Guild Wars 2

Have noticed lately that a lot of people seem to be running a Thief. Is it because they can stealth like crazy? They seem pretty untouchable. Personally i feel they need a re-balance. Pretty tired of them stealthing non-stop, and i don’t think i’m alone. ANET for the love of Dwayna re-balance them please or i hate to say it, i’m finding a new game. Sad to say since i have played Guild Wars 1 since the beginning as well as beta in Guild Wars 2. Love guild Wars but make it fair, re-balance the classes or you will lose more than me, ( you already have)…

Perhaps you should try and play a thief for a couple of months, you know, just to see if they have any real other options… i am fairly sure you will see the light in under a month… and will also know how to simply beat most of them.

Invisible does NOT mean invulnerable, unhittable, untouchable, it just means you can not see them for 4 sec after which they have a 3 sec revealed debuff on them given they attack. Unless they stealth, while in stealth, in which case the stealth stacks in duration, perhaps annoying but it’s not like (s)he is doing any damage while in stealth, and when (s)he does, you have 3 seconds to nail them and finish them off.

It would be sad to see a player go, but using this kind of emotional blackmail without diving into the situation to understand it, doesn’t sound really fair to those players that try and play a broken 1 dimensional class that has already been nerved into the ground, except for maybe in 1v1 situations against a couple of builds. Now i will assume you play a ranger, because it is basically the only profession against which the Thief is still overly strong. But that is not due to the Thief, it’s because the Ranger is still very much behind (hopefully it’ll get better after the next patch).

Op you can get on a thief and dueling me and I will show you how weak they are by repeated making you eat the dirt.

Honestly op, you’re better off finding a new game. Pvp in this game is incredibly stale and boring to watch/play. With balance patches coming once every 4+ months and nothing new being added to the mix its time to stop holding your breath.

1. thieves don’t really have that many other options besides stealth due to lack of protection, stab, heals etc.
2. entire defensive tree is built around stealth
3. next patch will force majority thieves either quit game, reroll other class or run condi… so enjoy… althrough i have a feeling ppl like you will come back to forums 2 days after patch and qq how OP condi thieves are

Once stealthed there is no target to locate, and there is no tells to what to prepare for. The skill floor playing against a Thief is very high, but not much creeping after that. It requires you routinely play a Thief and die to them many times before you know what best to do.

Also, if you run Ranger LB or Mesmer, your skills by default need a target, fighting a Thief is a losing battle with those weapons/skills 9 out 10 time. Disengage immediately.

Personally, I wish stealth was redesigned and Thief reworked.

stealth as a mechanic needs a rework, thief skills, not so much. most rogues in other games can stealth only once in combat, mainly because they have dozens of in combat options for dps(thief does too, but is too reliant on stealth compared to other game’s rogues) as well as dodge being a passive stat. honestly, if you took a DPS operative from SWTOR and supplanted it here, it would wreck face.

This thread again

@ title.

Nope. Not even close.

Please, Learn to play. If necessary, roll a thief for a week.

Eliesume.1687:

Once stealthed there is no target to locate, and there is no tells to what to prepare for. The skill floor playing against a Thief is very high, but not much creeping after that. It requires you routinely play a Thief and die to them many times before you know what best to do.

Thieves are EXTREMLY predictable, even more than a warrior because of their squishyness they have to go defensive after the first attack. Which is either dodge spam or stealth. Their initiative regen forces them to switch between defensive and aggressive all the time. They cant do both at the same time like the other classes. The other reasons why thieves use almost a PvE rotation in PvP is because they only have 5 skills + utility to use. Their second set is either the same set with different signets or different offhand or a shortbow. Switching weapon is not something a thief usually wants to do because he doesnt benefit from it.

I bet if every WvW player would be forced to view a short video of what each of the popular thief specs does in its PvP rotation than we would have A ) way more people stomping thieves, B ) alot more whine from the thief community and C ) way less thieves in WvW.

Also if you really really dislike thieves in WvW play a condi necro or engi, well just eat some vegi pizza so it looks like you are condi. Most thieves that are actually good will think twice bevor they ambush your because they know its a uphill battle for them.

AoE skills instagib Thieves.

L2P

/s

no stealth = dead thief : in stealth = alive thief

Hence all the stealth spam builds.

I play zerk LB ranger and I can honestly say thieves are the easiest opponent for me. When fighting them it’s all about timing. Knowing when to pop you skills mean everything in these fights where the burst is real and the healthpools low. For me, common combos are barrage on myself → whirl + retal → PBS → Rapid fire. The two pets that seem to give thieves the most trouble are wolves and drake hound. Slow thief is dead thief.

The pet that gives fear is the one that gives thieves the most trouble.

Using fire + air sigils rekts thiefs, both are off cd every time u get to attack them and fire will show their position when it procs. Swapping from x/shield to a fire air greatsword on my warrior and doing a good whirlwind often takes off over 50% of a glass thief while evading

Ofc they only work on power spec

Astral Windform.2016:

Have noticed lately that a lot of people seem to be running a Thief. Is it because they can stealth like crazy? They seem pretty untouchable. Personally i feel they need a re-balance. Pretty tired of them stealthing non-stop, and i don’t think i’m alone. ANET for the love of Dwayna re-balance them please or i hate to say it, i’m finding a new game. Sad to say since i have played Guild Wars 1 since the beginning as well as beta in Guild Wars 2. Love guild Wars but make it fair, re-balance the classes or you will lose more than me, ( you already have)…

First thing.
Quit trying to make people feel bad for you.

Second thing.

As a warrior, I have only met one thief that I could not hunt down to the point of finishing, and only a handful of thieves that made my life a living hell. in both situations, the thieves were heavily refined and adept at playing (or, in the case of one, a very annoying but respected gunner that picked me off with a pistol by giving away her position only when I was under 50%) , and it was obvious that they were putting in a lot of effort to drain my HP.

The stealth isn’t broken. 90% of the time if you know a thief is around, they’re behind you, and the 10% of the time they are not is mind-games/disengage. They’re far from untouchable, and you can radar for them with AA. you can even -down- them while they’re stealthed if you can read them well enough.

Coming from someone who absolutely -hates- fighting them because -of- that mechanic, It is far from broken. it is almost mandatory.

It is not really OP; however many thieves in wvw choose a certain build that involves spamming smoke fields and maintaining high stealth uptime. This precisely refers to mainly one build and it’s very annoying and not very fun to fight.

In say, PvP, stealth would not be OP because you can’t cap points in stealth.

Nerfing thief blindly would cause people to gravitate more to certain builds, not less.

You could argue that stealth allows them reset fights and avoid damage, but in the end I don’t see it any worse than warriors using stances and just negating everything you throw at them… and also being able to arbitrarily disengage.

In other to land those magnificent backstabs, a thief needs to spec into heavy damage and die if anything sneezes directly at them. And they have to be revealed to do any of this.

Like any other questionable mechanic in this game, the class is too reliant on it for survival at times, and thus it can seem broken when they use it, but then again they aren’t given that many other alternatives.

ArchonWing.9480:

It is not really OP; however many thieves in wvw choose a certain build that involves spamming smoke fields and maintaining high stealth uptime. This precisely refers to mainly one build and it’s very annoying and not very fun to fight.

In say, PvP, stealth would not be OP because you can’t cap points in stealth.

Nerfing thief blindly would cause people to gravitate more to certain builds, not less.

You could argue that stealth allows them reset fights and avoid damage, but in the end I don’t see it any worse than warriors using stances and just negating everything you throw at them… and also being able to arbitrarily disengage.

In other to land those magnificent backstabs, a thief needs to spec into heavy damage and die if anything sneezes directly at them. And they have to be revealed to do any of this.

Like any other questionable mechanic in this game, the class is too reliant on it for survival at times, and thus it can seem broken when they use it, but then again they aren’t given that many other alternatives.

thieves are roamers not cappers so it kinda makes it op . if there is one enemy on a point , thief takes it down done .

so ye the stealth of the thieves is pretty op it just spammable ( i mainly play mesmer and lately thief)

Beside deticated spotter thieves are useless in WvW. They cant zerg, they cant really cap camps by themself. They can ony kill lone enemies and if you are specced for the zerg you shouldnt be running around alone in the first place. Alll meta roamer builds can deal with thieves.

You need like 3 thieves on the map for spotting, the rest is useless in the grand scheme of things.

all meta roamer builds can deal with thieves yes but how about mesmers then ? as long as i remember mesmers have a hard time versus thieves since they are hardcounters to mesmers

I think that Thieves should be deleted in lieu of a new medium armor class, the Circus Clown. They constantly have the revealed debuff, all weapon skills are “Joke and Dagger” and every trait is “Last Refuge.”

Thieves are fine. Shadow Arts thieves are kind of a pain to fight in WvW, but whatever. That’s their place to shine and that’s okay. They keep you on your toes, at least. I’d rather have a protracted battle with a SA thief than watch a S/S LB dire stat heal-on-shout warrior drool all over his keyboard and beat pretty much anyone.

Sevans.4619:

I’d rather have a protracted battle with a SA thief than watch a S/S LB dire stat heal-on-shout warrior drool all over his keyboard and beat pretty much anyone.

Yeah exactly a thief no matter which spec needs to actually think to win fights, some specific WvW warrior specs can basicaly smash their head against the keyboard.

Sevans.4619:

I think that Thieves should be deleted in lieu of a new medium armor class, the Circus Clown. They constantly have the revealed debuff, all weapon skills are “Joke and Dagger” and every trait is “Last Refuge.”

Thieves are fine. Shadow Arts thieves are kind of a pain to fight in WvW, but whatever. That’s their place to shine and that’s okay. They keep you on your toes, at least. I’d rather have a protracted battle with a SA thief than watch a S/S LB dire stat heal-on-shout warrior drool all over his keyboard and beat pretty much anyone.

Hey, I don’t use dire stats~

and I dont drool -that- much…

Keep thieves the way they are. I am modestly happy about the black powder change, but that’s only because it helps me.

They have a lot to keep track of to just -not die-.

Of course, the same can be said about -any- class-, but stealth doesn’t actually block damage. It just adds guesswork to an otherwise squishy class.

As a thief I’d still rather they nerf stealth, but buff the rest of the class in survivability.

Having nearly no Stability, few stunbreaks, few condicleanses and pathetic healing isn’t really helping things.

Stealth as a mechanic is OP, but thieves as a class are UP, making them very questionably ‘ok’ in general.

On the other hand, mesmers traiting in stealth…

anyone that thinks thieves are balanced, or easy to kill, is delusional

…or they’ve ingrained into their memory the day some guy’s kid sister logged onto his account and played his thief.

of course she’s easy to kill, she’s 12.

thief is not op. One thing that might help you is a tuff condi build. Theifs do not have a lot of pretection or condi removal. (remove condi in stealth is not great). I can kill most any thief one on one with a bunker condi build. that being said…

I think what peoples cripe really is when you have a theif + anyone else on you. While you are fighting the other person, the thief is free to stealth and backstab repeated without too much worry so it makes the theif seem really op because it looked like the theif just appeared and killed you WHEN if fact it was the fact you were looking at the other guy. Its mis-direction that gets the thief lots of kills. When you add a team mate to the theif then yeah they really seem OP because they spent the whole time getting behind you for the stab while your looking at the other guy. that part sucks

Op or not, the perma-stealth (coward?) builds in wvw are pretty annoying and counter-intuitive to what wvw is about.

By my own admission it would be stupid to balance anything around wvw roaming but it sure as hell would be nice if they could tone down that build a little.

well. In sPvp thief is a good roamer and stealth is a good way to force your oponent to focus your allies while you are doing the backstab job. It’s not OP since it’s the “where this class shine” thing in sPvp.

In high level pve stealth is used to resurrect downed ppl with shadow refuge and sometime to skip. Useless in fight.

In wvw you have to use a stealth build simply because the other way to survive don’t really fit the wvw battle. The thief is still not immortal since as the warrior said he is behind you and made of paper… Last time i was running careless, shuffling my inventory (big mistake when you are roaming but i was tired), and a warrior came from behind bull rushed and one shoted me with his eviscerate and fire+air sigil. so i guess 4 second of stealth is a fair trade….

I have no probs with stealth in sPvP, it works as expected, if you want to go to stealth that’s fine but u cant contest the point whilst in stealth.

It becomes a problem in the open roaming WvW universe where it can constantly be spammed, c’n’d off walls, ambients, pets, clones, etc etc, id be happy if this was removed from ambients and walls. You cant get precision stacks off ambients, but you can get stealth? And walls? What?

But as people say the thief had its evasion build nerfed a while ago, although Sizer’s still seems to work well with the twin dmg proc sigils. So they rely on stealth for survival, there is no other option but it’s just such a powerful ability compared to other things you can get, you can get regen for 4 seconds or stealth for 4 seconds … hmmmmmm.

And thieves do not bring a lot to group play in large scale combat, the venom share is cool but you sacrifice a lot for it and apart from that you can provide smoke fields and try and pick people off on the periphery of the combat if a Necro or Ele gets caught away from the herd. Because u certainly cannot live in that AoE.

In smaller havoc groups and solo they dominate, because of the ability to disengage when that 1v1 becomes 4v1. They can provide smoke fields for the group to blast if they see large numbers inc. And are hands down the best class at picking off other DPS at the back of a fight, got some staff ele giving you grief in the backline? If you have a top notch thief player go put him on that staff ele. They can chase well when the target is low and they can stomp in stealth, they can stomp in a bind field, hell they can stomp with shadow step.

Chorazin.4107:

And are hands down the best class at picking off other DPS at the back of a fight, got some staff ele giving you grief in the backline? If you have a top notch thief player go put him on that staff ele. They can chase well when the target is low and they can stomp in stealth, they can stomp in a bind field, hell they can stomp with shadow step.

Assuming everyone is decent at their class they can only pick off eles in the backline that sit in the wrong attunment. A necro justactivates deathshroud an laughs while the thief gets aoe’s to death, the odd engi or ranger in the backline will CC him. So they cant really do anything, a mesmer, ranger or engineer is way better at sniping people in the backline because they dont have to go in melee range. How often do you see thief stomps work in zerg vs zerg fights? Even inn the most unorganised groups everyone spams shadow refugee with aoe when it appears.

Cynz.9437:

1. thieves don’t really have that many other options besides stealth due to lack of protection, stab, heals etc.
2. entire defensive tree is built around stealth
3. next patch will force majority thieves either quit game, reroll other class or run condi… so enjoy… althrough i have a feeling ppl like you will come back to forums 2 days after patch and qq how OP condi thieves are

Number 3 is the biggest problem I fear with the upcoming patch. ANet did a fantastic job with properly balancing blindspam D/P stealth stab, but did absolutely nothing to tone down the ridiculous monster that P/D condi is. As D/D, I hate fighting against both builds, but universally P/D is much more effective.

they are trying to make pistols viable in pvp, or at least nerfing their better weaponsets so that their weaker weaponsets see more gameplay. What will actually happen is poeple will just quit thief and move to something else fun and bursty.

To be fair, as a Ranger who semi-often runs full zerk longbow in WvW, thieves are pretty easy fodder for rapid fire + QZ especially as it follows them in stealth. Although, if they do get the hit on me then I’m as good as dead lol, unless I can pull off a lucky lightning reflexes + hunter’s shot, then I might survive.

DeceiverX.8361:

Cynz.9437:

1. thieves don’t really have that many other options besides stealth due to lack of protection, stab, heals etc.
2. entire defensive tree is built around stealth
3. next patch will force majority thieves either quit game, reroll other class or run condi… so enjoy… althrough i have a feeling ppl like you will come back to forums 2 days after patch and qq how OP condi thieves are

Number 3 is the biggest problem I fear with the upcoming patch. ANet did a fantastic job with properly balancing blindspam D/P stealth stab, but did absolutely nothing to tone down the ridiculous monster that P/D condi is. As D/D, I hate fighting against both builds, but universally P/D is much more effective.

I lol’d. That helps nothing with their blindspamming or stealth stabbing. Black Powder will still blind you on hit from it’s shot, and they can still Heartseeker through Black Powder to gain stealth so they can backstab you, and then dodge for 3 seconds before repeating. The nerf to Black Powder did NOTHING to D/P.

I was referring to the whole build, not the combo. Stab is not the problematic part of D/P. Yes it still allows for d/p to gain stealth through a HS through the smoke field, but the pulse change is actually a massive nerf to the build as now other classes will be able to stand within the field and deal essential damage/use important skills rather than the thief just standing in it and being effectively invulnerable to melee attacks. A lot of people argue the thief can still be hit in melee from outside, but this is only applicable if he does not kite a mere 10 units within the field and stays exactly in the center the whole time.

To claim it doesn’t have an effect is just simply false. Yes it still blinds and thieves may still opt to press 5 twice, but it then subsequently prevents much more of the unnecessary sustain.

DeceiverX.8361:

I was referring to the whole build, not the combo. Stab is not the problematic part of D/P. Yes it still allows for d/p to gain stealth through a HS through the smoke field, but the pulse change is actually a massive nerf to the build as now other classes will be able to stand within the field and deal essential damage/use important skills rather than the thief just standing in it and being effectively invulnerable to melee attacks. A lot of people argue the thief can still be hit in melee from outside, but this is only applicable if he does not kite a mere 10 units within the field and stays exactly in the center the whole time.

To claim it doesn’t have an effect is just simply false. Yes it still blinds and thieves may still opt to press 5 twice, but it then subsequently prevents much more of the unnecessary sustain.

facepalm

Who the hell stands in the obvious blind field and tries to attack when you can easily hit the thief from outside of the field with melee weapons. Every class has a widely used melee weapon that can easily hit the thief in the field, so if they’re standing in the field they ARE the weakest link.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Who the hell stands in the obvious blind field and tries to attack when you can easily hit the thief from outside of the field with melee weapons. Every class has a widely used melee weapon that can easily hit the thief in the field, so if they’re standing in the field they ARE the weakest link.

A thief can’t even hide from melee cleave weapons in an SR field, let alone that pathetic Black Powder. Thieves must dodge within their SR to survive if ever activating it against any target that remotely knows the meaning of Cleave.

I’ve never seen a thief in WvW camp a blind field. If they did, they wouldn’t be thieves, they’d be loot bags.

Hayashi.3416:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Who the hell stands in the obvious blind field and tries to attack when you can easily hit the thief from outside of the field with melee weapons. Every class has a widely used melee weapon that can easily hit the thief in the field, so if they’re standing in the field they ARE the weakest link.

A thief can’t even hide from melee cleave weapons in an SR field, let alone that pathetic Black Powder. Thieves must dodge within their SR to survive if ever activating it against any target that remotely knows the meaning of Cleave.

I’ve never seen a thief in WvW camp a blind field. If they did, they wouldn’t be thieves, they’d be loot bags.

Exactly. This is an unneeded nerf, and the fact that they think it will balance anything is sad.

RyuDragnier.9476:

DeceiverX.8361:

I was referring to the whole build, not the combo. Stab is not the problematic part of D/P. Yes it still allows for d/p to gain stealth through a HS through the smoke field, but the pulse change is actually a massive nerf to the build as now other classes will be able to stand within the field and deal essential damage/use important skills rather than the thief just standing in it and being effectively invulnerable to melee attacks. A lot of people argue the thief can still be hit in melee from outside, but this is only applicable if he does not kite a mere 10 units within the field and stays exactly in the center the whole time.

To claim it doesn’t have an effect is just simply false. Yes it still blinds and thieves may still opt to press 5 twice, but it then subsequently prevents much more of the unnecessary sustain.

facepalm

Who the hell stands in the obvious blind field and tries to attack when you can easily hit the thief from outside of the field with melee weapons. Every class has a widely used melee weapon that can easily hit the thief in the field, so if they’re standing in the field they ARE the weakest link.

But the thing is you CAN. I literally just said this. The radius on BP is 120. Melee attack range is 130 on ALL MELEE WEAPON AUTOS. If you move a mere 10 units kiting inside and maintain the distance, ta-da, you’ve now just become unhittable for the entire duration of BP unless a multi-hit combo is used, in which case, you dodge and laugh at blown cooldowns. I don’t understand how this is hard for you to understand.

DeceiverX.8361:

RyuDragnier.9476:

DeceiverX.8361:

I was referring to the whole build, not the combo. Stab is not the problematic part of D/P. Yes it still allows for d/p to gain stealth through a HS through the smoke field, but the pulse change is actually a massive nerf to the build as now other classes will be able to stand within the field and deal essential damage/use important skills rather than the thief just standing in it and being effectively invulnerable to melee attacks. A lot of people argue the thief can still be hit in melee from outside, but this is only applicable if he does not kite a mere 10 units within the field and stays exactly in the center the whole time.

To claim it doesn’t have an effect is just simply false. Yes it still blinds and thieves may still opt to press 5 twice, but it then subsequently prevents much more of the unnecessary sustain.

facepalm

Who the hell stands in the obvious blind field and tries to attack when you can easily hit the thief from outside of the field with melee weapons. Every class has a widely used melee weapon that can easily hit the thief in the field, so if they’re standing in the field they ARE the weakest link.

But the thing is you CAN. I literally just said this. The radius on BP is 120. Melee attack range is 130 on ALL MELEE WEAPON AUTOS. If you move a mere 10 units kiting inside and maintain the distance, ta-da, you’ve now just become unhittable for the entire duration of BP unless a multi-hit combo is used, in which case, you dodge and laugh at blown cooldowns. I don’t understand how this is hard for you to understand.

I don’t understand how hard it is for you to understand that there are ways around them standing in the BP, as not only can melee weapons hit far enough through it with weapon skills to hit the thief (every melee weapon has at least 1 skill with a further range than the auto-attack), you can easily switch to a long-range weapon to fire upon them, which is why no thief EVER stands in the Black Powder, it’s too easily bypassed by both melee and ranged. If you don’t have a long range weapon on you, then YOU are a weaker link than the thief in the Black Powder.

DeceiverX.8361:

But the thing is you CAN. I literally just said this. The radius on BP is 120. Melee attack range is 130 on ALL MELEE WEAPON AUTOS. If you move a mere 10 units kiting inside and maintain the distance, ta-da, you’ve now just become unhittable for the entire duration of BP unless a multi-hit combo is used, in which case, you dodge and laugh at blown cooldowns. I don’t understand how this is hard for you to understand.

Helpful picture of what 10 units is.

Lol jk, you forgot to consider the size of a player’kittenbox.

EDIT: Would have took better pics, but he was the only thief online in my guild and I don’t think he knew how to stop autoattacking.

Where I was initially is where my back feet is. The tooltip says 130 range, that is when your autoattack will “fire”. If you are outside of range 130, you won’t autoattack, but if you press the “1” button, you will be able to hit people further than just 130 range.

Congratulations, you’re now attacking from 130 range.

So I guess that it is agreed upon that attacking someone who is standing in bp while not getting blinded is extremely easy.

EDIT: Just tested it. You can hit someone from 190 units away. Don’t ask me how I found out. (If someone read this before, i kitten kitten ed).

Hmm let´s see, what can we say about thiefes

- high damage output
- highly mobile
- can choose when they engage / disengage
- can easily reset a fight
- can cleanse / regen in stealth if specced
- high amount of stealth

Are they OP ? Well the state that this game has you should not talk about balance. I mean look at the state of the warrior which is on top of the ridiculousness level. So compared to them surely not, but if you look at the sorry state of rangers hell yes. Arenanets balancing strategy is a comedy show and therefore can not be taken too serious.

And the most stupid thing about stealth in this game is, there is no counter. Stealth is a fire and forget mechanic. You press a button and go into stealth, you do not have to have any awareness at all. In other games for example you are unable to stealth if you do it in front of you opponent so you have to be aware when you do it. Or there are stats which enable you to see stealthed enemies easier. But here, nada no nothing, stealth in this game is a simple, low risk – high reward mechanic. And please please please don´t say aoe is a counter to stealth, this would maybe be true if the thief wouldn´t be on of the mobilest professions in GW2.

mordran.4750:

And the most stupid thing about stealth in this game is, there is no counter. Stealth is a fire and forget mechanic. You press a button and go into stealth, you do not have to have any awareness at all. In other games for example you are unable to stealth if you do it in front of you opponent so you have to be aware when you do it. Or there are stats which enable you to see stealthed enemies easier. But here, nada no nothing, stealth in this game is a simple, low risk – high reward mechanic. And please please please don´t say aoe is a counter to stealth, this would maybe be true if the thief wouldn´t be on of the mobilest professions in GW2.

In other games, Stealth tends to last a LOT more than 3s.

Mayama.1854:

Assuming everyone is decent at their class they can only pick off eles in the backline that sit in the wrong attunment. A necro justactivates deathshroud an laughs while the thief gets aoe’s to death, the odd engi or ranger in the backline will CC him. So they cant really do anything, a mesmer, ranger or engineer is way better at sniping people in the backline because they dont have to go in melee range. How often do you see thief stomps work in zerg vs zerg fights? Even inn the most unorganised groups everyone spams shadow refugee with aoe when it appears.

The point is to put the backline players on the defensive, so they are focused on dealing with the thief/survival rather than blowing kitten up. That is job done right there if they are burning evasion cooldowns, kiting and dodging, it’s about getting the thieves on the glass cannons, not the Dire Necros, or bunker/condi engineers.

How is this ranger/engi CC’ing a thief? I play an Engi, pinning down a thief is tough, so much disengage/evades/blinds they can bring to the fight. The rifle has an immob but generally that means a power Engi build and any decent thief will chew you up. You can get lucky with a SD burst build and surprise the thief if all ur burst goes off at once and drop him, but its unlikely.

A common scenario is people burning evasion cooldowns to kite away, usually on low life, The core group of tanks will do their thing, usually switch target to something they can apply dps to straight away and give up on that running target. But that target is perfect for the thief to chase and finish off.

Mesmers, Rangers and Engineers dont have the same kind of mobility and disengage a thief has. The thief class brings a fusion of both, Mesmers have the disengage from stealth abilities but you will be hard pressed to find a slower class to chase with, other classes can almost just walk away from you. Rangers if specced right have some decent mobility but no real disengage. So whilst it’s great you can chase on a ranger you will then be extended from your group and with no disengage, soon dead. This isnt problematic for a thief, if they drop the target and get a stomp all good, if not and there is too much support for the downed target it’s still no prob, stealth up and head back to the group.

I dont know, Isee thief stomps all the time in larger scale fights, as said operating around the edges/backline/flanks.

Thief is not OP, but the profession was poorly designed. I don’t know it there is any way to fix it now. Both a thief’ s damage and surviveability are tied to being able to fluidly enter and exit stealth. If access to stealth for thieves were to be more limited, almost every skill a thief has would have to be balanced to compensate. In sPvP Anet “fixed” this with the typical band-aid approach of making points immune to capture by players in stealth and increasing “revealed” by 1 second instead of fixing core game play issues with stealth spam. Now that the good old days of 2 week balance patches are but a memory, I doubt WvW players will see any meaningful rework.

P.S. Shadow Refuge is a terribly implemented skill, it is very UP when fighting a large group and slightly OP when fighting solo roamers or small groups, but we see this a lot with balance in GW2.

Feaduin.7603:

Thief is not OP, but the profession was poorly designed.

Mesmer is completly bugged and only really works in 1vX in open fields.

Necro has a completly useless trait line and the advertised attrition based combat doesnt exist.

Ranger pets just dont work.

Looks like a pattern.