Guild Wars 2

Yeah, as a thief I can come clean that the overuse of stealth is a kittening kitten to say the least. I guess many thieves are aware of it.

No one should fight something that is invisible 80% of the time (D/P thieves).

But if you nerf that thieves are boned since they have little survivability, way too little mobility to justify a major stealth nerf and if certain other stealth abilites get hit as well, less utitlity.

Now what you could do is == this may come as a shock to all thief haters== buff the other combat types (SP, SD) and thus guive thieves something to fall back on when you inevitably nerf stealth.

How is D/P invisible 80% of the time? It takes 9 initiative just to get into stealth. You probably mean P/D.

the thing is, D/P isn’t supposed to be invisible 80% of the time. they actually cant be while being able to kill anyone. with any thief you have at most a 4 second stealth (without stacking stealth through utilities/combo fields) and a 3 second revealed debuff. that is at most 57% stealth up time, if you are attacking. the issue is the rendering problems that make us unable to be seen in WvW for a short time after stealth is broken. this is something a net has been working on, and a relatively recent announcement has said they are working on fixing it, and making good progress. it mentions the three things they need to do, and bringing in a new programer, just to work on code efficiency for WvW. hopefully someone can link the rendering/culling update, since I can’t seem to find it again.

tl;dr once again, it isn’t stealth, it’s rendering that is the issue.

Stealth is not just for defence, stealth is the precondition for damage, backstab is the dagger-mainhand damage dealer, would you think regular auto-attacks doing backstab damage (without requiring stealth) isn’t going to invoke QQ? Stealth is also the required state for sneak-attack, the only damage skill for pistol mainhand. Do you think having sneak-attack damage and bleeding in the regular auto-attack chain isn’t going to invoke QQ? Stealth is also the required state for sword daze, can you imagine the complaints if that was transferred to the regular auto-attack chain?

Nemo.6295:

Yeah, as a thief I can come clean that the overuse of stealth is a kittening kitten to say the least. I guess many thieves are aware of it.

No one should fight something that is invisible 80% of the time (D/P thieves).

But if you nerf that thieves are boned since they have little survivability, way too little mobility to justify a major stealth nerf and if certain other stealth abilites get hit as well, less utitlity.

Now what you could do is == this may come as a shock to all thief haters== buff the other combat types (SP, SD) and thus guive thieves something to fall back on when you inevitably nerf stealth.

OK,so let me get this straight…You don’t use much(at all) Stealth,so you wish/hope that it will be nerfed so they give you something that you will use more?

Did you know you can hit people while they’re stealthed?

Another good tip is if you see a thief pop shadow refuge, knock him out of it. The thief is now boned.

ZLE.8293:

OK,so let me get this straight…You don’t use much(at all) Stealth,so you wish/hope that it will be nerfed so they give you something that you will use more?

Ok since you want it straight, I do use stealth, but not the DD or PD (I meant PD), since I condsider those specs easy kitten easy and outright unfair in an eaven fight (one on one). I mean it’s stupid how easy it is to fight when you are stealthed almost through the whole duration of the fight, and don’t give me that initiative crap, unless you are brain-dead and can’t learn to time, that spec insures you are stealthed most of the time. Bottom line, I’m not looking for a class to pwn noobs.

And yes, I’m also aware you can be hit in stealth, I play a thief as a main. But you can also dodge in stealth so if you get hit it’s probably because you are standing still or have no sense of direction or reaction, which kinda enforces the popular belef that the thief is the class picked by bad players looking for a large advantage over others.

BUT!

I know that at this point those specs are needed because, well, without them the thief would be a mediocre damage, mediocre utility and low survivability class Initiative being the only trademark this class has.

Things need to change. No more losing half of your health in one backstab, no more fighting things you can’t see, well, at least those outside the culling issue.

And by now, if you think this is some sort of stealthy nerf-call, please check my posts, I’ve always been against senseless demands to nerf thieves, but what’s going on now, the lack of viability of some specs and the power of others is also, very much, seneless.

But take it as you will, either way, I hope I got my point across.

Whatever the cause – mechanics, or culling, this issue, where a very high dps class is invisible most of the time must be fixed. No other pvp game has had stealth done this way.

Nemo.6295:

But if you nerf that thieves are boned since they have little survivability, way too little mobility to justify a major stealth nerf and if certain other stealth abilites get hit as well, less utitlity.

Great! Increase survivability, increase mobility, increase utility, nerf stealth. Negotiations have reached an agreement.

Doggie.3184:

Did you know you can hit people while they’re stealthed?

LOL, yeah you can hit them with maybe 1 useful skill (usually with a massive cooldown) on many professions. Those are the ones that aren’t massively delayed in effect or aren’t plain as day marked out so they’re simply avoided.

Oh let me use that one weak cone-shaped AoE knockback I have available on my Mesmer, or maybe shatter my clones and hope, oh but I need to have a target to create any and all clones, so I actually don’t have any clones. Not like even the dumbest thief can’t just reposition away from AoE. Hey maybe thieves shouldn’t be able to see my Necro’s AoE marks when stealthed. That’d be nice. Oh but they can, and just evade and reposition.

I love it if I wouldn’t see ‘You need to target an enemy to use that skill’ a dozen times in every perma-stealth thief fight. Delay removing them as a target when they stealth, for even one second, kitten Oh one can dream.

“Did you know you can hit people while they’re stealthed?”

IF you have a spammable aoe and IF you have a good idea where they are. What are Wars, Guardians and Rangers going to do? Swing their sword around till they hit something? Completely alter their build so they have AoE at the expense of everything else?

You know why p/d thieves are op? It’s not JUST because they are stealthed 80% of the time. It’s multiple reasons:

1. Culling is huge, it makes it impossible to lock the thief until its almost time for him to stealth again.
2. Abundance of stealth: A well made thief can stealth whenever they want, with utilities and dagger oh. The only limiting factor is the revealed debuff, which is nerfed by culling.
3. Locking: A huge advantage to stealth is the fact that you can break lock. Reacquiring lock can waste precious moments in a pvp fight. If you take advantage of your ability to move unseen, you can constantly force the enemy to spin their camera around to find you, wasting even more time.
4. Lack of Burst CD: stealth burst has no CD other then revealed. So 3-4 second cd on a very high damage attack. Frans says imagine what it would be like to have these effects as part of auto attack chain? Well in practice they are.

Did you know cloak and dagger only works in melee range when they’re facing you?

Doggie.3184:

Did you know cloak and dagger only works in melee range when they’re facing you?

Yes… please stop with the DID YOU KNOW stuff. I’m a thief player and I used daggers quite a bit when they wrecked S/P and I am aware of what it can do and it’s in NO kittenING WAY difficult to land a C&D no more than it is to land a Backstab.

All weapon styles need to be balanced, some nerfed some buffed, that’s all.

Nemo.6295:

Yes… please stop with the DID YOU KNOW stuff. I’m a thief player and I used daggers quite a bit when they wrecked S/P and I am aware of what it can do and it’s in NO kittenING WAY difficult to land a C&D no more than it is to land a Backstab.

How about you clarify what build do you play,because it seems to me that you bash every viable thief gameplay.You repeat again and again “i am a thief too,i know this and i know that”,but imo you are either sucky thief or not at all!

Really? You are making me prove myself in hopes that you may find something to discredit me with? I currently play Sword/Pistol if you are dying to know, which takes a lot more know-how to survive in WvW than a dagger thief and a hell of a lot more than a Pistol/Dagger thief.

Are you that desperate to defend OP play? Then go ahead, check my post history if you aren’t lazy.

Again, yes, I want to see all builds fixed and balanced. If that destroys your idea of “FUN” I really don’t care as long as the said fix improves the other “forgotten” builds and enforces more fair-play in fights (as opposed to what goes on now).

If you have something constructive to add, bsides suspicion and other crap like that, be my guest, if not, stay out of the discussion.

Off course you have to prove yourself in order to people see weight in your claim.
I just know simply isn’t enough.OK,so you are S/P,suddenly it all figures.You don’t need Stealth,so nerf it,you don’t use dagger offhand so kitten it,nerf it more and revert PW damage,revert Sword daze,maybe reduce Haste CD.DO i miss something?
Edit:And don’t get me wrong,i also think PW damage nerf was stupid.

ZLE.8293:

Off course you have to prove yourself in order to people see weight in your claim.
I just know simply isn’t enough.OK,so you are S/P,suddenly it all figures.You don’t need Stealth,so nerf it,you don’t use dagger offhand so kitten it,nerf it more and revert PW damage,revert Sword daze,maybe reduce Haste CD.DO i miss something?
Edit:And don’t get me wrong,i also think PW damage nerf was stupid.

I never said I don’t need stealth. Every thief needs it for one reason or another. I just don’t use it to the point where it becomes an issue damage wise like backstab or combat-wise like the … well I’m not even sure what to call it but constant blinking (vanishing and appearing in another place) of PD.

I use it to escape, get past enemy lines and so on, I’m not dumb enough to ask for a total nerf of stealth.

What I am asking for is the OP theves to be fixed to a decent level so they are still competitive but not 2-shotters or invisible things shooting at you, THEN have the weaker builds brought up to that same level so the people who are no longer able to compete on a more eaven ground with the rest of the classes may have other options.

And as far as I know I don’t need a permit from the forum thief committee to post on the forums.

I think is fair to say something about myself too,instead of only commenting you.
I play D/D+P/D thief for as long as i remember.I leveled 49 PvP ranks with it(and if you play Structured PvP and you are aware with the ranks difficulty curve you would know,that it’s not and easy think).At the beginning it was easy peacy thing.People was not expecting it(they expected burst) and didn’t know what to do.It was actually hilarious.
I would a approach a warrior and he would pop Shield Stance waiting for my BS burst…And then,suddenly something else happening,exactly as you are describing it:
A thief vanishing and disappearing at will,bleeds everywhere.Sometimes i pitied them,standing in the caltrops desperately trying to 1 attack find me.
That was then.
Now it’s becoming more and more difficult every day(and i don’t mind,i myself handle other enemies far better that before). Big red circle on the ground?You just walk away from it?A pistol thief suddenly dodges towards you to C&D?Fast dodge back or Black Powder——>Thief is * up.Two misses and he will either try to run away(not an easy thing from a guy with Inf Strike) or Shadow Refuge(you Cluster Bomb it) e.t.c.

Nemo.6295:

ZLE.8293:

Off course you have to prove yourself in order to people see weight in your claim.
I just know simply isn’t enough.OK,so you are S/P,suddenly it all figures.You don’t need Stealth,so nerf it,you don’t use dagger offhand so kitten it,nerf it more and revert PW damage,revert Sword daze,maybe reduce Haste CD.DO i miss something?
Edit:And don’t get me wrong,i also think PW damage nerf was stupid.

I never said I don’t need stealth. Every thief needs it for one reason or another. I just don’t use it to the point where it becomes an issue damage wise like backstab or combat-wise like the … well I’m not even sure what to call it but constant blinking (vanishing and appearing in another place) of PD.

I use it to escape, get past enemy lines and so on, I’m not dumb enough to ask for a total nerf of stealth.

What I am asking for is the OP theves to be fixed to a decent level so they are still competitive but not 2-shotters or invisible things shooting at you, THEN have the weaker builds brought up to that same level so the people who are no longer able to compete on a more eaven ground with the rest of the classes may have other options.

And as far as I know I don’t need a permit from the forum thief committee to post on the forums.

Emm, Yes you do need a permit from the forum Thief committee to post on the foruns. Now, get him boys.

Karolis.4261:

Emm, Yes you do need a permit from the forum Thief committee to post on the foruns. Now, get him boys.

He doesn’t need permit to post off course,BUT….when you come here to say: “This is OP and that is OP and need nerf”, a reason like “I just know that” simply isn’t enough.Now if you explain your build and gamestyle,also the quality of your gear(must for a WvW),maybe,just maybe we can scramble a normal discussion.

What do you want me to say? That when I played D&D build (that was several months ago), glass cannon spec I could literally 2-shot people and still get away? When I tried PD I forgot how the dying animation looked? I couldn’t kill as fast as D&D but bollx if I ever felt at risk, if I could do that as a thief who just tried these playstiles, imagine what others who were, perhaps, not better than me but more experienced, did.

Fair enough, you don’t want your playstiles nerfed, but they will be, wake up and look around. People are complaining more and more about it, the culling issue is making it MUCH worse, eventually the nerf will come and I expect it will come with the next major patch. As previously stated, I’m a Sword/Pistol thief, I’m not sharing in the OP joy and that is fine with me, I like playing SP and I intend to stick to it, but I don’t want to see it sinking deeper because of the upcoming nerfs wich will, most certainly, affect all thieves and not just the ones enjoying what their build can do right now.

the majority of the thieves are very predictable. It’s quite easy to continue hitting a thief when he goes to stealth.
As a D/D thief i can see if i’m hitting him just seeing my animation.
The problem is that a lot of people freeze for a second when we disappear and give us the time we need to go where they don’t think we are.
You should consider that a stealthed thief will hardly use a teleport, unless he is in big trouble, so you can simply follow his previous path…
And when you see a shadow refuge, just swing in the center and then move back to the edge … he will probably be there.

Lorelei.3918:

“Did you know you can hit people while they’re stealthed?”

IF you have a spammable aoe and IF you have a good idea where they are. What are Wars, Guardians and Rangers going to do? Swing their sword around till they hit something?

Yes, exactly that. If I can compete with a fellow Thief by swinging around my sword and using my own initiative and prediction of movement to cleave the kitten out of him the majority of the time, you can too. I’m hardly a professional.

Nemo.6295:

What do you want me to say? That when I played D&D build (that was several months ago), glass cannon spec I could literally 2-shot people and still get away? When I tried PD I forgot how the dying animation looked?

When you traited 30 pts into Toughnes/Healing and 20 into Vitality is it so abnormal that you die less often?

Fair enough, you don’t want your playstiles nerfed, but they will be, wake up and look around. People are complaining more and more about it, the culling issue is making it MUCH worse, eventually the nerf will come and I expect it will come with the next major patch.

How about you wake up.Concerning P/D:C&D(already nerfed),Dancing Dagger(already nerfed),Shadow and Body Shot(nothing to see here),Vital Shot(i wouldn’t be surpriSed if they actually buff it).
Concerning D/D:Death Blossom(already nerfed long time ago),BS and HS have nothing to do with condition builds.So you better face it P/D stays where it is,and if you can’t deal with it now,too bad.Peace

What about the army of people complaining about getting killed by invisible things? You think, cosidering the culling issue, AN will shut their ears at their calls? What about them? I mean they are right, the culling issue makes stealth more powerful than it should be, so what do you really think? They’ll just forget about it?

One thing they can do is totally nerf C&D, but that would cripple 2 builds that rely on it. Another and a more certain thing is to nerf stealth as a whole changing the way it works, or appears, which would leave the sword specs, considering their current state, utterly kittened.

So the question is not IF they’ll nerf the stealth-related issues (BS damage and C&D) it’s how. But if you’d rather imagine you’ll be PD-ing people till the end of time and I’m reminding you of a painful eventuality, then by all means, do not open this link any more.

The more you respond,the more i am certain that you are what i suspected several posts ago:sucky thief,who is ragin in order to justify before himself his inability to play.
1.Culling is not an Thief issue.If Thief benefits from it more than other(which is not good),that means that culling must be fixed,not Stealth nerfed.
2.Culling will be fixed.2-3 months ago ANet stated ,that they are working on it,but it will take some time,because it’s a core defense mechanism.(they explained it server is limiting the maximum amount of objects visible at any given moment in order to reduce the server overload thingy,or something).
3.About the army of people,they will always whine no matter what.If it’s not the BS build,it will be you precious S/P build.Or mesmer.Or whatever.
You know what?
If i could go several months ago when the game was released i would go D/D Elementalist.With the efforts i did spend to master thief,with the Ele i would be an unstopable mashine by now(don’t know if you encountered really good D/D Ele but those are OH MY GOD) and noone will point at me to say im OP.

So how the kitten would you justify the difference in peformance between DD and SP, or PD and SD? Am I trying to justify my poor play of a mediocre build? Is that wat you got? Cause honestly I’m not, I’m not too happy about the damage SP does but I’m still sticking with it cause it’s not a lost cause, what I’m saying here, and what you aren’t getting, is that, as much as you hate it, the nerf is coming, how can it not considering what’s happen with the thief class since launch. It is bloody coming and I don’t want what’s left of SP devastated by it.

And if I were to toss suspicions around, I’d say you were a bad player holding on to PD/DD with his teeth cause when those go, so does your oddly gained skill… and really? It took you several months of effort to master a thief? Again… really? Took me less than a week to master daggers.

Nothing is coming.We were nerfed enough.As far as me not being good thief,maybe you are right.Maybe i am not.Then again maybe i am.But unlike you i posted the name of my thief in my signature(Veni Vidi Ganki),i am who i am,i play Battlegrounds every night.I play a lot,i kill a lot i die a lot.Simple!

Nemo.6295:

Doggie.3184:

Did you know cloak and dagger only works in melee range when they’re facing you?

Yes… please stop with the DID YOU KNOW stuff. I’m a thief player and I used daggers quite a bit when they wrecked S/P and I am aware of what it can do and it’s in NO kittenING WAY difficult to land a C&D no more than it is to land a Backstab.

All weapon styles need to be balanced, some nerfed some buffed, that’s all.

Did you know that you can kill a stealth Thief build if you’re good at PvP?

frans.8092:

Stealth is not just for defence, stealth is the precondition for damage, backstab is the dagger-mainhand damage dealer, would you think regular auto-attacks doing backstab damage (without requiring stealth) isn’t going to invoke QQ? Stealth is also the required state for sneak-attack, the only damage skill for pistol mainhand. Do you think having sneak-attack damage and bleeding in the regular auto-attack chain isn’t going to invoke QQ? Stealth is also the required state for sword daze, can you imagine the complaints if that was transferred to the regular auto-attack chain?

This post clearly explains that the OP clearly didn’t think to long before he posted. Ill take sneak attack wthout stealth all day long!!

Nemo.6295:

So how the kitten would you justify the difference in peformance between DD and SP, or PD and SD? Am I trying to justify my poor play of a mediocre build? Is that wat you got? Cause honestly I’m not, I’m not too happy about the damage SP does but I’m still sticking with it cause it’s not a lost cause, what I’m saying here, and what you aren’t getting, is that, as much as you hate it, the nerf is coming, how can it not considering what’s happen with the thief class since launch. It is bloody coming and I don’t want what’s left of SP devastated by it.

And if I were to toss suspicions around, I’d say you were a bad player holding on to PD/DD with his teeth cause when those go, so does your oddly gained skill… and really? It took you several months of effort to master a thief? Again… really? Took me less than a week to master daggers.

The end of the world happened on December 21, 2012 or did it not? You sound like the people saying the nerf is coming in the December 14th patch I didn’t notice it did you? Every patch the nerf is coming is pretty old now. How about wait and see if the nerf is coming and then when it comes post but I guess you can’t win the internet without a post saying “I told you so”

Nothing is wrong with stealth. People need to get better with handling it.

OptimistPrime.9283:

Nothing is wrong with stealth. People need to get better with handling it.

I couldn’t agree more. I find so many people come charging in only to get hit with stacks and stacks of bleeds and then turn and run away. By this time, it’s already too late for them. On the other hand, there are people out there who play it smart, are aware of their surroundings and can give it a good shot by playing smart and not attempting to rush in and treat me like a pve mob.

People should time their attacks, pay attention to stealths, and make the thief work for it.

If you really think that they won’t do something about the outrage stealth causes, despite the fact that they already nerfed stuff just based on dumb crying (PW and Unload damage which got buffed again), considering the stealth issue complaining has a solid base.

And while there may not be anything wrong with stealth, which I totally agree with, there’s something very wrong with the damage you can deal from it with certain skills (BS wich can literally take 40-50% health) and the overuse of stealth that PD relies on PLUS the culling issue, how can they NOT do something about it. You got common sense right? Some of you at least. Use it.

Lorelei.3918:

IF you have a spammable aoe and IF you have a good idea where they are. What are Wars, Guardians and Rangers going to do? Swing their sword around till they hit something? Completely alter their build so they have AoE at the expense of everything else?

you do realise that unless they are running full on gas and no armor, yes, do it because if they don’t they might as well be as squishy and thiefs. BUT OH YEAH they aren’t, we are. deal with it, either get AOE or GTFO, we already need to manage everything on our class, and you want to spam save yourselfs and staff on your guardian and 2 on your warrior?

I dunno, a mesmer can port in like 20 people instantly, i die less then a second. Thieves cant even come close to the damage a mesmer can bring to the table.

Nemo.6295:

If you really think that they won’t do something about the outrage stealth causes, despite the fact that they already nerfed stuff just based on dumb crying (PW and Unload damage which got buffed again), considering the stealth issue complaining has a solid base.

And while there may not be anything wrong with stealth, which I totally agree with, there’s something very wrong with the damage you can deal from it with certain skills (BS wich can literally take 40-50% health) and the overuse of stealth that PD relies on PLUS the culling issue, how can they NOT do something about it. You got common sense right? Some of you at least. Use it.

Like i said if you go back everyone thought december 14th thieves would be nerfed. People had a problem with stealth then blah blah. The issue is culling and I doubt they will do anything. They are just going to fix culling which apparently they are pretty close to or might have fixed it.

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/video-game-shows/guild-wars-video/guildcast-guild-wars-show/guildcast-ep57-not-quite-guild-wars-2-expansion/ should have been the last guildcast.

The problem people have is the damage the stealth is just annoying but I highly doubt they will do anything because you know, like you said people are complainng since launch then which was august 28 if you don’t count the early access. Then on December the 14th the day the thief was to be nerfed this was released.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012/first#post999247

Thief
Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.

Those patch notes and that class balance philosophy sould tell your common sense that they aren’t probably going to change stealth or nerf it. The main problem people have with thief is the damage. Why did they just do a balance fix on the mesmer in the last patch but they didn’t touch the thief again? Your not using common sense your just going with the flow the bandwagon. People are annoyed by stealth but is the damage that people don’t like the most. At best I only see a mug reduction in damage.

Also your common sense should go look at thieves traits as a whole and say hmm you know what thieves are meant to do alot of single target damage. People just are annoyed they engage in a fight but its not on their terms and a thief can break combat easier than some other classes. People complained and expected a nerf to Elementalist in that same patch. Slight nerf to blast finisher but what did they release? Runes of altruism which really helps the ele if they go bunker.

Nemo.6295:

Doggie.3184:

Did you know cloak and dagger only works in melee range when they’re facing you?

Yes… please stop with the DID YOU KNOW stuff. I’m a thief player and I used daggers quite a bit when they wrecked S/P and I am aware of what it can do and it’s in NO kittenING WAY difficult to land a C&D no more than it is to land a Backstab.

All weapon styles need to be balanced, some nerfed some buffed, that’s all.

Did you know our traits don’t work, but go on CD when we’re invisibile? I think Warriors “Endure Pain” should do nothing if its used too frequently.