Guild Wars 2

Yesterday me (necro ) and a friend of mine (engineer) had several “fights” vs. two backstab thieves. The fight allway started the same way: steal/steal backstab/backtab on one of us ~22K damge (i use a toughness setup and those are the numbers I was hit with) and a 2vs 1 fight wihich usually ended 5 seconds later.

How do you counter the instant death 2 thieves can deliver from 900 range?

Dodge steal and use your cc abilities. And also, was that in sPVP?
Also same would have happened if you had to fight 2 warriors or 2 elementalists etc.

There is a reason there are classes that wear light,medium and heavy armor on mmos.

lonewolf.2601:

Dodge steal and use your cc abilities. And also, was that in sPVP?

How do you dodge an instant ability that can be executed from stealth?

No it was in WvW, both of us level 80 in full excotics so the result would have been the same in sPVP. We did not even see them before the first attack. I guess they used shadow refuge to stealth long enaugh to get in range but I am not sure about that.

If they get the jump on you you won’t have much of a chance.

The key is to jump them….while avoid being jumped yourself. If you can catch them off guard, preferably with CC/stuns…then it should be a pretty easy win.

Dodge after they vanish then.

Technically, in sPvP you cannot do a pure berzerker set so the damage output at max is slightly lower.

Thanos.2970:

lonewolf.2601:

Dodge steal and use your cc abilities. And also, was that in sPVP?

How do you dodge an instant ability that can be executed from stealth?

No it was in WvW, both of us level 80 in full excotics so the result would have been the same in sPVP. We did not even see them before the first attack. I guess they used shadow refuge to stealth long enaugh to get in range but I am not sure about that.

Even so, this is an event that you won’t see often. It can happen in every mmo and it’s ofcourse not game breaking or a reason to nerf(before someone goes there), etc.

You were in wvw, so what were you doing without your team? I suppose capturing a supply base or something, but again you won’t see this happening often, probability wise.

Dee Jay.2460:

If they get the jump on you you won’t have much of a chance.

The key is to jump them….while avoid being jumped yourself. If you can catch them off guard, preferably with CC/stuns…then it should be a pretty easy win.

We caught them once while they killed a lone guardian. They did not try to fight just stealthed and ran. As we could see them again they were already out of range. We chased them for a while but there is no way we could catch them with 25% runspeed +shortbow.

About 3 minutes later they found us again and instant killed me and killed the engineer with the 6 seconds of fear they stole from me.

Point is :

We get the jump: They escape
They get the jump: We die without a chance to fight back

Balanced?

Thanos.2970:

Dee Jay.2460:

If they get the jump on you you won’t have much of a chance.

The key is to jump them….while avoid being jumped yourself. If you can catch them off guard, preferably with CC/stuns…then it should be a pretty easy win.

We caught them once while they killed a lone guardian. They did not try to fight just stealthed and ran. As we could see them again they were already out of range. We chased them for a while but there is no way we could catch them with 25% runspeed +shortbow.

About 3 minutes later they found us again and instant killed me and killed the engineer with the 6 seconds of fear they stole from me.

Point is :

We get the jump: They escape
They get the jump: We die without a chance to fight back

Balanced?

In WvW main objective is to take and hold keeps. As a thief the two players are pretty much useless for their team. Now you and Eng would be able to hit people and siege inside keep with AoE and grenades while two thieves shoot a little cluster bomb every 3secs. Is that balanced? WvW is not going to be balanced in every situation.

Moddo.7105:

Thanos.2970:

Dee Jay.2460:

If they get the jump on you you won’t have much of a chance.

The key is to jump them….while avoid being jumped yourself. If you can catch them off guard, preferably with CC/stuns…then it should be a pretty easy win.

We caught them once while they killed a lone guardian. They did not try to fight just stealthed and ran. As we could see them again they were already out of range. We chased them for a while but there is no way we could catch them with 25% runspeed +shortbow.

About 3 minutes later they found us again and instant killed me and killed the engineer with the 6 seconds of fear they stole from me.

Point is :

We get the jump: They escape
They get the jump: We die without a chance to fight back

Balanced?

In WvW main objective is to take and hold keeps. As a thief the two players are pretty much useless for their team. Now you and Eng would be able to hit people and siege inside keep with AoE and grenades while two thieves shoot a little cluster bomb every 3secs. Is that balanced? WvW is not going to be balanced in every situation.

Or they could just stealth in range, use scorpion wire and pull the defenders from the keep one by on, probaly killing way more people this way then anyone using AEs that you can simply move out of.

And I do not see this as a WvW problem only. How do you counter it in sPvP?

You don’t see many Thieves in real sPvP. Why? Because they are easy to counter when you know what you are doing!

not sure how you can deal , because i don’t know many about necro and engeniers
however yesterday an condition necro chased 2 thieves all the time.
i tryed fight vs him , 1 time i died stealthed from conditions , 1 time he intrerupt my stealth arround 5 times in row with his perma fear ability’s
My sugestion is to ask other necro’s ( condition necro’s ) how they destroy thieves.
Cause i can assure you is your fault you lose vs thieves as necro

Rayya.2591:

My sugestion is to ask other necro’s ( condition necro’s ) how they destroy thieves.
Cause i can assure you is your fault you lose vs thieves as necro

So it is my fault they I die the first second of the fight against a high damage assist? Well please tell me what I (or any class) can do against an assist from stealth that instant kills you? One vs one is a different matter. At least I can fight back and condition necros are even one of the stronger classes vs thieves (unless they spec for condition removal on stealth then you have absolutely no chance).

Rayya.2591:

not sure how you can deal , because i don’t know many about necro and engeniers
however yesterday an condition necro chased 2 thieves all the time.
i tryed fight vs him , 1 time i died stealthed from conditions , 1 time he intrerupt my stealth arround 5 times in row with his perma fear ability’s

The fear a thieve can steal from a necro is as long as all necro fears (including the downed state fear) put together. Necros only have 2 fears (before downed state) and both last 1 second. I guess the rest of your story as as true as the 5 times perma fear part…

From the sound of it you got bursted by 2 backstab thieves, you will die if any 2 glass cannons from almost any class concentrate a burst on you, but as a necro you do have some some counters, Reapers mark on the staff, place it on the area you and the engineer are on and let them come to you, the fear will break up nicely the thieves combo, once the combo has failed pick one of the thieves and both you and the engineer concentrate in killing him, at all cost prevent him from use hide in shadows(can be done with the fear from death shroud) get an immobilize(net shot from the engi’s rifle helps here) on him also from you saying the 20% speed bonus I doubt the thieves have any condition removal utility so immobilize and proceed to kill and if they use shadow refuge just aoe it.

Why are you wandering around with two of the worst roaming classes expecting to win fights against strong roaming classes?

Imperator totius Sylvari.9164:

From the sound of it you got bursted by 2 backstab thieves, you will die if any 2 glass cannons from almost any class concentrate a burst on you, but as a necro you do have some some counters, Reapers mark on the staff, place it on the area you and the engineer are on and let them come to you, the fear will break up nicely the thieves combo, once the combo has failed pick one of the thieves and both you and the engineer concentrate in killing him, at all cost prevent him from use hide in shadows(can be done with the fear from death shroud) get an immobilize(net shot from the engi’s rifle helps here) on him also from you saying the 20% speed bonus I doubt the thieves have any condition removal utility so immobilize and proceed to kill and if they use shadow refuge just aoe it.

If it had been any other 2 glass cannons I could have fought back in one way or an other. The problem in this case is, that you are dead before you know the fight has started. I guess they stood behind a rock or a corner and used camera movement to scout ahead and dropped shadow refuge as soon as they saw us just to get a long enaugh stealth to close in on us. We never saw them coming (and I constantly move the camera in WvW). As soon as they hit 900 distance one of us is dead. You have no chance to know they are there and when they will attack. There simply is no reaction time. I can not drop a mark before an attack if I do not know the attack is comming.

Ensign.2189:

Why are you wandering around with two of the worst roaming classes expecting to win fights against strong roaming classes?

Do you think we would have done better with other classes? How do you defend vs instant death?

We often run as a team and we usually do pretty good in small scale fights but in this case there simply was no fight.

Listen, I play a burst p/p – sb thief and with 1980 armor (no toughness or anything, complete glass cannon) I take no more than 8k from backstab. Also running around like a headless chicken with those classes is asking to get killed, thieves aren’t good at the forts since they have bad range so you are taking them on in their preferred field.

http://i.imgur.com/vPegl.png
I’ve taken way more damage from warriors, 12k+ kill shot yesterday for example.

Thanos.2970:

How do you dodge an instant ability that can be executed from stealth?

Okay, first off, that’s impossible if they’re BS thieves.

The BS combo is Basilisk Venom ? CnD ? Steal (mid-cast) ? Backstab ? Heartseeker (until dead).

If you start that off from stealth, you’ll apply the venom, CnD, and use Steal mid-cast. At that point, they’ve broken stealth and they now have the Revealed debuff (no stealth for 3s), so they can’t Backstab. You’ll have taken at most 10k damage, and that’s assuming you’re a glass cannon.

You cannot do the BS burst starting from stealth.

Now, for how to counter.

These guys are going to have nothing in terms of survivability, utility, or control. Once you survive the burst, you just have to control them for a couple seconds (to prevent them escaping) and burn them down.

You counter by popping your survival cooldowns which you need to have in any sort of PvP. As a Necro, Death Shroud should work fine as long as you run with a good life force pool. Spectral Armor would also be wonderful. For the engineer, Elixirs are fantastic. You also need some sort of stun-break capability.

You hit that kitten the moment they start attacking you, and with your fast reflexes, you survive the burst. Then you guys control them. I’m thinking that the Engineer will probably have more stuns than you do, but it all depends on build. You need stuns, knockdowns, or immobilizes to kill a thief.

The good news is that these guys don’t have stun breaks or condition removal, so they cannot cope with your control once you get it off. Once you’ve gotten them to sit down and take their hits like men, focus fire on one and you can burn him down in seconds. They’ll have under 15k health and base toughness, so 3 seconds of damage from the two of you will be enough to kill them.

The other one might try to run, but all it takes is one immobilize/chill/cripple/stun/knockdown to shut that down. Wash/rinse/repeat. He might vanish into stealth, but if you managed to slow him down before he stealthed you’ll be able to catch him when he gets out.

If you could give me more info about your builds, I could help you out with specific skills (and changes you could make, if necessary).

Kuroin.1703:

Listen, I play a burst p/p – sb thief and with 1980 armor (no toughness or anything, complete glass cannon) I take no more than 8k from backstab. Also running around like a headless chicken with those classes is asking to get killed, thieves aren’t good at the forts since they have bad range so you are taking them on in their preferred field.

http://i.imgur.com/vPegl.png
I’ve taken way more damage from warriors, 12k+ kill shot yesterday for example.

Actually I took less then 8K from the backstab (7 and something). But steal also did over 4K. This means you die instantly, it simply does not matter if you “run around like a chicken” or run around like a pro. You just die without ever seeing the attacker. A warrior going to their knees and aiming at you is something totally different (though the burst might be a little high here, too).

Dacromir.6207:

If you start that off from stealth, you’ll apply the venom, CnD, and use Steal mid-cast. At that point, they’ve broken stealth and they now have the Revealed debuff (no stealth for 3s), so they can’t Backstab. You’ll have taken at most 10k damage, and that’s assuming you’re a glass cannon.

As far as I know you only get the revealed debuff if you attack from stealth. Possibly they moved in range and just waited for the stealth to expire to avoid the debuff and started the attack the second stealth dropped. Does this work?

Grenade Engineer with Turrets.
Staff Necromancer. (with wells.)

Both Stacked Heavily on Defense, you can constantly chill/cripple/immobilize your opponents and do heavy hard-hitting AOE Damage and AOE Healing.

Your welcome, you should be impossible to kill instantly if your standing ontop of eachother using marks, as if you use a fear mark ontop of you the thief who backstabs you instantly gets feared, and you can hear the noise when this happens, this means spam AOEs away, you know they will hit when your marks disapear.

After a short period (rendering issues, after they will get fixed.) you should see two-three thieves downed, they are useless now, so just finish them off.

Also remember, turrets track your target even when invisible, so you can look at them to always know where the thief is.

Daecollo.9578:

Grenade Engineer with Turrets.
Staff Necromancer. (with wells.)

Both Stacked Heavily on Defense, you can constantly chill/cripple/immobilize your opponents and do heavy hard-hitting AOE Damage and AOE Healing.

Your welcome, you should be impossible to kill instantly if your standing ontop of eachother using marks, as if you use a fear mark ontop of you the thief who backstabs you instantly gets feared, and you can hear the noise when this happens, this means spam AOEs away, you know they will hit when your marks disapear.

After a short period (rendering issues, after they will get fixed.) you should see two-three thieves downed, they are useless now, so just finish them off.

You did read that we were moving? If your strategy is to just stay in one spot all day we can as well stay in the border keep.

Thanos.2970:

Daecollo.9578:

Grenade Engineer with Turrets.
Staff Necromancer. (with wells.)

Both Stacked Heavily on Defense, you can constantly chill/cripple/immobilize your opponents and do heavy hard-hitting AOE Damage and AOE Healing.

Your welcome, you should be impossible to kill instantly if your standing ontop of eachother using marks, as if you use a fear mark ontop of you the thief who backstabs you instantly gets feared, and you can hear the noise when this happens, this means spam AOEs away, you know they will hit when your marks disapear.

After a short period (rendering issues, after they will get fixed.) you should see two-three thieves downed, they are useless now, so just finish them off.

You did read that we were moving? If your strategy is to just stay in one spot all day we can as well stay in the border keep.

You can throw down AOEs as you are moving.

Thanos.2970:

Kuroin.1703:

Listen, I play a burst p/p – sb thief and with 1980 armor (no toughness or anything, complete glass cannon) I take no more than 8k from backstab. Also running around like a headless chicken with those classes is asking to get killed, thieves aren’t good at the forts since they have bad range so you are taking them on in their preferred field.

http://i.imgur.com/vPegl.png
I’ve taken way more damage from warriors, 12k+ kill shot yesterday for example.

Actually I took less then 8K from the backstab (7 and something). But steal also did over 4K. This means you die instantly, it simply does not matter if you “run around like a chicken” or run around like a pro. You just die without ever seeing the attacker. A warrior going to their knees and aiming at you is something totally different (though the burst might be a little high here, too).

7k is still a lot and I don’t think you stack enough toughness or something like that then. Also a thief can’t close in on you in stealth, port to you and stealth and backstab. They would get ‘revealed’ by doing so which means no backstab. How exactly would they move in on you? Shadow refuge? using their heal stealth? Only way I can imagine is you didn’t see them coming due to A) rendering bug which is a known issue, or B ) you just failed to see them then they shadowstepped to you maybe even with the trait for increased range (1200 range steal) together with CnD and backstab which would do short work of you but it should also do that, it’s an assassin like build after all and very ineffective for taking forts or surviving longer fights.

Also, stacking toughness as an engineer is amazing, since you have the MOST access to the boon “33% damage reduction.” having high toughness already raises that, but having that boon ontop of it makes you rediculously hard to kill, i’ve backstabbed engineers built like this for only 2-3k.

I see everyone is always talking about CC, but forgets to mention AoEs. That’s the biggest weakness for that build. Use your CCs ofcourse, but also drop all your AoEs on top of you. That way the thieves will get hurt bad when they move in for the kill. That’s at least what got me when I started out and played a glass cannon build.

They probably exploited the bug(?) that let’s you activate CnD and then hit steal, which will then stealth the thief and steal at the same time. I really hope ANet fixes this soon as it will make thieves much easier to counter.

Geiir.7603:

I see everyone is always talking about CC, but forgets to mention AoEs. That’s the biggest weakness for that build. Use your CCs ofcourse, but also drop all your AoEs on top of you. That way the thieves will get hurt bad when they move in for the kill. That’s at least what got me when I started out and played a glass cannon build.

They probably exploited the bug(?) that let’s you activate CnD and then hit steal, which will then stealth the thief and steal at the same time. I really hope ANet fixes this soon as it will make thieves much easier to counter.

It’s intended…
However the problem is the rendering issue, the thief essentially get a extra 1-2sec of stealth after they hit someone.

Okay, first off, that’s impossible if they’re BS thieves.

Might I caution against using this kind of SPvP logic in WvWvW?

The write-up, as a primer against this kind of build, is excellent and deserves to be copied verbatim to some wiki somewhere (ahem… I could never guess which one).

But as a group of thieves roaming in WvWvW, prolonged stealth, speed and general roamability are more important than maximizing your build for a single, massive burst of damage.

Furthermore, these thieves are mostly waiting around for a suitable target, rather than actively trying to score points. WvWvW is a rather less urgent mode of play.

Also, the wide-open geometry changes the experience in a myriad of ways.

It’s entirely too easy to sight your foe far in the distance, manoeuvre to a suitable spot for lurking, and chain Shadow Refuge to move in front of your quarry while under complete concealment.

As long as the thieves finalize their efforts in a concentrated burst against an unsuspecting target, they get their prey.

I must now add that with the rise of the single-class Thieves Guild, you’re going to come across this sort of play a whole lot more often.

I love it, myself. Little by little, you receive the intelligence about a team of ambushers waylaying your soldiers and your supply trains in a specific part of the map, and organically a squad forms to take them on.

If you’re the lawbringers here, you feel righteous. If you’re the thieves, you feel truly hunted. Either way it’s massively immersive and seem like just the kind of believable war simulation WvWvW was designed for.

If you really aren’t seeing them and they pop on you, then you’re probably not looking hard enough. While thieves can stealth for a long time, there’s usually a clue they’re around: showdow refuge or blinding powder graphic. I’m going to assume this isn;t the case.

If you see them in the distance and they vanish, some things to try:

Stability will allow you to dodge out of the BS (you still take mug and CnD damage)

Stand on the fear mark

Time your dodges. They have 3-4 seconds of stealth (more if they blow their heal for extra stealth duration), and they have to attack in that time or run.

Lich form as soon as they stealth…odds are they run

Run the other way if they stealth (yeah, this is a non-solution, but good if your cooldowns are down)

Invuln the BS. Possibly the whole burst if timed right

Protection is great against burst

Aegis is great because it absorbes mug, but needs a guardian. Block is also an option for some classes

Thanos.2970:

Balanced?

If you loose as Necro vs a Backstabber, you honetsly must be utterly awful at your class.

It’s like every second Necro ability and trait is a direct Thief counter.

And yes, Necro and Thief are my mains.

Please, refrain from using “survive the burst” thing in this game, as it can be taken by some literally as surviving whole pack of damage. The correct would be “avoid the burst” in this game.
Now onto the topic – while necros don’t have strong burst to finish thief in a moment they are by far the best counter as it was already mentioned.
Engineer can blow thief down with just a single mine.
If you are not seeing (not looking around) them coming you should always be ready to be ambushed.

Considering the OP is arguing every point made with “unbalanced” and “unfair” its safe to say this is just another “QQ nerf thieves” thread disguised as an advice thread.

P/D condition thief can handle two backstab thiefs and win if he plays well, its just skill level. I dont know why ppl are thinking d/d thief is so op?? P/D should be nerf first;)

lol so much BS spoken here, people trying to defend the backstab Thiefs burst lol.
I have a Mesmer with 1.8k toughness, i can kill thieves in a prolonged fight if i can stop them from running.
Glass cannon thieves still kill me in seconds.

Yesterday i was hit for 14k with steal>c&d>BS and then killed with 2 heartseekers for 3k each, i didn’t see this Thief at and time during the fights as he didn’t even render till he was stomping me. The Thief that did this to me beat me 4 times that day without me being able to fight back.

I have given up all my burst for added survivability, but i still only last 4-5 seconds to this type of thief… is this fair?
I know some of you blind fanboois will say dodge the steal… lmao, you can’t dodge what you cant see coming.
Or CC him … lmao, you can’t CC while dead.

The simple facts are, if i am willing to give up my dps for toughness then the thief should have to adapt his tactics to kill me and go for a condition build. The simple fact that a Thief using BS build can take down any target using the exact same combo’s is absolute nonsense. The only difference between me with 1.8k toughness, and me specced with 900 toughness in Glass cannon spec is 2-3 more seconds of life if a BS Thief decides to attack me from stealth.

ArcticRed.3068:

lol so much BS spoken here, people trying to defend the backstab Thiefs burst lol.
I have a Mesmer with 1.8k toughness, i can kill thieves in a prolonged fight if i can stop them from running.
Glass cannon thieves still kill me in seconds.

Yesterday i was hit for 14k with steal>c&d>BS and then killed with 2 heartseekers for 3k each, i didn’t see this Thief at and time during the fights as he didn’t even render till he was stomping me. The Thief that did this to me beat me 4 times that day without me being able to fight back.

I have given up all my burst for added survivability, but i still only last 4-5 seconds to this type of thief… is this fair?
I know some of you blind fanboois will say dodge the steal… lmao, you can’t dodge what you cant see coming.
Or CC him … lmao, you can’t CC while dead.

The simple facts are, if i am willing to give up my dps for toughness then the thief should have to adapt his tactics to kill me and go for a condition build. The simple fact that a Thief using BS build can take down any target using the exact same combo’s is absolute nonsense. The only difference between me with 1.8k toughness, and me specced with 900 toughness in Glass cannon spec is 2-3 more seconds of life if a BS Thief decides to attack me from stealth.

So the issue is that you can’t see him, well that is not the thiefs fault but rather a issue that Anet is trying to fix. Should thieves be nerfed because there is issues with the gameplay in general? What will happen once the issue is solved then, well it will be left where it’s currently at.
How much armor do you have?

Kuroin.1703:

ArcticRed.3068:

lol so much BS spoken here, people trying to defend the backstab Thiefs burst lol.
I have a Mesmer with 1.8k toughness, i can kill thieves in a prolonged fight if i can stop them from running.
Glass cannon thieves still kill me in seconds.

Yesterday i was hit for 14k with steal>c&d>BS and then killed with 2 heartseekers for 3k each, i didn’t see this Thief at and time during the fights as he didn’t even render till he was stomping me. The Thief that did this to me beat me 4 times that day without me being able to fight back.

I have given up all my burst for added survivability, but i still only last 4-5 seconds to this type of thief… is this fair?
I know some of you blind fanboois will say dodge the steal… lmao, you can’t dodge what you cant see coming.
Or CC him … lmao, you can’t CC while dead.

The simple facts are, if i am willing to give up my dps for toughness then the thief should have to adapt his tactics to kill me and go for a condition build. The simple fact that a Thief using BS build can take down any target using the exact same combo’s is absolute nonsense. The only difference between me with 1.8k toughness, and me specced with 900 toughness in Glass cannon spec is 2-3 more seconds of life if a BS Thief decides to attack me from stealth.

So the issue is that you can’t see him, well that is not the thiefs fault but rather a issue that Anet is trying to fix. Should thieves be nerfed because there is issues with the gameplay in general? What will happen once the issue is solved then, well it will be left where it’s currently at.
How much armor do you have?

Did you even read what i said?
I was already 14k down before i would have been able to see him with zero rendering issues. So sitting on 18k HP that leaves me with a 4k pool to work with.
You with me so far? good, stay alert because now it gets interesting.

Because i gave up my burst for this toughness, even if the thief stood still and didnt attack me back it would take me 30sec to wear him down. But i don’t have that luxury, because he can spam 2 hearseekers in the time it takes me to cast one spell to destroy the last of my health pool.

I dont have a problem with any other thief spec, if im winning they simply dissapear… im fine with that. If a glass cannon warrior goes for me he better pray his charge > HB lands or ill wear him down.
There is a hard counter to every skill or spec in this game APART from BS thieves.

Edit: how much armor do i have? Well im a light armor wearer, there is no way of upping armor to my knowledge so what does that matter?

What? You are probably talking BS right there. If you get down so quick on your toughness mesmer how do you comment me losing to mesmers even though I am sure the ones I fought didn’t have toughness build since they dealt a lot of damage on me.

Also where did this happen? cause if it was on WvW and you had like full stacks of vulnerability then it would be your fault. I can start saying things like “a warrior killed me in 2 sec” and stuff without providing any info, too.

I am pretty sure a backstab thief can’t beat a good mesmer, and I base that on my fights like on every post of mine.

lonewolf.2601:

What? You are probably talking BS right there. If you get down so quick on your toughness mesmer how do you comment me losing to mesmers even though I am sure the ones I fought didn’t have toughness build since they dealt a lot of damage on me.

Also where did this happen? cause if it was on WvW and you had like full stacks of vulnerability then it would be your fault. I can start saying things like “a warrior killed me in 2 sec” and stuff without providing any info, too.

I am pretty sure a backstab thief can’t beat a good mesmer, and I base that on my fights like on every post of mine.

Good or not, doesn’t make a difference. I start the fight with 4k HP regardless of how good i am because HE initiates the fight kitten Thats what stealth classes do.
I had zero stacks of anything on me, i was roaming and so was he.

As for not believing me, thats cool. Don’t believe the other 1000 posts providing screenshots either, more fool you.

And the only person getting caught by a warrior is a guy brand new to the game. Nobody gets caught by 100 Blades unless they are drunk or afk or both.
All other burst has a hard counter, burst from stealth does not however, and that is why it is wrong.

So if my grandmather loses to a backstab thief then posts a screenshot here that she lost because she has one hand only so she can’t play her class that well concludes that thieves need to be nerfed?

You were roaming alone in WvW and now you are crying because you lost to a burst dps class and you don’t even provide info about the fight(everything matters, gear skill HP left on opponent, debuffs everything). If any of you kids out there want to prove that thieves are OP go make a video showing you in WvW fighting against a glass canon thief and let the others judge if it’s an overpowered class or not.

Also warriors got Immobilize abilities so they can land their burst combo quite easy but I suppose you don’t know that.

lonewolf.2601:

So if my grandmather loses to a backstab thief then posts a screenshot here that she lost because she has one hand only so she can’t play her class that well concludes that thieves need to be nerfed?

You were roaming alone in WvW and now you are crying because you lost to a burst dps class and you don’t even provide info about the fight(everything matters, gear skill HP left on opponent, debuffs everything). If any of you kids out there want to prove that thieves are OP go make a video showing you in WvW fighting against a glass canon thief and let the others judge if it’s an overpowered class or not.

Also warriors got Immobilize abilities so they can land their burst combo quite easy but I suppose you don’t know that.

Can’t you read?
I told you my toughness.
My HP.
His attack sequence.
How long it took.
And his finnishers.

I also told you i had no time to react.

Im not here QQing, i didnt start this thread. Im adding to a post (one of hundreds) about an issue that needs to be resolved.
There are no QQ threads about warriors HB, because you can learn how to make it miss.
There are no threads about other classes burst specs because they can be countered.

Thieves cannot be countered in one or two specs when they are properly geared and specced. That is why there are QQ threads.
I have an 80 Thief myself, roll a lvl 1 on my server and ill bring him to show you. I have never played PW speck or D/D Backstab spec, i find it far too boring. But for those that like to kill in a couple of seconds using the exact carbon copy of skills regardless of the class they are facing or wether the class is bunker spec or glass cannon then thief is the only class that offers this.

Also, regarding ur grandmother … have you even read any of the posts with screenshots? They show steal>c&d>backstab>heartseeker spam.
Now go back on your thief, go to the golems and do that attack and tell me how long it takes you.
Now stop posting moronic crap

Thieves can be countered because it happened to me, how many times do I have to mention it? I have lost to: Elementalist, Guardian, Engineer, Warrior, Hunter when they knew what they were doing and had correct traits.

Again if you want to prove anything make a video of you fighting thieves. If I do make a video with my thief roaming in WvW you will see me winning most 1vs1 fights because the opponents are clueless players that have no idea what they are doing, I encounter them every day in WvW, probably because people are playing this game more casually than other mmo’s.

Thief is a 1vs1 class, they are useless in long fights, because of their initiative usage and cooldowns. If you can’t accept that you just ignore the facts.

Screenshots are no proof, when this game has debuffs/conditions and other factors that take part on the damage output.

Even the combo spam you are posting is incorrect because you have no idea about the thief class yet you claim to have one. To perform this combo you lose all your initiative and cooldowns, if you want to tell me that after I use everything my class has to offer the enemy player shouldn’t go down(if he doesn’t dodge/block/heal etc) then you are obviously mad.

lonewolf.2601:

Thieves can be countered because it happened to me, how many times do I have to mention it? I have lost to: Elementalist, Guardian, Engineer, Warrior, Hunter when they knew what they were doing and had correct traits.

Again if you want to prove anything make a video of you fighting thieves. If I do make a video with my thief roaming in WvW you will see me winning most 1vs1 fights because the opponents are clueless players that have no idea what they are doing, I encounter them every day in WvW, probably because people are playing this game more casually than other mmo’s.

Thief is a 1vs1 class, they are useless in long fights, because of their initiative usage and cooldowns. If you can’t accept that you just ignore the facts.

Like i said, i have a thief. I know how they play and how they are countered.
If you are losing to the classes you state then you are either terrible – undergeared or not traited correctly.
On my thief the only classes that could beat me regularly where other thieves or Mesmers. The other Thieves where Glass cannons who caught me unawares, or caught me already in combat. The Mesmers that beat me just wore me down because i play a sustained damage not burst build.

On my Mesmer i win most fights because i understand my class and the class i am fighting, there are ways to beat all other classes. There is no way to beat a class when you start the fight on 4k HP end of story.

The reason I lost to these classes was that the specific people playing those classes were skilled enough to beat a glass canon thief. I have no trouble beating a bad/average player of any class(but ofcourse as you say skill does not matter).

I dare you to come to Underworld hopefully we can join some sPvP I am really interested to see how good you are on your mesmer because I just feel you are a bad player.

ArcticRed.3068:

Kuroin.1703:

ArcticRed.3068:

lol so much BS spoken here, people trying to defend the backstab Thiefs burst lol.
I have a Mesmer with 1.8k toughness, i can kill thieves in a prolonged fight if i can stop them from running.
Glass cannon thieves still kill me in seconds.

Yesterday i was hit for 14k with steal>c&d>BS and then killed with 2 heartseekers for 3k each, i didn’t see this Thief at and time during the fights as he didn’t even render till he was stomping me. The Thief that did this to me beat me 4 times that day without me being able to fight back.

I have given up all my burst for added survivability, but i still only last 4-5 seconds to this type of thief… is this fair?
I know some of you blind fanboois will say dodge the steal… lmao, you can’t dodge what you cant see coming.
Or CC him … lmao, you can’t CC while dead.

The simple facts are, if i am willing to give up my dps for toughness then the thief should have to adapt his tactics to kill me and go for a condition build. The simple fact that a Thief using BS build can take down any target using the exact same combo’s is absolute nonsense. The only difference between me with 1.8k toughness, and me specced with 900 toughness in Glass cannon spec is 2-3 more seconds of life if a BS Thief decides to attack me from stealth.

So the issue is that you can’t see him, well that is not the thiefs fault but rather a issue that Anet is trying to fix. Should thieves be nerfed because there is issues with the gameplay in general? What will happen once the issue is solved then, well it will be left where it’s currently at.
How much armor do you have?

Did you even read what i said?
I was already 14k down before i would have been able to see him with zero rendering issues. So sitting on 18k HP that leaves me with a 4k pool to work with.
You with me so far? good, stay alert because now it gets interesting.

Because i gave up my burst for this toughness, even if the thief stood still and didnt attack me back it would take me 30sec to wear him down. But i don’t have that luxury, because he can spam 2 hearseekers in the time it takes me to cast one spell to destroy the last of my health pool.

I dont have a problem with any other thief spec, if im winning they simply dissapear… im fine with that. If a glass cannon warrior goes for me he better pray his charge > HB lands or ill wear him down.
There is a hard counter to every skill or spec in this game APART from BS thieves.

Edit: how much armor do i have? Well im a light armor wearer, there is no way of upping armor to my knowledge so what does that matter?

Well whats the issue with telling me how much armor you got? I got 2k armor as a total glass cannon p/p thief and you should have more since you are specced for tank.

If he surprised you then you didn’t keep your eyes open, if he was stealthed and executed his combo he would have gotten revealed buff from mug / CnD and wouldn’t have been able to backstab you since he wasn’t in stealth, thus it’s your own fault for not seeing him coming. A rifle warrior could have shot you in the neck for an insane amount of damage without you having a chance to react as well according to your definition.

Also if you can’t manage to do 10k dmg on someone with less than 2k armor in a very short amount of time you need to really rethink your setup, 30 seconds? I don’t believe that.

Kuroin.1703:

ArcticRed.3068:

Kuroin.1703:

ArcticRed.3068:

lol so much BS spoken here, people trying to defend the backstab Thiefs burst lol.
I have a Mesmer with 1.8k toughness, i can kill thieves in a prolonged fight if i can stop them from running.
Glass cannon thieves still kill me in seconds.

Yesterday i was hit for 14k with steal>c&d>BS and then killed with 2 heartseekers for 3k each, i didn’t see this Thief at and time during the fights as he didn’t even render till he was stomping me. The Thief that did this to me beat me 4 times that day without me being able to fight back.

I have given up all my burst for added survivability, but i still only last 4-5 seconds to this type of thief… is this fair?
I know some of you blind fanboois will say dodge the steal… lmao, you can’t dodge what you cant see coming.
Or CC him … lmao, you can’t CC while dead.

The simple facts are, if i am willing to give up my dps for toughness then the thief should have to adapt his tactics to kill me and go for a condition build. The simple fact that a Thief using BS build can take down any target using the exact same combo’s is absolute nonsense. The only difference between me with 1.8k toughness, and me specced with 900 toughness in Glass cannon spec is 2-3 more seconds of life if a BS Thief decides to attack me from stealth.

So the issue is that you can’t see him, well that is not the thiefs fault but rather a issue that Anet is trying to fix. Should thieves be nerfed because there is issues with the gameplay in general? What will happen once the issue is solved then, well it will be left where it’s currently at.
How much armor do you have?

Did you even read what i said?
I was already 14k down before i would have been able to see him with zero rendering issues. So sitting on 18k HP that leaves me with a 4k pool to work with.
You with me so far? good, stay alert because now it gets interesting.

Because i gave up my burst for this toughness, even if the thief stood still and didnt attack me back it would take me 30sec to wear him down. But i don’t have that luxury, because he can spam 2 hearseekers in the time it takes me to cast one spell to destroy the last of my health pool.

I dont have a problem with any other thief spec, if im winning they simply dissapear… im fine with that. If a glass cannon warrior goes for me he better pray his charge > HB lands or ill wear him down.
There is a hard counter to every skill or spec in this game APART from BS thieves.

Edit: how much armor do i have? Well im a light armor wearer, there is no way of upping armor to my knowledge so what does that matter?

Well whats the issue with telling me how much armor you got? I got 2k armor as a total glass cannon p/p thief and you should have more since you are specced for tank.

If he surprised you then you didn’t keep your eyes open, if he was stealthed and executed his combo he would have gotten revealed buff from mug / CnD and wouldn’t have been able to backstab you since he wasn’t in stealth, thus it’s your own fault for not seeing him coming. A rifle warrior could have shot you in the neck for an insane amount of damage without you having a chance to react as well according to your definition.

Also if you can’t manage to do 10k dmg on someone with less than 2k armor in a very short amount of time you need to really rethink your setup, 30 seconds? I don’t believe that.

Im sitting on 2707 armor, 1787 toughness. Just for your information.

The thief wasn’t stupid, he stayed out of los untill he did his steal … which as you know can be done from distance. From him preloading C&D > steal > backstab (5k>3k>7k) im sitting on 4k HP after 2 seconds of the fight starting. I also still can’t see him (not the thiefs fault) then he hits me with 2x heartseekers taking 2sec that still hit me even if im moving because they are leaps.

This all happens in 3-4 seconds.

Now your argument that a warrior can do this. First of all the “warrior shooting me in the neck” has a 3-4 second cast time, he goes onto one knee to telegraph what he is doing and on top of that I CAN SEE HIM, and he has to have full rage(is that bar called rage?) That is alot of pre requisites for an unspammable attack, the thief on the other hand can do his attack again and again and again.

“3-4 second cast time”

Let’s just double every cast time used by other classes while making thief sound better by shortening the amount of time they require to deal damage.

kill shot is 1¾ cast time, you are doubling the numbers. What makes a warrior unable to line of sighting you just like a thief considering a thief going from stealth to steal + CnD will get ‘revealed’ and miss out on that backstab. Also a thief cant do it again and again and again, steal have 45 seconds reuse and without any initiative the thief is toast in a second considering he has less than 2k armor in such a build.
The adrenaline isn’t really hard to build up on a warrior either and doesn’t go away that fast either so getting in position isn’t all that hard.
In 3-4 seconds you cant manage to put down fear or at least dodge? You are a necro, use your death shroud to soak some damage while pushing the thief a bit.

Just wanted to point some things out. I really do feel for your situation but I do feel these need to be said;

1.)
“I CAN SEE HIM”
Not if he was hiding out of los like you said the Thief was and waiting to attack you at 1500 range while your back was turned and actually dealing the same, if not more, damage than the Thief with less skills in CD.

2.)
“…im sitting on 4k HP after 2 seconds” / “This all happens in 3-4 seconds.”
Do you not dodge or use a stealth of your own or even Blink away? Do you sit there dazed that you just lost so much HP from that initial burst and not hit a panic button? Heartseeker is a leap but a proper blink + dodge + clone + heal just turned the fight in your favor, even from 4k HP up.

3.)
“and he has to have full rage(is that bar called rage?) That is alot of pre requisites”
So basically he has to catch you by surprise by hiding out of your los then use a single skill to gain all his adrenaline and shoot you in the back while only putting 2 skills into very short CDs. You’re not helping your case.

4.)
“the thief on the other hand can do his attack again and again and again.”
Assuming you did play correctly and not take 4 seconds to hit any sort of panic button you’ve already turned the fight in your favor. Unlike any other profession, weapon swapping does not actually benefit us as much due to shared pools of Initiative so your argument of a continuing assault is flawed because any profession has the ability to swap out skills for new ones while they are on CD and begin an entirely different assault negating this argument.

5.)
“it would take me 30sec to wear him down.”
I’m really sorry but this is a little crazy. If it takes you or anyone else 30s to wear down a Glass Cannon Thief that just blew most of his CDs and probably has no more than 12-13k HP and next to no Armor then you’re doing something wrong. End of story.

6.)
“I dont have a problem with any other thief spec” / “If a glass cannon warrior goes for me he better pray his charge > HB lands or ill wear him down.”
So because you got countered by 1, and 1 build alone (after all of the above points) you call for a nerf because you died. We’d be nerfing you if you had no problems with any sort of other build. Accept the fact that as there are counters to the Thief (that you simply failed to execute) there are also counters to you, which seems to be a combination of both your own lack of ability to quickly assess situations and take the best course of action and possibly your build as well (God forbid I mention engine malfunctions). But how dare I say such a thing to you because as you just got done telling us, you’re flawless.

7.)
“The thief wasn’t stupid”
So you died to a semi-intelligent player…God forbid.

All in all you’ve only proven here that;
1.) You have slow reaction time or do not have skills to counter with.
2.) The Backstab burst does not kill you.
3.) Upset that you actually died to something and not force a draw or win you call it OP.

I hate to say it but if you really want to complain, record the fights and post a video. I don’t believe you mean to get on here and mislead people but numbers do not tell the whole story and as a rule; Incomplete data is misleading data. Thank you.

Thanos.2970:

Imperator totius Sylvari.9164:

From the sound of it you got bursted by 2 backstab thieves, you will die if any 2 glass cannons from almost any class concentrate a burst on you, but as a necro you do have some some counters, Reapers mark on the staff, place it on the area you and the engineer are on and let them come to you, the fear will break up nicely the thieves combo, once the combo has failed pick one of the thieves and both you and the engineer concentrate in killing him, at all cost prevent him from use hide in shadows(can be done with the fear from death shroud) get an immobilize(net shot from the engi’s rifle helps here) on him also from you saying the 20% speed bonus I doubt the thieves have any condition removal utility so immobilize and proceed to kill and if they use shadow refuge just aoe it.

If it had been any other 2 glass cannons I could have fought back in one way or an other. The problem in this case is, that you are dead before you know the fight has started. I guess they stood behind a rock or a corner and used camera movement to scout ahead and dropped shadow refuge as soon as they saw us just to get a long enaugh stealth to close in on us. We never saw them coming (and I constantly move the camera in WvW). As soon as they hit 900 distance one of us is dead. You have no chance to know they are there and when they will attack. There simply is no reaction time. I can not drop a mark before an attack if I do not know the attack is comming.

They have to actually LEAVE stealth before they can execute the combo on you. I’m sure they did refuge and flank to get behind you, but they still had to become visible before they can steal/cnd/bs or it would reveal them on steal and foul up everything. I do this to people all the time, it’s especially how I fight other thieves.

I’ve never once had a thief be able to sneak up on me like that though because I check my 6 like a paranoid freak. I can’t help you if you never see them coming other then say, be more paranoid lol, especially if after the first time or two you know they are out there stalking.

When you see them coming on the other hand, it’s quite useful to know by instinct how far 900 range is exactly.. 99% of thieves approach in the same way, obviously looking for the steal, and always hit it as soon as they get in range. So with this you can time a dodge, immobile w/e you wish to try countering with.

Once you have avoided the initial burst, engineer should definitely put down a supply drop those turrets are annoying as hell for thieves. And the engi should just concentrate only on CC’ing them with nets knockbacks etc.. CHILL really messes with a thief too, something you both have access to. Weakness is another one that will mess with them. Neither of these are removed with hide in shadows (poison, burning, bleed is). And both of them really mess up a thief who’s trying to pull off a backstab burst.

I can’t tell you much what to do as a Necro it’s basically the only class I haven’t put any time in playing at all. But I know when I fight them on my thief, the chills and weakness annoy the crap out of me.

on the floor dead