Guild Wars 2

@Ralathar.7236: now you are just nagging about open fair fights. Even if you find a counter for shadowstep, they can use any other breakstun, dodge, stealth, and make a run for it. This is what thief is all about, take that away, and you have a squishy warrior.

As a Wellmancer, I 2v1 Thieves quite easily.

But that’s in PvP, when they are forced to stand next to me on a point inside my Wells of doom.

In WvW, all I can say is Nope. You’re not going to do a kitten ed thing against them. WvW is their world, and you cannot kill a good one unless he decides to die. You simply cannot.

Azraeel.1238:

@Ralathar.7236: now you are just nagging about open fair fights. Even if you find a counter for shadowstep, they can use any other breakstun, dodge, stealth, and make a run for it. This is what thief is all about, take that away, and you have a squishy warrior.

Not true at all. While technically a warrior has more damage it is also far more avoidable and warriors have less ways to deal with CC. A glass cannon thief is much more survivable in a realistic sense than a glass cannon warrior when played well. GC warrior can be shut down by several methods. GC thief is shut down only by big spike damage, which leaves the other person very vulnerable as thieves are made to choose when they fight and to be the ones to get the first hits.

It’s just as the following quote says:

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

As a Wellmancer, I 2v1 Thieves quite easily.

But that’s in PvP, when they are forced to stand next to me on a point inside my Wells of doom.

In WvW, all I can say is Nope. You’re not going to do a kitten ed thing against them. WvW is their world, and you cannot kill a good one unless he decides to die. You simply cannot.

That is how it is when facing a good one. This is based off of 1,500+ hours of WvW and even the devs advise you to “move along, you’re not going to kill him”. 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.

I use Thief on occasion myself, I couldn’t stand using the annoying metas they’ve got, so I theory crafted for a while and made a somewhat viable P/P based around a S/D evasion build. The problem lies within the two trait trees of Shadow Arts, and Acrobatics.

They made those two trait lines so overpowered and necessary that the class itself shoehorns you into that nonsense of being hard to kill one way, or being hard to kill the other way. Honestly I spent a VERY long time trying to make P/P viable, without those dumb trait lines, you die to burning in seconds. Thief is a very difficult class to play when you’re trying to play it outside of the box, and almost mind bendingly easy to play the metas.

P/P, P/D, S/P are viable, they simply take a huge amount of skill that many players including myself simply do not have with the class. The devs need to take a second look at Thief design, and use GW1 Assassin as a reference.

the question by the Op is..
How to counter get out of jail free button?
the answer..?
no one answered it.. or.. there actually no counter whatsoever..

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.

Let me see if I am getting this right… you had him down to 5% before he could even close in on you… am I reading that right? And, you never state that he did any damage to you… all you are complaining about is his ability to escape from a situation that, had he stayed, would have killed him…. umm do you see how foolish that is. The thief you described use his abilities to escape… you didn’t suffer any loss, he didn’t suffer any loss. I am sorry your assault was completely based on stationary tactics while the thief used mobility. BTW, the game is designed for mobility in combat not for the old Everquest style of just hitting an auto attack and standing there.

So, the thief was down to 5% health in your scenario. Given an average of about 12k full health for a thief… He was down to 600 health before shadow-stepping away and going stealth. So, lets see… you didn’t think to do anything to counter his shadow step or apply damage while he was starting it? You didn’t switch to a ranged weapon set and blast him… assuming you are 80 and using exotic weapons… for a lot more than the 600 health he had remaining? No, instead, again according to your scenario, you stood by a stationary assault and let mobility rule you. The same outcome would have happened against a Mesmer, elementalist, ranger, guardian, warrior, necromancer, or other engineer who used your tactics against you… they would use their mobility and you would stand there looking dumbfounded. But yea, its all because the thief is impossible to fight… I don’t think so.

Grounder.7381:

the question by the Op is..
How to counter get out of jail free button?
the answer..?
no one answered it.. or.. there actually no counter whatsoever..

Or the obvious answer… there is no such thing as a get out of jail free card for a thief.

Ralathar.7236:

Azraeel.1238:

@Ralathar.7236: now you are just nagging about open fair fights. Even if you find a counter for shadowstep, they can use any other breakstun, dodge, stealth, and make a run for it. This is what thief is all about, take that away, and you have a squishy warrior.

Not true at all. While technically a warrior has more damage it is also far more avoidable and warriors have less ways to deal with CC. A glass cannon thief is much more survivable in a realistic sense than a glass cannon warrior when played well. GC warrior can be shut down by several methods. GC thief is shut down only by big spike damage, which leaves the other person very vulnerable as thieves are made to choose when they fight and to be the ones to get the first hits.

It’s just as the following quote says:

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

As a Wellmancer, I 2v1 Thieves quite easily.

But that’s in PvP, when they are forced to stand next to me on a point inside my Wells of doom.

In WvW, all I can say is Nope. You’re not going to do a kitten ed thing against them. WvW is their world, and you cannot kill a good one unless he decides to die. You simply cannot.

That is how it is when facing a good one. This is based off of 1,500+ hours of WvW and even the devs advise you to “move along, you’re not going to kill him”. 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.

You obviously didn’t understand what I was saying. Disregarding the fact that thieves got more single target damage than warriors, I was simply stating that if you remove all the stealth and shadowsteps (two main factors that make thieves slippery), you will end up with a squishy warrior. That’s all.

If a Mesmer was played in the same sense that a thief is played with, they can be extremely slippery, but Mesmers get over confident and most of them decide to stay there till the end. Check out Osicat, and how he engages and disengages from fights, and you will know what I mean. Thieves arent unbeatable, you just need to know how to bait them to stay longer in a fight.

Azraeel.1238:

Thieves arent unbeatable, you just need to know how to bait them to stay longer in a fight.

That’s the problem most people who play thief’s aren’t skilled and run away when there health barely reaches 75% hp. Imo buff them in SPvP and in PvE but perma stealth issues should be stopped in WvW.

This post has taken a broader turn, and seems to be about whether thieves should be able to reset fights, stay stealthed and wait for inconvenient moments to strike. People have also talked before about counterplay…how the most important thing in a mechanic is whether it is fun to play against.

I was playing as d/p this morning with two guild mates, and we were trying to do some simple stuff like run supply. This other d/p thief kept following us like glue and attacking as we ran, looking for an opening. I brought him down to 25% or so several times, but we couldnt get a hold of him. By the end, we got to our destination, but each of us had been downed at least once (though not killed). At hills, a bunch of people joined in the chase and we found the thief and got him.

This whole experience was fun…much more fun than just running supplies, being paranoid about a thief behind us made for interesting gameplay. And I’m sure it was fun for the thief too. I was occasionally frustrated, but I’m glad I got to go up against a well-played and determined thief.

I also recently helped defend garrison, as the other server was trebbing the inner walls from afar, while the entire zerg rushed in. They left 3-4 people behind manning the trebs. I went in with some fellow thieves to take them out. The other thieves died, but I stuck around and kept dropping thieves guild and cluster bombs on the trebs, then stealthing and running away. Meanwhile, a guardian and necro kept ccing me. They even downed me in a shadow refuge, and I managed to port and heal to full just as the guardian was running toward me. I didnt single handedly take out the two trebs and their 4 defenders, but I did bring one down to 10%, while my server zerg whiped up their zerg and then came and took out the trebs. I like to think that my harrassing slowed down the treb shots a bit, and I certainly had fun.

I also think that in some way, the guardian and necro who were ccing me had a lot more fun than they would have without me there. then they would have just been sitting there watching someone else fire a treb.

so my point is that thieves in wvw create interesting and fun counterplay, even if you can’t reliably kill them…they are balanced enough so that they punish stupidity or arrogance, without really being able to single handedly turn the tide of a battle. I also think that we (or at least I) die plenty, same as other classes…though it may just be because I’m a noob.

bobross.5034:

I was playing as d/p this morning with two guild mates, and we were trying to do some simple stuff like run supply. This other d/p thief kept following us like glue and attacking as we ran, looking for an opening. I brought him down to 25% or so several times, but we couldn’t get a hold of him. By the end, we got to our destination, but each of us had been downed at least once (though not killed). At hills, a bunch of people joined in the chase and we found the thief and got him.

See this indicates to me a problem. 1 person was able to survive indefinitely vs 3 and was even able to down each of them, but were unable to seal the deal because of quick duo rez. In the end it took “a bunch of people joining” to kill him.

I would also bet willing to be he only died because he misplayed badly. He had the mobility and stealth to easily give you all the slip and there are tons of mobs and critters everywhere but the south gate approach or right at the north gate. Either way that far in he would have been horribly overextended.

This whole experience was fun…much more fun than just running supplies, being paranoid about a thief behind us made for interesting gameplay. And I’m sure it was fun for the thief too. I was occasionally frustrated, but I’m glad I got to go up against a well-played and determined thief.

It was fun the first time, the second time, the third time. It’s happened so many times now however that is is just annoying and frustrating knowing that there is nothing you can do about it. This is a frequent occurrence and while you think you “win” by living, your allies are not so lucky as they die to Mr. Can’t be Killed.

I also recently helped defend garrison, as the other server was trebbing the inner walls from afar, while the entire zerg rushed in. They left 3-4 people behind manning the trebs. I went in with some fellow thieves to take them out. The other thieves died, but I stuck around and kept dropping thieves guild and cluster bombs on the trebs, then stealthing and running away. Meanwhile, a guardian and necro kept ccing me. They even downed me in a shadow refuge, and I managed to port and heal to full just as the guardian was running toward me. I didnt single handedly take out the two trebs and their 4 defenders, but I did bring one down to 10%, while my server zerg whiped up their zerg and then came and took out the trebs. I like to think that my harrassing slowed down the treb shots a bit, and I certainly had fun.

So 3-4 people had issues killing you and you nearly solo’d a treb (which would take forever with just 1 person doing hit and run). This is balanced? Not only that but they down you in Shadow Refuge, good job on their part, bad job on yours. You teleport away and heal up with them having no ability to know where you are at all.

I’ve dealt with this before. You have to cover a MASSIVE areas with AOE constantly to make sure the thief takes at least 1 damage tick every so often till the 10 second stealth fades, otherwise they rez. It’s possibly but very much not practical and impossible to know if you hit anything outside of melee chanis.

I also think that in some way, the guardian and necro who were ccing me had a lot more fun than they would have without me there. then they would have just been sitting there watching someone else fire a treb.

Yeah, I’m sure they were ecstatic that they could stop a lone thief from nearly killing one of their trebs for 10 minutes straight and even when miraculously downing him the thief rezs up and survives. Plainly that would make them happy.

so my point is that thieves in wvw create interesting and fun counterplay, even if you can’t reliably kill them…they are balanced enough so that they punish stupidity or arrogance, without really being able to single handedly turn the tide of a battle.

They create tons of frustration for players, not fun. That is imminently apparent both from the forums and in game. The only thing close to as annoying/frustrating as thief is a good mesmer (which is rare) or tower hugging ele’s you can’t kill because they can just LOLmistform in.

I also think that we (or at least I) die plenty, same as other classes…though it may just be because I’m a noob.

If you are a good player with 2 friends and couldn’t stop a thief that says something is wrong. If you are a noob and can nearly solo a treb with 4 guarding players that chain CC you, but you never die…that says something is wrong as well.

Grounder.7381:

the question by the Op is..
How to counter get out of jail free button?
the answer..?
no one answered it.. or.. there actually no counter whatsoever..

Bingo. The truth is properly played thief is not counter-able 1v1 and even in most 1vx situations it would difficult. That being said I wouldn’t expect many if any changes as thief is a fragile class to balance.

This is the perfect thread and should be copy/pasted everywhere. The best part is where thief players admit that there isn’t really a counter and you should take the draw as a “win”, and that the reality is that a well-planned and well-played x class can’t beat a bad thief.

You don’t get loot, badges, xp, Wxp, or achievements, but you “won”.

You wasted a couple of minutes that you could have been doing other things to help your world, meaning that the thief was the one to fulfill his tactical objective, but you “won”.

The thief doesn’t have to waypoint home with damaged armor like any other class, but you “won”.

He’s still free to roam and kill the next player/dolyak/whatever he sees, but you “won”.

Instead of solo-capping that camp to the south, he’ll just change direction and take the one to the east, but you “won”.

If after all that you still don’t concede that there is a problem, you’re only lying to yourself.

And of course someone has to bring sPvP into it. Don’t. It’s almost a separate game at this point, and pretty much no one even cares about it.

Naranek.3467:

And of course someone has to bring sPvP into it. Don’t. It’s almost a separate game at this point, and pretty much no one even cares about it.

I agreed with you all the way up until that dumb generalization.

Fine. It is the least popular mode and its stats are quite different. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s irrelevant to the discussion, yet it gets dragged in to nearly every thread on thieves being overpowered.

Actually, an engineer coming to a thief sub-forum to ask for an advice on how to counter thieves is a bit wrong. I mean I know I can’t help him because I have barely any idea what engineers got, and what builds to go with. Everyone directly knew that turrets are not mobile, thieves are mobile, so don’t use those. However, that is just stating the obvious. The only thing I can say go burst damage with lots of cripple and immobilize. The moment the thief strikes, you have 4 seconds to either get him to blow off his cooldowns or down him. If you fail to do so, then you can’t beat him/her. You are just not built for this precise fight.

Azraeel.1238:

Actually, an engineer coming to a thief sub-forum to ask for an advice on how to counter thieves is a bit wrong. I mean I know I can’t help him because I have barely any idea what engineers got, and what builds to go with. Everyone directly knew that turrets are not mobile, thieves are mobile, so don’t use those. However, that is just stating the obvious. The only thing I can say go burst damage with lots of cripple and immobilize. The moment the thief strikes, you have 4 seconds to either get him to blow off his cooldowns or down him. If you fail to do so, then you can’t beat him/her. You are just not built for this precise fight.

The fact that I am an engineer isn’t really important in the question asked. The question asked was how to counter their ability to shadow return > Hide in Shadows, because without a counter it can be used to save them from the most terrible of situations regardless of how they are built.

The specific situation listed is just an example situation that happened to me, and is one of the worst case scenarios you can be in as a class.

Ruggan.4102:

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.

So, the thief was down to 5% health in your scenario. Given an average of about 12k full health for a thief… He was down to 600 health before shadow-stepping away and going stealth. So, lets see… you didn’t think to do anything to counter his shadow step or apply damage while he was starting it? You didn’t switch to a ranged weapon set and blast him… assuming you are 80 and using exotic weapons… for a lot more than the 600 health he had remaining? No, instead, again according to your scenario, you stood by a stationary assault and let mobility rule you. The same outcome would have happened against a Mesmer, elementalist, ranger, guardian, warrior, necromancer, or other engineer who used your tactics against you… they would use their mobility and you would stand there looking dumbfounded. But yea, its all because the thief is impossible to fight… I don’t think so.

I wanna emphasize something in the post I forgot to say. In this post he mentions the average thief has 12k hp, which is only around 100 vitality above the base hp. Essentially full glass cannon unless the thief is running alot of toughness.

Any of the other classes mentioned as examples of people who could counter what I did would have been horribly slaughtered by that situation if they were glass cannon. The possible exception is a heal/toughness bunker guardian who is also running contemplation of purity. Even then it would be a to the wire race between them dying to incoming damage and them getting the heal off because they would still be right within range of more incoming damage no matter what class they were facing.

The key here is that to survive a situation such as that you have to stun break, remove your conditions, and heal within a very short period of time. Both Shadow Return and Contemplation of purity accomplish the stun break and condition removal instantly, advantage being that shadow return teleports you out of incoming damage while contemplation leaves you in it with an aegis and regen as your hope/prayer to survive long enough to pop your heal.

Ralathar.7236:

Azraeel.1238:

Actually, an engineer coming to a thief sub-forum to ask for an advice on how to counter thieves is a bit wrong. I mean I know I can’t help him because I have barely any idea what engineers got, and what builds to go with. Everyone directly knew that turrets are not mobile, thieves are mobile, so don’t use those. However, that is just stating the obvious. The only thing I can say go burst damage with lots of cripple and immobilize. The moment the thief strikes, you have 4 seconds to either get him to blow off his cooldowns or down him. If you fail to do so, then you can’t beat him/her. You are just not built for this precise fight.

The fact that I am an engineer isn’t really important in the question asked. The question asked was how to counter their ability to shadow return > Hide in Shadows, because without a counter it can be used to save them from the most terrible of situations regardless of how they are built.

The specific situation listed is just an example situation that happened to me, and is one of the worst case scenarios you can be in as a class.

How to counter them? Teleport/shadowstep/blink/riflejump to where they shadow returned and directly throw in massive AOE. Oh right, you might not have any of these skills, but who cares, we need a counter regardless what class and build you are, right? -_-. Have you even been listening to what people were saying for the past tons of posts in your whining threads? To Counter thieves you need a build that has burst damage, little CC, and mobile. If they decide to run away, even if you were fighting a Necro, without having mobility, you won’t catch them.

Ralathar.7236:

I wanna emphasize something in the post I forgot to say. In this post he mentions the average thief has 12k hp, which is only around 100 vitality above the base hp. Essentially full glass cannon unless the thief is running alot of toughness.

Any of the other classes mentioned as examples of people who could counter what I did would have been horribly slaughtered by that situation if they were glass cannon. The possible exception is a heal/toughness bunker guardian who is also running contemplation of purity. Even then it would be a to the wire race between them dying to incoming damage and them getting the heal off because they would still be right within range of more incoming damage no matter what class they were facing.

The key here is that to survive a situation such as that you have to stun break, remove your conditions, and heal within a very short period of time. Both Shadow Return and Contemplation of purity accomplish the stun break and condition removal instantly, advantage being that shadow return teleports you out of incoming damage while contemplation leaves you in it with an aegis and regen as your hope/prayer to survive long enough to pop your heal.

Ok Ralather, we get it, your combo was so amazing that no class could beat it, and since a class managed to survive it, it must be overpowered. You win, ok? We all concede that thieves are overpowered because you didn’t win one time. But now you’ve got this victory to lord over us thieves…and while I use my social evasion skills to run away from this thread and never return. Please feel free to gloat in your victory, or just marvel at the irony of it.

Ralathar.7236:

Others in that terrible 5% hp, conditioned, locked down situation.
Warrior: In a situation like that the warrior is dead, no question about it.
Guardian: The Guardian in that example is going to be dead without significant build investment.
Mesmer: Really dead lol. Self condition removal not a strong point of Mesmer.
Grenade Engie: All that would be left is a greasy spot.

Believe it or not I am pretty versed in most classes. However, ele is my main.

In the 5%hp situation yea most classes would be dead, no argument. My argument was that most classes would have ways to completely avoid a situation like that. All these classes have really good ways to just walk away before the brunt of the damage kicks in. Warrior would block or endure pain or ww out (movement skills break immobilize would save his ass). Guardian would be a guardian, invuln/block/stability/condition clear out, hit /laugh, then would wait till you detonated the turrets or wait till they weren’t overcharged, then come in and win. And with mesmer and grenade engi, I hope they’d have been smart enough to not walk themselves into a situation like that.

Now 1 thing you’re very much so underestimating about the ele. After it flashes away, it’d swap to water (healing and clearing a condition), press 5 (healing and curing a condition), dodge roll (healing and curing a condition), then maybe use an escape if need be and heal if it still needs to. I’m just very happy they can’t mist form and heal anymore. That was disgusting.

The point the OP is making is that the thief can afford to go full glass cannon and still escape from the worst possible situation. No punishment. And that’s the problem.

Bottom line: A thief only dies if their ego doesn’t permit them to run away.

Azraeel.1238:

How to counter them? Teleport/shadowstep/blink/riflejump to where they shadow returned and directly throw in massive AOE. Oh right, you might not have any of these skills, but who cares, we need a counter regardless what class and build you are, right? -_-. Have you even been listening to what people were saying for the past tons of posts in your whining threads? To Counter thieves you need a build that has burst damage, little CC, and mobile. If they decide to run away, even if you were fighting a Necro, without having mobility, you won’t catch them.

Could you name one class/build that has the mobility CC and burst to catch a thief, CC them, and burst them before they enter stealth or stun break?

bhagwad.4281:

Bottom line: A thief only dies if their ego doesn’t permit them to run away.

So true. Wvw roaming pro-tip: taunt thieves (/wave, or /laugh) when they stealth at low hp. Most thieves have huge 1v1 egos and will turn around to finish the fight or come out of stealth too soon if you taunt them.

tread way tl;dr

But I just laughed when i read the OP. You utterly crushed that thief – like you say he couldnt do anything the whole time, you had him stunlocked, and then right at the end, as he was about to die, he escaped.

GW2 SPvP is capture the point. You kept the point. You won. Eventually maybe that thief comes back and catches you. So you;ve now kept the point for what, 40secs? Guess what you win again.

Psikerlord.2569:

tread way tl;dr

But I just laughed when i read the OP. You utterly crushed that thief – like you say he couldnt do anything the whole time, you had him stunlocked, and then right at the end, as he was about to die, he escaped.

GW2 SPvP is capture the point. You kept the point. You won. Eventually maybe that thief comes back and catches you. So you;ve now kept the point for what, 40secs? Guess what you win again.

Try using that logic in the other game mode that actually has more people, WvW.

bhagwad.4281:

The point the OP is making is that the thief can afford to go full glass cannon and still escape from the worst possible situation. No punishment. And that’s the problem.

Bottom line: A thief only dies if their ego doesn’t permit them to run away.

This is precisely it. A thief built full glass cannon is squishy, but used well is actually more survivable than any other glass cannon. 95% of GC thief deaths are from greedy players or players who won’t put the 1 escape they need on the bar because it might lower their damage 5%.

bobross.5034:

Ralathar.7236:

I wanna emphasize something in the post I forgot to say. In this post he mentions the average thief has 12k hp, which is only around 100 vitality above the base hp. Essentially full glass cannon unless the thief is running alot of toughness.

Any of the other classes mentioned as examples of people who could counter what I did would have been horribly slaughtered by that situation if they were glass cannon. The possible exception is a heal/toughness bunker guardian who is also running contemplation of purity. Even then it would be a to the wire race between them dying to incoming damage and them getting the heal off because they would still be right within range of more incoming damage no matter what class they were facing.

The key here is that to survive a situation such as that you have to stun break, remove your conditions, and heal within a very short period of time. Both Shadow Return and Contemplation of purity accomplish the stun break and condition removal instantly, advantage being that shadow return teleports you out of incoming damage while contemplation leaves you in it with an aegis and regen as your hope/prayer to survive long enough to pop your heal.

Ok Ralather, we get it, your combo was so amazing that no class could beat it, and since a class managed to survive it, it must be overpowered. You win, ok? We all concede that thieves are overpowered because you didn’t win one time. But now you’ve got this victory to lord over us thieves…and while I use my social evasion skills to run away from this thread and never return. Please feel free to gloat in your victory, or just marvel at the irony of it.

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.)

The fact that I am an engineer isn’t really important in the question asked. The question asked was how to counter their ability to shadow return > Hide in Shadows, because without a counter it can be used to save them from the most terrible of situations regardless of how they are built.

The specific situation listed is just an example situation that happened to me, and is one of the worst case scenarios you can be in as a class.[/quote]

How to counter them? Teleport/shadowstep/blink/riflejump to where they shadow returned and directly throw in massive AOE. Oh right, you might not have any of these skills, but who cares, we need a counter regardless what class and build you are, right? -_-. Have you even been listening to what people were saying for the past tons of posts in your whining threads? To Counter thieves you need a build that has burst damage, little CC, and mobile. If they decide to run away, even if you were fighting a Necro, without having mobility, you won’t catch them.[/quote]

If you think blinking after a thief to attempt to AOE them is a counter then you have zero understanding of a thief. If you think the counter to thief is to present them with the squishiest target possible and make it a battle of who spikes who first you also have zero understanding of thief.

randomfightfan.4091:

Ralathar.7236:

Others in that terrible 5% hp, conditioned, locked down situation.
Warrior: In a situation like that the warrior is dead, no question about it.
Guardian: The Guardian in that example is going to be dead without significant build investment.
Mesmer: Really dead lol. Self condition removal not a strong point of Mesmer.
Grenade Engie: All that would be left is a greasy spot.

Believe it or not I am pretty versed in most classes. However, ele is my main.

In the 5%hp situation yea most classes would be dead, no argument. My argument was that most classes would have ways to completely avoid a situation like that. All these classes have really good ways to just walk away before the brunt of the damage kicks in. Warrior would block or endure pain or ww out (movement skills break immobilize would save his ass). Guardian would be a guardian, invuln/block/stability/condition clear out, hit /laugh, then would wait till you detonated the turrets or wait till they weren’t overcharged, then come in and win. And with mesmer and grenade engi, I hope they’d have been smart enough to not walk themselves into a situation like that.

Now 1 thing you’re very much so underestimating about the ele. After it flashes away, it’d swap to water (healing and clearing a condition), press 5 (healing and curing a condition), dodge roll (healing and curing a condition), then maybe use an escape if need be and heal if it still needs to. I’m just very happy they can’t mist form and heal anymore. That was disgusting.

Well the problem isn’t that the thief beat my build. Countless classes can do that. The problem is that the thief beat a situation that should be death, with two abilities that require very little skill to use. Guardian and elementalist would still have quite a fight to kill me, win or lose. Regardless of balance concerns I can respect them fighting themselves out of a corner, that demonstrates skilled play. Hitting 1 button before combat and 2 to run away however does not.

The reason I say elementalist would die is that lightning flash is 900 range, is well within range of the turrets and likely in my range, and the cleansing is over a short period of time not a burst cleansing. The continuing damage while they attempted to recover would almost certainly kill them. In that particular situation they are almost FORCED to use their main heal as the water 5 then heal would take vital time they do not have as they continued to be pelted by rockets and bleeding turret shots + whatever conditions on them and what I’m doing.

Bacon Please.8407:

Engineers and thieves are two entirely different classes. It is like comparing candy to steak. Both can be tasty and have their appealing characteristics and neither are better then the other. I’ve seen an engineer face tank a well coordinated team of players and down two of the 5 before escaping. I Can’t say I’ve seen a thief operate that well other then a few assorted videos here on the forums and ever there it looked like the people that were being killed had no idea what they were doing.

This went waaaaay over his head. That`s why thieves are so bitter – even when someone such as yourself politely relay valuable info to players operating powerhouses they still remain ignorant and entitled. Ok so my 2 cents for the OP are:
1) a perma CC engie is unkillable by a thief unless he`s got mad skills and works the environment. Burning, immobilization, blind and more than 1 stun is ridiculous and i sincerely hope it gets nerfed, along with the ranger and his lol-downed state that enables him to heal right back up like a baus (not sure of the build, didn`t tinker too much on a ranger)
2) never EVER come to a profession`s forum with this amount of audacity – to literally prove how much better is your profession than other AND complain that the underdog had the nerve to not go down, despite the odds, making you waste your precious self entitled easy gratifying time is pure insulting.
3) a thief can`t beat you, congrats, but as sure as heck he won`t stick around for you to get easy badges

Stardrift.7360:

1) a perma CC engie is unkillable by a thief unless he`s got mad skills and works the environment. Burning, immobilization, blind and more than 1 stun is ridiculous and i sincerely hope it gets nerfed, along with the ranger and his lol-downed state that enables him to heal right back up like a baus (not sure of the build, didn`t tinker too much on a ranger)

Perma CC Engineer is a form of bunker/Tank. It is not immune to Thieves. Ranger is infact overpowered, but Thief actually has more tools to deal with it than other classes.

Stardrift.7360:

2) never EVER come to a profession`s forum with this amount of audacity – to literally prove how much better is your profession than other AND complain that the underdog had the nerve to not go down, despite the odds, making you waste your precious self entitled easy gratifying time is pure insulting

Why not? Every other class in the game has a huge amount of trouble running away. Some classes have literally no ability to run away at all. The point is, that OP felt that he was denied his rightful victory and is frustrated about it, as I would be too.

Stardrift.7360:

3) a thief can`t beat you, congrats, but as sure as heck he won`t stick around for you to get easy badges

I wish I could avoid certain death on my other 7 classes like that.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Stardrift.7360:

1) a perma CC engie is unkillable by a thief unless he`s got mad skills and works the environment. Burning, immobilization, blind and more than 1 stun is ridiculous and i sincerely hope it gets nerfed, along with the ranger and his lol-downed state that enables him to heal right back up like a baus (not sure of the build, didn`t tinker too much on a ranger)

Perma CC Engineer is a form of bunker/Tank. It is not immune to Thieves. Ranger is infact overpowered, but Thief actually has more tools to deal with it than other classes.

Stardrift.7360:

2) never EVER come to a profession`s forum with this amount of audacity – to literally prove how much better is your profession than other AND complain that the underdog had the nerve to not go down, despite the odds, making you waste your precious self entitled easy gratifying time is pure insulting

Why not? Every other class in the game has a huge amount of trouble running away. Some classes have literally no ability to run away at all. The point is, that OP felt that he was denied his rightful victory and is frustrated about it, as I would be too.

Stardrift.7360:

3) a thief can`t beat you, congrats, but as sure as heck he won`t stick around for you to get easy badges

I wish I could avoid certain death on my other 7 classes like that.

Ah another brute force over subtlety kind of guy. If it were up to you there would be 3 professions: generic warrior, generic archer, generic mage. If u want to avoid certain death but work 10 times more for a kill, by all means roll a thief. There`s noting wrong in opportunistic thinning of the heard, feeding on the weak or incapable, then running away. Notice how few thieves complain on other profession`s forums about disparity in efficiency and observe how 1 out of 3 posts in our section is either “nerf the thieves” (we`re one notch above lepers) or “how do i kill you cuz i know i`m entitled to it”.

Stardrift.7360:

Bacon Please.8407:

Engineers and thieves are two entirely different classes. It is like comparing candy to steak. Both can be tasty and have their appealing characteristics and neither are better then the other. I’ve seen an engineer face tank a well coordinated team of players and down two of the 5 before escaping. I Can’t say I’ve seen a thief operate that well other then a few assorted videos here on the forums and ever there it looked like the people that were being killed had no idea what they were doing.

This went waaaaay over his head. That`s why thieves are so bitter – even when someone such as yourself politely relay valuable info to players operating powerhouses they still remain ignorant and entitled. Ok so my 2 cents for the OP are:
1) a perma CC engie is unkillable by a thief unless he`s got mad skills and works the environment. Burning, immobilization, blind and more than 1 stun is ridiculous and i sincerely hope it gets nerfed, along with the ranger and his lol-downed state that enables him to heal right back up like a baus (not sure of the build, didn`t tinker too much on a ranger)
2) never EVER come to a profession`s forum with this amount of audacity – to literally prove how much better is your profession than other AND complain that the underdog had the nerve to not go down, despite the odds, making you waste your precious self entitled easy gratifying time is pure insulting.
3) a thief can`t beat you, congrats, but as sure as heck he won`t stick around for you to get easy badges

None of these points actually applies to my build at all. What I did was the absolute limit of my capabilities. Had the thief dodged the 1st super easily dodged stun it would have been a fight instead of me destroying the thief but being unable to finish it due to the get out of jail free card. Bad play is bad play though. That’s even considering that fighting me at close range was a terrible idea with all my turrets right there.

Kitten, played right that thief could have walked all over me. But even as a bad player they get an easy escape from the most terrible of situations.

Stardrift.7360:

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Stardrift.7360:

1) a perma CC engie is unkillable by a thief unless he`s got mad skills and works the environment. Burning, immobilization, blind and more than 1 stun is ridiculous and i sincerely hope it gets nerfed, along with the ranger and his lol-downed state that enables him to heal right back up like a baus (not sure of the build, didn`t tinker too much on a ranger)

Perma CC Engineer is a form of bunker/Tank. It is not immune to Thieves. Ranger is infact overpowered, but Thief actually has more tools to deal with it than other classes.

Stardrift.7360:

2) never EVER come to a profession`s forum with this amount of audacity – to literally prove how much better is your profession than other AND complain that the underdog had the nerve to not go down, despite the odds, making you waste your precious self entitled easy gratifying time is pure insulting

Why not? Every other class in the game has a huge amount of trouble running away. Some classes have literally no ability to run away at all. The point is, that OP felt that he was denied his rightful victory and is frustrated about it, as I would be too.

Stardrift.7360:

3) a thief can`t beat you, congrats, but as sure as heck he won`t stick around for you to get easy badges

I wish I could avoid certain death on my other 7 classes like that.

Ah another brute force over subtlety kind of guy. If it were up to you there would be 3 professions: generic warrior, generic archer, generic mage. If u want to avoid certain death but work 10 times more for a kill, by all means roll a thief. There`s noting wrong in opportunistic thinning of the heard, feeding on the weak or incapable, then running away. Notice how few thieves complain on other profession`s forums about disparity in efficiency and observe how 1 out of 3 posts in our section is either “nerf the thieves” (we`re one notch above lepers) or “how do i kill you cuz i know i`m entitled to it”

“Working 10 times more for a kill” That’s a lie.

And I’ll add Thief to “Generic Stealth based annoyance”

I think if I kill someone, I’m entitled to the kill. Not watching them mystically run away for 20 seconds only to come back and try again when I’m on all cooldowns.

Dahkeus.8243:

In this thread:
“Your class has X. X is really cool, especially because my class doesn’t have it. Since I am not considering that I have Y and your class doesn’t, X looks OP. I think this is unfair!?

Auesis.7301:

I don’t get the problem – the Thief’s status bar will tell you that he has initiated a Shadowstep maneuver (if you somehow didn’t spot the teleport in your direction). If you wanted to lock him down for good, you should have shifted yourself further towards his origin before setting up shop.

Quite simply, you’re playing a static build against a mobile one. Rock/paper/scissors.

^these two quotes sum it all up quite nicely.

Thieves are entirely incapable of sustaining and providing continuous damage, with the notable exception of P/D, which is hopelessly weak against CC and anything with removal. We are extremely weak in these areas, and therefore weak in 1v1’s, so to compensate for that we have a ton of mobility to move between points/remove ourselves from bad situations. If a thief tries to 1v1 you, he’s most likely bad, and if he runs away, good on him and good on you for holding him off.

It’s a valid strategy to bum rush into the opposing character and cause him to waste all his cooldowns and then shadow return out. In the case of an engineer, I’d wait until turrets expire and then burst you down.

Your fault for wasting all your cooldowns. And it’s your loss. Suck it!

Excalibur.9748:

It’s a valid strategy to bum rush into the opposing character and cause him to waste all his cooldowns and then shadow return out. In the case of an engineer, I’d wait until turrets expire and then burst you down.

Your fault for wasting all your cooldowns. And it’s your loss. Suck it!

Considering blowing all my cooldowns in that situation wasn’t enough I don’t think the end result would have been any better. Or do you have some mythical situation in which I could have outplayed the thief which wasn’t burst damage and didn’t involve the same result of running away?

Still, my build and cooldowns are all completely moot for the point at hand. The point had nothing to do with any of that and everything to do with what the thief could effectively escape with NO build investment and only 1 utility skill invested. Basically, the answer is the thief can escape anything without having to build for it.

Ralathar.7236:

Basically, the answer is the thief can escape anything without having to build for it.

That’s not necessarily true. They do have escapes, yes, but most often than not you have to put escapes into your build before you can utilize them effectively.

Ralathar.7236:

Excalibur.9748:

It’s a valid strategy to bum rush into the opposing character and cause him to waste all his cooldowns and then shadow return out. In the case of an engineer, I’d wait until turrets expire and then burst you down.

Your fault for wasting all your cooldowns. And it’s your loss. Suck it!

Considering blowing all my cooldowns in that situation wasn’t enough I don’t think the end result would have been any better. Or do you have some mythical situation in which I could have outplayed the thief which wasn’t burst damage and didn’t involve the same result of running away?

Still, my build and cooldowns are all completely moot for the point at hand. The point had nothing to do with any of that and everything to do with what the thief could effectively escape with NO build investment and only 1 utility skill invested. Basically, the answer is the thief can escape anything without having to build for it.

I’m not saying there is anything you could’ve done to beat that thief, just saying it’s definately a valid strategy to do that when you’re a thief. I do it all the time.

Especially good against elementalist (cause them to waste their big moves), guardian (they have temporary invulnerability), necromancer (their plague form), engineer (sentry)…

Meh actually all classes have some sort of ultimate move that they rely on to survive a burst. It’s definately valid to retreat and then go in again since their ultimate is usually on a cooldown of something like 90s, sometimes 180s so that skill will still be on cooldown when you go in for round 2.

Knowing when to retreat separates the novice thieves from adept thieves since to know when to retreat you need to know which moves are particular deadly for each class.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the game is not balanced for 1v1 combat. This is largely a team game, and the primary 5v5 capture-the-point format (domination or whatever it’s called) is probably the environment in which balance considerations are made.

In this regard, it’s possible that there never will be a good way for you to counter that particular thieve’s mechanism of escape, but that is simply the reality that we will have to live with.

If they start balancing the game for every 1v1 scenario like the one described, I think it would likely end up imbalancing things in the standard sPvP format, in addition to WvW team/zerg fights. In fact, the situation you described would be considered a victory for your team in the standard sPvP format if you were fighting over a point.

So yeah, I hate to be a guy saying “just deal with it”, but that’s what I’ve come to accept for now.

I guess one thing you could’ve done in this situation in lay down a WvW anti-stealth trap in the middle of your turrets and have him trigger it when he comes in to attack you. XD

Yamsandjams.3267:

Another thing to keep in mind is that the game is not balanced for 1v1 combat. This is largely a team game, and the primary 5v5 capture-the-point format (domination or whatever it’s called) is probably the environment in which balance considerations are made.

In this regard, it’s possible that there never will be a good way for you to counter that particular thieve’s mechanism of escape, but that is simply the reality that we will have to live with.

If they start balancing the game for every 1v1 scenario like the one described, I think it would likely end up imbalancing things in the standard sPvP format, in addition to WvW team/zerg fights. In fact, the situation you described would be considered a victory for your team in the standard sPvP format if you were fighting over a point.

So yeah, I hate to be a guy saying “just deal with it”, but that’s what I’ve come to accept for now.

I guess one thing you could’ve done in this situation in lay down a WvW anti-stealth trap in the middle of your turrets and have him trigger it when he comes in to attack you. XD

Situation wouldn’t really change in a group situation unless people happened to be really close to him after the teleport so they could finish him off. Even then they would only have a brief 1 second window.

Thieves are known to troll groups of people all the time, even in non-permastealth builds.

Remember though
1 thief trolling a group =/= 1 thief helping his team beat that certain group
If I would troll around a group, slowly trying to take ppl out with small hits, I’d probably let my whole team die. If it’s a 5v5, there’s a fair chance that this way of playing makes it more of a 5v4 while I as a thief still have a chance to die because of randomly flying AoE’s.

In that same fight, the thief running off on his own to survive is, again, a waste of potential damage for the team, putting them in a disadvantage. (<— wow long sentence).

Yes I’ve played against thieves that troll around my party, and it annoys me too in those situations. But in a team fight, they are quite balanced because of the things I said higher up.

PS: Unless of course you run a team with only thieves and mesmers… in which case: Good luck to you

TheGuy.3568”

Could you name one class/build that has the mobility CC and burst to catch a thief, CC them, and burst them before they enter stealth or stun break?

Ummm… Let’s see, a berzerk Guardian (GS/Sword-Focus), a mesmer, an elementalist, and probably even a ranger.

Ralathar.7236”

If you think blinking after a thief to attempt to AOE them is a counter then you have zero understanding of a thief. If you think the counter to thief is to present them with the squishiest target possible and make it a battle of who spikes who first you also have zero understanding of thief.

Let’s start with the fact that I have a thief, and you don’t. I leveled one, and you didn’t. I did WvW with him, and you didn’t. So me having zero understanding of a thief is a dumb statement. You still think that stealth = Invulnerability, and you won’t understand the class until you roll one yourself. Not only that, I have fought thieves with my power Necromancer, and I just love it whenever a thief appears downed after a stealth. I am not saying you need to go GC to nail one, you just need the right setup. Go open a thread in the Engineering sub-forum and ask how to counter thieves as a whole, and not how to counter two utilities of a thief.

I will say this again, ANY class if they decide to run away, and they got the setup for it, they can do it effectively. Don’t nag that a thief can run away when they are using 2-3 escape utilities and you are using damage/defensive ones. Put on 3 escape utilities, attack someone, and use them to run away. I highly doubt they will catch you.

Azraeel.1238:

TheGuy.3568”

Could you name one class/build that has the mobility CC and burst to catch a thief, CC them, and burst them before they enter stealth or stun break?

Ummm… Let’s see, a berzerk Guardian (GS/Sword-Focus), a mesmer, an elementalist, and probably even a ranger.

Ralathar.7236”

If you think blinking after a thief to attempt to AOE them is a counter then you have zero understanding of a thief. If you think the counter to thief is to present them with the squishiest target possible and make it a battle of who spikes who first you also have zero understanding of thief.

Let’s start with the fact that I have a thief, and you don’t. I leveled one, and you didn’t. I did WvW with him, and you didn’t. So me having zero understanding of a thief is a dumb statement. You still think that stealth = Invulnerability, and you won’t understand the class until you roll one yourself. Not only that, I have fought thieves with my power Necromancer, and I just love it whenever a thief appears downed after a stealth. I am not saying you need to go GC to nail one, you just need the right setup. Go open a thread in the Engineering sub-forum and ask how to counter thieves as a whole, and not how to counter two utilities of a thief.

I will say this again, ANY class if they decide to run away, and they got the setup for it, they can do it effectively. Don’t nag that a thief can run away when they are using 2-3 escape utilities and you are using damage/defensive ones. Put on 3 escape utilities, attack someone, and use them to run away. I highly doubt they will catch you.

I do somewhat disagree with this. The Necro and the Warrior both have bitterly terrible disengage… the Warrior for reasons built into the game itself, the Necro because that much carry capacity warrants a gamble of investment.

But the rest of your point holds completely true XD +1

^Yeah, anet themselves said that both warrior and necro aren’t supposed to run from a fight. They are supposed to stick close and force ppl to run from THEM. Of course that’s not really the case yet (not all the time) since anet is still tweaking with the warrior and necromancer (if i’m not wrong from last interview: they want to make accumulating points for deathshroud easier)

Gwalchgwn.1659:

^Yeah, anet themselves said that both warrior and necro aren’t supposed to run from a fight. They are supposed to stick close and force ppl to run from THEM. Of course that’s not really the case yet (not all the time) since anet is still tweaking with the warrior and necromancer (if i’m not wrong from last interview: they want to make accumulating points for deathshroud easier)

That said; the point of all the deathshroud buffing is to allow the necro to stay in fights and actually have an effect xD

Necros and Warriors are definitely the frontliners of GW2, so they end up being hit the hardest. Hopefully these patches will help them deal with that burden.

@SharadSun.3089, I never play WvW with my warrior, but tell me this, if you equip Throw Bolas, Stomp, Balanced Stance, and Signet of Rage, and you engage someone, then you pop them out on the enemy and make a run. Are you telling me that person is able to catch up with you? Even if a thief used Shortbow/shadowstep to reach you, you can turn around and kill him because basically that thief just burned out all of his utilities and initiative…

As for Necromancers, you can equip Staff, Summon Flesh Wurm, Spectral Walk, Signet of the Locust, Summon Flesh Golem, engage an enemy, then make a run for it using your utilities. With staff you can fear/slow the enemy following you, with Death Shroud skill #3 u can fear him/her again. You can use flesh wurm for a quick teleport, and flesh golem to knock that person down. You can even have a warhorn as offset for locust swarm. I highly doubt anyone can catch you.

Just trying to prove my point, with the right utilities, you can run away easily. Might not be as easy as a thief, but still, you can do it effectively.

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.

Azraeel.1238:

@SharadSun.3089, I never play WvW with my warrior, but tell me this, if you equip Throw Bolas, Stomp, Balanced Stance, and Signet of Rage, and you engage someone, then you pop them out on the enemy and make a run. Are you telling me that person is able to catch up with you? Even if a thief used Shortbow/shadowstep to reach you, you can turn around and kill him because basically that thief just burned out all of his utilities and initiative…

As for Necromancers, you can equip Staff, Summon Flesh Wurm, Spectral Walk, Signet of the Locust, Summon Flesh Golem, engage an enemy, then make a run for it using your utilities. With staff you can fear/slow the enemy following you, with Death Shroud skill #3 u can fear him/her again. You can use flesh wurm for a quick teleport, and flesh golem to knock that person down. You can even have a warhorn as offset for locust swarm. I highly doubt anyone can catch you.

Just trying to prove my point, with the right utilities, you can run away easily. Might not be as easy as a thief, but still, you can do it effectively.

Yeah, because you see the thief coming and have the time to switch your traits and skills in combat and kitten yourself against any other class with it.