Guild Wars 2

I understand the frustration that will ensue the changes but lets face it, thieves are above the top in PvP, being perma stealth and having the best burst and scaling in the game on 1v1 (I would dare to say even to zerker warrior) and having the best escape mechanism, (rivalin if not surpasing the elementalist themselves)

For a class this safe damage has to go with its risk, right now a thief has very little risk for the amount of rewards it gets in a small skirmish scenario. I know I know, “in zergs” blah blah blah, but cmon, in zergs even the most skilled player will get killed, even though I find it hilarious to go perma stealth and finishing people without them even knowing I was there.

But one solution I could see to stop everyone complaining about this class is; any that interacts with enemy player (finishing) reveals them after a small daley (room for counterplay?) or after certain damage threshold we get out of stealth, that way we have some “counterplay” mechanics to this overly (and I admit it, it is, because when I stealth it is FUN, but when play against it I cringe to the point I wonder how did I even enjoyed doing that to other people)

Thief is a revolutionary profession in the sense that you can finish off people without knowing you were even there, so I wouldnt remove that, leaving with the damage threshold, I would say 10% or maybe 15% hp without conditions, or 20% including conditions, that way we force bad players out of using a mechanics that rewards bad plays and reward good players who smartly set up DoT and damage fields thinking ahead. We would finally see the bad thieves quit the class leaving the good thieves with rolls that remove chilled/burning and using the heal that removes bleeds as well.

Overall I think that the real reason thieves are “OP” is the stealth mechanic which currently I admit (and if you dont you are very biased, play another class that is not mesmer for a while in sPvP and yuo will understand like we have all) is OP has no real counterplay other than RUNNING AWAY at all speed, which is hilarious, because it leaves their back open for extra damage, backstab and easy to land HS.

Overall, keep the damage, nerf Stealth, give a little more AoE for WvW and add some team utility for dungeons.

No counter play? On my engi it’s gear shield till they pop out of stealth, pry bar → rifle knockback, root, leap, blunderbus → flamethrower knockback flame blast. I will say I’m not the best at my engi yet, but thieves are the easiest to take down once you start to cc them. That being said I’m not terribly worried about the changes coming.

what I don’t get is why people think stealth has no counter, when it has plenty and is in fact basically the only thing that can be countered without using any skills at all.

It is not difficult to predict where thieves are when they stealth, coupled with its short duration you can feasibly know where they are at almost all times, what does that then give them? Only things they have to trait for, unlike other defensive skills which still give a mechanical effect be it damage reduction or such.

Sure its not feasible to always know where they are, in group battles it becomes a lot harder (which is really by design) but in 1v1 there’s almost no excuse to lose JUST because of stealth, in fact if you do it well enough stealth is actually more a weakness for them as while they are in it your still hitting them but their not hitting back.

Knowledge of the thief provides you with enough “counterplay”. Stealth isnt a invul skill, nor does it suddenly teleport the thief away. They are still at the place where they stealthed and will either try to go for you or run away. With abit of knowledge about the movement speed of a class, you can easily hit the thief before he can backstab you. I play a thief myself and CnD on alot of stealthed thieves already.

The only real issue with thieves is and always was culling. Besides that you can try to avoid the CnD of the thief on you. Either blind them, get aegis, CC them or dodge. As thief I tend to kill thieves with S/D. I infiltration strike to them, immobilize them for 1 sec, CnD and daze them, do some autoattacks, scorpion wire them, CnD them again, daze them again and switch to D/D for some final burst.

Thieves itself arent overpowered, it are the players they fight against who are underpowered (and I dont mean the class here)

Panacea.4927:

Knowledge of the thief provides you with enough “counterplay”. Stealth isnt a invul skill, nor does it suddenly teleport the thief away. They are still at the place where they stealthed and will either try to go for you or run away. With abit of knowledge about the movement speed of a class, you can easily hit the thief before he can backstab you. I play a thief myself and CnD on alot of stealthed thieves already.

The only real issue with thieves is and always was culling. Besides that you can try to avoid the CnD of the thief on you. Either blind them, get aegis, CC them or dodge. As thief I tend to kill thieves with S/D. I infiltration strike to them, immobilize them for 1 sec, CnD and daze them, do some autoattacks, scorpion wire them, CnD them again, daze them again and switch to D/D for some final burst.

Thieves itself arent overpowered, it are the players they fight against who are underpowered (and I dont mean the class here)

haha, I used to think like you. I used to think people around me were bad, how could they NOT see my damage coming? How could they be so bad that they couldnt escape a simple damage skill? Then I started playing ranger, ele, a little mesmer, and I began to understand, that all those mechanics above mentioned are actually pretty big freaking deal, not so easily avoidable even when THROUGHLY knowing the class and its mechanics.

Face it, approach it without any bias, disinfect yourself like I did, I have a roll-time with thieves, and when things get awry bam stealth away, if I can finish them then backstab HS HS and tomp, if I cant finish them then just walk away…. I’ve never had an easier time killing people (even in relatively big groups) than I have with thieves, they do their job to darn well, especially with culling) for how little risk its posed agaisnt them.

Though I dont expect anyone coming to this forum to agree with me, after all, I picked the worst forum to post this, here people who love thieves will come here, therefore there will be LOT of bias, but for a class that does mostly damage , compared o an ele (which is supposed to fill the same roll) they outperform, hands down (1v1 and small skirmishes, we all know thieves need some help in WvW-long-range-AoE)

Fortus.6175:

(1v1 and small skirmishes, we all know thieves need some help in WvW-long-range-AoE)

(thats sort of the point we can be very good at the few situations we excel at but in others we are far outclassed, just like every kitten class in the game, yet we get stuck with nerf after nerf because people refuse to accept things aren’t quite as powerful as it actually seems)

Dasorine.1964:

Fortus.6175:

(1v1 and small skirmishes, we all know thieves need some help in WvW-long-range-AoE)

(thats sort of the point we can be very good at the few situations we excel at but in others we are far outclassed, just like every kitten class in the game, yet we get stuck with nerf after nerf because people refuse to accept things aren’t quite as powerful as it actually seems)

(there is a fine line between too strong and strong, right now we are too strong) Tone down the damage a bit, increase utility, add some counterplay other than running away or wasting CDs trying to guess where the thief is without any actual reward if you do manage to hit him. I love the class and I love killing enemies but I also know that when Im going on a kill streak of 9 without any death or down then something is wrong, VERY wrong.

the issue is still really the enemy not the thief, this is prevalent in every game that has stealth in it, stealth works best on new players who don’t know any better, this is why spys in TF2 can own entire servers of new people or why in starcraft 2 dark templars can win so many bronze level matches.

However as soon as you go against people who have learnt how it works it becomes almost a penalty because so much of that character is based around that one mechanic as soon as people learn it they can counter it with no danger hence spies in TF2 can barely get a kill or sap off in high level play, why dark templars are almost never used beyond silver league and why thieves aren’t that prevalent in “high level” play.

And you know what? They always nerf stealth repeatedly as well to appease the new players even if it makes the stealth classes totally impotent against people who actually know about it.

The options really come down to leaving stealth and allowing those that use it to be powerful against new players or remove stealth all together and remake the class as something else.

Because no matter what you do in between them it will always be either too potent against new players or totally impotent against everything else.

Dasorine.1964:

the issue is still really the enemy not the thief, this is prevalent in every game that has stealth in it, stealth works best on new players who don’t know any better, this is why spys in TF2 can own entire servers of new people or why in starcraft 2 dark templars can win so many bronze level matches.

However as soon as you go against people who have learnt how it works it becomes almost a penalty because so much of that character is based around that one mechanic as soon as people learn it they can counter it with no danger hence spies in TF2 can barely get a kill or sap off in high level play, why dark templars are almost never used beyond silver league and why thieves aren’t that prevalent in “high level” play.

And you know what? They always nerf stealth repeatedly as well to appease the new players even if it makes the stealth classes totally impotent against people who actually know about it.

The options really come down to leaving stealth and allowing those that use it to be powerful against new players or remove stealth all together and remake the class as something else.

Because no matter what you do in between them it will always be either too potent against new players or totally impotent against everything else.

unfortunately only a small, very small, VERY VERY small part of the whle emtire total community plays high lvl sPvP organized tournament, so small that it is not worth punish everyone else for it, I do admit that i have a edge on thieves and mesmer because I have played them beyond imaginary boundaries, but I also admit those two classes are very strong agaisnt people with the same skill lvl due to their upper hadn, hence why I enjoyed playing them so much and erroneously thought of me as a skilled player.

By shifting the power from stealth to utility we solve the “newbie” issue and we get some power that does not relies on being permastealth and having the enemy panicking and wasting CDs. We are both saying the same thing, just you dont realize it. Right now stealth is OP, (notice how 70% of the sPvP population is either thief or mesmer), a small amount of players will not do for Anet, Im sorry to break it down to you, Anet is a MMO company, the more players, the better, the only way to not hurt the player base and still keep thieves viable is simply shifting their power from stealth to utility and some dungeon utility too, not liking how people go all like “a thief? why if a mesmer do the same, survive longer and give us more!”, heck, even I say the same……

Heck, name a thing thieves can do in a dungeon better than a mesmer can….

or ask which classes are the most hated in hot-joined sPvP?(hint, mesmer and thieves)
Or see how many thieves are in tournament? (none to few, lots of mesmers and D/D eles, which is understandable)

but my point is if you want to appease to the new players and the players that don’t want to learn then you have to nerf stealth to the point where it makes the profession you designed with it in mind impotent.

The choice comes down to having a stealth class in the full knowledge that unless you want them to be totally useless they WILL be powerful vs new players OR you scrap the entire stealth idea and redesign from scratch

Honestly the real problem with thieves and mesmers is that because of their “mechanic” most people don’t know how to handle them. Once you play one of those 2 classes yourself is when you will notice how to beat them. I main a thief and still get owned by other classes that I know that they know what they’re doing, not because I’m a bad player(which I’m not)

I have engie thief can’t kill engie.. ever. AThere is a trait that screw up thieves a lot called protection when got crit.

I agree with theives being high reward low risk if they fail a burst they can just stealth and escape or heal up and try it again

I don’t understand how people think this nerf will severely affect thieves… all it does is stop trolls with cloak and dagger.

What is this garbage OP post? You’re acting like thieves cannot be hit while stealthed. The only players that had trouble with thieves before were people that have no clue about stealth and think you’re invulnerable while doing it.

The amount of noobies that see a thief stealth and stop swinging their weapons is astounding.

Think Anet should warn people when they choose to play thief. It’s like if you choose thief in class choise big window pops up: “Warning, noobbuster class – good to demotivate nabs and make them cry, but highly underpowered in skilled play” . That would be just fare, so people who want to have skilled play would not choose this profession.

Fortus.6175:

Thieves are above the top in PvP, being perma stealth

Tldr
Only going to respond to the quoted part
You mean wvw? ’Cause perma stealth in s/t pvp makes every little girl giggle.

If I am understanding the nerf correctly I don’t think it will change my play style at all. I always attacked from stealth and rarely tried to chain stealth while running away. The only thing that would disappoint me really is if they were to take away initiative and make thieves into a CD class like every other class.

Its the main reason I play and enjoy thief over all the other classes. I like having more control over what abilities I can use and when instead of watching my CD timers while auto attacking.

I know other classes are more wanted and excel in WvW and PVE easier. But I still like the extra control over my abilities, it just feels better. I could care less if they took away stealth and redesigned the class as long as they leave thieves as a resource class I would be fine with it.

In fact it might be better if they did. Then people could stop complaining about stealth all the time and real issues could be solved.

Enjoyluck.2618:

I have engie thief can’t kill engie.. ever. AThere is a trait that screw up thieves a lot called protection when got crit.

I have no idea about engineer traits, but thats so true, I, at leats with my build, have very very hard time fighting engineers, and get stomped by good ones.

Fortus.6175:

Dasorine.1964:

Fortus.6175:

(1v1 and small skirmishes, we all know thieves need some help in WvW-long-range-AoE)

(thats sort of the point we can be very good at the few situations we excel at but in others we are far outclassed, just like every kitten class in the game, yet we get stuck with nerf after nerf because people refuse to accept things aren’t quite as powerful as it actually seems)

(there is a fine line between too strong and strong, right now we are too strong) Tone down the damage a bit, increase utility, add some counterplay other than running away or wasting CDs trying to guess where the thief is without any actual reward if you do manage to hit him. I love the class and I love killing enemies but I also know that when Im going on a kill streak of 9 without any death or down then something is wrong, VERY wrong.

We are supposed to be the most sneaky class. We are supposed to excel in 1v1 combat. That’s the whole point of the class. Zerker thieves are one hit one kill, but they also get one shotted by almost any other class. It’s simple to predict where a thief is (and I know this because I’ve played lots of tourneys with many other classes, and I win most of the time because I predict where the zerker thief is while he is invisible) and if he’s a glass, he will die to some AoE knock back and damage. Remember that most zerker thieves are running with no stun breakers (not very clever) because they use all their utilities for extra damage to their one hit..

Keep in mind while fighting a thief that if you got any AoE, drop it right on top of you. Or you can move around a lot or count to three and dodge. That will make it much harder for the thief to get his backstab combo done and you will squish him after he misses his only good attack

The culling was always an issue in WvW – this doesn’t occur in sPvP, and correct it needs to be addressed as it is just silly. Backstab I would say may be a tad out of balance for an attack in an auto chain however I’ve had plenty of other classes hit me harder than a thief backstab. All said and done I don’t know what all the fuss is about, I see other classes looking strong and well played and D/D thieves who have caused all the ruckus don’t really register too much on my Kablammo scale.

Panacea.4927:

Knowledge of the thief provides you with enough “counterplay”. Stealth isnt a invul skill, nor does it suddenly teleport the thief away.

No stealth doesn’t teleport the thief away, he’s got teleport skills for that. IA in stealth and cya later.

Panacea.4927:

They are still at the place where they stealthed and will either try to go for you or run away.

Only fools stay in one spot when stealthed. The “noobs” are the ones that stealth and keep running in the same direction at the same speed. These changes won’t effect them since they’re probably already having a hard time figuring out how to confuse people.

Panacea.4927:

With abit of knowledge about the movement speed of a class, you can easily hit the thief before he can backstab you.

Hitting the thief doesn’t break stealth. If you hit them, they can still backstab you.

Panacea.4927:

I play a thief myself and CnD on alot of stealthed thieves already.

Thats because you don’t have to face the target to land CnD. Haven’t you noticed?

Panacea.4927:

The only real issue with thieves is and always was culling. Besides that you can try to avoid the CnD of the thief on you. Either blind them, get aegis, CC them or dodge. As thief I tend to kill thieves with S/D. I infiltration strike to them, immobilize them for 1 sec, CnD and daze them, do some autoattacks, scorpion wire them, CnD them again, daze them again and switch to D/D for some final burst.

Most people who know how OP thieves are play other classes. I’m not sure what your arguement here is about countering a thief with a thief. Yes an OP class CAN counter an OP class.

Panacea.4927:

Thieves itself arent overpowered, it are the players they fight against who are underpowered (and I dont mean the class here)

Right here man. About midway down the page:
Habib Loew – “Thieves are still going to be useful – still going to deadly; mesmers are still going to be useful – still going to deadly, but hopefully not overpowered any more”

Devs thought stealth was OP. How come you don’t?

Redscope.6215:

Panacea.4927:

Knowledge of the thief provides you with enough “counterplay”. Stealth isnt a invul skill, nor does it suddenly teleport the thief away.

No stealth doesn’t teleport the thief away, he’s got teleport skills for that. IA in stealth and cya later.

Panacea.4927:

They are still at the place where they stealthed and will either try to go for you or run away.

Only fools stay in one spot when stealthed. The “noobs” are the ones that stealth and keep running in the same direction at the same speed. These changes won’t effect them since they’re probably already having a hard time figuring out how to confuse people.

Panacea.4927:

With abit of knowledge about the movement speed of a class, you can easily hit the thief before he can backstab you.

Hitting the thief doesn’t break stealth. If you hit them, they can still backstab you.

Panacea.4927:

I play a thief myself and CnD on alot of stealthed thieves already.

Thats because you don’t have to face the target to land CnD. Haven’t you noticed?

Panacea.4927:

The only real issue with thieves is and always was culling. Besides that you can try to avoid the CnD of the thief on you. Either blind them, get aegis, CC them or dodge. As thief I tend to kill thieves with S/D. I infiltration strike to them, immobilize them for 1 sec, CnD and daze them, do some autoattacks, scorpion wire them, CnD them again, daze them again and switch to D/D for some final burst.

Most people who know how OP thieves are play other classes. I’m not sure what your arguement here is about countering a thief with a thief. Yes an OP class CAN counter an OP class.

Panacea.4927:

Thieves itself arent overpowered, it are the players they fight against who are underpowered (and I dont mean the class here)

Right here man. About midway down the page:
Habib Loew – “Thieves are still going to be useful – still going to deadly; mesmers are still going to be useful – still going to deadly, but hopefully not overpowered any more”

Devs thought stealth was OP. How come you don’t?

pretty much this ^

Dasorine.1964:

what I don’t get is why people think stealth has no counter, when it has plenty and is in fact basically the only thing that can be countered without using any skills at all.

Stealth has no counter. Damage doesnt end stealth so its not a counter to stealth.

It is not difficult to predict where thieves are when they stealth, coupled with its short duration you can feasibly know where they are at almost all times, what does that then give them?

Its not difficult to predict the position at the exact moment when the thief uses stealth. After then its completely lottery because the thief can move in every direction 360°. You have to guess in which direction he has moved but you’ll never know because you dont get any feedback whether your skills actually hit or not.

Even if you use CC directly at the beginning of stealth, you dont know if the thief is actually CCed or if he just dodged and runs away loving at you.

A real counter to stealth would remove stealth from the thief, so he can be seen and cannot use backstab on you.

There are plenty of counters in the game, e.g. damage and heal, stability and cc, boons and boon removers, conditions and condition removers. And there are some skills without a counter, like different kinds of immunity (block etc) and stealth.

The difference is, all those immunities are on huge cooldowns + have drawbacks (cannot use skills), whereas stealth is repeatable with no drawbacks.

I see two solutions for stealth: either add a real counter to stealth or make stealth non-repeatable like any other non-counterable skill (like block, mist form etc).