Guild Wars 2

Somehow I find this insulting http://youtu.be/khjQvqeFlxs .

Eh, anyone who records wvw roaming is going to eventually build up a collection of them killing bad players. Didn’t watch the entire thing, but none of the thieves did a good job sticking to the ranger, a bunch simply walked into and stood in traps, and I didn’t see any of them use the stolen ability, which completely destroys condition rangers.

TLDR: Bad players not a bad class.

Do you even lift bro!?

I didn’t see any good thieves in that video

A majority (as in >50%) of the thieves nowadays are newbs. That is what happens when you overnerf a profession based off of popular belief. The people who don’t play thief simply because it is cheesy then get on the profession thinking that it is “still powerful but better balanced” and get their face wrecked by other players because they just do not understand the class.

EDIT: Meanwhile thieves who better know what they are doing are enjoying other professions.

it has one role, and only one role. Its Representative at high tier pvp because teams can build around that role and it can be very effective.

that being said… it has one role only.

it is by far the weakest class in 1v1 and team fights. Thief only hard counters Mesmer. It can soft counter ranger and other burst in team fights only, but only as a soft counter(meaning it can’t totally neutralize, but with a little help from team can own the other burst rather quickly but needs a little push from the team)

Basically don’t play thief if you want to win in 1v1 situations and also be very active in the team fight.

Michael.9517:

Basically don’t play thief if you want to win in 1v1 situations and also be very active in the team fight.

While I agree most teams take a thief due to its ability to use mobility and quickly outrotate the opponents, thief isn’t nearly as weak as you’re portraying it.

With regards to the 1v1, its true that thief has a number of tough matchups, but a large part of that is due to the zerker amulet. You aren’t building for 1v1s as a thief (in Spvp) so why compare yourself to builds that largely are designed around that current 1v1 or 2v2 meta? Your purpose isn’t 1v1, and while top thieves can pull that off, your role is making the 1v1s into 2v1s into a dead opponent before they can react. Thieves aren’t dead meat 1v1 (you mention mesmer, thief also has an advantage imo against rangers (condi or power)).

Your claim that thieves aren’t able to contribute to a team fight is fairly laughable. You’re trying to compare apples to oranges with a comparison of thief to bruiser builds that are designed to sit in the teamfight damage and soak it up (shout war, d/d ele, to a certain extent cele engis).

A thief’s contribution to a team fight can swing the entire fight in your favor with massive swings from; taking out the opponent’s burst class (taking out enemy burst prior to teamfight or early in it can easily translate to won teamfight), every meta thief build runs trickery and BT and therefore gives the thief the ability to interrupt the opponent through stability (interrupting a key rez, stomp, banner, heal, or elite (ie lich) can either secure or swing a teamfight into your favor), AoE pressure and poison (slower rezzes + good damage → dead rezzers or at the very least puts the opponent on the backfoot), and last but not least, shadow refuge, the versatility of this skill provides a large bit to a team fight (putting it onto your allies to secure a rez, get the jump at the start of a fight, or cover your rotations into the teamfight).

In your statement above you’re basically asking for thief to be the god of pvp. Wanting to be able to 1v1 (which is even currently possible against every build, with the closest thing to a hard counter being a medi guardian) and be active in a teamfight (idk what you mean by this, can you sit in aoe? No, but you can almost singlehandedly win fights otherwise for your team), all while still having the mobility that the thief currently has is a silly expectation.

TLDR: Learn the class, know your role, play smarter

Helly.2597:

Michael.9517:

Basically don’t play thief if you want to win in 1v1 situations and also be very active in the team fight.

While I agree most teams take a thief due to its ability to use mobility and quickly outrotate the opponents, thief isn’t nearly as weak as you’re portraying it.

With regards to the 1v1, its true that thief has a number of tough matchups, but a large part of that is due to the zerker amulet. You aren’t building for 1v1s as a thief (in Spvp) so why compare yourself to builds that largely are designed around that current 1v1 or 2v2 meta? Your purpose isn’t 1v1, and while top thieves can pull that off, your role is making the 1v1s into 2v1s into a dead opponent before they can react. Thieves aren’t dead meat 1v1 (you mention mesmer, thief also has an advantage imo against rangers (condi or power)).

Your claim that thieves aren’t able to contribute to a team fight is fairly laughable. You’re trying to compare apples to oranges with a comparison of thief to bruiser builds that are designed to sit in the teamfight damage and soak it up (shout war, d/d ele, to a certain extent cele engis).

A thief’s contribution to a team fight can swing the entire fight in your favor with massive swings from; taking out the opponent’s burst class (taking out enemy burst prior to teamfight or early in it can easily translate to won teamfight), every meta thief build runs trickery and BT and therefore gives the thief the ability to interrupt the opponent through stability (interrupting a key rez, stomp, banner, heal, or elite (ie lich) can either secure or swing a teamfight into your favor), AoE pressure and poison (slower rezzes + good damage -> dead rezzers or at the very least puts the opponent on the backfoot), and last but not least, shadow refuge, the versatility of this skill provides a large bit to a team fight (putting it onto your allies to secure a rez, get the jump at the start of a fight, or cover your rotations into the teamfight).

In your statement above you’re basically asking for thief to be the god of pvp. Wanting to be able to 1v1 (which is even currently possible against every build, with the closest thing to a hard counter being a medi guardian) and be active in a teamfight (idk what you mean by this, can you sit in aoe? No, but you can almost singlehandedly win fights otherwise for your team), all while still having the mobility that the thief currently has is a silly expectation.

TLDR: Learn the class, know your role, play smarter

get off your high horse. That last statement “learn the class” blah blah blah… is so typical kitten of you. Clearly your incapable of reasonable discussion.

I will respond to you once and only once.

I was explaining what the roll of a thief. You basically confirmed everything I said, except the team fight part which I’ll get to in a minute. But your responding to me like I was complaining. I am not complaining. And I’m not asking Thief to be god at anything. I am stating the role of a thief in the current meta which you have confirmed. Then went to say I should learn the class? lol. Your a clown.

And no, 1v1 is not possible vs d/d ele, cele engineers/turret engi’s, power rangers, terrormancers, medi guards, shout-bow warriors. All things equal, thief loses every time using the meta build in a true 1v1. Only if the thief is far superior in skill, or the other person makes a mistake will a thief win. If you are winning vs people of those builds, those people are bad at their class.

I never said they can’t contribute to team fights. Your misquoting me. I said they shouldn’t be in team fights. They should be off to the side, using bow dropping poison and only going in to finish opponents off when low, then getting back out. Of course use SR when needed and interrupting with steal and boon stripping, these things are a given. When I say in the fight, I mean in the meat of the fight, I suppose I should have made that clear. I guess you misunderstood me, but instead of being a gentlemen about it, you have to troll hard.

My advice, show more respect towards people. Until then, you get none from me.

Good day sir.

No, we are not. Those thieves are just weak.

Terissimo.6852:

No, we are not. Those thieves are just weak.

Well we’re generally weak to condi burst and continual application. We can have decent removal if we trait for it, but we don’t exactly have the continual high amount of removal that the other classes do. An example is ele. Ele has excellent burst condi removal and ongoing removal, where we lack the burst removal. That’s fine though because it’s supposed to be our weakness (as stated a long while ago in one of the “high level balance decisions” thread).

Overall I agree we aren’t weak.

Like said above thieves are naturally weak to condi burst (low health pool) and aoe (you can’t negate an aoe with a blind). 2 things that this ranger exel at.
And btw, the build that this ranger use is a cheesy build that could wreck any player that don’t know what they are facing.

PS.: Don’t worry this runeset ain’t available in spvp and it’s useless in pve. You’ll only see this in wvw.

Narkodx.1472:

Do you even lift bro!?

I didn’t see any good thieves in that video

Exactly, that is lower Tier EU though, doesn’t mean there’s bad players there – there’s bad players everywhere in WvW. Just like certain players running thinking they can run among the Melee Train Blob, who turn out to be rallybots.

Thieves are strong in the role they are originally assigned to, Hit and Run Burst damage. For everything else there are better options. So in a way thieves are not weak but they are weak in the role department. This doesn’t matter however if you are a good player.

Michael.9517:

get off your high horse. That last statement “learn the class” blah blah blah… is so typical kitten of you. Clearly your incapable of reasonable discussion.

I was explaining what the roll of a thief. You basically confirmed everything I said, except the team fight part which I’ll get to in a minute. But your responding to me like I was complaining. I am not complaining. And I’m not asking Thief to be god at anything. I am stating the role of a thief in the current meta which you have confirmed. Then went to say I should learn the class? lol. Your a clown.

I never said they can’t contribute to team fights. Your misquoting me. I said they shouldn’t be in team fights. They should be off to the side, using bow dropping poison and only going in to finish opponents off when low, then getting back out. Of course use SR when needed and interrupting with steal and boon stripping, these things are a given. When I say in the fight, I mean in the meat of the fight, I suppose I should have made that clear. I guess you misunderstood me, but instead of being a gentlemen about it, you have to troll hard.

My advice, show more respect towards people. Until then, you get none from me.

Good day sir.

Taking a forum comment as a personal attack probably isn’t the best strategy.

I never said that a thief of equal skill to an opponent d/d ele shout war or engi will win. However, you have the ability to capitalize on their mistakes and have the potential to win a fight even if it is difficult. And a thief not being able to win 1v1 against a power ranger? A bad ratio for that fight would be 60:40 in the thief’s favor, and with the amount of LOS in spvp you could probably get that to 80:20 without a lot of mechanical improvement.

You claim you aren’t complaining, but using a hyperbolic statement like you use in the first comment (if you want to win 1v1s or be active in a teamfight this isn’t the class for you), it certainly comes across as complaining.

Why would a thief ever want to be in the meat of a fight? If you want to be in the middle, I suppose change the amulet and change the spec? Trying to have the best of both worlds with the high burst of zerker and being in the middle of the team fight. Like I mentioned above, you’re trying to compare apples to oranges with comparing thief to the bruiser team fighters.

As far as you taking offense to my last statement, that is your choice. If you think that was intended as a personal attack on you, or that the comment was a troll, that is your choice. However, I stand by the statement and believe that when one considers what thief is good at and how they do contribute to a teamfight, they will find that thief isn’t nearly as weak as you’re attempting to portray it.

Have a good day too!

Helly.2597:

(you mention mesmer, thief also has an advantage imo against rangers (condi or power)).

No offence, but as one who mains ranger, I’ve yet to see that so called advantage being a problem when facing thieves. Rangers got numerous ways to counter thieves, both in condi and power builds.

Edit: Your estimated 60vs40 ratio (at worst) in the thief’s favor doesn’t add up to my experience. LOS is a problem, but working around that is what differentiate the bad rangers from the better. You said “learn your class and play smarter” earlier. Well, that goes for rangers too.

Simple answer: Yes!

A bit longer answer: Yes!…against good players.

Slightly more longer answer: Yes!…in an equal skill level match up, the thief will lose, unless the stars align in your favour.

You’re only good at one thing as a thief: running away, resetting fights, running away, mobility, running away, running away, and…running away.

Narkodx.1472:

Do you even lift bro!?

I didn’t see any good thieves in that video

But a question is are we assuming its always bad thief vs good [insert other class]? Bad thief always losing to bad anything else isn’t good either. Just as good thief vs good anything else always winning or losing wouldn’t be balanced either.

What a lot of people don’t understand about Thieves is that they are highly gimmicky. This is largely due to the design of the Initiative system and secondarily to Stealth and attrition balance.

What this basically means is that Thieves can be very strong, even bordering on OP, with the right set-up, skill configuration, and game-play style designed to maximize their strengths and de-emphasize their weaknesses, but they are much worse than other professions without the right setups.

So, in other words, if you aren’t very strategic (more strategic than other professions require) about how you build and play your Thief, you’re going to be terrible.

Different answers from different people. Overall it all comes down to to strategic gameplay to have a good fight.

Michael.9517:

it has one role, and only one role. Its Representative at high tier pvp because teams can build around that role and it can be very effective.

that being said… it has one role only.

it is by far the weakest class in 1v1 and team fights. Thief only hard counters Mesmer. It can soft counter ranger and other burst in team fights only, but only as a soft counter(meaning it can’t totally neutralize, but with a little help from team can own the other burst rather quickly but needs a little push from the team)

Basically don’t play thief if you want to win in 1v1 situations and also be very active in the team fight.

Thief is one of the worst 1v1 classes in the game but it’s one of the best team fight classes in the game, so your post is half wrong. A good thief makes a HUGE difference in a team fight and really shuts down eng/eles/necros/rangers/mesmers in team fights.

Look at that vid, point blank shot + rapid fire on a condition build (a clean opener from a power ranger will take about 18k) takes out approx. 50% of a thieF’s hp, rapid fire tracks through stealth and can not be dodged the proectiles will follow you while you are dodging and still hit you, you can also not teleport to avoid the shots because the proectiles still track you even if you teleport behind the ranger (watch the fight at the cliff by the sentinel ne of sm castle closely to get the best example for this). Burning is the only really dangerous condition the ease with which it is applied basically forces permant cleansing without a lot of stealth and investment into shadow arts the thief will not be able to keep up with this.

Those thieves did not understand what hit them and even if they did their builds are inadequate to handle this ranger.

To answer your question: Yes, thieves are that weak, you need more knowledge about the other proffessions to be successful as a thief and you have absolutely zero room for error. This is how we pay for our unique resource system and the utility we can have. The only proffession that is weaker than thieves is mesmer that is how mesmers pay for their unique mechanic and their lockdown potential.

Face it obectively thieves and mesmers suck, the ones playing at “high level” spvp (haha balanced pvp, play chess if you want that) get carried by their team both professions are played for style reasons and the players doing decent with those two proffessions would do way better with guardian, warrior or engineer.

Bazzoong.7145:

Look at that vid, point blank shot + rapid fire on a condition build (a clean opener from a power ranger will take about 18k) takes out approx. 50% of a thieF’s hp, rapid fire tracks through stealth and can not be dodged the proectiles will follow you while you are dodging and still hit you, you can also not teleport to avoid the shots because the proectiles still track you even if you teleport behind the ranger (watch the fight at the cliff by the sentinel ne of sm castle closely to get the best example for this). Burning is the only really dangerous condition the ease with which it is applied basically forces permant cleansing without a lot of stealth and investment into shadow arts the thief will not be able to keep up with this.

Those thieves did not understand what hit them and even if they did their builds are inadequate to handle this ranger.

To answer your question: Yes, thieves are that weak, you need more knowledge about the other proffessions to be successful as a thief and you have absolutely zero room for error. This is how we pay for our unique resource system and the utility we can have. The only proffession that is weaker than thieves is mesmer that is how mesmers pay for their unique mechanic and their lockdown potential.

Face it obectively thieves and mesmers suck, the ones playing at “high level” spvp (haha balanced pvp, play chess if you want that) get carried by their team both professions are played for style reasons and the players doing decent with those two proffessions would do way better with guardian, warrior or engineer.

Yeah I wreck people whenever I get on my engineer due to the amount of training I get on from my thief XDlol anyway this “dedicated ranger” has compilations of beating all classes in the game on his cheese made ranger. Check out he’s channel. Weird how we don’t see thieves do something like this. Guess there’s a reason for that.

I really hope this new expansion would give us a chance to redeem ourselves for duels(1v1). I honestly doubt it though

Seeing this makes me depressed a bit, but I don’t really notice any problem with my thief against rangers. I play Spvp every day for 3-5 matches and I don’t really have any hard time with it anymore, well no where near as hard as when I first came back after the April 2014 patch.

There are bad players and good players, a lot of variation can happen. For example I hate turret engis and 2 days I ago, I took out a turret engi at enemy home single handly under 20s. I normally don’t have trouble with power necros and yesterday I couldn’t kill him with a teammate.

TL’DR
Don’t judge a class by individual players, know your class’s strength and weakness use them accordingly.

The best class in the game is really not that much better than the worst class in the game. There can be a world of difference between a god tier player and bad player.

Kuzuryu.7359:

Seeing this makes me depressed a bit, but I don’t really notice any problem with my thief against rangers. I play Spvp every day for 3-5 matches and I don’t really have any hard time with it anymore, well no where near as hard as when I first came back after the April 2014 patch.

There are bad players and good players, a lot of variation can happen. For example I hate turret engis and 2 days I ago, I took out a turret engi at enemy home single handly under 20s. I normally don’t have trouble with power necros and yesterday I couldn’t kill him with a teammate.

TL’DR
Don’t judge a class by individual players, know your class’s strength and weakness use them accordingly.

The best class in the game is really not that much better than the worst class in the game. There can be a world of difference between a god tier player and bad player.

Thanks for stating that. Wait was the turret engi good? Or upscaled? :o I don’t have trouble with power necros only terrormancers, just bring a shortbow if you know you’re going against a powermancer. How? Use it to bait DS off. Till he’s out of he’s shell, spike him. Try not to step on marks, if he baits you by standing on marks cluster bomb him out of them or use choking gas. Avoid life blast at all cost either by Los or any evade frame #3 shortbow preferably for more control.

Nephrite.6954:

Kuzuryu.7359:

Seeing this makes me depressed a bit, but I don’t really notice any problem with my thief against rangers. I play Spvp every day for 3-5 matches and I don’t really have any hard time with it anymore, well no where near as hard as when I first came back after the April 2014 patch.

There are bad players and good players, a lot of variation can happen. For example I hate turret engis and 2 days I ago, I took out a turret engi at enemy home single handly under 20s. I normally don’t have trouble with power necros and yesterday I couldn’t kill him with a teammate.

TL’DR
Don’t judge a class by individual players, know your class’s strength and weakness use them accordingly.

The best class in the game is really not that much better than the worst class in the game. There can be a world of difference between a god tier player and bad player.

Thanks for stating that. Wait was the turret engi good? Or upscaled? :o I don’t have trouble with power necros only terrormancers, just bring a shortbow if you know you’re going against a powermancer. How? Use it to bait DS off. Till he’s out of he’s shell, spike him. Try not to step on marks, if he baits you by standing on marks cluster bomb him out of them or use choking gas. Avoid life blast at all cost either by Los or any evade frame #3 shortbow preferably for more control.

They were all in spvp, I don’t do WvW. The point is, it’s not the class or the build. It’s just me and the player behind the keyboard. Two player playing dps meditation guadian, I destroy one of them but they others destroys me. Only difference is how we play. Even if a class hard counter you, doesn’t mean beating it is impossible.