Guild Wars 2

John Widdin.9618:

Haru Kane.4623:

John Widdin.9618:

honestly, all you need is bare minimum Knights armor. Maintain 2k armor, and you won’t fold instantly.

I have 2.3k armor right now and 18k health

Then you can’t be helped. You have the tools as a mesmer to deal with that. What build are you running?

We need to sacrifice the build because of 1 profession?

Kimbald.2697:

The reasoning for thieves is: because they have only a small damage window, they need to do burst.
That’s how it works in most MMO’s: stealth classes are weak to damage and need to hit fast before they get killed.

But that’s not how it works out in this game, even though they start from the same reasoning.

Because of the high capacity for restealth and avoidance, thieves actually have an incredibly big window for damage. In fact: they have several windows after each other.
The opponents are the ones with the very small window to do damage, not the thief since he can restealth.

Restealth is the reason why thieves should do slow steady damage.
And not high burst…

The thief profession was designed as a one-hit wonder like other stealth classes, but they added restealth to it which changes everything.

Good analysis.

I think a possible solution is to balance the wvw thief stealth burst around the weapon swap cooldown and buff their non stealth dmg. This means changing the wvw reveal timer to match the weapon swap cooldown.

So you could start the fight with with the steal/cnd/backstab then immediately swap weapons to a sword/etc and continue dealing high sustained dmg to finish the target, but this would come at a cost of escape mobility from shortbow.

When the revealed timer is up, you can swap back to daggers to restealth and exit the fight, or go for a burst finish but risk another revealed.

Fatall.4189:

(…)
I still have over 700 hours of playtime on my thief however as it’s my main profession and 90% of the time i’m playing WvW, I can’t even begin to express how weak the class is due to recent over-powerful nerfs and it has led many people to switch to classes like engy or warrior. Go look into the thief forums for awhile and you will soon discover what i’m talking about.

Im imaging you wanting to burst down everything in 3 or 4 seconds, still possible and people still doing it even on bunker classes, you sir need to refit you trais.

Hey Fatall, let’s not exaggerate now about WvW.

I find my thief to be ridiculously useful. I can solo a supply camp in the time it takes for the crossed swords to show up. I can scout like a mofo. I can do crazy damage + utility with shortbow blast finishers.

And don’t get me started about shadowstepping to the back of the oncoming zerg, daggerstorming, and then returning. I’m pretty sure that has single-handedly turned large-scale encounters to our favor.

I feel pretty good about the class – just have to be careful and have cat-like reflexes. And die alot. God I die alot.

BossFi.6917:

Haru Kane.4623:

http://i.imgur.com/jA1wo5h.jpg I don’t think there is a single class that could survive this

Looking at the skills the thief used you obviously just stood there and did nothing. You deserved it.

I’m a Mesmer too and I don’t die to thief’s.

Well if you knew how to play a thief you would understand that he did the 20k damage (steal, cloak and backstab) within the time it took him to press the steal button. If you want I can show you how quickly it can be done.

Kincaidia.3192:

Haru Kane.4623:

http://i.imgur.com/jA1wo5h.jpg I don’t think there is a single class that could survive this — how can it be allowed? The steal, cloak, and back stab happened while he was in stealth which means the only way I could stop it at all is if I preemptively dodged. Why is this amount of damage acceptable in WvW and not in Spvp? It’s still player versus player, this makes small scale WvW almost unbearable.

Hey, I didn’t expect to get a spotlight Don’t make me regret partying with enemies to talk.

And for the record, I’m playing an all-out glass canon here. 25 stacks of +10 power, scholar runes, all ‘zerker exotics or ascended (missing 2 pieces of ascended jewelry), +power sigil, etc. This isn’t my normal build, but for yak-slaying and speed solo camp taking, it works the best that I’ve found.

The trade off is that I can die by being sneezed on. You got the jump on me seconds before and dropped me to half in 5 seconds. I had to skedaddle, get out of combat, and reengage on my own terms.

And the character name is “Tired of OP”, because I was tired of this happening to my ranger… I won’t go GC for long because it’s…. you know, a bit OP. But FA was not doing well, so I had to put my game face on.

I hope there aren’t hard feelings – I didn’t join your group and say “POWNED MF’ER!”. I hope you found me courteous at least.

Tired of OP
FA roamer
quick edit after actually reading more than the first post

The mesmer was downed after the first burst, so there was no reaction time – after the initial engagement and his damage, I C&D’d him, healed, and then appeared long enough to get steal+C&D+BS combo.

The spec I was running was 25/30/0/0/15. Hidden killer, +10% damage from runes of the scholar, +5% dagger damage.

Yeah you were very courteous, I was just astounded by the amount of damage you did to me because I have never been hit that hard by anyone so I felt the need to fill the daily thief QQ post quota.

My thief is pretty close to glass cannon spec and sometimes I get obliterated by other thieves who were hanging back waiting on a target to appear. It’s just funny because they got me instead of me getting them. I’ve been hit for 12k on a backstab before but it’s what I signed up for with that character.

My guardian on the other hand, has zero chance of dying to a thief unless I’m akitten.

Haru Kane.4623:

BossFi.6917:

Haru Kane.4623:

http://i.imgur.com/jA1wo5h.jpg I don’t think there is a single class that could survive this

Looking at the skills the thief used you obviously just stood there and did nothing. You deserved it.

I’m a Mesmer too and I don’t die to thief’s.

Well if you knew how to play a thief you would understand that he did the 20k damage (steal, cloak and backstab) within the time it took him to press the steal button. If you want I can show you how quickly it can be done.

You can dodge the backstab if you’re quick enough. On my thief I can shadowstep out of the backstab with reasonably reliability.

Maladon.5760:

Haru Kane.4623:

BossFi.6917:

Haru Kane.4623:

http://i.imgur.com/jA1wo5h.jpg I don’t think there is a single class that could survive this

Looking at the skills the thief used you obviously just stood there and did nothing. You deserved it.

I’m a Mesmer too and I don’t die to thief’s.

Well if you knew how to play a thief you would understand that he did the 20k damage (steal, cloak and backstab) within the time it took him to press the steal button. If you want I can show you how quickly it can be done.

You can dodge the backstab if you’re quick enough. On my thief I can shadowstep out of the backstab with reasonably reliability.

Lies! When my timing is perfect (or even just not awful), I hit C&D just before I’m out of stealth, hit steal and immediately backstab – and it takes all of probably 0.2 seconds.

No one is that fast, not even taking into account that given 80ms round trip, most of that time is probably taken up by latency. You’re dead before you know it.

People can argue about balancing thief DPS with stealth, and how much burst is too much, but I actually think the greater reason for change is simply the vast majority of the playerbase hates fighting this mechanic. It just makes for a worse game, worse gameplay, to fight another character that is not there, can’t be seen over 50% of the fight. Swinging at the air is not fun. Casting AOE at random locations or where you last saw, or think a thief went, is not engaging, or skill based.

When Anet was developing this game they talked about not wanting to overdue CC because losing control of your character wasn’t fun, not because CC couldn’t be balanced. Massive re-steath should be viewed the same way, simply a poor frustrating mechanic, except for the 1 out of 8 characters playing them, and even plenty of thieves agree its just too much of a crutch mechanic.

Stealth as an opening gambit to do initial burst would be fine. Or even one more used for an escape perhaps. But the constant in battle appearing and disappearing, especially without any counters or stealth detection, is just garbage design, even beside the difficulty to balance issue.

The thief class should be slowly tweaked over time to have less stealth, but more health and more survivability when visible.

Pendragon said it the best, the massive re-stealth a thief can access is crazy and so frustrating for the other side to fight against; On the other hand they simply out damage you each round they pop out and back to stealth, and eventually take you down.

The only, and I mean ONLY, thing Thieves need changed is the reveal timer increased by a second or two. This leaves Thieves open for attacks a little longer, makes setting up their powerful hits take that much longer, and reduces healing down a small amount.

Literally everything a Thief excels at happens almost always in stealth. Just increasing reveal by a small margin will ultimately nerf Thieves to an acceptable rate. If you are complaining because of the design choice about a class that is made to harass and make “hit and run” tactics, I suggest you stop playing competitive role-playing games all together.

Hit and run need not be dependent on stealth. DD Ele’s, especially prior the last few patches, were amazing at hit and run, and had no stealth.

It’s simply lack of creativity to claim that this is the only way to skin the cat for a thief type character.

But yes, moving the reveal timer back down to 3s for WvW was a mistake.

Pendragon.8735:

Hit and run need not be dependent on stealth. DD Ele’s, especially prior the last few patches, were amazing at hit and run, and had no stealth.

It’s simply lack of creativity to claim that this is the only way to skin the cat for a thief type character.

But yes, moving the reveal timer back down to 3s for WvW was a mistake.

There is literally NOTHING wrong with the Thief’s design other than a few number tweaks. Most MMOs have stealth-based classes in infinite stealth until hit or attacking, with methods to re-stealth in combat. If anything, I’d say stealth is GW2 is very restrictive in more ways than not, especially when a single skill only allows a max of 10 seconds of it (not taking D/P thieves into account).

Complaining about Thieves is like complaining about Mesmer clones, is like complaining about Guardian boons. There was a point in time where people learned to adapt to the game, and not cry about the game conforming to them. Those days are obviously long past.

Thieves are a solid class that have a purpose (as much as Thief players would like to say otherwise). While they can be annoying, it is what they are designed to do (and as much as non-thief players want to admit, that is okay). SOME tweaks do have to be made, but the outcry from both Thieves and Thief haters has gone to insane proportions that make both ends of the spectrum look like idiots (is it against the forum rules to call a non-specific person an idiot? Sorry if it is mods, I’ll edit if need be).

Most (or at least well designed) MMO’s have stealth detection skills, which introduce skill and counter play into a fight vs a stealth character. And that is what is missing here in GW2, considering the extremely high fight uptime and reapplication of stealth.

In this game, fighting stealth is all about reaction, there is not enough preemptive action, to dictate a fight back in your favor, and turn the tables back on a thief to disrupt the same silly repetitive patterns used over and over.

If you have no stealth detection (don’t say seige trap, lol), then stealth should be limited to a make or break mechanic to open the fight, or to get away.

Like I said its a crappy mechanic to fight against (without detection), and that should drive design, over balance in fact.

The reason why this problem is so prevalent and apparent in WvW, is because the game was built balance wise around sPVP. And in sPVP, disengage is not a winning tactic, if you disengage the point, you might live but the other team is winning the match. If the thief wants to win, he has to contest a very small point, where it is easy to put damage on him, if he wants to keep that point contested, regardless whether you can see him or not.

These dynamics do not apply in WvW, where objectives are reached and won while including a lot of open field figthing between. This where they need to take advantage of their split mechanics for different game modes, in tweaking various abilities to balance within each particular mode.

McFribble.2349:

Pendragon.8735:

Hit and run need not be dependent on stealth. DD Ele’s, especially prior the last few patches, were amazing at hit and run, and had no stealth.

It’s simply lack of creativity to claim that this is the only way to skin the cat for a thief type character.

But yes, moving the reveal timer back down to 3s for WvW was a mistake.

There is literally NOTHING wrong with the Thief’s design other than a few number tweaks. Most MMOs have stealth-based classes in infinite stealth until hit or attacking, with methods to re-stealth in combat. If anything, I’d say stealth is GW2 is very restrictive in more ways than not, especially when a single skill only allows a max of 10 seconds of it (not taking D/P thieves into account).

Complaining about Thieves is like complaining about Mesmer clones, is like complaining about Guardian boons. There was a point in time where people learned to adapt to the game, and not cry about the game conforming to them. Those days are obviously long past.

Thieves are a solid class that have a purpose (as much as Thief players would like to say otherwise). While they can be annoying, it is what they are designed to do (and as much as non-thief players want to admit, that is okay). SOME tweaks do have to be made, but the outcry from both Thieves and Thief haters has gone to insane proportions that make both ends of the spectrum look like idiots (is it against the forum rules to call a non-specific person an idiot? Sorry if it is mods, I’ll edit if need be).

Yeah, that was a terrible comparison. You can rip boons and kill clones. No class in this game has stealth detection on hand.

I think the thing that makes the thief’s damage crazy is the fact that steal is an instant skill, if it had a small cast timer I think it would fix a lot of the insta-kill bullkitten. that cast timer would make them have to use steal and then C+D and then BS which would give people at least 1 second or more of reaction time. As it is now the good thieves use C+D then Steal and BS since the Steal has no cast time it doesn’t interrupt C+D allowing the 20k damage w/o ever being out of stealth.

Lifewaster.5912:

style.6173:

Wow, wtf? Weren’t you wearing any armor OP? I can’t remember dying to a thief anytime recently.

btw, you know that backstab and mug are the same in PvP and WvW right?

The 7k dmg from cloak and dagger part of the combo hits harder in wvw. It was nerfed by 50% in pvp.
Also Food buffs and oils allow for higher burst dmg from all 3 hits of the combo.

And if the target survives the first wave, the second wave of cloak and dagger+backstab will hit them 25% sooner due to shorter revealed.

These are the main differences I can see with the OPs screenshot.

In spvp I can get a total of 50% critical damage on my thief. 20% from zerker amulet/jewel, 30% from traits. In PvE/WvW I can get upwards of 120% total. That right there is where a bulk of the damage difference comes from.

WvW is not intended to be balanced PvP, it isn’t just thieves. There is a long list of skills that use the PvE versions in WvW.

Lyndis.2584:

McFribble.2349:

Pendragon.8735:

Hit and run need not be dependent on stealth. DD Ele’s, especially prior the last few patches, were amazing at hit and run, and had no stealth.

It’s simply lack of creativity to claim that this is the only way to skin the cat for a thief type character.

But yes, moving the reveal timer back down to 3s for WvW was a mistake.

There is literally NOTHING wrong with the Thief’s design other than a few number tweaks. Most MMOs have stealth-based classes in infinite stealth until hit or attacking, with methods to re-stealth in combat. If anything, I’d say stealth is GW2 is very restrictive in more ways than not, especially when a single skill only allows a max of 10 seconds of it (not taking D/P thieves into account).

Complaining about Thieves is like complaining about Mesmer clones, is like complaining about Guardian boons. There was a point in time where people learned to adapt to the game, and not cry about the game conforming to them. Those days are obviously long past.

Thieves are a solid class that have a purpose (as much as Thief players would like to say otherwise). While they can be annoying, it is what they are designed to do (and as much as non-thief players want to admit, that is okay). SOME tweaks do have to be made, but the outcry from both Thieves and Thief haters has gone to insane proportions that make both ends of the spectrum look like idiots (is it against the forum rules to call a non-specific person an idiot? Sorry if it is mods, I’ll edit if need be).

Yeah, that was a terrible comparison. You can rip boons and kill clones. No class in this game has stealth detection on hand.

Stealth isn’t a buff. It isn’t a second body attacking for you and causing Conditions (other than maybe 1 second of blindness if you are dry humping the thief). It is a state of transparency that offers some offensive abilities and a little health regan (if traited).

A stealthed thief is either doing one of two things: Closing distance to attack, or running away. AoE your position. Just because you don’t see him dying doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

Really, roll an upleveled Thief in tPvP for a week and get used to his mechanics. They are strong, but very predictable once you have handled the class yourself.

McFribble.2349:

Lyndis.2584:

McFribble.2349:

Pendragon.8735:

Hit and run need not be dependent on stealth. DD Ele’s, especially prior the last few patches, were amazing at hit and run, and had no stealth.

It’s simply lack of creativity to claim that this is the only way to skin the cat for a thief type character.

But yes, moving the reveal timer back down to 3s for WvW was a mistake.

There is literally NOTHING wrong with the Thief’s design other than a few number tweaks. Most MMOs have stealth-based classes in infinite stealth until hit or attacking, with methods to re-stealth in combat. If anything, I’d say stealth is GW2 is very restrictive in more ways than not, especially when a single skill only allows a max of 10 seconds of it (not taking D/P thieves into account).

Complaining about Thieves is like complaining about Mesmer clones, is like complaining about Guardian boons. There was a point in time where people learned to adapt to the game, and not cry about the game conforming to them. Those days are obviously long past.

Thieves are a solid class that have a purpose (as much as Thief players would like to say otherwise). While they can be annoying, it is what they are designed to do (and as much as non-thief players want to admit, that is okay). SOME tweaks do have to be made, but the outcry from both Thieves and Thief haters has gone to insane proportions that make both ends of the spectrum look like idiots (is it against the forum rules to call a non-specific person an idiot? Sorry if it is mods, I’ll edit if need be).

Yeah, that was a terrible comparison. You can rip boons and kill clones. No class in this game has stealth detection on hand.

Stealth isn’t a buff. It isn’t a second body attacking for you and causing Conditions (other than maybe 1 second of blindness if you are dry humping the thief). It is a state of transparency that offers some offensive abilities and a little health regan (if traited).

A stealthed thief is either doing one of two things: Closing distance to attack, or running away. AoE your position. Just because you don’t see him dying doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

Really, roll an upleveled Thief in tPvP for a week and get used to his mechanics. They are strong, but very predictable once you have handled the class yourself.

I do play thief quite a bit actually and I can tell you any good thief isn’t terribly predictable and that I can insta kill almost everyone besides some guards, also what about the classes with very little aoe i.e mesmers what do we do, just swing wildly in the air?

Solori.6025:

…Your a mesmer…..and you got super gibbed….

Were you akitten when theif showed up?

want some cheese with that?

What’s even more hilarious is that his partner is playing a BS Thief, LOL. Maybe he should ask him for a few extrmely easy ways to counter that burst COUGH STUNBREAKER, USE IT COUGH