Guild Wars 2

wow I just saw an amazing thief. this thief just kept stealthing and shadow stepping with major burst damage and condition damage was major. I was using Endure Pain, but this Thief still hit me hard through that with conditions. Was hard to CC the thief because some how he could get out my immobilize every time. And had constant weakness/glance blows.

Whats the best way to counter this in WvW?

Warrior? Berserker’s Stance for starters. It won’t last forever, but maybe enough time for you to land a hard enough burst to make him think twice. Thieves like that are extremely difficult to counter on a War. The fights are either over immediately, or they last forever.

Yeah well when the “whole team” consist of a Warrior, stuff like dying to a far better roamer sometimes happen. I say blaim your team.

Dawdler.8521:

Yeah well when the “whole team” consist of a Warrior, stuff like dying to a far better roamer sometimes happen. I say blaim your team.

Well it was 2 warriors, me included, a guardian and another thief, and we couldnt gank that dude at all. that was one bad dude…

full berserker/celestial gear wins against almost situation easily, if u guys dont have CC and high damage builds expect to lose its like “if u dont play X class with Y build expect to loose.”

The high risk reward in gw2 is a litle big joke.

Hard CC will definitely make the fight easier. Stuns, and KBs, but do not throw them blindly while he is in stealth. Use it to punish when he engages on someone, so you can be sure where he is. But yeah, if he is a more experienced roamer, you will probably lose.

Instastealth is a joke.

2 warriors, a guardian and a thief owned by another thief? Either the thief played godly/had a godly build or the “team” just was very bad/ill equipped.

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

Instastealth is a joke.

How so?

Many skills have instant cast. I wouldn’t be against a cast time on some of the skills that allows for a little more counter play. Perhaps in the form of a visual cue that allows for it to be interrupted.

I would hardly call it a “joke” though. Seems to me, if you had a genuine concern, you would be discussing, it rather then making a purely inflammatory comment that contributes nothing to the conversation.

coglin.1867:

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

Instastealth is a joke.

How so?

Many skills have instant cast. I wouldn’t be against a cast time on some of the skills that allows for a little more counter play. Perhaps in the form of a visual cue that allows for it to be interrupted.

I would hardly call it a “joke” though. Seems to me, if you had a genuine concern, you would be discussing, it rather then making a purely inflammatory comment that contributes nothing to the conversation.

The ability to vanish while in clear view of your opponent is a joke. It’s not inflammatory – it’s fact. I would not have an issue if the thief was required to break line of sight.
Just because I don’t post a wall of text with my issues with the thief and the magic powers of vanishing with zero trace does not make them invalid.
If a thief could not instastealth would it be as popular?

Knighthonor.4061:

Whats the best way to counter this in WvW?

Run

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

coglin.1867:

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

Instastealth is a joke.

How so?

Many skills have instant cast. I wouldn’t be against a cast time on some of the skills that allows for a little more counter play. Perhaps in the form of a visual cue that allows for it to be interrupted.

I would hardly call it a “joke” though. Seems to me, if you had a genuine concern, you would be discussing, it rather then making a purely inflammatory comment that contributes nothing to the conversation.

The ability to vanish while in clear view of your opponent is a joke. It’s not inflammatory – it’s fact. I would not have an issue if the thief was required to break line of sight.
Just because I don’t post a wall of text with my issues with the thief and the magic powers of vanishing with zero trace does not make them invalid.
If a thief could not instastealth would it be as popular?

I do not believe fact means what you appear to think it means.

You are confusing subjective opinion with objective fact.

What does line of sight have to do with it? Are you attempting to compare this to reality in some form? What logic does requiring a lose of line of sight, when I can plant bombs at my feet and get healed while my opponent takes damage, shoot fireballs from my hands, become immune to a arrow or giant hammer hitting me?

First you never told us what weapons he was using, it makes it much easier for us to give you advice if we know which you were dealing with.

Second, fighting a good thief is to search for patterns and is like solving a puzzle. Observe his behaviors, when does he stealth? If he uses daggers, expect a backstab a few seconds later when he went into stealth, dodge after a few seconds.

Is he teleporting all over the place because your team is all spread out? Try to stick together, so he won’t be all over the place and you won’t run like headless chicken trying to slam him. Are there any mobs around where he can use cloak and dagger and keep stealth all the time when he is low? Move away from the mobs or kill the mobs.

Figure out when he uses his heal skill, if he is running the stealth heal, does he use it when his health is 50% or 25%? Try to interrupt him. Remember the cd’s. on his uti skill. Keep you camera constant moving/rotating if he goes into stealth, he can just ran past by you and walk away behind your back, keep an overview. A thief can always tele away and tele back at the location, try to remember the location, they usually go back.

If he is running basilisk venom elite, you will see him casting it plus see it under his health bar, so be prepared to be the one turn into stone. Have stun breakers ready.

Just find the pieces together, observe and you can counter thieves. What I said is are very few examples how to make t easier. However, 5 man against 1 thief, even against a very good one, I think it more your guys builds/reaction times….
Anyways, good luck and just keep practicing fighting against very good thieves, they are a pain but they are not gods.

Now you know how I feel.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Now you know how we all feel.

fixed.

Cloud like purple

Knighthonor: this look like same experience like you against thief. I know this is old but you can make some adjustment to make it better. I like the title: I hope this help you

I bet is the current plague of Dire perplex thief, abusing stealth and venoms. They usually pair up with 1~2 more people, sharing their venoms and rekk choas on their called target.

The best way to counter this is coming to the forums, looking for threads requesting changes to stealth spam so it gets adjusted and can’t be used to have both high power and high defense, and support those threads until stealth is finally fixed.

I would personally change stealth to make it more tactical, an less something you can’t spam. Make it less spammy, more tactical, more about timing it. For example:

• The more damage your hits do, the longer revealed should last. A revealing hit for very little damage should last less than now, a revealed from a massive critical should last more than now. Instead 3s in PvE and WvW and 4 in sPvP, it’ll be 1-7s for both. Since WvW and PvE have more stats and higher damage numbers, there won’t be any need to have different rules. So the more damage you are doing, the less you can rely on stealth.
• If you attack someone in melee range, if the attack fails for whatever reason, you should still get revealed for minimum duration (1s).
• If you fire a projectile, even if that hits nothing, as long as there someone with a character facing where the projectile is coming from, you should get revealed for minimum duration. This won’t be about the camera, but character positioning. If a player sees the projectile because of camera orientation, if the character is not facing that direction and has line of sight to the thief, the thief won’t be revealed.
• Being revealed repeatedly within a short time against the same target should result in revealed lasting more and more up to a cap. So stealth is used strategically, to gain combat advantage and to disengage, not to constantly attack-stealth-attack-stealth. Taking longer breaks between Revealeds would bring back Revealed to its normal duration. This could be done with an effect the target gets called something like “Catching up” or “Learning patterns”: “This foe is learning your movements, and it’s getting harder to hide from them after attacking.” Each stack would last 10 seconds and increase Revealed duration against them by 3%, up to 30%.
• If someone is channeling a skill on you (e.g.: Mesmer sword 1, elementalist scepter air 1, neromancer axe 3, etc.), or activating a targeted skill on you (e.g. Dragon’s Tooth, phantasm skills), and you go into stealth mid-activation, the channel should get canceled, and the rest of the skill fail without triggering an ‘interrupt’.
• “Sick’em” and “Analize” woud get their revealed durations down to 4 or 5s from 6s to compensate a bit, since with these changes revealed would be a bit more troublesome and may last longer on average.
• Being damaged in melee range should make stealth ‘flicker’, making the thief partially visible but still not targeteable only to the attacker, but not their allies. This partial visibility would be less clear an noticeable than the translucency seen by the thief’s allies. Because of this, approaching enemies from behind under stealth will be much safer, and having your back to a wall may be useful against thieves.

I generally do not find thieves to be a problem. I leveled one just to learn how they work to fight them. Well that and once a week my guild plays an all “insert profession here” night where 40-50 of us ran all one profession for fun. Learning what stealth duration is and how they will likely move, makes all the difference in the world. Personally, I do not feel thieves are particularly strong enough to go into. The only discussion I feel is needed, is one in which others are educated on how to use their particular build or profession when fighting one

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

coglin.1867:

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

Instastealth is a joke.

How so?

Many skills have instant cast. I wouldn’t be against a cast time on some of the skills that allows for a little more counter play. Perhaps in the form of a visual cue that allows for it to be interrupted.

I would hardly call it a “joke” though. Seems to me, if you had a genuine concern, you would be discussing, it rather then making a purely inflammatory comment that contributes nothing to the conversation.

The ability to vanish while in clear view of your opponent is a joke. It’s not inflammatory – it’s fact. I would not have an issue if the thief was required to break line of sight.
Just because I don’t post a wall of text with my issues with the thief and the magic powers of vanishing with zero trace does not make them invalid.
If a thief could not instastealth would it be as popular?

You obviously haven’t played many mmorpgs with stealthers in a wvw/rvr/pvp environment.

Trust me, it could be one hell of a lot worse.

Fwiw, yea, I hate stealthers. But the ones in this game are a lot easier to counter than in some other, older mmorpgs that I have played. In some of the older mmorpgs, even poorly played stealthers were near impossible to beat 1v1 if you didn’t run. (Unless you had one of around 2 specific classes built to specifically beat stealthers)

My suggestion:. build yourself a thief, and take it to 80, then play some pvp to find out how they work, and what works best. And then trying roaming with one in wvw. That way, you’ll know how to counter them better.

Know your enemy.
Beat your enemy.

coglin.1867:

I generally do not find thieves to be a problem. I leveled one just to learn how they work to fight them. Well that and once a week my guild plays an all “insert profession here” night where 40-50 of us ran all one profession for fun. Learning what stealth duration is and how they will likely move, makes all the difference in the world. Personally, I do not feel thieves are particularly strong enough to go into. The only discussion I feel is needed, is one in which others are educated on how to use their particular build or profession when fighting one

Perfect suggestion. Well said!

bring a necro with you.

Stand The Wall.6987:

bring a necro with you.

LOL….good point…..lol

bait him into a stealth trap,then pick the loot bag.

Probably dire/condi thief and they are nothing special, They like to think they are but they are just another easy mode cancer build.

Oh come on how can one thief kill 4 players, and do lots of condis and burts like hell?
It could only be that condi dire thief build that keeps on stealthing, and that one does not burst and should not be a problem for 4 players.

aspirine.6852:

Oh come on how can one thief kill 4 players, and do lots of condis and burts like hell?
It could only be that condi dire thief build that keeps on stealthing, and that one does not burst and should not be a problem for 4 players.

Yeah I was trying to figure that out. Only thing I could think of was maybe he went full glass with rampagers/sinister gear, the burst wouldn’t be huge but if you mix that with the condi damage and then go full shadow arts for survivability it could be a nasty build.

Then again the op and his team could just be fairly new players that got picked apart by a run of the mill thief, which happens on a pretty regular basis in WvW.

MithranArkanere.8957:

• “Sick’em” and “Analize”

I also suggest that after the Thief has been analized, they get a “bowlegged” debuff which make them run funny.

MithranArkanere.8957:

The best way to counter this is coming to the forums, looking for threads requesting changes to stealth spam so it gets adjusted and can’t be used to have both high power and high defense, and support those threads until stealth is finally fixed.

I would personally change stealth to make it more tactical, an less something you can’t spam. Make it less spammy, more tactical, more about timing it. For example:

• The more damage your hits do, the longer revealed should last. A revealing hit for very little damage should last less than now, a revealed from a massive critical should last more than now. Instead 3s in PvE and WvW and 4 in sPvP, it’ll be 1-7s for both. Since WvW and PvE have more stats and higher damage numbers, there won’t be any need to have different rules. So the more damage you are doing, the less you can rely on stealth.
• If you attack someone in melee range, if the attack fails for whatever reason, you should still get revealed for minimum duration (1s).
• If you fire a projectile, even if that hits nothing, as long as there someone with a character facing where the projectile is coming from, you should get revealed for minimum duration. This won’t be about the camera, but character positioning. If a player sees the projectile because of camera orientation, if the character is not facing that direction and has line of sight to the thief, the thief won’t be revealed.
• Being revealed repeatedly within a short time against the same target should result in revealed lasting more and more up to a cap. So stealth is used strategically, to gain combat advantage and to disengage, not to constantly attack-stealth-attack-stealth. Taking longer breaks between Revealeds would bring back Revealed to its normal duration. This could be done with an effect the target gets called something like “Catching up” or “Learning patterns”: “This foe is learning your movements, and it’s getting harder to hide from them after attacking.” Each stack would last 10 seconds and increase Revealed duration against them by 3%, up to 30%.
• If someone is channeling a skill on you (e.g.: Mesmer sword 1, elementalist scepter air 1, neromancer axe 3, etc.), or activating a targeted skill on you (e.g. Dragon’s Tooth, phantasm skills), and you go into stealth mid-activation, the channel should get canceled, and the rest of the skill fail without triggering an ‘interrupt’.
• “Sick’em” and “Analize” woud get their revealed durations down to 4 or 5s from 6s to compensate a bit, since with these changes revealed would be a bit more troublesome and may last longer on average.
• Being damaged in melee range should make stealth ‘flicker’, making the thief partially visible but still not targeteable only to the attacker, but not their allies. This partial visibility would be less clear an noticeable than the translucency seen by the thief’s allies. Because of this, approaching enemies from behind under stealth will be much safer, and having your back to a wall may be useful against thieves.

Great post. There are ways to make stealth better in this game without crippling Thieves. This and other suggestions I’ve seen would be great. (Although I think a few of these probably aren’t possible technically.)

I doubt Anet will address stealth just for WvW. The devs seem to love it (heck they’re making a whole Keep in the new map give mass stealth) and unless other areas of the game complain they’ll just continue on the way it is.

However with the new Stronghold that could change. If stealth adversely affects sPvP Anet might just start paying attention. While thieves are complained about in sPvP, stealth is not really all that valuable because it doesn’t help cap a point directly. I can see stealth being abused in Stronghold though.

Knighthonor.4061:

wow I just saw an amazing thief. this thief just kept stealthing and shadow stepping with major burst damage and condition damage was major. I was using Endure Pain, but this Thief still hit me hard through that with conditions. Was hard to CC the thief because some how he could get out my immobilize every time. And had constant weakness/glance blows.

Whats the best way to counter this in WvW?

Best way to counter it is skill If u run ep( pointless at wvw unless u are roaming) then just time it. Don’t burn out ur skilles, keep em and when thief get out of stealth aoe hammer stun + autoattack, then 5. skill and autoattack, addctionaly 4 to knock him down and autoattack, then he will have max. 5k hp and u will be able to kill him easly with rest of skills.

Take a sd engie with you , problem solved .

aspirine.6852:

Oh come on how can one thief kill 4 players, and do lots of condis and burts like hell?
It could only be that condi dire thief build that keeps on stealthing, and that one does not burst and should not be a problem for 4 players.

As I said, I was built on Defense, not glass cannon, when I was attacked. Hammer/Sword/shield.

I couldnt immobilize the thief, I tried. Rampage barely dented the thief and the CCs didnt do a thing.

Also the Thief was running that Dagger storm elite/ Sword/Pistol /Short Bow.
His bleeds were doing serious damage, and his stealth attacks did good burst damage.

We all attacked him at once, since we happen to all be defending a tower location at the time when the Thief attacked my Siege. Told you I was running Endure Pain, when I was taking that damage. Meaning it was purely Condition damage that was hurting me like that, if my Endure Pain isnt doing much help against him.

Also the Thief kept stealthing, which made it even harder to fight him or CC him. was no way to shut him down.

Why don’t you just link your build in the build editor, rather then trying to describe it?

Do you know what your friends were running?

How much experience did you guys, individually, have fighting other players up till now?

Knighthonor.4061:

wow I just saw an amazing thief. this thief just kept stealthing and shadow stepping with major burst damage and condition damage was major. I was using Endure Pain, but this Thief still hit me hard through that with conditions. Was hard to CC the thief because some how he could get out my immobilize every time. And had constant weakness/glance blows.

Whats the best way to counter this in WvW?

If he has high direct dmg he should have almost 0 condi pressure. If he has high condi pressure the direct dmg will be a joke.

In any medium/large group the dmg conditions will be useless because any semi organized group will have a lot of aoe condi clears + the -40% condi duration food. You said you are a warrior you can also use doggeg march + melandru/hoelbrak and be almost immune to immobilize/chill/cripple.

Anyway you shouldn’t die in a 5v1. Might not be able to kill someone that specs everything into run away tactics, but you should not die… Try to copy paste a meta build and use food+sharpening stones.

Look at what weapon he is using. Pistol = condi. Dagger or sword = direct dmg.

I am not at all very good at dealing with thieves, but the group thing does surprise me – that’s generally my answer to them. As long as enough people have ways to snare or strip stealth, you’re going to pin him long enough to smash him eventually.

Sirius.4510:

I am not at all very good at dealing with thieves, but the group thing does surprise me – that’s generally my answer to them. As long as enough people have ways to snare or strip stealth, you’re going to pin him long enough to smash him eventually.

I speced into defense and CC. I couldnt CC him for more than a fraction of a second if any. Hammer root did not work. My defense didnt hold up since endure pain doesny effect condition damage. I said before as well that i went into Rampage and that CC didnt work, and my hits barely dented him. There were 3 others attacking the same thief at the same time. The thief was a roamer solo. Didnt see anybody else from his faction there fighting. So i am positive it was 4v1 and not a 4v3 or anything like that.

with all the invasions its hard to hit him. As well as all the stealth makes it hard to defend against him nor attack him. Also the thief had major burst damage from stealth which is how he managed to take us down so effortlessly. I couldnt excape combat to get a quick regen and i assume neither could the thief. But the stealth healing and constant stealth kept the thief out of harm from our damage over the course of the fight.

I dont know what the others had as builds. I dont know any of them. We just happen to be on a underpowered server doing some small captures here and there. We was not a premade group or anything.
And it didnt appear that any of us had a skill that removes stealth. Also another note, i believe the thief had some kind of Snowball sigil. I should have took a screen shot at the time to back up everything i am saying.

i play SPvP, and never had that kind of trouble with a thief before, tactical wise. But that thief simply had better gear than me since like i said before i use defensive gear outside SPvP. But that only held me back it seems instead of helping.

Do you spec for pure defense in PvP as well? You mentioned that here right before you mention you couldn’t do much damage to him. That would make a big difference.

Don’t fight thieves, simply put unless you are a better thief or a medi guard you’re wasting your time.

Anet have no clue how to balance a game to a point where it’s player skill beats player skill not one class beats all.

GROMIT.7829:

Don’t fight thieves, simply put unless you are a better thief or a medi guard you’re wasting your time.

Anet have no clue how to balance a game to a point where it’s player skill beats player skill not one class beats all.

Actually my ranger can pwn most thieves with correct timing of sick em. Many of the inexperienced thieves go off guard when they enter invi, so when they did try invi and failed, they usually wouldn’t respond to your burst or additional AA, and die right on spot. This shows how bad Anet makes stealth into, that it basically makes many thieves too reliant on it, and think of no consequence when it doesn’t work anymore.

There’s only one problem though, most thieves in t1 WVW EB are useless cowards who wouldn’t roam unless there’re 2 or more thieves around them. So chances are when you fight one thief alone, there’s actually a very high chance a 2nd thief is nearby. Be prepared and quickly down one fast with sick em, so you can manage to focus on the 2nd thief.

GROMIT.7829:

Don’t fight thieves, simply put unless you are a better thief or a medi guard you’re wasting your time.

Anet have no clue how to balance a game to a point where it’s player skill beats player skill not one class beats all.

I have no problem with theives.

how do you use a irrational “game balance” argument here? Where they not clear from day o e that WvW was not even remotely intended to be balanced? Did they ever mention any aspect of the game, at any point was balanced around 1v1? Losing 1v1 fights in WvW is the most irrational example to use to expect rebalancing in my opinion.

coglin.1867:

GROMIT.7829:

Don’t fight thieves, simply put unless you are a better thief or a medi guard you’re wasting your time.

Anet have no clue how to balance a game to a point where it’s player skill beats player skill not one class beats all.

I have no problem with theives.

how do you use a irrational “game balance” argument here? Where they not clear from day o e that WvW was not even remotely intended to be balanced? Did they ever mention any aspect of the game, at any point was balanced around 1v1? Losing 1v1 fights in WvW is the most irrational example to use to expect rebalancing in my opinion.

+1

Hi,

As a thief myself, i managed to kill a team of 4 people one time in WvW.

But i think they were new players with bad stuff.

Every class has a counter and a “free kill” in a duel depending on the build ( but i even kill medi guards sometimes…when they burn all their cds too soon)

Knighthonor.4061:

wow I just saw an amazing thief. this thief just kept stealthing and shadow stepping with major burst damage and condition damage was major. I was using Endure Pain, but this Thief still hit me hard through that with conditions. Was hard to CC the thief because some how he could get out my immobilize every time. And had constant weakness/glance blows.

Whats the best way to counter this in WvW?

i will disappoint you but the best counter against thief’s and any burst damage ( like d/d , s/d ele , s/f-gs guardian , shatter memser , burst engies) is only one boon and 2 type of skills ….

aegis and block or reflect skills

and warrior has not any aegis but he can reflect missiles via blocking

smart burst roamers do not touch classes that use aegis as their primary boon ,special the passive effect of guardian. they can not pass many skills damages fast ,because aegis is not blocking only one hit as tooltip and wiki says , but many special from burst classes that use many skills with fast activation and very small cooldown to deliver overall very big damage against their opponents .

i am playing guardian , warrior , mesmer , engineer , thief and the only class that i am laughing with burst roamers is my wvw spec guardian because i have 4 aegis in a 20 seconds time window .

with all of other classes i can not resist the burst damage EASY and only if i am lucky to dodge and evade or block the high input in time , i have some chances against burst roamers with the other classes .

also in my warrior when i am using sw/shield or sw /sw with bow or hammer i can block the high input that is coming always in the first enemy skill rotation and send back missiles . also, i can make my area a dangerous area ( the aoe of the bow with combo = area might or stuns with hammer ) and i have some chances against burst classes .

AND forget endure pain ( add defy pain in passive – toughness trait line converts your toughness to power ) and use in this utility slot berserker stance to be immune to conditions or signet of stamina if you are not playing the shout build that removes conditions.

p.s. i have played once a burst guardian and it is extremely lame build and bored and i never played again like this . i want challenges , not to win all the times

Yeah, Likely a P/D thief. Sounds like it. They are troublesome and true 5 people should be able to win against one or at least chase it off. Though, I still personally think that it shouldnt be that much of a problem.

The thief class, something needs to happen to back it up a little bit. Its too enabled in open field. Thieves should be hiding in the dark and around corners, not owning stuff out on the battle field. At the same time, then what will it do?

Im hoping Revenant will have an anti-stealth mechanism to it, as its lore (Wears a Blindfold and detects its enemies with magic and other senses) dictates it.

With that said, it also makes sense to me that light fields would be anti-stealth, but they are not.

P/D condie thief is one of hardest to kill things u might meet in WvW.Thou loosing with 4 guys to it,is mostly l2p.Defeat as some suggested,CC hurts thieves.But condie thief will be tankie,and they still may just run away,and come back “repeat till you dead”.GL anyway.Also being bursty on warr helps a lot against thieves.But you will suffer in outmanned fights…,ah,cant have everything right?

Oh,forgot,many newbies love to spam abils with confu on em,dont do that lol.Watch your condie bar.

I don’t care if this dude’s story is legit or not, NERF THIEVES yesterday. I am close to quitting this game because of this overpowered bs of a class. I feel sorry for you people who need to play cheese specs with this class in wvw.

mako.2431:

I don’t care if this dude’s story is legit or not, NERF THIEVES yesterday. I am close to quitting this game because of this overpowered bs of a class. I feel sorry for you people who need to play cheese specs with this class in wvw.

How are you defining them as OP?

If I am beating them much more often then they kill me, does that define them as under powered?

By the way, can I have your stuff?

a good mesmer can easy counter a good thief if you no how to play your mesmer

Genlog.4983:

a good mesmer can easy counter a good thief if you no how to play your mesmer

Umm.. it’s other way round.
Other than PU mesmer, mesmer are known to be free kill to experienced thief.
(But again, even if you go PU, thief can instead go for perplex, which you’ll lose again)