Guild Wars 2

Ok, I am one for going glass cannon as an Elementalist I ran it for the longest time. My heaviest hitting attacks did 3-6k (D/D) damage versus squishy targets… With the upcoming nerf to Crit damage, I changed my gameplay up. However, with over 3,000 armor, Thief damage is just ridiculous.

I have 30 in Water line, so this is absolutely ridiculous. The thief constantly kept blinding and hit for a ton of damage even though I have 30 in Earth as well. This really needs to be fixed, the whole fight he just black powder, heartseeker, backstab and switches to sword to strip boon / shadowstep. As an Elementalist D/D our interrupts are on a VERY long cooldown. Why is thief’s highest hitting attack on a 4 second cooldown?? Thank god for all my healing and running around, otherwise the thief would have killed me off. I got him to about 90% life and he would just shadowstep away, black powder, hs, backstab and repeat.

Not sure where the issue is?

Thief playing glass cannon is supposed to do this.

You admittedly said you deal 6k on crits with the elementalist, not sure what you’re specs are but if you were to spec the same way as the thief with lots of power, and +crit% damage then either Dragon’s Tooth or Fire Grab would be dealing nearly Identical damage as Backstab to foes with the difference being they’re AoE.

To be fair think this is more a testament to ele’s needing a health and/or armour buff then the thief needing yet another damage nerf.

I don’t see a problem with thieves hitting that high because it works the other way around. If they hit hard, they get hit hard as well. The problem here lies with your build. I don’t think you can kill any decent player, even a GC, with only 2k attack.

The real problem about thieves is that Dire Perplexity condi build paired with ridiculous invisibility.

Edit:

khorne.8592:

To be fair think this is more a testament to ele’s needing a health and/or armour buff then the thief needing yet another damage nerf.

I do think eles can use HP/Armor buffs but thieves don’t need damage nerf. Crit Damage will be nerfed all across the board. But Anet can probably do something about the cheesy condi perplexity build because the skill cap required to defeat a decent player on this build is pretty high.

You think you got it bad? See below. I don’t care what gear or what spec is being used, nobody should be global’d from stealth without a chance to react. Especially when running 3/6 Knights, 3/6 Valk, and half soldier accessories.

Your situation is obviously somewhat different as full-on bunker, but the point remains: thief damage is too high considering their stealth and crazy mobility.

A simple way to fix thief is to make them reveal when they miss their attack in stealth. Being able to mash 111111111 countless times and missing isn’t stealthy. It’s being an idiot swinging their dagger about and missing. If a thief manages to catch you with a CnD and backstab without missing, then the huge 15k damage is justified. It’s not when they aren’t penalized for missing it and being able to spam it over again

TL;DR. Damage is fine, the stealth mechanic is not.

Lets stop with this BS “If they hit hard, they get hit hard as well” ok?!

This is a normal thief scenario:

stealth (damage increased) => 3k to 6k dmg=> stealth (heal and/or condition remove) =>3k dmg => stealth

Most of times u cant even target a thief before getting dropped to 1/4 hp.

Lets be clear i dont mind if thieves can unleash tons of dmg (even on a full bunker warrior,thing that makes me laugh hard) to compensate their squishyness…but the STEALTH mechanics in this game are just BS,and this is a fact.

Only problem with backstab is that is very easy to land as it is now.
Just make smaller the angle that a hit is a “hit from behind” and BS is fine.

Celeras.4980:

You think you got it bad? See below. I don’t care what gear or what spec is being used, nobody should be global’d from stealth without a chance to react. Especially when running 3/6 Knights, 3/6 Valk, and half soldier accessories.

Your situation is obviously somewhat different as full-on bunker, but the point remains: thief damage is too high considering their stealth and crazy mobility.

With your phantasm mesmer you should have an easy time against any D/D thief.

Yes thieves are way out of line when compared to ele and mesmer glass canon builds.

Celeras.4980:

You think you got it bad? See below. I don’t care what gear or what spec is being used, nobody should be global’d from stealth without a chance to react. Especially when running 3/6 Knights, 3/6 Valk, and half soldier accessories.

Your situation is obviously somewhat different as full-on bunker, but the point remains: thief damage is too high considering their stealth and crazy mobility.

Nice Sword you got there … Ever tried to use weapon skill number 2?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blurred_Frenzy

I am pretty sure you wouldn´t get hit by the Backstab if you act quick enough.

The Scenario:

You run around … sniffing on flowers and watch the beautiful skyline … not thinking about you are in a warzone … and because you are not careful you are the perfect prey … The Thief comes close to you … yes he is in 900 range and yes he is visible to pull off the precasted cloak and dagger + steal + backstab combo ….

There is another way to pull off that combo from +900 … use of infiltrator signet + steal …. in that case it´s much harder to react in time.

Maybe you should act like i do .. if you get beaten by another player look for the failure in your gameplay and don´t blame them. Only if you are 100% sure you did everything right come here and talk about it.

Sidenote 1:
WvWvW is pretty unbalanced … they should apply the rules from spvp there too.

Sidenote 2:
A big yes to the backstab change : if you get blocked you get revealed.

Best regards!

Kinda have to agree with Shinobi… Always makes me laugh when people complain about being ganked by thieves with no time to react… Maybe you need to pay more attention when solo roaming and then people wont sneak up on you.

Especially with D/D thieves.. 99% of the time they will be openning with steal>CnD>Bs.. so just be ready to evade or block or whatever it is you do the second they steal, and as if by magic they will have used their best gap closer and half their initiative for nothing, at which point they will either try dodge towards you to CnD again or use a utility.

Just pay attention.. dont let people walk up to you without you even seeing them and you will be much more prepared to deal with it. If you dont see them till they have already attacked you then of cause you’re in trouble.

I was under the impression that a thief’s steal/ cloak and dagger combo is essentially an instant 10k or so (since c&d can be initiated at range followed by the steal gap closer). This then leaves the thief in stealth and allows for the 10k+ backstab. So if you don’t see the animation for the c&d then dead? I don’t see how this has a reasonable counter.

i still yet have to get hit by 10k backstab and i am glassy myself lol

i actually find condi thieves more annoying; bs thieves are predictable and you can punish them easily

the thing is, you guys can cry for BS nerf or stealth nerf all you want but if those would get nerfed thieves would have to get buffed somewhere else and something tells me you won’t like that because any half decent thief will learn to use it effectively and will still kill you

i saw plenty of eles doing opposite: nuking the hell out of thieves while not getting hit by BS; there was one d/d ele (on SoS i believe), he never lost a single duel to any class… so i think problem is on your side

ilMasa.2546:

Lets stop with this BS “If they hit hard, they get hit hard as well” ok?!

This is a normal thief scenario:

stealth (damage increased) => 3k to 6k dmg=> stealth (heal and/or condition remove) =>3k dmg => stealth

Most of times u cant even target a thief before getting dropped to 1/4 hp.

Lets be clear i dont mind if thieves can unleash tons of dmg (even on a full bunker warrior,thing that makes me laugh hard) to compensate their squishyness…but the STEALTH mechanics in this game are just BS,and this is a fact.

Just to be clear, I main ele which is at the bottom of the food chain along with rangers in WvW. Of course I’ve been instagibbed countless times.

You said it yourself, there’s no problem about their damage but rather the stealth mechanics.

dylan.5409:

I was under the impression that a thief’s steal/ cloak and dagger combo is essentially an instant 10k or so (since c&d can be initiated at range followed by the steal gap closer). This then leaves the thief in stealth and allows for the 10k+ backstab. So if you don’t see the animation for the c&d then dead? I don’t see how this has a reasonable counter.

Even if they do hit you with that it wont do 10k damage unless they BS you as well (and you really should be avoid that one) and it doesnt end the fight instantly. They have still using their best gap closer (really their only one since HS is costly and easily avoidable) and now you can work of fighting back however it is you do.

If taking 5-7k damage at the start of the fight means you have instantly lost with no way to recover I might suggest you revisit your build, because its clearly not up to 1v1ing.

Damage all around in this game is out of control.. don’t just think it’s the thief. The problem is just exacerbated by the fact that a thief has such insane damage while also being able to be invisible for 90% of the fight. Mesmer is the same with the amount of clones AND stealth. Clones are just a different method of invisible. If you can’t active “see”/target them, they are invisible to you. Made even worse by the fact that they can also stealth and for a decent duration.

Celeras.4980:

You think you got it bad? See below. I don’t care what gear or what spec is being used, nobody should be global’d from stealth without a chance to react. Especially when running 3/6 Knights, 3/6 Valk, and half soldier accessories.

Your situation is obviously somewhat different as full-on bunker, but the point remains: thief damage is too high considering their stealth and crazy mobility.

Your 2.2 armor is delicious to my glass cannon damage.

If the problem lies in pistol offhand permastealth and blind, why is the OP asking for a stab damage nerf?

Stab isn’t even the biggest nuke skill in the game lol.

As a D/D ele and a D/D backstab thief player, I can assure you this is l2p. While I openly admit D/D ele is not exactly in the best place at the moment mostly due to conflicting concept design on ANet’s part, backstab is NOT the problem, seeing as Eviscerate, Headshot, and even a longbow ranger playing properly hit for better burst.

And as an ele, the amount of AOE you have, on top of mist form, should be able to effectively counterplay anything the thief throws at you.

After having played a glass canon thief the main thing to remember is the c+d/steal combo is 900 range. (playing ele now).

It can be dodged, and all decent players will do that. Soon as you see them approach use a dodge/aegis/etc, to stop the initial burst. Steal won’t be up for another 20 seconds or so.

They have 4 seconds from stealthing to get into position to backstab, and if using c+d have to be near you to restealth off it. It costs 5 initiative so you can’t afford to screw it up twice in a row.

Basically you should work on timings a bit better.

But…if you’re already in a fight and you get added on by a glass thief then you’re dead. But the same works in reverse so what can you do!

People tend to combine two different builds together. I can do some ~15-25k burst on a 45 second cooldown, but my build can’t spam stealth. If I catch you by surprise, you’re dead, but if you dodge when you see me prepare my burst it’s my turn to take a dirt nap.

It’s not just theives either. I’m actually oneshotting people on my warrior, and that’s 1500 range, pierces and has 10s cooldown :P
Here’s a quick backstab video, just because I like spamming my videos everywhere: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5STvYuVeCQ

I run a very similar build as you yski, and I completely agree. Like I said, it’s not the damage on stab that’s the problem.

phaeris.7604:

After having played a glass canon thief the main thing to remember is the c+d/steal combo is 900 range. (playing ele now).

It can be dodged, and all decent players will do that. Soon as you see them approach use a dodge/aegis/etc, to stop the initial burst. Steal won’t be up for another 20 seconds or so.

They have 4 seconds from stealthing to get into position to backstab, and if using c+d have to be near you to restealth off it. It costs 5 initiative so you can’t afford to screw it up twice in a row.

Basically you should work on timings a bit better.

But…if you’re already in a fight and you get added on by a glass thief then you’re dead. But the same works in reverse so what can you do!

Yeah those are the times you really wish you could become invisible.

Thief isn’t the best 1v1 class, it isn’t the best small group class, it isn’t the best large group class.

It is one of the best inexperienced player killers/zergling away from the zerg killer/yak killer/keep tappers/supply trappers/etc. though… I don’t think that’s deserving of a nerf…

If you’re having a lot of problems against thieves I suggest you watch videos/ask in your own profession’s forums for your class on how to beat them. Play as a thief for a while and you’ll be able to predict and counter them far better as well.

style.6173:

@OP:

lol. you clearly have never faced a GC ele or GC mesmer or pretty much GC anything. Any class has the potential to burst down another quickly if they spec that way. Of course the downside is that they die really fast too.

Are you kidding me? a GC Ele or GC Mesmer cannot deal the same level of burst as a GC thief. I roam WvW on a GC zerker Mesmer, I get attacked by glass thieves all the time and there burst potential FAR FAR out weighs mine. Just the other day a GC thief from BB did the following to me: Baruch Bay [SP] Bronze Invader hits you for 7,683 using Cloak and Dagger. Followed by: Baruch Bay [SP] Bronze Invader hits you for 12,112 using Backstab. Now I have these on screenshot, just can’t be bothered to upload them but will if you want me too.

Now thats 19,795k damage delivered in about 2 seconds, my Mes has a total of 20,211k health. I expect to receive high damage attacks because I too am a GC Mesmer, fine but certainly not my entire health pool being stripped from TWO abilities in a space of about 2 seconds. That is the highest damage I have ever received from any player in WvW since beta. The most I might receive is a 4-6k CnD followed by a 6-10k backstab. Even with that damage (less experienced players will struggle to deal with that burst), I still have enough of my health pool left to Decoy, heal and attack the thief. With the damage from the other thief, no chance. No profession should be able to do that amount of damage in such a short space of time. And the killer is, if he misses the 1st backstab, 4 seconds later he can just do it again….

If your counter to Thieves is more defense, you’re gonna have a bad time.

Right now it doesnt mather if u have 2200 armor or 4000 armor in www. I got hit by 9500 backstab yesterday on my bunker regen warrior with 3500 armor. Been hit and bursted down even on my guardian with 4k armor + protection + signet. Damage mitigation is almost nonexistant unless u stealth block or evade, which are mechanics.

Most classes dont have aegis blocks protection boon or signets with 10% dmg reduction (doesnt help much either btw since traits with % dmg, debuffs, condis and so on bypass it in an instant) which helps a little temporarily against burst.

BUT BURST WILL ALWAYS REASULT IN BURST no mather what u do. The only answer to burst right now IS NOT through armor/toughness dmg mitigation but through class mechanics like block stealth evade while beeing able to kill as fast so zerker is a must.
IF u dont use that or its all on cd = give up, respawn or uninstall or come here and post about it :P

IF anet want to fix this they would increase the value of toughness vs power or add more dmg% drop mechanics, skills but its been 2 years now and stuff hasnt changed at all even after countless nerfs to skills. The upcoming global nerf to dmg wont change much really burst will keep bursting.

I would +1 your post, Hostility, except you’re clearly still playing “those other MMOs,” where passive mitigation is a thing and you can AFK while facetanking.

Meanwhile, in GW2, the name of the game is active mitigation – as you mentioned already with blocks and evades. In WvW, going full bunker isn’t going to save a player. What will save a player is a good ratio of Effective Power/Health and active mitigation through mechanics and abilities.

@ hostility It’s part and part

You want to be able to take a burst but not die. Taking a burst could include having toughness/other damage mitigations/class mechanics/evades/etc.

Toughness does help reduce that and help allow you to recover after the burst. It’s not there to allow you to just sit there and facetank all of it though…

Ofcourse i dont bunker up to facetank hehe i end up with that state cause i build support cleric stat shouts heal on my warrior for when i run with zerg or just fool around with stats (got like 20-30 armor sets lol). I would trate power vit healin power if it was up to me.
Was just telling the OP that even though toughness/armor seems like a “facetank” stat its not made that way and it doesnt work that way and in my experience doesnt work at all really unless i actively mitigate dmg just liek u say too.

My gripe is really that tougness doesnt help like at all currently not even a little. Its got too much against it after all these patches. Power hits it direcly, condi dmg bypasses it and ends up beeing bursty lol, dmg % boosts are plently, crit rate and crit damage is skyhigh. Its all designed to bypass/crush 1 poor stat that is toughness lol.
Its all about cd managment, class choice and fast kills or a ton of constant condi dumps untill ppl cant remove them in 1v1s.

Anyways workin on Zealots for warrior now i like it allot. Dps + nice aoe heals. If my ele or guardian didnt have 11k hp i would use zealots on it too.

meh the usual problems

toughness doesnt help much in this game and thieves are pretty much uncounterable almost

sure they dont get too much toughness if they are glass cannons but as the OP stated they dont even need it beacuse they are stealthed 80% of the combat and if not stealthed they are blind spamming you to hell until they stealth so you cant really hit a thief with actual skill
bunker builds wont help much because they got poison on auto attack pretty much

long story short its not so much an Armor issue its some attacks having ridiculous power scalings of 3.0-5.0 and barely any cooldown such kitten 100b ,BS, Smite whereas the usual hard hitting attacks on most classes only have around 1.2 to 1.6 and 15-30s cooldown

Going to have to disagree with you folks about toughness.

If you stack enough of it, you WILL mitigate stab damage by a lot.

And I don’t think it has so much to do with damage as it does with the discrepancies between base HP pools for some of the classes which cannot deal with thieves as well in conjunction with the fact that backstab damage IS NOT BY FAR the biggest burst in the game (see attached screenshot). Warriors, rangers, and mesmers, and even necromancers all have options which can net more damage than a thief stab can, while providing superior utility elsewhere. This is even taking into account signet use on a non-stealth build.

A friend of mine plays a guardian, yes, a guardian, with 4k toughness and 53k hp. Can a thief kill him? Absolutely not. My stab damage does something like 50% of my normal stab damage on other berserker classes.

If you’re playing a defensive/tanky bunker build and you’re dying to thieves, that’s definitely a l2p problem, seeing as stab builds are effectively one-trick ponies, and the ones which actually do substantial burst (signet builds) have literally one escape stealth skill, which is the heal.

Even letting a “good thief” chain CnD/stabs is a l2p problem. Know the timer on CnD. Examine positioning, play one to learn how you would act to predict a course of action.

I really would like to know how people are taking such high backstab values with incredible toughness. Personally, I rarely hit over 8k on a tank warrior or guard, and often times those are in the 6k range due to the fact toughness has better scaling for damage reduction overall than vitality, but vitality offers condi mitigation.

I don’t mean to be insulting, but the thief hate regarding damage/burst is undeserved. It’s more of people’s incapability of dealing with stealth, which is super easy to counter in this game (play some other MMO’s which have cheesy stealth mechanics and then come and cry here), expecting to be able to facetank a given assassin/burst character, and/or over-exaggeration of the truth of what happens in-game.

Shinobi.3240:

Celeras.4980:

You think you got it bad? See below. I don’t care what gear or what spec is being used, nobody should be global’d from stealth without a chance to react. Especially when running 3/6 Knights, 3/6 Valk, and half soldier accessories.

Your situation is obviously somewhat different as full-on bunker, but the point remains: thief damage is too high considering their stealth and crazy mobility.

Nice Sword you got there … Ever tried to use weapon skill number 2?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blurred_Frenzy

I am pretty sure you wouldn´t get hit by the Backstab if you act quick enough.

Lol. Yeah, silly me for being terrible and not seeing the combo coming entirely from stealth. I’ll try harder to hit an evade in between two hits for 22,000 damage.

Except that an evaded Backstab doesn’t even reveal the thief from stealth, so it accomplishes nothing since they just spam it.

Celeras.4980:

Shinobi.3240:

Celeras.4980:

You think you got it bad? See below. I don’t care what gear or what spec is being used, nobody should be global’d from stealth without a chance to react. Especially when running 3/6 Knights, 3/6 Valk, and half soldier accessories.

Your situation is obviously somewhat different as full-on bunker, but the point remains: thief damage is too high considering their stealth and crazy mobility.

Nice Sword you got there … Ever tried to use weapon skill number 2?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blurred_Frenzy

I am pretty sure you wouldn´t get hit by the Backstab if you act quick enough.

Lol. Yeah, silly me for being terrible and not seeing the combo coming entirely from stealth. I’ll try harder to hit an evade in between two hits for 22,000 damage.

Except that an evaded Backstab doesn’t even reveal the thief from stealth, so it accomplishes nothing since they just spam it.

actually it does..
1. you don’t get hit so you don’t lose HP
2. chance that thief loses stealth is high
3. besides if you actually dodged bs you can see the text so you know where thief is

pro tipp: use chills and cripples, they mess up bs by a lot

Celeras.4980:

Shinobi.3240:

Celeras.4980:

You think you got it bad? See below. I don’t care what gear or what spec is being used, nobody should be global’d from stealth without a chance to react. Especially when running 3/6 Knights, 3/6 Valk, and half soldier accessories.

Your situation is obviously somewhat different as full-on bunker, but the point remains: thief damage is too high considering their stealth and crazy mobility.

Nice Sword you got there … Ever tried to use weapon skill number 2?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blurred_Frenzy

I am pretty sure you wouldn´t get hit by the Backstab if you act quick enough.

Lol. Yeah, silly me for being terrible and not seeing the combo coming entirely from stealth. I’ll try harder to hit an evade in between two hits for 22,000 damage.

Except that an evaded Backstab doesn’t even reveal the thief from stealth, so it accomplishes nothing since they just spam it.

If i sound rude i have to say thats was not my intetion … sorry for that.

And i never said you are bad, i would never do that. All i wanted was to help.
Okay i made a little fun but thats how i roll.

You have plenty of tools to win that fight … Blurred Frenzy, Riposte, Two dodges, Invisibility, Blinks and Clones etc.

The key is to react in time and always keep looking behind you … you can keybind that.

Thief is an offensive class .. they need to kill quick or get killed … you don´t counter them by playing defensive … you immediately need to counter pressure them.

Best regards!

The only problem with backstab thieves is the stealth spam. Get rid of the spam, and you get rid of the problem, as then the build turns from “spam stealth and backstab until dead” to “burst it down as your start, if you fail, you run or die.”

I can’t wait for the next set of thief nerf because of you kitteners …
Makes every patch that much more exciting… never know what will get nerfed next (i didn’t expect the up coming choking gas nerf…)

Seeing the endless line of thieves roll in to defend their one-shot combos with “dodge noobs” never gets old.

So what that dodging the Backstab doesn’t even remove the thief from stealth.. it wastes their initiative! Wait.. it doesn’t use initiative. At least it puts the skill on cooldown! Wait.. it doesn’t have a cooldown. Well, nevertheless, as soon as you see a damage number on your screen, DODGE! It’s a stealthed thief that just used CnD to restealth immediately! That’s intelligent, meaningful gameplay. Just try to ignore the fact that you’ll die in 3 seconds anyway.

Celeras.4980:

Seeing the endless line of thieves roll in to defend their one-shot combos with “dodge noobs” never gets old.

So what that dodging the Backstab doesn’t even remove the thief from stealth.. it wastes their initiative! Wait.. it doesn’t use initiative. At least it puts the skill on cooldown! Wait.. it doesn’t have a cooldown. Well, nevertheless, as soon as you see a damage number on your screen, DODGE! It’s a stealthed thief that just used CnD to restealth immediately! That’s intelligent, meaningful gameplay. Just try to ignore the fact that you’ll die in 3 seconds anyway.

Why should it use initiative? The thief spent that or a utility to gain stealth in the first place. You had your opportunity to counter it then. Dodge a c&d =‘s -5 ini, counter a bp+hs =’s -9. In either case you’ve crippled the thief’s ini (their lifeblood). The only one you can not counter is the blinding powder utility. Some of them are easier to counter than others depending on class though.

Dodge the backstab (letting you know where he is) and turn around vs the 11111 thief and you won’t get backstabbed, you’ll be frontstabbed. That’s a massive drop in damage.

Thief isn’t some unstoppable monster. It does seem to take some people a bit longer to learn how to fight them though. Go into your class specific forum and ask how others deal with thieves. Play a thief for a while and then when you’re fighting against one think to yourself “what would I have done here”? Then respond accordingly.

The only time I play my thief now-a-days is for gathering and scouting/slapping yaks/tapping keeps/killing a zergling away from the zerg etc.

Kyon.9735:

I don’t see a problem with thieves hitting that high because it works the other way around. If they hit hard, they get hit hard as well. The problem here lies with your build. I don’t think you can kill any decent player, even a GC, with only 2k attack.

The real problem about thieves is that Dire Perplexity condi build paired with ridiculous invisibility.

Edit:

khorne.8592:

To be fair think this is more a testament to ele’s needing a health and/or armour buff then the thief needing yet another damage nerf.

I do think eles can use HP/Armor buffs but thieves don’t need damage nerf. Crit Damage will be nerfed all across the board. But Anet can probably do something about the cheesy condi perplexity build because the skill cap required to defeat a decent player on this build is pretty high.

You have to bring the right tools to the party. Otherwise yes, very powerful thief build.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9BceGSMbEQ

Ross Biddle.2367:

Kyon.9735:

I don’t see a problem with thieves hitting that high because it works the other way around. If they hit hard, they get hit hard as well. The problem here lies with your build. I don’t think you can kill any decent player, even a GC, with only 2k attack.

The real problem about thieves is that Dire Perplexity condi build paired with ridiculous invisibility.

Edit:

khorne.8592:

To be fair think this is more a testament to ele’s needing a health and/or armour buff then the thief needing yet another damage nerf.

I do think eles can use HP/Armor buffs but thieves don’t need damage nerf. Crit Damage will be nerfed all across the board. But Anet can probably do something about the cheesy condi perplexity build because the skill cap required to defeat a decent player on this build is pretty high.

You have to bring the right tools to the party. Otherwise yes, very powerful thief build.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9BceGSMbEQ

Not to take any credit from your skill/play but it’s cheesy PU vs cheesy P/D. Not all classes have cheesy builds.

Kyon.9735:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Kyon.9735:

I don’t see a problem with thieves hitting that high because it works the other way around. If they hit hard, they get hit hard as well. The problem here lies with your build. I don’t think you can kill any decent player, even a GC, with only 2k attack.

The real problem about thieves is that Dire Perplexity condi build paired with ridiculous invisibility.

Edit:

khorne.8592:

To be fair think this is more a testament to ele’s needing a health and/or armour buff then the thief needing yet another damage nerf.

I do think eles can use HP/Armor buffs but thieves don’t need damage nerf. Crit Damage will be nerfed all across the board. But Anet can probably do something about the cheesy condi perplexity build because the skill cap required to defeat a decent player on this build is pretty high.

You have to bring the right tools to the party. Otherwise yes, very powerful thief build.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9BceGSMbEQ

Not to take any credit from your skill/play but it’s cheesy PU vs cheesy P/D. Not all classes have cheesy builds.

No offense taken.

However “cheese” is a subjective term used by scrubs to justify their failure to play to win.

Once upon a time it was D/D backstab thieves that were cheese. Shatter mesmers that were cheese. Now all warriors are cheese. I hear spirit rangers in spvp are cheese.

In reality that P/D thief in the video wasn’t “cheese” at all. He was just a dude who brought his best game to the field and didn’t give away needless victories because of it (He’d caught me out twice before that fight). I made appropriate changes, came back, and turned one over on him. That’s not cheese, that’s playing to win.

It’s a strong build in the right hands, I’m willing to admit. But simply dubbing it cheese and moving on would have been my failure, not his.

Edit: Actually come to think of it, PU offered me nothing in that fight. I’d of been much better off with something else.

DeceiverX.8361:

If the problem lies in pistol offhand permastealth and blind, why is the OP asking for a stab damage nerf?

Stab isn’t even the biggest nuke skill in the game lol.

As a D/D ele and a D/D backstab thief player, I can assure you this is l2p. While I openly admit D/D ele is not exactly in the best place at the moment mostly due to conflicting concept design on ANet’s part, backstab is NOT the problem, seeing as Eviscerate, Headshot, and even a longbow ranger playing properly hit for better burst.

And as an ele, the amount of AOE you have, on top of mist form, should be able to effectively counterplay anything the thief throws at you.

My point wasn’t the damage itself, but the frequency it can be applied. Put Elementalist Fire Grab on a 4 second cooldown and see how many people complain…

Otaur.9268:

DeceiverX.8361:

If the problem lies in pistol offhand permastealth and blind, why is the OP asking for a stab damage nerf?

Stab isn’t even the biggest nuke skill in the game lol.

As a D/D ele and a D/D backstab thief player, I can assure you this is l2p. While I openly admit D/D ele is not exactly in the best place at the moment mostly due to conflicting concept design on ANet’s part, backstab is NOT the problem, seeing as Eviscerate, Headshot, and even a longbow ranger playing properly hit for better burst.

And as an ele, the amount of AOE you have, on top of mist form, should be able to effectively counterplay anything the thief throws at you.

My point wasn’t the damage itself, but the frequency it can be applied. Put Elementalist Fire Grab on a 4 second cooldown and see how many people complain…

Why are you letting a thief just chain c&d->backstab (or whatever) on you?

Ele =/= thief. If ele misses that fire grab he/she doesn’t have half their skills go on cooldown.

Otaur.9268:

DeceiverX.8361:

If the problem lies in pistol offhand permastealth and blind, why is the OP asking for a stab damage nerf?

Stab isn’t even the biggest nuke skill in the game lol.

As a D/D ele and a D/D backstab thief player, I can assure you this is l2p. While I openly admit D/D ele is not exactly in the best place at the moment mostly due to conflicting concept design on ANet’s part, backstab is NOT the problem, seeing as Eviscerate, Headshot, and even a longbow ranger playing properly hit for better burst.

And as an ele, the amount of AOE you have, on top of mist form, should be able to effectively counterplay anything the thief throws at you.

My point wasn’t the damage itself, but the frequency it can be applied. Put Elementalist Fire Grab on a 4 second cooldown and see how many people complain…

Eviscerate is a much better comparison. It has a 2.5 and 3.0 multiplier for level 2 & 3. For reference, backstab has a 2.4 multiplier from behind and a 1.2 from the front. Eviscerate can be traited down to a 7.75 second CD. Both the thief and the warrior are physical melee with only 10 weapon skills (+F1). Straight comparisons don’t always work between classes such as the ele and thief because the ele has more variety band as such, longer CDs.

Tldr: eviscerate is a better comparison because it is (slightly) less frequent but has higher damage.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Kyon.9735:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Kyon.9735:

I don’t see a problem with thieves hitting that high because it works the other way around. If they hit hard, they get hit hard as well. The problem here lies with your build. I don’t think you can kill any decent player, even a GC, with only 2k attack.

The real problem about thieves is that Dire Perplexity condi build paired with ridiculous invisibility.

Edit:

khorne.8592:

To be fair think this is more a testament to ele’s needing a health and/or armour buff then the thief needing yet another damage nerf.

I do think eles can use HP/Armor buffs but thieves don’t need damage nerf. Crit Damage will be nerfed all across the board. But Anet can probably do something about the cheesy condi perplexity build because the skill cap required to defeat a decent player on this build is pretty high.

You have to bring the right tools to the party. Otherwise yes, very powerful thief build.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9BceGSMbEQ

Not to take any credit from your skill/play but it’s cheesy PU vs cheesy P/D. Not all classes have cheesy builds.

No offense taken.

However “cheese” is a subjective term used by scrubs to justify their failure to play to win.

Once upon a time it was D/D backstab thieves that were cheese. Shatter mesmers that were cheese. Now all warriors are cheese. I hear spirit rangers in spvp are cheese.

In reality that P/D thief in the video wasn’t “cheese” at all. He was just a dude who brought his best game to the field and didn’t give away needless victories because of it (He’d caught me out twice before that fight). I made appropriate changes, came back, and turned one over on him. That’s not cheese, that’s playing to win.

It’s a strong build in the right hands, I’m willing to admit. But simply dubbing it cheese and moving on would have been my failure, not his.

Edit: Actually come to think of it, PU offered me nothing in that fight. I’d of been much better off with something else.

I think most people consider Cheesy builds as builds that doesn’t require a lot of skills to play a class effectively which makes people with low skill level look good. In short, a very low risk high reward build. The current game meta gets the credit for a build’s cheesiness. D/D thieves were considered cheesy back then because most people didn’t put in a decent amount of Vit and Toughness in their builds. D/D eles were cheesy back then because people didn’t carry enough CCs. Shatter mesmers were cheesy back then because people didn’t bring stunbreaks and defensive utilities.

Almost everybody considers P/D thief and PU mesmer cheesy, but the difference between you and a “low skill level” player that uses a cheesy build is you actually know how to play the class. You use your clones very effectively as a shield to avoid the thief’s pistol spam and even Basilisk venom. People just tend to use clones offensively and disregard what they have to offer defensively. You also use your torch #4 effectively to apply burning, not like most other people who just use it for defensive purposes. You didn’t even have to use Mass Invis. You were also lucky that your PU granted you Aegis twice in a row in the final seconds of the battle.

Long story short, cheesy builds make low skill level players look good. Decent players make it look godlike. In regards to this topic, I don’t find any problems with thief’s direct damage but rather it’s their ability to spam stealth.

All Damage output needs to be scaled down 20%, Thieves require 30%.
Skill doesn’t exists in 3 second fights!!!!

DeWolfe.2174:

All Damage output needs to be scaled down 20%, Thieves require 30%.
Skill doesn’t exists in 3 second fights!!!!

If you are talking about WvWvW then i agree.
In SPvP the damage is in a rather good spot right now.

Celeras.4980:

Seeing the endless line of thieves roll in to defend their one-shot combos with “dodge noobs” never gets old.

So what that dodging the Backstab doesn’t even remove the thief from stealth.. it wastes their initiative! Wait.. it doesn’t use initiative. At least it puts the skill on cooldown! Wait.. it doesn’t have a cooldown. Well, nevertheless, as soon as you see a damage number on your screen, DODGE! It’s a stealthed thief that just used CnD to restealth immediately! That’s intelligent, meaningful gameplay. Just try to ignore the fact that you’ll die in 3 seconds anyway.

Stealth lasts for 3 seconds baseline and 4 seconds traited.
Cloak and Dagger has a cast time and needs a target.
You can interrupt it, dodge it, blind it or block it.
So the thief has opened up on you with his wombo combo using steal.
So one of his gap closers is gone. Because he pulls of such big numbers i guess he plays with 3 or 4 signets … he used them all. Sitting Duck.

If you really have problems to counter the backstab than i suggest that you use the vampiric runes. You will never be oneshotted again on the first contact no matter how glassy you are. I used them aswell during the time of the revealed bug in wvwvw. They are great and give you plenty of time to react and turn the tide.

Aberrant.6749:

Otaur.9268:

DeceiverX.8361:

If the problem lies in pistol offhand permastealth and blind, why is the OP asking for a stab damage nerf?

Stab isn’t even the biggest nuke skill in the game lol.

As a D/D ele and a D/D backstab thief player, I can assure you this is l2p. While I openly admit D/D ele is not exactly in the best place at the moment mostly due to conflicting concept design on ANet’s part, backstab is NOT the problem, seeing as Eviscerate, Headshot, and even a longbow ranger playing properly hit for better burst.

And as an ele, the amount of AOE you have, on top of mist form, should be able to effectively counterplay anything the thief throws at you.

My point wasn’t the damage itself, but the frequency it can be applied. Put Elementalist Fire Grab on a 4 second cooldown and see how many people complain…

Why are you letting a thief just chain c&d->backstab (or whatever) on you?

Ele =/= thief. If ele misses that fire grab he/she doesn’t have half their skills go on cooldown.

thats what D/P thieves are for wont touch em if you’re blind and they stealth 80% of the combat as for cooldown initiative has quite a fast regen vs the usual 20-40s cooldown hard hitting skills have on some classes or weapon sets