Guild Wars 2

Master of Timespace.2548:

Soo, at best the guard can tank you, but so what? How is it worse than being able to perma stealth?

The reason it is worse than stealth is because they can cap/hold points while doing what they do best.

Thieves cannot cap/hold a point in stealth.

Bunkers > stealth…

Master of Timespace.2548:

Issues.5789:

Master of Timespace.2548:

Travlane.5948:

Master of Timespace.2548:

I agree, guardians are so overpowered. The best thief in the world can’t kill a decent guard. I’ve played a very good guard with the a 30/30/0/0/10 build and all he was allowed to do was heal and dodge.. I couldn’t kill him.. If that’s not overpowered I don’t know what is.

Cheesy, super-nooby spike combo isn’t intended to work against everything. Deal with it.

ps. The guard can also do nothing if you just keep perma stealthing with d/p, running around with sword #2, or just spamming c&d on the nearest mob, wall, gate, siege, pet, upscale or whatever.

ur right its not supposed to work against everything. apparently its supposed to work against nothing :P a guardian can kill you by doing nothing. u know that right? just stand still with heals and dodges using retal/burns. he wont even attack and will kill 99.9% of all thievs if he is a good guard. thief cant deal with necros….if a necro uses swarm elite for like what double the hp then the 2ndary HP bar from F skills. yeah a thief has no chance. no elongated dmg to last beyond the first 5-8 seconds. poof no chance. i can go on about every class

The balance in this game is asymmetric. A good sword thief wins my glass shatter with ease, yet almost all bunkers have really hard time against me. No build should work against everything.

What you’re not understanding is that NO, NONE, ZERO, NADA thief build works against a guardian lol. I don’t have troubles with any other classes, except those really really tanky eles and guardians that you can’t do anything no matter what.

Yes, you are right, no class can win against a well enough played spammer master, aka d/d ele. The problem here is that the ele can also deal decent damage and move around fast as the wind.

The tank guard isn’t as big of a problem as they are fairly slow, are easy to kite and deal only a little damage. They are fairly easy to hit hard with shatter mesmer: their blocks and blinds negate only 1 attack, but the shatter burst comes in many small packets. Soo, at best the guard can tank you, but so what? How is it worse than being able to perma stealth?

Agree. Elementalist needs to be nerfed, or lose its mobility or something. They are as fast if not faster than thieves and can survive for days lol. The guy I played was a hybrid so he actually did damage. I’m talking about a 1v1 fight; a guardian won’t lose and can’t die. If I don’t perma stealth I die.. With his build he cannot lose a 1v1 to ANY class because of his kitten hp regen and retail and just tankyness of the build and can output damage to kill the opponent. Doesn’t seem fair. Only class that he can’t kill is those tanky eles.. I’m sure we’re on the same page when I say that Ele’s/Guard’s are overpowered and that thief is slowly suffering.

Offtopic: This patch just like the rest won’t help thieves at all.

Issues.5789:

Master of Timespace.2548:

Issues.5789:

Master of Timespace.2548:

Travlane.5948:

Master of Timespace.2548:

I agree, guardians are so overpowered. The best thief in the world can’t kill a decent guard. I’ve played a very good guard with the a 30/30/0/0/10 build and all he was allowed to do was heal and dodge.. I couldn’t kill him.. If that’s not overpowered I don’t know what is.

Cheesy, super-nooby spike combo isn’t intended to work against everything. Deal with it.

ps. The guard can also do nothing if you just keep perma stealthing with d/p, running around with sword #2, or just spamming c&d on the nearest mob, wall, gate, siege, pet, upscale or whatever.

ur right its not supposed to work against everything. apparently its supposed to work against nothing :P a guardian can kill you by doing nothing. u know that right? just stand still with heals and dodges using retal/burns. he wont even attack and will kill 99.9% of all thievs if he is a good guard. thief cant deal with necros….if a necro uses swarm elite for like what double the hp then the 2ndary HP bar from F skills. yeah a thief has no chance. no elongated dmg to last beyond the first 5-8 seconds. poof no chance. i can go on about every class

The balance in this game is asymmetric. A good sword thief wins my glass shatter with ease, yet almost all bunkers have really hard time against me. No build should work against everything.

What you’re not understanding is that NO, NONE, ZERO, NADA thief build works against a guardian lol. I don’t have troubles with any other classes, except those really really tanky eles and guardians that you can’t do anything no matter what.

Yes, you are right, no class can win against a well enough played spammer master, aka d/d ele. The problem here is that the ele can also deal decent damage and move around fast as the wind.

The tank guard isn’t as big of a problem as they are fairly slow, are easy to kite and deal only a little damage. They are fairly easy to hit hard with shatter mesmer: their blocks and blinds negate only 1 attack, but the shatter burst comes in many small packets. Soo, at best the guard can tank you, but so what? How is it worse than being able to perma stealth?

Agree. Elementalist needs to be nerfed, or lose its mobility or something. They are as fast if not faster than thieves and can survive for days lol. The guy I played was a hybrid so he actually did damage. I’m talking about a 1v1 fight; a guardian won’t lose and can’t die. If I don’t perma stealth I die.. With his build he cannot lose a 1v1 to ANY class because of his kitten hp regen and retail and just tankyness of the build and can output damage to kill the opponent. Doesn’t seem fair. Only class that he can’t kill is those tanky eles.. I’m sure we’re on the same page when I say that Ele’s/Guard’s are overpowered and that thief is slowly suffering.

Offtopic: This patch just like the rest won’t help thieves at all.

No class needs nerfed. Other classes just need to be up-to-par.

swinsk.6410:

Master of Timespace.2548:

I agree, guardians are so overpowered. The best thief in the world can’t kill a decent guard. I’ve played a very good guard with the a 30/30/0/0/10 build and all he was allowed to do was heal and dodge.. I couldn’t kill him.. If that’s not overpowered I don’t know what is.

Cheesy, super-nooby spike combo isn’t intended to work against everything. Deal with it.

ps. The guard can also do nothing if you just perma stealth with d/p, run around with sword #2, or just spam c&d on the nearest mob, wall, gate, siege, pet, upscale or whatever.

There needs to be a class that can punish bunkers and burst thieves in my opinion should be that class.

That class is there, but it’s not and should not be thief. It’s gc shatter Mesmer.

Well then I ask you this, what is meant to kill guardians? Guardians pretty much can take anything on 1v1. Usually even multiple people can’t kill a guardian…

Right now the bunker classes are supreme. Thief burst is the only thing that can even make them blink. Nerf thief burst, gimmicky or not, and bunkers will rule gw2…

I do a lots of duels as a shatter burst mesmer, and have only lost once or twice to a guard. And no, it wasn’t a tank guard – it was some guard that jumped right on me and I lost because I underestimated him. If my shatter mes ever gets owned by a guard in 1v1, it’s not because his class is op, but because he is a better player.
So the answer to your question is Glass Shatter Mesmer.
Duels are all about rock paper scissors:
d/d thief > gc mesmer
guard > gc mesmer
gc mesmer > guard

EDIT: do note that I talk from WvW perspective. The in WvW damage is generally greater than in spvp. In spvp tanks might very well be overpowered, I don’t know because I don’t play it.

The first buff was already announced here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Revealed-Debuff-to-be-Reverted-in-PvE-and-WvW/first

:)

Daecollo.9578:

Issues.5789:

Master of Timespace.2548:

Issues.5789:

Master of Timespace.2548:

Travlane.5948:

Master of Timespace.2548:

I agree, guardians are so overpowered. The best thief in the world can’t kill a decent guard. I’ve played a very good guard with the a 30/30/0/0/10 build and all he was allowed to do was heal and dodge.. I couldn’t kill him.. If that’s not overpowered I don’t know what is.

Cheesy, super-nooby spike combo isn’t intended to work against everything. Deal with it.

ps. The guard can also do nothing if you just keep perma stealthing with d/p, running around with sword #2, or just spamming c&d on the nearest mob, wall, gate, siege, pet, upscale or whatever.

ur right its not supposed to work against everything. apparently its supposed to work against nothing :P a guardian can kill you by doing nothing. u know that right? just stand still with heals and dodges using retal/burns. he wont even attack and will kill 99.9% of all thievs if he is a good guard. thief cant deal with necros….if a necro uses swarm elite for like what double the hp then the 2ndary HP bar from F skills. yeah a thief has no chance. no elongated dmg to last beyond the first 5-8 seconds. poof no chance. i can go on about every class

The balance in this game is asymmetric. A good sword thief wins my glass shatter with ease, yet almost all bunkers have really hard time against me. No build should work against everything.

What you’re not understanding is that NO, NONE, ZERO, NADA thief build works against a guardian lol. I don’t have troubles with any other classes, except those really really tanky eles and guardians that you can’t do anything no matter what.

Yes, you are right, no class can win against a well enough played spammer master, aka d/d ele. The problem here is that the ele can also deal decent damage and move around fast as the wind.

The tank guard isn’t as big of a problem as they are fairly slow, are easy to kite and deal only a little damage. They are fairly easy to hit hard with shatter mesmer: their blocks and blinds negate only 1 attack, but the shatter burst comes in many small packets. Soo, at best the guard can tank you, but so what? How is it worse than being able to perma stealth?

Agree. Elementalist needs to be nerfed, or lose its mobility or something. They are as fast if not faster than thieves and can survive for days lol. The guy I played was a hybrid so he actually did damage. I’m talking about a 1v1 fight; a guardian won’t lose and can’t die. If I don’t perma stealth I die.. With his build he cannot lose a 1v1 to ANY class because of his kitten hp regen and retail and just tankyness of the build and can output damage to kill the opponent. Doesn’t seem fair. Only class that he can’t kill is those tanky eles.. I’m sure we’re on the same page when I say that Ele’s/Guard’s are overpowered and that thief is slowly suffering.

Offtopic: This patch just like the rest won’t help thieves at all.

No class needs nerfed. Other classes just need to be up-to-par.

I agree to an extent with this; I still think the mobility, heals, and amount of boons that Ele has, and by switching a few attunements they are across the map with full h kitten lightly very over powered. The reason I say to nerf is that they won’t bring the other classes up to par.

Blackhat.4016:

The first buff was already announced here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Revealed-Debuff-to-be-Reverted-in-PvE-and-WvW/first

:)

That isn’t verified at all.. Wait until April 30th to see.
Edit: I personally like the 4 second stealth change, as 3 second was very very OP imo; thieves just don’t want to admit it because they liked perma stealth and backstabs lol.

Im pretty much expecting blanket nerfs, we will get 3s revealed back in PvE and PVP but then at the last minute they’ll reduce all stealth durations by 1s, mug will be removed and/or steal will have double cooldown time… yeah.

I have zero faith that we won’t get some form of ridiculous unwarranted nerf and no glimpse of any sort of buff or actual “mobility” or boon hate introductions (ever)

Also at issues: 3 second reveal by definition is not perma stealth.

There is no permastealth that isn’t just sitting in the corner somewhere away from any enemies spamming all your utilities and initiative endlessly on cooldown

Dasorine.1964:

Im pretty much expecting blanket nerfs, we will get 3s revealed back in PvE and PVP but then at the last minute they’ll reduce all stealth durations by 1s, mug will be removed and/or steal will have double cooldown time… yeah.

I have zero faith that we won’t get some form of ridiculous unwarranted nerf and no glimpse of any sort of buff or actual “mobility” or boon hate introductions (ever)

They have PvE to work on! How dare you?! Didn’t you see the amazing changes they made last balance patch; they changed Baby Quaggan voices to suit their voices as before it was Adult voices.. I mean what would we do without such a ground breaking change?!

Master of Timespace.2548:

I do a lots of duels as a shatter burst mesmer, and have only lost once or twice to a guard. And no, it wasn’t a tank guard – it was some guard that jumped right on me and I lost because I underestimated him. If my shatter mes ever gets owned by a guard in 1v1, it’s not because his class is op, but because he is a better player.
So the answer to your question is Glass Shatter Mesmer.
Duels are all about rock paper scissors:
d/d thief > gc mesmer
guard > gc mesmer
gc mesmer > guard

EDIT: do note that I talk from WvW perspective. The in WvW damage is generally greater than in spvp. In spvp tanks might very well be overpowered, I don’t know because I don’t play it.

guard > gc meser but gc mesmer > guard?

Either you made a typo or are completely contradicting yourself.

I’m talking about spvp because that is what really matters. WvW balance is completely different and there are lot of other factors. Defenses and offense are much greater and certain skills are un-nerfed in wvw but nerfed in spvp.

In WvW I can hit for 22k on just backstab alone as full burst against under leveled players with 25 stacks of bloodlust. Are thieves OP because of that? Nope.

The problem is that bunkers can sit on a point in spvp and just run around in circles dodging burst but holding the node while dishing out mediocre damage. Thieves stealth does not compare to this because while in stealth you cannot hold a point. Thieves either need to drop the bunker quickly or be forced off the point and losing points in the match.

Currently there is no real counter to bunkers. Especially really well played ones. Thief burst is the closest counter and it’s not even 50% you will down the bunker. I’d say I am able to down a well played guardian 1 out of 3 burst attempts, if i am able to stay alive that long against him. That’s usually only because by the 2nd or 3rd burst attempt his invulns are on CD and he’s already somewhat hurt.

Remind you, this is assuming he is fighting someone else and not paying attention to me. 1v1, I can’t beat bunker guardians.

You should try spvp, you will notice that your burst does not hit as hard as it does in wvw. GC mesmer is actually really easy to kill in spvp and most don’t go that route because they will die to burst thieves before they even hit you with back stab. You need enough HP to survive steal+cnd and then cast blink after.

My point is that if you say “duels” are about rock paper scissors, then what class counters the bunker guardian? Currently, there isn’t one in spvp.

I bet I could burst a guardian down in wvw with my full burst thief, but I can’t realisticly play a full burst thief in wvw because I need mobility and utility to avoid zergs and large groups. Your scenario only works if you are having a duel, which is not how wvw was meant to be played.

swinsk.6410:

Master of Timespace.2548:

I do a lots of duels as a shatter burst mesmer, and have only lost once or twice to a guard. And no, it wasn’t a tank guard – it was some guard that jumped right on me and I lost because I underestimated him. If my shatter mes ever gets owned by a guard in 1v1, it’s not because his class is op, but because he is a better player.
So the answer to your question is Glass Shatter Mesmer.
Duels are all about rock paper scissors:
d/d thief > gc mesmer
guard > gc mesmer
gc mesmer > guard

EDIT: do note that I talk from WvW perspective. The in WvW damage is generally greater than in spvp. In spvp tanks might very well be overpowered, I don’t know because I don’t play it.

guard > gc meser but gc mesmer > guard?

Either you made a typo or are completely contradicting yourself.

I’m talking about spvp because that is what really matters. WvW balance is completely different and there are lot of other factors. Defenses and offense are much greater and certain skills are un-nerfed in wvw but nerfed in spvp.

In WvW I can hit for 22k on just backstab alone as full burst against under leveled players with 25 stacks of bloodlust. Are thieves OP because of that? Nope.

The problem is that bunkers can sit on a point in spvp and just run around in circles dodging burst but holding the node while dishing out mediocre damage. Thieves stealth does not compare to this because while in stealth you cannot hold a point. Thieves either need to drop the bunker quickly or be forced off the point and losing points in the match.

Currently there is no real counter to bunkers. Especially really well played ones. Thief burst is the closest counter and it’s not even 50% you will down the bunker. I’d say I am able to down a well played guardian 1 out of 3 burst attempts, if i am able to stay alive that long against him. That’s usually only because by the 2nd or 3rd burst attempt his invulns are on CD and he’s already somewhat hurt.

Remind you, this is assuming he is fighting someone else and not paying attention to me. 1v1, I can’t beat bunker guardians.

You should try spvp, you will notice that your burst does not hit as hard as it does in wvw. GC mesmer is actually really easy to kill in spvp and most don’t go that route because they will die to burst thieves before they even hit you with back stab. You need enough HP to survive steal+cnd and then cast blink after.

My point is that if you say “duels” are about rock paper scissors, then what class counters the bunker guardian? Currently, there isn’t one in spvp.

I bet I could burst a guardian down in wvw with my full burst thief, but I can’t realisticly play a full burst thief in wvw because I need mobility and utility to avoid zergs and large groups. Your scenario only works if you are having a duel, which is not how wvw was meant to be played.

I bet you can’t burst down a good guardian who knows what hes doing..

Master of Timespace.2548:

I agree, guardians are so overpowered. The best thief in the world can’t kill a decent guard. I’ve played a very good guard with the a 30/30/0/0/10 build and all he was allowed to do was heal and dodge.. I couldn’t kill him.. If that’s not overpowered I don’t know what is.

Cheesy, super-nooby spike combo isn’t intended to work against everything. Deal with it.

ps. The guard can also do nothing if you just perma stealth with d/p, run around with sword #2, or just spam c&d on the nearest mob, wall, gate, siege, pet, upscale or whatever.

How does running away and stealthing help you defend a supply camp or control point?

Thief sustain comes from stealth and it’s useless for holding anything. Bunker thieves don’t exist or are failing. And we don’t have damage either.

And if you expect buffs to certain builds with mug in place the way it is now you have no idea how balance works… it’s in the way and can only lead to buffs in useful places.

Mugs power is often grossly overestimated its only as much damage as cloak and dagger itself.

All of its “power” comes with the instant nature with the shadowstep on steal in the burst combination, outside of that combination its essentially a cloak and dagger on a 45 second cooldown.

So unless the buffs to other builds and aspects of the thief would directly benefit that specific burst build without sacrificing their damage which is unlikely its not really stopping any reasonable increases where needed.

Issues.5789:

Edit: I personally like the 4 second stealth change, as 3 second was very very OP imo; thieves just don’t want to admit it because they liked perma stealth and backstabs lol.

Wait. How in hell do people get the idea a 4s revealed will stop thieves from perma-stealthing? It NEVER stopped perma-stealthing because you can still perfectly time CnD to restealth and you can still chain smokescreen/shadow refuge/ smokescreen! What makes you think a 4s revealed is preventing thieves from doing that?

All this nasty 4s revealed does is nerfing the damage output of players who play their thief like it is meant to be played. Quickly entering and leaving stealth. This nerf hit the wrong side of the coin, so to speak.

It should be reverted in EVERY gamemode and instead it should be applied whenever the stealth “boon” (that nice little symbol you have when you are stealthed) disappears, no matter how, be it because it ran out or because the user broke it with an attack.

And while i am at it… i seriously ope this patch will finally align thieves with other classes in PvE, mainly the currently existing trinity of guardians, mesmers and warriors. Nothing a thief does is what a thief excels at, thats why almost no group asks for thieves – or any other class besides the trinity. I dont want to be a rezzing bot or the stealthing kitten to bypass trash groups, i want to bring something to the table. And currently its neither superior damage, support or control. ArenaNet, please make us thieves and the other missfits worthwhile to be taken in a dungeon group!

While the revealed on all stealth end would “fix” the issue of CnD spammers who are annoying people by sitting around invisible next to them not hurting them it would still nerf thieves playing properly who are for instance trying to flee or use it defensively in other circumstances.

Theres really little need for either of the changes.

Drawing Guy.3701:

S/D #3 made more reliable?

While Flanking strike could be improved, it’s a fairly solid skill on it’s own, and atm part of my bread and butter. The thing with FS is getting any individual hit to connect is childs play. Getting both isn’t that hard but the problem with getting both is for when using it with its most simplest combo, 2-3, because inf strike and FS are not in sync. Which could help in itself by just adding .25s on inf strikes immobilize and/or just making the 2nd hit something like 10% faster. These can be remedied currently pretty well by a) burning out their defenses before hand (and we do apply weakness with our auto to help with that), or using a devourers/dancing dagger, ice drake/basilisk/scorpion wire, shadowstepping and Panic strike but obv you’d want it more reliable outside of utils traits. ./passionate_rant

Though they’ll probably do something redonkulus towards it a) fears of it being better than backstab? or b) some other unorthadox remedy.

Dasorine.1964:

While the revealed on all stealth end would “fix” the issue of CnD spammers who are annoying people by sitting around invisible next to them not hurting them it would still nerf thieves playing properly who are for instance trying to flee or use it defensively in other circumstances.

Theres really little need for either of the changes.

If there’s no need then it shouldn’t hurt thieves that much either.

If nerfing mug is all it takes to destroy all viable burst specs (which is what some people seem to think) then there’s something wrong with that regardless. A mandatory trait if you want to burst anything? lol

And mug damage isn’t going to get nerfed by 90%. Arenanet isn’t very good at balancing but they’re not stupid enough to nerf it by that much. And who knows, even buffing backstab would be acceptable as a general buff to dagger burst… it would be OP right now, possible after mug is toned down. Not saying it’ll happen, but it’s one of the things that -could- be done thanks to this nerf.

Travlane.5948:

theres no way one person can kill a defensive guardian before he reaches his zerg or castle . even 2 people would have an insanely hard time. in a GOOD guild or GOOD zerg you have like about 50-60 minimum running. our guild organizes so we have 5-7 guardians. 4 thieves running venom share…..several necros just amazing in zergs with aoes heals condi switchs and ice dmg etc CC etc…..

While I do agree with most of what you said, this right here kind of makes me laugh. You are saying the word “good” when what you mean to say is “big”. There are a lot of GOOD guilds that don’t ever have 50 members on at a time. Heck, there are some good guild that rarely have 15 members on at a time. Sure it would be great to have those kinds of numbers, but it’s not necessary. Besides, if you have a guild of 50-60, you are a Zerg. Idc if you’re a smarter than usual zerg, 50-60 people is a massive zerg that is capable to rolling over mountains in this game.

Ya know, I’m seeing a lot of “I hate that play style so I hope they nerf it” in here. Well, not everyone wants to play like you; not everyone wants to be forced to play like you. I like having the option of changing builds about once a month and doing something different – but when they kill half our build options that sure as hades limits what we can do, doesn’t it? Taking away options is not an acceptable answer to “I don’t like this build”. Not if they aren’t giving us other options to replace them … and they’re not.

So, you don’t wanna play Burst, or Stealth, or P/P or Whatthehelleverelseyamighthate – then don’t, but don’t stand on a box and tell everyone else they’re having bad-wrong-fun and should be punished for it.

Humorless.1573:

Dasorine.1964:

While the revealed on all stealth end would “fix” the issue of CnD spammers who are annoying people by sitting around invisible next to them not hurting them it would still nerf thieves playing properly who are for instance trying to flee or use it defensively in other circumstances.

Theres really little need for either of the changes.

If there’s no need then it shouldn’t hurt thieves that much either.

If nerfing mug is all it takes to destroy all viable burst specs (which is what some people seem to think) then there’s something wrong with that regardless. A mandatory trait if you want to burst anything? lol

And mug damage isn’t going to get nerfed by 90%. Arenanet isn’t very good at balancing but they’re not stupid enough to nerf it by that much. And who knows, even buffing backstab would be acceptable as a general buff to dagger burst… it would be OP right now, possible after mug is toned down. Not saying it’ll happen, but it’s one of the things that -could- be done thanks to this nerf.

There being no need for a nerf doesn’t suddenly make implementing that nerf benign, in fact it makes implementing that nerf WORSE because your essentially nerfing something that was average to below average.

Also I never said mug was needed by all viable burst specs what I said is mug is only POWERFUL in burst specs outside of burst specs that 1.5 damage coefficient every 45 seconds is not going to be that noticeable it at best boosts 1 attack up by that much which considering the low coefficients of thief skills essentially means every 45 seconds you get 1 attack thats equivalent to someone elses big hitter.

What Im saying is having mug where it is, doing what it does doesn’t really stop them improving other area’s of the thief as those other area’s are not area’s generally utilized by the thieves that get the real benefit from mug and if other types of thieves got the additional buffs the fact that they still have that bit of damage from mug fairly easily won’t suddenly make it broken either.

There has been too much nerfing for nerfings sake going on, nerfing things that aren’t particularly powerful themselves in the hope of solving something completely unrelated and such and the attitude of some thieves that seem to think they get to decide how a thief is meant to be played and look down on other methods of play (regardless of how valid I personally think those methods of play really are) isn’t helping the matter.

TheBandicoot.5294:

Issues.5789:

Edit: I personally like the 4 second stealth change, as 3 second was very very OP imo; thieves just don’t want to admit it because they liked perma stealth and backstabs lol.

Wait. How in hell do people get the idea a 4s revealed will stop thieves from perma-stealthing? It NEVER stopped perma-stealthing because you can still perfectly time CnD to restealth and you can still chain smokescreen/shadow refuge/ smokescreen! What makes you think a 4s revealed is preventing thieves from doing that?

All this nasty 4s revealed does is nerfing the damage output of players who play their thief like it is meant to be played. Quickly entering and leaving stealth. This nerf hit the wrong side of the coin, so to speak.

It should be reverted in EVERY gamemode and instead it should be applied whenever the stealth “boon” (that nice little symbol you have when you are stealthed) disappears, no matter how, be it because it ran out or because the user broke it with an attack.

And while i am at it… i seriously ope this patch will finally align thieves with other classes in PvE, mainly the currently existing trinity of guardians, mesmers and warriors. Nothing a thief does is what a thief excels at, thats why almost no group asks for thieves – or any other class besides the trinity. I dont want to be a rezzing bot or the stealthing kitten to bypass trash groups, i want to bring something to the table. And currently its neither superior damage, support or control. ArenaNet, please make us thieves and the other missfits worthwhile to be taken in a dungeon group!

My bad, not perma stealth, but those 10/30/30 D/D backstab builds were overpowered. People had like 18k hp, did c+d and would backstab for 7-8k+ and then spam 1 for 3 times, very short, then c+d again, now you have to stay out in stealth for quite some time so the opponent knows where you are instead of almost going back in and bursting for a lot of damage.

Issues.5789:

TheBandicoot.5294:

Issues.5789:

Edit: I personally like the 4 second stealth change, as 3 second was very very OP imo; thieves just don’t want to admit it because they liked perma stealth and backstabs lol.

Wait. How in hell do people get the idea a 4s revealed will stop thieves from perma-stealthing? It NEVER stopped perma-stealthing because you can still perfectly time CnD to restealth and you can still chain smokescreen/shadow refuge/ smokescreen! What makes you think a 4s revealed is preventing thieves from doing that?

All this nasty 4s revealed does is nerfing the damage output of players who play their thief like it is meant to be played. Quickly entering and leaving stealth. This nerf hit the wrong side of the coin, so to speak.

It should be reverted in EVERY gamemode and instead it should be applied whenever the stealth “boon” (that nice little symbol you have when you are stealthed) disappears, no matter how, be it because it ran out or because the user broke it with an attack.

And while i am at it… i seriously ope this patch will finally align thieves with other classes in PvE, mainly the currently existing trinity of guardians, mesmers and warriors. Nothing a thief does is what a thief excels at, thats why almost no group asks for thieves – or any other class besides the trinity. I dont want to be a rezzing bot or the stealthing kitten to bypass trash groups, i want to bring something to the table. And currently its neither superior damage, support or control. ArenaNet, please make us thieves and the other missfits worthwhile to be taken in a dungeon group!

My bad, not perma stealth, but those 10/30/30 D/D backstab builds were overpowered. People had like 18k hp, did c+d and would backstab for 7-8k+ and then spam 1 for 3 times, very short, then c+d again, now you have to stay out in stealth for quite some time so the opponent knows where you are instead of almost going back in and bursting for a lot of damage.

not really sure what you’re saying here as it doesn’t make much sense but you’re wrong on the numbers you posted. If someone is 10-30-30 backstab build, they will have 10k hp (full zerker) not 18k. 30 into sa gives 0 vitality, it’s toughness and healing. Also that build very, much so, isn’t overpowered. It’s a noob slayer build. Doesn’t mean only bad players use it, just means when used against bad players, it makes them cry. Against good players, it can be hard to win if you don’t first take them by complete surprise.

Is it a problem if a paper thin amored thief does huge damage? No it isnt. Start to train your reflexes and / or get a better connection, swing your sword through thin air, stay mobile… a d/d backstab burst thief is so easily countered its not even funny. But nerfing this class to oblivion just because certain people are not able to keep up with it is ridiculous. I mean, am i entitled to have several other classes nerfed because i cannot beat them? For example, i have a hard time fighting necros and guardians. Do they deserve a nerf? What about condition engineers? Shall they be nerfed just because of the sheer pressure they can apply?

Honestly, you should play a thief to comprehend the kitten (self-censored… i absolutely adore the forums censoring system, so insert any word you may find fitting here) you are talking about. One additional second of revealed, again, does NOT prevent a thief from perma-stealthing, nor does it really make him less survivable in my oppinion. What it does is a blatant nerf in sustained DPS of the thief. So ArenaNet should either revert the change to revealed – or buff backstab by 33%, which would make the thief burst even worse for the person who is being hit by it.

What i see here is another person who thinks stealth equals invincibility. But it does not. The thief, albeit not visible, is still vulnerable. I cannot stress this enough, just swing whatever weapon you have and in case of ranged weaponsets without ground AoE just stay mobile. A frontstab is only half as effective as a backstab.

randomfightfan.4091:

Issues.5789:

TheBandicoot.5294:

Issues.5789:

Edit: I personally like the 4 second stealth change, as 3 second was very very OP imo; thieves just don’t want to admit it because they liked perma stealth and backstabs lol.

Wait. How in hell do people get the idea a 4s revealed will stop thieves from perma-stealthing? It NEVER stopped perma-stealthing because you can still perfectly time CnD to restealth and you can still chain smokescreen/shadow refuge/ smokescreen! What makes you think a 4s revealed is preventing thieves from doing that?

All this nasty 4s revealed does is nerfing the damage output of players who play their thief like it is meant to be played. Quickly entering and leaving stealth. This nerf hit the wrong side of the coin, so to speak.

It should be reverted in EVERY gamemode and instead it should be applied whenever the stealth “boon” (that nice little symbol you have when you are stealthed) disappears, no matter how, be it because it ran out or because the user broke it with an attack.

And while i am at it… i seriously ope this patch will finally align thieves with other classes in PvE, mainly the currently existing trinity of guardians, mesmers and warriors. Nothing a thief does is what a thief excels at, thats why almost no group asks for thieves – or any other class besides the trinity. I dont want to be a rezzing bot or the stealthing kitten to bypass trash groups, i want to bring something to the table. And currently its neither superior damage, support or control. ArenaNet, please make us thieves and the other missfits worthwhile to be taken in a dungeon group!

My bad, not perma stealth, but those 10/30/30 D/D backstab builds were overpowered. People had like 18k hp, did c+d and would backstab for 7-8k+ and then spam 1 for 3 times, very short, then c+d again, now you have to stay out in stealth for quite some time so the opponent knows where you are instead of almost going back in and bursting for a lot of damage.

not really sure what you’re saying here as it doesn’t make much sense but you’re wrong on the numbers you posted. If someone is 10-30-30 backstab build, they will have 10k hp (full zerker) not 18k. 30 into sa gives 0 vitality, it’s toughness and healing. Also that build very, much so, isn’t overpowered. It’s a noob slayer build. Doesn’t mean only bad players use it, just means when used against bad players, it makes them cry. Against good players, it can be hard to win if you don’t first take them by complete surprise.

I tried it out once because I was lost and then decided to make my own builds; but I had 18-19k hp. I use Power Vitality Toughness gear alongside Ruby Orbs and even on level 80 players averaged 6-8k backstabs and was only out of stealth for not even a full rotation of 1 on my D/D, before I could C+D again.

Issues.5789:

randomfightfan.4091:

Issues.5789:

TheBandicoot.5294:

Issues.5789:

Edit: I personally like the 4 second stealth change, as 3 second was very very OP imo; thieves just don’t want to admit it because they liked perma stealth and backstabs lol.

Wait. How in hell do people get the idea a 4s revealed will stop thieves from perma-stealthing? It NEVER stopped perma-stealthing because you can still perfectly time CnD to restealth and you can still chain smokescreen/shadow refuge/ smokescreen! What makes you think a 4s revealed is preventing thieves from doing that?

All this nasty 4s revealed does is nerfing the damage output of players who play their thief like it is meant to be played. Quickly entering and leaving stealth. This nerf hit the wrong side of the coin, so to speak.

It should be reverted in EVERY gamemode and instead it should be applied whenever the stealth “boon” (that nice little symbol you have when you are stealthed) disappears, no matter how, be it because it ran out or because the user broke it with an attack.

And while i am at it… i seriously ope this patch will finally align thieves with other classes in PvE, mainly the currently existing trinity of guardians, mesmers and warriors. Nothing a thief does is what a thief excels at, thats why almost no group asks for thieves – or any other class besides the trinity. I dont want to be a rezzing bot or the stealthing kitten to bypass trash groups, i want to bring something to the table. And currently its neither superior damage, support or control. ArenaNet, please make us thieves and the other missfits worthwhile to be taken in a dungeon group!

My bad, not perma stealth, but those 10/30/30 D/D backstab builds were overpowered. People had like 18k hp, did c+d and would backstab for 7-8k+ and then spam 1 for 3 times, very short, then c+d again, now you have to stay out in stealth for quite some time so the opponent knows where you are instead of almost going back in and bursting for a lot of damage.

not really sure what you’re saying here as it doesn’t make much sense but you’re wrong on the numbers you posted. If someone is 10-30-30 backstab build, they will have 10k hp (full zerker) not 18k. 30 into sa gives 0 vitality, it’s toughness and healing. Also that build very, much so, isn’t overpowered. It’s a noob slayer build. Doesn’t mean only bad players use it, just means when used against bad players, it makes them cry. Against good players, it can be hard to win if you don’t first take them by complete surprise.

I tried it out once because I was lost and then decided to make my own builds; but I had 18-19k hp. I use Power Vitality Toughness gear alongside Ruby Orbs and even on level 80 players averaged 6-8k backstabs and was only out of stealth for not even a full rotation of 1 on my D/D, before I could C+D again.

Then you where getting some bad latency, with a D/D auto attack chain being 2 seconds long and even pre-nerf revealed duration being 3 seconds long what you were seeing was not revealed being shorter than your 1 D/D auto attack rotation but your D/D auto attack rotation being longer than your revealed duration due to delay in starting it and other similiar issues.

Before the nerf there was of course culling which gave you 2 seconds of the enemy not seeing you after you break stealth however you yourself wouldn’t see yourself invisible and of course that was “fixed” in the same patch as the nerf, now of course it seems they are realizing with culling fixed and such there is little reason to extend the revealed duration in a way that muchs up people rotations while not preventing any cheesy “perma-stealth” (Which again I must reiterate is doing very little to zero damage while being almost completely vulnerable) and giving negligible effects on peoples attitudes to how long the thief is stealthed (people still think thieves running the basic backstab burst spec are stealth 90% of the time)

Dasorine.1964:

Issues.5789:

randomfightfan.4091:

Issues.5789:

TheBandicoot.5294:

Issues.5789:

Edit: I personally like the 4 second stealth change, as 3 second was very very OP imo; thieves just don’t want to admit it because they liked perma stealth and backstabs lol.

Wait. How in hell do people get the idea a 4s revealed will stop thieves from perma-stealthing? It NEVER stopped perma-stealthing because you can still perfectly time CnD to restealth and you can still chain smokescreen/shadow refuge/ smokescreen! What makes you think a 4s revealed is preventing thieves from doing that?

All this nasty 4s revealed does is nerfing the damage output of players who play their thief like it is meant to be played. Quickly entering and leaving stealth. This nerf hit the wrong side of the coin, so to speak.

It should be reverted in EVERY gamemode and instead it should be applied whenever the stealth “boon” (that nice little symbol you have when you are stealthed) disappears, no matter how, be it because it ran out or because the user broke it with an attack.

And while i am at it… i seriously ope this patch will finally align thieves with other classes in PvE, mainly the currently existing trinity of guardians, mesmers and warriors. Nothing a thief does is what a thief excels at, thats why almost no group asks for thieves – or any other class besides the trinity. I dont want to be a rezzing bot or the stealthing kitten to bypass trash groups, i want to bring something to the table. And currently its neither superior damage, support or control. ArenaNet, please make us thieves and the other missfits worthwhile to be taken in a dungeon group!

My bad, not perma stealth, but those 10/30/30 D/D backstab builds were overpowered. People had like 18k hp, did c+d and would backstab for 7-8k+ and then spam 1 for 3 times, very short, then c+d again, now you have to stay out in stealth for quite some time so the opponent knows where you are instead of almost going back in and bursting for a lot of damage.

not really sure what you’re saying here as it doesn’t make much sense but you’re wrong on the numbers you posted. If someone is 10-30-30 backstab build, they will have 10k hp (full zerker) not 18k. 30 into sa gives 0 vitality, it’s toughness and healing. Also that build very, much so, isn’t overpowered. It’s a noob slayer build. Doesn’t mean only bad players use it, just means when used against bad players, it makes them cry. Against good players, it can be hard to win if you don’t first take them by complete surprise.

I tried it out once because I was lost and then decided to make my own builds; but I had 18-19k hp. I use Power Vitality Toughness gear alongside Ruby Orbs and even on level 80 players averaged 6-8k backstabs and was only out of stealth for not even a full rotation of 1 on my D/D, before I could C+D again.

Then you where getting some bad latency, with a D/D auto attack chain being 2 seconds long and even pre-nerf revealed duration being 3 seconds long what you were seeing was not revealed being shorter than your 1 D/D auto attack rotation but your D/D auto attack rotation being longer than your revealed duration due to delay in starting it and other similiar issues.

Before the nerf there was of course culling which gave you 2 seconds of the enemy not seeing you after you break stealth however you yourself wouldn’t see yourself invisible and of course that was “fixed” in the same patch as the nerf, now of course it seems they are realizing with culling fixed and such there is little reason to extend the revealed duration in a way that muchs up people rotations while not preventing any cheesy “perma-stealth” (Which again I must reiterate is doing very little to zero damage while being almost completely vulnerable) and giving negligible effects on peoples attitudes to how long the thief is stealthed (people still think thieves running the basic backstab burst spec are stealth 90% of the time)

Sure, whatever. I’m not gonna bother posting lol. My point remains, I enjoy the 4second “nerf” because it seems more fair.

Inb4 some nerfs with some minor useless buffs. P/P build, venoms, traps, etc, still suck.

Issues.5789:

Dasorine.1964:

Issues.5789:

randomfightfan.4091:

Issues.5789:

TheBandicoot.5294:

Issues.5789:

Edit: I personally like the 4 second stealth change, as 3 second was very very OP imo; thieves just don’t want to admit it because they liked perma stealth and backstabs lol.

Wait. How in hell do people get the idea a 4s revealed will stop thieves from perma-stealthing? It NEVER stopped perma-stealthing because you can still perfectly time CnD to restealth and you can still chain smokescreen/shadow refuge/ smokescreen! What makes you think a 4s revealed is preventing thieves from doing that?

All this nasty 4s revealed does is nerfing the damage output of players who play their thief like it is meant to be played. Quickly entering and leaving stealth. This nerf hit the wrong side of the coin, so to speak.

It should be reverted in EVERY gamemode and instead it should be applied whenever the stealth “boon” (that nice little symbol you have when you are stealthed) disappears, no matter how, be it because it ran out or because the user broke it with an attack.

And while i am at it… i seriously ope this patch will finally align thieves with other classes in PvE, mainly the currently existing trinity of guardians, mesmers and warriors. Nothing a thief does is what a thief excels at, thats why almost no group asks for thieves – or any other class besides the trinity. I dont want to be a rezzing bot or the stealthing kitten to bypass trash groups, i want to bring something to the table. And currently its neither superior damage, support or control. ArenaNet, please make us thieves and the other missfits worthwhile to be taken in a dungeon group!

My bad, not perma stealth, but those 10/30/30 D/D backstab builds were overpowered. People had like 18k hp, did c+d and would backstab for 7-8k+ and then spam 1 for 3 times, very short, then c+d again, now you have to stay out in stealth for quite some time so the opponent knows where you are instead of almost going back in and bursting for a lot of damage.

not really sure what you’re saying here as it doesn’t make much sense but you’re wrong on the numbers you posted. If someone is 10-30-30 backstab build, they will have 10k hp (full zerker) not 18k. 30 into sa gives 0 vitality, it’s toughness and healing. Also that build very, much so, isn’t overpowered. It’s a noob slayer build. Doesn’t mean only bad players use it, just means when used against bad players, it makes them cry. Against good players, it can be hard to win if you don’t first take them by complete surprise.

I tried it out once because I was lost and then decided to make my own builds; but I had 18-19k hp. I use Power Vitality Toughness gear alongside Ruby Orbs and even on level 80 players averaged 6-8k backstabs and was only out of stealth for not even a full rotation of 1 on my D/D, before I could C+D again.

Then you where getting some bad latency, with a D/D auto attack chain being 2 seconds long and even pre-nerf revealed duration being 3 seconds long what you were seeing was not revealed being shorter than your 1 D/D auto attack rotation but your D/D auto attack rotation being longer than your revealed duration due to delay in starting it and other similiar issues.

Before the nerf there was of course culling which gave you 2 seconds of the enemy not seeing you after you break stealth however you yourself wouldn’t see yourself invisible and of course that was “fixed” in the same patch as the nerf, now of course it seems they are realizing with culling fixed and such there is little reason to extend the revealed duration in a way that muchs up people rotations while not preventing any cheesy “perma-stealth” (Which again I must reiterate is doing very little to zero damage while being almost completely vulnerable) and giving negligible effects on peoples attitudes to how long the thief is stealthed (people still think thieves running the basic backstab burst spec are stealth 90% of the time)

Sure, whatever. I’m not gonna bother posting lol. My point remains, I enjoy the 4second “nerf” because it seems more fair.

So you’re refusing to acknowledged an intelligent answer, created to help you, because you would rather a pve nerf remain b/c you don’t like getting killed in wvw. Right. Here’s another point, while you were in your pvt armor, you were doing very low damage compared to a zerker thief. The other player would have also been experiencing the same culling as you. You were visible to him the same amount of time he was visible to you. The difference was, the other player reacted better.

In short, you got outplayed. You want a class nerfed because a guy who plays thief is a better theif than a guy (you in this case) who picked one up to see how it works.

In my opinion Guardians are undoubtedly the best World vs World class.

This is coming from a guardian with 20k kills in wvw. I feel like I can actually turn the tide of battles, and when our commander is doing micro command, things that guardians provide are most asked for. Mass stability top counter that CC? You got it. Retaliation/light fields? Here ya go. Blast finishers on four second cooldown? We got that. Need even MOAR might stacking? Empower. Need heals? Who else would you call? A staff ele? LOL. Troll the enemy by reflecting all projectiles? Up goes that wall of reflection. Need mass CC in the middle of their zerg? Here comes some wards and ground target sanctuaries. Condition clear? Here ya go. Need 50 bajillion boons? I can do that as well. Need massive damage? You call glass staff ele to meteor shower. Or you could ask the guardians to take out their tome of wrath. Not to mention most wvw guilds have guardians being recruited as in the most demand.

I should mention you can accomplish a vast majority of what I mentioned above all in one build (I run it). All while doing very very respectable damage inside a zerg and proccing a lot of crit effects. I have survived nearly 100% of our initial pushes into enemy zergs as well.

Do you want to talk about small scale skirmishes? Well then you should try fighting against a decently skilled healway guardian sometime. You can trust me that a decent player running that build will be nearly impossible to kill in a 1v1. The build I mentioned that does so much for zerg fights couldn’t even bring the last healway guardian I dueled to use his heal skill, and although I am not glass cannon I do pretty high amounts of damage for what it’s worth. Healway isn’t the only, or necessarily even the guardian’s best dueling build. Let’s just say this weekend I came upon a guardian who was just destroying every single person on our server in duels, and he does this very very often.

That having been said, there’s no doubt that thieves make the best scouts and duelists in open world roaming. It’s not necessarily because they have the best combat mechanics; they don’t. Rather, they have the best engage and disengage mechanisms, yes, even better than DD eles.

FOR EXAMPLE: lets say your old school or just not smart and like to run d/d burst thief in wvw . you CnD but he blocks with aegis or soemthing….then u dodge his attack then u try CnD again but he dodges bc its insanely slow and u can see it coming…..now u are fully outo f intiative lol! welll maybe 1-2 from regen. lets steal! IF it hits you get a few thousand damage! ok so in that scenario u only did like 3-5k dmg and guess what…ur out of intiative and about to die.

What you just described is one of the worst openings that could possible occur for a thief fighting a Guardian/Mesmer/whoever else has access to aegis. Missing 2 Cloak and Daggers and out of dodges?!?

Even then, you have two utility skills you can use to get away. Shadow refuge and shadowstep. Much more often than not, the thief will get away if he chooses to disengage. The only thieves I’ve ever been able to kill I’ve either

1) Been a thief myself and just bursted them down
2) jumped them at not full health and bursted them down with another class
3) They chose to bravely but also unwisely stay and fight to their death (this includes all duels against thieves I’ve been in)
4) Focused with multiple other people to take down.

Anyways, mug needs a nerf. It does too much for being a minor trait

randomfightfan.4091:

So you’re refusing to acknowledged an intelligent answer, created to help you, because you would rather a pve nerf remain b/c you don’t like getting killed in wvw. Right. Here’s another point, while you were in your pvt armor, you were doing very low damage compared to a zerker thief. The other player would have also been experiencing the same culling as you. You were visible to him the same amount of time he was visible to you. The difference was, the other player reacted better.

In short, you got outplayed. You want a class nerfed because a guy who plays thief is a better theif than a guy (you in this case) who picked one up to see how it works.

LOL wut. I played 10/30/30 D/D build for no more than 1 hour than gave it up. I hated it.. You might find this hard to believe, but when I’m my main build I’ve never lost to a thief 1v1.. ever. And I don’t play cheesy P/D. Thanks for interpreting.

Issues.5789:

LOL wut. I played 10/30/30 D/D build for no more than 1 hour than gave it up. I hated it.. You might find this hard to believe, but when I’m my main build I’ve never lost to a thief 1v1.. ever. And I don’t play cheesy P/D. Thanks for interpreting.

good for you, never said you did. What you are saying though, is that you’re fine with 4s revealed because you don’t use it. If you were using d/d (esp in pve) before nerf though, you’d be pulling your hair out due to how horrible the rotation feels now. Lastly, this is a PUBLIC forum, anyone can join in the conversation. Thanks for being a jerk to someone joining into the conversation

randomfightfan.4091:

Issues.5789:

LOL wut. I played 10/30/30 D/D build for no more than 1 hour than gave it up. I hated it.. You might find this hard to believe, but when I’m my main build I’ve never lost to a thief 1v1.. ever. And I don’t play cheesy P/D. Thanks for interpreting.

good for you, never said you did. What you are saying though, is that you’re fine with 4s revealed because you don’t use it. If you were using d/d (esp in pve) before nerf though, you’d be pulling your hair out due to how horrible the rotation feels now. Lastly, this is a PUBLIC forum, anyone can join in the conversation. Thanks for being a jerk to someone joining into the conversation

Your exact words were: In short, you got outplayed. You want a class nerfed because a guy who plays thief is a better theif than a guy (you in this case) who picked one up to see how it works. LOL, how am I being a jerk? I don’t play PvE. WvW only. Being a jerk is always better than being a butthead so I’ll take the compliment.

Issues.5789:

Your exact words were: In short, you got outplayed. You want a class nerfed because a guy who plays thief is a better theif than a guy (you in this case) who picked one up to see how it works. LOL, how am I being a jerk? I don’t play PvE. WvW only. Being a jerk is always better than being a butthead so I’ll take the compliment.

You completely refused to even acknowledge what Das was saying which is why I called you out. I also just explained what you wrote sounded like. Sorry that you took offence to that.
Your argument was that a thief was able to invis faster than possible since culling fix but still wanted them nerfed due to what they could do BEFORE the fix. If you don’t understand why that would bug someone and make you sound less than savory then there’s no point in continuing this conversation. It clearly isn’t going to be going anywhere

randomfightfan.4091:

Issues.5789:

Your exact words were: In short, you got outplayed. You want a class nerfed because a guy who plays thief is a better theif than a guy (you in this case) who picked one up to see how it works. LOL, how am I being a jerk? I don’t play PvE. WvW only. Being a jerk is always better than being a butthead so I’ll take the compliment.

You completely refused to even acknowledge what Das was saying which is why I called you out. I also just explained what you wrote sounded like. Sorry that you took offence to that.
Your argument was that a thief was able to invis faster than possible since culling fix but still wanted them nerfed due to what they could do BEFORE the fix. If you don’t understand why that would bug someone and make you sound less than savory then there’s no point in continuing this conversation. It clearly isn’t going to be going anywhere

I love you. Do you feel better now? These words don’t phaze me.

as a PVE P/P SB thief i hope P/P gets love.

so pvp specs get a nerf who cares go play cod.

Stealth attacks should have cl of 3 seconds. I’m pretty sure everyone can agree with me here. Spamming 1 like a monkey is just plain kittened. Thief should be about precision and cunning.

cl? a cooldown?
Stealth attacks have a Cl of 4s if they land.
Being shot repeatedly? Not really even an inherit issue. Whens the last time someone cried about Surprise shot?
Exactly.

swinsk.6410:

Master of Timespace.2548:

I do a lots of duels as a shatter burst mesmer, and have only lost once or twice to a guard. And no, it wasn’t a tank guard – it was some guard that jumped right on me and I lost because I underestimated him. If my shatter mes ever gets owned by a guard in 1v1, it’s not because his class is op, but because he is a better player.
So the answer to your question is Glass Shatter Mesmer.
Duels are all about rock paper scissors:
d/d thief > gc mesmer
guard > gc mesmer
gc mesmer > guard

EDIT: do note that I talk from WvW perspective. The in WvW damage is generally greater than in spvp. In spvp tanks might very well be overpowered, I don’t know because I don’t play it.

guard > gc meser but gc mesmer > guard?

Either you made a typo or are completely contradicting yourself.

I’m talking about spvp because that is what really matters. WvW balance is completely different and there are lot of other factors. Defenses and offense are much greater and certain skills are un-nerfed in wvw but nerfed in spvp.
.
.
.

Yes that’s a typo. No I don’t play spvp, I could care the less for that abstract point cap crap. If they ever add ra/ta style game, I will probably hop in.
However, I have done a few duels with friends who are from my server in spvp, and yes, it’s extremely difficult to get bunkers down.

My point is that if you say “duels” are about rock paper scissors, then what class counters the bunker guardian? Currently, there isn’t one in spvp.

You are probably right, nowdays I only do duels in WvW where you can’t just face tank everything.