Guild Wars 2

Hey guys. Just a quick question for you. I’m currently a thief main since launch and I’m experiencing the instantaneous, 100-0 death that thieves can cause in PVP. Against squishies (other thieves, mesmers, ele’s with no defenses up, glass cannon warriors) there is literally nothing they can do, as the sequence happens in less than one second.

I gotta say that, while it’s fun instagibbing people for a few hours, I don’t personally find it conducive to a real “PVP” environment. It’s more like “P-v-theirhealthbar,” because there is absolutely no way the human mind can react in under one second with latency involved.

WAIT! I can hear your little thievy minds thinking, “OMG NOOB L2P IF THIEVES DIDN’T DO THAT WE’D SUCK!” Well, that’s an interesting point, isn’t it? Does our class really need to revolve around a skilless scenario where one person gets stomped before he/she can react? If it does, dear thiefy friends, I think we need a major overhaul.

I’m not asking for resilience or Cataclysm-esque health pools (for you non-WoW players, those were things that made EVERYONE survive much longer). A 5-10 second fight sounds perfectly reasonable to me: There can be reaction and counterplay on both sides. It’s just… really? 1 second?

“WAIT! THIEVES R SUPOZED 2 ASSINATE PPL! ITS THE CONCEPT OF THE CLAS!” Okay, fine: And warriors are supposed to instagib people because their concept is chopping people in half with swords. Fact is, the game isn’t balanced around “concepts,” it’s balanced around design. And the design of the thief class is, I believe, fundamentally flawed.

Imagine, for a second, that instead of instagibbing that person, you left them with 10% hp. Now, a few more attacks will take them down, so it’s a matter of 2-5 seconds. You’re still a crazy ninja assassin who can burst people like nobody’s business. But that 2-5 seconds allows for some real skill, some competition in this thing we call PVP. And that, for my money, is what it’s about: 2 people trying to outplay each other, not one person pounding their keyboard because they’ve been killed with absolutely no counterplay available to them.

I fear without a change, these 100-0 in 1 second builds will dominate PVP until there are nothing left but thieves and maybe the occasional Guardian.

My 2g.

Yep these builds are all annoying mainly because they come along during a fight and woop your kitten and you don’t have a chance. Fun. And every class has an annoying glass cannon build I think.

newsflash – the builds already dominate pvp lol

Most glass cannons die to other glass cannons. Glass cannon burst builds that run into defensive specs tend to fail hard. People like seeing huge numbers, thus most run burst builds and say “screw you, survivability!”

Ultimately though, this is mostly a problem caused by Quickness. I feel they should’ve kept the +33% IAS cap from GW1. Being able to halve your activation times is a bit much.

so shadow phage, would you say a player specced 20 in their health tree, with 20 in their toughness tree, wearing a knight’s amulet (500power 500precision 700vitality), deserves to get 1 rounded by a mug cnd backstab chain in under 1 second?

I agree with the OP in principle, but there’s a reason why people in WoW PVP geared so heavily for hitpoints. It would allow them to survive focused fire and spike damage long enough to react. As more people become aware of what a thief and other glass cannon builds are capable of, they’ll start speccing and gearing for survival as well.

I think Anet definitely has some design issues with the current state of PvP, both structured and WvW. But if I was a betting man, I’d say they’re more inclined to leave the initial response to players, and give them time to work things out.

One of the biggest issues I had with WoW PVP was that Blizzard just couldn’t leave anything alone long enough for players to fully realize the potential of the game and their classes. It caused a cascade effect where the moment something was changed, a new and worse strategy was created by players because of it. I’m really hoping Anet is taking more of a hands-off approach.

I would rather melt instantly from 3 hits, than slowly die from 300 stabs, where in both cases I wasn’t able to survive anyway – like it was in WoW.

If I am bad, and not able to predict my opponents moves, I deserve to be instagibbed.

If I am using a well prepared tactic, which is also quite tricky to execute, I deserve to one-shot clueless newbie.

There is a counter-tactic to every tactic. Get better in overcoming weaknesses, and expanding strengths. Sometimes the best tactic is just to run away, or call for help. There is nothing wrong with it.

It’s a non issue cause instant killing people is weak few an far between(long CD) and makes you the weakest class in the game to even bring those traits/utilities into combat.

“If I am using a well prepared tactic, which is also quite tricky to execute, I deserve to one-shot a clueless newbie.”

@Dagins, you’re using a straw-man argument here. There’s nothing ANYONE can do about these backstab builds in .3 seconds. Nobody can react that fast, and in teamfights nobody can be watching the entire map to make sure a thief isn’t sneaking up on them. Even survivability-spec classes can’t live through it unless they’re a Guardian.

If you admit the only viable strategy is to run for your life or call for a 2v1 situation vs. these builds, I think you just forfeited the argument.

@Fury,
No, it’s NOT a long CD. It’s a one minute CD. That’s absolutely nothing. If a game lasts 15 minutes, that’s 15 absolutely free kills. That’s not okay.

You guys need to stop trying to defend these builds with semantics. The truth of the matter is you can instagib ANYONE, newb or not, with a 20k+ burst in <1 sec.

And we’re telling you, you cannot instant gib someone if they build defensively. Newsflash, having Vitality and Toughness, while good steps to being tankier, does not make you tanky. There are numerous other cooldowns, boons and et cetera that are what make you tanky. And, you can react fast enough. As a thief, and as someone who has played against thieves, I see it all the time, both from me and against me.

Also, if your entire killing potential revolves around a one minute cooldown, (not to mention the fact that the kills aren’t free, as I’ve stated above) you’re useless. Sure, you can kill someone when your cooldowns are up, but then what? You’re not helping your team, and it becomes a 4v5 in tPvP. You run around and scout, but can’t engage in any active fighting.

I see these complaints all the time. If you got global’d by a thief, it is, in fact, your fault. I can even do the math for you, if you want, as to how much damage can be put out in how much time. You’re wrong.

Play a counter build. The brief time I spent playing Oshef’s signet/haste pistol whip build I found that any target using retaliation was instant win for them. People playing this way can and should be shut down by more well rounded build & playstyles. Cheese demands counter cheese.

Well rounded builds fighting each other can go on for a while and only end when team interplay begins, my or their allies show up and we settle it.

Good well rounded setups block cheese and are only countered by equally well rounded setups in even fights. They will overpower under defended opponents & flat out cheese the cheesers. This is the only game I’ve played where super specialist play is not the king, and I think the reason for that is the new role system where you can’t be direct healed.

On the point of well-rounded builds, the main issue is with the thief profession itself.

Many people have well rounded builds on all professions. The thief does not have many, because of initiative. Due to the ability to spam a single ability for a certain cost, and the use of that cost locks other abilities, point for point, whether for offense or utility, it is generally better to spam one ability than to focus on using many of them.

That is why most thief builds focus on one ability, be it Pistol Whip, Heartseeker, Death Blossom, Backstab, Unload, the ability I can never remember the name of (P/D) that puts 8 bleeds on the target when you shoot out of stealth, or Cluster Bomb, or any I have forgotten to mention here.

The idea that you can spam your abilities is what separates thieves from other classes, but also inhibits them from having well rounded builds.

While I am not saying it is impossible to have a well-rounded thief build, generally, a well-rounded thief build will lose to a specific move focused one.

Solution: Don’t play a glass cannon…or if you refuse, learn better movement. Don’t come crying when a glass cannon wrecks your glass cannon.

PS: WvW encounters should NEVER be used for balancing purposes.

People need to grasp something really important about this game. I am sorry for those that were having a laugh for the last month in pvp but it is going too far.

Okay. Let’s say it, loud and clear.

1 TOUGHNESS > 1 VITALITY

Translating into normal language:

In this game, or more like in the current state of the game, TOUGHNESS IS BETTER THAN VITALITY. Therefore, LOGICALLY, if you think you’re ‘’defensive specced’’ with vitality (knight’s amulet and such) YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG. You should have WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY more TOUGHNESS than vitality. I hope the caps helped I really really wanted you guys to see it.

Backstab, Kill Shot etc etc…

The game is balanced for PvE, not PvP.

Shintai.5618:

Backstab, Kill Shot etc etc…

The game is balanced for PvE, not PvP.

Incorrect. Guild Wars was, and most likely always will be a PvP game. In fact, ArenaNet wishes to turn it into an eSport. The game is very much balanced around PvP.

Leriff.8362:

Shintai.5618:

Backstab, Kill Shot etc etc…

The game is balanced for PvE, not PvP.

Incorrect. Guild Wars was, and most likely always will be a PvP game. In fact, ArenaNet wishes to turn it into an eSport. The game is very much balanced around PvP.

Can you let me know when that happens?

Shintai.5618:

Leriff.8362:

Shintai.5618:

Backstab, Kill Shot etc etc…

The game is balanced for PvE, not PvP.

Incorrect. Guild Wars was, and most likely always will be a PvP game. In fact, ArenaNet wishes to turn it into an eSport. The game is very much balanced around PvP.

Can you let me know when that happens?

As I have never seen you do anything on these forums but complain, I will try, but I won’t make it a high priority. My apologies for that.

Jmcdg.8706:

People need to grasp something really important about this game. I am sorry for those that were having a laugh for the last month in pvp but it is going too far.

Okay. Let’s say it, loud and clear.

1 TOUGHNESS > 1 VITALITY

Translating into normal language:

In this game, or more like in the current state of the game, TOUGHNESS IS BETTER THAN VITALITY. Therefore, LOGICALLY, if you think you’re ‘’defensive specced’’ with vitality (knight’s amulet and such) YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG. You should have WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY more TOUGHNESS than vitality. I hope the caps helped I really really wanted you guys to see it.

Conditions are unaffected by toughness so I’d much rather have vitality than toughness. Tested 2 sets in pvp and I’d much rather have the vit over the toughness.

Vixon.8032:

Jmcdg.8706:

People need to grasp something really important about this game. I am sorry for those that were having a laugh for the last month in pvp but it is going too far.

Okay. Let’s say it, loud and clear.

1 TOUGHNESS > 1 VITALITY

Translating into normal language:

In this game, or more like in the current state of the game, TOUGHNESS IS BETTER THAN VITALITY. Therefore, LOGICALLY, if you think you’re ‘’defensive specced’’ with vitality (knight’s amulet and such) YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG. You should have WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY more TOUGHNESS than vitality. I hope the caps helped I really really wanted you guys to see it.

Conditions are unaffected by toughness so I’d much rather have vitality than toughness. Tested 2 sets in pvp and I’d much rather have the vit over the toughness.

Vitality, however, does not defend you from burst. You have condition removal abilities for conditions. In this current meta, where burst is so valuable, he is correct. Toughness is more important.

ppl need to learn to use the tools available to them.

There are so many options to dogde these “instant gibs” – Block, dogde, kite, port, invul etc.

When I face off against a good thief on my own thief 9/10 it ends out in a Shortbow duel, with a kitten ton off evades and dogdes, rarely does it end out in a Bs kill, since its so amazingly easy to avoid.

Or if I in general meet any quality players we’re talking about atleast a good 30+ sec fight.

And if I play my mes or warrior, again amazingly easy to avoid the huge BS burst.

The guy just went stealth, what to do ? maybe use one of my million counters vs it.

Grantede, bad players do get instant gibbed 10/10 if they are in glass canon gear vs a BS thief or PW thief for that matter, but honestly thats because they just dont know how to handle the situation.

You can’t balance a game around bad players.

There might be rooms for improvements, or changes some places but over all things are pretty balanced as they are now (not talking about thiefs in particulaer here, but about the overall game balance).

That is why most thief builds focus on one ability, be it Pistol Whip, Heartseeker, Death Blossom, Backstab, Unload, the ability I can never remember the name of (P/D) that puts 8 bleeds on the target when you shoot out of stealth, or Cluster Bomb, or any I have forgotten to mention here.

Sure if you’re awefull, then you spam one ability like HS DB etc. and then you get stomped by ppl who are not awefull…..

These forums are like every other mmo forum, full of ppl who for some reason can not grasp the very basic game format wich mmo’s provide us with.

Thief has no stability + you has 5 teammates = ?
No really, some simple readiness on the part of you and your teammates can solve quite a bit. Downed state is already a terrific counter put in place to prevent burst from being OP. Even if nobody sees the thief coming in, somebody should still have time to AT LEAST interrupt his stomp. If you do see him (and you know he is running backstab) well, I say good luck to him, he will most likely have to bail and leave his teammates to fight after you interrupt him.

Holding back 1 weapon skill or utility as a counter is not unrealistic.

Ive played quite a bit of PvP, and Ive never yet been instakilled or instakilled.

Ive been hit hard, sure. But nothing outright one or two shotting me.

One question to you people defending backstab/PW/instagib builds:

If they’re so bad/easily countered, why are they so popular? Even high tier teams employ instagib builds (see: Raytek). The answer isn’t because it’s “LOL SUPER EZ TO COUNTER JUST BUILD DEFENZIVE NUB”… it’s because it’s fking effective.

The issue isn’t necessarily even that the build is impossible to overcome. Let’s say that, theoretically, I build for toughness, vitality, dodging, and otherwise survivability. Great. Now I can survive a thief. But now what? I’ve built my character specifically to counter these ridiculous instagib builds, and now I can barely burst at all.

My point is not that you should be able to build whatever you want and succeed. That’s another strawman argument that I’m pretty sure my fellow thieves want to use here. We’re not talking about ANY random build working… we’re talking about being forced to go a certain build as a specific reaction to the thief, who can literally kill you before you can physically react.

You guys can deny it all you want. It’s bad design, it’s not fun for anybody but the thief (and that’s arguable), and it’s overpowered. You guys can enjoy it until it gets nerfed. Until then, I’ll not put a red cent of competitive stock in this game… and that’s a kitten shame, if you ask me.

Pawstruck.9708:

One question to you people defending backstab/PW/instagib builds:

If they’re so bad/easily countered, why are they so popular? Even high tier teams employ instagib builds (see: Raytek). The answer isn’t because it’s “LOL SUPER EZ TO COUNTER JUST BUILD DEFENZIVE NUB”… it’s because it’s fking effective.

The issue isn’t necessarily even that the build is impossible to overcome. Let’s say that, theoretically, I build for toughness, vitality, dodging, and otherwise survivability. Great. Now I can survive a thief. But now what? I’ve built my character specifically to counter these ridiculous instagib builds, and now I can barely burst at all.

My point is not that you should be able to build whatever you want and succeed. That’s another strawman argument that I’m pretty sure my fellow thieves want to use here. We’re not talking about ANY random build working… we’re talking about being forced to go a certain build as a specific reaction to the thief, who can literally kill you before you can physically react.

You guys can deny it all you want. It’s bad design, it’s not fun for anybody but the thief (and that’s arguable), and it’s overpowered. You guys can enjoy it until it gets nerfed. Until then, I’ll not put a red cent of competitive stock in this game… and that’s a kitten shame, if you ask me.

Nobody forces you to play a build you don’t want to play.
Just don’t expect to be able to succeed with that build. Every build has a counter.
I don’t see why you find it fair that your shouldn’t have a counter.

A thief might be able to burst you down in a second if you’re running a glass-cannon spec.
A thief will not be able to burst you down in a second if you’re running a good all-rounder.

Also, I’ll just say the unspeakable:

PvP is not only about killing the enemy.
It’s about being able to stall, think, keep points and capture points.
If you run glass-cannon, stop trying to perform the roles that are not yours. You cannot defend as a glass-cannon. You cannot lead an assault on a point as a glass-cannon. You can roam, and assist other players in getting kills. Your place is behind everyone else. The counter that the enemy team needs, is focusing YOU. A thief is suitable for this, as he can get in and out quickly. This is something you’ll have to face and accept. I suggest you find some way to avoid the thief overall. Immobilizes, teleports, so on. Find a teammate. Needing to find a teammate does not mean the thief is overpowered. It just means that YOU can’t handle him. Your teammate probably could handle him alone.

Also, all-rounder builds for thieves work just as fine, if not better.
Hell, defensive builds as a thief work wonders, because everyone’s so adjusted to “OMG A THIEF SHOOT IT SHOOT IT SHOOT IT”

Defensive specc’d all dodge all the time teleport away and never die Thief spec – take that meta

Gearing is a skill.
They had a chance to “react” before they ever entered the ring, and the decision they made was the wrong one.

What’s really funny about all these people defending the whacky theif-design is that… they really beleive it takes skill to use a theif.

Kedrith.6724:

What’s really funny about all these people defending the whacky theif-design is that… they really beleive it takes skill to use a theif.

Enlighten me, what other professions take more “skill” ?

Paw, you are hilarious.

15 free kills? Are you joking? Thief does not have perma stealth. If anyone LOOKS at a glass cannon Thief, they die. This is a HUGE L2P issue, and your QQ about a Thief really shows how poor of a player you are.

There is absolutely no way a Thief is “garunteed” a kill. We have no stuns worth a hoot. While a Thief is setting up, you are doing what?

When a Thief is going into stealth what are you doing? Sitting there waiting for him to open on you? Not abusing LoS?

You don’t have to “see” something, to know what it is about to do, and counter dodge twice, or simply kite the stealth.

Melee range is one of the easiest things to counter in any MMO, if we aren’t in melee range, we aren’t doing damage.

It seems every ranged classes problems, is getting too close to a class, and realizing “owait I am dead, because I didn’t realize that was a Thief”. The first thing you should be looking at, when you encounter someone, is their class icon. But there is absolutely no way you are doing that with the way you are trying to prove somehow a Thief is garaunteed a kill every 1 minute.

Saying that, alone is not including the possibilities of the Thief dying and sitting in the GY, move time between nodes. The 1v3 scenarios where the Thief is simply outnumbered but defending nodes.

You are reaching pretty far for a nerf, like seriously, REALLY far.

Rika.7249:

Kedrith.6724:

What’s really funny about all these people defending the whacky theif-design is that… they really beleive it takes skill to use a theif.

Enlighten me, what other professions take more “skill” ?

I personally think Necromancer is harder than thief. Warrior is very easy, as is Ranger. Engineer isn’t too difficult, same with Guardian.

For difficulty, I’d personally rank them as: (in tiers)

Easiest: Warrior, Ranger.
Medium: Engineer, Guardian, Thief, Mesmer
Hard: Elementalist, Necromancer

Keep in mind, that’s personal opinion.

I tried to go with condition dmg, but with so many cleansing utilities it didnt work that well. I cant stand in middle of fight no matter how defensively I am build. So wtf should I do? Right…

What’s really funny about all these people defending the whacky theif-design is that… they really beleive it takes skill to use a theif.

There are ways to use a thief skillfully. Just because you have the capability to inflict massive burst damage doesn’t mean that the application of that damage needs to be done stupidly.

Good players > Bad players. No matter what the class is.

so many denying and uninformed welps… thoughness is less effective against big hits then it is against many small ones. additionally some of the thief stuff scale and stack up too much. a bit of toughness can make a tank builds damage useless but thiefs burst will still hit for 8k criticals.

fact is in spvp a thief can kill someone under a second, there is no counter to something that instagibs you. in spvp everyone has equal gear and everyone should have equal chance but more and more thiefs with proper builds appear that are able to hit for 8k crit damage on targets with 1,8k toughness.

really its time to adapt to something else because it is 100% sure that a nerf will come, a big nerf bat will strike you all so hard that you will cry to mommy or do you think that the merged anti thief thread that was pinned to the top by a guild wars 2 staff member in the spvp section was made just for fun? they are already collecting the data to properly nerf the thief.

No way to prevent something that instagibs you? Making it NOTinstagib you? You know, smart dodging?

Stealth only lasts for an extremely short period of time, that can be kited/dodged, and RNGed with extreme ease.

No nerf bat will come, keep telling yourself that. And the only person that will be crying is you, because you cannot understand a simple mechanics that completely negates Thief openers, and that mechanic is called double tap dodge.

Superior balista can also oneshot some classes

So all the “Thieves are fine L2P” people, educate us, how do you defend from this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-udk3CEtc7E

The thing that’s ironic about backstab builds like that is that the Thief is actually the only class who DOES have a counter to that. (But it takes 30 points in acrobatics for hard to catch)

Guardians Aegis won’t do it because of the double stun from Steal & Cloak and Dagger.

“Thief is actually the only class who DOES have a counter to that.”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shocking_Aura

Sort of. But it’s not really a passive ability like Hard to Catch trait is. You have to cast that one. But it’s on a way shorter cooldown so ya I guess.

CptCosmic.3156:

so many denying and uninformed welps… thoughness is less effective against big hits then it is against many small ones.

Are you sure about this? I always assumed toughness just reduced damage you take by a certain percent.

since no one knows we can only guess but from my experience it looks like it is a flat reduction with hard cap and the hard cap is the gear available… I see it everytime in spvp, tank builds deal almost no damage to me when I carry soldier amulet and jewel but when thief pops up, still 8k crits =D