Guild Wars 2

Is there any other profession which garners as much negative thread discussion as the Thief?

No
Not
Really

And one more for fun

At the time of this posting, those 4 threads are all on the first 2 pages of the WvW section.

I don’t see Anet removing stealth, it’s a unique gameplay feature, but it’s pretty obvious based on what’s happened to our class that Anet is paying attention to all the anti-thief rants on the forums.

Thief players even go out of their way to help other classes learn to counter them.

My suggestion on a stealth nerf is the following:
1. Revert to 3s base revealed across the board
2. Adjust the revealed debuff so that every time you take damage while in stealth (condition ticks don’t count), it increases the duration of your revealed debuff by .5s with a hard cap somewhere in the 6-8s range.

As for a parallel buff, I’d start with signets leaving their current passive effects as is but changing their actives:
1. Assassin’s Signet: If you are revealed, your next 3 attacks do 30% more damage
2. Infiltrator’s Signet: Shadow step to your foe, if that foe is below 50% health regenerate 3 initiative (increase recharge to 40s)
3. Signet of Agility: If you are revealed, block the next 3 attacks (duration 2s). If 3 attacks are blocked in this way, lose 2 conditions. (increase recharge to 40s)

Note: “If you are revealed” means you have to be under the revealed debuff for the active effect to trigger, otherwise you just burn the CD.

no stealth is balanced.

No Thief is balanced

Pixels.6532:

1. Assassin’s Signet: If you are revealed, your next 3 attacks do 30% more damage

I wouldn’t have a problem with a stealth nerf, i can beat most people without it using a s/d spec anyway, but this is a stupid idea, would just make people spam hs more and make me die a little inside.

Just remove Stealth and give us Shadow Form for the same 3s duration.

Problem solve.

Most of the complaints are only because they can’t see the Thief, so let them see us but they cannot harm us while in Shadow Form. The only way to harm us is through condition damage or when the Shadow Form ends.

Of course, Shadow Form ends when we attack and dealt damage.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Just remove Stealth and give us Shadow Form for the same 3s duration.

Problem solve.

Most of the complaints are only because they can’t see the Thief, so let them see us but they cannot harm us while in Shadow Form. The only way to harm us is through condition damage or when the Shadow Form ends.

Of course, Shadow Form ends when we attack and dealt damage.

As a guy with with not so great hand/eye coordination i`d like this. Stealth helps only the most dexterous players. Not to mention is a pure defensive gimmick is u spend points in SA, and pretty much useless if u don`t. But that won`t happen since A-net`s attitude towards this profession is drag everything into the mud EXCEPT stealth, infuriating both thieves and non thieves alike. Don`t care much for scouting, i like the hard hitting agile yet squishy duelist archetype. I want my mug crit back, so i can punish people looking for a free meal out of thief…

Stealth is NOT equal to burst damage. Burst is really related to dagger mainhand. Those daggers are where thief hate come from.

These are the changes that should be made:
1. Make heartseeker similar to flanking strike. The first strike does damage, and the second steals boons. That means heartseeker can no longer be spammed in the way that it is today
2. Ensure the damage for the first strike of heartseeker is equal to the damage today. The second would be 50% of the first. The total initiative for both strikes should be equal to today. (In other words, you get MORE damage from each heartseeker, but it cannot be spammed)
3. Remove the leap finisher combo on heartseeker. The point of D/P should be about blinds more than stealth
4. Change skill 3 on d/p to blind for 1 second vs the current one attack.

No, its really not that complicated. The problem with stealth is Anet trying to make a unique gw2-take on stealth.

How has stealth worked in WOW, WAR, EQ, Rift, DAoC, ABC, ETC, YeahI’mMakingUpAcronyms?

Perma stealth with 1 vanish. The stealth lets you scout, pick your fight, and the vanish can be used offensively to double-open or to run away like a girl. But thats it, one reset or one re-open. The classes that had this were then balanced around being able to only bail on a fight once.

In GW2, we are a class that is played almost entirely by using CnD and Backstab (or whatever fotm opener) to deal damage. We are constantly using huge openers, and always able to reset. It is a broken, stupid design. We need to make stealthing in combat a rare thing so we can be balanced around being exposed and using mostly non-opener damage abilities, just like every other class in the game.

Raven.9603:

No, its really not that complicated. The problem with stealth is Anet trying to make a unique gw2-take on stealth.

How has stealth worked in WOW, WAR, EQ, Rift, DAoC, ABC, ETC, YeahI’mMakingUpAcronyms?

Perma stealth with 1 vanish. The stealth lets you scout, pick your fight, and the vanish can be used offensively to double-open or to run away like a girl. But thats it, one reset or one re-open. The classes that had this were then balanced around being able to only bail on a fight once.

In GW2, we are a class that is played almost entirely by using CnD and Backstab (or whatever fotm opener) to deal damage. We are constantly using huge openers, and always able to reset. It is a broken, stupid design. We need to make stealthing in combat a rare thing so we can be balanced around being exposed and using mostly non-opener damage abilities, just like every other class in the game.

You forget that all those other MMO’s let their stealth class borderline psuedotank with stats like evasion. They stealther can just stand there like a warrior when stealth is done because they’ll passively dodge every other attack, or they’ll have some mechanic to stun-lock or have already landed an insta-kill.
Also, seriously? What is the thief class in this game without its stealth. Basically watered down warriors with a couple extra evades and no staying power.

Thief is balanced. Sorry to break it to you.

Could use some bug fixes tho but balanced.

swinsk.6410:

Thief is balanced. Sorry to break it to you.

Could use some bug fixes tho but balanced.

Thief is balanced, but some weaponsets are way stronger than others. D/P is nub mode in sPvP.

style.6173:

Stealth is NOT equal to burst damage. Burst is really related to dagger mainhand. Those daggers are where thief hate come from.

These are the changes that should be made:
1. Make heartseeker similar to flanking strike. The first strike does damage, and the second steals boons. That means heartseeker can no longer be spammed in the way that it is today
2. Ensure the damage for the first strike of heartseeker is equal to the damage today. The second would be 50% of the first. The total initiative for both strikes should be equal to today. (In other words, you get MORE damage from each heartseeker, but it cannot be spammed)
3. Remove the leap finisher combo on heartseeker. The point of D/P should be about blinds more than stealth
4. Change skill 3 on d/p to blind for 1 second vs the current one attack.

ok interesting ideas but a few comments.

1) thieves no longer have burst. its gone. yup gone. they have combos now. CND+BS etc.
2) Heartseeker is meant to be vicious and can ONLY be spammed if u saved up enough initiative …if u havent then u cant….if u did than the enemy likely has a good amount of HP which = low dmg on HS.
3) cant take away leap finisher….im pretty sure its the thieves ONLY leap finisher….and yes that is ONLY 1 on a melee class :P

Dual.8953:

You forget that all those other MMO’s let their stealth class borderline psuedotank with stats like evasion. They stealther can just stand there like a warrior when stealth is done because they’ll passively dodge every other attack, or they’ll have some mechanic to stun-lock or have already landed an insta-kill.
Also, seriously? What is the thief class in this game without its stealth. Basically watered down warriors with a couple extra evades and no staying power.

you have arrived at the point and somehow missed it. yes, those other classes had evasion or stuns or ways of dealing with being exposed. that is the point, its why only having one re-stealth was still viable. here, we have unlimited restealths and no way to stand up to a fight when exposed. our out of stealth survivability needs a dramatic increase simultaneous with much longer exposure times. lets get past this idea that being able to stealth as often as we want in combat is okay, because it isnt. it ruins the gameplay for the rest of the community (wvw), makes us very hard to balance (anywhere). if we ever want to get our spots back in spvp, we’re going to need to be viable outside of stealth heavy combat.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Just remove Stealth and give us Shadow Form for the same 3s duration.

Problem solve.

Most of the complaints are only because they can’t see the Thief, so let them see us but they cannot harm us while in Shadow Form. The only way to harm us is through condition damage or when the Shadow Form ends.

Of course, Shadow Form ends when we attack and dealt damage.

lol, that would be awesome but actually be even stronger than stealth.
Also that additional revealed idea is awful and reveal should never be raised above 3 under any circumstance ever again. 4 was horrendous enough let alone having 5-8+
I also don’t feel like staring at a revealed timer constantly wondering when it’ll GTFO.

There’s nothing wrong with stealth and they nerfed sword 2 so no more ninja vanishes. People seem to get stealth and shadowstep confused when a Thief does an epic escape. We also don’t need more nerfs period till they fix everything broken with our weapon sets, traits and utility that don’t work.

REDUCE the BLACK POWDER DURATION to 2 seconds…
Less BP+HS Spam and we have the fix!!!!

So people say that not being able to see an assassin/thief is not right….. kitten outta here.
I’m pro stealth. yes I play thief but I also play all other professions so i’m not biased at all.

I don’t have too msny problems with Stealth but I have to admit BlackPowder+Hearthseeker combo grants a “Stealth Abuse”…
So, this is teh question:
Why I can’t use CnD to extend my stealth? (and it requires a target, BP don’t…)
or
Why I can extend my stealth with Black Powder (with no target required?)

Piola.3782:

I don’t have too msny problems with Stealth but I have to admit BlackPowder+Hearthseeker combo grants a “Stealth Abuse”…
So, this is teh question:
Why I can’t use CnD to extend my stealth? (and it requires a target, BP don’t…)
or
Why I can extend my stealth with Black Powder (with no target required?)

Do you mean why the game mechanics let you do that, or why Anet made it that way?

The common answer to the 2nd question is that ‘BP+HS takes more initiative’ but if you look at the numbers it doesn’t really take that much more (6 compared to 9), especially since the combo is really hard to fail and you will almost never have to use BP twice.

Personally I think it’s just not balanced well. D/P even has an interrupt, blind, and gap closer when you’d expect it to be on D/D (which has a harder-to-land stealth)

Edit: I still think Thieves are OP in WvW(but only there). Just yesterday I decided to pick up S/D (so you know I’m not very experienced with the set) and managed to kill 2 out of a group of 5 people. While they were probably been pretty bad, I can’t do this on any other lv 80 that I have. Abusing CnD on some unfortunate rams/boars helped a lot…

The problem is mostly from stealth being too good for running away in WvW. Just remove (or greatly reduce) stealth and relegate it to long cooldowns like Shadow Refuge, then give Thieves another form of defense. It will help in those zerg-fights anyway. If the primary defensive ability is stealth, Thieves will never be good at zerg-balling because it does absolutely nothing there, and they will always be too good at roaming, where being able to run away is invaluable.

I recently found out something very interesting on this page: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Necrotic_Traversal

The blast finisher portion of this skill actually activates twice, one immediately when the Wurm Dies, and one when the player arrives at the wurm’s location. Multiple applications of boons or conditions from these blast finishers don’t stack with each other, it just refreshes the duration.

Chaos armor also doesn’t stack and just refreshes every time the combo is pulled of (which is only fair, wouldn’t want to imagine a full zerg stacked with perma-chaos armor).

So my idea was to just change combo stealth to not stack but instead to refresh the stealth duration. This would change nothing about the thief class except for D/P perma-stealthing and smoke field + SB perma-stealthing, which are basically the only points people are complaining about.

So you actually think they will stop their QQ if Anet implements what you suggested? If so, you are delusional. They will just pick something else and QQ about it. This is in their nature. Nerf what they can’t beat.

You can’t nerf actual skills within the weaponset because if you do so, this will not just affect D/P, but S/P and P/P as well. So the true culprit of this is the stealthing system itself, and the traitline.

Some players have argued that, “Because we trait in shadow line, this decreases our dps/burst damage.” This is totally not the case at all. Sure, you’ll lose 1.5k-2.5k dmg, but the fact that you get all the rewards there is to stealthing, it is totally worth it and lets you do even more dmg with the awesome survibility.

So without further a do, these are my suggestions:
1. Keep reveal debuff as is.
2. taking 15% incoming damage reveals you. [no debuff] Why not award players for out-thinking you? or for them being lucky and getting a hit in, or for you making bad decisions?
3. Since last refuge is such a hindrance, take it out and replace it with fleet shadow. [awesome buff imo]
4. Give Infusion of Shadow a 5 seconds cooldown.

3. Since last refuge is such a hindrance, take it out and replace it with fleet shadow.

Hmm, i don’t think this is such a great idea. Thief needs some incentives to invest in other traitlines besides Shadow Arts.

Iavra.8510:

3. Since last refuge is such a hindrance, take it out and replace it with fleet shadow.

Hmm, i don’t think this is such a great idea. Thief needs some incentives to invest in other traitlines besides Shadow Arts.

I think so, and here’s why: fleet shadow belongs in the shadow traits to stay relevant with the whole stealth concept. Anet promised more mobility, why not start off with this? It’s the whole package, taking out Last Refuge which harmed most thieves instead of helping.

This idea would work perfect w/ “Incoming dmg reveals”. It gives you that mobility under stealth on default to ACTUALLY be good instead of ez mode.

I don’t know about these suggestions – Anet has shown (and rightly so) amazing reluctance to impact the established style of play. The solution would have to only impact the abuses of stealth, which is limited to long-term duration by either C&D or BP+HS.

My money is that they’ll implement something that doesn’t allow more than 50% in stealth over a long (1m+) duration.

And I would be all for it.

I always have the feeling people that create these kind of topics have no concept of how to play thief or how it is played at all, the only problem we are facing is the ease you can stealth with while stealthing should require you to be actively in combat. (avoid resetting fights & coming back)

Thief is not superior as in; pretty hard to manage iniative at times, one screw up means you’re done with, hs spam spam doesn’t work and I only smile at people doing this..

Thief has a million counters, conditions (not every thief has condition removal, depending on build), daze, stun, knockdown.. don’t forget the anti stealth traps that blow your cover for 30s aka instantly kill you, a counter NO other class except for mesmer has to endure (not that mesmer has much use of stealth).

Lets talk about d/p: Ultimate counter for d/p is draining their iniative, you can do this by running into black powder field, because 9 out of 10, he’s stacking stealth in it.. if you have an interrupt or daze, fire it at the same time he leaps throught the field, gg.. your d/p is now dead.

So many counters but people need to be spoonfed.. I myself fought gs rangers, certain mesmer builds, guardians, d/d eles.. all which not could be killed, but why is thief “op”? Because it can stealth and people do not play thief and are not aware of stealth works, they think of it as the most evil thing there is when infact a thief instantly dies without stealth, so if you break stealth.. you break the entire class.

Kincaidia.3192:

I don’t know about these suggestions – Anet has shown (and rightly so) amazing reluctance to impact the established style of play. The solution would have to only impact the abuses of stealth, which is limited to long-term duration by either C&D or BP+HS.

My money is that they’ll implement something that doesn’t allow more than 50% in stealth over a long (1m+) duration.

And I would be all for it.

That’s an interesting concept, but I think the only way to do that is a hard cap on stealth or an adjusted debuff.

You would either have a stealth limit of 3s (pve/wvw) or 4s (spvp) to match the reveal and guarantee the 50% split on being in and out of stealth, or the other way to do it is to match the debuff with amount of time you’re in stealth.

As for people claiming that thief is balanced, the point isn’t whether I agree with you or not. The point is that no other class generates so much hatred, and its stealth abuse that is at the heart of the tears…

Top thread on the thief forum right now

I may be wrong on this, but I don’t think Anet is done tinkering with stealth because—despite all the nerfs (linked in my original post)—people are still complaining about it… a lot, and I think the stealth trap was an attempt to quiet all the whining in WvW, but I don’t see it working. I haven’t bumped into one stealth trap yet in WvW while running havoc or solo.

So I expect another nerf. We can either try and influence that nerf or just rage about it. Try making this assumption, Anet comes to you and says, “We are going to nerf stealth and you’re going to tell us how to do it.”

What would you do?

I don’t mind if they replace stealth with a new mechanic where the thief becomes extremely evasive. Something like embracing the shadows where every hit on the thief will miss for a certain time, and “backstabs” will do damage x1.5 no matter whether it was frontal or back. Do you think this is too OP? Then stop nagging about stealth.

What I don’t want is another warrior.

swinsk.6410:

Thief is balanced. Sorry to break it to you.

Could use some bug fixes tho but balanced.

Thief is balanced (actually on the weaker side imo), but that doesn’t mean people enjoy fighting them, which is a major problem in a video game. Why else would there be so much complaining about them?

Ya I hate fighting thieves and I’m a thief.

I stopped caring for stealth ages ago.

Step #1: Introduce a skill you channel for 10 seconds and if you do so without being hit or interrupted in any fashion, you stealth. It’s permanent until you reveal/attack.

Step #2: Remove the initiative regen from all skills and traits.

Step #3: Remove the stealth from combo field finishers.

That’s all it takes.

The only reason stealth is overpowered is because there’s so much initiative regen you can use CnD every 4 seconds. The only reason D/P is so powerful is because initiative regen is so high that you don’t lose that much damage from using the defense oriented pistol offhand. The main detractor from Thieves in WvW zerg fights is that you can always see them coming.

You can then worry about improving thief survivability since they’ll clearly be suffering with the now limited health regen, lack of condition removal, greater visibility uptime and the lack of stability/protection.

Atherakhia.4086:

Step #1: Introduce a skill you channel for 10 seconds and if you do so without being hit or interrupted in any fashion, you stealth. It’s permanent until you reveal/attack.

Step #2: Remove the initiative regen from all skills and traits.

Step #3: Remove the stealth from combo field finishers.

That’s all it takes.

The only reason stealth is overpowered is because there’s so much initiative regen you can use CnD every 4 seconds. The only reason D/P is so powerful is because initiative regen is so high that you don’t lose that much damage from using the defense oriented pistol offhand. The main detractor from Thieves in WvW zerg fights is that you can always see them coming.

You can then worry about improving thief survivability since they’ll clearly be suffering with the now limited health regen, lack of condition removal, greater visibility uptime and the lack of stability/protection.

These are some of the worst suggestions I have ever seen.

Stealth is not OP, especially in PvP. In both PvP and WvW, all you really have to do to counter stealth is swing your sword around and spam AoE. Usually results in a “frontstab” (that’s how I dub it), which sucks and means that you’re winning.

That’s all that it takes.

Arganthium.5638:

These are some of the worst suggestions I have ever seen.

Stealth is not OP, especially in PvP. In both PvP and WvW, all you really have to do to counter stealth is swing your sword around and spam AoE. Usually results in a “frontstab” (that’s how I dub it), which sucks and means that you’re winning.

That’s all that it takes.

I…what? Any Thief knows that the easiest people to counter are those who do just that. If you swing your sword around I just run through you, and spamming AoE is kind of a waste unless I’m immobilized (I can dodge out of it, then you will just be wasting those AoEs on nothing).

Standing in Black Powder is an even worse idea – if the Thief is running away you are rooting yourself (and you can still use HS twice anyway – use it once, run back inside, then use it again), and if the Thief is trying to kill you it’s even worse because you are standing right there for him to backstab.

Those aren’t actual ways to counter stealth! Maybe if the Thief is completely terrible they might work, but against better players they lose most of their effectiveness.

Atherakhia.4086:

The only reason D/P is so powerful is because initiative regen is so high that you don’t lose that much damage from using the defense oriented pistol offhand. The main detractor from Thieves in WvW zerg fights is that you can always see them coming.

While I agree with the overall sentiment of your post (maybe not the degree), these aren’t exactly true.

D/P uses a large amount of initiative to sustain the combo. It’s not so restrictive that you can’t use any other skills, but it’s still quite a lot.

Why D/P is so strong is that it gives impossible to fail, on-demand access to stealth, and Backstab gives massive damage (especially if you build for it, in WvW) without having any initiative cost. Most other builds have to have some kind of trade-off. To do more damage, you use initiative. To survive more, you also use initiative. D/P does both at the same time.

Edit: D/D obviously does the same thing, but CnD is much harder to land, is risky if you fail, and doesn’t have Blind/Interrupt/Gap Closer (you made good points about these too). Also D/P #3 lets you land Backstab so it’s even more easy!

The main detractor from Thieves in WvW isn’t really that you can see them coming. In the cluster of random red/green nameplates and lag, nobody can tell if you’re a Thief or not. In fact, it’s even better than a 1v1 situation – the lag makes it almost impossible to react to anything that I do.

What is actually bad about Thieves in larger fights is that stealth doesn’t stop any damage. Picking off squishy targets at the side/rear of a zerg is actually very easy to do, however if you adopt the common zerg-ball-of-death tactic then stealth does nothing.

Make no mistake – Thieves are still very, very good at large fights, just not in the ‘I make giant red circles of damage everywhere’ way.

[quote=2126198;Piola.3782:]

Sunflowers.1729:

Arganthium.5638:

These are some of the worst suggestions I have ever seen.

Stealth is not OP, especially in PvP. In both PvP and WvW, all you really have to do to counter stealth is swing your sword around and spam AoE. Usually results in a “frontstab” (that’s how I dub it), which sucks and means that you’re winning.

That’s all that it takes.

I…what? Any Thief knows that the easiest people to counter are those who do just that. If you swing your sword around I just run through you, and spamming AoE is kind of a waste unless I’m immobilized (I can dodge out of it, then you will just be wasting those AoEs on nothing).

Standing in Black Powder is an even worse idea – if the Thief is running away you are rooting yourself (and you can still use HS twice anyway – use it once, run back inside, then use it again), and if the Thief is trying to kill you it’s even worse because you are standing right there for him to backstab.

Those aren’t actual ways to counter stealth! Maybe if the Thief is completely terrible they might work, but against better players they lose most of their effectiveness.

Atherakhia.4086:

The only reason D/P is so powerful is because initiative regen is so high that you don’t lose that much damage from using the defense oriented pistol offhand. The main detractor from Thieves in WvW zerg fights is that you can always see them coming.

While I agree with the overall sentiment of your post (maybe not the degree), these aren’t exactly true.

D/P uses a large amount of initiative to sustain the combo. It’s not so restrictive that you can’t use any other skills, but it’s still quite a lot.

Why D/P is so strong is that it gives impossible to fail, on-demand access to stealth, and Backstab gives massive damage (especially if you build for it, in WvW) without having any initiative cost. Most other builds have to have some kind of trade-off. To do more damage, you use initiative. To survive more, you also use initiative. D/P does both at the same time.

Edit: D/D obviously does the same thing, but CnD is much harder to land, is risky if you fail, and doesn’t have Blind/Interrupt/Gap Closer (you made good points about these too). Also D/P #3 lets you land Backstab so it’s even more easy!

The main detractor from Thieves in WvW isn’t really that you can see them coming. In the cluster of random red/green nameplates and lag, nobody can tell if you’re a Thief or not. In fact, it’s even better than a 1v1 situation – the lag makes it almost impossible to react to anything that I do.

What is actually bad about Thieves in larger fights is that stealth doesn’t stop any damage. Picking off squishy targets at the side/rear of a zerg is actually very easy to do, however if you adopt the common zerg-ball-of-death tactic then stealth does nothing.

Make no mistake – Thieves are still very, very good at large fights, just not in the ‘I make giant red circles of damage everywhere’ way.

impossible to fail invis? wow thats one heck of a statement. i make people fail invis all the time. i just stand near the black powder shot….after 2 secs they either hit me with HS and reveal or i dodge and they reveal anyway for not being able to stack it. thats not even mentioning push/pull/KB/KD/traps/lines/fears/daze/stuns ….. do u just have a personally hard time dealing with it? i mean if u give them room of course its easy access but not fool proof. i mean i guess they are all bad thieves i fight….it might seem to nto work if u try it…but thats either bc ur not doing it right or they are using HIS or Blind powder or etc to stack it. they get 2.5 secs of invis or 2 secs of invis after jumping thru first….then u stand next and they cant stack bc HS hits anyone NEAR it…not on or very close ….HS is very forgiving as far as distance and direction goes…u can miss and overshoot and it will still hit and reveal.

Travlane.5948:

impossible to fail invis? wow thats one heck of a statement. i make people fail invis all the time. i just stand near the black powder shot….after 2 secs they either hit me with HS and reveal or i dodge and they reveal anyway for not being able to stack it. thats not even mentioning push/pull/KB/KD/traps/lines/fears/daze/stuns ….. do u just have a personally hard time dealing with it? i mean if u give them room of course its easy access but not fool proof. i mean i guess they are all bad thieves i fight….it might seem to nto work if u try it…but thats either bc ur not doing it right or they are using HIS or Blind powder or etc to stack it. they get 2.5 secs of invis or 2 secs of invis after jumping thru first….then u stand next and they cant stack bc HS hits anyone NEAR it…not on or very close ….HS is very forgiving as far as distance and direction goes…u can miss and overshoot and it will still hit and reveal.

It’s not ‘one heck of a statement’. I played the D/P build for a long time in WvW, and it really is hard to stop.

If you think that “stand in the BP and the Thief will get revealed” is a valid counter, you are simply a failure of a Thief. If you do that I will backstab you, or wait until stealth runs out, then use the combo again.

Alternatively, I use the combo, walk back into the BP (hard concept, I know) then use HS again. If need be I untarget the enemy (again, this is really difficult to do) then HS off in a different direction. It’s so difficult to do that I learned how to do it on the first day of playing D/P. The most that your ‘stand in BP’ strategy will do is make me get off not 3 but 2 chained heartseekers.

As for pushes/pulls? You have about 0.5 seconds to pull it off, it has to hit me instantly (so no ranged projectiles or any ability with a delay) to stop the stealth.

Even if you knock me out of it, I can HS back into the BP if the field is still there.

I’m not having a hard time with it at all, in fact I find it really easy to do. If you have a problem with pulling it off you just need to L2P (cliched term, but I feel it is very apt here)

Edit: If D/P is so easy to stop then why would anyone use it over D/D? Just for Head Shot+ Blind field? I doubt it.

hard maybe ill agree. but i can stop them from geting a 2nd round of invis from BPS abuot 60% of the time ….and i say that conservatively. the reason nobody uses DD over DP ….and same reason i dont….is bc DP has blind…blind is just boss when stomping or dealing with guards….warriors….rangers….thieves….. and a few other classes but build specific. the blind that pulses is actually almost as strong as invis if not stronger atleast in a 1 v 1 with a melee type. if i have to fight a melee type and had a choice of invis or blind id choose blind pulses everytime. i can beat any of them with just BPS. its really strong.

I…what? Any Thief knows that the easiest people to counter are those who do just that. If you swing your sword around I just run through you, and spamming AoE is kind of a waste unless I’m immobilized (I can dodge out of it, then you will just be wasting those AoEs on nothing).

Uh…ok, have you ever tried to land a backstab on someone who was turning spamming autoattack?

You are liable to eat damage in stealth, which is supposed to help you avoid damage, and you have 3-4 seconds to pull off the backstab. Your opponent is turning every which way spamming a cleaving autoattack, which is kinda aoe’ish so it’s kinda difficult to land a clean backstab. So if you attack randomly, you could get frontstabbed. I do this all the time against thieves and they get frontstabs quite often, which means like he said you’re winning. Oh and he’s likely to eat some autoattack damage or waste dodge rolls while trying to pull off the backstab.

Standing in Black Powder is an even worse idea

I do agree that standing in black powder is a bad idea. You need a ranged interrupt.

Those aren’t actual ways to counter stealth! Maybe if the Thief is completely terrible they might work, but against better players they lose most of their effectiveness.

There are…several ways. The more effective ones are more specific. Stealth trap obviously counters stealth really hard. There are also class specific counters, such as rapid fire (longbow rangers are awful vs thieves, admittedly) and volley which follows thieves into stealth (rifle warriors vs thieves also isn’t very…great). A mesmer that summons phantasms for instance and isn’t bad enough to get one shotted would have all his phantasms automatically jump and if lucky instakill the thief at once when he exited stealth, and illusionary duelist would channel his attacks into the enemy thief’s stealth just like volley and rapid fire. Oh I should also mention P/P thief unload does the same thing. Binding blade follows a thief into stealth even if you channel after he stealths. Shield of absorption and updraft can knock a thief out of shadow refuge and give him the much hated revealed debuff. I’m sure there are more, but those are just some I know off the top of my head.

Make no mistake – Thieves are still very, very good at large fights, just not in the ‘I make giant red circles of damage everywhere’ way.

They’re almost pigeonholed into using shortbow and daggerstorm however, for on par effectiveness with other classes. And even then all they do is skirt around the zergs doing aoe, which a staff elementalist can do more damage with (meteor shower melts zergs) and support at the same time.

Honestly the thieves’ greatest asset to zergs i feel is cluster bomb.