Guild Wars 2

voidwater.2064:

I really dislike the stealth implementation in GW2. To illustrate what I think is wrong, I’ll compare it with the spy from Team Fortress 2, which I think is implemented well.

• The game fails to provide enough information about the stealthed player. In TF2, shooting a cloaked spy, or even colliding with the spy, will cause the spy to become visible as a silhouette. You can also set the spy on fire, bleed it, or throw milk/urine on the spy to reveal him. In GW2, the stealthed thief can run around with no substantive risk of detection, which turns combat into a guessing game with no meaningful feedback for the thief’s opponent(s).

• Stealth is too powerful as an escape/harassment tool. In TF2, there is an abundance of ranged AOE damage with low cooldowns (the time it takes to reload). The maps have far more chokepoints than GW2, particularly in WvW. The spy has poor mobility unlike the thief and is even squishier than the thief. As a result, the spy has to play far more meticulously than a GW2 thief, because of numerous mechanics that severely punish a spy whose presence is known to the enemy.

• The spy cannot attack when stealthed. The spy must decloak first, which makes a very noticeable sound, giving the enemy a chance to react before they are attacked. Alternatively, the spy must choose a good place to decloak and approach an enemy with a disguise. It’s a more intelligent, brainy style of play.

I don’t really see a clean way to address all of these issues in GW2 without a complete rework of the class. I think it would have been better if the developers just kept the assassin from GW1, a burst+mobility class without stealth.

I agree 100%. I think all stealth (Mesmer and Thief) should be non-combat.

Cogbyrn.7283:

We get that the strategy to use against a P/D Thief is just running away. We’re saying that isn’t fun and interesting design.

What about a simpler “get some range and pelt it with arrows until it stops bleeding”? P/D has ridiculously low damage if the thief cannot stealth to use the sneak attack skill.

Since leveling to 80 is easy and people ask what will you do if you get the higher level., this idea will help., example all players will start on weak level server to go to the next lvl they need to do some task for example they need to kill 100 different players in WvsW w/out dying., to go to the next lvl., for last lvl of server they need to kill 500 player w/out dying and specially there’s a reward for mid level you can farm 2x you farm on weak server + title rank so that people saw and know you you are in different lvl when you go back on normal world., for 3rd level of server it needs 2x you farm on a mid server + rank + statue on lion arch but only 3 statue will be stand and those statue will be rank from bronze silver to gold., only 3 best people need to have statue., so that people will fight for the statue., its like hey i will do my best to have the statue. Looks like more thrilling right? And maybe they can put additional task so that it takes a long time to get the (professional server and the rank and the statue)

People will say this is out of thread but this is the key so that we know whos telling the right here, i know all people here in this furom is divided into 3 kind too, so we need a professional player to know what is his/her thought in this issue., and this thing will add an additional achivement to all and this additional server need to put when you are entering WvsW or sPvP

Caelib.2497:

I agree 100%. I think all stealth (Mesmer and Thief) should be non-combat.

Lets make all forms of healing and damage mitigation (like blocking, protection, etc…) non-combat. Then we’re all left with dodges and attacks.

Nerf the theif so they only fight with butter knives.

Joke aside but in all seriousness i expect theif to be nerfed to a dead content class and when somebody dies from some other class all rage will go on that one, i predict mesmer. And even when theif would be dead content im sure people would still classify it as op if they got killed by one.

jan.9745:

Im in blacktide you said your name (Nnaqu) and i cant PM you., you just waste my time and then i spend for 7 days here on this server! Lol this issue will never end unless arena net do something., as i said this game have 3 different kind of player 1. Weak 2. Normal 3. Insane., what if arena net build 3 another server so that this game will be balance., playing the game that is not your level make imbalance to you., maybe this be a good idea again

I’ve spent 5 hours in game after I posted on forum.Received no PM.

Thomassassinate.9370:

Nerf the theif so they only fight with butter knives.

Joke aside but in all seriousness i expect theif to be nerfed to a dead content class and when somebody dies from some other class all rage will go on that one, i predict mesmer. And even when theif would be dead content im sure people would still classify it as op if they got killed by one.

Lol Good post

I have to say that the main issue with thief is the stealth mechanic. But honestly I hope you thief players had a good time with the profession because i sense some bad times coming your way

Right now thieves have great mobility, high burst dps, and great survivability with stealth. When it is all combined together it is even worse. Your dps lets you take out most targets, if not you just stealth and run away.

If Anet wants them to be mobile and have stealth. Their dps needs to be lowered. I would even give them more stealth if their dps were lowered.

If Anet wants them to keep high dps, they either need to reduce the stealth, mobility or a little of both.

Sounds like they want them to be fast and hard to kill. I got no problem with that but having the highest dps also is to much. I just do not understand how every MMO company that has ever had stealth has made the same exact mistakes with the class.

@Ljiona
I believe that’s subjective.
To me, Anet did a pretty good job balancing stealth the way it is on thieves. However, that’s because I have no trouble seeing through it with all the other classes I play (warriors, thieves, eles, and probably soon on my other toons I’m leveling).

The problem with stealth, and ANY deception type skills in games is that it is quite dependent on how fast you react and out-think the person using it. Deception type gameplay is a double edge sword. If your opponent thinks faster than you and reacts faster than you, you literally have no defense against him. However, it is one of the easiest to use against players who are not prepared for you. That’s why in duels, any duel I do on my thief, I let my opponent hit me first and take a chunk of my HP before I react (think of it as a way to give a handicap). However, when it is an all out fight, I’ll use everything I can to my advantage.

From a theoretical/skilled gamer view, I really think stealth is balanced. Of course, I can totally understand what more casual players face. I don’t know what anet will do to make it easier for casual players, but I’m just hoping that they keep the skilled players in mind or else thieves will just be easy as pie for them.

Ljiona.9142:

Right now thieves have great mobility, high burst dps, and great survivability with stealth. When it is all combined together it is even worse. Your dps lets you take out most targets, if not you just stealth and run away.

If Anet wants them to be mobile and have stealth. Their dps needs to be lowered. I would even give them more stealth if their dps were lowered.

If Anet wants them to keep high dps, they either need to reduce the stealth, mobility or a little of both.

Sounds like they want them to be fast and hard to kill. I got no problem with that but having the highest dps also is to much. I just do not understand how every MMO company that has ever had stealth has made the same exact mistakes with the class.

The argument behind your statement is total BS nonesense.Thief is not hard to kill , specialy in DPS mode.In fact I agree whit you its not balanced.Its way to weak and defenceless against almost every encounter.Burst thief is the most worthless and bad builds of them all.If you think they are viable , you should first play them then come back to us and tell us how its like to be afraid to engage in any fight because if your opponent has any clue of what his doing, you just don’t stand a chance.And this is not my oppinion.More and more people learn how easy it is to counter BS thieves.

Should Thief suffer some more because some beginers don’t know how to fight yet?And a lot of them confessed right here on this thread that thief is not actualy hard to beat.Even some of you who were here complaining about thief.Do you never ask yourself , what do they know and I don’t? Why just direcly jump to the conclusion that Thief is Overpowered?Whats whit this mentality, when you can’t beat someone you don’t even understand, you complain.Its the mentality of a failure.Or do you realy consider yourself a pro?

I’ve previously challenged every one in here who thought burst thieves are overpowered , the proffesion whit the instant kill win button or some idiotic BS like that.My challenge still stands.Roll a thief and try it against me.We’ll see how overpowered thief actualy is.And I’m realy not that good at PvP , I’m more of a PvE guy atm but I’ve never had any problems against thieves.So bring it on.

Thieves aren’t fun in PVE.

I’m fine with their weapon sets and utilities in PVP, I’m sure tweaking in pvp could improve things (nerfs and buffs), but the main reason I’m losing interest in my Thief is that I just don’t find them fun or dynamic in PVE.

The Thief already has a small pool of weapons to choose from, and it gets even smaller as soon as you choose a set of gear, you are pigeonholed into a certain weapon set. I remember watching the class previews before the game was released, and being really excited about pistols and being able to really choose your play style, but the reality is, you are stuck playing a certain way the second you choose one weapon set or 1 of the 3 stats to dps with. I found that Sword Pistol is effective in pve (not dungeons) but it is extremely boring because you just want to auto attack and blinding shot rinse and repeat. Pistol Dagger was something I was also excited about because of the mobility, but the dps is not ideal, and you have no aoe to compensate for it.

I’ve tried as hard as I can to not be a stealth dagger dagger player, because that doesn’t excite me, but some version of dagger dagger really seems to be the most effective and dynamic.

The problems I’m having with the class are exacerbated by the utility skills which are pretty much only cc and debuff related. I’d be fine with using single target weapons if I had some choices of aoe utility skills that made up for it.

As it stands, I feel that it is necessary to have an aoe weapon set and ranged. My choices for AOE are shortbow which is great so long as I have atleast 3 mobs, and Sword which is only good if you are not a condition build and are fine with auto attacking primarily. For ranged, I have pistols that do lousy auto attack damage with a tiny bleed, or the shortbow which requires multiple mobs to be an effective choice.

The weapon abilities themselves just don’t seem to have enough synergy either. I tried to set up my pistols for bleed damage with the krait sigils, and they just don’t work out as a condition weapon, so why bleed damage at all?

I have fun in wvw and hot join pvp on my thief despite still feeling limited by my build options, but every time I log into him in PVE, I’m just reminded that I chose the wrong class and that they aren’t the class that I saw in the trailers.

As far as dungeons go, I have no idea, I’ve heard people have had success as glass cannon builds, I just feel like I get blown up if I’m trying to play as a melee thief, but I haven’t run dungeons extensively

I want to log in, and feel like a kitten when I’m exploring the World of Tyria, instead I feel like a one trick pony. It’s a good trick, but it gets old fast. Give me some more versatility and flair

NightyNight.1823:

Should Thief suffer some more because some beginers don’t know how to fight yet?And a lot of them confessed right here on this thread that thief is not actualy hard to beat.Even some of you who were here complaining about thief.Do you never ask yourself , what do they know and I don’t? Why just direcly jump to the conclusion that Thief is Overpowered?Whats whit this mentality, when you can’t beat someone you don’t even understand, you complain.Its the mentality of a failure.Or do you realy consider yourself a pro?

I’ve previously challenged every one in here who thought burst thieves are overpowered , the proffesion whit the instant kill win button or some idiotic BS like that.My challenge still stands.Roll a thief and try it against me.We’ll see how overpowered thief actualy is.And I’m realy not that good at PvP , I’m more of a PvE guy atm but I’ve never had any problems against thieves.So bring it on.

Dude,don’t waste your efforts to prove anything…You can stand up to the challenge and they will still whining,because they need thief for excuse of their inability to play.
I play a condition P/D thief.And yet at least several times a day i receive the same negative comment:
“Spam more 3333 ,noob.”What’s the point to start to argue the guy how clueless he is?
He lost anyway,it must be OP build of a OP class,what else?The last guy ho said that Condition Thief is a noob lame build was Bull Rush Glass Cannon 100b Warrior(top of the brain requiring master builds)…I could ofc explain to him,that “Shake it Off” is not only what you do after you pee,but like i said,whats the point?

jan.9745:

Since leveling to 80 is easy and people ask what will you do if you get the higher level., this idea will help., example all players will start on weak level server to go to the next lvl they need to do some task for example they need to kill 100 different players in WvsW w/out dying., to go to the next lvl., for last lvl of server they need to kill 500 player w/out dying and specially there’s a reward for mid level you can farm 2x you farm on weak server + title rank so that people saw and know you you are in different lvl when you go back on normal world., for 3rd level of server it needs 2x you farm on a mid server + rank + statue on lion arch but only 3 statue will be stand and those statue will be rank from bronze silver to gold., only 3 best people need to have statue., so that people will fight for the statue., its like hey i will do my best to have the statue. Looks like more thrilling right? And maybe they can put additional task so that it takes a long time to get the (professional server and the rank and the statue)

It’s actually a nice idea but I expect Anet devs already feel they have this… it’s the PvP system, which is tiered and graded. You can just grind it even if you lose all your sPvP bouts but that is a very poor definition of fun and if folks can’t hack it there they don’t progress in it any further and just do WvW instead.

Where I am in PvP at the moment means every single fight is hard whether I play thief, ranger, mesmer, Ele, etc. It’s because the folks at that level have been through the same baptism of PvP that I have. And the only glass canons I see are newly rolled thieves or warriors who don’t understand why they are dying so badly in there because they read the forums and were told they should be overpowered.

jaqviolet.2749:

Thieves aren’t fun in PVE.
…
I’ve tried as hard as I can to not be a stealth dagger dagger player, because that doesn’t excite me, but some version of dagger dagger really seems to be the most effective and dynamic.

Using a backstab build in PvE is a labor of love. It isn’t effective enough to justify doing it unless you really enjoy the play style. You were on the right track before with S/P for PvE.

As for some other points mentioned in your post: You can synergize pistol with condition damage but you need to take P/D and abuse the heck out of the only good pistol condition attack, Sneak Attack. Shortbow doesn’t require multiple targets to effectively do damage, but it does help, and even if you don’t try to burst with it it has incredible utility.

Your point is well taken about thieves utilizing the same skills repeatedly though, especially auto attacks. The direct comparisons all weapon skills get via the initiative system means thieves end up using whatever tool is best for the job over and over instead of cycling through cooldowns because they have to.

If culling cant be fixed immediately, wvwvw stealth mechanics must change as a priority. Too many people are affected by this aspect and no class exploits it anywhere near the degree of the thief, which is near constant exploitation.

Thieves do not render long enough to cast a 3/4 sec sigil if they choose. I’ve experimented with a thief in the area for a while and after 10 attempts could not target and get this off.

With the mobility they have its extremely hard to aoe, and since they are invisible there is no feedback as to how I am doing to even try to get better.

In wvwvw at least, the revealed debuff needs to go up as a bare minimum, I would say a second should be added at the least.

Kilger.5490:

If culling cant be fixed immediately, wvwvw stealth mechanics must change as a priority. Too many people are affected by this aspect and no class exploits it anywhere near the degree of the thief, which is near constant exploitation.

Thieves do not render long enough to cast a 3/4 sec sigil if they choose. I’ve experimented with a thief in the area for a while and after 10 attempts could not target and get this off.

With the mobility they have its extremely hard to aoe, and since they are invisible there is no feedback as to how I am doing to even try to get better.

In wvwvw at least, the revealed debuff needs to go up as a bare minimum, I would say a second should be added at the least.

That would affect the whole PvE environment.The only thing that needs fixing is culling ,Not Thief.

NightyNight.1823:

That would affect the whole PvE environment.The only thing that needs fixing is culling ,Not Thief.

Yea, I’m talking about a wvwvw only fix. Culling may never be fixed, its a complex problem.

Stealth seriously needs some sort of fix. To me, honestly, the idea of being able to go completely invisible for long enough to retreat half a mile away and reset the fight whenever you please is just absurd. There need to be some sort of stealth revealing skills, or tracking skills, or something. I must have chased some Thief around for ten minutes last night on my Elementalist in WvW because he could just go completely invisible and run in some random direction whenever he started getting pressured.

He couldn’t do enough damage to threaten me, but I imagine against any other class that doesn’t have the same healing/mobility potential as an Elementalist, it would be even more annoying. I’ve seen them pull the same crap when they get jumped by a small group – there’s absolutely no danger to them because they can just retreat any time they like and there’s nothing anyone can do to detect them.

Going completely invisible in broad daylight in front of half a dozen people doesn’t make any sense to begin with. I thought I was fighting a Thief? Or does he have the One Ring?

Sil.4560:

Stealth seriously needs some sort of fix. To me, honestly, the idea of being able to go completely invisible for long enough to retreat half a mile away and reset the fight whenever you please is just absurd. There need to be some sort of stealth revealing skills, or tracking skills, or something. I must have chased some Thief around for ten minutes last night on my Elementalist in WvW because he could just go completely invisible and run in some random direction whenever he started getting pressured.

He couldn’t do enough damage to threaten me, but I imagine against any other class that doesn’t have the same healing/mobility potential as an Elementalist, it would be even more annoying. I’ve seen them pull the same crap when they get jumped by a small group – there’s absolutely no danger to them because they can just retreat any time they like and there’s nothing anyone can do to detect them.

Going completely invisible in broad daylight in front of half a dozen people doesn’t make any sense to begin with. I thought I was fighting a Thief? Or does he have the One Ring?

Heres what I read: Nerf Stealth so I can kill everything and nothing has a chance to get away from me! – signed D/D Elementalist.

Seriously, ever understand the concept of: You don’t always win the fight? you won when he ran away, chasing him across the map does nothing, hes a thief, your not going to catch him anyways, infact I say he won the fight, because he manages to keep a D/D elementalist out of it for so long.

Now heres where the tongue tie is… say you were losing and ran away, guess what, the thief has “NO CHANCE” to catch you, none, nadda, zip, you have more movement speed, more boons, more vigor, more swiftness, more mobile moves, the thief doesn’t have chill unless we use worthless venoms, or access to cripple unless we give up traits for it and use a crappy weapon set (Pistols.) Shortbow cripple makes us dodge backwards away from you as much as the cripple would slow you down, we have very little CC, we can’t knock you down, we can’t stop you, you can run away any time during the fight, HOW is that fair?

Daecollo.9578:

Heres what I read: Nerf Stealth so I can kill everything and nothing has a chance to get away from me! – signed D/D Elementalist.

Seriously, ever understand the concept of: You don’t always win the fight? you won when he ran away, chasing him across the map does nothing, hes a thief, your not going to catch him anyways, infact I say he won the fight, because he manages to keep a D/D elementalist out of it for so long.

Now heres where the tongue tie is… say you were losing and ran away, guess what, the thief has “NO CHANCE” to catch you, none, nadda, zip, you have more movement speed, more boons, more vigor, more swiftness, more mobile moves, the thief doesn’t have chill unless we use worthless venoms, or access to cripple unless we give up traits for it and use a crappy weapon set (Pistols.) Shortbow cripple makes us dodge backwards away from you as much as the cripple would slow you down, we have very little CC, we can’t knock you down, we can’t stop you, you can run away any time during the fight, HOW is that fair?

Most thieves keep up to me just fine on my elementalist when using RTL, swiftness and teleport. They always catch me running if I’m trying to get away from the zerg, and I’m fine with that. You are seriously saying thieves have no teleports or mobility traits??? I think you’d better look again, there are so many mobility traits I’d have to spend an hour digging them all up. Thieves are the top of the pack in mobility, though elementalists are very close behind.

Kilger.5490:

Daecollo.9578:

Heres what I read: Nerf Stealth so I can kill everything and nothing has a chance to get away from me! – signed D/D Elementalist.

Seriously, ever understand the concept of: You don’t always win the fight? you won when he ran away, chasing him across the map does nothing, hes a thief, your not going to catch him anyways, infact I say he won the fight, because he manages to keep a D/D elementalist out of it for so long.

Now heres where the tongue tie is… say you were losing and ran away, guess what, the thief has “NO CHANCE” to catch you, none, nadda, zip, you have more movement speed, more boons, more vigor, more swiftness, more mobile moves, the thief doesn’t have chill unless we use worthless venoms, or access to cripple unless we give up traits for it and use a crappy weapon set (Pistols.) Shortbow cripple makes us dodge backwards away from you as much as the cripple would slow you down, we have very little CC, we can’t knock you down, we can’t stop you, you can run away any time during the fight, HOW is that fair?

Most thieves keep up to me just fine on my elementalist when using RTL, swiftness and teleport. They always catch me running if I’m trying to get away from the zerg, and I’m fine with that. You are seriously saying thieves have no teleports or mobility traits??? I think you’d better look again, there are so many mobility traits I’d have to spend an hour digging them all up. Thieves are the top of the pack in mobility, though elementalists are very close behind.

Thieves have 1 long cool down teleport, and short bow 5, and infiltrator’s strike, they can keep up with a short distance, and then they run out of stuff, if a thief does this, he has no chance of getting away from you, or stealthing because he has no initiative, he burned it all chasing you and now he can’t run away, you might as well call this a “free kill.”

What… Mobility Traits? Your saying its a waste of time getting them? are you serious? Thieves in first place in mobility?

Thieves have little to no access to swiftness, limited teleportation and we must be hitting something to gain lots of stealth, otherwise we have to wait for 45-60 second cooldown moves that only stealth us for 4 seconds each.

Steal is also on a long cool-down as well.

Those “mobility traits.” (perma swiftness/perma vigor/endurance regeneration when you cast.) seem useless to you, but they are currently what makes D/D Elementalist freaking good.

If a thief catches you when your using burning speed and ride the lightning and perma swiftness and other things, then something is obviously wrong, you need to look at your traits.

Thief is not the best on mobility, Warrior has more mobility, elementalist facerolls us on mobility, nobody can get across the map faster then elementalist can.

Kilger.5490:

Daecollo.9578:

Heres what I read: Nerf Stealth so I can kill everything and nothing has a chance to get away from me! – signed D/D Elementalist.

Seriously, ever understand the concept of: You don’t always win the fight? you won when he ran away, chasing him across the map does nothing, hes a thief, your not going to catch him anyways, infact I say he won the fight, because he manages to keep a D/D elementalist out of it for so long.

Now heres where the tongue tie is… say you were losing and ran away, guess what, the thief has “NO CHANCE” to catch you, none, nadda, zip, you have more movement speed, more boons, more vigor, more swiftness, more mobile moves, the thief doesn’t have chill unless we use worthless venoms, or access to cripple unless we give up traits for it and use a crappy weapon set (Pistols.) Shortbow cripple makes us dodge backwards away from you as much as the cripple would slow you down, we have very little CC, we can’t knock you down, we can’t stop you, you can run away any time during the fight, HOW is that fair?

Most thieves keep up to me just fine on my elementalist when using RTL, swiftness and teleport. They always catch me running if I’m trying to get away from the zerg, and I’m fine with that. You are seriously saying thieves have no teleports or mobility traits??? I think you’d better look again, there are so many mobility traits I’d have to spend an hour digging them all up. Thieves are the top of the pack in mobility, though elementalists are very close behind.

A thief actually does have no chance at keeping up with you. They will catch up to you a number of times (= to the number of Shadow Steps he has equipped), but they can’t keep up. RtL has a very short CD, and you have a few sources of cripple/chill that will just screw him over royally (as a D/D ele, you are much better as handling conditions then the average thief). Using a short bow, the thief can keep up for a little while, but if he does, he will have little-to-no initiative left to hurt you seriously.

Edit: Just like to add, Thieves are more mobile when moving around a small area (shadow step to and fro, small ports on various weapons), less mobile when trying to move in one direction (which is what you were implying).

Daecollo.9578:

Now heres where the tongue tie is… say you were losing and ran away, guess what, the thief has “NO CHANCE” to catch you, none, nadda, zip, you have more movement speed, more boons, more vigor, more swiftness, more mobile moves, the thief doesn’t have chill unless we use worthless venoms, or access to cripple unless we give up traits for it and use a crappy weapon set (Pistols.) Shortbow cripple makes us dodge backwards away from you as much as the cripple would slow you down, we have very little CC, we can’t knock you down, we can’t stop you, you can run away any time during the fight, HOW is that fair?

Perhaps it’s fair because you can catch every other class/spec?

Also, you made the Ele run away. Isn’t that like a win?

Faeyd.5094:

jan.9745:

Since leveling to 80 is easy and people ask what will you do if you get the higher level., this idea will help., example all players will start on weak level server to go to the next lvl they need to do some task for example they need to kill 100 different players in WvsW w/out dying., to go to the next lvl., for last lvl of server they need to kill 500 player w/out dying and specially there’s a reward for mid level you can farm 2x you farm on weak server + title rank so that people saw and know you you are in different lvl when you go back on normal world., for 3rd level of server it needs 2x you farm on a mid server + rank + statue on lion arch but only 3 statue will be stand and those statue will be rank from bronze silver to gold., only 3 best people need to have statue., so that people will fight for the statue., its like hey i will do my best to have the statue. Looks like more thrilling right? And maybe they can put additional task so that it takes a long time to get the (professional server and the rank and the statue)

It’s actually a nice idea but I expect Anet devs already feel they have this… it’s the PvP system, which is tiered and graded. You can just grind it even if you lose all your sPvP bouts but that is a very poor definition of fun and if folks can’t hack it there they don’t progress in it any further and just do WvW instead.

Where I am in PvP at the moment means every single fight is hard whether I play thief, ranger, mesmer, Ele, etc. It’s because the folks at that level have been through the same baptism of PvP that I have. And the only glass canons I see are newly rolled thieves or warriors who don’t understand why they are dying so badly in there because they read the forums and were told they should be overpowered.

I hate to say it but this is actually TERRIBLE idea; first of all this game doesn’t need another grind which is exactly what this would amount to (this is straight out of a Korean MMO mentality and doesn’t work), 2nd of all the last thing we need to do is segregate the player population into ranks so you front load encounters between servers, 3rd of all your constant references to “professional” players doesn’t mean what you think it means, under your system “professional” players would amount to individuals who can devote huge amounts of time to grinding their way into higher tiers and once again that is not what this game is supposed to be about.

Not trying to be a jerk here and I know this games core concepts have already been horribly kittenized but the last thing GW2 needs is to be pushed even farther down the slope with an idea like this.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Daecollo.9578:

Now heres where the tongue tie is… say you were losing and ran away, guess what, the thief has “NO CHANCE” to catch you, none, nadda, zip, you have more movement speed, more boons, more vigor, more swiftness, more mobile moves, the thief doesn’t have chill unless we use worthless venoms, or access to cripple unless we give up traits for it and use a crappy weapon set (Pistols.) Shortbow cripple makes us dodge backwards away from you as much as the cripple would slow you down, we have very little CC, we can’t knock you down, we can’t stop you, you can run away any time during the fight, HOW is that fair?

Perhaps it’s fair because you can catch every other class/spec?

Also, you made the Ele run away. Isn’t that like a win?

Then no more Thief complaints.

NightyNight.1823:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Daecollo.9578:

Now heres where the tongue tie is… say you were losing and ran away, guess what, the thief has “NO CHANCE” to catch you, none, nadda, zip, you have more movement speed, more boons, more vigor, more swiftness, more mobile moves, the thief doesn’t have chill unless we use worthless venoms, or access to cripple unless we give up traits for it and use a crappy weapon set (Pistols.) Shortbow cripple makes us dodge backwards away from you as much as the cripple would slow you down, we have very little CC, we can’t knock you down, we can’t stop you, you can run away any time during the fight, HOW is that fair?

Perhaps it’s fair because you can catch every other class/spec?

Also, you made the Ele run away. Isn’t that like a win?

Then no more Thief complaints.

The sound of the air rushing past as my comment went over your head would be audible from space.

Cogbyrn.7283:

NightyNight.1823:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Daecollo.9578:

Now heres where the tongue tie is… say you were losing and ran away, guess what, the thief has “NO CHANCE” to catch you, none, nadda, zip, you have more movement speed, more boons, more vigor, more swiftness, more mobile moves, the thief doesn’t have chill unless we use worthless venoms, or access to cripple unless we give up traits for it and use a crappy weapon set (Pistols.) Shortbow cripple makes us dodge backwards away from you as much as the cripple would slow you down, we have very little CC, we can’t knock you down, we can’t stop you, you can run away any time during the fight, HOW is that fair?

Perhaps it’s fair because you can catch every other class/spec?

Also, you made the Ele run away. Isn’t that like a win?

Then no more Thief complaints.

The sound of the air rushing past as my comment went over your head would be audible from space.

I got a bunker D/D Ele, and I never run away from thieves o.O. But that shows, if I don’t run, and GC thieves are like desserts to my characters, doesn’t that mean others can do the same too?

By the way, in a straight out race, an ele with D/D can outrun a thief, especially now their signet matches the thief’s speed signet.

Just let them see damage numbers vs stealth opponents. They can already see evade/miss. Just show the numbers, show it in the combat log. They will know if they are hitting something or not, it will be more fun for them to see a 5K crit on a stealth thief. Good thieves should get out of position and stay out bad ones will keep getting hit. It gives the attackers feedback and might be enough even if it is technically a nerf to Thieves.

kenshinakh.3672:

I got a bunker D/D Ele, and I never run away from thieves o.O. But that shows, if I don’t run, and GC thieves are like desserts to my characters, doesn’t that mean others can do the same too?

By the way, in a straight out race, an ele with D/D can outrun a thief, especially now their signet matches the thief’s speed signet.

Show me a video of beating a culling stealth exploit thief, and I’ll show you a thief that decided he got bored of winning or running away.

Also the elementalist signet buff doesnt matter, most elementalists have full uptime on swiftness and it doesnt stack. I would think an elementalist would know this??

Kilger.5490:

Daecollo.9578:

Kilger.5490:

Daecollo.9578:

Heres what I read: Nerf Stealth so I can kill everything and nothing has a chance to get away from me! – signed D/D Elementalist.

Seriously, ever understand the concept of: You don’t always win the fight? you won when he ran away, chasing him across the map does nothing, hes a thief, your not going to catch him anyways, infact I say he won the fight, because he manages to keep a D/D elementalist out of it for so long.

Now heres where the tongue tie is… say you were losing and ran away, guess what, the thief has “NO CHANCE” to catch you, none, nadda, zip, you have more movement speed, more boons, more vigor, more swiftness, more mobile moves, the thief doesn’t have chill unless we use worthless venoms, or access to cripple unless we give up traits for it and use a crappy weapon set (Pistols.) Shortbow cripple makes us dodge backwards away from you as much as the cripple would slow you down, we have very little CC, we can’t knock you down, we can’t stop you, you can run away any time during the fight, HOW is that fair?

Most thieves keep up to me just fine on my elementalist when using RTL, swiftness and teleport. They always catch me running if I’m trying to get away from the zerg, and I’m fine with that. You are seriously saying thieves have no teleports or mobility traits??? I think you’d better look again, there are so many mobility traits I’d have to spend an hour digging them all up. Thieves are the top of the pack in mobility, though elementalists are very close behind.

Thieves have 1 long cool down teleport, and short bow 5, and infiltrator’s strike, they can keep up with a short distance, and then they run out of stuff, if a thief does this, he has no chance of getting away from you, or stealthing because he has no initiative, he burned it all chasing you and now he can’t run away, you might as well call this a “free kill.”

What… Mobility Traits? Your saying its a waste of time getting them? are you serious? Thieves in first place in mobility?

Thieves have little to no access to swiftness, limited teleportation and we must be hitting something to gain lots of stealth, otherwise we have to wait for 45-60 second cooldown moves that only stealth us for 4 seconds each.

Steal is also on a long cool-down as well.

Those “mobility traits.” (perma swiftness/perma vigor/endurance regeneration when you cast.) seem useless to you, but they are currently what makes D/D Elementalist freaking good.

If a thief catches you when your using burning speed and ride the lightning and perma swiftness and other things, then something is obviously wrong, you need to look at your traits.

Thief is not the best on mobility, Warrior has more mobility, elementalist facerolls us on mobility, nobody can get across the map faster then elementalist can.

Traits have nothing to do with it, I have permanent swiftness, RTL and teleport. Theres very little else that I could do to get more speed.

As far as mobility, shortbow teleport comes up every 6 seconds. Heartseeker/Shadowshot come up every 3 and 4 seconds respectively, both leaps. Really are we having this discussion? Trait or rune for perm swiftness.

This isnt even a complaint of mine even, I’m fine with thieves having more mobility, but dont say they dont please.

Wrong.

Short bow teleport comes every 9.6 seconds, Initiative recharges 1 every 1.6 seconds.
Heartseeker comes every 4.8 seconds, but thieves don’t have swiftness (33% movement speed.) unless they get thrill of the crime, and thats only 10 seconds every time I use steal, which is very little to none.

Swiftness is faster then using Heartseeker+25% Movement Speed.

Shadow Shot/Steal needs a target, so you can’t use it to run away, only attack.

And if your being chased by a thief, and hes using these to chase you… he can’t kill you.

Also, Your describing moves from 3 different weapon sets, a thief can only take 2 weapon sets, and weapon sets don’t even matter as much to a thief because we only have 1 initiative pool, it doesn’t reset when we switch weapons.

- For laughs

Kilger.5490:

kenshinakh.3672:

I got a bunker D/D Ele, and I never run away from thieves o.O. But that shows, if I don’t run, and GC thieves are like desserts to my characters, doesn’t that mean others can do the same too?

By the way, in a straight out race, an ele with D/D can outrun a thief, especially now their signet matches the thief’s speed signet.

Show me a video of beating a culling stealth exploit thief, and I’ll show you a thief that decided he got bored of winning or running away.

Also the elementalist signet buff doesnt matter, most elementalists have full uptime on swiftness and it doesnt stack. I would think an elementalist would know this??

In so many posts before this, I wrote how to beat them. The times I face thieves are usually in small groups, not zergs so the culling was minimal, and I tab target my targets easily that way.

Also, you should know that not everybody builds in a way that lets your swiftness go perma. The signet was just in-general. Regardless, swiftness is even faster than the signet, and you just added to the argument that eles can travel faster long distance than thieves.

By the way, culling for me is max 1s, and I can target them before they they’re fully faded in. My PC is quite fast (i5 4.5ghz), and culling is partially related to your PC power because on my slower computers, zergs take longer to render/fade in.

The argument at the moment isn’t about culling though. Culling is a problem that should be fixed eventually. I’m just arguing that IF culling isn’t an issue (like in sPvP or in my case where I minimize the effects), then thief’s stealth is fine provided you are at a certain skill level.

Topher.1684:

A thief actually does have no chance at keeping up with you. They will catch up to you a number of times (= to the number of Shadow Steps he has equipped), but they can’t keep up. RtL has a very short CD, and you have a few sources of cripple/chill that will just screw him over royally (as a D/D ele, you are much better as handling conditions then the average thief). Using a short bow, the thief can keep up for a little while, but if he does, he will have little-to-no initiative left to hurt you seriously.

Edit: Just like to add, Thieves are more mobile when moving around a small area (shadow step to and fro, small ports on various weapons), less mobile when trying to move in one direction (which is what you were implying).

I’m just talking about straight mobility in a short pursuit like 20 seconds, RTL will be up once for this. All I said is there is no way to get away for an elementalist. If straight running a thief should have an elementalist dead in this time frame. I’m not talking about this being unfair etc, it was just a matter of fact.

The thief has other leaps at his disposal such as steal, shadowstep, shadowshot, heartseeker, in addition to permanent swiftness via trait. There are many others. The thief also has crippling options, and can remove chill/cripple as required, but leap also overcomes these.

So no, there is no way for an elementalist to get away if a thief wishes to pursue. The thief has so many more options in this scenario. I’m ok with this, but this is how it is.

Daecollo.9578:

snip

I deleted this post, I had initiative and cooldown mixed up, see above. Besides it doesnt matter, there are thieves that can keep up with RTL, swiftness, and teleport np, so this is just academic.

Kilger.5490:

Daecollo.9578:

snip

I deleted this post, I had initiative and cooldown mixed up, see above. Besides it doesnt matter, there are thieves that can keep up with RTL, swiftness, and teleport np, so this is just academic.

Those thieves sacrifice damage and runes to do such, I would not care about them.
They have to waste there HEAL and waste 12% damage and even more damage from not having points in the power tree to have it, and those thieves are kind of lulzy.

Gimmicky builds never work, a thief must focus all or nothing, you pretty much give up your “6” (healing) ability to have perma swiftness on a thief, because you have to use your heal every time its up, and not when you need to use it.

You also have to dodge as well as soon as its up, this means losing your ability to dodge when you need it.

To sum it up in one post: its not worth it, sorry.

1. Steal does not move you if you have no target.
2. Shadowstep utility is on a decently long cooldown.
3. Shadowshot requires a target. Infiltrator’s Arrow on the other hand has a 900 range and you have to cast it, so it’s actually less than 900 range because you already ran part of the way while you cast it.
4. Leap has a cast time and a travel time. It doesn’t give you a noticeable travel unless you cast like 3-4 of them. Leap does not overcome cripple/chill. You travel a shorter distance with them.

Yes, elementalists can get away from thieves.
Ride the lightning gets you 1200 yrds away, Burning speed gives you some additional distance, Lightning Flash.

You can travel faster than thieves once past the 1200 yrd range usually, and elementalist have MUCH better condition removal and CC remover. A good ele can always catch a running thief in a straight out sprint if the thief burns all his Initiative to just travel far. A good ele can escape a thief too (you can also add mistform to your getaway rotation..)

kenshinakh.3672:

By the way, in a straight out race, an ele with D/D can outrun a thief, especially now their signet matches the thief’s speed signet.

1. No, they can’t. D/D ele has superior mobility to your average thief, but your average thief isn’t using anywhere near all of their mobility tools.
2. If you’re ever benefiting from a speed signet then you let your swiftness drop, so you’re doing it wrong.

Tulisin.6945:

kenshinakh.3672:

By the way, in a straight out race, an ele with D/D can outrun a thief, especially now their signet matches the thief’s speed signet.

1. No, they can’t. D/D ele has superior mobility to your average thief, but your average thief isn’t using anywhere near all of their mobility tools.
2. If you’re ever benefiting from a speed signet then you let your swiftness drop, so you’re doing it wrong.

Care to list all of thief’s mobility tools?

Kilger.5490:

Topher.1684:

A thief actually does have no chance at keeping up with you. They will catch up to you a number of times (= to the number of Shadow Steps he has equipped), but they can’t keep up. RtL has a very short CD, and you have a few sources of cripple/chill that will just screw him over royally (as a D/D ele, you are much better as handling conditions then the average thief). Using a short bow, the thief can keep up for a little while, but if he does, he will have little-to-no initiative left to hurt you seriously.

Edit: Just like to add, Thieves are more mobile when moving around a small area (shadow step to and fro, small ports on various weapons), less mobile when trying to move in one direction (which is what you were implying).

I’m just talking about straight mobility in a short pursuit like 20 seconds, RTL will be up once for this. All I said is there is no way to get away for an elementalist. If straight running a thief should have an elementalist dead in this time frame. I’m not talking about this being unfair etc, it was just a matter of fact.

The thief has other leaps at his disposal such as steal, shadowstep, shadowshot, heartseeker, in addition to permanent swiftness via trait. There are many others. The thief also has crippling options, and can remove chill/cripple as required, but leap also overcomes these.

So no, there is no way for an elementalist to get away if a thief wishes to pursue. The thief has so many more options in this scenario. I’m ok with this, but this is how it is.

Nowhere did I say it was unfair that Ele have the mobility they have. I was just trying to clear things up for you, as you seem to think Thieves can do things they can’t, and I guess I’m going to have to clear up more for you.

I mentioned RtL has a short CD to illustrate the point that he c an’t use this in pretty much every encounter, while the Thief will need to reset and wait at least 30 seconds for his big movement abilities (not including IA/HS for reasons already illustrated -> they can use these but won’t be able to do much dps if they catch you).

Leaps, from any class, suffer greatly from cripple and chilled. Don’t believe me? try it out. We can’t have permanent swiftness. We can get close, if we dodge every 2-3 seconds, and are using our (traited cd) signet on cd to keep up vigor. We also get 10-13 seconds swiftness if you hit you will our traited steal. I wouldn’t consider that permanent swiftness by any means. The thieves best source of cripple come from either:
-Dagger Storm, could work, but only a 2 sec cripple every time it hits you and only a 900 range, very easy to get away from
-SB – Disabling Shot, sure, but only 900 range…and we dodge backwards while using this. Costs 4 initiative.
-Dagger – Dancing Dagger, sure but only 900 range…and has a very slow travel time. Costs 4 initiative.

Steal, Shadow Step, Shadow Shot are not leaps by the way. They are instant teleports like the Ele Lightning Flash. All of these can’t be spamed (used twice in a row at best, 50 second CD at worse). A leap is an ability that has travel time (HS is a leap).

So yes, there are plenty of ways for an Elementalist to get away from a fight if he wants. At worst, he moves the fight to a location more favorable to him. If you can’t seem to get away from Thieves on your Ele, I would recommend a different build. Again, not saying Eles shouldn’t be able to do this, but this is the way they are.

P.S. I’m assuming you have been using D/D throughout all this, which could be wrong. This is still possible with S/D, but not really with any other offhand. Staffs should have no problems keeping a thief away, they won’t kill it ever, but shouldn’t have any issues keeping the thief away.

Very sorry for the Wall of Text.

Sil.4560:

….
Going completely invisible in broad daylight in front of half a dozen people doesn’t make any sense to begin with. I thought I was fighting a Thief? Or does he have the One Ring?

Bagginsss …. Ssssshire …. Thief ….

I can feel no sympathy for your group trying to gank a lone player and finding he’s thief and more slippery then you could handle. It sounds a bit spoiled, like you feel you had something unjustly taken from you.

Maybe you and your friends could have spend the time you spend on ganking lone players killing supply Dolyaks. Maybe then a thief trying to work against you will not simply run off to do something else.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Also, you made the Ele run away. Isn’t that like a win?

You’re missing, or rather deliberately omitting, the context of his post. Sil was originally complaining about not being able to catch the thief and make the kill.

implement other defensive mechanics other than stealth

Thraize.9608:

implement other defensive mechanics other than stealth

Shadowstep? Spammable evades? Just sayin…

i would take those as long as i can see you.

You’d be suprised how much of a nuisance I can be with those ^^

NinjaEd.3946:

Thraize.9608:

implement other defensive mechanics other than stealth

Shadowstep? Spammable evades? Just sayin…

I’d take spammable evades. That’s a ton stronger than stealth because I’d be immune as long as I spam lol.

Shadowstep is not a good enough defense though. Any fast player will figure where you teled to nearly instantly.

If you want stealth gone, then you’ll have to rework how attacks work too because stealth is used both offensively and defensively.

Well, If you play a profession long enough you eventually learn some neat tricks to them. Such as the utility skill [ShadowStep] where you can teleport to, then teleport back within 20 seconds and remove 3 conditions. Part 1 breaks stealth however part 2 does not.
I have dueled against 5 or so people by myself in WvW with my condition thief. wiggled 1 target (I’ll harrass only 1) to low health used [Shadowstep] to get out of there, then poped a stealth skills ([Hide in shadows] but [Blinding powder] is much quicker) then used part 2 of [Shadowstep] and finished off my target. Switch to SB and teleport out again. Ofc the 4 or w/e people remaining can raise that guy but you still get that satisfaction

Just curious: This thread is a month old, are you Liaisons still tracking it and passing relevant info on to the Devs?

Have the Devs found it useful?

I just found this post actually. Got bored of looking at thief Q.Q posts in the suggestion sub-forum. If i need to pass relebant info to devs, I would say I love thief but it needs some minor tweaks… no one’s fault.

kenshinakh.3672:

NinjaEd.3946:

Thraize.9608:

implement other defensive mechanics other than stealth

Shadowstep? Spammable evades? Just sayin…

I’d take spammable evades. That’s a ton stronger than stealth because I’d be immune as long as I spam lol.

Shadowstep is not a good enough defense though. Any fast player will figure where you teled to nearly instantly.

If you want stealth gone, then you’ll have to rework how attacks work too because stealth is used both offensively and defensively.

/ponders the thought

Evade tank thieves holding points like Eles and Guardians, only they may still be able to GC it and become the best 1v1 point guards.

Quasar.1756:

Serious question for the people that believe “stealth is OP”. Let’s pretend that stealth has

been abolished from the game: What can the thief profession do to protect themselves

from other profession abilities? (Dodging and running are standard tactics for everyone,

so those answers render invalid for this question)…Let’s see someone answer that

Same thing thieves do now, use superior mobility to dictate favorable range. It is useless hypothesizing what would happen if stealth wasn’t around to make thieves survivable when it doesn’t fill that role now unless your enemy is incompetent. Stealth isn’t, nor has it ever been, the primary reason thieves are hard to kill. Anyone can catch and kill a stealthed enemy that is less mobile than they are, and nobody can catch and kill an enemy that is more mobile than they are regardless of how well they can see them. “But stealth is how thieves survive!” is a strawman, stealth is heavily ingrained in most thief builds, but it isn’t the primary defensive mechanic.