Guild Wars 2

You know, all I’m really seeing on this thread is: This thief backstabbed me. He got away. He should never be able to get away. If he backstabs me, and doesn’t kill me, then I should be able to kill him. It’s not fair that a class that has 11k HP with high burst can get away. I want to kill it.

Thieves that do a lot of burst? Those are the ones that are wearing FULL berserker gear with NO survivability from traits or gear.

I’m tired of seeing posts saying: “They remove conditions in stealth! They stealth for 90% of the time! They backstab me for 23042304 health! They are super mobile! They have high AoE damage!”

I’m sorry, but you are poorly informed if you think a thief is capable of doing -all- of that in one trait build. Thieves give up damage to remove conditions in stealth (chances are they won’t be able to burst you down). For extra mobility? Guess again, they can’t use the typical full glass cannon trait spec there either.

High AoE Damage? Er, well, there’s two types of AoE damage builds one uses the Short Bow and allows them to keep their burst — however you can see a cluster bomb coming from a mile away, and I’m pretty sure no thief is going to try to spam cluster bombs standing on top of you. The other way is to go the condition damage route — again, they aren’t going to kill you in a single burst. Either.

You want to kill a thief? Force him into Shadow Refuge and use a knockback effect to push him out of it. Blindly swing your weapon.

Most of you complain about stealth and stealth only. I will tell you this though: If you remove a thieves mobility and stealth, you will have just removed a class from the game. They simply can NOT build tanky and have burst at the same time. There’s no point in playing a ‘tank thief’. You’d be better off rolling a D/D Ele.

Edit: To reiterate, a thief right now has to pick his battles carefully to have any sort of success. All it takes is two back to back CC’s and the thief is probably going to die.

Have you looked at PvE lately? I don’t know about you, but most people rather bring something -other- than a thief, as Thieves are just.. better for supporting a group rather than being the “high damage pillar of the group.” High damage + survivability? Bring warriors and eles.

Bunzy.8674:

Apparently the new plan is to keep buffing thieves every patch. I mean they obviously don’t listen to the community and just do their own thing anyways.

Baaaaaaaaaaahahahahaha…

You’re a crack up Bunzy, always good to laugh at.

Keep the quality replies coming buddy!

Dual.8953:

rootnode.9546:

Rake.7169:

Dred, nice work-around but the problem remains, why gift an overpowered ability to just one class?

Well, Mesmers can also stealth. But: with long cooldowns inbetween. The stealth is fine. The permastealthing of a thief is just annoying.

A few days ago it took us 12 people to kill 1 thief in the jumping puzzle. He backstabbed one person, stealthed, got out of battle without problems and attacked again. We never caught him. With longer cooldowns inbetween it would’ve been possible.

If 12 people can’t kill 1 guy… then all 12 are either total noobs or the class is just overpowered regarding this mechanic.

Longer cooldown, could make thieves absolutely worthless at everything but quick kills to single targets. Any hits to stealth does hurt a bit to burst builds, but it hurts non-burst builds 10 times worse.

Well, if you go glass canon, you need to consider being fragile. Stealthing all the time and escaping way too easily just isn’t being fragile. Consider a glass canon shatter mesmer. If things don’t work out….well…kitten.
But if the fight goes on way too long, the stealths definitely need a longer cooldown. Maybe +5 secs on the utility skills or +1-2 secs on the revealed. That’s not that bad. But it gives other classes a chance to actually catch the thief.

I expect that the comments by the Devs are based on Spvp, where if the Thief is not fighting in or around the point, they likely are not accomplishing much. In such a situation their advice might work.

They clearly do not understand how the thief is ruining WvW. Where they can head off in any directin and the AOE is not a fix it. You would think they would understand how most thieves can strip off their Conditions and come back for a second go at their target.

Overall, they seem to think the entire game is Tpvp and are not in touch with WvW at all.

How about we actually fix culling issues before complaining? As it is that adds 1-2 seconds on thief stealth, and you all know it. So instead of jumping the bandwagon about nerfs how about we fix something that is literally broken that probably has the biggest effect on stealth?

Dual.8953:

Longer cooldown, could make thieves absolutely worthless at everything but quick kills to single targets. Any hits to stealth does hurt a bit to burst builds, but it hurts non-burst builds 10 times worse.

So make it a trade off, burst or stealth, one or the other not both. Even games like swtor, as bad as its class balancing was, made this adjustment to stealth classes.

rootnode.9546:

Dual.8953:

rootnode.9546:

Rake.7169:

Dred, nice work-around but the problem remains, why gift an overpowered ability to just one class?

Well, Mesmers can also stealth. But: with long cooldowns inbetween. The stealth is fine. The permastealthing of a thief is just annoying.

A few days ago it took us 12 people to kill 1 thief in the jumping puzzle. He backstabbed one person, stealthed, got out of battle without problems and attacked again. We never caught him. With longer cooldowns inbetween it would’ve been possible.

If 12 people can’t kill 1 guy… then all 12 are either total noobs or the class is just overpowered regarding this mechanic.

Longer cooldown, could make thieves absolutely worthless at everything but quick kills to single targets. Any hits to stealth does hurt a bit to burst builds, but it hurts non-burst builds 10 times worse.

Well, if you go glass canon, you need to consider being fragile. Stealthing all the time and escaping way too easily just isn’t being fragile. Consider a glass canon shatter mesmer. If things don’t work out….well…kitten.
But if the fight goes on way too long, the stealths definitely need a longer cooldown. Maybe +5 secs on the utility skills or +1-2 secs on the revealed. That’s not that bad. But it gives other classes a chance to actually catch the thief.

Question is how does it effect the non-bursts, they may have more vitality and armour but they go down almost a quickly. Nerfs to glass cannon’s need to be more localized, like maybe make BS itself have some negative side effects. Stealth effects all pretty much all thieves, so any changes to it effects pretty much all thieves. And as stated before, stealth effects bursty thieves the least.

Warrior should have stealth so they could use kill shot as opener.

i constantly see thieves start a fight by using their stealthing heal skill. regardless of the actual logic of using this method, the message the average player is and has been getting is clear. stealth is more powerful than healing or condition removal in its current form, and that is the problem.

Bottom line in anything here should be balance. When you start having to make certain skill (builds) to counter a certain class/build then it’s nothing more than Build Wars 2. Any class should have a fair chance to survive or kill an opponent regardless of the skills they’ve chosen. Someone clearly has their head up in a dark hole here because they missed the mark.

How do people have trouble killing thieves? I play guardian and a thief has never ever owned me or come close in wvw. With my hammer I immobilise knockback and use #2. Skill which that skill alone takes out half the thieves hp (especially if it crits for 5-6k). Also if a thief stealths don’t just sand still, move around so it’s harder to backstab. Most thieves I face either die in 5 seconds or stealth and run like little noobs while my hp is still above 90%. Learn to play your class and you will realise thieves are pretty weak.

iiMulch.2138:

How do people have trouble killing thieves? I play guardian and a thief has never ever owned me or come close in wvw. With my hammer I immobilise knockback and use #2. Skill which that skill alone takes out half the thieves hp (especially if it crits for 5-6k). Also if a thief stealths don’t just sand still, move around so it’s harder to backstab. Most thieves I face either die in 5 seconds or stealth and run like little noobs while my hp is still above 90%. Learn to play your class and you will realise thieves are pretty weak.

Ever considered other classes aside from guardian? As Mesmer I’m running a toughness build to survive a thief’s burst. Can I kill him? No… he stealths, gets away, comes back.
Can I kill other classes? Sure. Takes some time and skill, but I have a fair chance against every class except thieves. They maybe can’t kill me instantly, but I can’t pose a large enough threat to kill him before he walks away.

Bunzy.8674:

Apparently the new plan is to keep buffing thieves every patch. I mean they obviously don’t listen to the community and just do their own thing anyways.

Lol, I have been wondering this myself. Someone at Anet plays a thief, probably the boss. Development meeting goes like this:

Dev: “Lots of people have been saying that the supposed weaknesses of thieves are only the illusion of weakness, since most of these can be laughably countered by stealth. Maybe we should consider a rejig?”
Boss: “Hmmm, I take what your saying and your input is valuable, however I have to ask you, the community loves Guild Wars right?”
Dev: “Uh… yeah, I guess.”
Boss: “Exactly. So what we have to do is give thieves some sorely needed buffs. I fought a toughness ele last night that was REALLY hard to kill, so I thought, and this is just an idea… what if… we buffed thieves damage?”
Dev: “That would be pretty much against what everyone who plays the game is saying.”
Boss: “Uh huh. Yeah. Mmm. OK. I hear what you’re saying.”
Dev: “So we’re going to buff thieves no matter what I say?”
Boss: “Yeah. Make it so. Ha, thats a little Star Trek joke! I know what the kids like.”

What is needed is some sort of counter to the thiefs stealth, I remember in WoW if a hunter had a wasp pet, the pet would put a condition on a rogue preventing him from stealthing.

Maybe something along these lines would help. maybe some sort of utility skill on a long c/d.

transtemporal.2158:

Bunzy.8674:

Apparently the new plan is to keep buffing thieves every patch. I mean they obviously don’t listen to the community and just do their own thing anyways.

Lol, I have been wondering this myself. Someone at Anet plays a thief, probably the boss. Development meeting goes like this:

Dev: “Lots of people have been saying that the supposed weaknesses of thieves are only the illusion of weakness, since most of these can be laughably countered by stealth. Maybe we should consider a rejig?”
Boss: “Hmmm, I take what your saying and your input is valuable, however I have to ask you, the community loves Guild Wars right?”
Dev: “Uh… yeah, I guess.”
Boss: “Exactly. So what we have to do is give thieves some sorely needed buffs. I fought a toughness ele last night that was REALLY hard to kill, so I thought, and this is just an idea… what if… we buffed thieves damage?”
Dev: “That would be pretty much against what everyone who plays the game is saying.”
Boss: “Uh huh. Yeah. Mmm. OK. I hear what you’re saying.”
Dev: “So we’re going to buff thieves damage no matter what I say?”
Boss: “Yeah. Make it so. Ha, thats a little Star Trek joke I make! I know what the kids like.”

Um the damage buff was to direct damage Pistol and stolen weapons. Two traits and thieves don’t use.

Thief

Whirling Axe: This skill can now be cancelled by other skills.
Fear (Stolen item— Skull): This skill now works like the warrior skill “Fear Me.” It will now actually hit its range, but also have a falloff on fear duration based on distance.
Ink Shot: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.
Tow Line: This skill is now a projectile finisher.
Escape (Harpoon Gun): This skill now creates a poison field with art changes to reflect this.
Ink Shot: Projectile speed for this skill has been increased by 22%
Instinctual Response: Now triggers at 10% damage instead of 20%.
Ricochet: Increased bounce chance from 5% to 20%.
Fleet Shadow: Increased move speed from 33% to 50%.
Slowed Pulse: This can now trigger every 20 seconds instead of every 30.
Pistol Mastery: Increased damage from 5% to 10%.
Improvisation: Now also increased damage with environment weapons by 10%.
Piercing Shot: This skill is no longer able to fire at enemies behind the player.

Here are the notes, please point out any damage buff I missed. Preferably relating to a spec that thieves actually use.

A player’s ability to counter a burst-thief is directly proportional to their skill with the game.

Thieves have many weaknesses and it takes an extremely skilled player to be devastating in massive WvW combat. That’s why most of them roam.. they aren’t good enough to fight in groups effectively.

Thieves are fine as they are. New players and those who don’t have much skill at pvp for whatever reason will always find them difficult. They will also get annihilated by HB warriors, Sniper warriors, Elementalists, and other high damage builds. The difference is that thieves are less brazen and therefore more annoying, so they get the attention.

If you really cannot figure out how to kill a thief just roll/respec to a bunker build in a class that’s made for it. 90% of thieves will leave you alone. We are opportunists, and a 3k+ armor target is simply not worth the effort most of the time. On my warrior and elementalist, which are both level 80 bunkers, I almost never get hit by thieves… more often on my ele than my warrior, but once they realize my ele is at full health and their initiative is at zero, they usually leave. If they stay, they end up dead.

Learn how to survive massive burst and thieves really aren’t that bad. If you cannot deal with being focus-fired then you will not be able to deal with a thief. That doesn’t meant the class is over-powered, it means you aren’t learning from your mistakes.

In other news, Thieves have been nerfed consistently since launch. I’d advise playing one; learning a class is the best way to defeat it.

Sylosis.7125:

http://youtu.be/1-QKqs80ZPU My 1st video on my channel….. i’m a perma stealth thief……sorry in advance.

lol look how productive that video was….

Dual.8953:

Um the damage buff was to direct damage Pistol and stolen weapons. Two traits and thieves don’t use.

Thief

Whirling Axe: This skill can now be cancelled by other skills.
Fear (Stolen item— Skull): This skill now works like the warrior skill “Fear Me.” It will now actually hit its range, but also have a falloff on fear duration based on distance.
Ink Shot: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.
Tow Line: This skill is now a projectile finisher.
Escape (Harpoon Gun): This skill now creates a poison field with art changes to reflect this.
Ink Shot: Projectile speed for this skill has been increased by 22%
Instinctual Response: Now triggers at 10% damage instead of 20%.
Ricochet: Increased bounce chance from 5% to 20%.
Fleet Shadow: Increased move speed from 33% to 50%.
Slowed Pulse: This can now trigger every 20 seconds instead of every 30.
* Pistol Mastery: Increased damage from 5% to 10%.
Improvisation: Now also increased damage with environment weapons by 10%.*
Piercing Shot: This skill is no longer able to fire at enemies behind the player.

Here are the notes, please point out any damage buff I missed. Preferably relating to a spec that thieves actually use.

I was actually just kidding (I haven’t read the thief changes in detail) but the fact that a damage buff can get lost in all the other buffs thieves received just supports my point. Let’s just change the description of the thief so it says: “Thief is the best class. All other classes are obsolete. Kitten you all!!!”

Im not actually bothered by the burst, my mesmer can burst (oh boy can he burst)

I am bothered by thier stealth uptime, high mobility, and no penalty for it, theres a simple fix too
once you exit stealth, for every 1s you were stealth, you have 10 seconds of revealed

This leaves stealth as a powerful initiator and a powerful escape tool, and even a powerful mid combat force a backstab tool, but kills it as a your perma fighting in stealth tool, which is where the frustration with stealth is.

To be honest, I am against combat stealthing completly, but then the thief and mesmer class wouldnt work anymore the way thier skills are. (age of conan got it right imo, everyone has stealth, but its OOC only, rogues get a bonus for initiating combat from stealth)

transtemporal.2158:

Dual.8953:

Um the damage buff was to direct damage Pistol and stolen weapons. Two traits and thieves don’t use.

Thief

Whirling Axe: This skill can now be cancelled by other skills.
Fear (Stolen item— Skull): This skill now works like the warrior skill “Fear Me.” It will now actually hit its range, but also have a falloff on fear duration based on distance.
Ink Shot: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.
Tow Line: This skill is now a projectile finisher.
Escape (Harpoon Gun): This skill now creates a poison field with art changes to reflect this.
Ink Shot: Projectile speed for this skill has been increased by 22%
Instinctual Response: Now triggers at 10% damage instead of 20%.
Ricochet: Increased bounce chance from 5% to 20%.
Fleet Shadow: Increased move speed from 33% to 50%.
Slowed Pulse: This can now trigger every 20 seconds instead of every 30.
Pistol Mastery: Increased damage from 5% to 10%.
Improvisation: Now also increased damage with environment weapons by 10%.
Piercing Shot: This skill is no longer able to fire at enemies behind the player.

Here are the notes, please point out any damage buff I missed. Preferably relating to a spec that thieves actually use.

I was actually just kidding (I haven’t read the thief changes in detail) but the fact that a damage buff can get lost in all the other buffs thieves received just supports my point. Let’s just change the description of the thief so it says: “Thief is the best class. All other classes are obsolete. Kitten you all!!!”

Oh my bad. I didn’t bold the damage buffs properly. If you actually read the changes in the patch notes you’ll notice, there’s a mix of buffs, fixes and nerfs. Harpoon actually got the heaviest focus, followed by changes to stolen weapons then pistol’s traits, then some miscellaneous traits that most don’t care about. It was pretty much a nothing patch, or aquatic patch if you look at all the aquatic changes to other classes.
So yes, not many people care about a buff to pistols, but that’s largely due to them having a relatively slow attack rate, low damage, and generally expensive defenses which can also only defend them from single targets.
As for environmental weapons, they’re too unreliable to base a build or strategy around them.

Yeah because 30 seconds of revealed would be so nice for a Thief. May as well just suicide off a gd cliff at that point. The point of stealth in this game is to do what we want when we want to. If we want to stop the fight and run, we can, it gives us a bit of an edge. And why does it matter if we run away? If you’re not dead, then we didn’t win but we just blew half our cooldowns trying to kill you in the first place, especially if we’re running Berserker Backstab.

Again and again, you can see the problem right? It’s the players, not the class. Anet gives you EVERY skill you need to kill a Thief. They give you heals, they give you stun breakers, they give you invincible rolls and they give you stuns, immunities, and immobilizes. Your troubles start when you stand there letting the Thief control the fight. You have 3 seconds where that Thief can’t stealth, he can’t do anything but take damage from you. If they’re glass cannon, they will DIE in those 3 seconds IF you take your head from out of your azz and lock them down. Every class that I know of has some sort of crowd control, even the so called “weakest” class, Ranger, can chain lock a Thief to death if they pick the right pets. I mean Mulch just pointed out a good way to counter them and of course immediately the excuse goes up “Oh but you’re a Guardian!” Really? This is why the circle continues. People point out the exact methods to stop a Thief cold and you rotate it 180 back to the victim mentality of “well it’s obviously the Thief and not ME!” If you don’t want to die to a Thief, figure out how to beat them, join them, build to counter them (which means building to counter ANY burst glass cannons) or don’t play in WvW.

iiMulch.2138:

How do people have trouble killing thieves? I play guardian and a thief has never ever owned me or come close in wvw. With my hammer I immobilise knockback and use #2. Skill which that skill alone takes out half the thieves hp (especially if it crits for 5-6k). Also if a thief stealths don’t just sand still, move around so it’s harder to backstab. Most thieves I face either die in 5 seconds or stealth and run like little noobs while my hp is still above 90%. Learn to play your class and you will realise thieves are pretty weak.

I find these kinds of responses funny – I sometimes play a mesmer, killing thieves is easy I just blink his opener then decoy and burst him down with a phastasm/shatter combo. I move around a lot so its harder to backstab. Most thieves I play against either die in 5 secs or run like noobs without even touching me.

See how easy that was. I can write stories of easily killing thieves as well. But most will just roll their eyes and think bs. Just like I did when I read your post. Without some evidence like a video of you owning thieves no one will take a word of what you are saying seriously.

See Thief stealth.
Count to 2 then dodge/block.
Stun Thief and apply all your burst/conditions.
See Thief stealth again.
If you see a little house AOE the house.
Wait for thief to reappear again far away half healed with all his conditions cleansed.
Bask in the glory of countering the thief.
Prepare to do again.

If you want to know how to KILL and DOWN a thief?
Than I don’t know.

Ask the people who kill me constantly in WvW. It seems to be a matter fo them dealing more damage to me than my fragile Thief frame can absorb. If you can’t kill Thieves in WvW then the problem is with you, because Thieves are dying left and right.

Ohoni.6057:

See Thief stealth.
Count to 2 then dodge/block.
Stun Thief and apply all your burst/conditions.
See Thief stealth again.
If you see a little house AOE the house.
Wait for thief to reappear again far away half healed with all his conditions cleansed.
Bask in the glory of countering the thief.
Prepare to do again.

If you want to know how to KILL and DOWN a thief?
Than I don’t know.

Ask the people who kill me constantly in WvW. It seems to be a matter fo them dealing more damage to me than my fragile Thief frame can absorb. If you can’t kill Thieves in WvW then the problem is with you, because Thieves are dying left and right.

Honestly, 99% of those who QQ haven’t truly tried a backstab thief. They are amongst the worse, most inefficient thief builds out there, and is only used because all people see are high numbers and are drawn to it. There are much more deadly thief builds out there. All have a counter. Backstab is the easiest to counter.

Setima.8741:

Anet gives you EVERY skill you need to kill a Thief. They give you heals, they give you stun breakers, they give you invincible rolls and they give you stuns, immunities, and immobilizes. Your troubles start when you stand there letting the Thief control the fight. You have 3 seconds where that Thief can’t stealth, he can’t do anything but take damage from you. If they’re glass cannon, they will DIE in those 3 seconds IF you take your head from out of your azz and lock them down.

Hm, if I’m not aiming for glass cannon, I need to exchange some damage for survivability. So the 3 seconds are NOT enough to kill the thief. Yeah, right. In the 3 seconds where he can’t stealth, he still has dodge rolls and other skills to survive. And if the fight gets critical for the thief, he just stealths and runs away.
“Ooooh, but we need stealting. We need to get out of fights to survive.” Ever considered that it’s the same for other classes? Take an engineer, or a ranger. If it gets critical, they too want to get out of combat, but they can’t. Where is the problem if revealed gets 1 or 2 more seconds so that you actually have to face off the enemy you started fighting with?

The main problem is: if any class goes glass cannon, it’s trading survivability for power. Except….thieves. Can escape whenever they want to. 1 or 2 seconds on revealed…that’s not THAT harsh. You can manage that. Like many thief players are always putting off our concerns: l2p.

“Ooooh, but we need stealting. We need to get out of fights to survive.” Ever considered that it’s the same for other classes? Take an engineer, or a ranger. If it gets critical, they too want to get out of combat, but they can’t. Where is the problem if revealed gets 1 or 2 more seconds so that you actually have to face off the enemy you started fighting with?

Engineers have grenades and turrets. Rangers have pets and traps. Thieves get stealth. They are balanced differently, they are each better at different things, but they are not better overall. Thieves are good assassins. They are good at rushing in, taking out a single opponent, and getting away with it. Other classes are not as good at that, but are good at other things, like holding territory. Thieves have terrible range, for example. If people are on walls, or if the Thief is on a wall firing down, we’re left with pretty much just Cluster Bomb to fight with, and that’s a nice skill, but VERY slow if you’re firing it at max range like that. I think it’s the slowest projectile in the game, and we can only have one in the air at a time.

rootnode.9546:

Setima.8741:

Anet gives you EVERY skill you need to kill a Thief. They give you heals, they give you stun breakers, they give you invincible rolls and they give you stuns, immunities, and immobilizes. Your troubles start when you stand there letting the Thief control the fight. You have 3 seconds where that Thief can’t stealth, he can’t do anything but take damage from you. If they’re glass cannon, they will DIE in those 3 seconds IF you take your head from out of your azz and lock them down.

Hm, if I’m not aiming for glass cannon, I need to exchange some damage for survivability. So the 3 seconds are NOT enough to kill the thief. Yeah, right. In the 3 seconds where he can’t stealth, he still has dodge rolls and other skills to survive. And if the fight gets critical for the thief, he just stealths and runs away.
“Ooooh, but we need stealting. We need to get out of fights to survive.” Ever considered that it’s the same for other classes? Take an engineer, or a ranger. If it gets critical, they too want to get out of combat, but they can’t. Where is the problem if revealed gets 1 or 2 more seconds so that you actually have to face off the enemy you started fighting with?

The main problem is: if any class goes glass cannon, it’s trading survivability for power. Except….thieves. Can escape whenever they want to. 1 or 2 seconds on revealed…that’s not THAT harsh. You can manage that. Like many thief players are always putting off our concerns: l2p.

Here’s the trick of it. Thieves run out of defensive options that are not stealth faster the other classes, they’re in the same HP tier as Ele and Guardian, but they don’t have all the defensive boons they have, they can dodge 2-3 times, maybe shadowstep once if they take it and then they’re done, maybe roll for initiative and retreat if they take it, then they’re done, completely out of defenses, and unable to run from those pursuing them and will go down if someone so much as sneezes in their general direction.

Dual.8953:

rootnode.9546:

Setima.8741:

Anet gives you EVERY skill you need to kill a Thief. They give you heals, they give you stun breakers, they give you invincible rolls and they give you stuns, immunities, and immobilizes. Your troubles start when you stand there letting the Thief control the fight. You have 3 seconds where that Thief can’t stealth, he can’t do anything but take damage from you. If they’re glass cannon, they will DIE in those 3 seconds IF you take your head from out of your azz and lock them down.

Hm, if I’m not aiming for glass cannon, I need to exchange some damage for survivability. So the 3 seconds are NOT enough to kill the thief. Yeah, right. In the 3 seconds where he can’t stealth, he still has dodge rolls and other skills to survive. And if the fight gets critical for the thief, he just stealths and runs away.
“Ooooh, but we need stealting. We need to get out of fights to survive.” Ever considered that it’s the same for other classes? Take an engineer, or a ranger. If it gets critical, they too want to get out of combat, but they can’t. Where is the problem if revealed gets 1 or 2 more seconds so that you actually have to face off the enemy you started fighting with?

The main problem is: if any class goes glass cannon, it’s trading survivability for power. Except….thieves. Can escape whenever they want to. 1 or 2 seconds on revealed…that’s not THAT harsh. You can manage that. Like many thief players are always putting off our concerns: l2p.

Here’s the trick of it. Thieves run out of defensive options that are not stealth faster the other classes, they’re in the same HP tier as Ele and Guardian, but they don’t have all the defensive boons they have, they can dodge 2-3 times, maybe shadowstep once if they take it and then they’re done, maybe roll for initiative and retreat if they take it, then they’re done, completely out of defenses, and unable to run from those pursuing them and will go down if someone so much as sneezes in their general direction.

And yet players who play thieves have the confidence to rush into a mob stealthed, 1 shot someone and flee. Why? Because they know through many encounters that they CAN and WILL get away. Its a joke man…and anyone who defends thieves ATM just likes easy mode.

With a full tough/vit build and exotic tough/vit armor, I should not get 2 shot….and it happens nightly. 28k health gone and I never even see them.

Its BROKEN…and I encourage everyone who plays this game and who is sick of thieves in wvwvw to stop playing… Arena Net needs to remove the class or fix it!

Bunzy.8674:

Jinks.2057:

The offer that I made Bunzy applies to the rest of the people who are having trouble w/ thieves.

PM me or post here what your problems are….I will help you out and make you see only tears from thieves.

Who said I am having trouble with thieves? o.o
Its one thief who can do this, if you can do this I could use your help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Zw8vNJVvg

Yes I can do that.

Raideen.5973:

Dual.8953:

rootnode.9546:

Setima.8741:

Anet gives you EVERY skill you need to kill a Thief. They give you heals, they give you stun breakers, they give you invincible rolls and they give you stuns, immunities, and immobilizes. Your troubles start when you stand there letting the Thief control the fight. You have 3 seconds where that Thief can’t stealth, he can’t do anything but take damage from you. If they’re glass cannon, they will DIE in those 3 seconds IF you take your head from out of your azz and lock them down.

Hm, if I’m not aiming for glass cannon, I need to exchange some damage for survivability. So the 3 seconds are NOT enough to kill the thief. Yeah, right. In the 3 seconds where he can’t stealth, he still has dodge rolls and other skills to survive. And if the fight gets critical for the thief, he just stealths and runs away.
“Ooooh, but we need stealting. We need to get out of fights to survive.” Ever considered that it’s the same for other classes? Take an engineer, or a ranger. If it gets critical, they too want to get out of combat, but they can’t. Where is the problem if revealed gets 1 or 2 more seconds so that you actually have to face off the enemy you started fighting with?

The main problem is: if any class goes glass cannon, it’s trading survivability for power. Except….thieves. Can escape whenever they want to. 1 or 2 seconds on revealed…that’s not THAT harsh. You can manage that. Like many thief players are always putting off our concerns: l2p.

Here’s the trick of it. Thieves run out of defensive options that are not stealth faster the other classes, they’re in the same HP tier as Ele and Guardian, but they don’t have all the defensive boons they have, they can dodge 2-3 times, maybe shadowstep once if they take it and then they’re done, maybe roll for initiative and retreat if they take it, then they’re done, completely out of defenses, and unable to run from those pursuing them and will go down if someone so much as sneezes in their general direction.

And yet players who play thieves have the confidence to rush into a mob stealthed, 1 shot someone and flee. Why? Because they know through many encounters that they CAN and WILL get away. Its a joke man…and anyone who defends thieves ATM just likes easy mode.

With a full tough/vit build and exotic tough/vit armor, I should not get 2 shot….and it happens nightly. 28k health gone and I never even see them.

Its BROKEN…and I encourage everyone who plays this game and who is sick of thieves in wvwvw to stop playing… Arena Net needs to remove the class or fix it!

You missed the point of the example. Yes with stealth the cause hot dog it into the middle of a large fight with stealth, without stealth, they can’t even get close to the fight cause they’ll got down faster then a neutral moa bird caught in the crossfire.

Setima.8741:

You have 3 seconds where that Thief can’t stealth, he can’t do anything but take damage from you.

3 seconds, lol. At the speed people render in this game, it’s 1 second or less. And this is where all the arguments from thieves supporting stealth break down. I wonder when the people defending the state stealth is in will wake up. The ‘wait till they fix culling’ argument isn’t cutting it any more. That 3 seconds is a myth, and any attempt to use it to support your argument is pure naivety. Any argument of fragility goes straight out the window when you can’t be targeted. Spare me the AoE crap. Thieves are not supposed to be able to fight the rest of us from permanent stealth, yet they can. Time for stealth defenders to merge reality with what they read on skill tool tips. Nobody cares about what is supposed to happen, we care about what does happen.

4 months now and culling/rendering speed has if anything only gotten worse. I wonder if a year from now, thieves will still be screaming ‘wait till they fix culling then address the thief’.

You know, I think thieves are Kitten op as kitten. Yes…I do. They are all out of whack with un-godly damage and cna surive even with it. They just have the tools available to them. As an ele, with heavy Toughness and Vit, and still go down like a rock against and theif. And I condiser myself a good player. I held a tower against 10 invaders(who had siege) until reinforcements arrived. i was able to buy some decent time and keep the foes off the tower long enough for someone to mas a group to help the tower. I also won’t say im the best, I am not by any means. I am if anything average. I use a staff even.

I know im easy pickings for a Thief. Heres what I don’t get though. Why is that a thief can get blasted with AOE…but never get revealed. Right there should be the fix to this major problem. If the Theif is useing the stealth the get away..Hes gonna have to be smart. He get’s hit one time with a blast of fire and bam his 5 seconds of stealth is gone like that.

Or if you don’t wnat that. We should be able to see the “Numbers” of damage as we hit the thing in stealth. If he runs through a lava font, I want to see the numbers tick above his head. Even if he doest go out of stealth, that should give me some “indicator” of where he is.

Also that whole belife of “Just aoe the entire place, it will die eventualy” is a Kitten lie. Anyplayer with a scrap of grey-matter can avoid aoe. I mean its a big red Target. Also, our biggest damging aoe, and the only one that really has a chance against the theif is Meteor shower(since it has a large area and hits many targets)….Yet it requires us to float in the air whilst they kill us.

I think stealth should stay. Theives need some sort of defenisive menouver. Despite there high evasion, they also need stealth. I would be kitten mad if someone got rid of my mist form for example. But I think it’s a simple fix of “If they get it it reveals them, or it shows the damage tick above them”….Both of which gives a good player an Idea of where the theif is, and puts some fear back into theives. Also good theives still will be able to avoid the aoe..but at least it weeds out the strong from the weak.

frostflare.6390:

You know, I think thieves are Kitten op as kitten. Yes…I do. They are all out of whack with un-godly damage and cna surive even with it. They just have the tools available to them. As an ele, with heavy Toughness and Vit, and still go down like a rock against and theif. And I condiser myself a good player. I held a tower against 10 invaders(who had siege) until reinforcements arrived. i was able to buy some decent time and keep the foes off the tower long enough for someone to mas a group to help the tower. I also won’t say im the best, I am not by any means. I am if anything average. I use a staff even.

I know im easy pickings for a Thief. Heres what I don’t get though. Why is that a thief can get blasted with AOE…but never get revealed. Right there should be the fix to this major problem. If the Theif is useing the stealth the get away..Hes gonna have to be smart. He get’s hit one time with a blast of fire and bam his 5 seconds of stealth is gone like that.

Or if you don’t wnat that. We should be able to see the “Numbers” of damage as we hit the thing in stealth. If he runs through a lava font, I want to see the numbers tick above his head. Even if he doest go out of stealth, that should give me some “indicator” of where he is.

Also that whole belife of “Just aoe the entire place, it will die eventualy” is a Kitten lie. Anyplayer with a scrap of grey-matter can avoid aoe. I mean its a big red Target. Also, our biggest damging aoe, and the only one that really has a chance against the theif is Meteor shower(since it has a large area and hits many targets)….Yet it requires us to float in the air whilst they kill us.

I think stealth should stay. Theives need some sort of defenisive menouver. Despite there high evasion, they also need stealth. I would be kitten mad if someone got rid of my mist form for example. But I think it’s a simple fix of “If they get it it reveals them, or it shows the damage tick above them”….Both of which gives a good player an Idea of where the theif is, and puts some fear back into theives. Also good theives still will be able to avoid the aoe..but at least it weeds out the strong from the weak.

I’d rather the damage ticks then a full reveal. If you’ve played any high level PvE, you know how insane the amount of AoEs in an area can get, and I doubt one would complain about thieves stealthing there. (I mean I know shelks can be annoying but you don’t see forumers waving pitchforks at them)

Dual.8953:

frostflare.6390:

You know, I think thieves are Kitten op as kitten. Yes…I do. They are all out of whack with un-godly damage and cna surive even with it. They just have the tools available to them. As an ele, with heavy Toughness and Vit, and still go down like a rock against and theif. And I condiser myself a good player. I held a tower against 10 invaders(who had siege) until reinforcements arrived. i was able to buy some decent time and keep the foes off the tower long enough for someone to mas a group to help the tower. I also won’t say im the best, I am not by any means. I am if anything average. I use a staff even.

I know im easy pickings for a Thief. Heres what I don’t get though. Why is that a thief can get blasted with AOE…but never get revealed. Right there should be the fix to this major problem. If the Theif is useing the stealth the get away..Hes gonna have to be smart. He get’s hit one time with a blast of fire and bam his 5 seconds of stealth is gone like that.

Or if you don’t wnat that. We should be able to see the “Numbers” of damage as we hit the thing in stealth. If he runs through a lava font, I want to see the numbers tick above his head. Even if he doest go out of stealth, that should give me some “indicator” of where he is.

Also that whole belife of “Just aoe the entire place, it will die eventualy” is a Kitten lie. Anyplayer with a scrap of grey-matter can avoid aoe. I mean its a big red Target. Also, our biggest damging aoe, and the only one that really has a chance against the theif is Meteor shower(since it has a large area and hits many targets)….Yet it requires us to float in the air whilst they kill us.

I think stealth should stay. Theives need some sort of defenisive menouver. Despite there high evasion, they also need stealth. I would be kitten mad if someone got rid of my mist form for example. But I think it’s a simple fix of “If they get it it reveals them, or it shows the damage tick above them”….Both of which gives a good player an Idea of where the theif is, and puts some fear back into theives. Also good theives still will be able to avoid the aoe..but at least it weeds out the strong from the weak.

I’d rather the damage ticks then a full reveal. If you’ve played any high level PvE, you know how insane the amount of AoEs in an area can get, and I doubt one would complain about thieves stealthing there. (I mean I know shelks can be annoying but you don’t see forumers waving pitchforks at them)

Because skelks have a larger cooldown on their stealth.

This reminds me a little bit about World of Roguecraft.

@Frostflare
Thieves do give themselves away. Refuge: our long stealth cooldown. This pretty much paints a giant red bullseye on the ground that says THIEF HERE! Most skilled players have, or are learning to target these with extreme prejudice. Getting yanked or blown out is starting to become a common thing for me. As for the rest of our stealths they only last about 3 seconds. The problem with you not seeing us before we are able to re-stealth is mainly due to the culling issue. It is true there are some very skilled thieves out there who can time the stealth end timer almost dead on with a CnD hit, but honestly very few thieves can do this. This is why the culling/rendering fix needs to go through before anyone even thinks about touching stealth.

As for your idea about seeing numbers when you damage a thief… well that would pretty much make stealth pointless. However this already exists in another sort. Chain skills (the same button that has 2-3 different abilities) will chain through its attacks which means when you hit a stealthed thief you will know it. Sorry if your class doesn’t have one of these.

And lastly taking damage reveals thieves. This would crush any hope a thief would have in a group fight. It would remove our only defense and in zerg vs zerg match no one would ever use a thief. No one would ever use a thief on tower siege. The only thing a thief would be good for is roaming around and ganking solo players. (which correct me if I am wrong is the very complaint everyone is having here?)

The sad fact of the thief is that it lives and breathes because of stealth. And the only way you will ever be able to change it or nerf it is if they make thieves stronger defensively in some other way. Any nerf to stealth would crush this classes ability to function.

The problem is not about thieves themself, it’s about how can they hit us two or three times before they appear on ours screen ?

Jomg.9061:

The problem is not about thieves themself, it’s about how can they hit us two or three times before they appear on ours screen ?

That’s the culling/rendering issue not exclusive to thieves. Any invis or long range teleportation does the same thing.

I know dude..
My point is : it’s not about balance issue here, it’s the same old culling that make them sick.

stof.9341:

Israel.7056:

And what is the supposed counter for Cloak and Dagger spamming condition thieves?

You got two dodges. Two C&D and the thief is all out of initiative. Seems obvious to me.

If he is a condition p/d thief then he will have 4-5 init after the first two CnD. Anything but “all out of initiative.”

At least know what you’re talking about before giving advice. If you don’t know, then I suggest you keep your mouth zipped.

When I’m running away, I like to put my “house” at a random place and watch the kitten aoe it or swing blindly in it while I infil arrow the opposite away. Lol. Just because we cast it doesn’t mean we’re in it.

Hint* we can cast the house anywhere we want (within the given range of course).

As a shatter mesmer, I usually fare well against backstab thieves. It is impossible though to kill a thief who specializes in stealth. There is no way in hell I can kill him in wvw regardless of how well I play. The rendering issues prevent me from doing so.

Drednyte.7601:

Just require thief adrenaline to build from combat, not passive. That way they cant stealth, wait for it to build to max then spam all their high burst, stealth, repeat. U want to engage in combat for high burst, require them to be IN combat to be able to do it. Kinda like all the other classes have to do with similar mechanics.

they don’t have endurance pain to surive toe to toe untill they “build adrenaline”
as well warrior got 2 utility’s that refile adrenaline so he can start combat with full adrnealine, use f1 then instant refill adrenaline

Sylosis.7125:

http://youtu.be/1-QKqs80ZPU My 1st video on my channel….. i’m a perma stealth thief……sorry in advance.

I commend you for posting such astonishingly mediocre game play. Most people would be ashamed to post such antics, but you wear your badges for all to see.

We need more people like you, my friend!

In all seriousness, this shows how little of a threat the infamous “permastealth” thief is. Only person he killed jumped off a cliff, lol…

I play a thief (among other classes)

Yes, I guess something should be done.

I feel fearless on my thief because I can always escape. And I can take people down faster than warrior, ele, necro, guardian.

So 50/50:

- I escape, able to return a minute later with full cooldowns

- I kill the person

It doesn’t feel overpowered because I am so squishy. But that doesn’t matter since I never get downed anyway.

It’s all a little too safe and easy

As I said, the arguments will just do loop after loop because the people that die to the Thief get upset and will never see things from the Thief’s perspective. They don’t like the style, they don’t like the “overpowered” aspect, blah blah blah. It’s still just an excuse not to learn to counter them. First and most important, whether you like it or not, culling does affect how effective the Stealth is in this game, and it does not just affect the Thief, it will affect any class that can use Stealth. It’s a bug, it’s something Anet is aware of and working to fix. They’re not going to screw up sPvP/tPvP or PvE content just because a few hundred people are crying about the “culling” shiet in WvW. They already fixed the issue in sPvP/tPvP and you see that nobody is complaining about the Thief in those contexts.

Really what everybody is complaining about goes away when you fix the time a Thief technically stays “in Stealth”. Burst damage will always be there, and it’s there for every class except possibly the Necro, offset slightly by having good defense. The burst for a Thief is decent, but it’s ONE build that needs specific gear and utility skills to put out the damage. Without the Signet and full glass cannon, the biggest hit coming from Backstab will be in the 5~7k range, hardly scary unless you’re also a glass cannon with 12k health, but then you shouldn’t be crying about it in the first place.

I don’t mean to keep going with the broken record stuff, but honestly unless Anet comes here and says flat out they’re going to listen to the people crying and moaning about the Thief, I don’t know why we can’t just let the topic die and play the game as it is. If you don’t like the Thief, don’t play one. If you don’t like to die to a Thief, don’t play WvW or don’t play the game at all because if people cry about dying to a Thief, I bet they still cry regardless of what class kills them. I think it’s just the dying part that people hate and rage about, not the class.

I think, point blank, in simplest terms, no Player Character (or an NPC really) should be able to pull off a 1 – shot kill while invisible. If we just consider perhaps a Vet or Champ mob who could essentially remain invisible, effectively all the time, and then every few seconds or so a member of your group just melts instantly and you can’t even see, let alone target and counter. The NPC who is responsible of this is… Well really, need I say more? That isn’t a “Champion” like ability, it’s a “God like” ability.

I don’t think anyone (well anyone with sense) is demanding a massive nerf to stealth (read: survivability) across the board.

Just like a Warrior has to sacrifice massive damage for nearly all of their potential Defense, it should be the same, really a standard rule for the design of ANY class. You want to hit for crazy damage? Okay, say goodbye to all but the very minimal of whatever defensive capability your class possesses. You want supreme survivability? Plan on hitting along the order of a wet-noodle.

Massive Offense – Defenses of wet toilet paper (and not even the “quilted” brand!)
Massive Defense – Offense of over cooked pasta wielding toddler

Personally I think that is, or should be at least, a basic rule of character design. I’m not really seeing any room for argument here. Invisible / Untouchable and capable 10k plus single attacks? Nu-uh. What is the trade off? Now, I’m certainly no pro at Thiefery, if I’m missing something please let me know.

What if burning countered stealth in some way, kinda hard stealithing with flames around you and plume of smoke trailing around you ;P …

Feydra.6318:

What if burning countered stealth in some way, kinda hard stealithing with flames around you and plume of smoke trailing around you ;P …

Excellent point! I have no clue how the game and classes are conducted these days (or post – BC expansion really) but I think at one point in WoW that DOT’ing a Rogue (a’ la Flame Shock or soemthing) was at least one way you could lock them out of re-stealthing. Might be thinking of another game (it’s been a while) but it seems like a pretty good general rule all around when it comes to stealthing / re-stealthing and makes perfect sense. I mean even in a loose attmept to barely even begin to mimic what is “real”, what exactly would the Thief be doing here in such a case? Making the flame leaping off of their own body entirely invisible as well? Yeah – this deserves thought…

I would like to make note that I hardly consider Thieves in their current state to be the “Tyria shattering demi-gods” some people seem to feel them to be. I think being able to blast someone in excess of 10k and effectively remain completely invisible is a bit over the top and deserves an honest reassessment by the game’s developers but the game is hardly _ruined in it’s current state, especially not by the thief class._

On a side note, I think that melodramatic posts work against effective communication between players and developer’s more than any other one factor as well. Qualifying any “change it or else I demand a refund!” for example pretty much immediately sucks all the credibility out of anything said I feel. Keeping any post, idea, suggstion, etc. with in the realm of realistic is a good start to realistic responses and consideration – you’d think that would go without saying though.

/shrug

Mayam.8976:

I think, point blank, in simplest terms, no Player Character (or an NPC really) should be able to pull off a 1 – shot kill while invisible.

Thieves can’t 1 shot people. It’s three damage abilities. If you get downed before the backstab even hits then you deserve to be dead all the time, due to clearly not using any defensive stats.

If it weren’t for culling, thieves would only be stealth for the last attack, however due to terrible rendering thieves can stealth in, and start their combo just as/after the stealth finishes and not be seen; if rendering worked properly you’d see them briefly (most of the time, some thieves may be pretty good at timing it).

It’s a combo. Cloak and dagger-Steal-Backstab. Players who actually understand the build will time CnD and steal to hit at the same time to make the burst faster. In my opinion, thief burst would suffer severely if Steal interrupted channels, while not changing any damage values. Not that I’d want that change (or think it’s needed), but it’s better than an actual damage change imo.