Guild Wars 2

You need to remove stealth gained via blackpowder and heartseeker.

1) Basilisk Venom Steal/cloak and dagger for stealth = dmge up to 7k
2) Backstab = damage up to 9k
3) Dodge/evade till reveal is over.
4) Attempt to Stealth with either cloak and dagger or
5) blackpowder/heartseeker for stealth/healing/condi clear.

I don’t mind the steps 1,2,3,4. I do not do much damage per hit, but I can still win even if I get hit for that initial 16k damage. Other classes can win even after the insane burst.

It is the blackpowder/heartseeker that is an issue. We see it all the time. Problem is, in the forums, no-one has specifically pointed out where the issue of thief stealth lies.

Fact
All the thieves who use this are running remove conditions on stealth and regen in stealth.
Fact
They use this skill to remove all condition damage and heal up to 100% while their opponent is sitting visible the entire time with no ability to heal more then a modest amount.
Fact
The balance is way off. I refuse to play this way just to win a fight.

It makes sense to not allow people the ability to nearly God Mode an aspect of the game.
1) I can’t kill diamond skin ele’s. I’m ok with that.
2) Some of the mesmers stealth so much I can’t kill them either. I’m ok with that.
3) A thief with good morals hits me for 16k (steps 1-3) total and I’m ok with that too.

I’m not ok with a god mode thief build. It ruins the game play and enjoyment of far more people then the number of idiots who use it.

If you remove the blackpowder/heartseeker stealth you will see far far less people complaining about thief stealth in the forums. The only people who will complain will be those who abuse the god mode just because they are bottom dwellers who feed off of ruining other people’s game play.

They will never kill me, but I am writing this post for those who can never escape a fight with a build that should never exist. As it stands, with issues like this, I have no inclination to buy your expansion.

Actually I was running in WvW and a thief backstabbed my ranger for 14.5k damage, insane damage, didn’t know he was there, no chance to do anything about it.

So you would like to kill the only meta-viable thief available because you had someone backstab you for “INSANE” amounts of damage?

Please, reconsider your post after playing a thief extensively for yourself. Why do you think all thieves you see are rabbit holed into using remove condi on stealth? Why do you think it’s okay to not be able to kill a diamond ele but you deserve the right to remove the only survival option for thieves? Is this a game of morals? are thieves supposed to do ‘good deeds’ and not stealth as much?

I have no idea what your point is on this topic. Please don’t take out your frustrations on a forum post saying ‘nerf xyz, I can’t deal with it’.

K so thief becomes useless and they all play mesmer, no thanks.

I main mesmer, so I sure have no love for thiefs, but you might want to let anet add in elite specialisations first and let things settle down.

Thiefs are good at the things they do, which is pick fights on their own terms and punish all damage setups that are unprepaired.

Going by your posting history you’ve taken a substancial break from the game only to come back and complain about others not playing the way you want.

Stealth has already been hit with the nerfbat in the past by disallowing restealth for a period of time if used offensively. Gutting the mechanic even more would leave thief in a very bad spot.

Haze.9075:

So you would like to kill the only meta-viable thief available because you had someone backstab you for “INSANE” amounts of damage?

Please, reconsider your post after playing a thief extensively for yourself. Why do you think all thieves you see are rabbit holed into using remove condi on stealth? Why do you think it’s okay to not be able to kill a diamond ele but you deserve the right to remove the only survival option for thieves? Is this a game of morals? are thieves supposed to do ‘good deeds’ and not stealth as much?

I have no idea what your point is on this topic. Please don’t take out your frustrations on a forum post saying ‘nerf xyz, I can’t deal with it’.

I’d re-read his post, he clearly states he has no problem with the burst damage, but rather the ability for them to be able to do giant burst damage in addition to their godmode stealth healing/condi removal.

I don’t care either way about the burst, in my mind thieves are assassins. If you are wandering around in WvW alone, you open yourself up to being “assassinated”. That’s their entire play-style.

What I personally dislike about the build OP is talking about is that it removes the risk vs. reward. You wanna do devastating burst damage? No problem, but if you fail for whatever reason you should pretty much be SOL, or at least at an extreme disadvantage. You shouldn’t be able to go “whoops, missed my skills haha, let me just disappear and try again.” Thieves in this game are sadly very low risk very high reward.

Every other class in the game, if you miss your skill rotations or simply don’t land some, you pretty much don’t recover.

But that’s why I solo roam with a Guardian, so I don’t have to deal with all of that.

Thieves are not in a good place right now. Asking for nerfs is insane. They have middle of the road burst with worse condi removal than most classes and basically die in one hit from anything.

Mesmers are for more OP than Thieves right now.

Thief.God mode?

lol

Mesmer asking for thief nerf… Priceless!

makes a post about how to lessen thief complaints
complains about thieves….

I love how you added in that you never lose to this “god mode” thief you’re so concerned about . This post was hilarious. Thanks man.

As soon as Anet nerfs mesmer stealth duration along with the ability to stay in stealth and create phantasms then maybe you can ask for a thief nerf, till then only thing that needs a serious nerf is mesmer.

Nivik.2961:

I love how you added in that you never lose to this “god mode” thief you’re so concerned about . This post was hilarious. Thanks man.

How could I lose to them? I removed my auto attack so I could use stealth on steal. I run basilisk poison and my posion which imobs.

So he hits me, I open with steal (turns them to stone) and sneak attack. Then shadow strike away into my heal skill. His next moves tell me what build he is running. If he black powder/heartseekers, he is always stays invisible till he comes back at full health. Then does a huge burst again. By this time I have my imob poison on, so I get that off, blinding powder, dodge roll into a shadow refuge.

From shadow refuge I move along my merry way and don’t continue the fight just so I can die. See. Easy as pie to live.

Einlanzer.1627:

Thieves are not in a good place right now. Asking for nerfs is insane. They have middle of the road burst with worse condi removal than most classes and basically die in one hit from anything.

Mesmers are for more OP than Thieves right now.

I only play for WvW. My favorite is thief, my second favorite is Mesmer (and I mean from before this stealth fiasco).

Both are broken true But,
I always fight the Mesmer. I can and have the ability to kill the mesmers. The secret is the imob. I use two imobs, and mesmers rarely use 2 means to remove imobs. The thief build I just do not fight because it is pointless.

I said it before. Make thief players, better players. there! f

Einlanzer.1627:

Thieves are not in a good place right now. Asking for nerfs is insane. They have middle of the road burst with worse condi removal than most classes and basically die in one hit from anything.

Mesmers are for more OP than Thieves right now.

Getting hit with a steal/cloak and dagger hit to backstab of 16k total is a modest burst? What about the 2 auto attacks of up to 4k that come right after?

Having the ability to remove all conditions and heal to full health while your opponent cannot and has to sit in plain view is in a bad place?

So 20k damage in such a short time is modest. My ascended zerk Mesmer won’t do that damage. Close, but not that high.
Backstab can be used again in another 5 seconds after reveal is over. So another 5k cloak and dagger into another 9k backstab or they hit heart seeker repeatedly for the huge damage there.

You guys want your cake and eat it too. To do insane damage with as little risk as possible. It is a childish mentality. It isn’t right and unlike my build, a lot of the other professions cannot get away.

What I am starting to think is that the regular masses who play fairly do not know the forums exist, but the ones who play in a fashion where there is no fair play are the ones using the forums. Just to try to distract anet from the truth.

Draknar.5748:

Haze.9075:

So you would like to kill the only meta-viable thief available because you had someone backstab you for “INSANE” amounts of damage?

Please, reconsider your post after playing a thief extensively for yourself. Why do you think all thieves you see are rabbit holed into using remove condi on stealth? Why do you think it’s okay to not be able to kill a diamond ele but you deserve the right to remove the only survival option for thieves? Is this a game of morals? are thieves supposed to do ‘good deeds’ and not stealth as much?

I have no idea what your point is on this topic. Please don’t take out your frustrations on a forum post saying ‘nerf xyz, I can’t deal with it’.

I’d re-read his post, he clearly states he has no problem with the burst damage, but rather the ability for them to be able to do giant burst damage in addition to their godmode stealth healing/condi removal.

I don’t care either way about the burst, in my mind thieves are assassins. If you are wandering around in WvW alone, you open yourself up to being “assassinated”. That’s their entire play-style.

What I personally dislike about the build OP is talking about is that it removes the risk vs. reward. You wanna do devastating burst damage? No problem, but if you fail for whatever reason you should pretty much be SOL, or at least at an extreme disadvantage. You shouldn’t be able to go “whoops, missed my skills haha, let me just disappear and try again.” Thieves in this game are sadly very low risk very high reward.

Every other class in the game, if you miss your skill rotations or simply don’t land some, you pretty much don’t recover.

But that’s why I solo roam with a Guardian, so I don’t have to deal with all of that.

This is the one guy who actually understood my post, and rewrote it for better understanding. I appreciate that.

Vieux P.1238:

I said it before. Make thief players, better players. there! f

I like this. Make them better players. Let the op builds work a little instead of the low risk high rewards.

Well, pistol 5 to dagger 2 is annoying indeed nonetheless. But the reason why most of the thieves that you will encounter is running that because there is no viable build atm. If anet can plan out a little more build diversity on this class I am sure you will see less thieves running d/p. Keep your fingers crossed.

Black powder + heartseeker is the problem? Why you talk about cloak and dagger then? Is it OP, too? (wtf)
“Problem is, in the forums, no-one has specifically pointed out where the issue of thief stealth lies.” —-> lmao
There were so many posts about changing SA to make it more rewarding to get in and out quickly instead of sitting in it, like giving an amount of health when getting revealed. You know what? It gets ignored. (and you guys come here, saying that, without even knowing what we are discussing here. Hilarious.
A step into the right direction was the removal of mightstack you get when it stealth. Going into stealth with a few heartseeker and you got like 6-8 might.

“Fact
All the thieves who use this are running remove conditions on stealth and regen in stealth.”

lol, where do you get that facts from? SA is meta right now, yes, but who you think you are to say that every D/P user uses SA all the time? To get that 16k on D/P you need crit-strikes and the target to be squishy.
“Fact
They use this skill to remove all condition damage and heal up to 100% while their opponent is sitting visible the entire time with no ability to heal more then a modest amount.”

You know what? In that time we still can be damaged, your cd´s are getting ready, too. We have to get into stealth btw to clear condis. Other classes just have to use a always ready skill or do it passively in their rotations. How about not letting the thief into stealth in the first place? (talking about black powder and heartseeker combo, but refuge can be countered easily, too. In wvw I have 12k life. Not that much, right? All that “ohhhh they heal full all the time QQ”. 12k is like nothing, so you notice it more. Ele do it all the time while having more health normally, especially on cele. Thats why most thieves run marauder in pvp right now. (less damage ^^).
And last but not least a “fact”. We can´t do damage when sitting in stealth. :P
“Fact
The balance is way off. I refuse to play this way just to win a fight.”

Yeah, it is. But thief isn´t the problem right now, neither is it stealth. If you don´t want to play this way you are welcome to leave.

“If you remove the blackpowder/heartseeker stealth you will see far far less people complaining about thief stealth in the forums. The only people who will complain will be those who abuse the god mode just because they are bottom dwellers who feed off of ruining other people’s game play.”
Hm, D/P is our only meta-build right now in PvP. Removing the combo would eliminate it and no one would play it because of being usless. Less complaints about stealth? Hahahaha, are you really that naive or clueless? You know what happened the last time someting else than D/P was somehow meta? There were so many complaining about “permadodgeevadespam”. Result? S/D nerfed and wiped out of the meta —-> more D/P. Thanks…
No, the ones complaining are people like you who seems to have no clue at all.

“I play dire thief. Full condi.” 2 weeks ago.
Were you playing zerker once? I heard a lot of people changing their mind after seeing it from the other side.
Btw, dire thief SA? Complaining about “easy way” and “high risk/high reward”? x)

Yeah…repeating “God mode” does nobody any favours.

In saying all classes have escape mechanisms, difference being that those outside thieves also have the damage mitigation and other options to deal with a failed spike or gank. We pretty much are limited to “Uh oh….stealth and run…”.

I have no issues with your OP but you HAVE to present an alternative form of mitigation or survivability in order to promote actual valid debate. It’s a trend because we have limited alternatives when compared to the varied mitigation and escapes of other classes while most now have equally comparable burst damage with higher HP pools and greater survivability traits, skills or utilities.

QQing about pretty much the only build type and escape mechanism we have is pretty futile. Your not telling us anything we didn’t already know and it’s akin to stating “Warriors and their HP and stability….it keeps them alive when they fail to kill me and then they run away…nerf please Anet…”

Seriously?

Cyninja.2954:

I main mesmer, so I sure have no love for thiefs, but you might want to let anet add in elite specialisations first and let things settle down.

Thiefs are good at the things they do, which is pick fights on their own terms and punish all damage setups that are unprepaired.

Going by your posting history you’ve taken a substancial break from the game only to come back and complain about others not playing the way you want.

Stealth has already been hit with the nerfbat in the past by disallowing restealth for a period of time if used offensively. Gutting the mechanic even more would leave thief in a very bad spot.

I’ve never taken a break. I’ve only moved from a build (like the one I am talking about) to a build where my opponent has a fair chance.

Thieves don’t need to go through a reveal stage. Like something I did before changing builds.

Initial run black powder/heartseeker into stealth plus Basilisk venom so the enemy cannot go through his defensive moves right away.
—-Backstab of 9k (I’ve been hit with 11k but that is extremely rare)
—-I have now done 9k plus 6k for a total of 14k damage.

Because I have used the 2 attacks of basilisk venom, my opponent has been hit with 2 seconds of stun, which means I can actually have a reveal stage where the enemy can hit me of only 2 seconds. Dodge roll dodge roll, black powder/ heartseeker into stealth.

The enemy heal will not cover my huge damage against him.
I wait till the stealth drops then do another cloak and dagger. Up to 5k damage. This time though, I have my devourer venom on. So it goes C&D, imob, backstab, Imob, auto attack imob.

If he doesn’t die and tries to flee, my steal is still up, so I can do the C&D/steal/backstab combo right away.

Very low risk for me and death for my enemy. Easy as pie rotations and takes little skill.

Jitters.9401:

You need to remove stealth gained via blackpowder and heartseeker.

1) Basilisk Venom Steal/cloak and dagger for stealth = dmge up to 7k
2) Backstab = damage up to 9k
3) Dodge/evade till reveal is over.
4) Attempt to Stealth with either cloak and dagger or
5) blackpowder/heartseeker for stealth/healing/condi clear.

I don’t mind the steps 1,2,3,4. I do not do much damage per hit, but I can still win even if I get hit for that initial 16k damage. Other classes can win even after the insane burst.

It is the blackpowder/heartseeker that is an issue. We see it all the time. Problem is, in the forums, no-one has specifically pointed out where the issue of thief stealth lies.

Fact
All the thieves who use this are running remove conditions on stealth and regen in stealth.
Fact
They use this skill to remove all condition damage and heal up to 100% while their opponent is sitting visible the entire time with no ability to heal more then a modest amount.
Fact
The balance is way off. I refuse to play this way just to win a fight.

It makes sense to not allow people the ability to nearly God Mode an aspect of the game.
1) I can’t kill diamond skin ele’s. I’m ok with that.
2) Some of the mesmers stealth so much I can’t kill them either. I’m ok with that.
3) A thief with good morals hits me for 16k (steps 1-3) total and I’m ok with that too.

I’m not ok with a god mode thief build. It ruins the game play and enjoyment of far more people then the number of idiots who use it.

If you remove the blackpowder/heartseeker stealth you will see far far less people complaining about thief stealth in the forums. The only people who will complain will be those who abuse the god mode just because they are bottom dwellers who feed off of ruining other people’s game play.

They will never kill me, but I am writing this post for those who can never escape a fight with a build that should never exist. As it stands, with issues like this, I have no inclination to buy your expansion.

are you for real? you guys need to think about other classes and respect them too. all you do is care bout your class. we have been nerfed after patch. lots of thieves that i know either re-rolled or quitted the game. i myself quitted the game cuz of this. and you still want thieves to be nerfed even more? pre-patch it was an awesome class. if played well godlike class. post-patch it became almost useless. so my answer for you… L2P for real cuz now thieves are rly easy to deal with. they r like 30-40% weaker. but i guess that’s what you wanted – that we would become useless and quit the game (all other classes that QQ about us). so you achieved it. now feeling good? that people who loved the game and class had to quit the game? your goals are reached. now go and make a GW community out of Guardians/Warriors/Rangers. im disgusted how you people never respect other classes. Anet can just delete Thief anyway. it’s not healthy to play that class for sure.

So you’re running d/p and d/d at the same? Wut?

OP, the game balance is not focus on balancing 1v1s, much less WvW 1v1s.

But since 1v1 seems to be the topic if you look in PvP the thief shadow arts meta build struggles to land enough damage in duels to cause a down in any reasonable amount of time if at all (between competent players).

Jitters.9401:

Nivik.2961:

I love how you added in that you never lose to this “god mode” thief you’re so concerned about . This post was hilarious. Thanks man.

How could I lose to them? I removed my auto attack so I could use stealth on steal. I run basilisk poison and my posion which imobs.

So he hits me, I open with steal (turns them to stone) and sneak attack. Then shadow strike away into my heal skill. His next moves tell me what build he is running. If he black powder/heartseekers, he is always stays invisible till he comes back at full health. Then does a huge burst again. By this time I have my imob poison on, so I get that off, blinding powder, dodge roll into a shadow refuge.

From shadow refuge I move along my merry way and don’t continue the fight just so I can die. See. Easy as pie to live.

So according to this it seems the OPs real issue is that D/P builds are hard for his P/D build to kill and he doesn’t like them using stealth to disengage but his answer to fighting them and not getting killed is to stealth and disengage.

Clearly a QQ thread from a player with L2P issues.

/thread closed

Jitters.9401:

Draknar.5748:

Haze.9075:

So you would like to kill the only meta-viable thief available because you had someone backstab you for “INSANE” amounts of damage?

Please, reconsider your post after playing a thief extensively for yourself. Why do you think all thieves you see are rabbit holed into using remove condi on stealth? Why do you think it’s okay to not be able to kill a diamond ele but you deserve the right to remove the only survival option for thieves? Is this a game of morals? are thieves supposed to do ‘good deeds’ and not stealth as much?

I have no idea what your point is on this topic. Please don’t take out your frustrations on a forum post saying ‘nerf xyz, I can’t deal with it’.

I’d re-read his post, he clearly states he has no problem with the burst damage, but rather the ability for them to be able to do giant burst damage in addition to their godmode stealth healing/condi removal.

I don’t care either way about the burst, in my mind thieves are assassins. If you are wandering around in WvW alone, you open yourself up to being “assassinated”. That’s their entire play-style.

What I personally dislike about the build OP is talking about is that it removes the risk vs. reward. You wanna do devastating burst damage? No problem, but if you fail for whatever reason you should pretty much be SOL, or at least at an extreme disadvantage. You shouldn’t be able to go “whoops, missed my skills haha, let me just disappear and try again.” Thieves in this game are sadly very low risk very high reward.

Every other class in the game, if you miss your skill rotations or simply don’t land some, you pretty much don’t recover.

But that’s why I solo roam with a Guardian, so I don’t have to deal with all of that.

This is the one guy who actually understood my post, and rewrote it for better understanding. I appreciate that.

Except it simply isn’t true. Thieves have below average condi removal and healing. Thieves are not designed well at the moment. They pretty much have no choice but to rely on the cheapest exploits possible because they can’t actually stand toe-to-toe with anyone, ever.

Why on earth would you come on here and totally ignore all of the forum posts plastered across the front page about how poor thief is just to post a nerf request.

I’m sure as hell not going to run D/P but if people want to be competitive that’s what they are having to run. There are numerous posts from thief’s complaining that they are having to run cheese builds and want more utility. If you want to moan at someone email a dev (which we’ve already asked to answer our concerns by the way).

This could be a troll. If so…well played good sir.

Jitters.9401:

You need to remove stealth gained via blackpowder and heartseeker.

1) Basilisk Venom Steal/cloak and dagger for stealth = dmge up to 7k
2) Backstab = damage up to 9k
3) Dodge/evade till reveal is over.
4) Attempt to Stealth with either cloak and dagger or
5) blackpowder/heartseeker for stealth/healing/condi clear.

I don’t mind the steps 1,2,3,4. I do not do much damage per hit, but I can still win even if I get hit for that initial 16k damage. Other classes can win even after the insane burst.

It is the blackpowder/heartseeker that is an issue. We see it all the time. Problem is, in the forums, no-one has specifically pointed out where the issue of thief stealth lies.

Fact
All the thieves who use this are running remove conditions on stealth and regen in stealth.
Fact
They use this skill to remove all condition damage and heal up to 100% while their opponent is sitting visible the entire time with no ability to heal more then a modest amount.
Fact
The balance is way off. I refuse to play this way just to win a fight.

It makes sense to not allow people the ability to nearly God Mode an aspect of the game.
1) I can’t kill diamond skin ele’s. I’m ok with that.
2) Some of the mesmers stealth so much I can’t kill them either. I’m ok with that.
3) A thief with good morals hits me for 16k (steps 1-3) total and I’m ok with that too.

I’m not ok with a god mode thief build. It ruins the game play and enjoyment of far more people then the number of idiots who use it.

If you remove the blackpowder/heartseeker stealth you will see far far less people complaining about thief stealth in the forums. The only people who will complain will be those who abuse the god mode just because they are bottom dwellers who feed off of ruining other people’s game play.

They will never kill me, but I am writing this post for those who can never escape a fight with a build that should never exist. As it stands, with issues like this, I have no inclination to buy your expansion.

I would honestly like to hear a suggestion for correcting this issue. I theif main, and have since inception. I can tell you that without stealth condi-removal, thieves are extremely limited in options for removal. Signet of agility is the only other viable condi-removal. Shadowstep has a crazy long cooldown so cannot be used reliably in an extended engagement. There are a few heals, yes that will remove select condis, but nothing else that removes them quickly as is needed in WvW. The nerf bat has been swung at thieves quite a bit since launch, not undeservingly in some cases, however currently I see more issues with thieves than OPness.
Our burst damage is not really the threat anymore, condition builds, P/D, S/D, with SB backup are among the most viable builds out there right now. Thief damage is mitigated by our awesome lack of armor and defense. It has been said time and time again, stealth, mobility, and regen are our defenses. Just my two cents.

TLDR: Thieves don’t need another smack with the nerf bat, our limited condi-removal nearly pigeon holes us into using Shadow’s Embrace for removal. If you want to talk about condi-removal that needs a nerf, look at the guardian.

Dagrin the Ethereal.8371:

Jitters.9401:

You need to remove stealth gained via blackpowder and heartseeker.

1) Basilisk Venom Steal/cloak and dagger for stealth = dmge up to 7k
2) Backstab = damage up to 9k
3) Dodge/evade till reveal is over.
4) Attempt to Stealth with either cloak and dagger or
5) blackpowder/heartseeker for stealth/healing/condi clear.

I don’t mind the steps 1,2,3,4. I do not do much damage per hit, but I can still win even if I get hit for that initial 16k damage. Other classes can win even after the insane burst.

It is the blackpowder/heartseeker that is an issue. We see it all the time. Problem is, in the forums, no-one has specifically pointed out where the issue of thief stealth lies.

Fact
All the thieves who use this are running remove conditions on stealth and regen in stealth.
Fact
They use this skill to remove all condition damage and heal up to 100% while their opponent is sitting visible the entire time with no ability to heal more then a modest amount.
Fact
The balance is way off. I refuse to play this way just to win a fight.

It makes sense to not allow people the ability to nearly God Mode an aspect of the game.
1) I can’t kill diamond skin ele’s. I’m ok with that.
2) Some of the mesmers stealth so much I can’t kill them either. I’m ok with that.
3) A thief with good morals hits me for 16k (steps 1-3) total and I’m ok with that too.

I’m not ok with a god mode thief build. It ruins the game play and enjoyment of far more people then the number of idiots who use it.

If you remove the blackpowder/heartseeker stealth you will see far far less people complaining about thief stealth in the forums. The only people who will complain will be those who abuse the god mode just because they are bottom dwellers who feed off of ruining other people’s game play.

They will never kill me, but I am writing this post for those who can never escape a fight with a build that should never exist. As it stands, with issues like this, I have no inclination to buy your expansion.

I would honestly like to hear a suggestion for correcting this issue. I theif main, and have since inception. I can tell you that without stealth condi-removal, thieves are extremely limited in options for removal. Signet of agility is the only other viable condi-removal. Shadowstep has a crazy long cooldown so cannot be used reliably in an extended engagement. There are a few heals, yes that will remove select condis, but nothing else that removes them quickly as is needed in WvW. The nerf bat has been swung at thieves quite a bit since launch, not undeservingly in some cases, however currently I see more issues with thieves than OPness.
Our burst damage is not really the threat anymore, condition builds, P/D, S/D, with SB backup are among the most viable builds out there right now. Thief damage is mitigated by our awesome lack of armor and defense. It has been said time and time again, stealth, mobility, and regen are our defenses. Just my two cents.

TLDR: Thieves don’t need another smack with the nerf bat, our limited condi-removal nearly pigeon holes us into using Shadow’s Embrace for removal. If you want to talk about condi-removal that needs a nerf, look at the guardian.

On the topc of condi removal, how about we talk about a nerf to diamond skin ele. No build should be a 100% counter to any build.

Diamond skin is basically a health percentage driven selective invuln. With ele hp scaled to what it is i think it’s fine.

After reading through your post and all the answers as well as thinking about all arguments you gave and also the ones you didnt I just have one more thing to say.

No.

TL;DR
D/P is thieve’s only viable weapon choice atm, the easy stealth can still be countered easily
(SR: oh nice, now we know where we have to put all of our AoE damage, thanks!)
(Blackpowder+HS: well maybe interrupt. profit: wasted a lot of ini and no stealth.)

I would want SA to change to being about more active defenses, but my answer to your post: no.

Jitters.9401:

What I am starting to think is that the regular masses who play fairly do not know the forums exist, but the ones who play in a fashion where there is no fair play are the ones using the forums. Just to try to distract anet from the truth.

Ahem……
“If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.”

Ps. I run D/P, but haven’t touched Shadow Arts since before the patch, so your facts aren’t really factual.

PPs. I also suspect troll activity around here.

Einlanzer.1627:

Thieves are not in a good place right now. Asking for nerfs is insane. They have middle of the road burst with worse condi removal than most classes and basically die in one hit from anything.

Mesmers are for more OP than Thieves right now.

Actually nerfing the burst would allow for greater buffs to all other aspects of the thief. Like a better acrobatics line or the ability not to have to build crit or suck.

Jitters.9401:

You need to remove stealth gained via blackpowder and heartseeker.

1) Basilisk Venom Steal/cloak and dagger for stealth = dmge up to 7k
2) Backstab = damage up to 9k
3) Dodge/evade till reveal is over.
4) Attempt to Stealth with either cloak and dagger or
5) blackpowder/heartseeker for stealth/healing/condi clear.

I don’t mind the steps 1,2,3,4. I do not do much damage per hit, but I can still win even if I get hit for that initial 16k damage. Other classes can win even after the insane burst.

It is the blackpowder/heartseeker that is an issue. We see it all the time. Problem is, in the forums, no-one has specifically pointed out where the issue of thief stealth lies.

Fact
All the thieves who use this are running remove conditions on stealth and regen in stealth.
Fact
They use this skill to remove all condition damage and heal up to 100% while their opponent is sitting visible the entire time with no ability to heal more then a modest amount.
Fact
The balance is way off. I refuse to play this way just to win a fight.

It makes sense to not allow people the ability to nearly God Mode an aspect of the game.
1) I can’t kill diamond skin ele’s. I’m ok with that.
2) Some of the mesmers stealth so much I can’t kill them either. I’m ok with that.
3) A thief with good morals hits me for 16k (steps 1-3) total and I’m ok with that too.

I’m not ok with a god mode thief build. It ruins the game play and enjoyment of far more people then the number of idiots who use it.

If you remove the blackpowder/heartseeker stealth you will see far far less people complaining about thief stealth in the forums. The only people who will complain will be those who abuse the god mode just because they are bottom dwellers who feed off of ruining other people’s game play.

They will never kill me, but I am writing this post for those who can never escape a fight with a build that should never exist. As it stands, with issues like this, I have no inclination to buy your expansion.

LOL WUT?!.

Thief is perfectly fine as it is, any further Nerfing and thief will just become Ridiculously Underpowered, to take that from us with 0 compensation is just stupid, why dont we just go to ur main class and remove its MAIN MECHANICS from it so ur also a sitting duck.

this is Utterly Moronic and COMPLETELY selfish to wish a Proffession to become Unviable just because u have a Distaste for the kitten proffession! thiefs can stand up and Win if they’re good DEAL WITH IT every proffession should have that and they do on so many different Levels!

Mesmers currently HAVE stronger stealth within PU and other traits which they dont have to blow their Utility CDs to activate! if people are Struggling to get past thief is Because they are mindlessly running around by themselves which is STUPID because in SPVP it is MADE for teamplay, the game is NOT balanced for 1v1 situations so we shouldnt be nerfed cause Someone saw a easy Kill on some noob running naround like a headless chicken!

if you got a problem with People healing/Regening/building Resources such as Initative from Stealth thats a DIFFERENT conversationu ask for Shadow Arts and PU to be Nerfed u dont just Nerf their utility Constantly to try sap it out of them that way, thief can be viable WIthout Shadow Arts it CANNOT be viable without stealth we’re too squishy to live that sort of nerf and anyone with anything close to a Brain would know that we’re Designed AS the stealthers of the game! why ruin the ENTIRE purpose of our proffession.

U look for Nerfs which WONT ruin a class WHich is to change Shadow Arts to STOP players Just repeatively regening via Stealth builds as a thief can easily swap it into Critical Strikes and Still work perfectly fine.

before u claim im just another player who runs the build i do not

I run Critical strikes / trickery / Deadly Arts

And no i replaced blinding powder with Assassins Signet.

Marthkus.4615:

Einlanzer.1627:

Thieves are not in a good place right now. Asking for nerfs is insane. They have middle of the road burst with worse condi removal than most classes and basically die in one hit from anything.

Mesmers are for more OP than Thieves right now.

Actually nerfing the burst would allow for greater buffs to all other aspects of the thief. Like a better acrobatics line or the ability not to have to build crit or suck.

Sooo by this Forums Complaints.

1) we want Thiefs to have 0 Utility.

2) we dont want thiefs to have their Main Mechanics.

3) we dont want thiefs to burst.

4) We want to buff Survivability to make them bunkers.

very thief fitting.

Jitters.9401:

Einlanzer.1627:

Thieves are not in a good place right now. Asking for nerfs is insane. They have middle of the road burst with worse condi removal than most classes and basically die in one hit from anything.

Mesmers are for more OP than Thieves right now.

Getting hit with a steal/cloak and dagger hit to backstab of 16k total is a modest burst? What about the 2 auto attacks of up to 4k that come right after?

Having the ability to remove all conditions and heal to full health while your opponent cannot and has to sit in plain view is in a bad place?

So 20k damage in such a short time is modest. My ascended zerk Mesmer won’t do that damage. Close, but not that high.
Backstab can be used again in another 5 seconds after reveal is over. So another 5k cloak and dagger into another 9k backstab or they hit heart seeker repeatedly for the huge damage there.

You guys want your cake and eat it too. To do insane damage with as little risk as possible. It is a childish mentality. It isn’t right and unlike my build, a lot of the other professions cannot get away.

What I am starting to think is that the regular masses who play fairly do not know the forums exist, but the ones who play in a fashion where there is no fair play are the ones using the forums. Just to try to distract anet from the truth.

You talking about a d/d thief the risk reward in that build is the highest in the game. The ones that know how to play it at a high level are great video game players.

Draknar.5748:

risk vs. reward. something, something, same sound bites from other posts

Thieves are the one class that are entirely about risk vs reward. It doesn’t matter how often a thief can go into stealth, likely if they’ve gone into stealth once they’re going to take off unless they can clearly see you’re not prepping yourself and leave yourself open right after the fight. Even as squishy as I am as another thief, I rarely get taken down right after a disengage because I’m expecting them to re-position for another juiced up backstab. This is the class where people either stick with it for the long haul or give it up quick for any of the other classes, all of whom are far more forgiving.

its obvious what jitters argument truly is

Hes stating that the thief proffession has too many complexitys in its Mechanics for a Second player to understand and although he himself can kill thiefs continously and find them to be balanced, his team mates are continously dying to them

He wants the proffession Nerfed so a Player of a Lesser IQ than himself is capable of killing the proffession so he can no longer suffe rthe inconvinence. Apprantly ur Education DOES matter in the MMO World too! lmfao.

you cant NERF a class cause u play with a bunch of Morons, thats just ridiculous, if ur team mates are that bad they cant figure basic counters out then that aint no thiefs fault thats YOUR fault for solo queuing pvp, everybody knows PvP is FULL of idiots

not to mention half the community permanantly run VERY bad unviable builds for the Fun aspect or Roleplaying so they are handicapping themselves MAKING it easier for the thief to fecking kill em!

Lemme guess jitters u think PU Mesmers and Rampage warriors are perfectly viable as morons can play it Well as it takes Nothing but faceroll and Elite Spam to progress with it, they both do MORE damage then thief and have WAY More utility CC and Interupts then the thief.

welcome to the reason ANET ignore thief SUb forums, cause its 50% Raging morons who Hate a Rogue styled proffession ever sinc ethe big bad rogue touched u back in WoW

lets run through the classes Odds

thief has NO Capability to build itself to counter proffessions instantly, they do not hold that capability we just run the highest damaging build and rely on our own knowledge to get passed that barrier.

Thief has no Access to any bunker or point holding set ups, so they already suffer with being useless in one aspect of the pvp requirements.

Thief has no Access to any CC Styled builds, thiefs CC is Pretty low outself the fact we have some blinds and stuns.

Our Elite options are considerably weaker then other proffessions when compared to one another.

we Have No support or Healing variation. we have 0 Invunerabilitys to deflect damage either.

All our proffession has is Mobility and Damage and ur wanting to directly nerf both of them, its Just Ridiculously Moronic to ever suggest it….. Leave thief alone for god sake go pester some other proffessions about having things they can abuse in their skillsets.. PU Mesmers Rampaging Warriors Burn Guardians and Sustain Necros are 100x Worse then what we’re currently doing!

Jitters.9401:

snip

So a (zerker) thief blew half of their initiative and few CDs and only did 7k dmg? you think it is a lot actually lol?
Why are you letting them backstab you? Why are you letting them to land CnD?
You are saying that that thief is evading but that would mean they are playing dd/sd… odd build but ok.
Wait…. how can they stealth up with cnd and bp/hs? I thought that thief was dd/sd by your description.

Why do you get hit by that 16k dmg? Are you not capable of hitting dodge? Use blinds? Invuls? Blocks? Any defensives your class has to offer? You know at least by the time thief got CnD off and has decent Hp left it is safe to assume they will try to backstab you in next 1-3 sec.

You know why every thief runs dp? Because every other weapon set got nerfed to the ground and is hardly viable in competitive pvp and now in roaming as well. And you know why those got nerfed so much? Because of clueless complains like your post.

Actual fact: not every dp runs SA, SE or regen from SA. I don’t run SA, for example. Besides that regen and SE got nerfed pretty hard actually so idk what the QQ is about.

Actual fact: SE doesn’t clear all condis. SE also clears only 1 condi every 3 sec, meaning if thief has something like 5 condis on them they would have to sit for something like 15 sec in stealth. Same gors for getting Hp back to 100%. To achive such duration of stealth thief nowdays has to blow refuge which is a bull eye for every aoe possible or try to stack well times BP+HS + blinding powder, but once again BP is a bull eye, use aoe man… or just even stand next to it – chances are that thief stacking stealth will hit you with HS and reveal themself.

I agree on this fact. Balance will be always off. Perfect balance is not possible with so many variables. Nobody forces you to play w/e way you think you are forced to.

God Mode? Where? As far as i am aware, no class in this game has endless HP, endless heals, perma invul and 1 shot button.

1) ok?
2) ok?
3) thief with good morals? Did i just read morals? You going to ask for class changes based on some made up morals? Really? That is like asking to remove 4 from metric system because you think 4 is not well behaving. 1/10

Please, tell me what is that god mode thief build you are talking about. I want to have god mode too. Couldn’t find any clue about it in thief traits.

Your claim about ruined experience and “idiots” is based on what statistics?

Oh ofc you will see less people complain about stealth from thieves because class will simply be deleted from any competitive area of this game. If you didn’t know yet thieves don’t have any ways to mitigate dmg. They can either evade OR exclusively go in stealth, but not actually take dmg. Fyi, the evade builds were nerfed pretty hard, nerf stealth and you will basically have eles spamming auto attack, having 0 heals and 0 protection.

People won’t complain about bp/hs removal. They will simply quit game or switch to other class and will still beat you. Then you will just move to to cry about those classes. I have high suspection that a lot of thieves reroll mesmers atm because that class is really strong atm while thieves got hit hard (again… Anet, you guys srsly are getting boring with all that nerfing, get creative for once).

So basically anyone who beat you is bottom dweller? Oh oh. What does it make you?

Wait, they can’t kill you and you complain? Shouldn’t it be other way around? Also, thief players didn’t make expansion, just saying.

First I’d like to say I don’t play thief all that much, though I have one at 80. And the reason is exactly what the OP is talking about. It’s so cheesy. I think thieves shouldn’t get to disengage and re-engage combat as they choose. Opening burst is fine, ambushing players is fine. But doing it continuously until your opponent finally gets bored or messes up is dumb.

I also think that in toning this down, the game will stabilize more. Right now, thieves are balanced around on demand, nigh permanent stealth. While I don’t know how one should go about balancing the constant disengaging, without it thieves would surely get buffs in other areas. Maybe a tanky thief, one with lifesteal and plenty of evades, could be built. Condi, support, etc could be buffed to compensate. I know personally I’d love to play a thief that didn’t HAVE to rely so much on stealth.

Wulf.5431:

First I’d like to say I don’t play thief all that much, though I have one at 80. And the reason is exactly what the OP is talking about. It’s so cheesy. I think thieves shouldn’t get to disengage and re-engage combat as they choose. Opening burst is fine, ambushing players is fine. But doing it continuously until your opponent finally gets bored or messes up is dumb.

I also think that in toning this down, the game will stabilize more. Right now, thieves are balanced around on demand, nigh permanent stealth. While I don’t know how one should go about balancing the constant disengaging, without it thieves would surely get buffs in other areas. Maybe a tanky thief, one with lifesteal and plenty of evades, could be built. Condi, support, etc could be buffed to compensate. I know personally I’d love to play a thief that didn’t HAVE to rely so much on stealth.

You do know there are plenty of ways to stop thief from stealthing. Besides stealth in pvp means you just won the point….

Please tell me on which facts or information is your claim based that thieves are balanced around perma stealth? Revealed still exists btw, anti-stealth spells/traits were added too.

Game stabilize? Game is instabile for many reasons but i am sure thieves are not the main reason (judging by pvp/wvw/general discussion forums). What choice does thief have besides “disengaging”? Thieves would never get trade off buffs in any areas judging by every single patch brought up by devs so far. Also, let’s assume anet does remove stealth and buff thieves surival, wouldn’t it just make them guardians/wars?

There is thief build that doesn’t rely on stealth, acro sd, you can play that. If you dislike stealth gameplay you probably are playing wrong class generally. Nobody forces you to play it, really. Should the class be completely redesigned because you don’t enjoy it and want them to be second warriors?… oh cmon now.

till thieves won t have protection ability u will see a lot of stealth, and btw, rapid shots ignore him
ah, mesmer atm has the higher burst dmg.. easier and more effective
don t talk about the trait the reflect the stun on the target..
and for the people that rolled mesmer.. it s easy to understand, right now a mesmer is more thief than a thief himself
i played since the launc of game.. month after month i saw the stealth losing the prerogative to be a thief’s tool and after prismatic understanding i am convinced that is a mesmer’ s tool

i am convinced that all community agrees to enhance the survability.. our dmg i fine

Ahhh. You guys amuse me so much.
I haven’t played from start, but more then 2 years as a thief.

What I find the most amusing, is I am asking for a change to make a build “I Used to Play” become more balanced, yet people think I m complaining for my own sake.

Learn to read and learn to identify what is actually being said.

Here is this posting line in a nutshell.

Me ==> I can do things that are unfair to most other wvw classes. Can we change it so non thieves can have a fighting chance.
You Folks ==> No don’t. (good job at arguing).
Me ==> I stopped playing the build because it is far too powerful and I would rather risk losing a fight then ruin someone’s fun.
You Folks ==> rabble rabble rabble, you are wrong we are right.
Me ==> I actually posted conservative damages and how I used the build to destroy anyone I fought.
You Folks ==> We have no facts but you are wrong and we are right.

Seriously now. At one point my crit was over 80%. I was killing people just by using “shadow shot” to teleport to them and blind, dagger strike. I recall one poor fellow, a ranger dead in 3 hits, and with the use of blind he was lucky to hit me once.

Or, Shadow shot/ dagger strike/blind weapon swap to d/d. Cloak and dagger then basilisk venom. Backstab then 2 auto attack and death for my opponent. If he happened to have an escape ability, all I did was use steal to get back into melee range.

I used withdraw as a heal. So if my target hit me a good shot, I’d withdraw, then either steal back or use shadow shot (depending if I had weapon swapped yet).

So question. Who is most likely to be telling the truth? The person who says he changed his wvw build because it was far too powerful, or those who say it is fine?

I’ll happily say I’ve been the best thief on every bl I have played on. However, with all your arguing, the only conclusion to be had is I am just so much better at thief then you all, that my tactics are beyond your understanding of reality. There is no other logical conclusion to your fact-less denials. I wish I had the time to train you all the leet skill set for thief.

Oh well. I’ll go mess with people in game. If I win the lottery I’ll run a thief 101 class for you all. You all made a logical post too long for anet to read. So nice work at hiding the truth.

Toodles

Jitters.9401:

snip

So? Nearly every player of every class has got similar stories to tell (4 shoted someone who didn’t fight back) – doesn’t mean a thing actually.

Well, you do have to admit, it’s a cute name, right?

Jitters the Troll

I just wanna hug it and squeeze it. So fluffy!!! :-D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8EFVDq0crs

Jitters.

You want to nerf D/P because almost every thief uses it now.
But you know why that is? because every single other build out there (apart from maybe P/D condi) has been nerfed/was always lackluster

• D/D deals less damage now and has always suffered from the fact that it basically does the same thing D/P does, just worse. you basically cant use #3 or #4, while D/P’s skills are all usuable
• S/D’s acrobatic trait line has been nerfed to the ground, taking might on dodge, Feline Grace and +10% damage with it (also the vigor nerf…)
• S/P always suffered as it’s #3 is mostly useless due to being so static
• P/P is a weird weapon combination with skills that dont combo with each other, add to that the fact that Ricochet was removed

So instead of nerfing D/P to the ground, maybe make the other weapon combinations viable and see how people start using them

With the nerf to Shadow’s Embrace, you can now counter the Black Powder and Heartseeker combo with Immobilize. Even if they gain stealth they won’t be able to move.

kash.9213:

This is the class where people either stick with it for the long haul or give it up quick for any of the other classes, all of whom are far more forgiving.

Agreed but this game is also heavily alt based.

Can’t imagine there’s many out there who don’t have an alt to switch too. I’d class myself as a casual and as such I tend to run two duo mains in any MMO. I don’t have the timesink to have 12 80’s like many but more importantly given my past experiences in other MMORPG’s it’s an expectation that there will be times where classes akin to the Thief get massively nerfed.

It’s an inevitability and I always have that second main as a back-up while crap like this is going on.

My Guardian is loving life atm.

Chade.6759:

Actually I was running in WvW and a thief backstabbed my ranger for 14.5k damage, insane damage, didn’t know he was there, no chance to do anything about it.

Lemme guess, you were on your LB power pew pew build huh? Trying to take out some up-levels or afks?