Guild Wars 2

… I’m not impressed by it…

30 III, IV, IX
30 II, III, XII
0
0
10 IV

Full zerker gear + Ruby Orbs

Signet of Malice/Signet of Shadows/Assassin’s Signet/Signet of Agility/Basalisk Venom

Using a combo of:

BV > SoM > SoS > AS > SA > CnD > Steal > BS

Giving 22 stacks of Might, 15% damage from AS, 10% damage from Exposed Weakness, 10% damage from First Strikes, 5% damage from Dagger Training, 5% damage from Flanking Strikes, so a total of 770 extra power and 45% extra damage.

Averaging:
About 3k Cloak and Dagger hits.
About 6-7k Mug hits.
About 9-10k Backstabs.

Which, in a bit of roaming in WvW got me all of 1 kill (Even then, the combo didn’t one shot and I still needed to use Heartseeker about 4 times to secure the kill) – This includes multiple up-leveled characters I tried the combo on (They were Warriors and Guardians so would have naturally higher armour)

All this at the cost of having literally no defence, 10k health, 916 toughness, 1980 armour and no utilities to save my life.

Can people stop complaining about being one shot from Thieves and deal with the fact that if they do get one shot, or killed in a single combo then they obviously need more defence?

Did you get blood lust stacks as well?

Part of the problem is that for some reason you decided a wonky 4 signet build was the right way to go, which results in you quite literally having 0 defensive options. 0 stunbreakers, 0 stealthing skills, 0 crowd control other than basilisk venom, 0 condition removals (SoA isn’t a condition removal because you burnt it at the start to stack might).

If you actually want to be effective, you need to ditch most of the signets and take utility and heal skills that actually complement and shore up weak parts of your build. The reason burst thieves are so strong is because they can temporarily reset a fight; disengage; and try again. With your build, if they don’t die in your first burst, you lose unless they’re asleep at the keyboard, and that’s a silly way to play.

Pyroatheist.9031:

With your build, if they don’t die in your first burst, you lose unless they’re asleep at the keyboard, and that’s a silly way to play.

I’m aware of that.

I was just wondering what all the fuss is about with the hundreds of threads in which people keep saying “I got one-shot by a thief” and “Thief burst is way too high” where they reference this combo (They also tend to mention thieves having infinite initiative, or at least enough to repeat CnD indefinitely)

So I tried out the maximum possible burst combo that I could think of, which would be a 4 signet build for the 20 stacks of might.

I normally play Zerker builds that do infact run with various survivability traits + utilities (At the cost of about 40% of the numbers I achieved with this build) but people don’t seem to complain about those as much (If at all, it’s always about “Backstab is strongest ability in game!” and “Can’t kill a thief, stealth too strong!” from what I’ve read)

Going maximum burst possible as you said won’t get you anywhere. Playing against players is not the same thing as playing against npc’s.

Also I’m pretty sure taking haste instead of signet of shadows = more damage.

The points you mention “Infinite initiative, CnD chaining, Stealth too strong can’t kill thief” are achieved with different builds.

People should stop thinking about one shot and start thinking about ganking and taking out the already injured.
You’d think a trait that get’s its strength from when people are 50% or less (ergo, weakened) would be a sign of that.

To that end if you’re picking off the injured piece meal after they’ve eaten some aoe.
Do you “really” need to go full Berserk as a dagger build?
You can decide that.

They complain because they don’t know how to counter it. When that Basilisk Venom hits, they’re mashing the heal button instead of using a stun breaker.

Hey now no hate for the wonky signet builds Haha, they are really fun in PvE! WvW is a whole different beast though.

But I think the point Taril is making that the 1 shot BS thief is a myth, not that he endorses this build or “thieves-are-now-broken-f-u-arena-net-rage quit” (and there were disturbing amounts of those posts on forums after the patch). I agree with this assessment.

What drives me personally bonkers is when I’m facing a thief, I land some pretty heavy hits on the guy and he used up his heal, I go in for the kill AND THE GUY STEALTHS… AND HE’S GONE!!! Wait no he’s back, why is his health back? Burst him down again and he pulls this again!!! AHHHHHH!!!

10 seconds later the jerk gets a hard backstab off and this time I make a mistake and I die. My fault entirely but infuriating!

Silver.4798:

Hey now no hate for the wonky signet builds Haha, they are really fun in PvE! WvW is a whole different beast though.

But I think the point Taril is making that the 1 shot BS thief is a myth, not that he endorses this build or “thieves-are-now-broken-f-u-arena-net-rage quit” (and there were disturbing amounts of those posts on forums after the patch). I agree with this assessment.

What drives me personally bonkers is when I’m facing a thief, I land some pretty heavy hits on the guy and he used up his heal, I go in for the kill AND THE GUY STEALTHS… AND HE’S GONE!!! Wait no he’s back, why is his health back? Burst him down again and he pulls this again!!! AHHHHHH!!!

10 seconds later the jerk gets a hard backstab off and this time I make a mistake and I die. My fault entirely but infuriating!

The 1shot-bs build isn’t a myth. Just look at the damage numbers he was posting. The thing is, if he chose is targets carefully, which he obviously didn’t, he could easily instagib many many many builds in wvw. As it turns out, a lot of people and builds have some sort of active defense counter to that, of course, which is where his build immediately becomes horrible.

The counter is this: use dodge right after the thief mugs you. Wastes a third of his initiative and stops the three or four hit kill combo. A LOT of WvW players know this. It isn’t hard at all.

I’ve never been impressed with these kinds of builds. :/

Which is why I run a 0/0/20/30/20 “bunker” build. The name’s a bit deceiving, though; I run just insane initiative regeneration with lots of dodges, stealths, shadowsteps and whatnot. I make up for my lack of power/crits with zerker gear. The end result? A build that won’t hit as hard as a GC build, but will manage to survive far longer than a GC build while still laying on the damage.

Heres a few tips if you want to insta gib people

1: Ditch the ruby orbs for scholar runes the 10% dmg is huge presuming your spiking from the shadows your starter combo should always be >90% hp.

2: FOOOOOOOD: Eat some. Plate of Truffle steak Dinner is really good if u can properly maintain the 200 power, if you want something a little simpler curry butternut squash is always an option

3: NOURISHMENT: Just like food, use it: Sharpening stones may be based off tough/vit, but it still makes a decent addition to your overall spike DPS.

4: Bloodlust stacks: get 25 whether via ganking or killing npcs, carry two blue/green weps with the sigils on them to stack twice as fast then switch to exotics after your done killing trash.

5: Dont use so many signets. Assasins sig is the only good one, maybe shadow if u roam solo a lot

Shouldn’t you be using Eagle or Divinity for that build and not ruby orbs?

why would a full zerker use divinity runes? they suck

i can’t believe that little dmg with 22 stacks of might, i can burst down anyone like any other decent thief without all that silly stuff you built

SwickHobo.5096:

1: Ditch the ruby orbs for scholar runes the 10% dmg is huge presuming your spiking from the shadows your starter combo should always be >90% hp.

Ideally, yes going for some extra runes (165 power + 8% crit damage + 10% damage vs 120 power + 84 precision + 12% crit damage) would increase the damage, it’s just I didn’t want to buy some runes just to test this build out for a few hours (I really don’t like having that little defence, feels like I’d be one-shot when looking for a target in WvW) since most of my other builds use Ruby/Beryl orbs

2: FOOOOOOOD
3: NOURISHMENT

I may not have mentioned it but I always carry around food + nourishment, about 10 different types of food for different situations/builds (Might on dodge, Heal on Crit, Power + Vitality, Precision + Crit damage etc)

4: Bloodlust stacks: get 25 whether via ganking or killing npcs, carry two blue/green weps with the sigils on them to stack twice as fast then switch to exotics after your done killing trash.

This would have increased my damage by somewhat, but I’m lazy and cheap and don’t have a set of weapons with Superior Sigils of Bloodlust so I do miss out on the 250 Power.

5: Dont use so many signets. Assasins sig is the only good one, maybe shadow if u roam solo a lot

I don’t advocate using signets, it’s just for maximum damage getting the additional Might stacks (1 Stack = 35 Power) would help me to see what the highest I could hit would be.

Bassman.9245:

i can’t believe that little dmg with 22 stacks of might, i can burst down anyone like any other decent thief without all that silly stuff you built

Most of my builds can also burst people down, not in a single 3 hit combo like a lot of people complain about but pretty fast (That said, I’ve killed GC Thieves in 2 hits using Shadow Shot + Mug on a glassy D/P build)

Pyroatheist.9031:

The 1shot-bs build isn’t a myth. Just look at the damage numbers he was posting. The thing is, if he chose is targets carefully, which he obviously didn’t, he could easily instagib many many many builds in wvw. As it turns out, a lot of people and builds have some sort of active defense counter to that, of course, which is where his build immediately becomes horrible.

Exactly.

The damage this build puts out is incredibly high, I have no doubt that on GC’s and squishier targets (Such as Ele’s before they’ve got their boons up, other thieves etc) I’d have been able to successfully combo’d them to death.

It’s just that the build and combo is so easy to counter and if the damage is prevented the ability to kill the thief using it is so easy, thus me being unimpressed…

More balanced “burst” builds are still great though, dealing high damage whilst also having sustain to live and mechanisms to escape (One of my D/P glass builds had decent sustain through massive amounts of Blind yet still pulled off 2-2.5k auto attacks and 3-4k Shadow Shots and 6-7k Backstabs)

Silver.4798:

Hey now no hate for the wonky signet builds Haha, they are really fun in PvE! WvW is a whole different beast though.

But I think the point Taril is making that the 1 shot BS thief is a myth, not that he endorses this build or “thieves-are-now-broken-f-u-arena-net-rage quit” (and there were disturbing amounts of those posts on forums after the patch). I agree with this assessment.

What drives me personally bonkers is when I’m facing a thief, I land some pretty heavy hits on the guy and he used up his heal, I go in for the kill AND THE GUY STEALTHS… AND HE’S GONE!!! Wait no he’s back, why is his health back? Burst him down again and he pulls this again!!! AHHHHHH!!!

10 seconds later the jerk gets a hard backstab off and this time I make a mistake and I die. My fault entirely but infuriating!

And I hope you realize that if the thief made 1 mistake in their he’s dead too. Not as easy as you think, go play a thief yourself.

You may also want to consider this.

Yes, the thief literally relies on the stealth mechanic to have a chance in that type of situation. What would the non-thief be doing? He’s able to stand there and actually take hits out in the open or utilize their own special class mechanics.

So yeah, that thief can stealth and possibly live, but the part where your thought process is wrong is that you think it’s cheap or bad like a lot of other noobs, when instead you should realize stealth is essentially the way the thief is keeping their health pool around the same amount as other classes, considering thieves are usually very squishy.

So yeh, just think if you’re that 17-20k healthed person, the thief is at 10-15k HP (if they are berserker) so their stealth is basically making this “balanced.” They can try to burst you down (thief class is designed to do this..) but usually thieves cannot sustain a fight with just burst, and they’ll have to run or stealth which is your chance of course to kill them.

Too many noobs around here going “omg he got away, how imba!” when really the stealth is balancing out the situation otherwise the thief would have…ZERO PERCENT chance to do anything.

Too many people around here just want this game homogonized with every class being exactly the same. “Stealth omg QQ, omg shatter QQ, omg 100 blade QQ, omg death shroud QQ, omg ele mashing 20 button QQ”

-- maybe those people should go design their perfectly balanced game where all 6 classes are the Warrior. They don’t seem to be able to handle a game with asymmetrical balance ^^

I don’t think you get the 10% bonus damage from “First Strike” C&D uses 6 initiative out of 12 and I don’t think you’ll often regen it before you backstab. Side Strike is also a huge waste I’d say.

A better option is either a 25/30/0/0/15 build to get the 3 extra initiative from Trickery. This allows you a guaranteed “First Strike” bonus after C&D. Drop Venomous Strength cause it’s not worth it for just 2 stacks of Might from your elite.

Or you can replace “Side Strike” with the IMHO much more useful trait “Signet Use” which lowers signet CD by 20% and regens initiative when you use them. Just don’t precast all your signets first and keep one to use between C&D landing and hitting with BS.

avilo.1942:

And I hope you realize that if the thief made 1 mistake in their he’s dead too. Not as easy as you think, go play a thief yourself.

You may also want to consider this.

Yes, the thief literally relies on the stealth mechanic to have a chance in that type of situation. What would the non-thief be doing? He’s able to stand there and actually take hits out in the open or utilize their own special class mechanics.

So yeah, that thief can stealth and possibly live, but the part where your thought process is wrong is that you think it’s cheap or bad like a lot of other noobs, when instead you should realize stealth is essentially the way the thief is keeping their health pool around the same amount as other classes, considering thieves are usually very squishy.

So yeh, just think if you’re that 17-20k healthed person, the thief is at 10-15k HP (if they are berserker) so their stealth is basically making this “balanced.” They can try to burst you down (thief class is designed to do this..) but usually thieves cannot sustain a fight with just burst, and they’ll have to run or stealth which is your chance of course to kill them.

Too many noobs around here going “omg he got away, how imba!” when really the stealth is balancing out the situation otherwise the thief would have…ZERO PERCENT chance to do anything.

Too many people around here just want this game homogonized with every class being exactly the same. “Stealth omg QQ, omg shatter QQ, omg 100 blade QQ, omg death shroud QQ, omg ele mashing 20 button QQ”

-- maybe those people should go design their perfectly balanced game where all 6 classes are the Warrior. They don’t seem to be able to handle a game with asymmetrical balance ^^

The unbalanced thing isn’t the damage istelf, it’s being able to go full zerk because you can disengage ANYTIME! Theives don’t get zerg with people, they just roam around because if they happen to go under some heavy aoe, they’ll just explode.
Shatter mesmer is squishy as hell, and has 4 sec invulnerability (and he wastes clones doing that) and 3 sec stealth (and a teleport AT BEST). He doesn’t appear from nowhere, his combo takes time to setup, you can dodge his illusionary leap.
100b was dumped because quickness has been nerfed. Not that it had any defensive utilities anyway.
I don’t even see people complaining about death shroud, since necro has few stun breakers with insane cooldown, spirit walk being the only nice one, with their best CC being fear.
Full dmg eles too need time to take make up their combo, (by getting close to you too!). But they are even sqishier than thief, can go mist form but can’t really get way unless they manage to rush away with air-dagger 4. And they NEED a zerg to support themselves.
Thieves have stealth(either heal or dagger 5), shortbow 3(evade)-5(teleport), shadowstep.
Also being able to teleport with steal or at the end of the stealth gives a clear 100% first hit. BV holds the victim easily, unless you attack a disengaged Guardian or Mesmer, your worst choices.
I did try out this build in spvp (where I guess it’s weaker than in WvW?), it’s incredibly easy to attack and disengage on fail (And no, not against dummies).
(Imo, disgusting)
BV – AS – C&D charge – Steal – C&D end – BS – normal hits/HS
On fail use shadowstep to keep the enemy engaged with clusterbombs if alone or trick shot if he has minions/pets/illusions while keeping distance with shorbow 3.
If combo fails completely, disengage with shadowstep and go stealth with heal.
(then wait for BV get back up, since 45 seconds ain’t that much of a time, then retry)

Guardian, Mesmer, Eles (with mistform), can often neutralize your combo, but other classes like Necro, Engi, Ranger, Warriors (unless they trait with endure pain, which is often unlikely) just can’t (especially when already engaged) (other thieves RfI or Shadowstep away).

My solution would be to make steal fail during C&D cast (or when genereally casting abilities). That would incentivate a more thoughtful way to play thief as I think that Anet didn’t intend to let players go full zerk or full defense(and such thing doesn’t exist because every gear has at least power/condition dmg/precision in it), in PvP context especially. Also I’m also very happy with stealth being more balanced in the last patch.

stof.9341:

I don’t think you get the 10% bonus damage from “First Strike” C&D uses 6 initiative out of 12 and I don’t think you’ll often regen it before you backstab. Side Strike is also a huge waste I’d say.

Kleptomaniac – Stealing gives you 3 initiative – 5 point minor trait in Trickery giving 9 initiative total when the combo hits.

Also, Side Strike is to ensure higher critical chance on Mug and Cloak and Dagger, if either of those don’t crit then this combo’s damage is severely reduced.

A better option is either a 25/30/0/0/15 build to get the 3 extra initiative from Trickery. This allows you a guaranteed “First Strike” bonus after C&D. Drop Venomous Strength cause it’s not worth it for just 2 stacks of Might from your elite.

Or you can replace “Side Strike” with the IMHO much more useful trait “Signet Use” which lowers signet CD by 20% and regens initiative when you use them.

When I’m trying to go for the ultimate insta-kill combo rather than a more balanced build with sustain, the additional 50 Power and 2 might stacks (70 power) are noticable.

Taril.8619:

Kleptomaniac – Stealing gives you 3 initiative – 5 point minor trait in Trickery giving 9 initiative total when the combo hits.

Also, Side Strike is to ensure higher critical chance on Mug and Cloak and Dagger, if either of those don’t crit then this combo’s damage is severely reduced.

Hmm, but if I remember well, C&D pays it’s initiative cost at the end of the cast only. I’m pretty sure we don’t lose initiative if we interrupt it’s cast. Since you steal before the end of it, the extra initiative is wasted on a full bar and then the price is paid.

Taril.8619:

When I’m trying to go for the ultimate insta-kill combo rather than a more balanced build with sustain, the additional 50 Power and 2 might stacks (70 power) are noticable.

But as I said, I’m pretty sure you are missing the bonus damage from First Strike that way and that 10% bonus is huge. More than 130 power because cause you already have a LOT of power.

stof.9341:

Hmm, but if I remember well, C&D pays it’s initiative cost at the end of the cast only. I’m pretty sure we don’t lose initiative if we interrupt it’s cast. Since you steal before the end of it, the extra initiative is wasted on a full bar and then the price is paid.

If you don’t get the initiative loss/gain until the end of CnD, then there’s still Opportunist – 20% chance to gain 1 initiative on a critical (With 2 attacks critting at the same time, there’s 2 chances at this) allowing you to be a 7 initiative when everything is coming out.

If Mug hits before CnD – You’re at 12 initiative – It gets the effect of First Strikes

When CnD hits – I’m not 100% sure but I think that it get’s benefit from it (If not then going 15 into Trickery might give this 10% extra damage)

When Backstab hits, there’s a good chance that Opportunist procced, also depending on how long it takes to get around to behind the target an initiative could have regenerated (1 per 1.33 seconds)

Then of course, I haven’t done much testing with First Strikes, most things that say “When above X” usually mean “When above or at X”.

A prime example is all the 75% health regen procs, some state “When at 75% health” some say “When hit and below 75% health” and some say “When going below 75% health” whilst they all work in the same way – If hit while at 75% health or below it will proc.

This could mean that First Strikes may in fact be in effect when at or higher than 6 initiative (Causing every part of the combo to be affected by it at all times)

my friend landed a 17k bs on an under leveled mesmer the other day. he one shotted him. not a myth just very unlikely to happen repeatedly.
this was without CnD as hes a d/p thief

Taril.8619:

If Mug hits before CnD – You’re at 12 initiative – It gets the effect of First Strikes

When CnD hits – I’m not 100% sure but I think that it get’s benefit from it (If not then going 15 into Trickery might give this 10% extra damage)

When Backstab hits, there’s a good chance that Opportunist procced, also depending on how long it takes to get around to behind the target an initiative could have regenerated (1 per 1.33 seconds)

Then of course, I haven’t done much testing with First Strikes, most things that say “When above X” usually mean “When above or at X”.

A prime example is all the 75% health regen procs, some state “When at 75% health” some say “When hit and below 75% health” and some say “When going below 75% health” whilst they all work in the same way – If hit while at 75% health or below it will proc.

This could mean that First Strikes may in fact be in effect when at or higher than 6 initiative (Causing every part of the combo to be affected by it at all times)

Opportunist isn’t a good trait to rely on to get more than 6 initiative when backstab lands. Because if it procs on Mug, it wastes 1 initiative again and the trait has an internal cooldown meaning it will never proc on C&D at that point. As a result, your assertion that Opportunist has a good chance to proc and restore First Strike effect before Backstab is wrong. It actually has a very good chance not to work at all.

Also, the trait that increases crit chance from back is nice, but since you have Hidden Killer it only works for Mug and C&D. And those two are unrealiably done on the back of your target contrary to BS since the user is stuned at that point and it gives you time to position yourself.

As for your remark about 75% health, I’d like to mention that it’s VERY hard to be exactly at 75% health cause 75% out of 12432 HP is a pretty small window of opportunity. As a result, there’s little reasons to even worry about that. On the other hand, the First Strike trait specifically says “when initiative is over 6”. Having exactly 6 initiative is a pretty common situation so it warrants careful implementation here. But then again, tooltips have been wrong in the past.

This is something that should be easy enough to test in the Mists with steady weapons. I’ll try that tonight.

The reason this is important in my eyes is that in the Mug/C&D/Backstab combo, only the last hit is guaranteed crit. As a result, on average the damage of that last hit is easily more than half of the damage of the first two hits. So in my eyes it’s more important to guarantee that First Strike works on Backstab that worry about it working on the first two attacks

Tested in the mists with Steady weapons : when you got exactly 6 initiative left, First Strike doesn’t apply the bonus 10% damage. You need 7 initiative or more. Tooltip is correct in this case.

Worst case assist on someone, each rogue and easily do 20k on a heavy armour target before they can react.

It will take Arena net atleast another year to figure out how easy this is, so we should be able to mop up the battle field no prob.

Really the only down side is boredom

dooger.2640:

It will take Arena net atleast another year to figure out how easy this is, so we should be able to mop up the battle field no prob.

And another year to fix it.
Resulting probably with only pistol’s condition damage being nerfed.

Shirou.4862:

dooger.2640:

It will take Arena net atleast another year to figure out how easy this is, so we should be able to mop up the battle field no prob.

And another year to fix it.
Resulting probably with only pistol’s condition damage being nerfed.

In order to tone down the thief burst that has been causing problems, we’ve now decided to lower the damage of pistol whip by an additional 15%. This should fix any balance issues remaining with thief burst.

/s

Just been doing the math on this combo (I don’t like using it, I run with more defence than it can provide at the cost of a huge amount of the damage so ended up just doing the math instead)

But using http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|8.1p.h2.8.1p.h1|0.0.0.0.0.0|1p.7e.1p.7e.1p.7e.1p.7e.1p.7e.1p.7e|2t.d19.2t.d19.3t.d19.2t.d13.3t.d19.2s.d13|p39.u23c.0.0.f4|39.1|0.0.0.0.0|e

The highest possible damage this combo can cause (Against a light armour class with no toughness and no additional armour and no protection so 1800 armour total) using max hit attack from daggers and assuming they crit and hit from behind while being at >90% health with a condition on the target and above 6 initative whilst using 4 signets and blowing them all before the burst (For the Might stacks):

Cloak and Dagger – 7380
Mug – 11071
Backstab – 17713

Compared to http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|4.1g.h2|0.0.0.0.0.0|1g.7e.1g.7e.1g.7e.1g.7e.1g.7e.1g.7e|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67|k35.k57.0.0.u56b|39.1|0.0.0.0.0|e (Only using exotics, not ascended) against the same target

Kill Shot – 24875
Volley – 20028

So the warrior can do more damage, can do it every 10 seconds (Compared to Thieves whom have a 45 second cooldown on this combo), have more health, more armour (Even in just exotics) can do it from 1500/1200 range (So it can be used vs Zergs without being pretty much a death sentence) and it also can pierce into multiple targets.

The only downside to warrior is that people find it easier to dodge the incoming Kill Shot if the warrior doesn’t use awkward positioning/Frenzy that or Thieves inherent access to stealth makes people incapable of noticing the incredibly obvious CnD animation from ~900 range away whilst also having the Basalisk Venom buff on…

The issue in pvp is the thief combo (which would have steal in the mix) can land 20k damage (on a real target not a zero ac dummy) before the victim can react or see the attacker (esp in wvw where you are not looking at just a couple of people for obvious possibilities)

Kill shot has a cast time and obvious animation, and volley is channeled, they are good attacks but you cant unload 3 of them with the victim unable to react.

I play thief/war/guardian war and thief can both do good damage, but its night and day on timing which is what makes people fall down go boom.

dooger.2640:

The issue in pvp is the thief combo (which would have steal in the mix) can land 20k damage (on a real target not a zero ac dummy) before the victim can react or see the attacker (esp in wvw where you are not looking at just a couple of people for obvious possibilities)

For a start, if in that WvW scenario, what are you most likely going to spot, the Thief (Easy to tell a thief even before targeting them, usually got a pair of daggers wearing leather also covered in daggers) running into 900 range to start their combo or the warrior who’s stood way out at 1500 range (Further than the max range of most attacks) who’s stood channelling onto a target, when you do spot them how do you know when exactly to dodge? Are they actually targeting you? How long have they been channeling?

When it comes to solo roaming, a thief will run up to 900 range (With BV buff up which you’ll see when you target them) and start their attack. A warrior could be up on a keep wall you’re running past, ontop of a cliff above a point you’re at, 1500 range down the road from you and can still put out some huge damage (Either killing you outright or crippling you so auto-attacks/a couple of Volley hits will down you)

I play thief/war/guardian war and thief can both do good damage, but its night and day on timing which is what makes people fall down go boom.

I play all classes, I do know how ridiculously easy it is to actually do well with a KS burst build as a warrior. I know it’s not viable in sPvP (Unlike Thief burst combo which can be done, albeit in a lesser form due to stat itemization and need for defence) and how easy it is to one-shot people with it without them noticing and being able to react (I’ve seen and done 20-25k KS in WvW)

Then of course there’s the issue with survivability, neither of these builds have much, but in order to get the damage I noted with the math, you need to pop your Heal and all 3 Utilities (Which are signets) and use half of your initiative. If it doesn’t work, you have no heal, no utilities, normal movement speed, no armour and little health (Unless going Zerker/Valk ascended for the slightly higher power from Sharpening Stones at the cost of the chance to crit with 2/3 of the combo) and revealed for 4 seconds.

Whilst a Warrior, may still have his heal up (If it wasn’t used for instant adrenaline gain), will be at a distance to give time to retreat (If he has a GS off-set he can Rush and Whirlwind Attack his way another 2000+ range away, if using 10% crit damage banner he also has another charge he can use for ~600 range) has more health (Even in Zerker exotics vs Zerker/Valk ascended) and armour meaning he has longer to live if he does get attacked and of course high damage ranged attacks that can be used to finish someone off if they survive (Volley, Aimed shot ranged cripple, Rifle Butt knockback if a target is close, swap to another weapon that deals good damage due to up to 13 might stacks + perma-fury)

It is night and day, Rifle Warrior has much easier time running a 1-shot burst build, especially since if used in WvW it’s not useless against a zerg (Infact it gets better against a zerg since few if any people will look out for the shot and it’ll pierce through multiple targets)

This difference is why I was so underwhelmed by the thief combo and build, I’d played around a lot on my Rifle warrior and was completely taken aback by the sheer amount of conditional effects and cooldowns (Some of them being 45 seconds long) and of course timing required to pull off a much inferior combo that leaves a very squishy class without defences.

I guess there’s so few Rifle Warrior nerf threads because most warriors go for the Frenzied Hundred Blades build when they go GC burst…

dooger.2640:

The issue in pvp is the thief combo (which would have steal in the mix) can land 20k damage (on a real target not a zero ac dummy) before the victim can react or see the attacker (esp in wvw where you are not looking at just a couple of people for obvious possibilities)

Kill shot has a cast time and obvious animation, and volley is channeled, they are good attacks but you cant unload 3 of them with the victim unable to react.

I play thief/war/guardian war and thief can both do good damage, but its night and day on timing which is what makes people fall down go boom.

Well thats just it, the thief combo is just as telegraphed (if not more so due to inherent range issues) as the kill shot, but with more parts to the combo meaning more chances to dodge parts of it and such, it isn’t hard to dodge any part of the thieves combo except maybe the steal part in 1v1, in a group situation its harder but its meant to be and in the same group situation your unlikely to see the warrior at the back loading his gun to take you out in his much harder hitting and user friendly combo.

no instant attacks don’t telegraph, don;t get me wrong both can hit hard and kill people.

However, the rifle:
- kill shot is 1.75 sec cast time which depletes adren so next attack loses 12% damage bonus and 9% crit
- Volley is a 2.5 second channeled attack

Comparing that to a 20k insta gang bang in pvp is apples and oranges.

i have 120% crit damage and i deal 25k burst.

dooger.2640:

no instant attacks don’t telegraph, don;t get me wrong both can hit hard and kill people.

However, the rifle:
- kill shot is 1.75 sec cast time which depletes adren so next attack loses 12% damage bonus and 9% crit
- Volley is a 2.5 second channeled attack

Comparing that to a 20k insta gang bang in pvp is apples and oranges.

except only 1 part of the thief “burst” combo is anywhere near instant cast and thats steal which is still obvious to see coming in its own way and on a 45s cooldown. If your not evading any part of a thief combo its not because its instant, because you know the rest of it isn’t.

Well poster you are indeed correct. I think most of the upset peeps were in WvW and and not aware a little defence goes along way. If the thief misses that whole combo that’s alot blown in one go and there’s plenty abilities to help do that for classes. It is a one trick wonder and not going to be doing other things such as stopping stomps, healing downed team mates though. I do kinda hit like a wet blanket in comparison tho, but ah well.

This is my burst build: http://tinyurl.com/cp9d3dc

The runes play a big roll. The scholar runes for 10% damage when 90% or more HP.

The might plays a big difference.

Also, the bloodlust definitely make a huge difference.

I don’t run this in wvw because it literally almost no mobility and with fewer places to infiltrator arrow too it’s not exactly worth it.

In sPvP I can kill people with just steal sometimes. Usually if I land cnd->steal->backstab they are going to die and backstab has hit highest of 15k against a frenzied warrior.

EDIT: I wanted to add, your build is not burst. You have not 100% committed to dps. Your skills are more utility. SoS on a burst thief? Really? You can’t burst crap with SoS. Signet of Agility is for what? It’s really only good for when you blow haste and need end, even then highly situational.

Burst thief is about maximized the intial combo, if target not dead, run and use ranged. Otherwise try to stomp, which is really hard for burst thief to do.

swinsk.6410:

EDIT: I wanted to add, your build is not burst. You have not 100% committed to dps. Your skills are more utility. SoS on a burst thief? Really? You can’t burst crap with SoS. Signet of Agility is for what? It’s really only good for when you blow haste and need end, even then highly situational.

Burst thief is about maximized the intial combo, if target not dead, run and use ranged. Otherwise try to stomp, which is really hard for burst thief to do.

Signet of Shadows + Signet of Agility + Signets of Power trait = 10 Might for 5 seconds.

Burst no?

Taril.8619:

swinsk.6410:

EDIT: I wanted to add, your build is not burst. You have not 100% committed to dps. Your skills are more utility. SoS on a burst thief? Really? You can’t burst crap with SoS. Signet of Agility is for what? It’s really only good for when you blow haste and need end, even then highly situational.

Burst thief is about maximized the intial combo, if target not dead, run and use ranged. Otherwise try to stomp, which is really hard for burst thief to do.

Signet of Shadows + Signet of Agility + Signets of Power trait = 10 Might for 5 seconds.

Burst no?

Yea, but look at what utility those give you and not just might stacks…

Agility active gives endo.
Sos active gives blind.
Assassin Signet, yes that’s a must for any burst build.

Agility is actually better to use AFTER you have been in combat, so using it directly on inc is kittening yourself.

SoS on inc before a steal combo is dumb.

Assassin signet makes sense.

It’s better to go with devourer (root on steal), assassin signet for dps, haste for quick attacks after steal if your critical haste does not fire.

My build gives 9 stacks of might before you even attack something but what it provides is a lot more utility in actually killing that target vs. using a bunch of useless actives just to stack might…

EDIT: Trust me, try my backstab build in spvp in crazy fun. Play very defensively. You are not a melee machine. Use shortbow exclusively UNTIL you see a target you think you can burst. Swap to D/D and pop devourer/basi/assassin. Hit cnd, then steal, they need to use a teleport/immunity to get away because of devourer, simple stun break will not work. Land your backstab. If critical haste does not proc, hit haste and spam #2. Usually they die, if not, switch back to bow and run like hell. Rinse and repeat until your CDs come back up.

swinsk.6410:

My build gives 9 stacks of might before you even attack something but what it provides is a lot more utility in actually killing that target vs. using a bunch of useless actives just to stack might…

When I’m trying a stupid build that’s trying to maximise damage to show off the highest amount of damage a Thief build can put out (Due to the aforementioned QQ posts/threads about being one-shot by a thief) I couldn’t care less about utility skills and am just focusing on pure damage for the “Insta-kill” combo.

For an actual build to use in the game, I’d definitely pick up more utility skills (But I’d also trait and gear for more defence rather than pure offence due to the thieves inherent lack of defence)

What I was trying to show is that Thief damage isn’t that over the top (Since to get the damage numbers I’ve seen people mentioning you do need to do stupid things like gut your utility skills and remove most/all of your defence and need to also be attacking a light armour target that has invested literally nothing into toughness/armour and also various other conditional effects) and also in a recent post, that Warriors can do similar (If not better in most circumstances) with less danger and with a build that actually works (It also gets used somewhat, since swapping out the Rifle trait for the Greatsword trait turns it into a GS Frenzy 100 Blades build)

I’m fairly sure that other classes can also pull out similar damage as well with the same amount of gutting their builds (I haven’t done the math but Mesmer with iZerker > Mirror Image > Mind Wrack would pump out a crap load of damage very quickly)

For the record, I don’t like this build, I don’t use this build (Though I did run around WvW for a few hours with it to try it out on 80’s and upscaled people) and I don’t endorse using this build, it’s purely to show numbers that is possible if going balls to the wall maximise the CnD > Mug > BS combo (Which a Dev has mentioned that they feel it’s too much burst…)

@Taril
The overpowered thing it’s not the damage itself, it’s the WAY combined with the AMOUNT of damage the theif pulls out.
A couple of defensive abilites and a shortbow and the thief can easily get out of fight.
If you get stunned just use shadowstep or RfI and shortbow 3/5 away helping yourself out with withdraw or stealth.
Why do you think it’s common sense that following a thief is stupid and not a warrior?
Warrior’s kill shot and volley are very unlikely to kill you:
They are ranged projectiles, easily dodgable because of cast time, can be interrupted.
So unless you are a dolyak, a zerk rifle warrior hardly will kill you in WvW or even in sPvP unless he plays as hidden sniper.
Thief’s D/D burst:
You barely see it coming, if you don’t dodge (probably by luck, because you have like from 0.2sec to none reaction time when you realize he’s casting C&D) you will be stunned and as swinsk poited out extra immobilize can be used too and you are dead within few seconds (If you are built full toughness). Only teleports and invulnerabilty can save you. (Things that not all classes have easy access to)
You cannot interrupt him, if you are melee you have to get close but the thief will keep around 900 distance (likely with shortbow, or with stealth) until the burst. If you are ranged (and thief has D/D already), by the time you use the skill you will be already bursted. Also even if you manage to interrupt his D&C, he’ll immediatly retry the burst since his weapon skills don’t have cooldown but use initiative (unlike warrior who has to wait at LEAST 10 seconds for his Kill Shot if interrupted).

Also a warrior can’t just stealth or shadowstep away if he becomes a target.
He may pop up stability and endure pain(which bot have nice cooldowns) and pray God he won’t be immobilized, crippled or chilled to death.
Warrior used to rely on stun and 100b on quickness to pull out pretty much same amount of dmg in a similar way to D/D burst thief (even so it couldn’t be used in WvW but in sPvP only, why I guess?). Now 100b can’t finish the combo before the target gets up and dodges.

It’s not just about the damage mats. You should consider a lot more than that.

problem is shirou if a thief is going to be hitting the amount of damage thats in any way a problem compared to anyone else there not going to HAVE those defensive abilities or be able to just shortbow out, we can’t just swap weapons after using all our initiative on burst and if we don’t use all our initiative on burst the fights most likely going to be drawn out, something thieves are not good at surviving.

The fact that you seem to be able to see every warrior upto 1500 range away loading up to shoot you but you can’t see that thief that has to be at furthest 900 range?

In a WvW situation a warrior is much more likely to snipe you than a thief is due to being able to stand way back in the middle of a zerg so you can’t see the shot loading (the shot that is only .75 seconds longer “cast time” then cnd)

A thief you will most likely see coming close to 900 range at which point he will most likely teleport to you which you can evade if you know the timing of thieves, if you do evade thats his burst combo over, he’s just likely burnt his venom and his mug both of which will be around 45 second cooldowns.

If you don’t dodge then you have a perfectly avoidable CnD coming thats highly telegraphed, if you dodge that then not only has the thief burnt 2 big cooldowns he’s also burnt half his weapon skills if he tries again he’s burnt ALL of it and has to wait at base 8 seconds before he can attempt again (6 initiative at 1 initiative every 1.33 seconds)

If the thief is waiting for cooldowns theres going to be no way he can keep you at 900 range for at least half a minute without burning all his stuff so when the 2 cooldowns do come around he’s not going to have the initiative or such to do the burst either and devs forbid that you carry around some sort of range weapon you can switch to that would most likely chase the thief off if not outright kill them.

As for stealthing away, well for one if there running away that means you’ve won, congrats, second a single CC is often enough to completely negate their attempts to flee, or a channeled attack or aoe attacks where they stealthed etc.

If you really think stealth is THAT powerful try running with it against people that have played thieves and learned that its basically non-existent if you know its coming.

If you really think that a thief getting to 900 range, closing in on you and burning multiple cooldowns (sometimes even all if they are burst built), positioning and then escaping is easier than sitting at 1200 range in the middle of a group of people and shooting people that have no hope of seeing you then there is something wrong.

If your failing to evade anything a thief does it is not because a thief is overpowered, there are many many people who can and do evade/counter or just simply outright shutdown thieves most of the time without needing to actively build for it, so if they can do it why can’t you?

your welcome to my try my build : )
15 6
30 6 10 12
0
25 2 9
0
run full valkyrie set power vit crit dmg + beryl orb
expect for weapons run berserker power pre crit dmg sigil for weapons are sigil of force sigil of blood lust / sigil of the night / sigil of fire.

switch uility to hide in shadow / roll for initiative / infilrator signet / shadow refuge / basilik vemon

food is = bowl of orrian truffle and meat stew / master maintenance oils

fully buff up sigil what not my stat are attack 3390 crit rate 40% hp 19.2k armor 2k crit dmg 108%

on avr CnD 5 – 7k Bs 4 – 12k heart seeker 4-10k

Shirou.4862:

You barely see it coming, if you don’t dodge (probably by luck, because you have like from 0.2sec to none reaction time when you realize he’s casting C&D) you will be stunned and as swinsk poited out extra immobilize can be used too and you are dead within few seconds (If you are built full toughness). Only teleports and invulnerabilty can save you. (Things that not all classes have easy access to)

It’s not just about the damage mats. You should consider a lot more than that.

It’s pretty easy to see coming.

1. - The thief will be staying around 900 range with Shortbow using little to no initiative – Since this burst combo requires you to be above 6 initiative to get the 10% damage boost (Necessary to actually put out decent damage with the attacks)
2. - The thief will use a 1 second cast to get Basalisk Venom up
3. - The thief will swap to daggers, whilst still at 900 range.
4. - The thief will start casting an obvious CnD animation, at 900 range.

If you dodge when you see that CnD animation, well there goes his 45 second CD BV, ~45 second Steal, his 45 second CD Signet.

If you don’t dodge, then you use a stun breaker (If you’re not running one in PvP/WvW you deserve to be killed during a stun) you can Dodge/Block/Blind the Backstab or force a face stab (Drastically reduced damage and 4 seconds of revealed)

After avoiding this, the thief has very little to escape, he can’t swap weapons (Still on CD since to get this combo off you start by plinking auto-attacks at people with the SB) he has little in the way of utilities (If going for the full burst I showed, then he’d have none, if running with defensive utilities the damage would be lower but still have limited escapes) and if he does escape he becomes a non-threat for 45 seconds due to having no defence outside of killing someone in the burst combo.

A warrior, can be stood at 1500 range, hidden on cliffs/wall or even just down the road (Not everyone looks that far around them on all sides when capping objectives) he can be in the middle of a group/zerg (Because his burst is actually usable in group scenarios since he doesn’t have to run through AoE that is usually found in group engagements) he can Frenzy his combo out reducing the time it takes to complete, in a 1v1 engagement he can fight at 1200 range (Ranged cripple, perma swiftness, knock back, other weapon sets with a 5 second weapon swap cooldown) and force out 2 dodges to make people sitting ducks for the KS > Volley (The KS is very likely to insta-down someone anyway)

I know how easy it can be to counter the Thief burst combo (I’ve done it myself plenty of times and also had it countered numerous times while running the combo) and I also know how easy it can be to get off the warriors KS (I’ve done it myself, I’ve seen other people get it off plenty of times)

As it is, the thief gives up a lot of his (Very limited) defence to try and get this burst which can be easily countered by universal tools such as dodging. Dodging a warriors KS will just put it on cooldown (10 seconds base) leaving him to try again later since all the cooldowns that’s needed to pop, are normally used on CD anyway (Elite Signet + FGJ) unless using Frenzy (Admittedly a 60 second cooldown, but isn’t necessary to put out damage, it’s just used to make it harder to counter the shot)

Taril.8619:

Shirou.4862:

You barely see it coming, if you don’t dodge (probably by luck, because you have like from 0.2sec to none reaction time when you realize he’s casting C&D) you will be stunned and as swinsk poited out extra immobilize can be used too and you are dead within few seconds (If you are built full toughness). Only teleports and invulnerabilty can save you. (Things that not all classes have easy access to)

It’s not just about the damage mats. You should consider a lot more than that.

It’s pretty easy to see coming.

1. - The thief will be staying around 900 range with Shortbow using little to no initiative – Since this burst combo requires you to be above 6 initiative to get the 10% damage boost (Necessary to actually put out decent damage with the attacks)
2. - The thief will use a 1 second cast to get Basalisk Venom up
3. - The thief will swap to daggers, whilst still at 900 range.
4. - The thief will start casting an obvious CnD animation, at 900 range.

If you dodge when you see that CnD animation, well there goes his 45 second CD BV, ~45 second Steal, his 45 second CD Signet.

If you don’t dodge, then you use a stun breaker (If you’re not running one in PvP/WvW you deserve to be killed during a stun) you can Dodge/Block/Blind the Backstab or force a face stab (Drastically reduced damage and 4 seconds of revealed)

After avoiding this, the thief has very little to escape, he can’t swap weapons (Still on CD since to get this combo off you start by plinking auto-attacks at people with the SB) he has little in the way of utilities (If going for the full burst I showed, then he’d have none, if running with defensive utilities the damage would be lower but still have limited escapes) and if he does escape he becomes a non-threat for 45 seconds due to having no defence outside of killing someone in the burst combo.

A warrior, can be stood at 1500 range, hidden on cliffs/wall or even just down the road (Not everyone looks that far around them on all sides when capping objectives) he can be in the middle of a group/zerg (Because his burst is actually usable in group scenarios since he doesn’t have to run through AoE that is usually found in group engagements) he can Frenzy his combo out reducing the time it takes to complete, in a 1v1 engagement he can fight at 1200 range (Ranged cripple, perma swiftness, knock back, other weapon sets with a 5 second weapon swap cooldown) and force out 2 dodges to make people sitting ducks for the KS > Volley (The KS is very likely to insta-down someone anyway)

I know how easy it can be to counter the Thief burst combo (I’ve done it myself plenty of times and also had it countered numerous times while running the combo) and I also know how easy it can be to get off the warriors KS (I’ve done it myself, I’ve seen other people get it off plenty of times)

As it is, the thief gives up a lot of his (Very limited) defence to try and get this burst which can be easily countered by universal tools such as dodging. Dodging a warriors KS will just put it on cooldown (10 seconds base) leaving him to try again later since all the cooldowns that’s needed to pop, are normally used on CD anyway (Elite Signet + FGJ) unless using Frenzy (Admittedly a 60 second cooldown, but isn’t necessary to put out damage, it’s just used to make it harder to counter the shot)

Rifle warrior is trivial kill, So easy to blow up. I am sure they are terrifying for the bads who stand off 20 paces half asleep shooting each other.

I either move away from or jump hard on rifle warriors. Run away spec and ranged classes are easy to deal with.

If you are under geared and cant blow them up instantly team up and start assisting. Worst case you need to assist on targets so they go down instantly.

@Dasorine
This kind of thieves, ROAMS. They don’t do zergs and I was pretty sure I stated that earlier.
They usually run with 2-3 tanky players so they can easily finish someone off who is already ingaged. Stealth, like HiS makes them untargeted, making most people go for another target if it’s not a 1vs1.
@Taril (and Dasorine still)
Basilisk Venom lasts quite a while, I do realize he’s going to use for the combo OR to bluff me making me waste dodges/break stuns, still allowing him to make C&D + Steal and land the combo when I have no dodge. It sinergizes, but it’s not required.
Thieves use steal -while- casting C&D, experienced ones use steal while casting C&D instantly, meaning that by the time you see the thief raising his arms it’s already too late (hit by BV already from Mug). Another thing is that their shortbow cluster bomb deals nice amount of dmg, which they use make people waste their dodges (and most classes don’t have perma-vigor or swiftness) , I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t doll-stay on one place taking cluster bombs in face (they do it melee, where you can’t just walk away then they dodge or shortbow 3).
A simple break stun won’t help because you’d still get all the dmg, and as I already stated, additional immobilize can counter that too.
I’m also confident that failed bursts don’t expect heartseeker spam into nothing.
What you don’t waste in HS you use it in C&D after 4 seconds (which isn’t quite much, assuming you did hit with backstab) and add more stealth with HiS -> 6 second stealth, go figure where he could be after that.

I myself have no problems against the burst (phantasm mesmer zerker with staff) but too often I see thieves with this build escaping away easily (stealth+shadowstep and vice versa) which quite annoys me (I could kill them with GS, but then instead I’d be more likely a killable target since GS has no defensive skills aside 5), and I do have perma-swift on mine (considering myself lucky if they use shadow refuge, so I can focus-4-them-out easily).
But I hardly imagine fighting this thief with other classes (especially necro, without the fear build).

It’s a try-to-win where the thief can afford mistakes and you NOT. This is what I hate most. (Unless the thief clamorously wastes stealths and initiative, and I do see people doing that making me realize the range of players that have access to this build.)
Most classes have their INVUL skill last longer than the BV cd. (Warrior, Engi, luckily Mesmer and Ele have cheap teleports)
While it might be countered in a 1vs1, it’s almost impossible do that in a party fight (like in 3vs3 or slightly more).
Rifle warriors often panic when you get close to them and screw up easily. Thieves have high distance control. (Getting away with shortbow, getting close/away with D/D’s HS and stealth)

1.5s is hardly a while (specially with the abundance of stun breakers) and I still refute your claim that the thief can make mistakes, they can’t if they can and get away with it it will be because you fail to take advantage of that mistake rather than something inherent about them being able to get away with it. I won’t even touch on the supposed infinite initiative/utilities your hinting a thief has either.

I mean when your stating that they need to time moves MID cast of another to get of the ideal combo and then state that they can make mistakes it sounds a bit silly.

And rifle warriors will panic if you get close to them if their bad, if their good you won’t see their shots coming at all, and their combo of 2 buttons is STILL far easier than all the different combinations and timings a thieve has to do to get into a highly vulnerable range to pull off LESS damage.

It still basically comes down to learning how to combat them, nothing about thieves is inherently more powerful than anything other people get and only becomes powerful when the enemy fails to actually fight against the essentially 2 mechanics they get.

9-10k Backstab with 22 Stacks Might?
Always fighting full toughness guardians with protection or what?

Dasorine.1964:

1.5s is hardly a while (specially with the abundance of stun breakers) and I still refute your claim that the thief can make mistakes, they can’t if they can and get away with it it will be because you fail to take advantage of that mistake rather than something inherent about them being able to get away with it. I won’t even touch on the supposed infinite initiative/utilities your hinting a thief has either.

I mean when your stating that they need to time moves MID cast of another to get of the ideal combo and then state that they can make mistakes it sounds a bit silly.

First off, as “mistakes” I meant not being able to land the combo on the target by own mistakes (making the combo too obvious to land and such) [I don’t want to fall into the discussion about thieves that even use macros to do that]
1 sec is more than enough to die unless you’re fully specced in toughness (Supposing you’re full health).
Thief has 12 initiative, +1 on crit every second traited and +1 every second (roughly), any thief with some brains wouldn’t spam initiative just to kite, only a skill on low initiative(3) then regain quicky with basic attacks. C&D requires 6 ini, by the time you use backstab (which doesn’t use any) you already know if the combo landed with success or not, then you can land free HSs. If it didn’t, you land another C&D, because even if you used one HS you already regain 1-2 initiative from crits +1 from time so you get 12 – 6 – 3 + 3=6.
Even if a thief has hard time managing his initiative, Roll for Initiative removes any cc condition and gives extra 6 initiative to escape with.

I do see people making mistakes a lot because they’re often amateurs (not that I’m much better myself). Yet it’s difficult to 1-2 shot a thief after the combo even with zerk equip (maybe shatter mesmer or warrior zerk), unless he’s running away from 2-3 people at the same time that look only for him, but hardly when escaping 1vs1.
This build’s thieves have escape success that hardly dipends on me at all (I do pull them when they use HiS, but since they’re still on 65-80% hp while doing that, only on order to escape, I hardly can burst enough dmg [I get them to 10-20%hp in that amount of time] into them to make them downed before they use HiS again). If they die it’s mostly because of them being newbies (running on plain sight with probably full initiative and not using it), but some thieves that I know personally escape with relative ease.

You fail to dodge/teleport/counter in that 1 moment=you’re dead
It’s the only class capable of doing that. (It used to be 100b, but that one was 100times easier to foresee even before the quickness nerf)
If combo fails he disengages, and normal weapon skills have already tons of mobility that other classes can’t reach even with traits, not even mentioning the utilities.

Rifle warriors aren’t roamers, they need mobility from either sword/greatsword wich go on Cd later, and naturally have very weak condition removal (and they don’t hit often enough to proc sigil either), very vulnerable to stuns unless toughness/stability traited and almost no CC.
Zergs (or at least, organized ones) instead are full prejectile reflect, so they’re more likely to kill an ally with KS than the enemy. Or they might just sit in the back and wait for the zerg bypass the meteor shower and die. My guild would rather go with a ranger in WvW than with a warrior.

Shirou.4862:

Stealth, like HiS makes them untargeted, making most people go for another target if it’s not a 1vs1.

Any good player will know that Stealth =/= Invulnerability and if they know that the thief is GC burst build (Very noticeable, how they act and damage dealt to/by them is a massive indicator) they can easily take them out of the fight by downing them (If it’s group vs group it’s likely someone may try to revive the thief, again taking someone out of the fight)

Another thing is that their shortbow cluster bomb deals nice amount of dmg, which they use make people waste their dodges

Problems with Cluster Bomb (I know it can hit hard):

• If at range it can be negated by walking away.
• Using this initiative reduces the damage of the burst combo by 10% (First Strikes)
• If hitting with CB in close range, may aswell just be hit since low health and no defences (Outside the basic dodges)
  A simple break stun won’t help because you’d still get all the dmg, and as I already

It’s a try-to-win where the thief can afford mistakes and you NOT.

A thief running this kind of full burst build will not be able to make any mistakes, going full burst (Without the Ascended Zerker/Valk stuff) they’ll have 10k health, no toughness and no defensive boons. They’ll take high damage even from defensive builds, and if they go against another GC build and don’t finish them off in the combo they are dead.

Rifle warriors often panic when you get close to them and screw up easily. Thieves have high distance control. (Getting away with shortbow, getting close/away with D/D’s HS and stealth)

Bad Rifle Warriors panic when you get close, good rifle warriors won’t (If you even get close to them – 1500 range away, notice burst failed > Swap GS > Rush > Whirlwind Attack and now you’re over 3150 (Both those skills get bonus movement from Swiftness) and running away with permanent swiftness (Or close enough, at least 30s of it from starting the combo with Elite signet))

Dub.1273:

9-10k Backstab with 22 Stacks Might?
Always fighting full toughness guardians with protection or what?

I’m not sure what builds I was against but that’s the numbers I achieved, including against a few upleveled Warriors and Guardians. I dare say that if I found a GC during my testing I’d have seen higher hits (But then living long enough to cast the 1 second Basalisk Venom and 1.25 Signet of Malice would have been a major issue)

Shirou.4862:

Thief has 12 initiative, +1 on crit every second traited and +1 every second

Only a 20% chance for that +1 initiative on crit, and it’s 1 initiative per 1.33 seconds.

Yet it’s difficult to 1-2 shot a thief after the combo even with zerk equip (maybe shatter mesmer or warrior zerk), unless he’s running away from 2-3 people at the same time that look only for him, but hardly when escaping 1vs1.

It’s actually relatively easy for most people to burst down GC thieves. Heck, in my GC builds with 14k health and additional toughness from traits and such I can go 100-0% health from a single Illusionary Berserker from a Mesmer, other classes can do other burst like this and of course there’s little need to actually 1-2 shot the thief since even if they go stealth they can still take damage (If a class uses a cripple/chill/immobilize/knockdown/knockback/stun/daze before they go stealth then it should be a guarenteed win from that class)

This build’s thieves have escape success that hardly dipends on me at all (I do pull them when they use HiS, but since they’re still on 65-80% hp while doing that, only on order to escape, I hardly can burst enough dmg [I get them to 10-20%hp in that amount of time] into them to make them downed before they use HiS again).

You know that HiS is a 30 second cooldown right? If they use it twice in a fight while being focused on (With 10k health and no defence, only some regen and heals from HiS) it doesn’t mean it’s a Thief problem, rather a playing against a thief problem.

It’s the only class capable of doing that.

-Cough- Shatter Mesmer -Cough-
Also Rifle Warrior (As I showed the math for, dealing more damage than a Ascended geared thief does in 2 skills while in just exotics)
100nades also had this (Though that got nerfed)

If combo fails he disengages, and normal weapon skills have already tons of mobility that other classes can’t reach even with traits, not even mentioning the utilities.

With the 6 initiative they have left after bursting they can move an entire 900 range with their weapon skills!

If they use Roll for Initiative they can move a bit further and have an additional 900 range but that requires using a stun breaker, positioning so that RFI doesn’t take you towards the enemy and also requires running with RFI slotted which not every burst thief does (Also at least one of their slots will be a signet for the 15% damage increase to make the combo do decent damage)