Guild Wars 2

Idk, I usually used nail boxes to slow them down until their stealth ran out, and I found that the more dodge you have the better off you are. It helps if you have a lot of knockbacks, try to predict and time it. Since I had gear shield it helped a lot – Thieves will heartseeker spam if they open with a backstab 100% of the time, same if your health is going down – I just soaked them up with my shield. And once their initiative was spent, hell and iron.

Sebrent.3625:

Mathias.9657:

Why not just L2P and go to your own class forums, leave thieves alone we have been nerfed enough.

I don’t get to run with [GF] on my server because I still need to L2P, friend. :-)

It isn’t a nerf unless you’re a thief that is bad enough to backstab even when your foe is blocking, dodging, etc..

If you’re a good thief, this won’t affect you.

If you’re a bad thief, it will affect you.

Good Luck melee fighting a Guardian with revealed on block. They’ll just laugh at you, its already hard enough for thieves to kill mass blocking guards, especially when they’re bunker specced. Anet even said that thiefes are supposed to burst through them.

Sebrent.3625:

Mathias.9657:

Why not just L2P and go to your own class forums, leave thieves alone we have been nerfed enough.

I don’t get to run with [GF] on my server because I still need to L2P, friend. :-)

It isn’t a nerf unless you’re a thief that is bad enough to backstab even when your foe is blocking, dodging, etc..

If you’re a good thief, this won’t affect you.

If you’re a bad thief, it will affect you.

I don’t know who GF is. And if this won’t affect skilled thieves then why punish the casual player base? Sounds like you just got your panties in a bunch, or are you one of the bads that want thieves to fail on every level unless they’re MLG pro?

I personally believe rangers and mes are faceroll OP right now with certain builds but I wouldn’t dare waste my time posting in their forums crying because I am too busy trying to up my skill level and find counters. Go ahead, search my posts… none of them are anywhere but the thief and general or spvp sections.

Thieves aren’t going to be nerfed into the ground just because you want them to. I’m not happy with the current state of our class either, I personally am tired of stealth builds but our defense is trash without it. If not for back stab we would be useless, and what you’re wanting to be implemented would have a much bigger impact than you think.

We already got a 1s increase on revealed, honestly what more could you want? Play a thief at competitive level and you will change your mind VERY quickly, and I’m stopping our convo there.

Mathias.9657:

Sebrent.3625:

Mathias.9657:

Why not just L2P and go to your own class forums, leave thieves alone we have been nerfed enough.

I don’t get to run with [GF] on my server because I still need to L2P, friend. :-)

It isn’t a nerf unless you’re a thief that is bad enough to backstab even when your foe is blocking, dodging, etc..

If you’re a good thief, this won’t affect you.

If you’re a bad thief, it will affect you.

I don’t know who GF is. And if this won’t affect skilled thieves then why punish the casual player base? Sounds like you just got your panties in a bunch, or are you one of the bads that want thieves to fail on every level unless they’re MLG pro?

I personally believe rangers and mes are faceroll OP right now with certain builds but I wouldn’t dare waste my time posting in their forums crying because I am too busy trying to up my skill level and find counters. Go ahead, search my posts… none of them are anywhere but the thief and general or spvp sections.

Thieves aren’t going to be nerfed into the ground just because you want them to. I’m not happy with the current state of our class either, I personally am tired of stealth builds but our defense is trash without it. If not for back stab we would be useless, and what you’re wanting to be implemented would have a much bigger impact than you think.

We already got a 1s increase on revealed, honestly what more could you want? Play a thief at competitive level and you will change your mind VERY quickly, and I’m stopping our convo there.

If I was talking about nerfing casuals, I’d be talking about heartseeker doing everything from chasing to gap closing to damage.

Instead, I’m talking about a mechanic that rewards bad play.

Why do I care? Because if you reward something bad, why should the person care to improve?

It also is unfair to other players of that same skill level.

Do please try to stay on topic, btw, and avoid talk of my underwear. I know it’s sexy and all (Mesmer butterflies ftw), but still ;-)

laquito.5269:

Sebrent.3625:

Mathias.9657:

Why not just L2P and go to your own class forums, leave thieves alone we have been nerfed enough.

I don’t get to run with [GF] on my server because I still need to L2P, friend. :-)

It isn’t a nerf unless you’re a thief that is bad enough to backstab even when your foe is blocking, dodging, etc..

If you’re a good thief, this won’t affect you.

If you’re a bad thief, it will affect you.

Good Luck melee fighting a Guardian with revealed on block. They’ll just laugh at you, its already hard enough for thieves to kill mass blocking guards, especially when they’re bunker specced. Anet even said that thiefes are supposed to burst through them.

Sources of Aegis on a Guardian:

• Utility: Retreat!
• Virtue: Virtue of Courage
• Trait: Protective Reviver (you and the ally you revive)
• Trait: Valorous Defense (when your health reaches 50%).

That’s not many sources.

Additionally, if your goal as a Thief is to take down a tanky Guardian, you have two good options (from what I’ve seen … there may be more)

• Kiting him … doesn’t work against good ones as they have ranged and or closers
• Larcenous Strike on Sword + Dagger #3 … Guardians largely use blocks, protection, and regen to be tanking. This ability steals (so you get) their protection, regen, aegis, etc. and it is unblockable.

Sebrent.3625:

laquito.5269:

Its kinda funny that your saying Thief rewards bad playing, and I partly agree on that as you don’t need to be a good thief to be somewhat successful, but in the same breath you’re mentioning D/D Ele’s, BM ranger and Phantasm Mesmers, which are just as easy to play and also reward bad playing, maybe even more than thieves.

Where are Phantasm Mesmers, D/D Ele’s, and BM Rangers being rewarded for bad play?

I’m currently unaware of any instance where one of their attacks is successfully countered by the foe but the result is the foe has a defense on cooldown and the Mesmer/Ele/Ranger doesn’t care because they can use that same skill again as if nothing had just happened. If you know of such, I’ll lead the charge to their subforum or at least PM a dev to ask about it with regards to that patch back in January 2013. Over in the Ranger forums we’ve learned that we’re sometimes aware of things that devs are not … as has also been illustrated multiple times in the State of the Game interviews.

laquito.5269:

Thief has been nerfed more than enough and the game finally hits a state, where I’d say that classes are all somewhat balanced, so theres no need for any more nerfs. Do you see me demanding nerfs for Guardians just because they got tons of blocks and mechanics to counter thieves? This nerf demanding has seriously reached a point of ridiculousness, cut it already.

I don’t see it as a nerf. I see it as a mechanic fix.

No one else says “I used big-hit-X and it was blocked, I’ll just use big-hit-X immediately again because it doesn’t matter”.

thats bc big hit x doesnt have a cooldown its attached to intiative (auto attack so techinically none) in order to “reveal” yourself from invis you have to do direct dmg …basically grabbing thier attention physically.

Travlane.5948:

Sebrent.3625:

laquito.5269:

Its kinda funny that your saying Thief rewards bad playing, and I partly agree on that as you don’t need to be a good thief to be somewhat successful, but in the same breath you’re mentioning D/D Ele’s, BM ranger and Phantasm Mesmers, which are just as easy to play and also reward bad playing, maybe even more than thieves.

Where are Phantasm Mesmers, D/D Ele’s, and BM Rangers being rewarded for bad play?

I’m currently unaware of any instance where one of their attacks is successfully countered by the foe but the result is the foe has a defense on cooldown and the Mesmer/Ele/Ranger doesn’t care because they can use that same skill again as if nothing had just happened. If you know of such, I’ll lead the charge to their subforum or at least PM a dev to ask about it with regards to that patch back in January 2013. Over in the Ranger forums we’ve learned that we’re sometimes aware of things that devs are not … as has also been illustrated multiple times in the State of the Game interviews.

laquito.5269:

Thief has been nerfed more than enough and the game finally hits a state, where I’d say that classes are all somewhat balanced, so theres no need for any more nerfs. Do you see me demanding nerfs for Guardians just because they got tons of blocks and mechanics to counter thieves? This nerf demanding has seriously reached a point of ridiculousness, cut it already.

I don’t see it as a nerf. I see it as a mechanic fix.

No one else says “I used big-hit-X and it was blocked, I’ll just use big-hit-X immediately again because it doesn’t matter”.

thats bc big hit x doesnt have a cooldown its attached to intiative (auto attack so techinically none) in order to “reveal” yourself from invis you have to do direct dmg …basically grabbing thier attention physically.

By that logic, they physically blocked you.

I put my Mesmer scepter/sword up to block and it blocks an attack. I guess I didn’t see the person I just blocked because they stayed stealthed and still got to try to stab my rump, forcing me to use a dodge roll or other cooldown :-/

Sebrent.3625:

laquito.5269:

Sebrent.3625:

Mathias.9657:

Why not just L2P and go to your own class forums, leave thieves alone we have been nerfed enough.

I don’t get to run with [GF] on my server because I still need to L2P, friend. :-)

It isn’t a nerf unless you’re a thief that is bad enough to backstab even when your foe is blocking, dodging, etc..

If you’re a good thief, this won’t affect you.

If you’re a bad thief, it will affect you.

Good Luck melee fighting a Guardian with revealed on block. They’ll just laugh at you, its already hard enough for thieves to kill mass blocking guards, especially when they’re bunker specced. Anet even said that thiefes are supposed to burst through them.

Sources of Aegis on a Guardian:

• Utility: Retreat!
• Virtue: Virtue of Courage
• Trait: Protective Reviver (you and the ally you revive)
• Trait: Valorous Defense (when your health reaches 50%).

That’s not many sources.

Additionally, if your goal as a Thief is to take down a tanky Guardian, you have two good options (from what I’ve seen … there may be more)

• Kiting him … doesn’t work against good ones as they have ranged and or closers
• Larcenous Strike on Sword + Dagger #3 … Guardians largely use blocks, protection, and regen to be tanking. This ability steals (so you get) their protection, regen, aegis, etc. and it is unblockable.

u r so biased. its not JUST blocked that ruins backstab. and thats why it is the way it is. u want a free pass ….its not like it takes skill to click aegis when they go invis or use a block skill…its common sense. why reward bad players with such obvious tactics. so a block would equal 3 seconds of thief bashing and 5-6k hp that they :may have lost" talk about making it easy. a guardian would never lose regardless of skill :P anyway as i stated on forum page 3 heres a list of all skills that can ruin BS on a guardian
hammer skill 3
staff skill 5
mace skill 5
mace skill 3
GS skill 5
scepter skill 3 (as going into invis)
focus skill 5
shield skill 5
shelter (heal skill 2 seconds))
sanctuary
retreat
bane signet (as going into stealth)
tome of courage
tome of wrath
renewed focus
f3
2 dodges per 10 secs (guessing)
about 5-6 traits give aegis or renew aegis/block/blind too

Sebrent.3625:

Travlane.5948:

Sebrent.3625:

laquito.5269:

Its kinda funny that your saying Thief rewards bad playing, and I partly agree on that as you don’t need to be a good thief to be somewhat successful, but in the same breath you’re mentioning D/D Ele’s, BM ranger and Phantasm Mesmers, which are just as easy to play and also reward bad playing, maybe even more than thieves.

Where are Phantasm Mesmers, D/D Ele’s, and BM Rangers being rewarded for bad play?

I’m currently unaware of any instance where one of their attacks is successfully countered by the foe but the result is the foe has a defense on cooldown and the Mesmer/Ele/Ranger doesn’t care because they can use that same skill again as if nothing had just happened. If you know of such, I’ll lead the charge to their subforum or at least PM a dev to ask about it with regards to that patch back in January 2013. Over in the Ranger forums we’ve learned that we’re sometimes aware of things that devs are not … as has also been illustrated multiple times in the State of the Game interviews.

laquito.5269:

Thief has been nerfed more than enough and the game finally hits a state, where I’d say that classes are all somewhat balanced, so theres no need for any more nerfs. Do you see me demanding nerfs for Guardians just because they got tons of blocks and mechanics to counter thieves? This nerf demanding has seriously reached a point of ridiculousness, cut it already.

I don’t see it as a nerf. I see it as a mechanic fix.

No one else says “I used big-hit-X and it was blocked, I’ll just use big-hit-X immediately again because it doesn’t matter”.

thats bc big hit x doesnt have a cooldown its attached to intiative (auto attack so techinically none) in order to “reveal” yourself from invis you have to do direct dmg …basically grabbing thier attention physically.

By that logic, they physically blocked you.

I put my Mesmer scepter/sword up to block and it blocks an attack. I guess I didn’t see the person I just blocked because they stayed stealthed and still got to try to stab my rump, forcing me to use a dodge roll or other cooldown :-/

aegis is magic. the player doesnt feel it and the player does see it *(characters eyes) and even block skills should only block FRONTAL attacks like in most MMORPGS in hirstory….hence thief skill is called backstab and does double dmg bc a shot from behind hurts….

(1) You already posted that and someone else already answered it.

(2) Aegis is as “obvious” as stealthing and going for a backstab.

(3) How am I wanting a free ride? I want the Thief to be countered by block, dodge, etc. like everyone else is. You’re the one arguing that the Thief should not be countered by it … that it shouldn’t matter that the player saved a cooldown to counter that backstab.

Travlane.5948:

Sebrent.3625:

Travlane.5948:

Sebrent.3625:

laquito.5269:

Its kinda funny that your saying Thief rewards bad playing, and I partly agree on that as you don’t need to be a good thief to be somewhat successful, but in the same breath you’re mentioning D/D Ele’s, BM ranger and Phantasm Mesmers, which are just as easy to play and also reward bad playing, maybe even more than thieves.

Where are Phantasm Mesmers, D/D Ele’s, and BM Rangers being rewarded for bad play?

I’m currently unaware of any instance where one of their attacks is successfully countered by the foe but the result is the foe has a defense on cooldown and the Mesmer/Ele/Ranger doesn’t care because they can use that same skill again as if nothing had just happened. If you know of such, I’ll lead the charge to their subforum or at least PM a dev to ask about it with regards to that patch back in January 2013. Over in the Ranger forums we’ve learned that we’re sometimes aware of things that devs are not … as has also been illustrated multiple times in the State of the Game interviews.

laquito.5269:

Thief has been nerfed more than enough and the game finally hits a state, where I’d say that classes are all somewhat balanced, so theres no need for any more nerfs. Do you see me demanding nerfs for Guardians just because they got tons of blocks and mechanics to counter thieves? This nerf demanding has seriously reached a point of ridiculousness, cut it already.

I don’t see it as a nerf. I see it as a mechanic fix.

No one else says “I used big-hit-X and it was blocked, I’ll just use big-hit-X immediately again because it doesn’t matter”.

thats bc big hit x doesnt have a cooldown its attached to intiative (auto attack so techinically none) in order to “reveal” yourself from invis you have to do direct dmg …basically grabbing thier attention physically.

By that logic, they physically blocked you.

I put my Mesmer scepter/sword up to block and it blocks an attack. I guess I didn’t see the person I just blocked because they stayed stealthed and still got to try to stab my rump, forcing me to use a dodge roll or other cooldown :-/

aegis is magic. the player doesnt feel it and the player does see it *(characters eyes) and even block skills should only block FRONTAL attacks like in most MMORPGS in hirstory….hence thief skill is called backstab and does double dmg bc a shot from behind hurts….

It’s a magical shield on their arm/shield. You can see the effect on your screen on your/their character.

If you really want things to be realistic though, my Ranger should be downing you from 1,500 range before you can even think of using a closer. 1 arrow kills a person.

Stick with the mechanics in the game and the patches to enforce those mechanics. Anything else is just hot air.

ok….lol….a magic arm shield blocks an attack thats invis and from behind. point is they made bs not reveal until dmg. so unless dmg is dealt it should be revealed. for fairness i would say ok yeah lets make all blocks = dropping invis….but i would then say youd have to get rid of the revealed function too. BS is a very low successr ate

Sebrent.3625:

Sources of Aegis on a Guardian:

• Utility: Retreat!
• Virtue: Virtue of Courage
• Trait: Protective Reviver (you and the ally you revive)
• Trait: Valorous Defense (when your health reaches 50%).

That’s not many sources.

Additionally, if your goal as a Thief is to take down a tanky Guardian, you have two good options (from what I’ve seen … there may be more)

• Kiting him … doesn’t work against good ones as they have ranged and or closers
• Larcenous Strike on Sword + Dagger #3 … Guardians largely use blocks, protection, and regen to be tanking. This ability steals (so you get) their protection, regen, aegis, etc. and it is unblockable.

This all sounds good in theory, but doesn’t work half as good in practice. Larcenious strike certainly made it easier, but by basically stating that it isn’t difficult, you just showed me that you haven’t played thief much. This is just another example of your proposed bad play rewarding. We need to make huge efforts to kill guardians, while they have to do relatively little to counter us. Is this fair? Maybe, maybe not, but who cares? Theres a reason we got different classes and class mechanics, some are better against certain classes than others, but thats the point you seemingly don’t want to accept.

Guardians have to make a tanky build to be tanky. This involves some sacrifices. It isn’t my favorite though as it is a high boon build which rewards “using your abilities when they are off cooldown” instead of “using your abilities at the right time(s)” … I think that’s a dumb thing to allow be viable in a game.

I don’t see how you think this means I don’t know how to play a Thief. Watch the good thieves take down a tanky Guardian. They steal his boons, laugh in his face, and kill him. It’s become a joke amongst our thieves. They love seeing Guardians now.

• Retaliation? Mine now
• Protection? Mine now
• Regeneration? Mine now
• Might Stacking? Go ahead. Mine now.
• Aegis? Mine now … now get some protection so I can steal it too.

I’ve done it plenty as well on my own thief, though I mainly play him in sPvP (where thieves are supposedly worse than they are in wvw, lol).

It isn’t just theory. It’s been applied plenty.

I kill thieves because I took the time to go understand them. I did this by playing as one quite a bit in PvP.

McFribble.2349:

You take a thief out os stealth on a missed attack, you change the meta so that EVERYONE tries to avoid the backstab,

We can’t have that now can we?

swinsk.6410:

I can’t believe people are feeding this kitten idea. This is probably the dumbest idea ever suggested.

If thieves get punished for failing a skill then so should every other class.

So if thief gets revealed for missing bs warriors should get a 4s cool down on thier auto attack when they miss. All classes should.

Besides, the fact that thieves can spam bs until it lands in no way makes then over powered or gives them any unfair advantage.

While in stealth, our unique stealth skill becomes our auto attack.

Why are so many noobs making kitten threads like this?

Wake me up when an “autoattack” like backstab does the same damage as all other autoattacks in the game.

Don’t call backstab an autoattack just because it’s in your first slot. There’s no comparison.

bhagwad.4281:

swinsk.6410:

I can’t believe people are feeding this kitten idea. This is probably the dumbest idea ever suggested.

If thieves get punished for failing a skill then so should every other class.

So if thief gets revealed for missing bs warriors should get a 4s cool down on thier auto attack when they miss. All classes should.

Besides, the fact that thieves can spam bs until it lands in no way makes then over powered or gives them any unfair advantage.

While in stealth, our unique stealth skill becomes our auto attack.

Why are so many noobs making kitten threads like this?

Wake me up when an “autoattack” like backstab does the same damage as all other autoattacks in the game.

Don’t call backstab an autoattack just because it’s in your first slot. There’s no comparison.

Actually, hitting a backstab on the front does mediocre damage at best, while hitting a backstab on the back does roughly the same as a warrior’s tripple chop. I realize triple chop has a longer channel time, but it is also broken into multiple attacks meaning that assingle block will only stop part of the damage and it also has no positional/conditional setup.

Maugetarr.6823:

bhagwad.4281:

swinsk.6410:

I can’t believe people are feeding this kitten idea. This is probably the dumbest idea ever suggested.

If thieves get punished for failing a skill then so should every other class.

So if thief gets revealed for missing bs warriors should get a 4s cool down on thier auto attack when they miss. All classes should.

Besides, the fact that thieves can spam bs until it lands in no way makes then over powered or gives them any unfair advantage.

While in stealth, our unique stealth skill becomes our auto attack.

Why are so many noobs making kitten threads like this?

Wake me up when an “autoattack” like backstab does the same damage as all other autoattacks in the game.

Don’t call backstab an autoattack just because it’s in your first slot. There’s no comparison.

Actually, hitting a backstab on the front does mediocre damage at best, while hitting a backstab on the back does roughly the same as a warrior’s tripple chop. I realize triple chop has a longer channel time, but it is also broken into multiple attacks meaning that assingle block will only stop part of the damage and it also has no positional/conditional setup.

The conditional set up is getting through the first 2 attacks.

Maugetarr.6823:

bhagwad.4281:

swinsk.6410:

I can’t believe people are feeding this kitten idea. This is probably the dumbest idea ever suggested.

If thieves get punished for failing a skill then so should every other class.

So if thief gets revealed for missing bs warriors should get a 4s cool down on thier auto attack when they miss. All classes should.

Besides, the fact that thieves can spam bs until it lands in no way makes then over powered or gives them any unfair advantage.

While in stealth, our unique stealth skill becomes our auto attack.

Why are so many noobs making kitten threads like this?

Wake me up when an “autoattack” like backstab does the same damage as all other autoattacks in the game.

Don’t call backstab an autoattack just because it’s in your first slot. There’s no comparison.

Actually, hitting a backstab on the front does mediocre damage at best, while hitting a backstab on the back does roughly the same as a warrior’s tripple chop. I realize triple chop has a longer channel time, but it is also broken into multiple attacks meaning that assingle block will only stop part of the damage and it also has no positional/conditional setup.

warriors have long Knock downs and a 5 sec immob. i wouldnt worry abuot a long channel time :P they ahve other options amazingly suited to match ti

Knockdown’s on the Axe? Nope.
Other classes have stunbreakers? Yep.

Compare how often an Axe warrior can knock you down/immobilize you compared to how often you can stealth. You’ll blow him out of the water … not to mention he has to then get that full rotation on you after he’s gotten you stunned/immobilized and hope that you don’t counter it.

I’d love to see the 5 sec immobilize btw … what is that skill? Is it in the same game as my Mesmer skill where I have a clone that passively summons other clones? Lol.

YourOwnFear.2743:

The conditional set up is getting through the first 2 attacks.

Missing one doesn’t break the chain.

listen and watch …..especially to the comment at 5:20 ish

(1) This topic is not a topic about Thieves being good/bad. Please see the several posts now where I’ve mentioned that it:

• Does not match the mechanics that ArenaNet even focused a patch on
• Rewards bad thief play (not caring if the target is using an active defense) and punishes good play (using an active defense to avoid taking damage from a high-damage attack).

While this video is nice for taking on bad/average thieves, a few notes:

(2) Thieves that remove conditions while stealthed and/or take regen/rejuv on stealth won’t care about conditions unless you make sure you put several on them (3+) each time as they can remove 2 per time they stealth (check out the Thief’s Shadow Arts line).

(3) In the second fight the thief wasted his stunbreak on a non-stun situation … just to close a very small gap? If he hadn’t, he could have easily finished the fight.

(4) Also I hope you do also realize that people are able to achieve much higher damage in WvW due to more trinkets, food, and oils, so that burst that almost killed him in the beginning in sPvP would have killed him in WvW.

(5) Why did the thief never cripple him?

(6) Why isn’t the thief killing the net turret … chasing in range of it and not dealing with it are noob mistakes

(7) Here’s Drakeco dueling Osicat. Notice that Drakeco doesn’t have that turret which is allowing him to kite the thief. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QYvtwX8v5c

(8) A good thief would not have doggedly chased the engineer once low on health … nor only run when at 10% hp. Most good thieves know when things are going poorly and reset immediately.

(9) Thief can C&D off of turrets

(10) Good thieves are smart enough to not fight an engineer in the middle of the engineer’s elite unless they know the engineer is terribad.

To end, I have respect for Drakeco. He’s a good player. However, this video is misleading if you go against Thieves that actually know their class. Just check out some of the comments for the video.

more evidence shirked. 0-o lol whatever.

animalmom.1062:

“3). I agree that going stealth and then frantically spamming the 1 key, hoping for a backstab, should be detrimental.”

How do you think thieves backstab?

People are freaking running all over the place. Nobody stands still for your backstab.

It’s amazing how often people want to make it so hard for thieves to be able to actually use their class mechanics.

People complain about the mechanic and then want to make it super hard to actually use it.

Try and apply this logic to other classes and tell me what you come up with.

if Class A attempts to use their class mechanic but fails their class mechanic should fail or cause something bad to happen to them

Just dumb.

If A guardian might blows you and you block it doe they get chilled?

That would be just as dumb.

What classes get penalized for trying and failing to use their abilities?

If I switch to water at the wrong time, as a burst elementalist I still do no damage for the next 13 seconds and put all of my fast healing/condition removal capability on cooldown for 15. If I switch out of fire before my target is dead I add 5 seconds to the cooldown of burning speed and ring of fire and triple the cooldown on my best dps skill, up to 15. If I choose to initiate in earth and my opponent dodges the flash follow up I lose all but one of my active control abilities for the next 15 seconds.

Glass eles have this problem. There should ALWAYS be a punishment for failure due to your opponent’s actions. Why is your case special?

Sebrent.3625:

Sources of Aegis on a Guardian:

• Utility: Retreat!
• Virtue: Virtue of Courage
• Trait: Protective Reviver (you and the ally you revive)
• Trait: Valorous Defense (when your health reaches 50%).

That’s not many sources.

that’s 4 blocks per minute with renewal, and without counting reviver trait.
add 3 blocks per 45 sec from shield of wrath, you are getting more than 1 block every 10 sec.

we NEVER block dood

stealth is usually 3-5 seconds unless the thief wants to waste initiative…..or utilities.

after going stealth the first second is avoiding dmg and the 2n-3rd seconds are setting up for a bs/tactical strike……this leaves 1 second…..if u block the first with aegis/roll etc you still felt nothing from the thief ….and “feeling” something (aka damage) is what causes reveal to pop. has to be direct dmg coming from a thief…… check out the video i posted above. its not hard to avoid backstabs….as he so casually/eloquently said lol. just takes a lil inside understanding of thief movement if ur having a problem try play thief. im tellin ya it will make your defensive on other chars so much much better.

To be honest this isnt that difficult to understand. Everyone keeps comparing backstab/stealth to many other skills and F mechanics from other classes, in order to ‘prove’ that backstab/stealth should reveal or be unvailable after miss/block etc. The problem with this argument is that backstab/stealth is NOT other skills/mechanics. It does not work like them on purpose. Your point about warrior burst skills? those dont require stealth or to be behind your enemy at melee, so lets remove the need for stealth and position from backstab, full damage from any angle, because hey other classes skill dont work like that

additionally, other than a 30/30 ele, nothing gets nearly as much heal and removal as a guard.
a 30s cd 8k heal that passively removes 1 every 10s
you can (and most guards do) trait for 1 extra removal every 10s
2 meditation skills that give you another 1 removal per 10s (on average)
all meditation utilities can be traited to give almost 2500 heal each (instant), and 3 of them (the 3 that people use) are under 60s cd, with smite condition having only 20s cd being the extreme.
dodges heal (just like an ele)
trait to get 630 heal on removal of aegis, that applies every 10s
symbol heals

that’s not even counting bunkers’ healing major traits and virtue of courage (which is benefited again by renewal of course)

@Linnael:
Good points, and it’s like that for every other class because it fosters the wonderful idea of “reward good play, punish bad play”.

@Shemsu:
The difference between your stance and my stance is you’re assuming backstab is a special case where you (thieves) shouldn’t have to pay attention to people blocking, dodging, etc. while I think every player should have to pay attention to this.

Neither of us can prove our assumption is correct; one reason I really wish we could get some dev feedback on whether this is intended or oversight.

@Brassnautilus:
Yes, guardians have a ton of blocks. Other classes are affected by them but you don’t see them complaining about it.

Furthermore, if you guys would use sword+dagger as a weapon set, you could steal that aegis and laugh. You’d probably steal another boon with it too since some Guardians can’t so much as wipe their butt without a boon popping up somewhere ;-)

I don’t see what pointing out what a guardian potentially do does for the discussion on whether or not Thieves should be the one class with attacks that don’t care if the thief screws up.

Okamakiri.8746:

Sebrent.3625:

If missing a single skill makes a class completely useless, then there is a massive issue in the design of the class.

For the first time in months of your trolling, we agree on something.

agreed. however getting people to admit there is reliance on stealth due many weaknesses is….well tough. :/ we need buffs…BEFORE ….they nerf (if they nerf us agin)

Travlane.5948:

Okamakiri.8746:

Sebrent.3625:

If missing a single skill makes a class completely useless, then there is a massive issue in the design of the class.

For the first time in months of your trolling, we agree on something.

agreed. however getting people to admit there is reliance on stealth due many weaknesses is….well tough. :/ we need buffs…BEFORE ….they nerf (if they nerf us agin)

Anet’s policy is to nerf first buff 6 months later. Thats how build diversity is created so I wouldn’t give them any ideas if I was you.

:P yeah. i know.. thief has 2 months before its dead i think. maybe on the 19th :/

I don’t mind to reveal when I miss my BS,
but only under 1 of these conditions
1) BS do 30k damage to everything
2) no damage on us under stealth
3) BS damage is 2x buffed
4) reveal time shorten to 1sec
5) we can auto-stealth when we are are not in combat

here here! i 2nd lol

Travlane.5948:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B4mbYlRiJw

listen and watch …..especially to the comment at 5:20 ish

OMFG We can actually be COUNTERED?!

I couldn’t help myself but login to reply to this thread. I have 4 80s, last of which was a thief. I totally understand the 4 seconds revealed, but a backstab should never cause revealed if it was out of range miss. As far as I’ve seen, block and blind already throws us out of stealth with revealed. Heck if we leave the Shadow’s Refuge we get revealed.

It looks like you are getting nailed by backstab so much that you are taking “bad/average thieves” as an excuse. Backstab is one of the main thief mechanics which by itself is already hard to land. If your mesmer can’t defeat thieves, doesn’t mean they should get punished for throwing a BS far from you. So far I’ve read your arguments and all I found was someone who wants his mesmer to win easily against a thief.

Thieves damage is a bit high, but they are hard to hit. When you are in stealth its really hard to backstab someone cos they are always moving around, and your initiative burns out real fast.

I like the suggestion it would make dodging backstab useful. It also would change the gameplay from spamming to skill.

If this would be too great a fix, then maybe dodging and actually evading backstab should end stealth. XD

oh boy. if backstab hit most of the time i would understand….maybe. but its such a hard skill to land and usually only 50% of the successful htis are more than 2k. pfft. this would ruin thief dmg down to about 6th place. doubt that will happen.

come one!!! its because we our thieves…. u don’t expect a guardian not to be tanky or a warrior not to be tanky/dps right? same thing with thieves. This class is made to be slippery that’s why we are so squishy.

And for BS well u just have to keep ure distance man, we only remain in stealth 2secs so if we miss a BS we don’t usually have the opportunity to BS again unless we go into stealth.

Sebrent.3625:

@Brassnautilus:
Yes, guardians have a ton of blocks. Other classes are affected by them but you don’t see them complaining about it.

Furthermore, if you guys would use sword+dagger as a weapon set, you could steal that aegis and laugh. You’d probably steal another boon with it too since some Guardians can’t so much as wipe their butt without a boon popping up somewhere ;-)

are you nuts?
you can’t backstab with a kitten sword….

talk about things you have no clue more plz….

reveal that missing sword strike (that dazes) all you want
don’t use a topic that says “missing BACKSTAB should reveal”

Travlane.5948:

:P yeah. i know.. thief has 2 months before its dead i think. maybe on the 19th :/

Based on what exactly?

Azraeel.1238:

I couldn’t help myself but login to reply to this thread. I have 4 80s, last of which was a thief. I totally understand the 4 seconds revealed, but a backstab should never cause revealed if it was out of range miss. As far as I’ve seen, block and blind already throws us out of stealth with revealed. Heck if we leave the Shadow’s Refuge we get revealed.

It looks like you are getting nailed by backstab so much that you are taking “bad/average thieves” as an excuse. Backstab is one of the main thief mechanics which by itself is already hard to land. If your mesmer can’t defeat thieves, doesn’t mean they should get punished for throwing a BS far from you. So far I’ve read your arguments and all I found was someone who wants his mesmer to win easily against a thief.

(1) Look at the parts of your post I put in bold. The first one bolded proves that the second one is a lie. Why? Because if you actually read my posts, you would have read that I’ve said several time that I do not think a thief missing backstab for being out of range should reveal them; only if they are countered by an active defense (i.e. block, dodge, etc.)

(2) I have also listed in several posts why I think it should reveal:

• It punishes good non-Thief play (skill goes on cooldown and you still eat a backstab unless you use another 1+ defensive skills) and tt rewards bad play by the Thief (don’t care if you use a key attack against a blocking/dodging/etc. opponent, you’ll just put more of their defenses on cooldown.
• It is how every other attack mechanic works … with there even being a patch in January 2013 devoted to making sure they were working like this.
  • Note: if you’ve read, you’ll know that it’s already been discussed that this involves an assumption that backstab, tactical strike, etc. should work the same way just as it’s an assumption that they should not.

If going to put in your 2 cents, actually read what has been posted and focus on that rather than on the people. Your post could be summed up as: “I think you suck and that’s why you are posting what you’ve posted”.

That’s not very mature, does nothing for the conversation, borders on violating the CoC, and simply not true.

Awesome suggestion.

/liked

Brassnautilus.2941:

reveal that missing sword strike (that dazes) all you want
don’t use a topic that says “missing BACKSTAB should reveal”

Do please take note that I did not make the OP.

But all in all dodge is useless as the thief can keep spamming until they hit you while you use up your dodge. By causing a reveal when you actually evade the thief, you will be able to counter thief with skill and the thief will also be required to hit you with skill otherwise get revealed. It will reduce spam gameplay and people will no longer have as much of an incentive to call a backstabbing thief a spam build.

Sebrent.3625:

Travlane.5948:

:P yeah. i know.. thief has 2 months before its dead i think. maybe on the 19th :/

Based on what exactly?

Azraeel.1238:

I couldn’t help myself but login to reply to this thread. I have 4 80s, last of which was a thief. I totally understand the 4 seconds revealed, but a backstab should never cause revealed if it was out of range miss. As far as I’ve seen, block and blind already throws us out of stealth with revealed. Heck if we leave the Shadow’s Refuge we get revealed.

It looks like you are getting nailed by backstab so much that you are taking “bad/average thieves” as an excuse. Backstab is one of the main thief mechanics which by itself is already hard to land. If your mesmer can’t defeat thieves, doesn’t mean they should get punished for throwing a BS far from you. So far I’ve read your arguments and all I found was someone who wants his mesmer to win easily against a thief.

(1) Look at the parts of your post I put in bold. The first one bolded proves that the second one is a lie. Why? Because if you actually read my posts, you would have read that I’ve said several time that I do not think a thief missing backstab for being out of range should reveal them; only if they are countered by an active defense (i.e. block, dodge, etc.)

(2) I have also listed in several posts why I think it should reveal:

• It punishes good non-Thief play (skill goes on cooldown and you still eat a backstab unless you use another 1+ defensive skills) and tt rewards bad play by the Thief (don’t care if you use a key attack against a blocking/dodging/etc. opponent, you’ll just put more of their defenses on cooldown.
• It is how every other attack mechanic works … with there even being a patch in January 2013 devoted to making sure they were working like this.
  • Note: if you’ve read, you’ll know that it’s already been discussed that this involves an assumption that backstab, tactical strike, etc. should work the same way just as it’s an assumption that they should not.

---

If going to put in your 2 cents, actually read what has been posted and focus on that rather than on the people. Your post could be summed up as: “I think you suck and that’s why you are posting what you’ve posted”.

That’s not very mature, does nothing for the conversation, borders on violating the CoC, and simply not true.

u know…stop being rude to other people in here thank you.….. when i say IMO or I THINK or I BELIEVE or MAY BE or PROBABLY or POSSIBLY ……………these do not mean im stating hard facts….its stating pure opinion. disagree if u like but dont say something as bonkers as “based on what” .

so again….IMO i think and believe that ,at the rate of nerfs in the past 8 months, thief will no longer be played as much.

Sebrent.3625:

Knockdown’s on the Axe? Nope.
Other classes have stunbreakers? Yep.

Compare how often an Axe warrior can knock you down/immobilize you compared to how often you can stealth. You’ll blow him out of the water … not to mention he has to then get that full rotation on you after he’s gotten you stunned/immobilized and hope that you don’t counter it.

I’d love to see the 5 sec immobilize btw … what is that skill? Is it in the same game as my Mesmer skill where I have a clone that passively summons other clones? Lol.

level 3 adrenaline skill i believe…… 4.75 seconds (i call it 5 but split hairs if u like)

Stop with the play by play chest thumping nobody cares how you fight. Make a YouTube video not a forum post.

Also to the OP, no. Backstab should and will for ever keep thieves in stealth when missing. Just trying to read your logic made me question your keybinds and everything in your small bubble. Are the walls around you soft and do you have a nurse checking on you every 15 mins