Guild Wars 2

Thief is completely broken in PvP. The ability to go stealth and have total control over the battle is simply OP. No other class can choose their fights and escape whenever they want.

I had 6 people in WvW trying to kill 1 thief, but due to all the passive traits and utilities, we couldn’t catch him.

We stunned him, but due to Hard to Catch, Shadowstep, Shadow Strike or Shadowtrap and he can avoid any/every stun we hit him with while he dances around in the distance laughing and dancing away.

You heal while stealth, removed conditions while stealth, move faster while stealth, and it’s all on a FOUR SECOND COOLDOWN and that’s IF you choose to attack immediately, where if you don’t, then you gain all the benefits of stealth but without any consequences or cooldowns. God forbid you stack stealth utilities/combos to get that extra stealth duration too.

No other class has these benefits and everyone would die in a 1v6, which puts the thief in a special category that is unbalanced.

There needs to be a diminishing return on stealth, longer cooldowns on utilities/traits, re-working combo fields, or something to level the playing field because right now, Thief = Win or never lose.

A thief in stealth isn’t do any damage. Did he manage to kill any of you? Were you all upleveled?

I don’t even know why I bother reading the thief forums… Wait till the thief is nerfed beyond use and then the same thief player gets another troll character that manages to upset people and the thread moves to that class….

Thiefs are not that bad… Learn to deal with them there is no way a thief should be able to down 5 players… use AOE or learn to dodge. while he attacks one of you the rest should be kicking his face…

He might be able to get away but a thief running is hardly a problem.

Bacon Please.8407:

A thief in stealth isn’t do any damage. Did he manage to kill any of you? Were you all upleveled?

That’s not the point. The point is if you were a ranger, a guardian, a warrior, or anyone else, 6 people would kill you and that would be the end of it.

Could he 1v1? I’m sure he could.. but I’m also sure if the fight wasn’t going his way he could easily escape and reset the fight or just run away.

Skill>numbers .Because 20 minutes ago on my warrior I just I stomped 2 players in a group of 4 before running away. If you are bad, you are bad. Stop Complaining. Complaining does nothing but promote laziness. I have no problems killing thieves on my warrior, the few that have gotten me recently were running High Condition builds which I adjusted for and now have very little problem dealing with them. So Saying " We have 6 people, we automatically should win" is very inaccurate. This is a Learn to play issue it would seem.

Napalm.5693:

I don’t even know why I bother reading the thief forums… Wait till the thief is nerfed beyond use and then the same thief player gets another troll character that manages to upset people and the thread moves to that class….

Thiefs are not that bad… Learn to deal with them there is no way a thief should be able to down 5 players… use AOE or learn to dodge. while he attacks one of you the rest should be kicking his face…

He might be able to get away but a thief running is hardly a problem.

Sorry but that doesn’t fly. You are using a cop-out by saying “learn to deal with them”. A 6 man group shouldn’t have to use communication and specific utilities to deal with 1 person regardless of their class. Why should it only apply to thieves?

Having the ability to get away IS a problem because no other class can do the same thing. It means they can take down posts, dolyaks, camps, and never get caught.

CollegeDowntime.4187:

Napalm.5693:

I don’t even know why I bother reading the thief forums… Wait till the thief is nerfed beyond use and then the same thief player gets another troll character that manages to upset people and the thread moves to that class….

Thiefs are not that bad… Learn to deal with them there is no way a thief should be able to down 5 players… use AOE or learn to dodge. while he attacks one of you the rest should be kicking his face…

He might be able to get away but a thief running is hardly a problem.

Sorry but that doesn’t fly. You are using a cop-out by saying “learn to deal with them”. A 6 man group shouldn’t have to use communication and specific utilities to deal with 1 person regardless of their class. Why should it only apply to thieves?

Having the ability to get away IS a problem because no other class can do the same thing. It means they can take down posts, dolyaks, camps, and never get caught.

I can get away quite easily on my mesmer, warrior, even engineer. Chances are you don’t even have a thief and don’t understand them one bit.

Specific utilties…. Yeah you should use specific utilties just like the thief does. There is no one super build that wins all… He fits for a specific purpose for taking down single targets and getting away. If you did the same he wouldnt have such an easy time… Roll a thief yourself and see how “easy” it is…

Bacon Please.8407:

Skill>numbers .Because 20 minutes ago on my warrior I just I stomped 2 players in a group of 4 before running away. If you are bad, you are bad. Stop Complaining. Complaining does nothing but promote laziness. I have no problems killing thieves on my warrior, the few that have gotten me recently were running High Condition builds which I adjusted for and now have very little problem dealing with them. So Saying " We have 6 people, we automatically should win" is very inaccurate. This is a Learn to play issue it would seem.

How can you say “I have no problems killing thieves on my warrior” and then turn around and say that the ones who beat you were running high condition builds and now you have little problems. Apparently you had problems with condition thieves.

Can you honestly pretend that if 6 people stun and burst you down, you wouldn’t die? That Skill > any number of players in an open field? Stop dreaming for a second and get to reality: You can’t kill what you can’t catch, and there are too many options for a thief to avoid getting caught, especially when compared to every other class.

I don’t care how good you think you are, it does nothing to address the issues I’ve stated. If you still believe skill > numbers, I would love for you to prove it. Until then, you are using a theoretical approach to a very real problem.

Napalm.5693:

Specific utilties…. Yeah you should use specific utilties just like the thief does. There is no one super build that wins all… He fits for a specific purpose for taking down single targets. If you did the same he wouldnt have such an easy time… Roll a thief yourself and see how “easy” it is…

I have a champion shadow myself, along with 3 other champion titles and it’s not about experience, it’s about being able to survive a 6 man focused attack by using 1 ability (stealth) in multiple ways.

You simply will not catch a thief who wants to get away. Period. No other class can say that. That is an issue that should be addressed.

Bacon Please.8407:

CollegeDowntime.4187:

Napalm.5693:

I don’t even know why I bother reading the thief forums… Wait till the thief is nerfed beyond use and then the same thief player gets another troll character that manages to upset people and the thread moves to that class….

Thiefs are not that bad… Learn to deal with them there is no way a thief should be able to down 5 players… use AOE or learn to dodge. while he attacks one of you the rest should be kicking his face…

He might be able to get away but a thief running is hardly a problem.

Sorry but that doesn’t fly. You are using a cop-out by saying “learn to deal with them”. A 6 man group shouldn’t have to use communication and specific utilities to deal with 1 person regardless of their class. Why should it only apply to thieves?

Having the ability to get away IS a problem because no other class can do the same thing. It means they can take down posts, dolyaks, camps, and never get caught.

I can get away quite easily on my mesmer, warrior, even engineer. Chances are you don’t even have a thief and don’t understand them one kitten

ances are, you need to re-read what I’m saying because you didn’t address any issue I pointed out.

Furthermore, if 6 people stunned you and focused you down, your mesmer, warrior, or engineer would bite the dust inside 3 seconds flat because you wouldn’t be able to get away.

I have 490 wins on my thief, 472 on my warrior, and 100+ on all other classes so recalculate your “chances”. This is an issue about 1 class being able to use specific traits and utilities to be un-killable. No other class can do this, and it isn’t a L2P issue, it’s a mechanic issue.

Thief is escape artist the whole concept behind the class is the ability to break encounters. It was intended from the start by anet that is why the opted to tone down the offensive abilities of the thief that worked well with stealth. Now if you were complaining about a thief killing someone super fast while being able to escape then i would a point for discussion but that is not the case. Indeed thief is a selfish class thats all about his survival and that is why he contributes nothing to the group (almost). If you think about it it is fair that thief should be able to escape almost any situation. Compare it to the benefits of having warrior mesmer or engineer in groups and then you should see why thief can do what he does.

Also please consider the fact that if you kill everyone in a team fight and theif escapes thats a win for you. If you spot a thief ninjain a point and chase him away thats also a win for you. The only thing thats different is you dont get to dance over his dead body. Its not about being Op its about you being selfish like that.

Take away the ability to escape from the thief and all that will remain is a measly 6k-8k opener before he drops dead. Perma stealth perma evasion builds are not OP in the least not with that damage output.

I was roaming for a couple of hours with S/D two nights ago.

And a mesmer was trying to escape from me, chased him/her across the half map and was unable to catch him/her and my build has great mobility and decent stealth. But the mesmer utilized clones, teleport and stealth to escape. Then I spotted an enemy thief was chasing me. And was basically:
Basilisk > Infiltrators Strike > Daze hide in the shadows with steal and down he went.

Later on also a warrior was escaping from me and the warrior was pretty much immune to cripple, chill and immobilize.

Also fought an ele, took a while to chase him, but I agree they are a bit dull with mobility since the RtL nerf.

So don’t tell us thieves are most broken with being able to escape.

Sure we fought a D/P thief too, but wasn’t unstoppable, he/she was running out of initiative using BP/x1 HS and had to disengage and didn’t come back.

My best advice to everyone is to not go alone in WvW unless you play either thief, mesmer or warrior. I roam alone a lot, but I also sometimes team up with my friends.

And if thief is unkillable how come that they die? All it takes is a well timed stun or the mesmer elite. Sure, the thief many times has control of the fight and is able to disengage at will and reset a fight, so is many other classes, thieves are just specialized in this, same as Warriors are specialized for being one of the best classes for dungeons with a bonus to mobility. If you chase any of them reseting a fight you’re basically drawing a card, either a win card or a lose card, so best is to ignore the disengaging thief and go back to your own business or prepare your utilities and weapons for taking him down, I’m pretty sure all classes have something to counter a D/P thief.

And also a 1v6 against a thief who isn’t fighting, how is that a fight?

Think about WoW, it’s possible to stay permastealthed around people and watch ppl dueling and once their fights ends throw a dagger at the defeated one and gain a kill and escape easily back into permastealth. Why is that never complained about? Instead they just get kitten ed and spam some AoE’s and tries to set up a bleed if they catch him, but heck 140% chance to dodge for 10 seconds.

CollegeDowntime.4187:

We stunned him, but due to Hard to Catch, Shadowstep, Shadow Strike or Shadowtrap and he can avoid any/every stun we hit him with while he dances around in the distance laughing and dancing away.

So he basically was playing a troll build, with all possible mobility.
Ranged is the best way to take down a P/D thief and you need easy access to removing 1 condition as often as possible, a good amount of stuns, ranged stuns and mobility and it’s np. Blind/dodge/block his CnD 2 times, since if he goes for mobility he has low initiative regen.

Also warrios are one of the best stomp classes in wvw group fights.

CollegeDowntime.4187:

Napalm.5693:

Specific utilties…. Yeah you should use specific utilties just like the thief does. There is no one super build that wins all… He fits for a specific purpose for taking down single targets. If you did the same he wouldnt have such an easy time… Roll a thief yourself and see how “easy” it is…

I have a champion shadow myself, along with 3 other champion titles and it’s not about experience, it’s about being able to survive a 6 man focused attack by using 1 ability (stealth) in multiple ways.

You simply will not catch a thief who wants to get away. Period. No other class can say that. That is an issue that should be addressed.

I’ve lost count of the amount of “Champion X” people I killed when I was 1v2-1v3ing as a Thief. Really, I always approach them hoping to learn something new but they all end up being really easy to kill.
Especially “Champion Shadows”, they are so proud of their title that still think going around as a Zerker D/D thief in WvW is a nice idea.

What the OP wants is that when a thief is in the vicinity of 6 enemies, the thief should automatically die.

And obviously has never seen a warrior go through a 50 man zerg and live to tell the story.

Ath.2531:

What the OP wants is that when a thief is in the vicinity of 6 enemies, the thief should automatically die.

And obviously has never seen a warrior go through a 50 man zerg and live to tell the story.

Or a guardian…or an ele… I mean let’s be honest..any nonglass class with stun breakers and mobility.

I fight tons of WvW roamer and PvP thieves and I find them to be pretty balanced. Whichever of us plays better tends to win.

Thieves are only OP in their ability to deny a kill if they see they’re losing a battle. It’s really frustrating, they escape when another class probably would have died…..

But this escape ability is a direct function of their stealth mechanic, which I feel is otherwise balanced nicely. How do you take away this escape without gutting them utterly?

The answer is, you don’t really.

I’d rather lose out on a thief kill sometimes than see the entire class gutted.

6 people try to kill my Warrior. His HP just doesn’t move and enemies just drop overtime to aoe dmg and conditions. I guess they’re even more broken sicne Thief wouldn’t be able to kill all 6 ppl like that.

Actually in Spvp, the thief is about right. I agree that the perma stealth crutch in WvWvW is broken.

Dand.8231:

I fight tons of WvW roamer and PvP thieves and I find them to be pretty balanced. Whichever of us plays better tends to win.

Thieves are only OP in their ability to deny a kill if they see they’re losing a battle. It’s really frustrating, they escape when another class probably would have died…..

But this escape ability is a direct function of their stealth mechanic, which I feel is otherwise balanced nicely. How do you take away this escape without gutting them utterly?

The answer is, you don’t really.

I’d rather lose out on a thief kill sometimes than see the entire class gutted.

This is an honest mature response to the topic imo. Something fustrating is not necessarily OP just because it kitten es you off.