Guild Wars 2

i dont see why everone is having a problem xD shadows refuge is terrible, with my mesmer i just knock back my necro guildie enters refuge and uses fear to get them to run out of it, ranger uses the knockback on the longbow before it stealths him, warrior uses fear me, another thief stealths up and starts spamming backtab around the area (as thiefs only really do this when low health) elem can chance it with air atunement d/d, guardian can use pushback dome and the engineer can use bombs cant he??

Quit whining you make yourself look childish, YOU let him get away, i rarely let thieves get away with doing something as careless as refuging on low health, they have to stay in that small circle for 5 seconds just aoe it or spam auto atk if you dont know how to use your class

It’s not really impressing when you try to hit him with blind up.

RedCobra.7693:

i dont see why everone is having a problem xD shadows refuge is terrible, with my mesmer i just knock back my necro guildie enters refuge and uses fear to get them to run out of it, ranger uses the knockback on the longbow before it stealths him, warrior uses fear me, another thief stealths up and starts spamming backtab around the area (as thiefs only really do this when low health) elem can chance it with air atunement d/d, guardian can use pushback dome and the engineer can use bombs cant he??

Quit whining you make yourself look childish, YOU let him get away, i rarely let thieves get away with doing something as careless as refuging on low health, they have to stay in that small circle for 5 seconds just aoe it or spam auto atk if you dont know how to use your class

Shadow’s Refuge is a completely separate issue. If you pay attention I didn’t even bring it up in the OP. Shadow Refuge can be pretty BS sometimes, but it least it has some form of counter-play and if you are a class with an area knockback or pull that doesn’t need a target you can actually counter it. Granted that’s an extremely limited pool of skills from all classes, but it can be done by those specific types of skills.

AOE and randomly swinging melee weapons however is not a viable counter against a decent thief.

Ralathar.7236:

But I don’t think that any class should be “unkillable” even when played well. Every other class including mesmer can be killed with proper counterplay.

First statement is deceitful since “unkillable” has a martial overtone like “chuck norris is unkillable”, thieves can just run away without actually cause you very much harm. The second is just false: you can`t kill a decent mesmer or a decent necro for that matter. Going from clone, teleport, stealth, shatter / fear, death shroud, plague form is much more OP than running away don`t you think? Remember when you hurt the thief you hurt the average player, much like yourself, while exceptional thieves remain untouched (cough Yishis, cough Wild Bill).

Sunflowers.1729:

Doomdesire.9365:

I don’t kill people just to force them to walk and repair bills. I kill people because it’s fun. If he runs away, I don’t get that satisfaction, but I still won

That means you find it fun to just kill people.

Personally, I’d be pretty annoyed if everyone that I ‘won’ against didn’t drop any loot (it would still be fun, but less).

I still don’t agree with the ‘Thief escape = you win’ sentiment. What if we made it so any time a Thief kills someone, the Thief gets no loot or WXP? He still ‘wins’ right? But the flood of complaints would crash the forums.

True, and I can sympathize for those who have opposing viewpoints of “winning”. However this is just my IMHO as to what a fight should be. I don’t necessarily have to win, but it’s the competitive factor of it. When I roam on my guardian most thieves can escape, few win, but if they run because they are going to die, I know they lost, and they do too ^^

gebrechen.5643:

That whole discussion reminds on my beginnings in WoW. Same situation, only totally kittened rogues couldn’t win 1v1 or 1v2. Everyone knew how op that was, but only rogues said it’s a l2p issue. It is not, it’s a class balancing issue.
Someone should do a “world of roguecraft” video for gw2.

Only difference, in WoW, rogues used to stunlock you and you couldn’t do anything in return. In GW2 no such thing exists… You just are jealous that they can engage and disengage easier than any other class, except for mesmers of course. Which kind of is useless in sPvP, good in WvW.

When you see posts like “I laugh whenever I see a thief / I stand there while thief kills him self / I roll over thieves like no one is around.” Then you see posts like yours, obviously there is something wrong.

Azraeel.1238:

gebrechen.5643:

That whole discussion reminds on my beginnings in WoW. Same situation, only totally kittened rogues couldn’t win 1v1 or 1v2. Everyone knew how op that was, but only rogues said it’s a l2p issue. It is not, it’s a class balancing issue.
Someone should do a “world of roguecraft” video for gw2.

Only difference, in WoW, rogues used to stunlock you and you couldn’t do anything in return. In GW2 no such thing exists… You just are jealous that they can engage and disengage easier than any other class, except for mesmers of course. Which kind of is useless in sPvP, good in WvW.

When you see posts like “I laugh whenever I see a thief / I stand there while thief kills him self / I roll over thieves like no one is around.” Then you see posts like yours, obviously there is something wrong.

That shows more of class imbalances in a MMO than of player skill.

Ralathar.7236:

It definitely is an amazing combo if it lands. Thankfully for balance reasons this is easily avoidable and he took so heavy of damage because he was built glass cannon. There are alot of things in this game that utterly destroy classes that do not dodge them, like 100b warrior. Thief is the only class that has a universal counter to every situation without the need for building for it thanks to shadow return and hide in shadows. Those two skills can literally counter anything in the game you can possibly throw at someone, except highs tack of confusion (which still has a good chance of being removed by shadow return.)

Is this a joke? Sure other classes might need to use a stun break from a utility (not sure if other classes have an ability like that) but what do they get that thieves don’t? Pure invulnerability modes on their weapon sets, significantly better cc in all areas, and significantly better offensive, defensive, and supportive utilities (thinking things like ele arcane abilities, omm, fgj, wall of reflection, etc.). Warrior, guard, ranger or engi could just block your entire combo if timed right, mesmer or ele could invulnerable through everything and not take a single condition. Necro could take everything and put 3 of those conditions (maybe more) on you as well as draining life force from all your turrets and you. Of course, this is all without the use of any utilities. Just because a thief countered you a certain way doesn’t mean you couldn’t have been countered any other way. You said it yourself, the combo is easy to avoid. Good on you for beating the thief. Sure, if that bad thief player was on most other classes, he’d be dead. A semi-competent player won’t be in that situation in the first place. They’d have reacted a lot sooner and not waited till 5% hp before they decided to escape.

Vanthian.9267:

Azraeel.1238:

gebrechen.5643:

That whole discussion reminds on my beginnings in WoW. Same situation, only totally kittened rogues couldn’t win 1v1 or 1v2. Everyone knew how op that was, but only rogues said it’s a l2p issue. It is not, it’s a class balancing issue.
Someone should do a “world of roguecraft” video for gw2.

Only difference, in WoW, rogues used to stunlock you and you couldn’t do anything in return. In GW2 no such thing exists… You just are jealous that they can engage and disengage easier than any other class, except for mesmers of course. Which kind of is useless in sPvP, good in WvW.

When you see posts like “I laugh whenever I see a thief / I stand there while thief kills him self / I roll over thieves like no one is around.” Then you see posts like yours, obviously there is something wrong.

That shows more of class imbalances in a MMO than of player skill.

This isn’t necessarily true, because you are looking at it in the sense that “Why they have this, and we don’t?” instead of “Oh they have this, but we have another thing instead.” My main is a Necromancer, and we pretty much have nothing compared to other classes, yet you don’t see me running around whining, and you know why? Because we have something unique. This isn’t imbalance but diversity.

randomfightfan.4091:

Ralathar.7236:

It definitely is an amazing combo if it lands. Thankfully for balance reasons this is easily avoidable and he took so heavy of damage because he was built glass cannon. There are alot of things in this game that utterly destroy classes that do not dodge them, like 100b warrior. Thief is the only class that has a universal counter to every situation without the need for building for it thanks to shadow return and hide in shadows. Those two skills can literally counter anything in the game you can possibly throw at someone, except highs tack of confusion (which still has a good chance of being removed by shadow return.)

Is this a joke? Sure other classes might need to use a stun break from a utility (not sure if other classes have an ability like that) but what do they get that thieves don’t? Pure invulnerability modes on their weapon sets, significantly better cc in all areas, and significantly better offensive, defensive, and supportive utilities (thinking things like ele arcane abilities, omm, fgj, wall of reflection, etc.). Warrior, guard, ranger or engi could just block your entire combo if timed right, mesmer or ele could invulnerable through everything and not take a single condition. Necro could take everything and put 3 of those conditions (maybe more) on you as well as draining life force from all your turrets and you. Of course, this is all without the use of any utilities. Just because a thief countered you a certain way doesn’t mean you couldn’t have been countered any other way. You said it yourself, the combo is easy to avoid. Good on you for beating the thief. Sure, if that bad thief player was on most other classes, he’d be dead. A semi-competent player won’t be in that situation in the first place. They’d have reacted a lot sooner and not waited till 5% hp before they decided to escape.

That’s the problem. When you combine good play with that kind of escapability then you get somone who won’t get into 95% of bad situations and when they odd bad situation arrives they can LOL out of it. As well being high in mobility and possessing stealth than can not only choose when to disengage but when to engage.

All of these factors tilt the battle in your favor in the hands of a skilled player allowing them to fight. Currently this means a good player on a thief shouldn’t die outside of extremely high burst damage, the carriers of which are thieves prime prey.

It’s a problem enough when bad players can escape situations with easy to use and abuse skills. It’s a much bigger problem when an actual good player gets to use those tools on top of the great mobility and damage a thief is capable of.

This might not seem like much of an issue to you sPVP guys, and if it’s balanced there it shouldn’t be touched there. But it needs to be balanced in WvW because it certainly isn’t atm. There are many things a thief can do besides troll players that matters such as taking out siege from inside a keep, provide intel, limit or pevent reinforcements, cap camps, kill dolyaks, do prep work on towers and keep, etc. People not using the class to it’s capabilities and going “lawl I kill noobs” doesn’t mean the class isn’t capable of more that is potentially highly imbalanced.

Doomdesire.9365:

Sunflowers.1729:

Doomdesire.9365:

I don’t kill people just to force them to walk and repair bills. I kill people because it’s fun. If he runs away, I don’t get that satisfaction, but I still won

That means you find it fun to just kill people.

Personally, I’d be pretty annoyed if everyone that I ‘won’ against didn’t drop any loot (it would still be fun, but less).

I still don’t agree with the ‘Thief escape = you win’ sentiment. What if we made it so any time a Thief kills someone, the Thief gets no loot or WXP? He still ‘wins’ right? But the flood of complaints would crash the forums.

True, and I can sympathize for those who have opposing viewpoints of “winning”. However this is just my IMHO as to what a fight should be. I don’t necessarily have to win, but it’s the competitive factor of it. When I roam on my guardian most thieves can escape, few win, but if they run because they are going to die, I know they lost, and they do too ^^

That might be cute in WvW but in Spvp that thief who lost 1v1 at a cap point and stealthed out is now on his way to grabbing buffs/zerging another point, that’s nowhere near balanced, or acceptable

i just learned this… and i may be reading my source incorrectly… but I have experienced from mobs in PvE as a thief what I am about to share….

if u can predict when he will step+stealth away, you can use a skill with multiple attacks that takes a fair amount of time to go from start to finish on the skill… and the skill should follow the thief, through the step and even while stealthed if you initiate beforehand.

There have been several times PvE when i step away+stealth and mobs attack chains just follow me and continue attacking for another second or 3 and I’m like “WTF!”… so may work PvP aswell… i just read somewhere it works so who knows…

Ralathar.7236:

Perfect example of how jacked facing a thief is right now. I’m fighting a thief as a turret engie (Ya I know, but it’s fun :P). Hit him a few times and place my turrets as he enters for the kill. Pop my turret abilities and he gets perma-blinded, has like 10 seconds of burning, has 6+ stacks of bleed, Rocket Turret lands the first knockdown, I time the supply crate for the second stun, rocket turret knocks down a third time. All knockdowns in a row without him being able to act after eating the first one.

At this point the thief still has all the burning, bleeding, and now poison on him, is at 5% hp, and is stunned on his back while immobilized. Shadow Return, Hide in Shadows, runs away at half health with no conditions on him already out of combat.
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So lets add this up, shadow return removes 3 conditions, teleports you back to where you started from up to 1,200 away, and breaks stun instantly. Hide in Shadows removes all damaging conditions, so any conditions that hurt would be gone and the thief is far away stealthed and running away.

I really don’t know what more I could have done. I condition stacked, immobilized, stunned, and generally wrecked his face but he gets a get out of jail free card. I mean ya I wrecked his face because he was blatantly terrible (rocket turret knockdown is MASSIVELY telegraphed), but he still doesn’t even have to die for being terrible.

The Shadow Return part is something you could have countered. In fact, it sounds like you could have killed him if you just baited out the Shadow Step and waited out 10s before unloading your stunlock and condi burst.

Shadow Return only persists for 10 seconds after a Thief uses Shadowstep. And it shows up as an additional effect on the UI and leaves a big white circle on the ground where he teleported from. Use some small annoying CC’s to bait out the Shadow Step, watch for the big white circle (small one is for the much less potent Infiltrator Strike Shadow Return) in addition to the Shadow Return icon, and save your burst and best CC’s for after it runs out. You’ll have a 40 second window during which the Thief likely won’t have any stun-breakers or multi condi cleanses asides from his heal.

Yes, it takes more effort on your side to catch him than it takes for him to escape. But that is just par for the course if you want to overcome inherent class traits (Thieves are supposed to be elusive and not easily caught).

This thread is 3 months old.

Seriously people, check the post date before replying, it’s not hard.