, we have no pets to help, heals are a joke, and defense is non existent compared to other melee classes. We get stealth which is only partly as good as I’ve seen in other games, and some burst melee damage that can be countered or interrupted easily enough.

TBH Thief is now the lamest class to play, I’m thinking anet should offer class switch in the BLT with coins so I can play ele or mes and cast stuff up on top of keep walls, while those thievs with short bows can’t do anything to you.

For the most part thief is starting to suck more and more to play, yet people continually cry for more and more nerfs to cool downs ect.

I think people just freak out about any class that can go invisible on them, this is all this really is about. They can’t see you and it freaks them out so it should be nerfed.

Vanive.3804:

Wow lets nerf thief into oblivion, never mind we have crappy ranged ao or attacks period, we have no pets to help, heals are a joke, and defense is non existent compared to other melee classes. We get stealth which is only partly as good as I’ve seen in other games, and some burst melee damage that can be countered or interrupted easily enough.

TBH Thief is now the lamest class to play, I’m thinking anet should offer class switch in the BLT with coins so I can play ele or mes and cast stuff up on top of keep walls, while those thievs with short bows can’t do anything to you.

For the most part thief is starting to suck more and more to play, yet people continually cry for more and more nerfs to cool downs ect.

I think people just freak out about any class that can go invisible on them, this is all this really is about. They can’t see you and it freaks them out so it should be nerfed.

lol. nice try. they can still achieve perma stealth. come back once that’s fixed (culling bug).

Sol.4310:

The main reason thief’s have a bad name is due to thief’s abusing the rendering bug or hiding in camps for 20 mins.

There day will come, just matter of time most games take around 1 year after release to get some type of balance.

This.

My problem is that if it takes a year, to fix these basic things, the game will probably die in that time.

And to the thieves doing this camp delaying, just a little advice, the few points you get out of this (5 points for one camp) I hope is worth potentially destroying your class, and driving people away from this game. Very long term thinking there.

If they simply switched WvW to PvP rules most of these problems would be solved (where stealth does not prevent capture/holding a point). But who would think an area where you mostly fight large groups of other players would be considered player vs player, crazy right.

If they ever fix culling (lol @ anets engine). And if they bring the current thief nerfs to WvW thieves will be a lot better.

And yes I agree, being able to stealth in front of you every 10 sec is stupid.

Galantis.3267:

So i have to randomly swing my sword which has piss poor range in a huge capping range to “cross my fingers” hit a stealth target to counter them and you people defending this don’t find this flawed? Have fun having no one to play against cause people will quit due to this BS and and you guys can enjoy PVD. If skills have no counters they are OP PERIOD. No if and or buts.

And if you actually lucky getting a hit on a stealthed thief, he doesnt get visible. No, its just YOU seeing he gets hit. Nobody else! lol

But hey, in 1 out of 5 tries you actually catch a thief in stealth. Its counterable. Everythings fine! So lets get this killshot thingy nerfed. lol

ps: LOL

I’m playing warrior and I hate and love thieves at the same time. I love fighting them even if I loose 75% of the fights (1v1). If I see them coming from distance I can escape or I have like 50% chance of winning. If they attack me from stealth I usually die but well this is thieves ONLY true andantage. Only concern is that no one should kill 1v1 other class in 1sek if the victim is NOT glass cannon. I play with full knight and solider runes (trinkets are rubies) and it always takes few seconds to kill me. I’m not a great pvp player so I’m not nervous about it. And thief should be able to escape in stealth. It’s the only way for them – really they are VERY easy to kill if you are good pvp player or at least survive 1v1 encounter (as stated before I’m not among good pvp players )

there is a whole skill line called shadow arts. If I go 20 or 30 deep into it, I expect to be using stealth alot.

When you see a thief using stealth more than twice in a fight they likely have spent these points.

These points give no damage to the thief

Some of the suggestions in this thread make it completely worthless if they ever came to light

The way I see it…… Most MMO’s have a button that puts you in stealth for unlimited amounts of time until he has 100% the advantage. These stealth skills usually cost nothing

In GW2 there are many conditions required for stealth. some require initive and a hit on a target. some will give a cooldown on a utility, and others will require a combo field. Secondly it usually lasts for 4 secs!!!! Come on!!! 4 Seconds!!!!. If the thief is able to keep chaining a skill like this to make it seem like it lasts 5mins your simply getting out played

Either way if there is a requirement there is a counter or a pitfall.

90% of players can do better against thiefs if they study or play with the cloak and dagger skill. Understand this skill (And chaining it) and understand the MUG/Cloak and Dagger/Backstab/Basilisk Venom/Assassin signet combo and you will find that killing them is actually pretty easy. Its the same one trick pony being performed by 95% of thiefs out there

I fail to see the OP’s problem.

You didn’t die and made him run away every time…..in fact he used a thief’s best weapon of resetting the fight and trying to have a go at you w/ some of your CDs down.

But you still didn’t die and made him retreat multiple times….the WHOLE night.

So my question to you:

Is it the thief that is OP’d or is it the Ele that is OP’d?

Personally D/D ele’s are one of or strongest characters in this game.

Remembern no 1 class is going to have a 100% win/loss ratio against any other class, but you did. Food for thought.

What server is the OP on btw? Didn’t notice that he posted it…and also I notice you played DAoC since you referenced RvR + said solo is hardmode. What class did ya play =)

Columba.9730:

lol. nice try. they can still achieve perma stealth. come back once that’s fixed (culling bug).

Perma stealth is doable without any culling abuse. While I hope to see culling fixed if you think that means there won’t be any more permastealth you’re gonna have a bad time. Learn how to counter it now.

Relentliss.2170:

And if they bring the current thief nerfs to WvW thieves will be a lot better.

I’m not sure if you understand the PvP-only nerfs that happened last patch, but they primarily targeted more conservative control-based thief builds. These rest of nerfs coming to WvW would, if anything, push more thieves into high-burst backstabby play.

Webley.1295:

If the thief is able to keep chaining a skill like this to make it seem like it lasts 5mins your simply getting out played

this is the problem.
In order to ouutplay someone you have to play better than him…

This strategy doesn t take in great account what opponent does, but just what the thief does….

That is wrong in a pvp game….may be good in a pve game.

rhonyn.6810:

Kneemin.4235:

rhonyn.6810:

Kneemin.4235:

Fix culling and it’ll just make it a bit harder for really good thieves to stay in stealth, but it will use up all their focus just to do that… let alone kill you as it does now, but a smidge more-so.

It’s unlikely that culling will ever be fixed in the WvW environment…..class/game mechanics should be designed with that in mind.

Where is your evidence for this? Are you a programmer? (I am) Did you not see the post by devs that they are working on it? On the contrary, its quite likely that it be fixed at some point. Whether that be done in the near future or not, they shouldn’t waste a bunch of dev-time rebalancing thieves because a few people can’t adapt to the rendering (which really isn’t that big an issue anyway…. even in large fights its maybe 1.5 seconds where you can target, but not see the enemy). I actually feel bad for thieves when it gets fixed… since I already mop the floor with the majority of them on my elementalist as is.

My point is a basic premise: design classes and game mechanics with game engine limitations in mind….not some future build that may or may not ever coming into being and may or may not even actually fix the problem. You say its not worth their time…you’re entitled to your opinion as am I. (and the culling issue is bigger then just “thieves”…its just the topic of this thread)

Anet would never say they can’t fix the culling issue. It will be “being worked on” indefinitely or until fixed. They’ve stated its challenging, and they are hoping to “improve” it in the future (no timelines given). Meh, at some point…. months? year? when? you have to call it and hopefully design the game around what they have imo.

Clearly the fact that you’ve stressed you play Ele several times now, brings some additional weight to your arguments that I am failing to see …but I defer to you…as you are a programmer.

The point here is that if you don’t understand even a little bit how these kinds of bugs work and are “fixed” then you really have no room to overhead an “obvious” fix that should be implemented. It would take a lot of time and money to come up with a fix that would effectively ruin the idea behind the thief class. In the meantime it would also take away time from fixing the actual problem. It is a huge taboo in design to cover up a problem with a hacky fix.

As for the “engine’s shortcomings” – this statement isn’t even accurate, so it doesn’t really lend to your argument either. There isn’t necessarily a shortcoming on the side of the engine, but rather the implementation. Anet has a vision to reach a wide playerbase (as a casual F2P system should). In implementing culling, it cuts down heavily on the client-server communications and thereby, the lag. Simply increasing the culling limits would fix the problem for people like me who run semi-high end machines with no bad side effects, BUT there are a majority of people out there who run this game on machines like my old laptop that would see a drastic decrease in performance. The reason this ‘fix’ can/will take a little while to complete is to ensure that does not happen when they do finally fix it.

Culling aside; I’ve noticed that a good chunk of the complaints here boil down to:

I think I’m awesome and I like to roam by myself as a class, X in a huge world vs world battlefield and I expect to be able to catch thieves whenever they try to run or play stealth combat with me. It isn’t fair that they can just stealth and run away or stealth and heal up. I want to be able to roam around by myself and beat thieves.

I hate to break it to you guys but thieves are an infiltration class, their highest strength is 1v1 combat. The fact that decent players can render most thieves useless in a 1v1 is bad enough. I’m sorry but you can’t have all your cake and eat it too. Thieves sacrifice a LOT to be so mobile and stealthly. They can go to and from hotspots very quickly and offer a lot on the battlefield but aside from the occasional scorp wire, they are merely supply carrying mules in siege warfare, wherease most other classes, that often do worse in 1v1 combat (against specialists, like thieves) offer a lot more to more situations than thieves do.

tl;dl This is not world vs world: duel mode. Also not every class should “have the tools necessary to deal with it”, even though they do just not in every build.

Mogar.9216:

You very explicitly said that CnD spam was unfair. I gave ways around it. SERIOUSLY, If a thief is stealth “half the fight” its your fault. Without hitting you, he can’t stop spamming a stealth combo which involves pistol/SB and leaves him vulnerable every time he fires it off. There is no sure-fire safe way to perma stealth and if you think there is .. do what we’ve all said. go play a thief for 30 levels and figure it out
Also, if he keeps “running away and coming back” then you clearly are alone, which isn’t the intention of wvw anyway. If your in a group, he will take fire ANY time he gets close enough to attack and then run away.

>>>>>>>>>>>
Seriously how many times do you think I can dodge in a fight? I have to save dodge for when he try to backstab me. CND is just one skill that have no real delay in animation how in the hell do you think people can time dodge for when a thief uses cnd? CND has no cooldown as long as the thief have ini he can use it. Even if I manage to dodge one he can use it again .
As for alone in WvW , yes I was alone. I like to roam by myself. If WvW was all zerg then you have never played a real rvr game and most likely you have no idea what I’m talking about anyway. Guards can be soloed and supply camps can be soloed why would I zerg when I can have way more fun solo? Roaming wvw is the hardest part of the game you have to deal with bad odds all the time which requires a lot of planing and gear and skill. Other roamer in wvw are some of the best players you’ll ever see anywhere.

same back to you
just how many times do you think a thief can CnD, Ini needs recharge too yo.
your one-sided view bored me.

Mogar.9216:

brandon.6735:

Mogar.9216:

Stiv.1820:

Mogar.9216:

Sure you do that. Stealth in this game is just dumb. No timer, you can stealth anytime, nothing stop stealth , nothing knock people out of stealth . Imaging if warrior had an ability that let them hit you and get invulnerable for 3 secs with no cool down. Even if that was the case I still rather fight a warrior. In that case I can at least keep my target on him and chase him down or back away.

This is a typical post from a typical player who doesn’t understand the game mechanics. Play a Thief to ~ level 30 and get your learn on, it will help you fight them.

If you aren’t willing to learn the mechanics of the other professions to PvP against them, then you honestly don’t have anything to complain about.

You are a typical player who plays a typical thief who doesn’t know the potential of your own class. I have no problem with 90% of the thieves out there thank god they are bad like you. But the few who does know the class and ‘abuse’ stealth is just dumb. But you would have a clue what I’m talking about anyway.

So you are complaining about someone being skilled with there class and you didn’t like it/or got owned? I can say the same about every class when the player is very skilled with it.

I’m saying stealth is dumb. It’s NOT FUN to fight someone you can’t target for 1/2 the fight. I’m saying give thieve more stuff if they have to but fix stealth. I just want 10 secs of fight time between each stealth , heck give me 5 I’d be happy.

No, I enjoy it more when the thief is visible and I can hit him. BUT…

Its not fun to hit an illusion rather then the real mesmer
Its not fun to hit a Guardian that heals through everything
Its not fun to hit a ranger underwater
etc. etc.

Thieves have stealth, its their thing, same as us mesmers have illusions. Take stealth away from thieves and what do you have left? a bunch of high DPS fellows with a suspicious taste in leather clothing.

1v1 I expect a thief to have the advantage, stealth is part of that. Their stealth doesnt help them much in the larger scale battles where you are as likely to die by accident then by targetted fire.

Im not a thief, Im a mesmer.

Nidhogg.2950:

Mogar.9216:

brandon.6735:

Mogar.9216:

Stiv.1820:

Mogar.9216:

Sure you do that. Stealth in this game is just dumb. No timer, you can stealth anytime, nothing stop stealth , nothing knock people out of stealth . Imaging if warrior had an ability that let them hit you and get invulnerable for 3 secs with no cool down. Even if that was the case I still rather fight a warrior. In that case I can at least keep my target on him and chase him down or back away.

This is a typical post from a typical player who doesn’t understand the game mechanics. Play a Thief to ~ level 30 and get your learn on, it will help you fight them.

If you aren’t willing to learn the mechanics of the other professions to PvP against them, then you honestly don’t have anything to complain about.

You are a typical player who plays a typical thief who doesn’t know the potential of your own class. I have no problem with 90% of the thieves out there thank god they are bad like you. But the few who does know the class and ‘abuse’ stealth is just dumb. But you would have a clue what I’m talking about anyway.

So you are complaining about someone being skilled with there class and you didn’t like it/or got owned? I can say the same about every class when the player is very skilled with it.

I’m saying stealth is dumb. It’s NOT FUN to fight someone you can’t target for 1/2 the fight. I’m saying give thieve more stuff if they have to but fix stealth. I just want 10 secs of fight time between each stealth , heck give me 5 I’d be happy.

No, I enjoy it more when the thief is visible and I can hit him. BUT…

Its not fun to hit an illusion rather then the real mesmer
Its not fun to hit a Guardian that heals through everything
Its not fun to hit a ranger underwater
etc. etc.

Thieves have stealth, its their thing, same as us mesmers have illusions. Take stealth away from thieves and what do you have left? a bunch of high DPS fellows with a suspicious taste in leather clothing.

1v1 I expect a thief to have the advantage, stealth is part of that. Their stealth doesnt help them much in the larger scale battles where you are as likely to die by accident then by targetted fire.

Im not a thief, Im a mesmer.

let me add
it’s not fun to hit a guardian or warrior when you deal ZERO dmg to them
it’s not fun to hit a necro when he/she used the defensive buff
it’s not fun to hit an engineer when he has all his turrets around him

and overall
complain about a player you can’t target 1/2 of the fight is stupid.
stealth is what they have, the only thing that they can rely on in fight, knock them, pull them out of stealth, what can they do?
also it doesn’t mean you can’t ground target
also you made yourself sound like one of those players who stand-still and wait to be stabbed.

Scyntrus.2458:

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 HIGH BRO? Invuln on an elementalist!?!?!??! We have 2 invuln skills, mist form (which doesn’t let you attack while using it), and i believe stone armor, which requires focus offhand. Focus offhand is just a piece of crap. Go play an elementalist against a thief and see how you do.

Are you illiterate bro? I was pointing out the fact that it’s just as unfun a mechanic as anything else in the game. And you have 3 skills, one is on conjure earth shield, one on focus and mist form. I wasn’t saying its OP, commonly used, a good idea, nothing. You make stupid assumptions out of thin air. And I have played an ele vs a thief, I won. D/D bunker build.

It truly is remarkable what happens when you use dodge at the correct time.

Tulisin.6945:

Columba.9730:

lol. nice try. they can still achieve perma stealth. come back once that’s fixed (culling bug).

Perma stealth is doable without any culling abuse. While I hope to see culling fixed if you think that means there won’t be any more permastealth you’re gonna have a bad time. Learn how to counter it now.

Relentliss.2170:

And if they bring the current thief nerfs to WvW thieves will be a lot better.

I’m not sure if you understand the PvP-only nerfs that happened last patch, but they primarily targeted more conservative control-based thief builds. These rest of nerfs coming to WvW would, if anything, push more thieves into high-burst backstabby play.

Yes, but they will have to spec for it and give up dps. Right now they can max dps and stealth because of the culling bug.

Columba.9730:

Tulisin.6945:

Columba.9730:

lol. nice try. they can still achieve perma stealth. come back once that’s fixed (culling bug).

Perma stealth is doable without any culling abuse. While I hope to see culling fixed if you think that means there won’t be any more permastealth you’re gonna have a bad time. Learn how to counter it now.

Yes, but they will have to spec for it and give up dps. Right now they can max dps and stealth because of the culling bug.

Fair enough, but if your complaint is solely about culling it isn’t really a thief complaint.

Although I find the majority of complaints about thieves to be funny, some do have merit.

I’ve played most of the classes (minus Necro, Ranger, and Engi) up to 50+. I have a Mesmer, Guardian, and Warrior sitting at 80, while my Thief and Ele are in the 70’s. I played the large variety of classes for so many levels simply to better appreciate how to win with/against them in WvW on the off-chance I run into one solo.

I have very little trouble with Thieves on any of my characters most of the time. Why? Because I don’t build straight glass cannon. The way I see it (again, having played a thief into the 70’s), thieves are enforcers of Darwinism. If you go glass cannon, you deserve to die to a class designed from the ground up to kill glass cannons. Thus if you are unwilling to evolve your mindset and continue to fall prey to a class designed to kill you, you deserve to die. Repeatedly. Over and over, somehow naively expecting a different outcome until the truth gets beaten into your now-bloody skull.

It’s not just thieves can do this, but they do it best. A warrior can burst you down easily using a combination of frenzy and hundred blades or rifle #3. A mesmer can do it through sword #3, dodge roll clone, phantasm, sword #2, shatter. A ranger can do it with the bow rapid fire. Etc… The only difference about the thief is that you don’t necessarily see it coming. But the counter to the thief is exactly the same as the counter to the above: don’t build glass cannon.

Now, I do take issue with thieves being able to hold up the capture of an objective indefinitely. No, I’m not talking about the flag points. Those are small areas that are easy to AoE the heck out of. I’m talking about supply camps. Those are large enough, and often have enough obstructions, for a thief to hide out in indefinitely. I know, I’ve done it. I’ve held a camp for 10 minutes against 20+ people that stacked up and AoE’d, but weren’t able to do so in a complete manner as I had a LOT of room to work with. Even though I managed this, I found it stupid. I should not have been able to hold up a cap for that amount of time, by myself, spamming nothing more than two buttons with the occasional third.

That’s my take on thieves. I kill them solo all the time. Darwin award winners die to them all the time. Something needs to be done about the stealth capture hold-up mechanics.

(A point of clarification: My thief is not my main. My warrior is. And before you “100b newb” me, I don’t use the greatsword. I don’t use the rifle. I prefer the CC that Sword/Shield + Hammer yields. I will immobilize, knockback, knockdown, and stun you to death.)

Tulisin.6945:

Columba.9730:

Tulisin.6945:

Columba.9730:

lol. nice try. they can still achieve perma stealth. come back once that’s fixed (culling bug).

Perma stealth is doable without any culling abuse. While I hope to see culling fixed if you think that means there won’t be any more permastealth you’re gonna have a bad time. Learn how to counter it now.

Yes, but they will have to spec for it and give up dps. Right now they can max dps and stealth because of the culling bug.

Fair enough, but if your complaint is solely about culling it isn’t really a thief complaint.

In a way it’s a mesmer and thief complaint. they both disproportionately benefit from it.

well my thief is still only lvl 2 sitting in the mist so i do not know all the mechanics yet. Yes it does piss me off that they can come start trouble and if things go bad they can just get away so easy with that dang short bow of theirs. i think mainly cause i wish i had that kind of mobility on my ranger however if they increased the time between stealths they would have to fix some over things. I have downed many thieves with kill shot and rapid fire on my warrior as they will still track the stealther. would prbly even go as far as say reduce aoe damage to the stealther.

As far as the ones that can keep going stealth i just keep that big hammer swinging, if they get close they are getting hit. i use to like the great sword for its mobility but the hammer seems to swing in a much larger arch. still need to play around with warrior not sure what sigil is best for hammer i just have a rage one in there atm and it is prbly isn’t the best but funny as fell when it procs.

Now when it comes to a class that can make you drop target to no end i don’t think anything gets me as mad as all these mesmers running around now day. seems like with the right traits they call out clones and phantom for anything they do. might have to look again but think they might have a trait that lets them call 3 clones a phantom and go invis for scratching their left nut.

Columba.9730:

Tulisin.6945:

Columba.9730:

Tulisin.6945:

Columba.9730:

lol. nice try. they can still achieve perma stealth. come back once that’s fixed (culling bug).

Perma stealth is doable without any culling abuse. While I hope to see culling fixed if you think that means there won’t be any more permastealth you’re gonna have a bad time. Learn how to counter it now.

Yes, but they will have to spec for it and give up dps. Right now they can max dps and stealth because of the culling bug.

Fair enough, but if your complaint is solely about culling it isn’t really a thief complaint.

In a way it’s a mesmer and thief complaint. they both disproportionately benefit from it.

In the same sense that beneficial AE being unlimited-target was a warrior/engineer complaint, I’ll give you that.

If its still the rending bug then as much as I hate not being able to see what is hitting me until I’m 3/4 dead I don’t blame the class. If the bug is fixed then yes they need a bit of tweeking. There is a very good reason no other game with a stealth class gives out multiple vanish skills that allow a stealth to remain stealthed for the duration of a fight. But again if its still the same bug then you can’t really blame the class.

The only beef I have with the whole class is finishing while in stealth, I’d prefer finishing to break stealth. I play warrior, mostly, but when I get downed, I cant use my knock down axe in a 1 v 1 because I cant see him So cheeky.

Puk Grum.8647:

The only beef I have with the whole class is finishing while in stealth, I’d prefer finishing to break stealth. I play warrior, mostly, but when I get downed, I cant use my knock down axe in a 1 v 1 because I cant see him So cheeky.

1v1 is the main situation where stealth finishing is useful, but then the first person to be downed in 1v1 is almost always going to be the loser regardless of which professions are fighting. The goal in 1v1 downed play should be trying to rally off of NPCs, not somehow come back to beat your opponent.