Guild Wars 2

http://i.imgur.com/EUfLMg6.jpg

Well, basically when i’m dueling a thief that goes into stealth a lot, like p/d thieves, my pet stops anything he was doing and becomes kitten
He literally won’t attack anyone and will react maybe when i’m downed already.

Anyone else have this?

Meh.
My canines are my only shot at winning.
(unless the guy sucks)
If they ever stay out of stealth for over a few seconds I have a fear or imob going off and a metric kittenton of conditions coming their way in that time.

It is a painfully gimicky spec to fight though.
A well interrupted heartseeker that is going to put them in stealth is always fun though.

this is the down side of the improved aggro table of npc towards thieves,

whenever the thief stealths the pet locks on the thief and stops attacking until revealed, even when there are alot of enemies nearby,

it seems like pets are forgetting that there are other enemies nearby to attack

Even worse … the pet provides the thief with an easy target to spam Cloak & Dagger on. If they are specced heavily in shadow arts they can be gaining 600+ hp per second while stealthed as well as stacks of might … this results in the thief being able to soft reset the fight continually through chain Cloak & Dagger and restart it with several stacks of Might … it’s dumb and a horrible oversight in my opinion.

Sebrent.3625:

Even worse … the pet provides the thief with an easy target to spam Cloak & Dagger on. If they are specced heavily in shadow arts they can be gaining 600+ hp per second while stealthed as well as stacks of might … this results in the thief being able to soft reset the fight continually through chain Cloak & Dagger and restart it with several stacks of Might … it’s dumb and a horrible oversight in my opinion.

Indeed, as are so many things with the thief class.

Yeah … one killed my Ranger in full exotic/ascended gear and 20 points in wilderness (i.e. 2.1k+ toughness) in less than 2 seconds … wtf is up with that?! It wouldn’t have been as bad if the skills used actually provided animations for me to see so I could block/dodge/etc..

I think they should remove the pet as a possible C&D target. Only the pet though, because necros aren’t as reliant on their minions as we are.

That would be sort of nice since if I get in combat with a Thief and I’m not using traps, he can simply keep me in combat by continuously C&Ding my pet … gaining stacks of might and healing himself the whole time.

Basically, a thief can troll a Ranger until that Ranger goes someplace the Thief physically can’t.

Exactly, not to mention this would give rangers a fighting chance against p/d thieves.

Honestly them nixing their plans to make stealth always give you the revealed debuff was a bad idea.

P/D is a pain for my Mesmer too as they C&D off illusions. The only way I get around it is using the Mirror heal and canceling the cast before it finishes … gives reflection without going on the full 15 sec cooldown.

Sebrent.3625:

Even worse … the pet provides the thief with an easy target to spam Cloak & Dagger on. If they are specced heavily in shadow arts they can be gaining 600+ hp per second while stealthed as well as stacks of might … this results in the thief being able to soft reset the fight continually through chain Cloak & Dagger and restart it with several stacks of Might … it’s dumb and a horrible oversight in my opinion.

Pretty much how I lose to a thief almost everytime spec’d this way. Seriously can get them to 1/4 health then gone. Then the thief comes back with the stacks of might and almost full health, while I’m hanging somewhere between and quarter and half.

xHoudinix.4523:

Pretty much how I lose to a thief almost everytime spec’d this way. Seriously can get them to 1/4 health then gone. Then the thief comes back with the stacks of might and almost full health, while I’m hanging somewhere between and quarter and half.

Perfectly balanced in Anet’s view. They seriously don’t understand the huge advantage thieves have over rangers because of how they can abuse cnd on our pets. It truly boggles the mind when you think about it.

A totally broken game mechanic.

AlexRD.7914:

http://i.imgur.com/EUfLMg6.jpg

Well, basically when i’m dueling a thief that goes into stealth a lot, like p/d thieves, my pet stops anything he was doing and becomes kitten
He literally won’t attack anyone and will react maybe when i’m downed already.

Anyone else have this?

YES!

This and many more issues on my Ranger…

How about losing keybinds… in the middle of an spvp game…?

It’s getting ridiculous what doesn’t work intermittently or at all.

OGDeadHead.8326:

xHoudinix.4523:

Pretty much how I lose to a thief almost everytime spec’d this way. Seriously can get them to 1/4 health then gone. Then the thief comes back with the stacks of might and almost full health, while I’m hanging somewhere between and quarter and half.

Perfectly balanced in Anet’s view. They seriously don’t understand the huge advantage thieves have over rangers because of how they can abuse cnd on our pets. It truly boggles the mind when you think about it.

A totally broken game mechanic.

This. So much this it just makes me alt f4 sometimes (if it’s that bad). It is one of the things that irks me about this game, because rangers are the ONLY class that can have its class mechanic killed and disabled for a period of time. Then, on top of making it targetable, there was no forethought on how other players would be able to use skills on pets for their own benefit (instead of just the sole, narrow minded view of only attacking the pet to kill the pet).
So now, we’re left with a class mechanic that can be killed and thereby disabled, potentially without fulfilling its purpose (the only class in the game, let me remind everybody again, that can have its class mechanic disabled) and people are just targeting use with attacks that bounce off our pets and deal double DPS to use because of it, and they stealth off our pet repeatedly and take any chance of being an even fight away from us. Then they walk casually around our pets while our pet fails to bite their ankles; the simplest of tasks.

And then we all come to the forums, and in an either positive or negative way, we try to make cases to explain in every way possible why this isn’t balanced, and how it impacts the class negatively. And then somebody inevitably derails the topic, telling everybody their “QQing,” the devs don’t respond, and nobody hears from a balance dev for 7 months.

The cycle continues :/

How i understand this game is that it works on build counters . I fully agree that the thief is OP because it has huge burst potential , and can choose fights and has many escape mechanisms , even solid sustain .

However, shouldn’t the apothecary beastmaster build hard counter thiefs ? I mean , you would have 3000 armor , heavy protection procs , lots of evades and healing .

Chokolata.1870:

How i understand this game is that it works on build counters . I fully agree that the thief is OP because it has huge burst potential , and can choose fights and has many escape mechanisms , even solid sustain .

However, shouldn’t the apothecary beastmaster build hard counter thiefs ? I mean , you would have 3000 armor , heavy protection procs , lots of evades and healing .

I run something similar and so far I have never lost a 1vs1 fight vs a thief. Not saying I’m owning them. I have to use every trick I have. And it’s hard because pets are bugged, I have to wait for them to get out of stealth and use F1 (for the pet), dodge and 1 (for me) while the thief only has to use 1. But it’s doable. After all that’s why we play rangers. Because we like the challenge. And that’s why they play thieves.. because they suck.

No one is talking about normal bursty thieves, i eat those for breakfast.
I’m talking about P/D thieves. Those, that can 3v1 people easily. Well, maybe not easily but you get what i mean.
Anyway, let’s not be hard on the devs. The only profession that can get so much advantage over rangers because of the pets are the thieves.

@Chokolata & @roadkill:
Glass Cannon thieves are simple. It’s the ones with Shadow Arts that are difficult. They heal for more 600+ hp a second when they stealth. If you start to beat them in a fight and aren’t a trap ranger, they will simply C&D spam your pet until they are back full health and have several stacks of might from stealthing. Then they restart the fight they only soft-reset for them. They repeat this until they get bored and leave or they kill you.

Pistol Dagger thieves are a pain too as they simply do the following:
(1) C&D Ranger Pet for Stealth
(2) Use Sneak Attack
Repeat

They often benefit from healing while stealthed as well. So every time they C&D your pet, they remove conditions, heal for 600+ hp a sec (so they are getting 1,800 to 2,400 hp while stealthed … not to mention the regen lasts longer than the stealth).

If a thief wants to troll a ranger, they simply need to get that ranger in combat and then spam C&D on the pet. If they aren not a trap ranger, the thief can’t really be stopped from C&D spamming on the pet. Even if you are a trap ranger, you need to be able to hit an immobilized (1s) stealth target and swing at thin air trying to hit them. (again, assuming not GC, else traps might kill, lol).

Ah i see , no wonder why I am getting such mixed results vs thieves . Bleh , here is hoping for a thief nerf then

Chokolata.1870:

Ah i see , no wonder why I am getting such mixed results vs thieves . Bleh , here is hoping for a thief nerf then

It’s because of that and the fact that there are so many bad thieves who just group up together and spam heartseeker (2 2 2 2 2 2 2 … so “hard” … blah!) and actually have success due to it handling for the player

• facing/orientation
• closing/chasing
• damage

I can’t get my pet to stick to a player, but a Thief can just press 1 button repeatedly to stick to a player and get a kill (though not on me). Lol. That’s just wrong.

People just need to use their auto more and call their pet to them when you predict a thief to go for the cnd.

Greatsword is pretty great against pd thieves because you have all the dodges you normally do, plus the projectiles block from number 4.

Against the pd thief, always save your dodges for either cnd, or the sneak attack. Don´t dodge anything else. The majority of their damage is sneak attack damage.

Also, a well timed immobilize or knockdown will put pressure on them. It makes them either to use infiltrators arrow to get out of the root, which means they can’t cnd or use their pistol sneak attack before they pop out of stealth.

Also, use your jaguar´s stealth. They can´t cnd a proper timed stealth jaguar burst so easily while you empty your bow on them.

Imo condi bunker specs are useless against pd thieves because you need the pressure to bring them down. ironically some of the best counters to pd thieves is a backstab burst thief, because pd thieves grow stronger when they can drag out the fight. You need to keep pressure and land big hits constantly.

Zenith, you’re missing the point …

Your ranger pet is just standing there when the thief is stealthed. It’s not going to block, dodge, etc. which makes it an easy C&D target for the thief.

I don’t care how much you block, dodge, etc.. The Thief is going to C&D your pet.

Blindly attacking at your pet is going to hit them for very little damage which will be healed and have conditions removed every time they stealth:

• Shadow Protector - gives Regeneration which, with 0 +healing, heals them for 130 hp/sec.
• Shadow’s Embrace - removes a condition when they stealth and if they stayed stealthed for 3+ seconds (stealth lasts 4 seconds with 15 pts in Shadow Arts)
• Shadow’s Rejuvenation - with 0 +healing, heals them for 293 hp/sec

So that’s 423 hp/sec and 2 conditions removed each time they stealth. They come out of it with a hard hitting bleed application every time and can do this quite often (revealed is only 4 seconds).

Also, they are gaining Might via Hidden Assassin which is giving them 2 stacks of might for 15 seconds for stealthing and for every 3 seconds they are stealthed … so 4 stacks of might each time as well. I hope you’re enjoying those bleeds.

Sebrent.3625:

Zenith, you’re missing the point …

Your ranger pet is just standing there when the thief is stealthed. It’s not going to block, dodge, etc. which makes it an easy C&D target for the thief.

I don’t care how much you block, dodge, etc.. The Thief is going to C&D your pet.

Blindly attacking at your pet is going to hit them for very little damage which will be healed and have conditions removed every time they stealth:

• Shadow Protector - gives Regeneration which, with 0 +healing, heals them for 130 hp/sec.
• Shadow’s Embrace - removes a condition when they stealth and if they stayed stealthed for 3+ seconds (stealth lasts 4 seconds with 15 pts in Shadow Arts)
• Shadow’s Rejuvenation - with 0 +healing, heals them for 293 hp/sec

So that’s 423 hp/sec and 2 conditions removed each time they stealth. They come out of it with a hard hitting bleed application every time and can do this quite often (revealed is only 4 seconds).

Also, they are gaining Might via Hidden Assassin which is giving them 2 stacks of might for 15 seconds for stealthing and for every 3 seconds they are stealthed … so 4 stacks of might each time as well. I hope you’re enjoying those bleeds.

And personally I think the p/d variant is just as strong, since it uses the same trait combination, but it goes down the critical line to pick up Hidden Killer (100% crit chance in stealth). This means that now, a thief doesn’t even have to build for berserker gear. They can just stack as much +crit damage as possible without needing a single additional point of precision, and still hit 5k backstabs (average, even against players with 3000 armor, otherwise it would be hitting for around 7k, give or take).

This, coupled with the insane health regen (which doesn’t really rely much on the healing stat, except for the actual boon regeneration, but even then, stacking healing doesn’t really matter to the build much, so the freedom of gearing is there) and ability to use HS as a leap through the smoke field on pistol 5 and stealth any time, along with the stealthing utilities, provides one of the most difficult thief fights.

P/D is worse for me to go up against personally as a ranger(it looks like I’m not the only one), because with the range on their pistols, I can’t always force them into my traps, and the entire time I fight them, having to try to position right, manage my pet, and avoid letting the conditions stack too high, they can just c&d, heal between 5-10% of their health, then come out of stealth with a strong multibleed attack, and our pets are not able to avoid c&d so we are completely helpless against this build.

The pet really should be dodging when we do. This is the most simple fix they could provide, even if it is only a bandaid fix until they figure out what they really want to do with it. Giving us a second healthbar the holds so much of our damage and utility to manage, then not giving us anything to mitigate damage on it other than a 120s cd signet, that doesn’t even mitigate this constant stealthing problem, is probably the most questionable bout of balancing I’ve ever seen in the 10 years I’ve been playing games (seriously, as in, with a competitive intention and strong knowledge of the game).

I don’t think my 3-4k melee crits are “little damage”. If he gets in melee range and I hit him in stealth, I will outdamage his healing.

And the point isn’t to call the pet when he’s stealthed. The point is calling the pet before he can stealth. They’re not going to stealth while offensive — they normally stealth after they’ve popped their attacks and want to go defensive — that’s when you pop jaguar stealth so after they’re done popping their attacks they have a harder time at going stealthed.

Granted, it is pretty crap that pets cannot be commanded to autoattack in place like a player can to add pressure to a stealthed target.

I’ve advocated for cnd not to affect pets, because it its absurdly good and penalizes ranger’s main mechanic. But it hasn’t been changed, I don’t think they quite frankly give a kitten about thief stealth spam considering people in wvw forums have been asking for changes for months and nothing has happened.

So you have to work with what you have, and using these strategies allows you a better chance at success. It won’t make the fight any less obnoxious, and the thief can just run away and come back to harass later, but at least you can give him a hard time about it.

The thing is this, they can spam C&D as much as they want. The good thieves don’t do what the bad thieves do. If they are going to gain an advantage while unstealthed, they’ll restealth and wait for it. Regenerating HP and gaining large stacks of might are pretty good advantages.

You can swing your weapon all you want, but the thief can see you and move accordingly. You can’t see the thief. Your best bet without traps it so simply swing continuously at thin air … which is ridiculous. If they see you swinging at your pet, you’re not dodging so they’ll just C&D off your back. If you aren’t, then they can C&D off the pet. Good thieves exploit the heck out of their broken class.

Sebrent.3625:

The thing is this, they can spam C&D as much as they want. The good thieves don’t do what the bad thieves do. If they are going to gain an advantage while unstealthed, they’ll restealth and wait for it. Regenerating HP and gaining large stacks of might are pretty good advantages.

You can swing your weapon all you want, but the thief can see you and move accordingly. You can’t see the thief. Your best bet without traps it so simply swing continuously at thin air … which is ridiculous. If they see you swinging at your pet, you’re not dodging so they’ll just C&D off your back. If you aren’t, then they can C&D off the pet. Good thieves exploit the heck out of their broken class.

Exactly. I still can’t believe we haven’t seen an implementation of pets dodging when we dodge yet. It’s a little more than ridiculous.

jcbroe.4329:

Exactly. I still can’t believe we haven’t seen an implementation of pets dodging when we dodge yet. It’s a little more than ridiculous.

That’s not the solution. I would never want that – ever. They need to come up with something else.

As for the cnd specific issue, of course they could solve this in a number of ways to not so severely punish one single class, but it’s like talking to a wall when trying to mention stuff like this.

The best games in pvp, or should I say most fun, are by far the ones without that cheap mechanic profession that doesn’t bring any fun to anyone but themselves. I’ll stand by my opinion about thieves – their class mechanic is broken to the core. I simply cannot fathom what the hell Anet were thinking when they released the thief profession like that.

It’s not so much about being able to beat them or not anymore for me, it’s just that they ruin the fun in pvp.

I should probably take a long break from this game and return in another year or so, considering the baby steps the devs keep taking when it comes to class balancing and fixing the most broken aspect of the game by far – ranger pets.

Yeah, I don’t want my pet dodging when I dodge. I want my pet eating your back-side while I dodge your attacks :-)

@OGDeadHead.8326; Sebrent.3625;

Well, I did say above that (the first time I mentioned it) that it IS just a bandaid fix. There truly are a lot of variables to work out across different modes and such. But I do believe that the pet needs some sort of dodge or invulnerable mechanic implemented while the core issues are worked out. Unfortunately, the only way I can see them doing this is going through every skill in the game (that could be construed as being used to x effect when in tandem with being used on a player with a pet) and evaluating how it interacts with the pet, then changing that interaction for each and every one of those skills.

Another bandaid type solution would simply be to make the pet invulnerable unless it is engaging an enemy (this would also count as engaging by using the F2 skill, since you are essentially engaging the pet by telling it to do something). If the pet isn’t doing anything, at all, and is just there, completely passive, there is no reason why it should be able to receive damage of any kind, since by it being passive, it isn’t benefiting you, so it shouldn’t benefit anything attacking you either.
The tradeoff for this would be that attacks would have to be able to pass through pets while invulnerable, so we couldn’t just use them as invulnerable meat shield. But either of those are the only fixes I can think of unless the skills are evaluated one at a time.

Aye. I think that basically calling your pet back should make it invulnerable and unable to be told to attack for X number of seconds or Y number of seconds AFTER it has finished returning to you.

This would alleviate the issue where people call their pet back in a dungeon but it decides to turn 90 degrees at the last minute for no reason and stay in the AOE where it gets gibbed (yay bad AI and/or pathing!)

This would alleviate the issue where the Ranger pet “always being out” is exploited by other classes … primarily thieves.

This fix would not allow pets to dive into enemy players any more than they can now. They would still be just as vulnerable to attacks while being a threat to enemy players. In fact, the longer it took for the pet to return to the ranger, the longer it would take to send the pet back in … making it worthwhile for the ranger to still try to just swap out the pet before it dies (like we currently do).

Sadly, this still does not address issues like in high level fractals when you’re at Dredge or any other location with several high damage enemies that you need to dodge the attacks of or be insta-gibbed. Pets would still suck there.

Sebrent.3625:

Aye. I think that basically calling your pet back should make it invulnerable and unable to be told to attack for X number of seconds or Y number of seconds AFTER it has finished returning to you.

This would alleviate the issue where people call their pet back in a dungeon but it decides to turn 90 degrees at the last minute for no reason and stay in the AOE where it gets gibbed (yay bad AI and/or pathing!)

This would alleviate the issue where the Ranger pet “always being out” is exploited by other classes … primarily thieves.

This fix would not allow pets to dive into enemy players any more than they can now. They would still be just as vulnerable to attacks while being a threat to enemy players. In fact, the longer it took for the pet to return to the ranger, the longer it would take to send the pet back in … making it worthwhile for the ranger to still try to just swap out the pet before it dies (like we currently do).

Sadly, this still does not address issues like in high level fractals when you’re at Dredge or any other location with several high damage enemies that you need to dodge the attacks of or be insta-gibbed. Pets would still suck there.

Okay so let me meld some ideas together because I think I really like the final result.

Pet System:
F1-Attack
F2-Unique Skill
F3-Return
F4-Swap
-Remove guard/passive option, pets are permanently disengaged until either F1 or F2 is used
-Pets are invulnerable, and do not block or absorb incoming attacks until engaged using F1 or F2
-Pets are invulnerable when F3 is used, but F3 causes F1, F2, and F4 to go into a cooldown (so that people can’t just spam F1 and F3 and making pets OP). Beastmastery trait points would affect this cooldown, with 30 points reducing it to 10s.

This would make the ranger play a little more like elementalist (micromanagement wise) for a similar reward, I believe. It would play like all the other classes mechanics in that regard as well, because currently ranger is the only class where our mechanic can be put into action by its own will.
Yes, the probably introduces a higher skill curve. But when you mentioned with your idea the issue with high level fractals, it was the only solution I can see working across all 3 game modes simultaneously. I had to use the idea of cooldowns (the way it is implemented on ele attunements) because without it, I think it is obvious to see how a person could abuse the suggested system.

Definitely. Whatever happens has to make sure pets don’t become unstoppable intercontinental pvp missiles.

Sebrent.3625:

Even worse … the pet provides the thief with an easy target to spam Cloak & Dagger on. If they are specced heavily in shadow arts they can be gaining 600+ hp per second while stealthed as well as stacks of might … this results in the thief being able to soft reset the fight continually through chain Cloak & Dagger and restart it with several stacks of Might … it’s dumb and a horrible oversight in my opinion.

The whole thief class is a horrible oversight.

Yeah. I think the suggestion would provide the perfect balance in the games current state, especially considering all game modes. It requires more management for pets to be effective, so it would be pets a slight degree more difficult to use then they are now (just putting them in guard and attacking things) to gain what basically the entire ranger community wants in some form or another right now. At least that’s my take on it, just a perspective.

Alas, as much as I could talk about how good the ideas are in this thread at times, the devs probably won’t implement this, but it was a nice, constructive conversation.

Arekai.5698:

Sebrent.3625:

Even worse … the pet provides the thief with an easy target to spam Cloak & Dagger on. If they are specced heavily in shadow arts they can be gaining 600+ hp per second while stealthed as well as stacks of might … this results in the thief being able to soft reset the fight continually through chain Cloak & Dagger and restart it with several stacks of Might … it’s dumb and a horrible oversight in my opinion.

The whole thief class is a horrible oversight.

Yep. I haven’t seen a “thief” class done correctly in an MMO since Everquest 1 and Dark Age of Camelot.

In every other MMO they have either been underpowered or overpowered … never one of the classes people look at and think “good job devs”.

this is the down side of the improved aggro table of npc towards thieves,
whenever the thief stealths the pet locks on the thief and stops attacking until revealed, even when there are alot of enemies nearby,
it seems like pets are forgetting that there are other enemies nearby to attack

Just trying to understand what you’re saying here, but when the pet is attacking a thief and the thief cloaks, does the pet respond to any of its commands (like attack, heel, active skill) or does it lock up?

I don’t really pvp with the ranger and mobs rarely cloak in pve, just curious if it meant more micro-managing of the pet.

roadkill.3749:

Chokolata.1870:

How i understand this game is that it works on build counters . I fully agree that the thief is OP because it has huge burst potential , and can choose fights and has many escape mechanisms , even solid sustain .

However, shouldn’t the apothecary beastmaster build hard counter thiefs ? I mean , you would have 3000 armor , heavy protection procs , lots of evades and healing .

I run something similar and so far I have never lost a 1vs1 fight vs a thief. Not saying I’m owning them. I have to use every trick I have. And it’s hard because pets are bugged, I have to wait for them to get out of stealth and use F1 (for the pet), dodge and 1 (for me) while the thief only has to use 1. But it’s doable. After all that’s why we play rangers. Because we like the challenge. And that’s why they play thieves.. because they suck.

Speak for yourself lol. I rolled ranger because I fell in love with the class in GW1. I didn’t even get into W3 until I cleared every PvE map and geared myself out in exotics. I’m just too cranky now to start over.

Sebrent.3625:

Arekai.5698:

Sebrent.3625:

Even worse … the pet provides the thief with an easy target to spam Cloak & Dagger on. If they are specced heavily in shadow arts they can be gaining 600+ hp per second while stealthed as well as stacks of might … this results in the thief being able to soft reset the fight continually through chain Cloak & Dagger and restart it with several stacks of Might … it’s dumb and a horrible oversight in my opinion.

The whole thief class is a horrible oversight.

Yep. I haven’t seen a “thief” class done correctly in an MMO since Everquest 1 and Dark Age of Camelot.

In every other MMO they have either been underpowered or overpowered … never one of the classes people look at and think “good job devs”.

The hilariously pathetic thing is that they did a good job with the Assasin in GW1.

The class worked on skill combo chains and daggers did really low dammage so you had to use a skill to do any real damage. And while they did really big numbers, it often came at the expense of any survivablity since they had the armor of Rangers with no built in bonus to elemental damage and would almost need a full bar of attack skills to work at peak efficiency. It often made them pretty scarce in pvp because of how fragile they were but it really pushed the idea of what a glass cannon should be.

6 years later and instead of something even remotely balanced, we get some stupid newb easy mode pvp class that can deal insane numbers while also having one of the best defensive mechanics in the game all so some developer could have his silly ninja wish fulfillment.

They are pretty much the only class that has no real downside in pvp. Even in huge zerg fights where it’s better to be tank than spank, they still get easy ranged aoe with the SB and can also use it to spam 3-4 blast finishers for might stacking along with using smoke fields to block ballista shots.

The only thing rangers had going for us in wvw was a glitched pet skill that they fixed instead of improving our mechanics in any meaningful way.

Everquest I had well balanced thieves and rangers? Some people have very short memories.

Rangers shouldn’t have much of a problem vs thief’s. It’s all in the tactics, pets when I’m fighting a thief do most of my damage just by knowing when to use them and force the thief to fight your tactics and not his own or you will lose and feel like they cloaking and making your pet look stupid.

Sol.4310:

Rangers shouldn’t have much of a problem vs thief’s. It’s all in the tactics, pets when I’m fighting a thief do most of my damage just by knowing when to use them and force the thief to fight your tactics and not his own or you will lose and feel like they cloaking and making your pet look stupid.

So what do you do when a thief perma stealths? Because you sure as hell are not going to put a dent on a thief that removes conditions and regenerates health while in stealth.

Thief’s can’t perma stealth anymore and heavy stealth builds are garbage…..

Tactics do what I did ask a good thief to let me train vs him to understand how they work and worked on finding a weakness or combos that work against them.

I spent hole week in SPvP duelling thiefs just to learn them. WvW sure there stronger but so are we.

LR or Signet of renewal and a sword is all you need these days to beat your avg thief.

I personally use Signet now over LR as it help with condition remove and team support and its good vs condition thiefs let them spam stack you then just wipe it and with right skill set counter attack.

Sol.4310:

Thief’s can’t perma stealth anymore and heavy stealth builds are garbage…..

Tactics do what I did ask a good thief to let me train vs him to understand how they work and worked on finding a weakness or combos that work against them.

I spent hole week in SPvP duelling thiefs just to learn them. WvW sure there stronger but so are we.

LR or Signet of renewal and a sword is all you need these days to beat your avg thief.

I personally use Signet now over LR as it help with condition remove and team support and its good vs condition thiefs let them spam stack you then just wipe it and with right skill set counter attack.

They can spam cnd still in wvw just fine. Your damage uptime on them vs how much they regen while stealth makes them a real pain in the kitten

You still haven’t described what these tactics are. If the thief doesn’t want to die, he won’t. He can reset the fight however much he pleases. The best you can do as a ranger is deny them killing you, but I don’t consider that a victory.

I won’t be describing how I do it, its not just tactics its knowing when and how with what build you run, tactics are different with every build I run + there allot of bad ranger build getting around these forums and people honestly believe there solid builds.

Sol.4310:

I won’t be describing how I do it, its not just tactics its knowing when and how with what build you run, tactics are different with every build I run + there allot of bad ranger build getting around these forums and people honestly believe there solid builds.

Well then jump in those threads and be more vocal, Sol! :-p

You’re a great ranger. I want you around more.

Sol.4310:

I won’t be describing how I do it, its not just tactics its knowing when and how with what build you run, tactics are different with every build I run + there allot of bad ranger build getting around these forums and people honestly believe there solid builds.

Ok, remain vague if it suits you.

Signet of stone. 6 seconds they cant hit you or your pet (traited)

KensaiZen.3740:

Signet of stone. 6 seconds they cant hit you or your pet (traited)

Yep … once per 2 minutes … which means a smart thief will simply back off for 6 seconds and then laugh at the Ranger who has one less utility and less toughness.

Sebrent.3625:

KensaiZen.3740:

Signet of stone. 6 seconds they cant hit you or your pet (traited)

Yep … once per 2 minutes … which means a smart thief will simply back off for 6 seconds and then laugh at the Ranger who has one less utility and less toughness.

The only thing I have to add to this is that the amount of toughness it provides to the player is laughable to begin with.

Sebrent.3625:

The thing is this, they can spam C&D as much as they want. The good thieves don’t do what the bad thieves do. If they are going to gain an advantage while unstealthed, they’ll restealth and wait for it. Regenerating HP and gaining large stacks of might are pretty good advantages.

You can swing your weapon all you want, but the thief can see you and move accordingly. You can’t see the thief. Your best bet without traps it so simply swing continuously at thin air … which is ridiculous. If they see you swinging at your pet, you’re not dodging so they’ll just C&D off your back. If you aren’t, then they can C&D off the pet. Good thieves exploit the heck out of their broken class.

no they cant spam C and D as much as they want, it costs 5 inititive per attempt failed or not,
no swing blindly or doing AOE is not ridiculous, it makes sense, also spin around, so you do not present a stable back target.
As far as Cand D off your pet, if you neutralize the advantages to being invisible, by doing dmg, AOE, and not presenting your back, they are wasting a large damage spike on your pet, who can disappear every 15 seconds with full health.

Now i do agree that pets get kind of crappy when someone stealths, it usually interupts skill use, and they kind of act stupidly, but C and D off your pet makes perfect sense mechanic wise, eliminating a rangers pet should be an option for an opponent. As well as using your pet to get situational buffs. Its kind of foolish to say class mechanics shouldnt work on pets.

I understand people want thieves to fight on their terms, but really this is not an issue with theif being OP, its an issue with pet AI/controls.