Guild Wars 2

I just watched a group of like 12 people try to catch a thief in WvW. The Thief was able to stealth every other second, pop in and do a few attacks, then stealth again. The thief was stealth Finish Moving people. I don’t know if this is due to the rendering issues or some sort of bug with stealth, but really there is no counter.

Don’t get me wrong, I think its fine that skill trumps stats/gear in the game. But there is NOTHING anyone could do to catch the thief. He would literally drop in, drop attacks for a second, then stealth.. Over and over and over.

Are you in FA server? Because I just finished doing this LOL, btw, there’s a Revealed buff that doesn’t let the Thief go back into stealth. Now this only occurs if they open up with an attack, if they just let the stealth run out, they won’t get the debuff.

It’s the culling issue that is making us seem like when unload attacks, down you, then stealth again. But the culling issue is nothing we players can fix, it’s Anets problem.

How organized were you? Thieves thrive on the confusion of their opponents, they’re at their best when their opponent is too beguiled to mount a proper counter. He maybe be hard to track but if you pull together and watch each other’s backs his threat drops significantly. As for weaknesses, theives are weak to CCs and are usually susceptible conditions, and they’re fragile if you manage to nail them down.

Working as intended, according to Anet.

Dual.8953:

How organized were you? Thieves thrive on the confusion of their opponents, they’re at their best when their opponent is too beguiled to mount a proper counter. He maybe be hard to track but if you pull together and watch each other’s backs his threat drops significantly. As for weaknesses, theives are weak to CCs and are usually susceptible conditions, and they’re fragile if you manage to nail them down.

I completely agree with the advice you provide in this comment, and I have qouted you to reinforce it’s legitimacy.

OP, I can assure you if it was in WvW (as most of these threads are) the biggest issue you were dealing with is a server-side behavior known as “Culling”. It inhibits how quickly models will render when exiting Stealth (or Mesmer portals). Unfortunately, this is a design flaw in what Anet originally intended would minimize the lag players “feel” in WvW areas (or any area where your client is registering in the proximity of, let’s say, 30 player/NPC ‘Avatars’).

Revealed (the “I just backstabbed you and I can’t restealth because you clearly know where I am now” buff) has a fixed 3s duration.
Stealth has base duration of 3s (4s with 15 into Shadow Arts).

To be perfectly honest though, it sounds like you and this group of friendlies happened upon a rare Direct Damage Unicorn. Or, in the leyman, the Culling Troll build, which admittedly, is broken in effect until Culling is fixed/changed/removed.

Good news though, Anet has already stated multiple times that they are working on Fixing culling, as it is definitely the biggest detractor from balance in WvW.

It’s not just the Thief that benefits from using Culling to their advantage, they can just use it’s effects ad absurdum due to the ease at which we can restealth.
(And before you think about it, No, making it harder to enter Stealth will not fix the Thief. We are a broken class, just not in the ways that the mass populace of this game believes we are.)

If you’re in Blackgate, and it was a Sanctum of Rall with a purple pistol, that’d be me. I did finish 1-2 people while everyone was busy with the zerging at QL, but I didn’t actually down anyone who wasn’t afk or else the revealed buff would destroy me >>

But yeah, I’ve also had this happen a few times. It’s an annoyance at best. Really funny on the thief’s end, though.

I don’t really struggle against other thieves, and thieves are best harasses due to the amount of players in that area, more targets to pull of CnD. If you want to beat him, you need to party up, and watch your surroundings, people complain about theifs, but I am a thief with low defence and I still down backstab or condition thieves..

blablabla tl:dr party up and watch for the squiggly black smoke when a thief reappears that is the only thing that renders on time.

Negated.4105:

I don’t really struggle against other thieves, and thieves are best harasses due to the amount of players in that area, more targets to pull of CnD. If you want to beat him, you need to party up, and watch your surroundings, people complain about theifs, but I am a thief with low defence and I still down backstab or condition thieves..

blablabla tl:dr party up and watch for the squiggly black smoke when a thief reappears that is the only thing that renders on time.

So the answer to beating a thief is partying up? How many people should it take to be able to beat 1? Isn’t that the definition of over powered?

ShaunZ.1098:

Negated.4105:

I don’t really struggle against other thieves, and thieves are best harasses due to the amount of players in that area, more targets to pull of CnD. If you want to beat him, you need to party up, and watch your surroundings, people complain about theifs, but I am a thief with low defence and I still down backstab or condition thieves..

blablabla tl:dr party up and watch for the squiggly black smoke when a thief reappears that is the only thing that renders on time.

So the answer to beating a thief is partying up? How many people should it take to be able to beat 1? Isn’t that the definition of over powered?

I think what he means is you need a party to catch him and coordinate. Obviously the thief(unless he is VERY skilled) is not going to kill all of you, and in a 1v1, it’s pretty fair. Thieves are squirmy little dudes. Catching him is the hard part.

ShaunZ.1098:

Negated.4105:

I don’t really struggle against other thieves, and thieves are best harasses due to the amount of players in that area, more targets to pull of CnD. If you want to beat him, you need to party up, and watch your surroundings, people complain about theifs, but I am a thief with low defence and I still down backstab or condition thieves..

blablabla tl:dr party up and watch for the squiggly black smoke when a thief reappears that is the only thing that renders on time.

So the answer to beating a thief is partying up? How many people should it take to be able to beat 1? Isn’t that the definition of over powered?

Beating someone =/= kill. I can troll 5-6 people 10 for just a few moments if I don’t have everything on cooldown. There is no way 1 thief kills 10 people they might down 1 maybe 2 but an actual stake is so hard to pull off with just 3-4 ppl around as soon as the person goes down you rez there is no way the stake lands unless ppl are really slow.

Rendering is not the Thief players problem so you cannot blame them for or it and it would not be fair to nerf them to compensate because in smaller battles the rendering is less. If Anet and everyother dev with games that have masses of ppl (PS2), ever figure out how to make their game run properly then it will be fixed.

In WvW if you are alone and run into a Thief just dodge when they try and burst you and keep running. If you try and fight a Thief they will almost always run away when they start losing and there is nothing you can do about it. Thieves are just GW2 gankers if they fail at ganking they will run away and try again.

Once again if Anet can manage to develop their professions so a single build/playstyle isn’t so dominant over the others maybe less bad players will make GC-Gank-Thieves so they can feel like they are good players.

Stealth isn’t broken its just nothing new. Its the same crutch, help ppl get easy kills and easy escapes that it is in every other game that has stealth.

ShaunZ.1098:

So the answer to beating a thief is partying up? How many people should it take to be able to beat 1? Isn’t that the definition of over powered?

So all bunker builds (mainly Guardians, Elementalists and Necros) are suddenly Over Powered?

It takes one half decent player to beat any kind of Thief.

But 20 complete idiots have pretty much no chance against a very good Thief, since a Thief lives of idiots, actually helping him with opportunities to restealth etc., which makes him the perfect pub stomper.

TL:DR

If you are a good player: Thieves are a mediocre profession, and easy to kill in any situation.
If you are a bad player: Thieves will kill you. Why? Because you are bad, and actually helping them to kill you.
Don’t make stupid forum threads, make a Thief and learn to play.

Dude its sooo easy to beat up a thief… Just cripple, imobilize, chill, put conditions on him, whatever, they dont have that much defense anyway

All it takes is one good player in a crowd and your fun game of hide and seek ends rather quickly Thankfully, there is a shortage of good players.

ShaunZ.1098:

So the answer to beating a thief is partying up? How many people should it take to be able to beat 1? Isn’t that the definition of over powered?

One. If twelve couldn’t catch him, they were not cooperating.

several ways to stop this. Numbers make it that much easier. Random CCs /aoes on top of anyone who manages to get downed while you rez them will make it so that the thief can never ever finish anyone. just because you cant see him, doesnt mean hes not there.
Other people were right, thieves are very squishy (unless they build to be tanky in which they will not down anyone so it doesn’t matter), catching them is the hard part. if that thief couldnt stealth as much as he did, then he would have died easily to any 1 of your group in a matter of a few seconds. I had a ranger kill me 100% to dead with a single channeled rapid fire shot (I dont remember the name of it) while in stealth.
Also take note of the shadowstep circles, often a thief will make you think he stealthed, when really he just shadow stepped away/back.

Yup there is a problem with this not on the thief part but on Anet, the time that i takes for him to render is alot, he is able to Bs u and do a simple chain but by the time u see him, his revealed has already worn of and hes able to stealth again , so basicaly what you see is
he goes stealth the u get nuked by something , by the time u see him again he is able to go back into stealth and repeat
so all this time ur loosing target and only able to target him for like 2 secs and then bam hes out again
happens in spvp and in wvw is even worse a simple fix would be to increase the revel to a bit more to give time to show up

CriSPeH.8512:

Thieves have no right to call anyone noobs.
Thieves are playing to most noob friendly crutch class, the same as every stealth class.

The fact that thieves have nothing to say but, “L2P, its so easy, all you gotta do is this,” just proves that they are mostly played by pretentious, teenage children.

If you play a thief you are a noob, not to be mean but when I see you in WvW I will use my Engineer to smack you in the face, CC you in place, then AoE your chicken kitten till you die or more likely run away crying mashing your refuge button. Then you can cut that bit out of the video you will post of all your upleveled afk ganks with some shetty heavy metal song blarring in the background.

Thief is actually a very skill heavy class, with passive offensive skills, and very active defensive skills.

CriSPeH.8512:

Thieves have no right to call anyone noobs.
Thieves are playing to most noob friendly crutch class, the same as every stealth class.

The fact that thieves have nothing to say but, “L2P, its so easy, all you gotta do is this,” just proves that they are mostly played by pretentious, teenage children.

If you play a thief you are a noob, not to be mean but when I see you in WvW I will use my Engineer to smack you in the face, CC you in place, then AoE your chicken kitten till you die or more likely run away crying mashing your refuge button. Then you can cut that bit out of the video you will post of all your upleveled afk ganks with some shetty heavy metal song blarring in the background.

I about died from laughing.

Auesis.7301:

They don’t have the defences or the mitigations to survive any error, barring their few and far-between stunbreakers and abilities to land stealth and cleanse conditions

Any other defenses or mitigation they don’t have?

The bottom line is, and always will be, that stealth in its current form is broken.
Because there is no hard counter, thieves can do as they wish relentlessly. Until there is a class (hopefully rangers as they need something special) that can see stealth, thieves will remain unchecked.

Auesis.7301:

They don’t have the defences or the mitigations to survive any error, barring their few and far-between stunbreakers and abilities to land stealth and cleanse conditions (if they are specced in to stealth at all).

That shows what you know I guess, Thief can be built to break stuns and remove conditions all day long (certainly more than any of the other four classes I play), no stealth required.

Infiltrator’s Strike breaks stun and removes a condition, no C/D at all. And that’s just one skill, add Shadowstep, Withdraw, Roll for Intitiative, Signet of Agility, Infiltrator’s Signet etc – you can fill your hotbar with stun breakers and condition removal – and all those skills add other utility on the side – evasion, improved precision, initiative regen, teleports etc. Get the drift?

Docherty.8372:

Auesis.7301:

They don’t have the defences or the mitigations to survive any error, barring their few and far-between stunbreakers and abilities to land stealth and cleanse conditions (if they are specced in to stealth at all).

That shows what you know I guess, Thief can be built to break stuns and remove conditions all day long (certainly more than any of the other four classes I play), no stealth required.

Infiltrator’s Strike breaks stun and removes a condition, no C/D at all. And that’s just one skill, add Shadowstep, Withdraw, Roll for Intitiative, Signet of Agility, Infiltrator’s Signet etc – you can fill your hotbar with stun breakers and condition removal – and all those skills add other utility on the side – evasion, improved precision, initiative regen, teleports etc. Get the drift?

He would be pretty terrible, thieves actually need initiative to hurt you…
Also he pretty much needs signet of shadows…
Shadowstep is usually saved for running away, not breaking a stun…
Roll for Initiative is ok, but stupid long CD, and you miss getting AOE stealth field.
Withdraw means i’m gone a stealth heal…

Docherty.8372:

Auesis.7301:

They don’t have the defences or the mitigations to survive any error, barring their few and far-between stunbreakers and abilities to land stealth and cleanse conditions (if they are specced in to stealth at all).

That shows what you know I guess, Thief can be built to break stuns and remove conditions all day long (certainly more than any of the other four classes I play), no stealth required.

Infiltrator’s Strike breaks stun and removes a condition, no C/D at all. And that’s just one skill, add Shadowstep, Withdraw, Roll for Intitiative, Signet of Agility, Infiltrator’s Signet etc – you can fill your hotbar with stun breakers and condition removal – and all those skills add other utility on the side – evasion, improved precision, initiative regen, teleports etc. Get the drift?

This is more or less true. I mean he is naming a lot of stuff that clearly can’t be put on the bar at same time and things of that nature, but you can’t say that thieves are ONLY slippery because of stealth. Stealth is just easier, and its broken, hence why you see it more than evasive thieves been played as intended.

Nate Rush.6970:

Docherty.8372:

Auesis.7301:

They don’t have the defences or the mitigations to survive any error, barring their few and far-between stunbreakers and abilities to land stealth and cleanse conditions (if they are specced in to stealth at all).

That shows what you know I guess, Thief can be built to break stuns and remove conditions all day long (certainly more than any of the other four classes I play), no stealth required.

Infiltrator’s Strike breaks stun and removes a condition, no C/D at all. And that’s just one skill, add Shadowstep, Withdraw, Roll for Intitiative, Signet of Agility, Infiltrator’s Signet etc – you can fill your hotbar with stun breakers and condition removal – and all those skills add other utility on the side – evasion, improved precision, initiative regen, teleports etc. Get the drift?

This is more or less true. I mean he is naming a lot of stuff that clearly can’t be put on the bar at same time and things of that nature, but you can’t say that thieves are ONLY slippery because of stealth. Stealth is just easier, and its broken, hence why you see it more than evasive thieves been played as intended.

I actually think evasive thieves are more broken then stealth ones, depending on your opponent that is, I just wish I had a way to switch gear sets/traits out of combat, I would love a second gear and trait tab.

Nate Rush.6970:

Auesis.7301:

They don’t have the defences or the mitigations to survive any error, barring their few and far-between stunbreakers and abilities to land stealth and cleanse conditions

Any other defenses or mitigation they don’t have?

Perhaps I should have expanded – you spec in to stealth and get access to cleanses, you gimp your damage fairly harshly. The fight takes longer, and anyone not in glass cannon gear and with even slightly decent play will wipe the floor with you, because you simply do not have the armor to keep taking hits, or the health to keep taking condition damage, even when you’ve used the few chances you can get to remove a few conditions (using both C+D and stealth utilities, you get the chance to remove a good few and get some health back, but then all the while giving your opponent time to recover and for their cooldowns to tick down. Rather than get an advantage, you’ve just bought time (provided that your opponent didn’t blow everything he had on you at once like a 25 bleed condition Thief or something stupid along those lines)). There is nowhere near enough capacity to survive in comparison to other classes, because Thieves simply aren’t built that way.

You want access to stunbreakers? Then you’re lost your stealth utilities or you’ve picked up a sword and lost access to any burst damage and are forced to deal slow, sustained damage that is ten times more manageable. You use D/D and stunbreaker utilities? You better hope your enemies don’t have the single brain cell required to dodge C+D or you’re most likely buggered. Perhaps you can put Powder on for a second opportunity to strike. Perhaps you put a Refuge down. Chances are that with both of those utilities, you’ve been put on the defensive regardless.

Options for a Thief to survive for extensive periods either sacrifice damage to an extent that is not felt by other professions or aren’t adequate at all. Nice of you to cut out the “if they spec in to stealth at all” part in an attempt to twist the statement.

Auesis.7301:

Nate Rush.6970:

Auesis.7301:

They don’t have the defences or the mitigations to survive any error, barring their few and far-between stunbreakers and abilities to land stealth and cleanse conditions

Any other defenses or mitigation they don’t have?

Perhaps I should have expanded – you spec in to stealth and get access to cleanses, you gimp your damage fairly harshly. The fight takes longer, and anyone not in glass cannon gear and with even slightly decent play will wipe the floor with you, because you simply do not have the armor to keep taking hits, or the health to keep taking condition damage (using both C+D and stealth utilities, you get the chance to remove a good few conditions and get some health back, all the while giving your opponent time to recover and for their cooldowns to tick down). There is nowhere near enough capacity to survive in comparison to other classes, because Thieves simply aren’t built that way.

You want access to stunbreakers? Then you’re lost your stealth utilities or you’ve picked up a sword and lost access to any burst damage and are forced to deal slow, sustained damage that is ten times more manageable. You use D/D and stunbreaker utilities? You better hope your enemies don’t have the single brain cell required to dodge C+D or you’re most likely buggered.

Options for a Thief to survive for extensive periods either sacrifice damage to an extent that is not felt by other professions or aren’t adequate at all. Nice of you to cut out the “if they spec in to stealth” part in an attempt to twist the statement.

Typically if a class has only one fallback, they are not happy with the class, yet thieves claiming stealth is their only option aren’t complaining about it at all. Wonder why this is?

Nate Rush.6970:

Auesis.7301:

Nate Rush.6970:

Auesis.7301:

They don’t have the defences or the mitigations to survive any error, barring their few and far-between stunbreakers and abilities to land stealth and cleanse conditions

Any other defenses or mitigation they don’t have?

Perhaps I should have expanded – you spec in to stealth and get access to cleanses, you gimp your damage fairly harshly. The fight takes longer, and anyone not in glass cannon gear and with even slightly decent play will wipe the floor with you, because you simply do not have the armor to keep taking hits, or the health to keep taking condition damage (using both C+D and stealth utilities, you get the chance to remove a good few conditions and get some health back, all the while giving your opponent time to recover and for their cooldowns to tick down). There is nowhere near enough capacity to survive in comparison to other classes, because Thieves simply aren’t built that way.

You want access to stunbreakers? Then you’re lost your stealth utilities or you’ve picked up a sword and lost access to any burst damage and are forced to deal slow, sustained damage that is ten times more manageable. You use D/D and stunbreaker utilities? You better hope your enemies don’t have the single brain cell required to dodge C+D or you’re most likely buggered.

Options for a Thief to survive for extensive periods either sacrifice damage to an extent that is not felt by other professions or aren’t adequate at all. Nice of you to cut out the “if they spec in to stealth” part in an attempt to twist the statement.

Typically if a class has only one fallback, they are not happy with the class, yet thieves claiming stealth is their only option aren’t complaining about it at all. Wonder why this is?

What? I’ve been trying to explain that stealth and stunbreakers don’t feel adequate, and that Thieves could benefit from having other defensive options, as they are so one-dimensional.

So, you would like to be able to tank more, evade more, clear more condition, more teleports, do more damage, all while invisible? Is this about summed up?

Auesis.7301:

What? I’ve been trying to explain that stealth and stunbreakers don’t feel adequate, and that Thieves could benefit from having other defensive options, as they are so one-dimensional.

I think you are absolutly right.
The worst thing about Thieves in GW2 is everyone plays them like Rogues.
Because it is apparantly too difficult to play them any other way.

I’d vote for less Stealth more Shadowstepping.

CriSPeH.8512:

I’d vote for less Stealth more Shadowstepping.

Since most of thief power actually comes from incredible mobility and not actually stealth, I think this change would go over very well for about a day until people realized they were entirely wrong about where thief survivability and lethality comes from.

Nate Rush.6970:

So, you would like to be able to tank more, evade more, clear more condition, more teleports, do more damage, all while invisible? Is this about summed up?

Whoa now, slow down and put that tin foil hat away. If you read without crying “havoc”, you’d see that I said “OTHER”, not “MORE”. “More” would imply that I want to have them all at once. That would be silly. Thieves can’t specialise, because there is nothing TO specialise in. You either stealth, or you stealth less and jump around a bit more. That doesn’t sound like a versatile profession to me. I expected more options in being more acrobatic, considering we have a trait tree called “Acrobatics”, but nope, our access to Vigor is pitiful and hard to use synergetically (having to use a healing skill to get Vigor on a class that essentially defines mobility – that’s not right). I also have no idea where you got the impression that I wanted to give Thieves more damage, or that stealth should be a universal advantage on any theoretical Thief build. No, I simply wanted more directions for a Thief to go and to specialise in.

I have 350 hours on my thief, before I rolled to something more….tasteful. I know the traits. 10 seconds of vigor on a 15 second heal that evades/removes kd/immobilize/chill, and (teleports for lack of better term) sounds pretty strong to me. Oh wait it was.

I built the acrobatic teleporter you are trying to say doesn’t exist. It does exist, and it does very well. It does have limitations as every class should though. *cough. As I said though, there is a lot more situation awareness in it than “am I stealth, yes, ok good…or am I stealth, no, ok stealthed, ok good.”

Auesis.7301:

our access to Vigor is pitiful and hard to use synergetically

I wouldn’t call potential 66% Vigor up-time pitiful. Considering you (can if you want) get Feline Grace as well, does any other class get faster/more endurance regen? Not that I know of.

Being that I use Withdraw as my heal skill I feel my access to Vigor is quite satisfactorily synergistic (FTFY).

Achetypically (I’m thinking D&D – the grand-daddy of all fantasy RPG games) the Thief can go Acrobat or Assassin, not both at once. You want to have your cake and eat it too.

Docherty.8372:

Auesis.7301:

our access to Vigor is pitiful and hard to use synergetically

I wouldn’t call potential 66% Vigor up-time pitiful. Considering you (can if you want) get Feline Grace as well, does any other class get faster/more endurance regen? Not that I know of.

Guardians can potentially access Vigor permanently, simply by landing critical hits, and not having to blow a healing skill.

Docherty.8372:

Achetypically (I’m thinking D&D – the grand-daddy of all fantasy RPG games) the Thief can go Acrobat or Assassin, not both at once. You want to have your cake and eat it too.

You’re agreeing with me here. This is more of what I want – specialisation. I don’t want more at once.

Auesis.7301:

Guardians can potentially access Vigor permanently, simply by landing critical hits, and not having to blow a healing skill.

So does Mesmer – but neither don’t get a trait which doubles their base endurance regen at the same time, like Thief.

Docherty.8372:

I wouldn’t call potential 66% Vigor up-time pitiful. Considering you (can if you want) get Feline Grace as well, does any other class get faster/more endurance regen? Not that I know of.

Ranger and Engineer have traits that grant them +50% endurance. It’s not Vigor, so I guess it stacks with Vigor, which they can get from traits like Vigorous Renewal.

Achetypically (I’m thinking D&D

It’s Guildwars, not D&D.

Docherty.8372:

So does Mesmer – but neither don’t get a trait which doubles their base endurance regen at the same time, like Thief.

Which one is that? The vigor-on-healing trait does require a heal skill activated (rather then being permanently on or crit-proc) which basically ties you into Withdraw as healing skill to make it useful.

You’re getting off topic. This is about stealth being broken, which can only relate to thieves. Vigor and things of that nature should be left to the big boys that have to manage more than one thing at a time.

frans.8092:

Docherty.8372:

I wouldn’t call potential 66% Vigor up-time pitiful. Considering you (can if you want) get Feline Grace as well, does any other class get faster/more endurance regen? Not that I know of.

Ranger and Engineer have traits that grant them +50% endurance. It’s not Vigor, so I guess it stacks with Vigor, which they can get from traits like Vigorous Renewal.

Achetypically (I’m thinking D&D

It’s Guildwars, not D&D.

Docherty.8372:

So does Mesmer – but neither don’t get a trait which doubles their base endurance regen at the same time, like Thief.

Which one is that? The vigor-on-healing trait does require a heal skill activated (rather then being permanently on or crit-proc) which basically ties you into Withdraw as healing skill to make it useful.

The problem with buffs being tied to a heal, is you never need to dodge when you need to heal, and you usually need to dodge when you can’t heal.

Getting Vigor is nice, but you usually need to heal when you don’t need to dodge, and you usually need to dodge when you don’t need to heal, having both on a single action kind of kills the concept.

Like in many other games, most players talk about other classes like they have all the traits at the same time, and they can use all skills at once.

“You can remove stuns without cooldowns” “You can stealth all the time” “You do lots of damage”

Thiefs can do all that… but not at the same time. They don’t have cooldowns, but they have a resource, so breaking stuns means they have no initiative to hurt you, and so on.

kal.4350:

Like in many other games, most players talk about other classes like they have all the traits at the same time, and they can use all skills at once.

“You can remove stuns without cooldowns” “You can stealth all the time” “You do lots of damage”

Thiefs can do all that… but not at the same time. They don’t have cooldowns, but they have a resource, so breaking stuns means they have no initiative to hurt you, and so on.

Right they just pop stealth, and while the person is running around like a monkey with a sledgehammer swinging wildly in the air, using their cooldowns, the thief holding back watching, regaining their resources, ready to strike again without consequence. Worst case scenario, they repeat process until threat is gone. Stop trying to defend a broken mechanic.

frans.8092:

Ranger and Engineer have traits that grant them +50% endurance. It’s not Vigor, so I guess it stacks with Vigor, which they can get from traits like Vigorous Renewal.

Ranger heals have longer cooldowns, hence lower Vigor uptime, and overall lower total endurance regen than Thief. Engineer, as far as I know has no way to give himself vigor – if he does I’ll require enlightening.

frans.8092:

It’s Guildwars, not D&D.

No duh?

Everything about GW2 and effectively all other fantasy MMOs/games is a bootleg rip-off of systems and archetypes developed before most GW players were but a twinkle in their daddy’s eye.

Respect the O.G. – it has lessons to teach these pretenders to the throne.

frans.8092:

Docherty.8372:

So does Mesmer – but neither don’t get a trait which doubles their base endurance regen at the same time, like Thief.

Which one is that? The vigor-on-healing trait does require a heal skill activated (rather then being permanently on or crit-proc) which basically ties you into Withdraw as healing skill to make it useful.

Feline Grace returns 50% of endurance used post-roll, effectively doubling your regen, and Withdraw is my choice of Thief healing skill, because it’s kittening great even without being a particularly effective heal.

66% of the time (10 seconds vigor activated every 15 seconds) your base endurance regen is 200%, the other 33% of the time a miserly 100%. Only the Ranger comes close, and ultimately it’s 25% less efficient at it than Thief.

Nate Rush.6970:

You’re getting off topic. This is about stealth being broken, which can only relate to thieves. Vigor and things of that nature should be left to the big boys that have to manage more than one thing at a time.

You’re right – but what we keep getting as counter-argument in favour of stealth is:

“boo-hoo, without our totally broken class-mechanic we will have no defences”

Here I come to say:

“wait a minute… you can achieve a rate of endurance regen which lets you evade just about any time you care to press the roll button, and have access to some of the best (non-stealth) evasive utilities in the game”

The worst part is that the Thief can easily have his cake and eat it too – I guess we should count ourselves lucky so many Thief players are such hopelessly clueless FOTM-abusing nubbins and haven’t seemed to figure it out yet.

Docherty.8372:

Nate Rush.6970:

You’re getting off topic. This is about stealth being broken, which can only relate to thieves. Vigor and things of that nature should be left to the big boys that have to manage more than one thing at a time.

You’re right – but what we keep getting as counter-argument in favour of stealth is:

“boo-hoo, without our totally broken class-mechanic we will have no defences”

Here I come to say:

“wait a minute… you can achieve a rate of endurance regen which lets you evade just about any time you care to press the roll button, and have access to some of the best (non-stealth) evasive utilities in the game”

The worst part is that the Thief can easily have his cake and eat it too – I guess we should count ourselves lucky so many Thief players are such hopelessly clueless FOTM-abusing nubbins and haven’t seemed to figure it out yet.

Withdraw makes gaps, you need to close later, gained vigor 66% uptime will be spent at dodges while closing gap you just made with your heal. It has very serious drawback to it.

Docherty.8372:

frans.8092:

Ranger and Engineer have traits that grant them +50% endurance. It’s not Vigor, so I guess it stacks with Vigor, which they can get from traits like Vigorous Renewal.

Ranger heals have longer cooldowns, hence lower Vigor uptime, and overall lower total endurance regen than Thief. Engineer, as far as I know has no way to give himself vigor – if he does I’ll require enlightening.

frans.8092:

It’s Guildwars, not D&D.

No duh?

Everything about GW2 and effectively all other fantasy MMOs/games is a bootleg rip-off of systems and archetypes developed before most GW players were but a twinkle in their daddy’s eye.

Respect the O.G. – it has lessons to teach these pretenders to the throne.

frans.8092:

Docherty.8372:

So does Mesmer – but neither don’t get a trait which doubles their base endurance regen at the same time, like Thief.

Which one is that? The vigor-on-healing trait does require a heal skill activated (rather then being permanently on or crit-proc) which basically ties you into Withdraw as healing skill to make it useful.

Feline Grace returns 50% of endurance used post-roll, effectively doubling your regen, and Withdraw is my choice of Thief healing skill, because it’s kittening great even without being a particularly effective heal.

66% of the time (10 seconds vigor activated every 15 seconds) your base endurance regen is 200%, the other 33% of the time a miserly 100%. Only the Ranger comes close, and ultimately it’s 25% less efficient at it than Thief.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Primal_Reflexes
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vigorous_Renewal

For Rangers:
Grants vigor for 5 seconds when using “Heal as One or Troll Unguent, and for 3 seconds on every tick of Healing Spring.” – Every Tick…
Grants 5 seconds of vigor when you critical hit, 15 second cooldown.
50% Endurance Regeneration added on top of that.
Gain Protection WHEN you dodge…

For Thieves:
Feline Grace returns 15 endurance out of 50 NOT 25.

Withdraw is a dangerous skill, because it pushes me AWAY from where I need to be 90% of the time, most of the time when you use Withdraw, you have to use another ability to re-close the gap you lost.

And even still, your wrong…

Elementalist beats Thief and Ranger hands down.
Vigorous Scepter – Endurance recharges faster while wielding a Scepter.
Zephyr’s Focus – Your endurance regenerates 100% faster while channeling skills.
Arcane Energy – Your arcane and signet skills restore 25% endurance when used.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Renewing_Stamina (Perma Vigor.)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Soothing_Disruption (Moar Vigor! Just for good measure!)

Elementalist can use dodge more then any other class in the game, if specced correctly, compared to this, thieves pale in comparison.

Docherty.8372:

frans.8092:

Ranger and Engineer have traits that grant them +50% endurance. It’s not Vigor, so I guess it stacks with Vigor, which they can get from traits like Vigorous Renewal.

Ranger heals have longer cooldowns, hence lower Vigor uptime, and overall lower total endurance regen than Thief.

We weren’t talking about Vigor, but Endurance regeneration, nice of you to skew the discussion by trying to limit it to Vigor.

The Ranger trait Natural Vigor has 100% uptime without needing any additional skills to be used, like Vigorous Recovery needs, and while Vigor has a higher regen, his trait would require the thief to use/waste his healing skill at least once every 20 seconds to keep up with the ranger’s passive ability.

Egineer, as far as I know has no way to give himself vigor – if he does I’ll require enlightening.

Here is some enlightenment then, like the ranger, Engineer has a trait that increases Endurance regeneration by 50%; Vigorous Recovery without needing any extra healing skills used.

frans.8092:

frans.8092:

It’s Guildwars, not D&D.

No duh?

D&D is a table-top, round based game. If the difference with a real-time action based computer game elude you then you shouldn’t bring up D&D here.

frans.8092:

Docherty.8372:

So does Mesmer – but neither don’t get a trait which doubles their base endurance regen at the same time, like Thief.

Which one is that? The vigor-on-healing trait does require a heal skill activated (rather then being permanently on or crit-proc) which basically ties you into Withdraw as healing skill to make it useful.

Feline Grace returns 50% of endurance used post-roll,

No, it doesn’t, more enlightenment for you, Feline Grace return 15% of the used endurance.

Withdraw is my choice of Thief healing skill, because it’s kittening great even without being a particularly effective heal.

It’s no longer a heal when you use it to trigger Vigor every 15 seconds, it may well be in cool-down when you do need a heal..

I couldn’t make sense of your last paragraph.

I am not claiming we don’t have good access to good endurance regeneration but it’s far from superior to what others get, I’d rather have the Natural Recovery version.

Docherty.8372:

“boo-hoo, without our totally broken class-mechanic we will have no defences”

Here I come to say:

“wait a minute… you can achieve a rate of endurance regen which lets you evade just about any time you care to press the roll button, and have access to some of the best (non-stealth) evasive utilities in the game”

Any profession has dodge and many can regenerate endurance as fast, or faster, or easier, as the thief. On top of this evasion, where other professions have ways to limit or prevent damage, like blocking and protection, the thief relies on stealth to make it harder to get hit. Break stealth, or make it even easier to hit thieves in stealth then it is and, without the other tools to mitigate damage, the thief can never win.

Nate Rush.6970:

kal.4350:

Like in many other games, most players talk about other classes like they have all the traits at the same time, and they can use all skills at once.

“You can remove stuns without cooldowns” “You can stealth all the time” “You do lots of damage”

Thiefs can do all that… but not at the same time. They don’t have cooldowns, but they have a resource, so breaking stuns means they have no initiative to hurt you, and so on.

Right they just pop stealth, and while the person is running around like a monkey with a sledgehammer swinging wildly in the air, using their cooldowns, the thief holding back watching, regaining their resources, ready to strike again without consequence. Worst case scenario, they repeat process until threat is gone. Stop trying to defend a broken mechanic.

Are you serious? Read again what you wrote, I put it in bold.
If somebody is using their cooldowns on nothing, he deserves to lose. It has nothing to do with class, not even skill, it’s common sense.
If the thief is only visible 3 seconds, you have 3 seconds to burn all your cooldowns, and that will hurt. If you used them while he was stealthed…. but I guess you didn’t you must be trolling because it makes no sense

While I agree on the point that some professions have better dodge traits than Feline Grace on a purely one-to-one comparison basis, I must point out that Feline Grace stacks multiplicatively with other endurance sources, whereas even perma-Vigor does not. Feline Grace means getting three dodges in a row out of Signet of Agility instead of two, for instance, it effectively increases the endurance benefit of dagger auto attack, and indeed means that thieves benefit more from Vigor than other professions. This fact could be why thieves don’t have easy access to perma-Vigor. In a world where even a second or two of increased evasion uptime can have massive defensive significance Feline Grace is an incredibly powerful trait and easily a match for any other dodge-based trait in the game.

kal.4350:

Nate Rush.6970:

kal.4350:

Like in many other games, most players talk about other classes like they have all the traits at the same time, and they can use all skills at once.

“You can remove stuns without cooldowns” “You can stealth all the time” “You do lots of damage”

Thiefs can do all that… but not at the same time. They don’t have cooldowns, but they have a resource, so breaking stuns means they have no initiative to hurt you, and so on.

Right they just pop stealth, and while the person is running around like a monkey with a sledgehammer swinging wildly in the air, using their cooldowns, the thief holding back watching, regaining their resources, ready to strike again without consequence. Worst case scenario, they repeat process until threat is gone. Stop trying to defend a broken mechanic.

Are you serious? Read again what you wrote, I put it in bold.
If somebody is using their cooldowns on nothing, he deserves to lose. It has nothing to do with class, not even skill, it’s common sense.
If the thief is only visible 3 seconds, you have 3 seconds to burn all your cooldowns, and that will hurt. If you used them while he was stealthed…. but I guess you didn’t you must be trolling because it makes no sense

+1. As usual, bad player complains that if playing badly he gets beaten by thieves, therefore thieves must be broken. Doesn’t consider that it might be his fault for burning all his cooldowns on an enemy he can’t be sure he’s even hitting. The only cooldowns he should be using are on AoE which can’t help prevent the thief from getting close enough to backstab.

Similar to how Toughness works with Healing and Natural Vigor stacks with Vigor. +50% endurance regen adds up to 3 dodges where you’d have 2 otherwise, and +150% (x 2.5) is much like +100%/0.85 (x 2.35)

frans.8092:

Similar to how Toughness works with Healing and Natural Vigor stacks with Vigor. +50% endurance regen adds up to 3 dodges where you’d have 2 otherwise, and +150% (x 2.5) is much like +100%/0.85 (x 2.35)

Except Natural Vigor and Vigor don’t stack. Dunno if there’s a limit to endurance buffs or just a hardcap at 100 %, but using both isn’t any better than using Vigor.

Feline Grace actually does stack multiplicatively because it uses a different mechanic to achieve the result.

Tulisin.6945:

Except Natural Vigor and Vigor don’t stack. Dunno if there’s a limit to endurance buffs or just a hardcap at 100 %, but using both isn’t any better than using Vigor.

Feline Grace actually does stack multiplicatively because it uses a different mechanic to achieve the result.

And here I was thinking they’d used a different ‘mechanic’ to allow it to stack with Vigor :s