Guild Wars 2

It’s the stealth that’s broken, and 90% of that is ANets fault.

1) Play an Engineer so not a biased opinion.
2) The main issue I see people complaining about along with the damage is the rendering issues causing what appears to be a permanent stealth state.
3) Sub issues on the topic is that damage doesn’t break stealth and it removes all conditions.
Simple fix and I don’t understand why they are going to butcher thieves, everyone will be happy except the bad ones that are on your class right now as it’s the FotM after Guardian GS nerf.

Make damage break stealth, make the stealth heal roulette which condition it heals rather than all of them. Leave the damage alone. Someone wants to run around in Berserker’s gear and all offensive utilities/traits, they deserve to get dropped in 3 seconds, as they sure don’t complain when they are on the end that’s delivering the burst.
Edit: Oh yeah and fix the rendering issue.

Hide in Shadows is on a 30-second cooldown. The fact that it removes a bunch of degenerative conditions really isn’t that big of a deal, I think (note that it doesn’t do crap against Immobilize, which, IIRC, is one of your best conditions as an Engineer). Other forms of stealth don’t remove conditions unless you trait for it (then it’s basically one at a time).

Since you need stealth to set up stealth attacks, “damage breaks stealth” would make stealth almost pointless against any competent player. That’s just pushing thieves towards Pistol Whip or condition-spam strategies. I don’t think that’s desirable at all. Allowing the little numbers to still show up when you hit a stealthed player might be acceptable (although this over-rewards condition spam and area-attack builds), but straight-up revealing on damage would just break the mechanic altogether.

I don’t like the “damage breaks stealth” idea.
I’d rather have “get hit 50% harder in stealth”.
Maybe they could add a blood trail or something when we take damage, so others can aoe us, without thieves losing their sneak attacks.

1/2 a second of seeing you as you appear on your screen seems better, ghostly image, gives just enough time to have a general idea if they’re going fight or flight, and lets the thief know he needs to reroute if he’s smart. 50% harder is a tad to extreme for something so squishy. Although that debuff should be placed on yours and mesmers quickness like everyone elses, but different discussion, different time.

Fact of the matter is stealth itself is a busted mechanic for this game, they say you’re supposed to stay active, avoid being hit, but can’t do that when the guy is invis. Do I mind stealth? No. I am smart enough to not run around in Berserker so backstabs usually only get me for 2500 tops. So if you factor the numbers, 2500/~4(stealth debuff, global cooldown, cast time) , looking at a ballpark of 700dps on good rolls.

The only thing irritating is mainly culling issues with stealth, and the fact can get at least 2000 away while stealthed.

Edit: And stealthed finishers, if I had to get Juggernaut nerfed because of that, you shouldn’t be able to do it either!

I got hit for 7k + today w/ 1700 toughness. I have nothing that hits for 4k, period. I am not saying overpowered, I’m not going to cry, but you seriously think its ok?

It would be okay if a glass build was actually glass but when played properly it’s a high survivability build as well as a high burst dmg build.

You can’t have both without creating imbalance unless you make everyone that overpowered.

First, toughness doesn’t mean jack in any equation, total armor is mitigation, you could have 1700 toughness but only 2k armor…see the thing there?

And yes if you read that’s where the issue is, with the survivability of the broken stealth mechanic, which it’s about 20% to do with stealth and 80% culling issue ANet claims to be fixing. Flat out stealth is a trinity ability that doesn’t belong in this game, but since it is already here, rather than making thieves hit like noodles, fix it at the source.

Backstab, without tons of trait support actually rides the line of being too weak to risk attempting. If anything goes wrong, the thief is brutally punished for it.

It is indeed “fine.” Something goes amiss with traits, though. It’s probably not even the damage from traits, but the way it combos. Sigil > C&D > Steal > Mug > Backstab are pretty much all one move, not a sequence. Rather than hitting multiple times, over a couple of seconds, you just blast it all at once. I’d say THAT might be the issue.

That brings another question to the table, though…. do we want Steal to interrupt C&D? My gut says yes. I think there’s still more to consider, though; lots more.

As for stealth, it doesn’t need to be nerfed, period. It’s not overpowered, and it’s easy to deal with a stealthed thief, if you know how. The stealth bugs are what need to be fixed.

Reaxident.7351:

I got hit for 7k + today w/ 1700 toughness. I have nothing that hits for 4k, period. I am not saying overpowered, I’m not going to cry, but you seriously think its ok?

This kind of thing^
Srsly….grow up.
Warrior hits for the same if not more at least with Glass Cannon rifle and you dare complain to us about a difference of damage? The issue is not we are the only ones who do this damage, its the fact that some professions lack such a burst and find it amazing that people can do such damage when I view it as ordinary because my Warrior does it all day with even less risk. It’s a different point of view.

If the reason why you dislike backstab is b/c of the sheer damage I better see you complain about a whole hell of a lot more as well. If your problem is instead that you can’t deal with stealth then direct your arguments there, L2P, or wait for the fix to rendering and see if its still such a big deal.

Tired of misdirected hate simply because someone was on the wrong end of a Dagger. Where’s the complaint when you’re on the wrong side of a rifle when you also weren’t paying attention? Attacking with a Dagger makes it more personal and therefore more hate. Can’t hit a Thief in stealth? You can, you just don’t know how and panic. Can’t hit a Warrior at 1200-1500 units? You just plain can’t.

The answer is not “omg nerf everything that’s stronger than me or has a higher burst!”
it’s “I accept some professions have different strengths and weaknesses but atm my profession’s strengths are completely lacking and we need a buff.”

Okay, okay… going to dumb this down so it makes sense why stealth needs a tweak. This game does not support the trinity effect. Trinity for those who don’t know is designated tank, healer, and dps.
Playing this game like any other MMO will give you major problems, which is probably why people are crying thinking they can tank and spank there way through everything.

Stealth completely destroys the concept of how the game works, backstab flat out is massive damage, as it should be, but how the game is designed is you are supposed to be able to avoid massive damage, via dodge rolling, blocking, etc. Which you cannot currently with how stealth is.

Face the facts, an untrained chimp can play a backstab rogue, F1, 1, 2, 5, 1, 2, 5. Throw in a dodge here and there.

The problem is that with culling issues, most of the time that combo is done and you never even popped up. Any thief who says stealth is balanced odds are uses it for hit and runs or griefing capture points.

The fact that of all the posts I’ve read on your forums shows that 90% of you want this games pvp to be like WoW’s in vanilla where rogues were wrecking balls, “Well since they are nerfing backstab, they need to make this spec overpowered instead.”

FotM, Flavor of the Month, is what you guys are now, congrats. Mesmers got nerfed near the start where they couldn’t burst you in a single knockdown, so those kids rolled thieves or GS Guardians, then GS Guardians got nerfed, so they all went to Thieves or GS Warriors. People can whine QQ, don’t nerf all they want, but when you have 90% of a class that don’t know what they are doing and rolling over people with broken mechanics, of course they are going to nerf it. Then those people move on to the next FotM.
Welcome to the world of MMO’s. Once again, Engineer, ask me how getting blind sided with the Juggernaut nerf was, or them taking have condition durations from pistols due to this same thing.

With all the kids popping up on every post whining how thieves aren’t ridiculous I am glad you might get nerfed into the ground, then they will leave and the people who actually know how to play the class without abusing mechanics will be able to get it working right again.

TL;DR.
Stealth only works in Trinity, too many kids playing same spec in your class, Devs are balancing based on statistics and because nerfing is a lot easier than balancing.

To all the thieves who know how to play, wish you the best, to the kids who are apparently new to MMO’s and not used to the FotM class getting nerfed, get used to it.

Anyone who thinks stealth is balanced, go back to WoW, EQ2, Aion, Whatever tank and spank you came from, because the skill does need tweaked to have a place in this game with how the mechanics work.

Edit: Stealth being tweaked as in giving a sign of where they are at if you land a hit on them, EVERYTHING else with stealth is culling on their end.

Sum it all up, there were many posts that could have gone in a good way, but the whiners of the thieves derailed them and wanted the cake and eat it too. Pretty much you had to pick your poison, could have gone down the route of losing damage, or gone down the path of lower survival. And for some reason in all these games it is only the rogue class that kills itself with this. Due to this your fate has been left with the dev team, which thus far has shown it is going to nerf to quite the masses rather than skim through whines looking for fixes.

Backstabs damage was never an issue, the only people whining about it were other glass canons who couldn’t get there burst off first, or the warrior that got mug+BSed while he was frenzied. Every person who came onto the forums complaining, "I have 1500+ toughness and it crit me for OVER 9000!!! Yet no one called them out that they don’t have a clue on the mitigation equations.

Thieves damage is fine, stealth need tweaked, traps need buffed, poisons need buffed, pistols need buffed.

Now watch with the bold, of the list, someone will poke there head in and jump on the one thing on that list that might be a nerf other than the positives, and thus is how you dug your own grave. All of the bold is true, btw.

I want to see separate pvp/pve changes if they’re going to nerf this.
Keep as is for pve.

It’ll happen, just take a few years like in GW1, should have been that way at launch.

God Sealer, I understand where you’re coming from, but it seems like you may have drawn some fallacious conclusions.

If I understand you correctly, you’re saying stealth is wrong for the game, because you can’t “dodge” away from what you can’t see. I think you’re saying that pairing stealth and burst damage together is for games with big heals to help you recover. (A dedicated healer, for instance.) Part of the holy trinity. You can correct me if you need to.

While that makes sense, from your perspective, I think the developers (and myself, and many other players) have a different way of looking at it…. Stealth does not last very long in this game. (I love that, btw.) All but one of our stealths have 2-5 second durations. Very short, so it’s very easy to simply not be where the thief wants you to be, when they stealth. Basic stealth attacks are incredibly avoidable, but people have to be of a mind to avoid them in the first place. A thief wants your back, so simply don’t give it to them. (Seriously, run away if you have to. It’ll only be 5 seconds.)

So, you see, nobody needs a healer, just because thieves can stealth.

On that same line of thinking, there are dozens and dozens of ways to not only avoid stealth damage, but to actually kill a thief while stealthed. It can be quite easy.

What really needs to happen, is the stealth bugs need to get fixed, and I think more people will see, stealth isn’t dangerous unless you put yourself where the thief wants you.

As for the FotM thing…. People do the FotM thing for classes that are easiest to win with. I need to make a distinction here, though. “Easiest to win” doesn’t mean most powerful. A lot of times it’s simply easier to play / control in general. Simplicity draws bad players and opportunists, so where ever people can find a way to make winning simpler or dumbed down, that’s what they’ll play.

Sometimes things aren’t legitimately OP, they’re just favored, because some people don’t like to work too hard at anything. Good thieves play far differently than the FotM people.

I’m going to kindly disagree on your idea, and here are my counter arguments.

Don’t think of this stealth same as stealth in WOW or other MMOs. The average stealth lasts 2-3s, and your stealth is literally part of how you damage, tank, and heal. If stealth breaks on damage, can you imagine how completely useless it is to even stealth? The amount it costs is 6 initiative, or 4 if you go into shadow arts. It only lasts 2s, and 3s if you have that trait. Thief’s passive heal is via stealthing if you’re spec into Vitality, and if damage broke stealth, then anyone can just drop a area attack, or even just manually attack with 1 right after the thief stealths. That’ll make your thief crippled and literally useless in all aspects lol. You can already damage thieves when they’re stealthed, or even kill them while stealthed.

There’s a HUGE difference between a good thief and a bad thief, and I know because I kill a lot of thieves on my thief. It’s not face-rolling and button smashing. It’s how you use your movement against the enemy and screw with their head.

Now, it’s POSSIBLE to go near-perma stealth if you’re in shadow arts with 3s stealth, 2 initiative on stealth, and faster initiative regen, using only CnD, but that leads to a VERY low amount of damage, but high survivability. You see, thieves don’t have many defensive abilities besides their stealth and how smart they use their stealth.

Balancing is a huge part of games, and GW2 is decently balanced in many aspects, but as most games, there’s always going to be adjustments. GW2 doesn’t have an excess amount of stats, traits, and abilities, lowering the complexity level and making it easier to balance out. And I’m on my way of leveling up other classes, so I do compare with my thief in mechanics.

If you ever have trouble beating a certain class, change your fight style. You’re not going to have a single build that works in all cases… lol. That’s probably why you think thieves are OP or something. You face thieves with similar builds, and they happen to be the build you aren’t good against. A huge part of games come apart from theory crafting, and that’s the hands-on gaming part. You can do so much things that theory crafting doesn’t take account of such as the human element, and the various random variables such as people’s personalities, and mindset. I’ve been playing games for a long time, and even study them (It’s my college major), and I can say that no class is unbeatable. I even got a brother of mine that’s an engineer. And guess what? He sometimes beats me and beats most of the thieves he faces JUST because he trained against me and knows what I’ll do and plans ahead for it…

(PS: There’s something interesting they teach in the gaming industry that I heard about. Listen to what the players say, but do it with a grain of salt. They’re not the designers and they don’t see the big picture and see what they want to see or are limited to seeing).

kenshinakh.3672:

(PS: There’s something interesting they teach in the gaming industry that I heard about. Listen to what the players say, but do it with a grain of salt. They’re not the designers and they don’t see the big picture and see what they want to see or are limited to seeing).

This is very true. The developers often have long term, foundational goals. Players will try to “fix” things to get them where they “should” be, but the developers are often aiming toward a different set of goals that will work better in the long run.

I agree with kenshinakh. As a player you can report bugs, however when it comes to making changes based on your gut fealing or your experience, this does not flow on for everyones experience. the devs are the ones making the games, not us. we need to inform them of issues however their is a fine line we must tread and not mistaken issues/flaws/bugs with skill.

First of all, I play a Bunker Engineer, burst classes don’t really phase me, only time a BS rogue has got me 1v1 I was fine with it as he had to work for it.

Second, was simply throwing the 3 main things I was seeing the general consensus on throughout forums, Lions Arch, and WvW chat.

Third, you are right, Wraithforge.8710, that is my general feeling, as well and like you said there are many others who would agree that the invisibility factor doesn’t belong in a game with these kind of mechanics. However, part of the issue people are stating is it isn’t something as simple as you see the thief coming, he stealths, and wanders behind you, second he’s in range for a shadowstep you go defensive or you die, which is fine, but the main issue behind it is the survivability of stealth mixed with the potential damage you can throw out.

I do disagree 100% when saying they are going for the long term goal with there patching, thus far at the least. Long term would be getting the classes all working properly before trying to balance them out, nerfing, buffing, etc.

And you can go back to the argument that Devs know better than me, not a designer, (If went to, or are currently at Full Sail, you opinion is voided.) but for those who have played MMO’s for years just look back and think, or actually do the research as I am not going to do it for you, but all of them killed themselves the same way of trying to revamp the game before it was even working properly.

Sco.9615:

Reaxident.7351:

I got hit for 7k + today w/ 1700 toughness. I have nothing that hits for 4k, period. I am not saying overpowered, I’m not going to cry, but you seriously think its ok?

This kind of thing^
Srsly….grow up.
Warrior hits for the same if not more at least with Glass Cannon rifle and you dare complain to us about a difference of damage?

no one play warrior rifle on tournaments!!! is a useless build and you will die very easy for any class, a thief will gonna kill you in seconds.
rifle is for WvW and PvE ,any team with warrior rifle is a team with 1 less player because that build is just useless on tournaments

i play as mesmer and obvious i have berserker amulet, a thief that appear from nowhere can actually kill me in 1s, the steal will hit me for 7-8k and backstab for around 10k and im dead, this in 1s, dont exist any other class can do this to me.

dont came now say you are a mesmer you have invulnerable and other things to avoid that burst, yes we have if we are expecting the thief, if you are on a fight and the thief appear sudenly you just dont have time to react to that kind of burst. dont know any other class can kill someone in 1s. i coudl use souldier amulet as a mesmer but for some reason 90% mesmer use berserker amulet and 20-20-30 points traits because is by far the best build we have, is like have a thief with soldier amulet, who want a thief/mesmer with soldier amulet on tournament?

warrior rifle? those guys are a joke for any mesmer but is very rare to find any warrior rifle on tournaments, even in hot join is hard to find them, on tournaments i dont evem remember the last time i saw a warrior rifle build….

possante.8310:

Sco.9615:

Reaxident.7351:

I got hit for 7k + today w/ 1700 toughness. I have nothing that hits for 4k, period. I am not saying overpowered, I’m not going to cry, but you seriously think its ok?

This kind of thing^
Srsly….grow up.
Warrior hits for the same if not more at least with Glass Cannon rifle and you dare complain to us about a difference of damage?

no one play warrior rifle on tournaments!!! is a useless build and you will die very easy for any class, a thief will gonna kill you in seconds.
rifle is for WvW and PvE ,any team with warrior rifle is a team with 1 less player because that build is just useless on tournaments

It´s the same for the GC Basilisk+C&D+Steal+signets+backstab build. noone plays it in tournaments, because it´s basically a meat on the stick for the decent players outta there…. So, let´s just call it even and move on, shall we?

God Sealer.4103:

It’s the stealth that’s broken, and 90% of that is ANets fault.

1) Play an Engineer so not a biased opinion.
2) The main issue I see people complaining about along with the damage is the rendering issues causing what appears to be a permanent stealth state.
3) Sub issues on the topic is that damage doesn’t break stealth and it removes all conditions.
Simple fix and I don’t understand why they are going to butcher thieves, everyone will be happy except the bad ones that are on your class right now as it’s the FotM after Guardian GS nerf.

Make damage break stealth, make the stealth heal roulette which condition it heals rather than all of them. Leave the damage alone. Someone wants to run around in Berserker’s gear and all offensive utilities/traits, they deserve to get dropped in 3 seconds, as they sure don’t complain when they are on the end that’s delivering the burst.
Edit: Oh yeah and fix the rendering issue.

I play a thief and I think you’re all being incredibly precious about your backstab builds that you’re looking for a different excuse. No other opponent that I have ever fought against or used can one-shot someone with a single press of the #1 attack, you also have the added bonus of not even being seen whilst you’re doing it, which makes 1v1 and 1vSmall groups a joke. Stealth is not the problem, the fact you can one-shot people is, imo, no class should be able to do that with a single #1 attack. And with good use of stealth, let’s not pretend that there’s a huge deal of risk involved either.

I’m not sure where people are getting “Thieves are going to get a nerf” at. All the Anet rep said was that they were looking into raw damage spikes. That most likely means all classes that have an “alpha strike” will see a damage reduction, not just thieves in general.

The culling issue needs to be fixed. I can agree with that. The way I see it, is that Anet is looking to remove the <5 second fights by lowering damage spikes or, IMO, giving toughness a buff. Right now it doesn’t feel like toughness does much of anything.

If they buffed the toughness and healing ratios to be on par with powers then nothing would need nerfs due to spike damage, feel free to correct but pretty sure for most cases power is 1:2 damage/power where healing is 1:10, and the toughness/defense equation is just a borked mitigation equation where pretty sure it’s the same 1:10 reduction/toughness as to healing.

From what I’ve seen they say the culling issue will be fixed, however everytime they’ve messed with it so far it just gets worse.

And jumping back up a few posts no one has ever been 1 shotted by backstab, you got one shotted by the mug/backstab/heartseeker/CD combo that yes gets pulled off most of the time before they render.

And everyone who keeps coming in saying backstab does too much damage, also circles it back to the main point, it’s being able to do that damage while invisible.

Elementalist: Dragon Fang/Phoenix big damage, only hit’s you if you don’t take 2 steps to the left.
Warrior: 100B, Only gets you if you don’t take 2 steps back. Whirlwind, Dodge roll into them.
Mesmer: Greatsword burst, Only gets you if you don’t move in on them.
Necromancer: …umm, if they burst you break disc and uninstall?
Engineer: Move out of the red ring with the fuse in the middle or move left 2 steps when flying objects are raining at you.
Thieves: Hope you have the right utilities and HP to survive the burst that they have to wait about ~40seconds to pull off again.

See the problem?

EVERY Class has a burst move that is reliable, sorry Necros guess you aren’t a real class yet, the issue is that thieves are the ONLY class that has one that there is no way to dodge it, and even if you do they are stealthed before you can begin a counter.

So, as said, stealth has NO place in a game with this design of combat, but since it’s here if definately needs a few tweaks, IMO the only real thing that needs to be done with it is being able to see them, ghostly image, bloodtrail, number trail, when they are being hit in stealth, as you can pound AOE’s to your hearts desire but any good thief is just going to walk around it and get your back again, without you knowing where they are at.

Sum up, BACKSTAB DAMAGE IS FINE! Before you cry about getting 1shot read your combat log. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE STEALTH.

We are still having this debate? really?

It only really became a debate when the uneducated few popped in without reading combat logs or got hit while had frenzy up. Other than that it was pretty constructive.

Edit: And I have also stopped reading posts right when I see, “I wear Berserker.” as they just enforce my point of who is the main mass crying about the damage itself and not the utilities associated.

Backstab isn’t fine. Neither is stealth. Both skills need to be nerfed to the ground.

In itself, backstab damage is FINE, but what makes it so destructive is the Mug+ CnD combo

theoretically, if mug will just provide bleed + CnD is just a preparatory stealth charge no one will die

hellfish.6740:

God Sealer.4103:

hellfish.6740:

Backstab isn’t fine. Neither is stealth. Both skills need to be nerfed to the ground.

What profession you play?

Elem

Scepter/Dagger, Dagger/Dagger has just as much burst, if not more than a backstab thief. If you are roaming around with a staff, your own fault. The fact you can’t see them is the issue, there damage is ON PAR with other classes burst specs.

D/D: Ride the Lightning→Updraft→Burning Speed
S/D: Dragon tooth→Phoenix→Fire Grab. 3 Moves, just as there combo, will do the same if not more damage, only difference is you’re visable. Thus stealth is the kitten puppy hampster chupacabra issue!

God Sealer.4103:

hellfish.6740:

God Sealer.4103:

hellfish.6740:

Backstab isn’t fine. Neither is stealth. Both skills need to be nerfed to the ground.

What profession you play?

Elem

Scepter/Dagger, Dagger/Dagger has just as much burst, if not more than a backstab thief. If you are roaming around with a staff, your own fault. The fact you can’t see them is the issue, there damage is ON PAR with other classes burst specs.

D/D: Ride the Lightning->Updraft->Burning Speed
S/D: Dragon tooth->Phoenix->Fire Grab. 3 Moves, just as there combo, will do the same if not more damage, only difference is you’re visable. Thus stealth is the kitten puppy hampster chupacabra issue!

You’re completely and utterly clueless. If I go burst spec I’ll be dead before I can hit mist form if a thief attacks me. My only option is to go full bunker if I want to be able to compete against a thief.

God Sealer.4103:

I’m not clueless at all, you’re apparently one of those who hops in, posts something stupid, without reading the rest of the post. Did I mention anything about your survival will that? NOPE! just your raw damage output. Also, since Mistform is apparently your only viable defense, as we all know popping Arcane shield when you see the thief coming and being able to block all 3 of his burst hits and damaging him isn’t viable AT ALL.

Glass canon v Glass canon, winner is whoever gets the hits off first, STEALTH ADDS TOO MUCH SURVIAVABILTY TO this equation, thus it’s broken.

Bunker v Bunker, 10 mins later someone gets bored and leaves.

Bunker v Glass Canon, if you are the bunker and you lose, it’s your own fault.

So once again, THE DAMAGE IS FINE AND ON PAR WITH OTHER BURST CLASSES, THE STEALTH MECHANIC JUST ADDS TOO MUCH SURVIVAL WITH HOW IT IS RIGHT NOW.

No, I read your post, but was in a hurry so it didn’t come out as I’d hoped. I apologize.

Elems burst doesn’t come close to a thief’s. In raw numbers elems can do pretty good dmg on newbies who don’t understand what a big spike above their head is going to do in a few seconds, but in reality the long cool downs on both skills and attunements makes the comparison silly. The only class I play nowadays in sPvP is a thief considering it’s the most OP class in an MMO ever. I can kill most people whithout using stealth or anything that resembles skill. If you want to duel me with a glass cannon elem I promise you I won’t use stealth. I also promise you’ll be murdered.

As for arcane shield ofc it’s viable, but we only get three skills to pick from. Mist form is way better in general unless you happen to be 1v1, which for the most part you’re not. Going both is an option, but then again so is going all invaders gear, so I don’t even understand your point.

Stealth is a huge problem, but so is thief sustained and burst dps.

God Sealer.4103:

Scepter/Dagger, Dagger/Dagger has just as much burst, if not more than a backstab thief. If you are roaming around with a staff, your own fault. The fact you can’t see them is the issue, there damage is ON PAR with other classes burst specs.

D/D: Ride the Lightning->Updraft->Burning Speed
S/D: Dragon tooth->Phoenix->Fire Grab. 3 Moves, just as there combo, will do the same if not more damage, only difference is you’re visable. Thus stealth is the kitten puppy hampster chupacabra issue!

The difference between those combos and the BS combo is that those have huge visual clues telling you “Dodge now or get hurt badly”. The only visual clue the BS combo gives you is that the Thief swings the other arm.
Stealth is an entirely other matter.

DesertRose.2031:

God Sealer.4103:

Scepter/Dagger, Dagger/Dagger has just as much burst, if not more than a backstab thief. If you are roaming around with a staff, your own fault. The fact you can’t see them is the issue, there damage is ON PAR with other classes burst specs.

D/D: Ride the Lightning->Updraft->Burning Speed
S/D: Dragon tooth->Phoenix->Fire Grab. 3 Moves, just as there combo, will do the same if not more damage, only difference is you’re visable. Thus stealth is the kitten puppy hampster chupacabra issue!

The difference between those combos and the BS combo is that those have huge visual clues telling you “Dodge now or get hurt badly”. The only visual clue the BS combo gives you is that the Thief swings the other arm.
Stealth is an entirely other matter.

God Sealer.4103:

And jumping back up a few posts no one has ever been 1 shotted by backstab, you got one shotted by the mug/backstab/heartseeker/CD combo that yes gets pulled off most of the time before they render.

And everyone who keeps coming in saying backstab does too much damage, also circles it back to the main point, it’s being able to do that damage while invisible.

Elementalist: Dragon Fang/Phoenix big damage, only hit’s you if you don’t take 2 steps to the left.
Warrior: 100B, Only gets you if you don’t take 2 steps back. Whirlwind, Dodge roll into them.
Mesmer: Greatsword burst, Only gets you if you don’t move in on them.
Necromancer: …umm, if they burst you break disc and uninstall?
Engineer: Move out of the red ring with the fuse in the middle or move left 2 steps when flying objects are raining at you.
Thieves: Hope you have the right utilities and HP to survive the burst that they have to wait about ~40seconds to pull off again.

See the problem?

EVERY Class has a burst move that is reliable, sorry Necros guess you aren’t a real class yet, the issue is that thieves are the ONLY class that has one that there is no way to dodge it, and even if you do they are stealthed before you can begin a counter.

So, as said, stealth has NO place in a game with this design of combat, but since it’s here if definately needs a few tweaks, IMO the only real thing that needs to be done with it is being able to see them, ghostly image, bloodtrail, number trail, when they are being hit in stealth, as you can pound AOE’s to your hearts desire but any good thief is just going to walk around it and get your back again, without you knowing where they are at.

Sum up, BACKSTAB DAMAGE IS FINE! Before you cry about getting 1shot read your combat log. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE STEALTH.

Covered that aspect a few posts up.

Okay, not be too harsh or anything.. but I go again lol.

You’re asking for a change on stealth that literally breaks a thief’s playstyle. Just take a second and imagine it, and take some time to apply some theorycrafting to it. If a thief’s stealth breaks on damage, there goes one of his healing traits, and one of his defensive abilities, and his maneuverability. You’d have to revamp the WHOLE class if you made stealth break on damage, and that’s not practical at all. You’ll just have a huge player base of thief QQing and a big headache. Stealth doesn’t last that long at all. It’s 2s and 3s for your normal cloak and dagger, and it doesn’t even make you immune. You still get damaged from AOEs, and you still get hit by traps if you’re not careful to dodge or move around them. So many thieves DIE while stealth. It’s not like WoW or “Trinity” and I really doubt it breaks the game as how you exaggerated.

Now, let’s talk about burst damage instead. You say it’s okay? Maybe their sustained damage is okay for PvE, but thieves do have the highest burst damage. A good glass cannon can out right kill most other classes in 1-2s using Mug/CnD/BS. No other class can hit that quickly in such a short time, so that’s something Anet is working on balancing. Maybe a cast time on Mug or unstealth while mugging.

If you want some tips on beating a thief and figuring out how they attack, either ask someone who knows how, and train with them in the Mist. You’re not going to have a Bunker class that can ALWAYS beat any class. Even my thief build can’t fight every type of build I encounter. The rest, I just have to use the terrain and maneuverability/reaction time and outsmart the opponent. And while I still have my stealth, I’m hoping really hard that the player doesn’t catch onto my plans and attack pattern.

Stealth isn’t the problem at all. And that’s the conclusion I’ve figured personally through my own experience and theorycrafting.

By the way, here’s a tip on facing thieves in general. Right when they’re about to do CnD, dodge. There goes 6 initiative for them. You can try the same for steal (though it’s too fast to guess), but dodging randomly while keeping enough energy for later dodges can increase your chances of throwing the thief’s rhythm off. I would say the biggest weakness would be someone who knows the fight style of a thief. Just don’t show your back to them, and even if you can’t see them, you can surely bet that they’re trying to get to your back, so dodge backwards, and then forward. That gives you a lot of upperhand if the thief misses his CnD.

Also, another thing about stealthed characters. Sometimes you see an indicator of where they are when stealth. It’s a little swirly black thing and it comes up once in a while when facing a thief. Use that to figure their position and gain an upper hand.

Just delete the Thief completely and give me another class with equal equipment and game progress, I´m really getting sick of these non-sense arguments of ppl who have no idea how to play thief/play against it….
This whole forum is ruined by crying ppl, who expected another WoW-like game. Please leave and never look back, we like GW2, we don´t want anything like the above mentioned “crappy-mechanic/system” game. Thanks….

STRanger.5120:

Just delete the Thief completely and give me another class with equal equipment and game progress, I´m really getting sick of these non-sense arguments of ppl who have no idea how to play thief/play against it….
This whole forum is ruined by crying ppl, who expected another WoW-like game. Please leave and never look back, we like GW2, we don´t want anything like the above mentioned “crappy-mechanic/system” game. Thanks….

If it makes you feel any better I am tired of morons joining in on threads without actually reading more than 50% of the 1st post, HAD you you would have read thieves are not an issue for me, the idea about breaking stealth changed, and probably the other 70% of the game’s population wouldn’t care if the class were removed.

And if you really are defending it is a fair class to be the only one able to spike damage without someone being able to have a sign to dodge it, you are just another bad BS thief playing FotM.

hellfish.6740:

God Sealer.4103:

hellfish.6740:

God Sealer.4103:

hellfish.6740:

Backstab isn’t fine. Neither is stealth. Both skills need to be nerfed to the ground.

What profession you play?

Elem

Scepter/Dagger, Dagger/Dagger has just as much burst, if not more than a backstab thief. If you are roaming around with a staff, your own fault. The fact you can’t see them is the issue, there damage is ON PAR with other classes burst specs.

D/D: Ride the Lightning->Updraft->Burning Speed
S/D: Dragon tooth->Phoenix->Fire Grab. 3 Moves, just as there combo, will do the same if not more damage, only difference is you’re visable. Thus stealth is the kitten puppy hampster chupacabra issue!

You’re completely and utterly clueless. If I go burst spec I’ll be dead before I can hit mist form if a thief attacks me. My only option is to go full bunker if I want to be able to compete against a thief.

Hybrid eles work relatively well. I run a berserker amulet with Water/Arcana and an Earth trait and I do really well against thieves, but that’s come more with practice. Protection on aura usage and constant vigor certainly help.

God Sealer.4103:

1/2 a second of seeing you as you appear on your screen seems better, ghostly image, gives just enough time to have a general idea if they’re going fight or flight, and lets the thief know he needs to reroute if he’s smart.

I’d actually be fine with this. (Maybe 1/4 second? Half seems like an eternity sometimes, in GW2.)

The troublesome part of the initial suggestion is that completely breaking stealth would make sneak attack skills untenable. This suggestion — showing the thief on the screen briefly — doesn’t have that problem. Make you work for the sneak attack more, but I don’t mind working for it if the payoff is actually significant, you know?

Makes it harder for a thief to use stealth to run away, too, but, jeez, that’s why we get 10000 evades and shadowsteps.

Biggest open questions would be how you handle DOT conditions and pulsing AOE (would it be a bit too easy to just preempt stealth with one of those?), and what you’d do with Shadow Refuge. I think these issues can easily be solved in a satisfactory way, though.

God Sealer.4103:

STRanger.5120:

Just delete the Thief completely and give me another class with equal equipment and game progress, I´m really getting sick of these non-sense arguments of ppl who have no idea how to play thief/play against it….
This whole forum is ruined by crying ppl, who expected another WoW-like game. Please leave and never look back, we like GW2, we don´t want anything like the above mentioned “crappy-mechanic/system” game. Thanks….

If it makes you feel any better I am tired of morons joining in on threads without actually reading more than 50% of the 1st post, HAD you you would have read thieves are not an issue for me, the idea about breaking stealth changed, and probably the other 70% of the game’s population wouldn’t care if the class were removed.

And if you really are defending it is a fair class to be the only one able to spike damage without someone being able to have a sign to dodge it, you are just another bad BS thief playing FotM.

FYI I don´t play BS Thief, playing Condition dmg with carrior equip…
But unfortunately, damaging conditions are broken by the design, so it´s kinda lackluster outside of 1vs1 situations.
I just can´t stand the constant made up whining on this forum, there is nothing to balance yet, a lot of abilities/traits are not working as intended, so how can you try to balance something here?

Edit: If the dmg breaks stealth, it will be practically the same as removing it from the game completely, it can´t be used for stealth attacks anymore. Good luck with the complete rework of the class because of it…

God Sealer.4103:

hellfish.6740:

God Sealer.4103:

hellfish.6740:

Backstab isn’t fine. Neither is stealth. Both skills need to be nerfed to the ground.

What profession you play?

Elem

Scepter/Dagger, Dagger/Dagger has just as much burst, if not more than a backstab thief. If you are roaming around with a staff, your own fault. The fact you can’t see them is the issue, there damage is ON PAR with other classes burst specs.

D/D: Ride the Lightning->Updraft->Burning Speed
S/D: Dragon tooth->Phoenix->Fire Grab. 3 Moves, just as there combo, will do the same if not more damage, only difference is you’re visable. Thus stealth is the kitten puppy hampster chupacabra issue!

Dragon tooh>Phonix>fire grab has the same damage but takes much longer. BS burst takes .5 sec. Signet of earth (since you can’t pre cast it like basilik’s) is 3/4 sec, and is dodgeable, all you have to do is see the animation of the elementalist’s head. So Signet of earth>Drag tooth>Phoenix>fire grab is a delayed burst that takes 8 times as long and can be fixed by any condition removal, has flashy warning signs, and gives you 4 seconds to react. Compare that to an undodgable .5sec burst that does the same damage, and has the same counters -condition removal. On top of that, thief also has more armor, and stealth as defensive mechanisms while still having similar mobility. So while the damage is on par, the burst itself is far from equal.

edit: also RTL>Updraft>Burning speed is far from equal damage, its a bit less than 3/5 the damage, and once again, much longer.