Guild Wars 2

LordByron.8369:

And FYI thieves are being pushed into meta by fractal Patches since long time ago…(and Always were good for dungeons)
Issue is differently from WWW it takes skill to play effectively a thief in istances..

So low skill floor of WWW just made the community sceptic on accepting PvE thieves that have an high skill floor.

So PvE takes skill and WvW doesn’t 0.o

Exactly
PvE thief takes way more skill than WWW thief.

Skill floor is not everything….since thief has also a decent skill ceiling it can do absurdly OP things with some skill but in WWW even ithout any is extremely effective.

PvE mechanics makes both stealth and mobility irrelevant taking away the “easy mode”.

LordByron.8369:

Exactly
PvE thief takes way more skill than WWW thief.

Skill floor is not everything….since thief has also a decent skill ceiling it can do absurdly OP things with some skill but in WWW even ithout any is extremely effective.

PvE mechanics makes both stealth and mobility irrelevant taking away the “easy mode”.

Thief skill floor in PvE: drop black powder and use sword no 1 and 3 to cleave, repeat after 4 seconds. There you have it the skill floor for thieves in PvE

Try doing that in fractal.

LordByron.8369:

Try doing that in fractal.

in fractal(s) I would probably do the same thing, accept drop the 3 skill. too risky.515151515151515. And if i was against a boss id whip out my shortbow and 1 keeping my finger on 3 incase of aggro.

ryan.6217:

LordByron.8369:

Try doing that in fractal.

in fractal(s) I would probably do the same thing, accept drop the 3 skill. too risky.515151515151515. And if i was against a boss id whip out my shortbow and 1 keeping my finger on 3 incase of aggro.

Because your group definitely won’t kick you for using shortbow and spamming auto attack against a boss.

Maugetarr.6823:

ryan.6217:

LordByron.8369:

Try doing that in fractal.

in fractal(s) I would probably do the same thing, accept drop the 3 skill. too risky.515151515151515. And if i was against a boss id whip out my shortbow and 1 keeping my finger on 3 incase of aggro.

Because your group definitely won’t kick you for using shortbow and spamming auto attack against a boss.

:D Not during the boss fight. #winning

But after …

Simple issue, you’re using a group spec and you got jumped by a dueling assassin spec, someone who intends to 1v1. I’ve been jumped on my warrior running back to my group before, and tried fighting back (all I can do is poke at him before he vanished). Wouldn’t call it op, just that I’m not trying to duel out there and (s)he is so its no wonder they would perform better. There is no foul play here, thief roamer is not unbalanced.

false i use a 1VS1 spec, but thief has too many free out of jail cards totally OP compared to any other profession….

Once again Lightning flash was nerfed removing the breakstun

A thief can answer EVERYTHING with shadow step and just run away because its the most mobile profession…

Even if it wasn t a short stealth will save him for sure because you have to choose a random direction…and hope the thief has run in that way…

How on earth devs didn t think to the fact that best mobility + stealth = immortal….and gave them a cleanse everything and tp away while breaking stun….

So your only point is “another class is brokenly OP so thief deserves it too?”

Interesting point of view…

P.S. we know how shadow returns work….already discussed in previous posts…

LordByron.8369:

So your only point is “another class is brokenly OP so thief deserves it too?”

Interesting point of view…

P.S. we know how shadow returns work….already discussed in previous posts…

So if you you know how shadow step and shadow return works, do you want to say why you keep writing lies like “and gave them a cleanse everything and tp away while breaking stun”?

because it cleanse and break stun…and TP away…

According to dev even having 2 of them on the same skill is an answer to everything…unless its on thief…then its fair.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Fire
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lightning_Flash

wich do you prefer?
Both had stunbreak removed….reason was “universal answer to anything”….

Shadow step and shadow return are 2 skills, not one. If you want to clean conditions you have to lose the “teleport away”, using a second skill. I hope it is clear enough.

Also, since you like to compare skills, what do you have to say about these two very similar skills?
Signet of Shadows and Signet of Air
The thief’s one has passive +25% speed + blind active, while the elementalist’s has passive +25% speed + blind + stun brake + damage active. Does it mean that ele is OP?

As you see comparing skills one by one leads to nothing, do not do it.

I perfectly agree with you and exactly as i said they should balance shadow return as they balanced ele….

Thus as you said removing breakstun from shadow return and other defensive skills and putting it into signet of shadow and ambush

That would be coherent to what they did to ele skills

Thank you to proving my point.

I am sorry, but you do not want to understand what I say. You can not do balance by looking at one skill and comparing to another. You need to see the full picture and balance the professions as a sum of mechanisms, traits and skills. You do not balance “shadow return”, you balance the Thief.
The thief needs buffs for condition removing (almost not existed), and stun brake (zero stability) not nerfs.

Kanenas.4906:

…
The thief needs buffs for condition removing (almost not existed), and stun brake (zero stability) not nerfs.
…

Hide in Shadows removes a few conditions, also requested to be nerfed (check the nerf wish list in my signature).
2 Stun breakers, 2 too many.
The stolen mesmer’s skill gives stability, nerf already been requested.
Dagger Storm gives stability, also pretty sure it was requested for a nerf.

and as a bonus… stability from lyssa runes… so 3… 3 ways to get stability… aren’t you thankful?

The rate at which thieves generate nerf requests indicates they need to be nerfed moar, noaw.

LordByron.8369:

I perfectly agree with you and exactly as i said they should balance shadow return as they balanced ele….

Thus as you said removing breakstun from shadow return and other defensive skills and putting it into signet of shadow and ambush

That would be coherent to what they did to ele skills

Thank you to proving my point.

The break stun was removed from lightning flash because stun breaks were too concentrated in the cantrip skills. They moved a lot of stunbreaks around on a lot of classes at the same time to try to increase build diversity. Other cantrips have too long of a CD for their effect, but that’s a different topic.

SS/SR was not nerfed because the same as LF because it is the only stunbreak in the deception skill set (unlike how cantrips had multiple), and the second half has a limited timeframe + returns you negating the gained mobility forcing you to choose between movement and condi cleaning. It also has a 20 second longer CD than LF.

Edit: Also, why would they put a stunbreak on ambush when shadow trap is already supposed to be the stunbreak trap? The problem was they nerfed that in the wrong direction after it became an instant out when they buffed it.

You shold look back at what they said about cleansing fire….

But actually the fact they don t balance skills is exactly why this game is totally unbalanced.

Same stuff like the difference in balancing between ele signet (50% nerf while being weaker) and warrior healing signet (8% nerf + active compensation…..).

Theives are pretty much supposed to take you on and kill you if you are a straggler in WvW. And they do.

On the other hand, they are more or less useless in a large group and at best modestly useful in a small group fight.

The way to avoid thieves is to simply never travel alone in WvW.

Seems balanced to me.

Maugetarr.6823:

LordByron.8369:

I perfectly agree with you and exactly as i said they should balance shadow return as they balanced ele….

Thus as you said removing breakstun from shadow return and other defensive skills and putting it into signet of shadow and ambush

That would be coherent to what they did to ele skills

Thank you to proving my point.

The break stun was removed from lightning flash because stun breaks were too concentrated in the cantrip skills. They moved a lot of stunbreaks around on a lot of classes at the same time to try to increase build diversity. Other cantrips have too long of a CD for their effect, but that’s a different topic.

Problem is it did not increase build diversity for eles at all. They put the stunbreaks in lackluster skills which only made it a nerf to cantrips.

PVP Perspective:

After watching the EU bracket for the Mistpedia weekly 2v2 PvP tournament earlier today, it was a general consensus in the twitch stream chat that S/P PW spamming thieves should be punished. It’s literally spam 3 to win.

Stun + Evade + Damage in 1 button. This is literally the universal answer to anything. Of course it’s not the first choice of weapon set in WvW because Stealth + Mobility is more important there.

Bombsaway.7198:

Theives are pretty much supposed to take you on and kill you if you are a straggler in WvW. And they do.

On the other hand, they are more or less useless in a large group and at best modestly useful in a small group fight.

The way to avoid thieves is to simply never travel alone in WvW.

Seems balanced to me.

even if so there should always be a chance for them to be defeated , i dont get this thing that they can reset a fight whenever they want and come back at you.
building your class selfishly should not mean a guaranteed win.

Kyon.9735:

Maugetarr.6823:

LordByron.8369:

I perfectly agree with you and exactly as i said they should balance shadow return as they balanced ele….

Thus as you said removing breakstun from shadow return and other defensive skills and putting it into signet of shadow and ambush

That would be coherent to what they did to ele skills

Thank you to proving my point.

The break stun was removed from lightning flash because stun breaks were too concentrated in the cantrip skills. They moved a lot of stunbreaks around on a lot of classes at the same time to try to increase build diversity. Other cantrips have too long of a CD for their effect, but that’s a different topic.

Problem is it did not increase build diversity for eles at all. They put the stunbreaks in lackluster skills which only made it a nerf to cantrips.

PVP Perspective:

After watching the EU bracket for the Mistpedia weekly 2v2 PvP tournament earlier today, it was a general consensus in the twitch stream chat that S/P PW spamming thieves should be punished. It’s literally spam 3 to win.

Stun + Evade + Damage in 1 button. This is literally the universal answer to anything. Of course it’s not the first choice of weapon set in WvW because Stealth + Mobility is more important there.

I’ll have to agree with you on this that it didn’t really increase build diversity, but it’s what they were attempting to do by moving stunbreaks to lackluster skills. Those lackluster skills are still fairly weak while the skills that they removed it from are weakened. Elixer R on engi is a perfect example of how an awesome ability went to “meh” based on these changes. Ele build diversity didn’t really increase because cantrips, at least from my experience with the class, far outclass most of the other utility skills even after nerfing LF.

My statement though was an attempt to illustrate why they removed the stunbreak from LF but not SS/SR, not whether it was justified or not.

jihm.2315:

Bombsaway.7198:

Theives are pretty much supposed to take you on and kill you if you are a straggler in WvW. And they do.

On the other hand, they are more or less useless in a large group and at best modestly useful in a small group fight.

The way to avoid thieves is to simply never travel alone in WvW.

Seems balanced to me.

even if so there should always be a chance for them to be defeated , i dont get this thing that they can reset a fight whenever they want and come back at you.
building your class selfishly should not mean a guaranteed win.

And Warrior? They cannot do the same?

Falassion.8031:

jihm.2315:

Bombsaway.7198:

Theives are pretty much supposed to take you on and kill you if you are a straggler in WvW. And they do.

On the other hand, they are more or less useless in a large group and at best modestly useful in a small group fight.

The way to avoid thieves is to simply never travel alone in WvW.

Seems balanced to me.

even if so there should always be a chance for them to be defeated , i dont get this thing that they can reset a fight whenever they want and come back at you.
building your class selfishly should not mean a guaranteed win.

And Warrior? They cannot do the same?

not since launch , but yes warriors are monsters at the moment.

Zero Day.2594:

If they rework stealth and compensate with better performance out of it, sure.

Literally in WvW thieves are good at roaming, they suck at zerging. Immortals, unkillable, invincible (often confused with invisible), no… try playing sPvP (even just hot join) for a few weeks instead of WvW, it should improve your overall PvP’ing skills, considering WvW rewards mindless zerging vs sPvP where you have to think a bit. Very good single damage, yeah… but that’s about it.

Is it okay for a class that only has one use? (that’s probably a bigger issue…)

Also, everyone else, please notice this is coming from a WvW perspective…

i’m pretty sure that every one decent in pvp would know that a backstab shadow rejunv thief will not die if only they sucked, that’s why the trait is banned in organised dualing server. ofc it is not useful in tpvp, because the point of tpvp is not being unkillable, the point is to capture point fast, so you don’t just reset endlessly till you win.

and if you think that thieves are not good in small group fight, or useless in zerg, you are playing something wrong.

So, people, I will simply first say my qualifications. I have maimed thief since beta, I have a warrior, a guardian, an engi, and a necro as well as two thieves. I would first like to say that I do have experience in WvW roaming with each, and all of the classes (engi is the exception to an extent) are unbelievably easier to play than a thief. I am not being biased. I have far much more success with my thief in EVERY aspect of the game, but that comes from learn how to play thief since the very first open beta. I will say that playing all of the other classes has taught me how to be a better thief while being a thief has only taught me how to kill thieves.
However, thief is difficult to play. My argument is not L2P because I realize it is very difficult and frustrating to bash your head against a wall trying to kill someone who seems invincible (did this on my thief against op Condi regen god mode warrior), even though it is a way to get things done. So as I was saying, thief is difficult to play, and I will argue to try to teach the rationalization of stealth. If you were to take out stealth, it would be like fighting an infant. We would be so dependent on others to do our fighting we would lose all purpose in all game modes. If you want to take out stealth, you can remove the warriors CC, the engis kits, mesmer clones, necro death shroud, guardian virtues, ranger pets, and elementalist attunements. Now, imagine whatever class you play without that functionality. I’m sure the class would still be more than playable (maybe not mesmer, that’s about the same level as thief). Thief would be EVEN WORSE; yes worse, than however impactful stripping that aspect out of your class would be, if you were to remove stealth. That is the reliance thief has on stealth.
Now for the common misconceptions of stealth.
1. PERMASTEALTH DOES NOT EXIST
There is something called revealed that means we cannot attain stealth. The main problem people have is they absolutely freak out when someone disappears. That is the advantage thief has. I personally am in stealth for 2 seconds at most. Otherwise, they have time to react to the initial burst of confusion. If you are gone, then one second later they have lost a chunk of health, or have 5-7 stacks of bleed. If you are in stealth for too long, they have time to dodge, or block, or do anything to avoid an attack. But many thieves do this, which only hurts them, which leads to my next point,
2. STEALTH IS NOT A BURST HEAL
Stealth heals you ~200 per second. This means it heals less than a regen warrior, less than a regen guardian, and less than anyone with regen on, even if the numerical heal per second is different, because stealth lasts for 3 seconds. That’s 600 stealth if you just let stealth expire. Thieves use a healing skill (yes, they still exist, not everyone has the luxury of healing passively) while in stealth to assure they can heal. Unless you want to argue thieves shouldn’t be allowed to have a #6 skill, than stop complaining. This argument is invalid.
3. THIEFS ARE NOT UNKILLABLE/DAMAGEABLE IN STEALTH
Thiefs are not invincible (as many people have recently come to realize) in stealth. It is a confusion tactic. Health is the same and armor is the same. If a thief is running a perma stealth build, he can infinitely stealth, but can inflict no damage and must reset the fight. This heals you too. So that is not a valid debate because you should go into OOC regen unless it is a group fight, in which case, why are you targeting some one who can de-target get themselves?!

I will not pull the L2P card because I do realize the frustration that has. It’s like quoting the Bible to an atheist. It has absolutely no significance and is overused. I will give you a tip on how to play though.
When a thief stealths, swing around wildly and don’t stop spinning. This will significantly make aback stab harder for the thief and may reduce damage by a significant amount. This will also most likely damage the thief. If you can, dodge rolling backwards the run in to the side is a great way to get out of the range of their Backstab too

Best Wishes,
Oscuro of Kaineng

Obscuro, if they are asking for credentials that means they do not have any valid points to offer.

GW2’s thief is the cheapest class i ve seen in any mmo so far

idk about you but as an asura im pretty much uncounterable if my target did not bring a stun breaker combat ends as easy as it starts

Stealth>F1>BS>Racial 3s daze+#2(no cast time ftw)and done collect your loot or slap another #2 and finish the job

@oscuro: I appreciate what you’re trying to do, and I appreciate the tone you’re trying to do it in. You present the information clearly and calmly, but I hope you understand a few things:

No one with a level head wants stealth completely removed. However, I can’t help but wonder if you actually think it’s well-designed in GW2. You said this at the end:

oscuro.9720:

When a thief stealths, swing around wildly and don’t stop spinning. This will significantly make aback stab harder for the thief and may reduce damage by a significant amount. This will also most likely damage the thief. If you can, dodge rolling backwards the run in to the side is a great way to get out of the range of their Backstab too

Is this really good game design? The “counter” for a person going to stealth for a backstab is to spam #1 and spin around in a circle really fast in the hopes that the Backstab doesn’t land on your actual back? I won’t believe you if you tell me you think that’s fine.

The unfortunate part of Stealth is that there’s no real tangible reward for countering it “properly”. You are hardly given any feedback that you landed any attacks, and even if you time a dodge well and evade a Backstab, there’s no Risk involved with a Thief who is just running at you spamming Backstab. Get dodged? Blocked? No problem. Keep trying until it lands.

Plus, it does a very large amount of raw damage on no cooldown with no really good indication of when exactly it’s going to be coming. That just seems like a really terrible formula for a spike damage ability.

I would love Thieves to have more focus on their Mobility, with Stealth being a short-term mechanism for evasion, not damage. Make Stealth a utility that can be used to distract/confuse/daze/control the enemy. Let a Thief be mobile in a fight.

I know Backstab has been beaten to death with complaints since the Dawn of Time, but maybe when people complain about Stealth, they’re often complaining about the fact that Thieves can deal a boatload of single-target damage out of stealth, then go back into stealth with a weapon combination that has absolutely no reliance on hitting a player. It even blinds your target long enough to get back into stealth without issue.

I want Thieves to have the tools they need to be more useful in more situations. I want Stealth to be a utility, part of their toolkit to aid them in a fight. I think having it be part of their huge spike damage potential is unforgivably bad design, even if it’s just on a single target and it has a smaller and smaller impact the more people are involved in a fight. Even if the downed state and team-coordination is the design mechanism implemented to counter such burst, I think it’s a really terrible idea, and the day they rework Thieves from such design is probably the day I’ll start playing a lot more again. I roam around on my Powermancer for the most part in WvW, and I fight more Thieves than anything else. The 1v1 has ceased to be fun in any measure, win or lose.

I can’t think of another class that isn’t enjoyable to fight in any aspect besides Thief, and I’d love for that to change.

oscuro.9720:

When a thief stealths, swing around wildly and don’t stop spinning. This will significantly make aback stab harder for the thief and may reduce damage by a significant amount.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Backstab
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flanking

Contradictory to its name, Backstab deals full damage on both sides as well. Spinning around wildly will still give a thief the same 75% chance to land a Backstab.

Kyon.9735:

oscuro.9720:

When a thief stealths, swing around wildly and don’t stop spinning. This will significantly make aback stab harder for the thief and may reduce damage by a significant amount.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Backstab
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flanking

Contradictory to its name, Backstab deals full damage on both sides as well. Spinning around wildly will still give a thief the same 75% chance to land a Backstab.

You mean 50% since you still have to be on the back half for it to count. Then you have the 10-30% chance that you’ll land it because the target (if they are competant) will be moving. And you have a short time before you miss the window and leave stealth.

I’ll be brief,
Thief is the only class in the game that you can build around a rotation, as in you can create a rotation that fits your playstyle the best and just execute that rotation time and time again with great success rate. ANet wanted to distinguish Thieves from the rest, alright but the initiative system allows for tunnel vision behavior, it’s not entertaining, it’s abusive and it’s just plain useless.

Zacchary.6183:

Kyon.9735:

oscuro.9720:

When a thief stealths, swing around wildly and don’t stop spinning. This will significantly make aback stab harder for the thief and may reduce damage by a significant amount.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Backstab
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flanking

Contradictory to its name, Backstab deals full damage on both sides as well. Spinning around wildly will still give a thief the same 75% chance to land a Backstab.

You mean 50% since you still have to be on the back half for it to count. Then you have the 10-30% chance that you’ll land it because the target (if they are competant) will be moving. And you have a short time before you miss the window and leave stealth.

Err, I was counting Back, Left Side, Right Side opposed to Front only. But whatever, it means it’s still easy to land backstab

oscuro.9720:

1. PERMASTEALTH DOES NOT EXIST

As PU mesmer proved recently… you don t need permastealth to be efficient…

Few seconds paired with mobility and skills able to answer every single form of CC + heals means its enough to reset a fight…

Something useless in PvP but brokenly OP in www.

Also almost every build is the designed scout profession proving once again how you can disengage at will even from zergs.

2. STEALTH IS NOT A BURST HEAL
Thieves use a healing skill (yes, they still exist, not everyone has the luxury of healing passively) while in stealth

So an engineer healing during elixir S and ele healing in mistform was deemed OP.
Stealth healing is OK….

The usual double standards….the issue is when almost everything in a profession ignores the balancing guidelines applied to other professions..

3. THIEFS ARE NOT UNKILLABLE/DAMAGEABLE IN STEALTH
Thiefs are not invincible (as many people have recently come to realize) in stealth. It is a confusion tactic. Health is the same and armor is the same.

Thieves are not immobile during stealth…on the opposite….
They have access to faster movements and in case of shadow refuge, to as much evades as they want…..(Only few profession can deal with that; mesmer mostly).

Once again the only reason this is still in the game is stealth doesn t contest points in PvP so balancing team can ignore the issue…..

When a thief stealths, swing around wildly and don’t stop spinning.

Despite many developers in other games have written long explanations why stealth opening Attacks should not be used in games…..unless impaired with strong downsides..

The issue is not even the attack.
In order to fight a thief you have to be Always at 100%…..if you do a single mistake you die….also you have to build according to the thief existence…something no other profession does.

But if the thief fails ….it can easily get out of the fight and try again forever.

Its simply the total lack of risk making any reward unbalanced…..
0 risk should be 0 reward.

Its not rocket science… its basic balancing concepts.

The low skill floor of the profession makes too many thief ignore the issue with their profession.. this is why they should never write L2P.

LordByron.8369:

oscuro.9720:

1. PERMASTEALTH DOES NOT EXIST

Something useless in PvP but brokenly OP in www.

The low skill floor of the profession makes too many thief ignore the issue with their profession.. this is why they should never write L2P.

wvw was never meant to be balanced. If you want balanced and fair pvp go spvp thats where they balance the professions. Of course then can hide thats what they do.

ok…i’ve main’d a thief for over 9 months now so heres my 2 copper to get people to stop kittening. about 3 months ago i started playing other classes-mainly pve- to learn their strong and weak points and how to exploit them on my thief(i know fk me right?) and i feel in love with the engi. now after doing all that it improved how i can “kittenolol” other players.-1copper learn the class that annoys you the most- now back to engi.- this class can easily roll just about any class in the game when played correctly(and not like me since I’m still learning the wvw roaming part of not to dodge thru your sup crate) but 7/10 people i encounter i usually kill. when it comes to thieves its childs play. AOE spam and stay put.. a thief won’t come close to condis or a barbaric warrior swinging his GS around like an idiot with 3/4 health..plain and simple we are forced to play extremely careful. and if we don’t do enough with the initial BV BS auto chain or 1 too 2 HS(or 5 depending on the kittenhead you got) that makes most (bad) thieves panic. why ill let you live through that heart racing poop your pants moment yourself. give it a shot and stop complain about thieves already…im still perplexed how kill shot still tracks me in stealth and insta downs me. does is kitten me off? yes. do i think its fair/ makes sense? no. do i go crying on the balance section of the forums to tell anet to apply more logic to a game?no(even though i should)….fk those guies

tom.7468:

LordByron.8369:

oscuro.9720:

1. PERMASTEALTH DOES NOT EXIST

Something useless in PvP but brokenly OP in www.

The low skill floor of the profession makes too many thief ignore the issue with their profession.. this is why they should never write L2P.

wvw was never meant to be balanced. If you want balanced and fair pvp go spvp thats where they balance the professions. Of course then can hide thats what they do.

Holy crap, I thought this idea was long forgotten, a little bit of faith in humanity as been restored.