Guild Wars 2

Im just writing this short post in case some people still feel thieves are a bit too much to handle in WvW or SPvP even after they did lower the damage and increase the reveal time amongst other things.

Something you can always do first is check videos on youtube about certain professions and how they fight. This is what I do to prepare myself for what other classes can possibly unleash on me and how I should counter it.

Which brings me to my next point; I believe Arenet is trying their best to balance all the professions out. Each profession has a slightly unique stronger advantage. For example, guardian’s with thier healing, mesmers with thier clones and so on. So the thief’s strongest point is its stealth. Which may I add if some of you may not know we are still vulnerable in this state(so keep swinging your weapon and if the chain keeps going, you’re hitting something). Im not going to go through what each profession can do but some of your best offensive chances are massive AOE (stuns, knockdowns, damage whatever you have) or a very defensive build like a warrior with a shield may block for 4 seconds(?) or a guardian with lots of ways of healing and going invulnerable and so on..

Understand that thieves were designed to kill…………… players. They do have that advantage of determinating if a fight starts or not.

So ultimately I would like to say.. dont hate on us

oh, my off hand weapon is always my get away weapon (not so important but helps).

Studying Games is what I like to do, if you’re gonna make a post, make one with a valid point.

Peace

Posts like this will only bring more trolls/players to the forums whining unfortunately.

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

You guys need a nerf , so please refrain from making such redundant posts in the future
/thread ty.

Your signature indicates otherwise.

. _.

I’d say L2P, but then I’d be guilty of the redundancy which you wanted to avoid.

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

You guys need a nerf , so please refrain from making such redundant posts in the future
/thread ty.

Dont be so bitter. Whats redundant about giving advice? Im not telling anyone learn to play. May i ask, do you play a thief?

Wonderer.1790:

Posts like this will only bring more trolls/players to the forums whining unfortunately.

Hopefully not, I didnt make this post to debate about if the thief needs more nerf or not. I just telling people certain prcautions they can make before going into a fight. this preperation will help with fighting other classes too.

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

You guys need a nerf , so please refrain from making such redundant posts in the future
/thread ty.

And might i ask you to refrain from replying any posts or messages unless you’re going to make a valid point and explain. not just say thieves need nerfs.

Whoa whoa whoa now , calm down …lets not get off topic (redundancy).

Best regards
Pseudo Thief.

NERF THIEF!

lol, just joking mind u. I am usually against nerfing anything (because… god forbid.. they might nerf my favourite classes next! :O ) i’d rather see buffs

I do grant that thieves are notorious in their advantages against other players. But rather than belittling the topic, I am hoping more ppl wud share their specifics on how they have countered thieves. The OP has listed some general ideas, though did not put in class specific counters, which he himself noted. I’m hoping others can add input in their regard.

Personally, only in two regards have I ever survived wonderfully enough in an encounter against an enemy thief.
1. As a warrior, dungeon built and tanky, can’t kill stuff at all in pvp. But can absorb the thief’s stabby stabby, and can put some hurt on thief; never enough to kill but just so to keep him away a bit. So it was stalemate. he got tired and left.
2. Mesmer with clones and a little stealth. keep popping clones and stealth, i ended confusing the poor guy i think. That thief went on a rather long stealth, popped up ready for his backstabbing coup de grace, with BAM! He whacked my clone! And I watched all that from a distance, shaking my head :p

just personal stories, i havent really refined anti-thief stuff… but then thts why im here… to learn

I was thinking about making either a video guide or write one here on how to counter most of the annoying moves of the thief. Maybe I should – it would force the bad thieves to learn their class more because they won’t be able to do that much any longer :p

Geiir.7603:

I was thinking about making either a video guide or write one here on how to counter most of the annoying moves of the thief. Maybe I should – it would force the bad thieves to learn their class more because they won’t be able to do that much any longer :p

definitely wanna see this. wud be nice to be able to turn the tables on them once in a while :p

uh… no.. just.. no..
don’t nerf thieves..
buff other classes that has an issue instead..

intimidate much.1298:

Understand that thieves were designed to kill…………… players. They do have that advantage of determinating if a fight starts or not.

And other profession where desinged to do what?
Warrior to farm cof?
Guardian to do fractals?
Enginieer to kill quagons?
Ranger to hunt rabbits?
So you basicly saing that Thief is the only pvp profession in game becasue its players vs players?
Lets just limit pvp to theifs becasue they where desinged to do it.
And when I get killed by Theif should i just smile and say “Silly me what im doing here playing pve profession in pvp, I need to make a theif and play Guild Wars 2 normally.”
Honestyl I have nothing against people playing Theif but it is so anoying profession to fight with, there is no fun in it and everytime I got defeted by Theif i feel in some way cheated.

Opynn.2936:

intimidate much.1298:

Understand that thieves were designed to kill…………… players. They do have that advantage of determinating if a fight starts or not.

And other profession where desinged to do what?
Warrior to farm cof?
Guardian to do fractals?
Enginieer to kill quagons?
Ranger to hunt rabbits?
So you basicly saing that Thief is the only pvp profession in game becasue its players vs players?
Lets just limit pvp to theifs becasue they where desinged to do it.
And when I get killed by Theif should i just smile and say “Silly me what im doing here playing pve profession in pvp, I need to make a theif and play Guild Wars 2 normally.”
Honestyl I have nothing against people playing Theif but it is so anoying profession to fight with, there is no fun in it and everytime I got defeted by Theif i feel in some way cheated.

thieves shine in pvp situations because they have the suprise factor, this makes other players panic in some situations which HELPS and this does not make the thief OP. it does not mean if other classes dont have this, they arent a match. maybe i should word it differently; thieves were designed to kill. not just players but even in pve. thieves provide good damage per second output.

By the way, warriors and guardians are PvE kings, still I have seen some players play them extremely well in WvW or PvP. So as every other class I have seen. I have gotten my butt whooped by each and every class before countless times. just understand how the thief plays and countering them is simple enough.

What class do you play?

Opynn.2936:

intimidate much.1298:

Understand that thieves were designed to kill…………… players. They do have that advantage of determinating if a fight starts or not.

And other profession where desinged to do what?
Warrior to farm cof?
Guardian to do fractals?
Enginieer to kill quagons?
Ranger to hunt rabbits?
So you basicly saing that Thief is the only pvp profession in game becasue its players vs players?
Lets just limit pvp to theifs becasue they where desinged to do it.
And when I get killed by Theif should i just smile and say “Silly me what im doing here playing pve profession in pvp, I need to make a theif and play Guild Wars 2 normally.”
Honestyl I have nothing against people playing Theif but it is so anoying profession to fight with, there is no fun in it and everytime I got defeted by Theif i feel in some way cheated.

Probably the thing to say is “Thieves have a significant advantage in killing players”.I am sure this was the intended meaning here. this may be issues with the word ‘designed’ as it can imply other classes were not meant for it.

I do feel for ur annoyance with thieves; in and out of stealth, stabby stabby… the whole fight usually revolves with them controlling the tempo, so to speak. But that’s why we are here: to dicuss and find ways to get back at mr stabby :P

Thieves arent even that good in sPvP. I think thieves stealth needs to be reworked in WvW, however.

I enjoy fighting a Warrior, Guardian, Ranger , hell I enjoy fighting a Mesmer (trying to fight the “right” on is kinda fun) and other professions but in a game where you need to observe your oppoent and act accordingly Theif is not enjoyable. And is not only about stealth. Thief is one of the profession whos attacks are not transparent enough (esspecialy on smaller monitors and when thief is asura) plus he just spam them like he is not thingking about what he is doing, like he entered berserker mode.

And in wvw… If you find the good theif its like you not playing and mmorpg but first person shoter but instead of headshot you get “thiefed”. Maybe my reaction time is too slow, or Im just too old for this but kitten they are anoying.

I wouldnt minde give theif more hp, armor etc to slow the game down.

And for the end the disclaimers
-no I dont run berserk in wvw- I run with 3k armor
-no I dont think thieves are Op and need to be nerfed.
-dont tell me l2p becasue I fought thieves I won with thieves and I lost- this is a game that how it is
- I made theif to learn it you dont need to give that advice
- I dont hate theif, this i not a hate post

Great post! All My encounters where I managed to kill a thief was based on getting a good cc on him and then continued with burst. BUT they do have Shadow steps so use a less valuable cc on him and a light burst to get him to use his stun breakers. He will then heal and be stealth, at this point he will get a backstab off be ready for it. When he does this use your best cc and QUICKLY burst the kitten out of him. And if you have any other cc, use it if he is not dead. With no heal and no shadow step he will most likely die. ALSO most thieves save Shadow Refuge for this exact moment so save your pulls or knockbacks or Fears for this time. GOOD LUCK.

EDIT: If you have no CC to get him out of the SR aoe spam and poison if you have it to negate the heal. At this time his heal should be close to being ready to use again.
(This is in regard to most d/d, d/p, and p/d builds.) Sword main hand has alot more evasive skills so ill work on a post for them later on today.

generalraccoon.3857:

lol, just joking mind u. I am usually against nerfing anything (because… god forbid.. they might nerf my favourite classes next! :O ) i’d rather see buffs

Maplestory used to be buffs only…now look at it…so bad

Pretty soon people are going to be saying they can do LEET damage.

Oh wait…

Teamkiller.4315:

generalraccoon.3857:

lol, just joking mind u. I am usually against nerfing anything (because… god forbid.. they might nerf my favourite classes next! :O ) i’d rather see buffs

Maplestory used to be buffs only…now look at it…so bad

Pretty soon people are going to be saying they can do LEET damage.

Oh wait…

You’ve just been waiting to use that screenshot, haven’t you. 8D

Teamkiller.4315:

generalraccoon.3857:

lol, just joking mind u. I am usually against nerfing anything (because… god forbid.. they might nerf my favourite classes next! :O ) i’d rather see buffs

Maplestory used to be buffs only…now look at it…so bad

Pretty soon people are going to be saying they can do LEET damage.

Oh wait…

OMG awesome screenshot there! hahahah

anyway seriously, yeah I’ve seen Maplestory :P… and what I meant by preferring buffs is not a continual escalation of powering up classes up to the sky so to speak. I meant bringing up other classes just enough to be up to par with each other in the many activities in the game. The reason being that by not nerfing exisiting powerful build/class it wont ruin it for the ppl currently using them but gives the typically handicapped “others” a fighting chance.

but thats beside the point, because i just wanna see here what counters thieves, (rascally kittens they are!) within the existing framework

And might I add something which i have forgotten. I feel and believe thievies have very good mobility. they have a lot of shadow steps available to them and traits such as “Move 50% faster in stealth” (stacked on top of swiftness and a 25% constant speed buff). despite all this, thieves still usually have to get to a relative close distance to you to deal damage. so if you manage to pin them down, most thieves have low defence so it should be easy enough for you to kill them.

intimidate much.1298:

And might I add something which i have forgotten. I feel and believe thievies have very good mobility. they have a lot of shadow steps available to them and traits such as “Move 50% faster in stealth” (stacked on top of swiftness and a 25% constant speed buff). despite all this, thieves still usually have to get to a relative close distance to you to deal damage. so if you manage to pin them down, most thieves have low defence so it should be easy enough for you to kill them.

correction BAD thieves have low defense smart thiefs willl have 2k+ armor without losing their 100% crit damage nor 3k attack

Personally I don’t have a problem with thieves. I like to think of ambush thieves (AKA backstab thieves) as the initiation into higher PVP. At first they seem like they are overpowered and way too strong and can get away from everything, but as you learn more about the game and get better at your class the threat of the ambush thief diminishes.

I thought this way before the haste nerf, too. I currently have 3 toons at 80 and 5 toons that I’ve gone into sPVP with: Engineer, Necromancer, Guardian, Mesmer, and my own Thief. Every single one of them has ways of dealing with a backstab thief. On my engineer, they’ll either get caught in my turrets or they’ll be burst down just as quickly with grenades and bombs or blown back by something else. Necromancer just pops Death Shroud to blow their entire haste and follows up with marks + wells inside of their shadow refuge. My own thief just vanishes into thin air and counter attacks just as well. My guardian just chases them around auto attacking, and my mesmer distortion’s and blocks the assault or teleports away then responds with stealth as well.

The most dangerous thieves are the ones that keep their distance, attacking primarily with the shortbow or the pistol. These are the tricky guys, because they aren’t bellying themselves up by spamming heartseeker, and they can maintain a steady offense while using stealth as a very effective defense. The scary part is that these guys CAN burst down an opponent quickly. They just choose to do it when it’ll win the fight, and not do it as quickly as possible in hopes that they’re attacking a newb. They’re evasive, capable of disengaging using something other than shadow refuge, and have more build diversity.

I find mesmers to be far more dangerous than the thief. They’re just as hard to catch, can just as easily disengage, all the while having twice as many tools at their disposal and also having more reliable burst. Plus, Moa Morph is just plain OP in 1 vs. 1. I won’t be calling for a thief nerf anytime soon.

intimidate much.1298:

And might I add something which i have forgotten. I feel and believe thievies have very good mobility. they have a lot of shadow steps available to them and traits such as “Move 50% faster in stealth” (stacked on top of swiftness and a 25% constant speed buff). despite all this, thieves still usually have to get to a relative close distance to you to deal damage. so if you manage to pin them down, most thieves have low defence so it should be easy enough for you to kill them.

Speed boosts don’t stack.

SharadSun.3089:

intimidate much.1298:

And might I add something which i have forgotten. I feel and believe thievies have very good mobility. they have a lot of shadow steps available to them and traits such as “Move 50% faster in stealth” (stacked on top of swiftness and a 25% constant speed buff). despite all this, thieves still usually have to get to a relative close distance to you to deal damage. so if you manage to pin them down, most thieves have low defence so it should be easy enough for you to kill them.

Speed boosts don’t stack.

Yea. Question: those skills do not even stack duration? most of my toons dont have multiple speed boosts.. ty,..

Nerf stealth.

Give them more passive healing and built in evades on weaponskills.

D/P needs a hefty nerf to Black Powder cost so they can’t just spam stealth at will.

Thieves should function more akin to Sword+Dagger than Dagger+Pistol. Evasive, in and out combat, without the ridiculous stealth spam.

intimidate much.1298:

Understand that thieves were designed to kill…………… players. They do have that advantage of determinating if a fight starts or not.

I don’t really want to just start attacking this quote so if you don’t mind elaborating on what you were trying to say it would be appreciated as currently I could just say so does(is) every other class.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Personally I don’t have a problem with thieves. I like to think of ambush thieves (AKA backstab thieves) as the initiation into higher PVP. At first they seem like they are overpowered and way too strong and can get away from everything, but as you learn more about the game and get better at your class the threat of the ambush thief diminishes.

I thought this way before the haste nerf, too. I currently have 3 toons at 80 and 5 toons that I’ve gone into sPVP with: Engineer, Necromancer, Guardian, Mesmer, and my own Thief. Every single one of them has ways of dealing with a backstab thief. On my engineer, they’ll either get caught in my turrets or they’ll be burst down just as quickly with grenades and bombs or blown back by something else. Necromancer just pops Death Shroud to blow their entire haste and follows up with marks + wells inside of their shadow refuge. My own thief just vanishes into thin air and counter attacks just as well. My guardian just chases them around auto attacking, and my mesmer distortion’s and blocks the assault or teleports away then responds with stealth as well.

The most dangerous thieves are the ones that keep their distance, attacking primarily with the shortbow or the pistol. These are the tricky guys, because they aren’t bellying themselves up by spamming heartseeker, and they can maintain a steady offense while using stealth as a very effective defense. The scary part is that these guys CAN burst down an opponent quickly. They just choose to do it when it’ll win the fight, and not do it as quickly as possible in hopes that they’re attacking a newb. They’re evasive, capable of disengaging using something other than shadow refuge, and have more build diversity.

I find mesmers to be far more dangerous than the thief. They’re just as hard to catch, can just as easily disengage, all the while having twice as many tools at their disposal and also having more reliable burst. Plus, Moa Morph is just plain OP in 1 vs. 1. I won’t be calling for a thief nerf anytime soon.

Problem is the balance and focus of sPVP and the balance of WvW is radically different. Thieves are viewed as generally balanced in sPVP, being mid tierish IIRC. However they are viewed extremely negatively in WvW.

For example in sPVP you won’t have 3 thieves run together and heartseeker spam 1 person at a time and all escape when a group of 30 runs smooth over them. In WvW you do occasionally find this. In sPVP it would be point suicide to run permastealth as people would just cap things while you constantly stealthed. In WvW you can pick off countless people open field this way with little to no risk.

The rules are completely different between the two game modes and thief, and possibly others, need to be separately balanced for each.

This might actually be the 35436 thread about this topic. The forums are full of complaints in every language this game is released. Alot people i know stopped playing until the devs balance this.

Its a looser class for baddies and of course they defend it with uber nerdrage posts and l2p posts because there are no serious arguments for this mess.

Any ability that adds protection, retaliation or invulnerability makes a Burst Thief much less effective. Any ability that chills, cripples or channels makes a Stealth Thief much less effective. Now go try it out.

Quells.2498:

Any ability that adds protection, retaliation or invulnerability makes a Burst Thief much less effective. Any ability that chills, cripples or channels makes a Stealth Thief much less effective. Now go try it out.

I’ve ran on an engineer with over 2,500 armor and 23k+ health and been splattered by a thief in under 3 seconds. Retaliation is based off of power and was recently nerfed in WvW, though it is currently broke using the old values in the borderlands. Not all classes have long durations of protections available and they are on long cooldowns, thief can just reset the fight and know you are screwed now, same story with invulns.

Shorts duration damage reduction will not defeat a thief, it will just make them reset a fight if the thief is not dumb. Retal similarly will not do much vs a thief unless you have alot of power, and even then thieves are capable of killing you in under 3 seconds flat even as a much more survivable build. Retal doesn’t work vs these builds, they kill too fast.

Well from my viewpoint they are 2nd most frustrating opponent (1st is mesmers).
In my fights with thieves I have found movement is key to try to not let them get your back..but….unless you are bunker build there straight dps is still insane.
You can pile condis on them but…they can cleanse them in stealth. You can try to cc them, but more often than not they have some way of getting out of it. I struggle a lot aganst them, my most durable bunker was a guardian with 3.4k armour and a metric crapton of healing. Got opened on and lost just over 75% of my hp in less than 5 secs. 3.4k of armour…….
The most successful I have been against them is with a minionmancer that was half condition mancer, it seemed to apply enough pressure to make them wary of leaving stealth to have a go. Other than that, a bomb kit focused engineer. I have found you need some kind of AOE to fight them as otherwise, you are just swinging wildly, praying they are not behind you.
The very way stealth works, kinda ruins the fun facing them.

Thieves in WvW are a little ridiculous, maybe. I run a S/P duelist build and it’s kind of crazy.

But Thieves in tPvP do need a bit of diversity. D/P and S/D are decent sets, but they’re spammy and miserable to use. =/

I don’t understand why anyone is worried about Thieves resetting the fight. Sure it’s frustrating when a kill gets away but it doesn’t really matter. The only thing you should worry about is burst Thieves but only if you are roaming alone in WvW.

Quells.2498:

I don’t understand why anyone is worried about Thieves resetting the fight. Sure it’s frustrating when a kill gets away but it doesn’t really matter. The only thing you should worry about is burst Thieves but only if you are roaming alone in WvW.

1. The ability to reset the fight means the ability to run whenever they feel like as well. You cannot reset if you cannot run. People dislike not being able to kill people who can plainly kill them. Specifically if few or no people can kill those said people.

2. It means they can make you blow your cooldowns, reset, and then fight you weakened with no loss to themselves done right. Even if they use cooldowns they still come out with the advantage as they can choose whether or not to re-engage.

3. Against many people they can do this repeatedly while leaving conditions on the enemy. Killing them after 2-3 resets when only one person gets a full out of combat heal while the other does not. (Or heals up via stealth)

I don’t mind thieves, they just have a nasty habit of running away from me!

Stop it guys! Its very rude.