Guild Wars 2

The thief forum is filled with complains about the mug+CnD+backstab combo with numerous videos and calls for nerfs. I don’t play WvW, so I couldn’t really say how much of an issue it is there, but in sPvP people run the GC spec and it works on new players but, against anyone who has a skill to counter it, the thief build is quite weak in a 1v1 situation.

I mostly play thief and elementalist and generally all I need to counter it is shadow step or lightning flash/mist form. If these escape skills are on cooldown then I am generally killed quite quickly, but I don’t think this makes the combo OP. Any burst build with a CC to help land the damage could do this such kittenter mesmers or 100b frenzy warriors, although perhaps not as effectively.

TBH, these GC thieves do not bother me and I consider the spec quite weak outside of ganking people whose counter skills may be on timer. Am I missing something though? Whenever I read about people dying to the chain I can only assume it’s a L2P issue.

Backstab builds aren’t strong in 1v1 situations, especially not when you’re expecting the Thief.

A lot of the apparent OPness of the Backstab combo comes with the Steal Shadowstep that allows a Thief to pounce a target quite unexpectedly. It allows them to catch people off guard quite a lot.

In many ways 100 Blades is very similar. Not too powerful when expecting it and easy to counter if you know it’s coming, but it will still cause a near instant death when catching you off guard or unprepared.

But unlike Steal, Bullcharge doesn’t instantly teleport you to your target. There’s an animation and just a little more time to react.

Warriors also tend to be more obvious targets and not slip in and out of Stealth constantly making them easier to observe and follow.

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Dee Jay.2460:

Backstab builds aren’t strong in 1v1 situations, especially not when you’re expecting the Thief.

A lot of the apparent OPness of the Backstab combo comes with the Steal Shadowstep that allows a Thief to pounce a target quite unexpectedly. It allows them to catch people off guard quite a lot.

In many ways 100 Blades is very similar. Not too powerful when expecting it and easy to counter if you know it’s coming, but it will still cause a near instant death when catching you off guard or unprepared.

But unlike Steal, Bullcharge doesn’t instantly teleport you to your target. There’s an animation and just a little more time to react.

Warriors also tend to be more obvious targets and not slip in and out of Stealth constantly making them easier to observe and follow.

the steal shadowstep needs to be telegraphed in some way. i dont mind being oneshot, but not being able to time an appropriate counter because the combo happens instantly at 1200 range is kitten

The combo isn’t instant though. I will often get hit by the CnD and mug damage but I find there is enough time to activate a utility skill to avoid the backstab damage.

Unless my counter skills are on timer, usually I’m only killed by this combo if I’m not paying attention. I’m not sure if this makes it OP though, although I suppose this depends on what you consider to be overpowered. It is annoying and it does feel cheap to die to it, but I consider it my own fault for not reacting fast enough.

l2p? maybe.. l2not.gear.glass.cannon.style definatly..

Our burst is huge, no doubt but that is how they are meant to work.
I can understand the reasoning behind having “steal telegraphed in someway” But at the same time i dont agree with it.. Without our surprise we will be countered even easier from better players.

Tips: You know the combo is coming when you see basilisk venom or the CnD amination being cast into the air. Dodge this and its over.

If they thief is attacking from stealth using the steal – backstab then he is losing a good chunk of damage from CnD and so should be easily countered, dodge roll the HS spam best you can then chill and run/kite.

After you L2P, backstab Thieves are a laugh.

The thing is, the people who need to L2P the most are the ones that refuse to do so. Rather than admitting that they are at fault, they prefer to find a scapegoat. They then bring the scapegoat into the open on the forum and beat it. Others looking for a scapegoat decide to join in. Soon you have a chorus of bad players and noobs who take this disinformation for granted. All of this is because of a loud minority that has such an inflated ego that they can’t be bothered to learn how to improve their own skill.

I’m pretty sure these people never played video games during the 1990’s, they have way too many entitlement issues and are too egotistical to play video games that require effort.

Yes, dying to Backstab Thief is a L2P issue.

Just like every other profession, there are tactics that you can use to counter the Thief.

The hard one to avoid and I think does need some adjusting is preloading their CnD before Steal. Seems a little unfair. If you are dying to the combo Basalisk Venom/Haste/Steal/Cloak and Dagger/Backstab/Heartseeker, that one is hard to predict but you can still avoid it through awareness of where the Thief is. That is why it is so successful PUG stomping in 8v8 and not really all that great in TPvP. Chaos and confusion is a Thief’s best friend, organization and communication of their opponent isn’t.

Akame.1073:

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wrong

Well, damage in WvW actually is a little bigger. C&D does more damage (due to the “PvE”/SPvP skill split). Full piece-by-piece Berserker gear is a little bit more aggressive than the SPvP Berserker amulet. I run around with, like, 106% crit damage or something (will be more once I actually get some ascended stuff); IIRC, you only get like 90% max in SPvP. Also, serious players eat food, which boosts your abilities even more.

But, at the end of the day, it’s because a lot of WvW players choose to use very offense-oriented gear. I certainly do! It’s very good in most situations, especially if your character is very mobile. But that does mean I could die to a single pumped-up Backstab. I just live with it. Seldom happens anyway.

Surbrus.6942:

After you L2P, backstab Thieves are a laugh.

The thing is, the people who need to L2P the most are the ones that refuse to do so. Rather than admitting that they are at fault, they prefer to find a scapegoat. They then bring the scapegoat into the open on the forum and beat it. Others looking for a scapegoat decide to join in. Soon you have a chorus of bad players and noobs who take this disinformation for granted. All of this is because of a loud minority that has such an inflated ego that they can’t be bothered to learn how to improve their own skill.

I’m pretty sure these people never played video games during the 1990’s, they have way too many entitlement issues and are too egotistical to play video games that require effort.

I couldn’t agree with you more. So to prove your point, all the more reason thief need to be nerf so that the pro thieves players can learn to play with lower damage and make it work. Wink wink.

maxie.9620:

Akame.1073:

no

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wrong

im not

If you anticipate the backstab (see the thief running towards you) and you have the right utility skills on your hotbar then yeah its L2P. If you do not see the thief or you simply dont have the utility skill ready/off cooldown then its definately not L2P, then it becomes almost impossible to avoid.
1v1 I land about half my mug-backstab combos (Im a fairly terrible thief, hopefully I get better) but in the big WvW fights or when my opponent dont see me coming its more like 90% of my mug-backstab combos that land, even without basilisk venom.

Galrukh.6532:

If you anticipate the 100blades (see the warrior running towards you) and you have the right utility skills on your hotbar then yeah its L2P. If you do not see the warrior or you simply dont have the utility skill ready/off cooldown then its definately not L2P, then it becomes almost impossible to avoid.

hows that?

I’ve been on both sides of the thief, and I do think backstab thieves are a bit OP.

Playing against a thief, out of all of the classes that can burst you down quickly, I find thieves are one of the hardest to avoid, ‘cause you don’t know where its coming from. You can see a warrior brazenly barreling down on you from miles away, but its quite a bit more difficult to spot and anticipate the burst from the stealthed thief that can shadowstep to you. Yes, moving around makes it much harder to land backstab, but it can be difficult to know where to move around to, since after all, you don’t know where the thief actually is. The whole experience has a very out-of-control, Russian Roulette feel to it, and that makes it not much fun.

Playing as a thief, pure glass mug+cnd+backstab was the easiest and most effective build that I explored. Sure, if I failed to hit with my backstab things could go south pretty fast, but that’s only if I got overconfident, misjudged the situation, and tried to stay in against a foe who could burst me back or chain cc me. As long as I didn’t make any glaring mistakes, I could nearly always escape with my life – I might not get a kill, but I could ensure that they wouldn’t get one either. Stealth, SB 5, and the Shadowstep utility could get me out of all but the worst of situations. This is what would happen if I failed my combo – this was the worst case scenario.

Most of the time, I completed the combo without a hitch. This often resulted in instant death for my opponents, but even when it didn’t, they had so little health left that they couldn’t put out enough damage to take me down or have enough time to heal before I finished them off, and that is of course with my extraordinarily glassy build. Few people could avoid the backstab, and when they did, it looked, at least to me, to be just dumb luck – they arbitrarily moved right instead of left, or backward instead of forward. (However, I will concede that maybe some were very skilled and knew exactly how I was going to come in through stealth for the backstab and how to outmaneuver me, in which case, if you guys are out there, please please tell me how you do this).

All in all, this particular build appears to me to have too little risk to accompany its rewards, and it takes a lot more skill to counterplay than it does to play.

I don’t think the answer is to nerf the thief, though, or at least not exactly. Stealth doesn’t seem to be the problem – in fact, I think it represents a brilliant and challenging mechanic for the thief to work with and against in order to get its biggest burst out. I don’t believe mobility is the problem either – the thief’s mobility seems pretty on par with the elementalist, which I actually believe to be a very well-balanced class.

I think the problem is this particular build just does too much damage, too quickly, too unpredictably. But straight up nerfing the damage doesn’t seem to me to be a good option either. I got an appreciation for this when I started trying other builds with similar stats but different trait setups. Playing D/D, at anything less than x/30/x/x/x, I felt like I wasn’t doing anywhere near enough damage – I’d do some, but not enough to kill them before they healed or bursted me down. I’d lose a majority of my fights. But something changed once I got the executioner trait – I’d go from frequently losing to constantly winning. I believe the key to fixing the thief to be more fun for everyone is in retooling the percentage damage trait bonuses they get at the end of several trait lines. Without these traits, many builds feel too weak, which decreases the number of viable builds for the thief in general. With the traits, these same builds seem to be a bit too strong. I imagine that boosting base damage and toning these traits down would both reduce the overpoweredness and increase build flexibility.

Just my two cents, though.

BobbyT.7192:

Galrukh.6532:

If you anticipate the 100blades (see the warrior running towards you) and you have the right utility skills on your hotbar then yeah its L2P. If you do not see the warrior or you simply dont have the utility skill ready/off cooldown then its definately not L2P, then it becomes almost impossible to avoid.

hows that?

the problem is with the first part of your statement, if you see a warrior charging towards you, and you have cooldowns or dodge up, then yes, it’s also l2p.

however the difference between warrior 100b combo and thief instant mug/cnd combo is you have maybe 0.1s, if that to counter it. the fact that thiefs can blink 1200 range to do mug/cnd instantly is not a l2p issue. no other GC build for any class is able to front load their damage that quickly from that range.

Galrukh.6532:

but in the big WvW fights or when my opponent dont see me coming its more like 90% of my mug-backstab combos that land, even without basilisk venom.

So basically it works like every burst damage focused build ever? Burst a distracted/outnumbered enemy and they die.

Yes it is annoying when that happens, but that burst player’s entire build is focused around doing that job well (killing afk, noob, or distracted players). That’d be like complaining that a tanky build can survive being attacked by multiple people… and yes people do whine about how “OP” well played survivability builds are survivable.

wads.5730:

BobbyT.7192:

Galrukh.6532:

If you anticipate the 100blades (see the warrior running towards you) and you have the right utility skills on your hotbar then yeah its L2P. If you do not see the warrior or you simply dont have the utility skill ready/off cooldown then its definately not L2P, then it becomes almost impossible to avoid.

hows that?

the problem is with the first part of your statement, if you see a warrior charging towards you, and you have cooldowns or dodge up, then yes, it’s also l2p.

however the difference between warrior 100b combo and thief instant mug/cnd combo is you have maybe 0.1s, if that to counter it. the fact that thiefs can blink 1200 range to do mug/cnd instantly is not a l2p issue. no other GC build for any class is able to front load their damage that quickly from that range.

1200 with what?
The utility skill Shadowstep? no thief will waste a skill like that for a burst.
Steal? it’s 900 range, 1200 for a major trait that no one takes anyways.

Plus if you didn’t notice it to begin with, it wouldn’t matter if the GC was 1200 or 1 range away, or going to eat it, what would you say if you didn’t see the warrior coming and/or your "ohkitten skills were on CD?

BS is a one trick pony. I do think that stealth is very very borderline in being OP. Try playing a Thief without the luxury of Shadows Embrace and Stealth, It’s doable but it’s just not viable. Not since Pistol Whip and Assassins Signet was nerfed anyway.

BobbyT.7192:

wads.5730:

BobbyT.7192:

Galrukh.6532:

If you anticipate the 100blades (see the warrior running towards you) and you have the right utility skills on your hotbar then yeah its L2P. If you do not see the warrior or you simply dont have the utility skill ready/off cooldown then its definately not L2P, then it becomes almost impossible to avoid.

hows that?

the problem is with the first part of your statement, if you see a warrior charging towards you, and you have cooldowns or dodge up, then yes, it’s also l2p.

however the difference between warrior 100b combo and thief instant mug/cnd combo is you have maybe 0.1s, if that to counter it. the fact that thiefs can blink 1200 range to do mug/cnd instantly is not a l2p issue. no other GC build for any class is able to front load their damage that quickly from that range.

1200 with what?
The utility skill Shadowstep? no thief will waste a skill like that for a burst.
Steal? it’s 900 range, 1200 for a major trait that no one takes anyways.

Plus if you didn’t notice it to begin with, it wouldn’t matter if the GC was 1200 or 1 range away, or going to eat it, what would you say if you didn’t see the warrior coming and/or your "ohkitten skills were on CD?

i would say oh well, he deserved the kill. the problem is even if you see the thief coming, you aren’t going to be able to anticipate when he steal/cnd’s you, since those 2 actions are instant. the ONLY way to anticipate it if they use a setup skill like basilisk venom or something, but generally, you dont need it to secure a kill against another GC.

if all your cooldowns are up, and you see a thief coming, you should be able to counter it if you have a reasonable reaction time. this is not the case atm with the instant mug/cnd damage each doing up to 7k on another GC.

Is mug+CnD alone really a problem though? For a combo that can be used once every ~40 seconds, and they alone will certainly not guarantee a kill, I don’t think it’s OP. If a GC thief only manages to land these 2 without the backstab and then still manages to kill you, I think they deserve the kill.

Box of Ants.5609:

Most of the time, I completed the combo without a hitch.

Isn’t this the issue though? The mug+CnD part of the combo is practically unavoidable, but the most damaging move, backstab, is quite easy to avoid imo. I think this is why they nerfed CnD rather than backstab and why dying to this combo seems like a L2P issue to me.

If you don’t bring anything to counter a certain build or if you don’t use it effectively then I don’t see why you shouldn’t be killed by it.

wads.5730:

BobbyT.7192:

wads.5730:

BobbyT.7192:

Galrukh.6532:

If you anticipate the 100blades (see the warrior running towards you) and you have the right utility skills on your hotbar then yeah its L2P. If you do not see the warrior or you simply dont have the utility skill ready/off cooldown then its definately not L2P, then it becomes almost impossible to avoid.

hows that?

the problem is with the first part of your statement, if you see a warrior charging towards you, and you have cooldowns or dodge up, then yes, it’s also l2p.

however the difference between warrior 100b combo and thief instant mug/cnd combo is you have maybe 0.1s, if that to counter it. the fact that thiefs can blink 1200 range to do mug/cnd instantly is not a l2p issue. no other GC build for any class is able to front load their damage that quickly from that range.

1200 with what?
The utility skill Shadowstep? no thief will waste a skill like that for a burst.
Steal? it’s 900 range, 1200 for a major trait that no one takes anyways.

Plus if you didn’t notice it to begin with, it wouldn’t matter if the GC was 1200 or 1 range away, or going to eat it, what would you say if you didn’t see the warrior coming and/or your "ohkitten skills were on CD?

i would say oh well, he deserved the kill. the problem is even if you see the thief coming, you aren’t going to be able to anticipate when he steal/cnd’s you, since those 2 actions are instant. the ONLY way to anticipate it if they use a setup skill like basilisk venom or something, but generally, you dont need it to secure a kill against another GC.

if all your cooldowns are up, and you see a thief coming, you should be able to counter it if you have a reasonable reaction time. this is not the case atm with the instant mug/cnd damage each doing up to 7k on another GC.

Then how come alot of people are claiming they can avoid a mug/cnd combo? cheating i bet. Plus if it a GC vs another GC, it’s fair game

Just because people claim they can avoid mug+bs doesnt mean its true, ofcourse neither does anything else that people write on forums.

Actually it does, who lies on the internet? Like really some kids these days -_-

The funny thing is that you are all saying that c/d and backstap are easy to avoid (in other words you’re saying that thieves are crap), but then you continue to play this class and in pvp (spvp and WvWvW) there are more thieves than other classes.

My main is a p/d thief (more lethal than a d/d spec), but at least I’m honest enough to say that is far superior compared to other classes.

Is a l2p issue? In small part, but, in addition to the culling issue, the main problem is that for some reason in Guild War 2 all the burst damage and bunker spec are clearly broken, because a well played bunker is immortal (I’ve also a ele d/d, so I know how it works) and a well played damage dealer can kill you in a second (personally i’ve seen a warrior doing 10,500 damage on 2600 armor with the axe’s burst skill 3, ridiculous!)

The D/D burst thief build is not the only one. I’m not saying that the thief profession is crap but I do think that the GC backstab build is very weak in a 1v1 situation and I do not play it. If you kill someone in seconds in a 1v1 then they didn’t do anything to counter you, in which case why shouldn’t they lose? Well played, thieves are strong in pvp but the same can be said of just about any profession.

All the high burst damage builds can do a huge amount of damage in a short time, but these combos are also easy to counter and the build sacrifices a lot of survivability to pull it off. Does this mean they are OP? I’m not sure but personally I don’t mind them. Bunker builds are annoying and I do think they need adjusting because you can’t really counter them by yourself.

Nobody seems to remember that thieves cannot insta-restealth once they come out of it. Upon leaving stealth, they get the revealed debuff and cannot re-enter it. So I have to ask, everyone who complains of these backstab burst builds, are you just standing there? That’s a 3 second window to stun (or CC of any kind) and get the kitten out. Thieves are incredibly vulnerable to CC, and while inside of stealth, any AoE. I don’t do nearly enough sPvP or WvW to really have a grasp on this, so if someone could enlighten me. . .

One would assume, if you’re paying attention, you’d be able to leave a bad engagement against a glasscannon critstab thief. Perhaps realize you don’t need to see them stealth to know they might be coming for you depending on your class, role, and whether or not you’re out of position compared to the rest of your team.

^^ Thief mobility is second to none. When people try to run on me they end up eating a back stab pretty quick.

I see everyone talking about dodge roll avoiding the burst like its cake and they are all experts at it. Very rarely do I run into people who can do this. You have to preemptively guess the burst right. You wait for the roll and then pop them anyway and its back to insta kill. Better yet, fake them out with auto attack to get the dodge roll.

All this usually assumes head on encounters anyway. I cant be the only one who hides behind corners or on ledges so people have to be panning just right to see me.

My issue with the combo is that its incredibly easy to pull off and impossible to reliably avoid. The reward/effort ratio is out of whack.

Is each skill in the chain OP? Nope. The chain itself is a little insane. I realized today that my tanky thief lost almost no survivability going for more dps. Thieves have insane burst and no real risk. Its a little insane but there are some things to remember. Real glass cannons (3 hits total) Have no condition wipes and low hp pools dot them with anything good and even in stealth its over.

Acelerion.6820:

I see everyone talking about dodge roll avoiding the burst like its cake and they are all experts at it. Very rarely do I run into people who can do this. You have to preemptively guess the burst right. You wait for the roll and then pop them anyway and its back to insta kill. Better yet, fake them out with auto attack to get the dodge roll.

People can use utility skills to avoid the backstab damage. Endure pain, mistform, lighting flash, shadow step etc are all instant and all can be used to outlast the stealth from CnD, even with basilisk venom. I will often get hit by the mug and CnD damage but, unless my counter skills are on cooldown, seldom am I hit by backstab.

If you don’t use basilisk venom then just dodge after getting hit by mug and CnD and use some CC option such as updraft or create some distance with skills like ride the lightning or whirlwind attack so you waste your time in stealth chasing me.

Pure glass cannon is unnecessary; there really is no point in not having at least some valk gear + defensive traits – it makes a huge difference due to the multitude of OHKO combos/abilities that it lets you survive, such as kill shot.

Against a good player, it is extremely hard to land the backstab after steal-cnd/shadowstep-cnd. Against an average player who is distracted by an ongoing fight, you’ll often easily get off a backstab – not always, though.

Average fight length vs pub: 5s. VS skilled player 1v1: 30s+.

So the question is, is it reasonable to expect your average semi squishy player to have to dodge/avoid the backstab in order to survive?

- not sure how broken the newly buffed 50% MS in stealth trait is, haven’t had time to test it much.
Also ignoring quickness because it makes ANYTHING broken.

Lvl 80 thief (condition specced) here, yes mug→CnD→BS is OP. I’d suggest removing the ability to precast with mug, the damage would be the same but it would give people a reasonable amount of time to react in comparison to other bursts. A thief is better when leaping around like a true fighter instead of relying on hiding like a coward

You can counter a backstab thief, but they can’t counter your counter. I can’t help but feel it’s just people not wanting to learn to counter it, because it’s so easy when you figure out how your class can counter it.

Any kind of competitive play, I’m only really useful in team fights, very rarely can I catch someone in a 1v1.

You thieves sound like pretentious idiots.
PPL just are refusing to L2P???
When according to you all it takes is a dodge and you can completely counter a thief!

In WvW the rendering issue negates any kind of BS defense you thiefs can try and come up with but the fact is that your stealth crutch has the added benefit of rendering lag.

Otherwise its not ppl complaning that you setup up your entire burst, caught them off gaurd and basically insta killed them, ppl complain that even after they dodge your burst, which apparantly is so easy to do, thieves just restealth and run away. And unless you just run around spamming AOE the thief will get away.

Untill the rendering bug in WvW is fixed Theives cant complain about ppls complaints.
As far as sPvP yes ppl need to L2P, and in the OPs situation its the same as telling ppl to L2P the holiday jumping puzzles where if you miss time your Jump(dodge) once, you are done.

Dee Jay.2460:

Backstab builds aren’t strong in 1v1 situations, especially not when you’re expecting the Thief.

A lot of the apparent OPness of the Backstab combo comes with the Steal Shadowstep that allows a Thief to pounce a target quite unexpectedly. It allows them to catch people off guard quite a lot.

Getting cought off guard is a L2P issue.

If someone gets killed by a backstab Thief, not the Thief was the issue, but the killed player being unaware of his environment was.

Therefore, yes.

CriSPeH.8512:

As far as sPvP yes ppl need to L2P, and in the OPs situation its the same as telling ppl to L2P the holiday jumping puzzles where if you miss time your Jump(dodge) once, you are done.

My clocktower record was finishing it 53 times in a row (at which point i was nearly asleep after doing it for so long that i failed).
The people complaining about it being WAY to difficult and ridiculous, not being able to complete it, definately had a L2P issue.

If your reaction time is over 2 seconds, you may have problems fighting Thieves, yes.
As well as doing jumping puzzles, dungeons, fighting any other profession, driving a car, or even crossing a street.

Simply put, yes it’s a L2P issue.

Why?

Well I admit it can be difficult sometimes to avoid the whole chain that usually ends up with a kill but that’s cause of the nature of the thief.

The problem is most people always had and probably always will have problems playing against stealth classes. People panic and it only gets worse if they got killed several times already by a stealth class.

This happens in several mmo’s where stealth is even more imba then here.

I don’t think fixing skills or overall dmg can be done without breaking the class completely because if our burst is removed let’s just say we are nothing but a bad warrior. (Or possibly a class whose only purpose is to run away from a fight).

Now, going into spvp or wvw without a stunbreaker is kind of insane , however I have no doubt in my mind lots and lots of folks do that. So thing is yes, bring awareness to a fight and a stunbreaker and you won’t get killed by a backstab thief as often as you are now.

On a side note :

To the ones who say the thief is OP, please drop that already. I know you hate an invisible guy killing you but if you continue down that road you will turn the thief into an unplayable class as a damage dealer (discounting the rendering issues in wvw).

Comes to mind the mesmer (which I think its the most chaotic class to play against in pvp imo), which can keep spawning clones and send them to you and stack confusion which is kinda OP as well in spvp/wvw. And I consider it OP cause you can’t constantly be checking for every kitten clone and confusion is simply put the best condition in pvp and I guess I don’t have to explain why.

I always find it kinda ridiculous when thieves who claim that avoiding BS is an l2p issue are complaining about mesmer bursts. With the current exploit they do about as much damage as a BS combo vs glass cannons with longer CDs and a longer set up plus you can see them coming. It’s not that mesmers are (normally) OP but rather that so many thieves are used to being able to burst people down so when a class that can do the same gives us a taste of our own medicine some people instantly cries OP. In both cases (thinking of a mesmer not using the exploit) it’s a burst that can kill a glass cannon if they don’t have a skill available for stun break/remove immobilize and can’t react in <1 sec. Mesmers are a bit OP in spvp, yea, but that is more due to portal than their burst.

If you are mentioning me I didn’t say mesmers were OP due to burst.

Thing is mesmer fields and the advantage of aoe and overall chaoes they can cause which we don’t have ofc (SB isn’t that good aside from the tele in spvp).

Plus confusion is a heavy shutdown cause even if you remove it they can reapply it pretty quickly.

Then you have to decide if youre going to walk away or burst yourself to death.

It’s just too chaotic and the fact they can pop out clones/phantasms/illusion so fast and can shatter just as fast applying confusion with any shatter that makes them a bit OP imo. Plus you still have to say that it can hard to say sometimes who the real mesmer is as not everyone is a pro and keep popping clones as they spawn isn’t really an option.

Not towards you no, your post simply reminded me of all the QQing on the spvp board They have more fields than us, that’s for sure (although smoke fields are very nice) but their confusion stacking isn’t really a problem for most other classes (thieves get hurt more due to skill spamming) and unless it’s a scepter build (which usually is quite bad) the condition is on a quite long CD actually once they’ve run through their cycle. As I mentioned, portals allowing them to back guard so effectively is IMO the biggest issue.

It’s L2P as far as I’m concerned. Whenever I die to it, my utilities are on cool-down and I’m fighting someone else already. They came in and arsjammed me which is their role. In any other situation they are the easiest kill in the game. They have no health, no armor and not much access to stealth. One utility blows their entire combo. If you have any friends around there is no way they should be able to stomp. A GC thief will die in the stomping animation from the damage of one non bunker player.

The whole “risk vs reward” argument of them getting away is garbage as well. Anyone who knows will watch for Shortbow#5 swirls when they are stealth and know where they are heading. If you see a white circle, you know they shadowstepped and to look 900-1200 away for them. Any other thief or ele, war and rangers (even mesmers with blink and 1200 pistol in the short term) have enough mobility to keep up. If you swap and AoE their refuge they will most likely be dead if they had taken any damage before using it.

If they are running at you they are probably gong for a desperate cloak and dagger. People need to learn to identify dagger offhand thieves in general and prioritize C&D to dodge. It’s very noticeable fighting players who know this and will block/immune/evade C&D vs players who don’t. It’s dagger offhand’s signature skill. If you don’t dodge it you will have a bad day same if I don’t bother dodging warrior GS#3 or bull-rush or whatever. There are pretty obvious tells when a Thief will come in for a C&D and due to client lag you have to extend it’s range about 200 units on your screen and dodge then.

People just don’t want to have to bother with this type of stuff, especially in WvW where most are casual PvEers zerging around for some PvP. They would rather just see what kills them nerfed instead of learning all this junk.

L2P really. The only people I have ever seen die easily to backstab in WvW are low levels being buffed to 80 status. Actual 80s in decent gear with some knowledge don’t die instantly to this unless they are below half health and already under fire from other players.

People dieing to this are pure glass cannon builds themselves. Most successful Thieves I see are ones that have a semi pvp set (some toughness and extra hp) and they tend to distract groups by being difficult kittens to kill. Really the more successful players I see are the ones that survive long enough for help to come to them while the ones geared, utility skills and traited out to be glass cannons are pulling their hair out being unable to kill them while dieing to any amount of damage coming their way.

I think a Thief’s true strength lies in being difficult to near impossible to kill and able to provide excellent support in focusing damage where needed rather then trying to blow up other glass cannons. I am working on my own set of survival gear for pvp right now after seeing what a real Thief can do in WvW. Glass cannons are overrated in comparison to being able to annoy the kitten out of 4 or more players and being able to get away at any time.

Agnima.3714:

L2P really. The only people I have ever seen die easily to backstab in WvW are low levels being buffed to 80 status. Actual 80s in decent gear with some knowledge don’t die instantly to this unless they are below half health and already under fire from other players.

People dieing to this are pure glass cannon builds themselves.

I have no idea where you get this. There are some class/spec combos that are difficult to kill. Everyone else melts. Not necessarily insta killed but put in a position they cannot recover from.

I play thief in wvw. Im better than average I think but Im not great and I dont miss c+d/mug. Again, I cant be the only person here who tries not to telegraph the kitten thing.

Also, why do thieves get the monopoly on glass cannon builds.

Can I go with both: it is and isn’t?

In my personal opinion the person being attacked has too small a margin of error, specially if they are doing something else. I do not find the chain hard to set up, given how much you can front load, and I do not feel glass canon thieves are all that fragile given the access to stealth. So, imo, I do not think overall it deserves that small a margin of error for my opponents.

That said, even if this chain is nerfed again and becomes perfectly balanced, most people will still die to it and still be QQing about it, because for most of them it is more often an issue of L2P than an issue with the chain itself.

PS – my view is entirely based on WvW. sPvP has some items that may have fixed my perception of the issue, that were never applied to WvW.

Acelerion.6820:

Also, why do thieves get the monopoly on glass cannon builds.

They don’t. Other classes can go full GC and have immunity cooldowns for a lot more defense or for stomping. Have you ever run into a GC Guardian? They do sligghly less DPS than a Thief but it’s AOE and they can do it much more often.

Warriors, Mesmers, engies, even rangers now days all have good GC builds. I’ve seen vids of necros blowing people up as well.

If you see the thief coming your way alone then yes its a L2P issue, if your ambushed in the middle of a fight or are caught right after one, with half HP bar and utilities on CD then there is nothing you can do, and don’t get frustrated by this, if it was any other glass cannon profession you would still die anyway…

I agree with that. I was more talking about people using the argument “They were glass speced so anything we can do to them is ok”

Agreed, a GC thief facerolling to win has a lot of nerve telling others to l2p.

Right after you do, buddy. Right after you.

An example of someone who did l2p.

i would especially point to the part where he baits the thief.

Started playing S/D thief a while ago because D/D lacks utility (at least within the BS setup). S/D rolls the D/D thief almost everytime because of the control it can dish out which can root and render the D/D build useless. This isn’t to say I don’t occasionally get exploded by a D/D thief, but especially once you begin to expect them, they become fairly easy to counter.

It’s not a 1v1 build(against a decent player, at least). Backstab thieves pray on squishies in WvW who are alone in the forest. Most wouldn’t even dare pick on a guardian. If everyone got some situational awareness and learned how to effectively use their class, we wouldn’t be having this problem.

The thing about thief BS burst combo is that it is a good example of the extreme burst in this game. The real question is, do we want such high burst? But it is related to the super bunker, too. IMO both sides of the equation need a nerf to make this game’s sPVP more fun. And more game modes.