Guild Wars 2

Maugetarr.6823:

brunohstein.9038:

You would be visible all the time to your friend and that’s not the idea.

Well it is effectively the same since you have to be in melee range to use C&D, you world still be visible, and if you used shadow refuge, they would have a big target that says walk in here to see me. The only thing left that would truly hide you is blinding powder (40 sec cooldown), or comboing with a smoke field (BPS + heartseeker @ 8 initiative or the smoke wall+heartseeker). Since you would be in close combat using your thief and the idea is to see the thief when he is close to you, it is at least a decent measure off how implementing a visible stealth mechanic would affect thief gameplay.

In the moment you hit C&D, yes, you would be partially visible. But two steps backward and you are not anymore. I think it would stop with the easy mode and the thief class would be way more interesting to play.

Shadow Refuge would be seriously nerfed with this, this is true, but not a class breaker, and could be easily solved by removing the giant house of the skill animation.

brunohstein.9038:

In the moment you hit C&D, yes, you would be partially visible. But two steps backward and you are not anymore.

And then they follow simply by stepping in the direction they were to make them visible again, and they’d still be facing the thief, making backstab impossible. And even when loosing track of the thief they would be visible again when closing in for backstab, so that even a beginner could avoid it.

I understand that you feel skill should only be required from the thief?

frans.8092:

brunohstein.9038:

In the moment you hit C&D, yes, you would be partially visible. But two steps backward and you are not anymore.

And then they follow simply by stepping in the direction they were to make them visible again, and they’d still be facing the thief, making backstab impossible. And even when loosing track of the thief they would be visible again when closing in for backstab, so that even a beginner could avoid it.

I understand that you feel skill should only be required from the thief?

Or maybe then the thief dodges or changes direction and they will be lost. And the thief appears for a little fraction of time and backstab them, because they couldn’t know from where the thief was coming and the time of reaction wasn’t good enough. If they were more skilled, maybe they would have a chance.

frans.8092:

Columba.9730:

frans.8092:

brunohstein.9038:

First, you would still be able to backstab people, because they would only have a small fraction of time to counter it, but it would give them the possibility that doesn’t exist now.

Thief could never land a backstab because anyone who isn’t unspeakably bad would be able to turn with the thief and face them at all times.

In WvWvW, not true. Especially with culling and with tons of other enemies. It would just be a little more challenging than now.

Off course they can, if they can’t follow someone trying to run around them they shouldn’t be playing PvP, not even Wvw. But then, that level of player is exactly the type that is calling for these ridiculous nerfs.

I remember in wow we rogues were able to land backstabs on ppl by simply running in circles. Im 100 % sure that many ppl still use keyboard to turn around and mouse to click skills. But in wow and its mechanics as a meele you could stick to enemy kitten and keep yourself there feeling safe enough. In gw2 you will just get hit by massive aoe ( most of wow aoes doesnt do competitive dmg) or aoe auto attack that every kitten meele weapon exept daggers has. Oh and yea the level of players in most cases were terrible in wow. But thats the same everywhere.
As for these ideas about making thieves semi visible when they close in ( like in wow)… well then maybe give us exactly same mechanics abd skill set like wow rogue then ? Considering the fact that there are no resilence ( pvp def) in gw2 all the thiefs wiould go full gc with zerker gear, roam around in perma out of combat stealth with 2-4 second cooldown, see enemy, shadowstep, ambush, eviscerate,target downed,vasnish (that grants at least 3 seconds immunity for any damage/cc and puts you into normal stealth after ) stomp the target while being immune to everything and run away, and if someone manages to kick you out of stealth after those 3 seconds..well just gauge one, blind second run away a bit, that will put you out of combat, use normal stealth and repeat, or simply cast vanish again ( yes again, becouse we play cataclysm here and go sublety, not assasination. Keep in mind that after opening target will be affected by cripling poison which will drasticly reduce targets speed. Yea .. that kind of class I would love in Gw2, I allready imagine the qq amount in forums. Allthough rogues in wow are considered underpowered and still can kill pretty much anyone ( hello keyboard turners, mouse clickers).

brunohstein.9038:

In the moment you hit C&D, yes, you would be partially visible. But two steps backward and you are not anymore. I think it would stop with the easy mode and the thief class would be way more interesting to play.

Shadow Refuge would be seriously nerfed with this, this is true, but not a class breaker, and could be easily solved by removing the giant house of the skill animation.

So they would have even more information on your bearing and speed which would destroy the ability to hit and change direction to surprise them or effectively fight in a 2v1 by using 1 person for C&D then engaging the other who may be a bigger threat or target you can eliminate more quickly. Also as a matter of strategy that I forgot to mention before, it would effectively nerf S/D which relies on sitting in stealth behind an opponent waiting to use tactical strike (aptly named) during a heal. As it stands, stealth is more balanced than most people care to admit in either direction. It does nothing to mitigate damage and doesn’t break a channeled ability. A fair number of thieves consider this a design flaw that makes stealth underpowered, but in my opinion is the built in balance to stealth. Channelled abilities can help you locate a thief while still damaging them. Implementing semi visible stealth would also be giving the opponent a second chance on a mistake they already made. Since C&D has a long, distinct animation with a predictable setup, it should be dodge/block-able. If a thief can land it on a more experienced player, they deserve to be rewarded with more damage or an interrupt (especially after having a positional requirement tacked on top of that). Yes a thief can steal in the middle of a C&D to make sure it hits, but the ability shouldn’t be changed based on a 45 second combo.

The main issue is culling though. And at max, culling for me at least is 1s and I target via tabbing or if I’m with my guild, we target the thief and down him. It’s not a problem for organized groups or one skilled player to take down a thief.

However, those suggestions about stealth will pretty much make a thief a easy 1v1. In 1v1 fights with no other enemies around, culling has VERY little effect, at least in duals I had. And I’ve faced pretty good players in WvW who can fight pretty evenly with me 1v1.
If you gave these skilled players the ability to see a semi-transparent thief in close range (100-120), then I can imagine losing to them quite easily.

That’s the real problem WvW. The various levels of players makes it very hard to please. If you nerf thieves based on the perspective of the general WvW player, then you’ll skilled thief players being at a disadvantage when facing other skilled players. If you base balancing on the skilled players, then you’ll have unskilled players who will complain.

It’s reminds me of a time where I encountered a guild group which clearly had some low levels mixed in with the highs. They attacked me thinking they can overpower me with their 4-5 man group, but I outsmarted them and took them out one by one. They panicked and lost. Of course, they came back again with more 80s and I did the same exact thing. I’m not beating them because I was a thief though. I was just simply outsmarting them (and they had a thief too who was sadly not very skilled since I could read him and he couldn’t read me). My point is: There’s people of different skill level and varying level of cooperation in WvW.

Making thieves semi-visable is absolutely moronic. People who want to “see” the stealth just aren’t working hard enough to prevent the stealth in the first place.

Knock us down, stun us, avoid actually getting hit by CaD.

Stealth is fine as it is. Players need to actually read their skills and combat it better. They don’t need a combat just handed to them.

Thieves. Oh how fun they are to talk about.

Thieves are actually in a good place right now. Cluster bomb, pistol whip, and heartseeker have all been lowered to an appropriate level of damage from when they were actually too strong. Now people only complain about stealth. If you want to see me while I’m stealthed then I want a giant neon sign that says what you’re going to do before you do it also. It’s not fair that I can get updrafted by an ele and be knocked down for 3 seconds. If you can see me while stealthed I want to be able to move while knocked down.

On a serious note, I do believe thieves are in a good spot right now. I think the gameplay can be rewarding and at the same time there is a lot of risk to really make it fun. My only complaint is with the #3 on almost every dual hand set. Flanking Strike is just kinda… Flanking Strike. Death Blossom doesn’t get used much at all as it’s a waste of initiative and only seen as a backup dodge if absolutely necessary. And Unload… poor Unload.

I’m glad that thieves no longer seem to have a one button spam set and I do find myself using every skill on my bar (except #3 most times).

Just to clarify, players would not be able to see enemies in stealth all the time, only when they come near you (100-160 radius) and they would appear as an ally in stealth.

Thanks for the good debate, mainly Maugetarr and kenshinakh.

I still think it could be done and that it would stop much of the feeling of thieves are overpowered. In addition, it would increase the challenge in playing the class. But you raised good points.

Anet has their stats and probably will know what to do.

brunohstein.9038:

Just to clarify, players would not be able to see enemies in stealth all the time, only when they come near you (100-160 radius) and they would appear as an ally in stealth.

This is such a great idea, lets incentivize the play style of the most notorious culling-abusing style of thief-play: P/D! They would essentially be unaffected by this change, while counting as a nerf (again) for melee players. And then when there’s too much of that nonsense going on, we’ll see yet again more QQ.

All of these suggestions are being made by over dramatic glass cannons that got spiked down by one too many a thief. Get over it.

brunohstein.9038:

Or maybe then the thief dodges or changes direction and they will be lost. And the thief appears for a little fraction of time and backstab them, because they couldn’t know from where the thief was coming and the time of reaction wasn’t good enough. If they were more skilled, maybe they would have a chance.

Yeah. lack of skill is their problem in the first place, we’re going to alter mechanics and break a profession to bring the game at their level? What’s next?

Now 6 initiative + 50% endurance to get into stealth is reasonable, while at the same time a pending backstab becomes clearly visible for anyone to dodge or turn on? Could as well remove stealth and rework the profession from the ground up to do without it.

I’ll be concise,

The problem with thief is one and just one,

Fight against a class that if is winning will always kill you, but if you are winning will always escape IT’S NOT FUN, (always it more like 80% of the times to be honest),

The class is just disgusting like many of people writing here, they telling us “if the thief is getting away just let him go”, are you kidding us?

Thiefs wants to be able to try kill somebody and if they can’t just run away,

But guess what? We can’t get away… oh wait… except a D/D elemementalist, and YOU THE THIEVES ARE CRYING ALL OVER THE FORUM AGAINST D/D,

No other class is crying much as you against the d/d ele,

I loathe the hypocrite it sounds…

You want to be able to kill or scape always, it’s not “win or tie”, if you engage in combat you may die,

You guys… are amazing, as i said, life is not “win or tie” sometimes you lose,

I hope it is legible, i have no much time to check,

And i’m talking about wvwvw, spvp is another story,

And I’m talking about fighting a competent player, not against a glass cannon backstab noob, (I kill them in less than 20 seconds),

Any competent thief cannot be killed, i face few of them with my condition necro, (no more than 20 i’ll dare to say), and it ended in “win or tie” for them,

There’s no chance to kill them, that’s why the fight is boring as hell,

Engels.8537:

And i’m talking about wvwvw, spvp is another story,

And I’m talking about fighting a competent player, not against a glass cannon backstab noob, (I kill them in less than 20 seconds),

Any competent thief cannot be killed, i face few of them with my condition necro, (no more than 20 i’ll dare to say), and it ended in “win or tie” for them,

There’s no chance to kill them, that’s why the fight is boring as hell,

I’m not sure what your problem is, but I have no problem chasing down thieves unless they’re built tanky (pretty much all other tanky types can get away though, not just thieves). It’s especially easy on my elementalist to chase down a thief. But that’s also because I play thief, and I can predict their movement. Like a thief I chased down yesterday, I knew he needs something to hit in order to stealth, so all I do is count 3-4, and voila, there he is next to an NPC in a range I expected him to be. There’s more to that than what I said, but I think you get the point. Thieves can be caught if you know how to, unless they’re built for just getting out which I stress are your tankier thieves and I stress again that tankier builds usually can run out of a fight without a problem.

Engels.8537:

But guess what? We can’t get away… oh wait… except a D/D elemementalist, and YOU THE THIEVES ARE CRYING ALL OVER THE FORUM AGAINST D/D,

No other class is crying much as you against the d/d ele,

I loathe the hypocrite it sounds…

Those thieves are prolly HS spammers that dunno much bout the gamestyle. It’s like every other player complains about HS spammers lol.

I play thief from the start and i never had any thoughts of d/d ele as OP. True this matchup aint easy if opponent is decent but its far from OPness.

Thiefs have WAY to many ways in PvP and WvW to escape. Its like they dont have to commit one tiny bit to what they are doing. Things go wrong, go stealth again, or swap to your short bow and shoot your self completely out of range. Stealth just feels horrible broken, not to mention when they break stealth they are still not vissible for about 1-2 seconds even though they attack you. Another issue with stealth is they can finish players from it and be healed up when downed inside stealth. However i feel like skills like elixir s and any kind of stealth should remove the option to finish and heal downed players. Stealth is ok, but once you are out of it you should commit to your attacks.

Plus downed skills are probaly the most unballanced thing in this game considered PvP. Moving around in mist forms and stealthing is way too strong compared to an engineer or warrior, who can throw one CC before getting finished. Remake downed system into 3 skills for every class.

Skill 1, as it is now.
Skill 2, Single target CC (stun, fear, knockback, pull, etc.).
Skill 3, heal your self.

I’m sorry guys, but fight against a guy that i know he may run away at any time, in a fight when i manage to avoid his first burst,

In a fight that when i’m starting to take the lead he becomes invisible so I AoE and attack with my chain attack on the air like a kitten without any clue if i’m hitting him or no,

In a fight that i manage to put him on 1/4 of his life, goes invisible again and comes back again fully healed and keeps hitting me while i try to AoE and i keep hitting the air without any clue if i’m hitting him or no,

In a fight when now i’m at 1/4 and he comes back, again… fully healed without any condition and keeps hitting me while i keep dodging and hitting the air, knowing that if i manage to put him on 1/4 of his life… yes, you know what will happen,

It’s… super… boring…

As i said, against a competent player is just boring, and i can’t get away, best i can do is to give him a good reason to find somebody else easy to kill instead me, i know i won’t be able to kill him,

And i’m playing a necro, the “attrition class” acording Anet, (jokes aside)

That’s my main class and i have a lot of experiencie with it,

I play a warrior and a ranger too, the combat changes just to end in the same way…

Engels.8537:

I’m sorry guys, but fight against a guy that i know he may run away at any time, in a fight when i manage to avoid his first burst,

In a fight that when i’m starting to take the lead he becomes invisible so I AoE and attack with my chain attack on the air like a kitten without any clue if i’m hitting him or no,

In a fight that i manage to put him on 1/4 of his life, goes invisible again and comes back again fully healed and keeps hitting me while i try to AoE and i keep hitting the air without any clue if i’m hitting him or no,

In a fight when now i’m at 1/4 and he comes back, again… fully healed without any condition and keeps hitting me while i keep dodging and hitting the air, knowing that if i manage to put him on 1/4 of his life… yes, you know what will happen,

It’s… super… boring…

As i said, against a competent player is just boring, and i can’t get away, best i can do is to give him a good reason to find somebody else easy to kill instead me, i know i won’t be able to kill him,

And i’m playing a necro, the “attrition class” acording Anet, (jokes aside)

That’s my main class and i have a lot of experiencie with it,

I play a warrior and a ranger too, the combat changes just to end in the same way…

I 100% agree, this is the issue with thiefs!

Aratoa.7398:

If finding a class boring to fight is cause for a nerf demand, I need to start up a number of threads about bunker builds of various classes because I find chipping away at one person for a relatively long time to be extremely boring.

I’m not quite sure why people think that a class that is designed for roaming and mobility ‘has to commit’ when they attack when the entire class design is based around engaging and disengaging at will. You folks do realize that thieves have almost no damage mitigation right? No invulns, no protection, nothing except dodging and stealth (which doesn’t mitigate damage). You want a thief to have to stay out of stealth and be unable to escape? You’ve gotta be putting down some recommendations for ways to make the thief more viable for prolonged combat because right now they don’t have much.

Its because if you beat a thief you wont actualy have finished him off, you will just have made him go stealth and run away… And btw i would love to trade all my damage mitigation skills on any class to one stealth abillity where i can just run away and hide in safety.

Just FYI, downed stealth last 2 seconds, thats huge.

Karolis.4261:

Just FYI, downed stealth last 2 seconds, thats huge.

It is huge. Specialy because thiefs also have shadow escape. They are so much harder to finish than a ranger or even guardian.

Aratoa.7398:

If finding a class boring to fight is cause for a nerf demand, I need to start up a number of threads about bunker builds of various classes because I find chipping away at one person for a relatively long time to be extremely boring.

People did and this will become nerferd in the future,

Aratoa.7398:

I’m not quite sure why people think that a class that is designed for roaming and mobility ‘has to commit’ when they attack when the entire class design is based around engaging and disengaging at will.

It’s okey they have great mobility, that’s not the same to be able to escape at will always,

Aratoa.7398:

You folks do realize that thieves have almost no damage mitigation right? No invulns, no protection, nothing except dodging and stealth

Stealth it’s both offensive and defensive, that’s the problem, it’s far more effective than invulnerability and protection together,

Aratoa.7398:

You want a thief to have to stay out of stealth and be unable to escape? You’ve gotta be putting down some recommendations for ways to make the thief more viable for prolonged combat because right now they don’t have much.

I (not us) want a thief to be able to stealth and hit like a truck, i just want as i said not to be able to escape at will always,

Engels.8537:

I’m sorry guys, but fight against a guy that i know he may run away at any time, in a fight when i manage to avoid his first burst,

Thief
Experts at stealth and surprise, thieves can move through the shadows, vanish into thin air, or steal items from their opponents and use them as weapons. Thieves practice an agile, acrobatic fighting style, which can make them very hard to hit.

To all who defend the thief you guyz are looking only at 1 side., what we want here is to make the game balance and enjoyable., we dont say that your stealth need to vanish., what we want is to limit your stealth., over using of stealth make an outbalance in this game., and it will give bad feedback., the only thing we can limit the stealth is by changing the effect of C&D it need to stab it on the back of the enemy not in the front or the side., so that player have a chance., while keep moving backward., espicially to ranger., ranger can’t stop the C&D because there pet is near to the thief and just 1 stab at any part on the pet., in this case the stealth will be limit., hope you guyz understand,. Balance is the best.,

Sick to death of imbalanced thieves ruining the game.

Severelyy overpowered – either bam you die in 2s before the thief can even be seen (and don’t give me any crap about toughness – that buys you an extra second – woohoo), or the current vogue for non stop stealth – visible for 2s, invisible for 5, visible for 2 and repeat indefinitely. And if the thief looks like dying – oh he just walks away. And if that gets boring why not go spinning through groups of players downing 5 plus then going invisible.

Its the no skill, no risk, no difficulty class.

Nerf the damage.

Nerf the hell out of stealth.

I’m incredulous that Anet has left this crap as it is for so long.

Then think bout givin us smth else to compensate. Atm if there would be no stealth thieves are free frags for any class. Simply couse we have no utilities to be tough in direct combat. Most of Thieves utilities are kittens anyway. And those wpn skills. S/D is usin 2 skills and AA. i never even touched other two, simply couise they’re just ini eaters. You complain and scream for nerfs, but you dun see the other side. We have no other choice, so we have to fight like that omfg its so hard to understand?

I do agree that stealth is atm a lil OP couse of the cullin, but what we can do lol. just go at www and use kittenty utilities for 5s and eat the ground after? Think before you post anything, couse it looks like 80% ofthis community is just crybabies.

Also there are many players that are handlin stealth that way or another.

Give ppl choices in other wpn sets, then you wont see so many d/d thieves. Atm d/d can be playied by any 10+ yr old kiddo, and others also do so, simply couse there is no real alternative. Other wpn sets have buggish skills u never use and are harder to master. i would nerf daggers than thieves themselves, especially HSpam

Then the revealed debuff should give at least 15%-33% Damage Reduction to compensate, and regeneration from stealing needs to be 15 seconds, not 5 seconds.

Thieves should also recieve more damage from traits to compensate as well, since our burst damage will be lower, traits that increase dagger damage should be increased by 10%, there should be a new trait that gives sword damage 10%, and another trait which gives all main hand weapons a 15% critical chance, much like warrior and guardian.

Thrill of the Crime should be raised to a 25 second buff, not a 10 second, to match other buffs of other classes. This gives thieves valuable group buffage.

Thieves should also get more access to “fury” (20% critical chance.) to compensate as well, like other classes.

tagnut.8621:

Daecollo.9578:

tagnut.8621:

2 idiotic strawman arguments.

Stealth needs toning down massively – its virtually permanent and any thief with more than 2 fingers and half a brain can avoid taking any fire indefinitely. Once out of stealth you should not be able to restealth BY ANY MEANS for a minimum of 10s.

Then the revealed debuff should give at least 15%-33% Damage Reduction to compensate, and regeneration from stealing needs to be 15 seconds, not 5 seconds.

Thieves should also recieve more damage from traits to compensate as well, since our burst damage will be lower, traits that increase dagger damage should be increased by 10%, there should be a new trait that gives sword damage 10%, and another trait which gives all main hand weapons a 15% critical chance, much like warrior and guardian.

Thrill of the Crime should be raised to a 25 second buff, not a 10 second, to match other buffs of other classes. This gives thieves valuable group buffage.

Thieves should also get more access to “fury” (20% critical chance.) to compensate as well, like other classes.

No it shouldn’t – the point is the thief burst is too high, stealth is too strong and the thief has too many tools that are too effective. It should gain nothing and be reduced down to normal levels.

If you played a thief, you would know that nerfing stealth and nerfing burst is the same thing, less stealth and access to stealth would be less burst, way less burst.

Daecollo.9578:

tagnut.8621:

Daecollo.9578:

tagnut.8621:

2 idiotic strawman arguments.

Stealth needs toning down massively – its virtually permanent and any thief with more than 2 fingers and half a brain can avoid taking any fire indefinitely. Once out of stealth you should not be able to restealth BY ANY MEANS for a minimum of 10s.

Then the revealed debuff should give at least 15%-33% Damage Reduction to compensate, and regeneration from stealing needs to be 15 seconds, not 5 seconds.

Thieves should also recieve more damage from traits to compensate as well, since our burst damage will be lower, traits that increase dagger damage should be increased by 10%, there should be a new trait that gives sword damage 10%, and another trait which gives all main hand weapons a 15% critical chance, much like warrior and guardian.

Thrill of the Crime should be raised to a 25 second buff, not a 10 second, to match other buffs of other classes. This gives thieves valuable group buffage.

Thieves should also get more access to “fury” (20% critical chance.) to compensate as well, like other classes.

No it shouldn’t – the point is the thief burst is too high, stealth is too strong and the thief has too many tools that are too effective. It should gain nothing and be reduced down to normal levels.

If you played a thief, you would know that nerfing stealth and nerfing burst is the same thing, less stealth and access to stealth would be less burst, way less burst.

Steal at 4-6k? CnD at 4-6k? heartseeker at 4-6k?

All need the damage reducing significantly.

Thief damage is ok if the stealth is limit… Guyz remember on the discription thief is lethal on 1 vs 1., so it really needs 1 1/2 player before the thief down., so ok accepted., but over using of stealth thats the thing that we can’t accept., the stealth need to have limit., and they can make it by changing the C&D., make the C&D effective when they stab at the back of the enemy., I think this is not a big deal… So the fight will become thrilling not boring.,

@kenmei…. Fighting warrior is 100% fun 100% thrilling. Fighting ranger 100% fun 100% thrilling. Fighting necro 100% fun 100% thrilling. Fighting engineer 100% fun 100% thrilling. Fighting mesmer 95% fun 100% thrilling. Fighting guardian 95% fun 95% thrilling. Fighting elementalist 80% fun 50% boring 60% thirilling. Fighting thief -0.0% fun 101% boring, and its like ignore that thief because they just gonna run away ask for time out., so its 0% thrilling. but if they change the C&D effective only if they stab on the back of enemy the fight will become 100% fun 100%thrilling and additional 100% challenging. Agree?

Agreed with Daecollo above. Something else would have to be buffed in order to make up for the loss. The other 2 classes that have similar health pools have access to a great number of boons with a good deal of up time as well as knockdown/knockback paired with massive healing. To compete with that, tankier thieves can heal upon stealth. A lot of arguments and posts I have read through want to reduce stealth and offer more dodge/evade/block abilities. The unintended consequence to this I see though is that it will become like fighting thieves underwater where there is a block or evade tied to 3 of the 5 abilities, and we all know how much people love fighting thieves underwater. As it is right now, at least when a thief sets up an ability with stealth, there are at least a couple of seconds of pressure off of you. When set up with a crit/power build, a S/* can dish out the 7k damage you’d get with a backstab just through the autoattack chain. Limiting stealth and rebalancing the class around around being a dodge tank would probably lead to the same amount of complaints as now. As a thief main, I have to say the class I fear engaging the least is other thieves. Blind them and dodge the C&D and your chances of winning are pretty good. Good bunker D/D eles or guardians though are a nightmare to go through as a thief. This may not be the case for everyone, but as someone who takes a balanced approach with S/D as my main, this has been my experience so far in wvw and sPvP. Like it or not there is some level of rock paper scissors in this game, at least to an extent that creates an imbalance in some fights. An example being I have a necro friend that absolutely melts bunker builds, but can hardly touch my S/D build. Those same bunkers stand at least a decent chance of beating me in 1v1 (fights last > than 3 min and often stalemate). Not saying learn to play here, I’m just saying that each class/build has its foil and if will be far more difficult for you to be effective against it. You can take my anecdotal argument or not of you want to, but I have found that there are a great number of players who have no problems combating stealth. In the end, stealth may be changed, but think about the buffs the thief would have to receive to make up for changing the combat dynamic of a class.

I don’t get the argument that if something is properly balanced, anet must compensate. If its properly balanced, then by definition nothing is needed to compensate. It means that the prior 6 months of being imbalanced is the compensation.

Columba.9730:

I don’t get the argument that if something is properly balanced, anet must compensate. If its properly balanced, then by definition nothing is needed to compensate. It means that the prior 6 months of being imbalanced is the compensation.

The argument is that nerfing stealth will make thieves underpowered because they have the least ways to deal with taking damage in the game.

Dual.8953:

Columba.9730:

I don’t get the argument that if something is properly balanced, anet must compensate. If its properly balanced, then by definition nothing is needed to compensate. It means that the prior 6 months of being imbalanced is the compensation.

The argument is that nerfing stealth will make thieves underpowered because they have the least ways to deal with taking damage in the game.

Any nerfs would make them underpowered? I don’t really agree. Add half a second on to a stealth cool down as a start. Make gradual changes from there and reevaluate. I don’t favor a sledgehammer approach.

Remember facing a thief is like facing the most famous character in Dota! 1. Gondar 2. Faceless Void 3. Mirana 4. Rikimaru 5. Yunero 6. Mortred., holly shi t! God like! ( ranger = Traxex & syllabear ) engineer = Tinker & techies ) necro = pitLord ) mesmer = Phantom lancer ) guardian = omni knight & centaur ) warrior = Sven) elementalist = Rylai, lina, puck, dazzle

brunohstein.9038:

frans.8092:

brunohstein.9038:

…The suggestion is that when a invisible thief comes too close of the enemy he turns visible …

Thief is primarily melee and you want stealth to break when they come into melee range?

You talk like you stay in stealth while in melee combat and it is not true. While playing D/D, for example, you will enter stealth to land a backstab and not much else. After that you will have your debuff.

And I don’t think stealth should break. You would stay in stealth all the time, semi-appearing just when you get that close to the opponent. Dodge back and you are invisible again. Also, the enemy would only partially see you, like your allies can do (https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/27729/gw635.jpg).

I don’t think it would break any build a thief can use.

No offense but this is a terrible idea that would make things WORSE than they are now (and they’re already gamebreakingly bad). In a place as frantic as sPvP and WvW this would enable thieves to have constant stealth unless someone has time to look around, notice the slight shimmer of a thief out of stealth and respond accordingly, and how often does that happen. This would devolve into thieves waiting until a player is occupied, attacking them then simply running away knowing they’d auto-stealth beyond a certain range, rinse and repeat until OP.

Yea no, HELL no. I like the enthusiasm in posting this but it’s a bad idea.

A nice change would simply be,

1) Thieves cannot heal and remove conditions under stealth,

Thiefs really needs a big stealth nerf, so they cant be in stealth ALL THE TIME. They dont need any buff to make up for which is overpowered now. They already choose when they wanna fight, because its absolute pointless to engage a thief. They have shadowstep, signet of shadows, and stealth. If they need more survivabillity than that they choose engage the wrong targets because thiefs is the only class which really controls when they wanna be fighting or not.

Engels.8537:

A nice change would simply be,

1) Thieves cannot heal and remove conditions under stealth,

Or regen endurance

Engels.8537:

A nice change would simply be,

1) Thieves cannot heal and remove conditions under stealth,

With that much drawbacks to stealth, I’d want at least the ability to hit people without breaking it :o

stof.9341:

Engels.8537:

A nice change would simply be,

1) Thieves cannot heal and remove conditions under stealth,

With that much drawbacks to stealth, I’d want at least the ability to hit people without breaking it :o

At least.. hmmm
Maybe even give you the ability to kill a few people in wvw just by logging in. It would also keep things easy and would not affect all those unskilled players that think they are gods because of a bad design.

Log in -> Auto-kill a few
Log out
Repeat

easy and convenient

Of course I have no problem with thieves dodging, regenerate endurance, or heal while in stealth. It’s not those aspects of the game that make thieves unbalanced.

We should suggest some kind of solution on making the thief class a more balanced profession (balanced, not nerfed), not unbalanced in new ways.
Although I higly doubt whether ArenaNet cares about our approach on the thief profession. They will go their way if they ever decide to fix anything, like they always did.

and if they get it right this time, they will keep everybody happy (except a few, we all know who… :p)

stof.9341:

Engels.8537:

A nice change would simply be,

1) Thieves cannot heal and remove conditions under stealth,

With that much drawbacks to stealth, I’d want at least the ability to hit people without breaking it :o

That change would pressure thieves into burst specs. The traits that allow that are in Master and GrandMaster of Shadow Arts and Burst specs usually go at least 55 points in Deadly Arts and Critical Strikes which doesn’t give them access to those traits. There is ally stealth regen in Shadow Arts Adept but regens not going to be strong on a burst spec. Their only other ways to achieve healing stealth are their basic heal, Hide in Shadow, which removes Bleed and Poison and has twice the CD of the other skills and Shadow Refuge which doesn’t heal for much and paints where the thief is while it heals.

All this rage at the burst specs and all these suggestions to rail road thieves into burst specs.

Actually,

We need a buff! Look at this video. 2 thief couldn’t kill a guardian with 13k hp…

PS- The guardian wtf pwn the two thief and their pet “rock dog”

spooky.9528:

stof.9341:

Engels.8537:

A nice change would simply be,

1) Thieves cannot heal and remove conditions under stealth,

With that much drawbacks to stealth, I’d want at least the ability to hit people without breaking it :o

At least.. hmmm
Maybe even give you the ability to kill a few people in wvw just by logging in. It would also keep things easy and would not affect all those unskilled players that think they are gods because of a bad design.

A ridiculous nerf should be compensated by a ridiculous buff, that’s why.

You do understand that such a change would be stupid right? No heal in stealth :
- Hide in Shadows give the thief a regeneration boon to heal a little. This skill needs to be redone
- A trait gives the thief and all his allies the regeneration boon when the thief stealths them. This trait is now non functional and needs to be replaced
- A trait gives the thief the explicit ability to remove conditions on himself as long as he stays in stealth. This trait is now non functional and needs to be replaced
- A trait causes the thief to gain health while he’s in stealth. This trait is now non functional and needs to be replaced
- Shadow Refuge heals friendly users in the area. This skill lost half is functionality and needs to be retuned.

And the best part : you can now use stealth to grief people around you :
- Someone is using a long cast heal or condition removal skill? No problem, just use “Blinding Powder” and the skill now does nothing and is wasted!
- The thief is in need of some healing, condition removal and an escape? Let’s cast Hide in Shadows. And right during cast that thief loses HP down to 25% left which procs that minor trait and he’s stealthed, then Hide in Shadows “wiffs” and does no healing at all and no condition removal while going into CD?

Since you didn’t mention it, it would probably also makes Shadow Refuge 100% obsolete as a tool used to heal downed friends since the friend will be in stealth and so cannot be healed at all.

Columba.9730:

Dual.8953:

Columba.9730:

I don’t get the argument that if something is properly balanced, anet must compensate. If its properly balanced, then by definition nothing is needed to compensate. It means that the prior 6 months of being imbalanced is the compensation.

The argument is that nerfing stealth will make thieves underpowered because they have the least ways to deal with taking damage in the game.

Any nerfs would make them underpowered? I don’t really agree. Add half a second on to a stealth cool down as a start. Make gradual changes from there and reevaluate. I don’t favor a sledgehammer approach.

Totally agreed. Some say stealth should be completely removed. That’s really dumb and is not going to happen, because it would break the profession. But few tweaks are still necessary.

The suggestion is that when a invisible thief comes too close of the enemy he turns semi-visible (like allies see a thief while in stealth). Think about a small radius (100 – 130) around the character on where the thief appears when enters it.

My two cents about it.

tagnut.8621:

Add the kitten scorpion wire pulling people off walls to the nerf list. Gods a bunch of blind chimps could have balanced thieves better.

You mean the Scorpion Wire skill that doesn’t even work half the time and can be countered simply by not standing on the ledge? That Scorpion Wire skill?

The issue is that thieves already have the best capabilities in multiple areas. Scorpion wi alone isn’t that big a deal. However, when you add perma stealth, highest burst dps and best mobility, they all add up to horrific balance.

Lol 41,000 view 2,000 replies., lets play thief ignore the outbalance issue lets everyone role a thief., lets have fun! Let us finish them w/out revealing., let us kill them in just 2 – 3 sec! Let us go out in the combat if we want or die if we are Greedy! Let us have a lot of time out if we are not ready in combat., then time out again then time out and time out and time out holly no limit for time out., lets play thief for fun! anyway we have 5 slot to make any class so 1st make a thief 2nd elementalist 3. Warrior 4. Guardian 5. Mesmmer enjoy!

Sifu.6527:

Actually,

We need a buff! Look at this video. 2 thief couldn’t kill a guardian with 13k hp…

PS- The guardian wtf pwn the two thief and their pet “rock dog”

that was a glass cannon guardian fully-specced into dps and critting (from what i can see) who scored a few aoe crits with smite condition and judge’s intervention then gs skill 2. add blind, burning and vulnerability from the virtue of justice and i think any glass cannon of any profession who walked into melee range of this particular guardian would have suffered the same fate. poor argument for buffing thieves if you ask me.

on another note, more than 2k posts and 40k views. hope Anet realise how big a problem this is and move it up their “list of priorities”. AFTER fixing culling, of course.