Guild Wars 2

Peccavi.2978:

my suggestions, dont balance a class solely based on cry babies in pvp. Also I would like to see a second stealth where its toggled, for scouting purposes and you can not attack from this particular version of stealth. Considering thats the point of a thief/ rogue/ assassin based class, or profession as they are called here.

That’d make things too easy imo.
I could trapes around everywhere in PvE, get communing skill points and contested resource nodes with no issue what so ever.
We can already out run most zergs provided an ele isn’t obsessed with catching us. Hard to call it OP’d if it has no combat ability but it would definitely make traversing the map way too easy. (I could see it used to set up a gank from an enemy flank that was otherwise inaccessible, too which seems too strong, tactics wise.)

Tarvoskemwer.9671:

the game and the classes is in many ways fine, stick to your! design and dont listen to loud pvp’ers as blizzard did. – just because pve’ers dont voice themselves as much, doesnt mean they’re not there. PvP-catering would make me leave the game and not look back.

as for the thief class, then I’d like an option for relying more on avoidance/speed and condition damage (poison/bleed) in one way or another – but im not fussed, overall pretty happy with the game.

Its not pvp’ers that are qqing about imaginally OP classes, its pve’ers that come to do some www.

Karolis.4261:

Its not pvp’ers that are qqing about imaginally OP classes, its pve’ers that come to do some www.

I’m quoting this because it’s worth repeating. It’s the same reason why competitive (NOT bunny lv) s/tPvP sees fewer and fewer of these “OP” classes the higher you go.

Honestly, I have no problem with the damage end to thieves. You play by the sword, you die by the sword. I’m sorry for thieves that may face further nerfs in the damage aspect, but hard to say in general, its a class that can be played many ways. Not sure.

However. I do think stealth is broken. Some people have argued for a change in the initiative system for a different pay off, more combos for what HS is worth and what not. I dont think the initiative system is a problem. Anet created an awesome thief class. But I haven’t played a game where thieves/assassins have had so many opportunities to return to stealth while fighting as is present in this game. Stealth is shinkansen clockwork right now. would be great if there was some more cds there.

mursie.3681:

How do those classes have two in a five man team..if the thief is so overpowered? How is this possible?

SPOILER – because the thief is not OP

The answer is really simple. The spvp is not focused on killings the foes, but on the ability to maintain the objectives, so it’s logical that a bunker is more powerful than a burst damage class.

If we consider the PvP as a clash between players with no bullkitten like the objectives (and I do not mean zerg, but a fight between parties, just like the Daoc’s gank), well the situation is different, because the ability to kill quickly the enemies is far more important than the capability to stand without making significant damage.

And yes, in WvWvW you can roam with a party, and the pvp ‘pro players’ that assimilate all the WvWvW players to pve players are just too noobs to roam in WvWvW (and no, taking a stupid flag is not like making and inc 5 vs 10).

Do you guys realize that the topic is called “Thief and its gameplay”,not “Bads and their complaints about thief’s gameplay”

Lunar Corporation.5720:

Honestly, I have no problem with the damage end to thieves. You play by the sword, you die by the sword. I’m sorry for thieves that may face further nerfs in the damage aspect, but hard to say in general, its a class that can be played many ways. Not sure.

However. I do think stealth is broken. Some people have argued for a change in the initiative system for a different pay off, more combos for what HS is worth and what not. I dont think the initiative system is a problem. Anet created an awesome thief class. But I haven’t played a game where thieves/assassins have had so many opportunities to return to stealth while fighting as is present in this game. Stealth is shinkansen clockwork right now. would be great if there was some more cds there.

Increasing stealth cooldowns will just force more thieves to go BS burst. A lot of balanced builds rely on stealth to access thier stealth skills, which is usually the lynch pin of their playstyle. Particularly Sword/Dagger which needs requires frequent access to tactical strike to land dazes to maximize the builds up-time with auto-attacks, and pistol/dagger which requires the user to stack bleeds with Sneak Attack in order to be effective. Both S/D’s and P/D’s 2-5 skills aren’t damage focused, P/D’s auto-attack is too slow to be effective so both builds rely on their stealth attacks to be effective.

PolishSausage.1279:

I just want to point out how hilariously ignorant the people saying Thieves are fine sound. They’re probably the ones that spam the near perma-stealth bull and take cheap shots on people, then run like scared children at the slightest hint of any real danger.

Fact of the matter is, stealth needs to be nerfed so that they actually have to COMMIT to a fight, instead of having an easy escape tool that they can spam whenever. Just increase the time period that they can’t stealth to a more reasonable frame. I mean, one of my friends plays a Thief, and even he agrees that they’re a broken class simply because they have a spammable Get Out of Jail Free card. It should not take five people just to make sure one Thief doesn’t get away.

In before kitten Thieves try to deride everything I just said.

You’re quite right, Thieves are not fine. However, I think we disagree on the reasoning behind that statement.

I’ve never understood people who insist that thieves should, as you say, “COMMIT” to a fight. The whole niche of the Thief class is infiltration and guerilla warfare. Stealth is our main survival mechanism. And, considering that our base health is 10k—so we can’t survive as Warriors can—but we have neither the incredible aoe or single-target condition damage of an Ele, stealth is also our escape mechanism if we get in over our heads, as we inevitable will at some point during PvE or PvP.

Without a stealth mechanic that fulfills that role for survival, what exactly is the point of the class? To require us to “commit” to combat, as Warriors do, it would likely require a complete overhaul of the class.

I think that Thieves are not “fine” because with each series of nerfs, the builds that have taken the most punishment are the builds that do not rely on gimmicky stealth and backstab crit techniques. The dagger offhand skills received 50% and 33% damage decreases, respectively, leaving players with the option of a pistol offhand. That change opened the door for the Black Powder + HS + Backstab combo that is gaining popularity, and the “perma stealth” build that so many people are complaining about, although that build seems to do little practical damage.

For stealth to receive the nerfs that everyone apparently wants to see, we need compensation with the shadowstep mechanic to be able to survive—which would allow us to teleport away anyways, as Assassins in GW used to do. Or, everyone would have to cede serious profession alterations like better ranged damage, more evasion, and an invulnerability mechanic like Shadow Form.

Everyone saying Thief is OP needs to understand Thief can be taken out easy if you know how to play your profession correctly… A thief caught off guard by a Warrior will get downed in 2 or 3 hits. Instead of focusing on nerfing the professions which are decent. ArenaNet need to get it together and focus on fixing Ranger. Cause the Ranger is terribly under powered and under cared for by ArenaNet. Anything other than PvE the Ranger is awful at…

But Ranger is currently more like a balanced role in sPvP. It’s not required but it’s not exactly uncommon and considered a liability. More or less the same spot the Thief is currently even.

Having made a thief character and having played for the first 10 levels, the only thing that I consider that makes them OP is the fact that they can spam moves since the only ‘cooldown’ (if you can call it that) thieves have is initiative, which is easily refilled. They have no real cooldown timer, so they can spam moves quite easily. Only fix I see to that is to add a very short cooldown along with the initiative cooldown, probably linked to how much initiative the skill requires (such as 6 second cooldown for Cloak and Dagger, 3 second cooldown for Infiltrator’s Strike, etc). Only way I could picture giving the class a reasonable ‘nerf’ while keeping their core setup intact.

equips flame shield

stof.9341:

But Ranger is currently more like a balanced role in sPvP. It’s not required but it’s not exactly uncommon and considered a liability. More or less the same spot the Thief is currently even.

Having played a Ranger for the first 3 months (almost exclusively in WvW after reaching about 70), I have to respectfully disagree.

Then, having leveled a Thief and played it for the past 2 months, I’d have to laugh at you, correct myself, and then fail at respectfully disagreeing.

Thieves are power-houses and a force to be feared, but not without their counters. Necros and Guardians (oh god I hate guardians) in any form are difficult to impossible if played by anything above a chimp level. Bunker Elementalists, 2H Warriors, and to some extent Mesmers provide a challenge. And some form of Engineer gives me trouble, but not sure which yet.

So there ARE counters. But for Rangers and anyone not covered in the above, it’s pretty much not fun, and fairly uncounterable. Also, anyone who wanders around half health during a siege. Those people are going to have a bad time.

This is what was said about stealth for the Thief, when it was first revealed:

(watch from 2:50 to 3:21)

Interview (http://kotaku.com/5780900/the-guild-wars-2-thief-is-a-rogue-like-none-other):
“Stealth in Guild Wars 2 runs on a timer, which would allow you a few precious seconds of Initiative recharge before the enemy uncovers you again.

The wise Thief player will know when to retreat and recharge."

“Players are used to going toe-to-toe with monsters, and the Thief is built around hopping in-and-out of combat. If you don’t know when to back off, you’re going to die.”

Here’s the description of stealth from wiki:
“Stealth — Thieves have access to multiple skills which, for a short duration, make them invisible to enemy players and avoid aggro of hostile NPCs. While stealthed the thief is not targettable, but can still be damaged by attacks which hit them, and attacking from stealth will break the deception.”

And from the 14th december update notes:
“Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.”

Now look at these resent videos I picked randomly from YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9grDRzNT_wg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4m2mGDUL38
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7OYniHrGqE

The thing to notice about these videos isn’t only that the Thief is able to have stealth up for what seems to be next to permanently, but also how easily the Thief is able to escape once low on health. That shadow stepping makes the Thief able to easily escape AoE attacks and snares. That with Cloak and Dagger the Thief can keep stealth up without any lose to playstyle, thanks to the fast recharge of initiative. That “Revealed” is not a hinderance for the Thief at all, because the three seconds that the Thief can’t stealth, is the time that’s spend on attacking anyway. That the Thief don’t have to use their utilities for anything, other then gaining more stealth. And that on top of all of this, the Thief can also use skills like Dagger Storm to avoid damage, or Thieves Guild as pseudo clones for distraction.

This is how the majority of Thieves play: Stealth to get the upper hand and maximum damage on first attack, attack for three seconds until Revealed has passed, gain stealth again to regain positioning on your foe, attacking him again when he’s got his back turned, keep attacking him as he tries to run away with 20% health left, alternatively use shadow stepping or cripple to stop him from escaping, stealth again when he’s downed so he or an ally can’t stop you from stomping him, and then stealth/shadow step away, or start attacking the ally who was trying to help the foe you just stomped. If three or more players finally do manage to get you down to low health; use shadow stepping/Dagger Storm/Thieves Guild to get away, go back into stealth to make your foes lose track of you, hide until your health is restored, proceed to attacking again.

Am I the only one who can see the contradictory between how ArenaNet wants the Thief to play, and how it is actually played? I’m not sure how anyone (other then a Thief maybe) can justify stealth, for the Thief, as being balanced. I mean, how are you suppose to fight a profession that you can’t see for 80% of a fight, and who can easily escape you during the 20% window where you actually do see him? How is this fun to play against?

Kincaidia.3192:

stof.9341:

But Ranger is currently more like a balanced role in sPvP. It’s not required but it’s not exactly uncommon and considered a liability. More or less the same spot the Thief is currently even.

Having played a Ranger for the first 3 months (almost exclusively in WvW after reaching about 70), I have to respectfully disagree.

Then, having leveled a Thief and played it for the past 2 months, I’d have to laugh at you, correct myself, and then fail at respectfully disagreeing.

Thieves are power-houses and a force to be feared, but not without their counters. Necros and Guardians (oh god I hate guardians) in any form are difficult to impossible if played by anything above a chimp level. Bunker Elementalists, 2H Warriors, and to some extent Mesmers provide a challenge. And some form of Engineer gives me trouble, but not sure which yet.

So there ARE counters. But for Rangers and anyone not covered in the above, it’s pretty much not fun, and fairly uncounterable. Also, anyone who wanders around half health during a siege. Those people are going to have a bad time.

So, you almost never played sPvP which I was talking about, and on top of it your info on Ranger is outdated by 3 months? Relevant much?

i dont know if thieves are op or not.
but they stealth so much that it’s not fun to play against.
even if they don’t kill you, they’ll run away.

that’s a really hard mechanic to get right in open pvp games, not stealth, but the ability to escape a fight. it makes a lot of combats feel a bit stale espeially in wvw as usually the objective is to kill, as opposed to spvp in which you’re more than ok when the enemy retreats.

Totally get where you’re coming from but there aren’t really a whole lot of options for wvw as a thief. If you don’t constantly stealth and move in and out of combat then we get flattened in no time at all. They need to completely retune this class if they make changes to stealth.

Yup, I suck. I don’t really remember that people still play sPvP and assumed you meant in WvW. And I’ve played my ranger a few times after the patch where they boosted the run speed signet from 10% to 25% (among other changes).

Kasama.8941:

Am I the only one who can see the contradictory between how ArenaNet wants the Thief to play, and how it is actually played? I’m not sure how anyone (other then a Thief maybe) can justify stealth, for the Thief, as being balanced. I mean, how are you suppose to fight a profession that you can’t see for 80% of a fight, and who can easily escape you during the 20% window where you actually do see him? How is this fun to play against?

What did you see that was so contradictory? I always here this “thieves stealth for 60%…70%…80%…90%… of the fight and it’s unfair” Seriously, get over it, get used to it and learn how to combat a thief like many are doing instead of whining about it. Learn what you should do, and what you shouldn’t do. We aren’t just going to sit there, go toe to toe with you and let you stomp us. It’s a L2P issue, not a stealth issue…………………………..

Actually, stealth IS kind of a problem only due to culling. Hopefully those ‘fixes’ they’re adding this month will help stop the culling enough to make it so people don’t complain about stealth.

Kasama.8941:

Am I the only one who can see the contradictory between how ArenaNet wants the Thief to play, and how it is actually played? I’m not sure how anyone (other then a Thief maybe) can justify stealth, for the Thief, as being balanced. I mean, how are you suppose to fight a profession that you can’t see for 80% of a fight, and who can easily escape you during the 20% window where you actually do see him? How is this fun to play against?

One could say that thieves are visible 100% of the fight; whenever they stealth and go invisible, they don’t fight, whenever they fight and hit stuff, they are visible.

In general, most stealth applied can last 3-4 seconds, in a fight with a melee oriented thief this is usually far less, as it usually doesn’t take that long to manoeuvre around a target to land a backstab or tactical strike. Not to mention that time spent in stealth is time not spent doing hurtful things.

… the Thief is built around hopping in-and-out of combat …

That’s what stealth is doing, exactly as described.

“If you don’t know when to back off, you’re going to die.”
If that is not your escaping thief, I don’t know what is. He says it, know when to back off, thief is not bound to stay in the fight if he knows it’s not going to end well.

Just got hit by the invisithief (culling ftw)

Steal: 6000
CnD: 7000
BS: 10000

I have almost 3000 armor, how is this balanced?
Was outnumbered anyway so don’t care about the kill, but really…
Anyway, don’t come with your kitten l2p kitten because I already busted my cooldowns for the other 2 enemies.

Kincaidia.3192:

Yup, I suck. I don’t really remember that people still play sPvP and assumed you meant in WvW. And I’ve played my ranger a few times after the patch where they boosted the run speed signet from 10% to 25% (among other changes).

Assumed? As in, you didn’t even read the 3 lines of my post where I very clearly mentioned I was talking about sPvP? :’(

Kasama.8941:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9grDRzNT_wg

Ranger didn’t do enough to counter the thief, and made many mistakes that could have won him the fight in the first 30s rather than taking 12 minutes.

The thing to notice about these videos isn’t only that the Thief is able to have stealth up for what seems to be next to permanently, but also how easily the Thief is able to escape once low on health. That shadow stepping makes the Thief able to easily escape AoE attacks and snares. That with Cloak and Dagger the Thief can keep stealth up without any lose to playstyle, thanks to the fast recharge of initiative. That “Revealed” is not a hinderance for the Thief at all, because the three seconds that the Thief can’t stealth, is the time that’s spend on attacking anyway. That the Thief don’t have to use their utilities for anything, other then gaining more stealth. And that on top of all of this, the Thief can also use skills like Dagger Storm to avoid damage, or Thieves Guild as pseudo clones for distraction.

Stealth is used about as often as in can be used in the videos, that is far from permanent.
Cloak and Dagger takes 6 initiative, in a burst build focused on C&D there isn’t any initiative regen, after that initial initiative is used the standard thief has 9 initiative left, this greatly hampers their damaging capabilities.
It’s not that thieves don’t have to use their utilities for anything other than stealth, it’s that stealth is our major defensive aspect and the utilities that don’t provide stealth are usually worse than the ones that do.
Dagger storm lasts for 8 seconds and reflects projectiles, it does nothing to melee damage, so you are flat out wrong there. Thieves guild doesn’t even count as pseudo clones, they are obvious and die easily.

This is how the majority of Thieves play: Stealth to get the upper hand and maximum damage on first attack, attack for three seconds until Revealed has passed, gain stealth again to regain positioning on your foe, attacking him again when he’s got his back turned, keep attacking him as he tries to run away with 20% health left, alternatively use shadow stepping or cripple to stop him from escaping, stealth again when he’s downed so he or an ally can’t stop you from stomping him, and then stealth/shadow step away, or start attacking the ally who was trying to help the foe you just stomped. If three or more players finally do manage to get you down to low health; use shadow stepping/Dagger Storm/Thieves Guild to get away, go back into stealth to make your foes lose track of you, hide until your health is restored, proceed to attacking again.

Yeah, that’s pretty accurate… there also doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with that. It’s pretty much what ANet wants thieves to do so I don’t understand why you are complaining, if you know what’s coming (most of the time) you should have a pretty good idea of a counter.

Am I the only one who can see the contradictory between how ArenaNet wants the Thief to play, and how it is actually played? I’m not sure how anyone (other then a Thief maybe) can justify stealth, for the Thief, as being balanced. I mean, how are you suppose to fight a profession that you can’t see for 80% of a fight, and who can easily escape you during the 20% window where you actually do see him? How is this fun to play against?

No, but you are one of the few who thinks it’s a contradiction. At best you couldn’t “see” the thief for ~65% of a fight if they were specced for as much stealth as possible, they would also do very little damage. Additionally, just because you can’t see the thief doesn’t mean you can’t hit the thief, seriously, AOE and randomly swinging your weapons around downs more thieves than you can possibly imagine.

Oh, the whole “How is this fun to play against?” argument is a fallacy to begin with, firstly it assumes that things should be fun to play against and secondly it doesn’t JUST apply to thieves. I find fighting against bunker elementalists and guardians lacks the whole “fun” aspect, but I don’t complain about it because I’m fully aware that my build leaves me with a 5% chance of winning and I’ve accepted that… so why haven’t you?

Harbinger.9645:

Totally get where you’re coming from but there aren’t really a whole lot of options for wvw as a thief. If you don’t constantly stealth and move in and out of combat then we get flattened in no time at all. They need to completely retune this class if they make changes to stealth.

You mean get flattened like all other professions normally does? No other profession have as many mobility skills as the Thief. Problem is, you have no idea you have them, because you don’t need them, as long as you have stealth available. Try making a build that don’t use Cloak and Dagger, or any utility stealth skills, and then practice playing a Thief based on movement skills. It is very possible, if you just bother to learn it.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Actually, stealth IS kind of a problem only due to culling. Hopefully those ‘fixes’ they’re adding this month will help stop the culling enough to make it so people don’t complain about stealth.

Culling is only a problem when a lot of players are present, stealth is a problem regardless of how many players there are. Watch the sPvP video.

frans.8092:

One could say that thieves are visible 100% of the fight; whenever they stealth and go invisible, they don’t fight, whenever they fight and hit stuff, they are visible.

In general, most stealth applied can last 3-4 seconds, in a fight with a melee oriented thief this is usually far less, as it usually doesn’t take that long to manoeuvre around a target to land a backstab or tactical strike. Not to mention that time spent in stealth is time not spent doing hurtful things.

… the Thief is built around hopping in-and-out of combat …

That’s what stealth is doing, exactly as described.

“If you don’t know when to back off, you’re going to die.”
If that is not your escaping thief, I don’t know what is. He says it, know when to back off, thief is not bound to stay in the fight if he knows it’s not going to end well.

All of what you write here sounds perfectly fine on paper, but that is not how the Thief plays in practice.

The Thief usually goes invisible to further confuse a target, and to use the #1 stealth skill. Imagine if you used a shotgun, and every time you had to reload, you’d go invisible. There would then be no drawback to using the shotgun.

The Thief doesn’t “hop” in and out of combat. There’s a big difference between using stealth as a means to avoid damage for a short period of time, and using it to escape combat completely. One allows your opponent to react because of the duration limit, the other removes you from the game at your own will.

Coffeebot.3921:

Ranger didn’t do enough to counter the thief, and made many mistakes that could have won him the fight in the first 30s rather than taking 12 minutes.

Stealth is used about as often as in can be used in the videos, that is far from permanent.
Cloak and Dagger takes 6 initiative, in a burst build focused on C&D there isn’t any initiative regen, after that initial initiative is used the standard thief has 9 initiative left, this greatly hampers their damaging capabilities.
It’s not that thieves don’t have to use their utilities for anything other than stealth, it’s that stealth is our major defensive aspect and the utilities that don’t provide stealth are usually worse than the ones that do.
Dagger storm lasts for 8 seconds and reflects projectiles, it does nothing to melee damage, so you are flat out wrong there. Thieves guild doesn’t even count as pseudo clones, they are obvious and die easily.

Yeah, that’s pretty accurate… there also doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with that. It’s pretty much what ANet wants thieves to do so I don’t understand why you are complaining, if you know what’s coming (most of the time) you should have a pretty good idea of a counter.

No, but you are one of the few who thinks it’s a contradiction. At best you couldn’t “see” the thief for ~65% of a fight if they were specced for as much stealth as possible, they would also do very little damage. Additionally, just because you can’t see the thief doesn’t mean you can’t hit the thief, seriously, AOE and randomly swinging your weapons around downs more thieves than you can possibly imagine.

Oh, the whole “How is this fun to play against?” argument is a fallacy to begin with, firstly it assumes that things should be fun to play against and secondly it doesn’t JUST apply to thieves. I find fighting against bunker elementalists and guardians lacks the whole “fun” aspect, but I don’t complain about it because I’m fully aware that my build leaves me with a 5% chance of winning and I’ve accepted that… so why haven’t you?

I didn’t post the video in order to judge player skill, but to show how often the Thief is able to stealth.

lol it’s not “far” from permanent. You’re completely ignoring what you can obvisouly see in the videos. The Thief does not need initiative when the majority of damage comes from the #1 dagger skill. Stealth for the Thief is not a defense, it’s an advantage. If it only was for defense, it would only be used to get away. If you actually look at the videos, it is mostly used to cause confusion and gain the upper hand on a foe, i.e. for offensive purposes. No one is going to go into melee damage on a Thief using Dagger Storm, as you will just get dealt even more damage then you do at range. Thief NPCs are not obvious, unless you are wearing pink armor.

Did you just totally ignore everything I wrote and watched the combat videos? “Stealth is not unlimited in Guild Wars 2”, “we want it to be something that players use strategically, as oppose to a safety-net that they have on all the time”, “stealth in Guild Wars 2 runs on a timer, which would allow you a few precious seconds of Initiative recharge before the enemy uncovers you again", “Thieves have access to multiple skills which, for a short duration, make them invisible to enemy player”, “they can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects”. This is want stealth is suppose to be like, and you don’t think there’s anything wrong with how it currently plays? The whole problem is that you don’t know what’s coming, because the Thief is in stealth all the time!

It doesn’t matter if you are specced as much as possible with stealth, when all you have to do is spam Cloak and Dagger, and use the ocational heal stealth. Don’t give me “random swing your weapon around”. The Thief is not suppose to be a freaking pinata. What kind of crappy combat is that?!

It’s not my argument, it is ArenaNet’s. It has to be both fun to play, and fun to play against. This is one of their pillars of which they balance professions after. Don’t try and justify the Thief stealth by saying it’s fine because other professions are imbalanced too.

I have never done a 13k backstab or 7k with mug as thief and I am total glass cannon. How you do this???

Kasama.8941:

This is what was said about stealth for the Thief, when it was first revealed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWm8dTrEyWM

(watch from 2:50 to 3:21)

Interview (http://kotaku.com/5780900/the-guild-wars-2-thief-is-a-rogue-like-none-other):
“Stealth in Guild Wars 2 runs on a timer, which would allow you a few precious seconds of Initiative recharge before the enemy uncovers you again.

The wise Thief player will know when to retreat and recharge."

“Players are used to going toe-to-toe with monsters, and the Thief is built around hopping in-and-out of combat. If you don’t know when to back off, you’re going to die.”

Thats from 2011 March thats a long time ago obviously design changed since then because your really only getting recharge if you trait with stealth. Then if they did do it like this it wouldn’t change the damage it would make everyone play it straight glass. If I have a limited window to get in and do damage or I am forced to retreat because of how my class is designed then I am going max damage. That is probably why that was changed.

Here’s the description of stealth from wiki:
“Stealth — Thieves have access to multiple skills which, for a short duration, make them invisible to enemy players and avoid aggro of hostile NPCs. While stealthed the thief is not targettable, but can still be damaged by attacks which hit them, and attacking from stealth will break the deception.”

Sounds like thats working as stated

And from the 14th december update notes:
“Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.”

Masters of mobility, and stealth sounds like its working to me don’t see any contradiction to it all. Highest single target dps? Yup. Mobility to flank? Yup there are even traits that give you more damage if you trait even the thief runes give you more damage if you flank.

Seriously though this should go in the feedback thread

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/The-thief-and-its-gameplay-Your-feedback/page/42#post1239162

your not saying anything that isn’t posted there

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Keeping your stealth time when you get downed is completely overpowered, especially combined with the 15 second shadow refuge. Your stealth should be removed just like every single other buff when you get downed.

Dual.8953:

Lunar Corporation.5720:

Honestly, I have no problem with the damage end to thieves. You play by the sword, you die by the sword. I’m sorry for thieves that may face further nerfs in the damage aspect, but hard to say in general, its a class that can be played many ways. Not sure.

However. I do think stealth is broken. Some people have argued for a change in the initiative system for a different pay off, more combos for what HS is worth and what not. I dont think the initiative system is a problem. Anet created an awesome thief class. But I haven’t played a game where thieves/assassins have had so many opportunities to return to stealth while fighting as is present in this game. Stealth is shinkansen clockwork right now. would be great if there was some more cds there.

Increasing stealth cooldowns will just force more thieves to go BS burst. A lot of balanced builds rely on stealth to access thier stealth skills, which is usually the lynch pin of their playstyle. Particularly Sword/Dagger which needs requires frequent access to tactical strike to land dazes to maximize the builds up-time with auto-attacks, and pistol/dagger which requires the user to stack bleeds with Sneak Attack in order to be effective. Both S/D’s and P/D’s 2-5 skills aren’t damage focused, P/D’s auto-attack is too slow to be effective so both builds rely on their stealth attacks to be effective.

Sorry, I don’t think Cool-down is the right term here. Cloak and Dagger (dagger offhand #5) is based on initiative, there is no orthodox cooldown with weapon skills. Like I said the initiative system works. It punishes players that do not manage their initiative well (eg spam heart seaker). But on the other hand it is so easy to manage initiative when you know what you are doing, which is also very rewarding in a fight. But the amount of stealth that is available, for new players and experienced players, is like going to the deli and the turk behind the counter gives you every kind of meat available. you want ham with your ham? it’s grossly over stuffed with stealth opportunity. That is what needs to change, a tone down on all the stealth (in combat stealth is seriously a insult to a lot of other classes, there should be less opportunity there…). The infusion of shadow trait only adds to the sammich 2 more kinds of mustard. there you go.

Kasama, I’m sorry you keep getting stomped by us thieves because you’re bad at dealing with us on the bgs… So what do you recommend happens with stealth? Get rid of stealth? Make it shadow form? Only allow it outside of combat? Have it put pretty pink dresses with large flowers on us so you can see us?

If that’s the case, what’s next? Rangers shouldn’t be allowed to use bows and warriors should only fight drunken bare knuckle style? ANET doesn’t have a problem with how thieves are. So why do you? I believe that you have no idea how to counter or play against a thief. Yeah, it’s not fun. So revisit your build, see how other people do it, learn, play, have some fun, and quit whining about it…. It’s a L2P issue, face it!

@Kasama,what you see from 2:50 to 3:21 is the old “Hide in Shadows”. Originally it was designed as long Stealth skill and later changed to what is now:Heal+short Stealth.Also there was an elite skill,that was basically ability that allow you to attack for several seconds w/o being revealed.So if you think now Thief is more powerful that was originally intended,you are terribly wrong.You took time and put a lot of effort to write this topic…I suggest invest this time in practice of avoiding particular melee skill with cast time(^%$#cough Compact Disc cough%^$#) and you will laugh at the P/D and S/D thieves in no time.Furthermore you can equip reliable Stunbreaker and you will laugh D/D and S/P burst thieves as well.

Thieves are by far the WEAKEST class in the game.

As mentioned before, thieves are best fit for killing other thieves, and BAD players.

…also…did you see those “devastating attacks” with “double pistols”?

Kasama.8941:

Harbinger.9645:

Totally get where you’re coming from but there aren’t really a whole lot of options for wvw as a thief. If you don’t constantly stealth and move in and out of combat then we get flattened in no time at all. They need to completely retune this class if they make changes to stealth.

You mean get flattened like all other professions normally does? No other profession have as many mobility skills as the Thief. Problem is, you have no idea you have them, because you don’t need them, as long as you have stealth available. Try making a build that don’t use Cloak and Dagger, or any utility stealth skills, and then practice playing a Thief based on movement skills. It is very possible, if you just bother to learn it.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Actually, stealth IS kind of a problem only due to culling. Hopefully those ‘fixes’ they’re adding this month will help stop the culling enough to make it so people don’t complain about stealth.

Culling is only a problem when a lot of players are present, stealth is a problem regardless of how many players there are. Watch the sPvP video.

frans.8092:

One could say that thieves are visible 100% of the fight; whenever they stealth and go invisible, they don’t fight, whenever they fight and hit stuff, they are visible.

In general, most stealth applied can last 3-4 seconds, in a fight with a melee oriented thief this is usually far less, as it usually doesn’t take that long to manoeuvre around a target to land a backstab or tactical strike. Not to mention that time spent in stealth is time not spent doing hurtful things.

… the Thief is built around hopping in-and-out of combat …

That’s what stealth is doing, exactly as described.

“If you don’t know when to back off, you’re going to die.”
If that is not your escaping thief, I don’t know what is. He says it, know when to back off, thief is not bound to stay in the fight if he knows it’s not going to end well.

All of what you write here sounds perfectly fine on paper, but that is not how the Thief plays in practice.

The Thief usually goes invisible to further confuse a target, and to use the #1 stealth skill. Imagine if you used a shotgun, and every time you had to reload, you’d go invisible. There would then be no drawback to using the shotgun.

The Thief doesn’t “hop” in and out of combat. There’s a big difference between using stealth as a means to avoid damage for a short period of time, and using it to escape combat completely. One allows your opponent to react because of the duration limit, the other removes you from the game at your own will.

Ever played d/d ele? Much better mobility the thief, without sacrificing their class mech to cover distance (HS, IA, IS), playing thief without stealth is pretty much a death sentence, even bunker built we have no means to block, go invoul or other ways to completely negate damage. Hell we dont even do that in stealth, so spamming random 1 attacks on melee actually nets results more often then you think you just dont see it.

Escaping combat is not an issue, class design is. Some classes have mobility, some classes have OP heals, some have both, some have nothing. So stop crying nerf this, nerf that cause you rolled a badly designed class and ask for bug fixes/buffs for your class.
I have a necro, engi and thief currently 80 full gear. Thief in WvWvW is better in 90% of the situations atm because those other classed lack what thiefs have. Namely gap closers and/or escape mechanichs.

TL,DR: hate the game, not the players

1v1, face to face, h&s : thief dies vs any class
thieves have to use mobility and stealth to be effective.
and for the “you can’t fight what you can’t see” part, let me say it’s not true at all: you can, you just have to know what to do.

Daecollo.9578:

Highest DPS? that would be warrior.

Highest Mobility, that would be warrior.

seriously what game are you playing? A warrior never hits me for the same amount of damage thieves can. NEVER. unless your talking about killshot which takes seconds to cast, you can see the warrior get on one knee to take the shot. Its pretty easy to avoid.

A warrior is known to have some of the least mobility in the game. They can be easily shutdown and hundred blades is a joke, you can see that coming from a mile away. Stealth you can’t see it coming because the target is invisible and with the fantastic culling bug he’ll get in a few hits before you even can target him.

Thobek.1730:

Daecollo.9578:

Highest DPS? that would be warrior.

Highest Mobility, that would be warrior.

seriously what game are you playing? A warrior never hits me for the same amount of damage thieves can. NEVER. unless your talking about killshot which takes seconds to cast, you can see the warrior get on one knee to take the shot. Its pretty easy to avoid.

A warrior is known to have some of the least mobility in the game. They can be easily shutdown and hundred blades is a joke, you can see that coming from a mile away. Stealth you can’t see it coming because the target is invisible and with the fantastic culling bug he’ll get in a few hits before you even can target him.

A GS warrior downed me in one shot with Whirlwind once. He was rooted so he did that in place and I got hit like, 5 times by the skill. An Axe warrior adrenaline skill at level 3 does more damage than backstab too. An axe warrior 3rd skill in their autoattack chain also does more damage than backstab btw.

And you can Frenzy to halve the cast time of Killshot. The Frenzy drawback isn’t even much of an issue when you are at range like that. The skill takes 1.75s to cast by itself down to 0.875 with Frenzy then.

Hepan.2709:

Ever played d/d ele? Much better mobility the thief, without sacrificing their class mech to cover distance (HS, IA, IS), playing thief without stealth is pretty much a death sentence, even bunker built we have no means to block, go invoul or other ways to completely negate damage. Hell we dont even do that in stealth, so spamming random 1 attacks on melee actually nets results more often then you think you just dont see it.

Escaping combat is not an issue, class design is. Some classes have mobility, some classes have OP heals, some have both, some have nothing. So stop crying nerf this, nerf that cause you rolled a badly designed class and ask for bug fixes/buffs for your class.
I have a necro, engi and thief currently 80 full gear. Thief in WvWvW is better in 90% of the situations atm because those other classed lack what thiefs have. Namely gap closers and/or escape mechanichs.

TL,DR: hate the game, not the players

Lol D/D Eles are so OP. I can’t even find the words to describe how ridiculously OP they are.

For example: Just today, I’ve had 6 people whispering me for about an hour about my D/D build in sPvP, because I walked into a group of 4 people, killed some of them, then they ran back to me after re-spawning while I was killing the rest, killed the remaining and the ones who ran back after re-spawning, and continued it for the entire duration of the match(es). This was just while I was doing my daily (so, 3 rounds of this).

IMHO, Eles are the MOST broken class in the game, followed by Mesmers in a close race with Guardians, then Warriors, and then the rest, and finally Thief is the WORST! I wish I was joking, or favouring Thief, but sadly, this is the truth. I’ve said this countless times already, and I’ll say it again: Thieves are best suited to kill other thieves, and BAD players.

Actually i dont find mesmers broken in WvWvW, if you can single them out from their clones they actually die pretty fast, also i noticed their clones move really slow when they want to shatter so it works pretty well by just moving around alot.

Guards: what are you gonna do, good bunker builds, if the go GC they die so fast its not even fun.

Warriors: broken in PvE with GC build, they try that in WvWvW again they die super fast, they are pretty good in balanced and bunkers tho.

Eles are by far the most borked atm cause they have EVERYTHING in 1 build: boons, mobility, CC, healing (whoever came up with that, go die kkthxbb?), and so many gtfobb buttons its kitten I mean i get that someone using a shield would block your attacks, and guards could go invoul, but getting block-block-block-invoul-invoul-invoul-invoul-block-block on eles is well… kitten On top of that they dish out pretty decent damage.
+ that aura that stuns you when you attack them, thats gotta go, because that is the single most idiotic thing in a MMO since party wide 1 shot kill 4kDP skill eles had in AION.

Culling is the only real problem with stealth.

Kasama.8941:

This is what was said about stealth for the Thief, when it was first revealed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWm8dTrEyWM

(watch from 2:50 to 3:21)

Interview (http://kotaku.com/5780900/the-guild-wars-2-thief-is-a-rogue-like-none-other):
“Stealth in Guild Wars 2 runs on a timer, which would allow you a few precious seconds of Initiative recharge before the enemy uncovers you again.

The wise Thief player will know when to retreat and recharge."

“Players are used to going toe-to-toe with monsters, and the Thief is built around hopping in-and-out of combat. If you don’t know when to back off, you’re going to die.”

Here’s the description of stealth from wiki:
“Stealth — Thieves have access to multiple skills which, for a short duration, make them invisible to enemy players and avoid aggro of hostile NPCs. While stealthed the thief is not targettable, but can still be damaged by attacks which hit them, and attacking from stealth will break the deception.”

And from the 14th december update notes:
“Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.”

---

Now look at these resent videos I picked randomly from YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9grDRzNT_wg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4m2mGDUL38
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7OYniHrGqE

The thing to notice about these videos isn’t only that the Thief is able to have stealth up for what seems to be next to permanently, but also how easily the Thief is able to escape once low on health. That shadow stepping makes the Thief able to easily escape AoE attacks and snares. That with Cloak and Dagger the Thief can keep stealth up without any lose to playstyle, thanks to the fast recharge of initiative. That “Revealed” is not a hinderance for the Thief at all, because the three seconds that the Thief can’t stealth, is the time that’s spend on attacking anyway. That the Thief don’t have to use their utilities for anything, other then gaining more stealth. And that on top of all of this, the Thief can also use skills like Dagger Storm to avoid damage, or Thieves Guild as pseudo clones for distraction.

This is how the majority of Thieves play: Stealth to get the upper hand and maximum damage on first attack, attack for three seconds until Revealed has passed, gain stealth again to regain positioning on your foe, attacking him again when he’s got his back turned, keep attacking him as he tries to run away with 20% health left, alternatively use shadow stepping or cripple to stop him from escaping, stealth again when he’s downed so he or an ally can’t stop you from stomping him, and then stealth/shadow step away, or start attacking the ally who was trying to help the foe you just stomped. If three or more players finally do manage to get you down to low health; use shadow stepping/Dagger Storm/Thieves Guild to get away, go back into stealth to make your foes lose track of you, hide until your health is restored, proceed to attacking again.

---

Am I the only one who can see the contradictory between how ArenaNet wants the Thief to play, and how it is actually played? I’m not sure how anyone (other then a Thief maybe) can justify stealth, for the Thief, as being balanced. I mean, how are you suppose to fight a profession that you can’t see for 80% of a fight, and who can easily escape you during the 20% window where you actually do see him? How is this fun to play against?

Stop crying. Again one looser who cannot stand abilities of one class and dont want l2p against this class. Instead of l2p you write here novels how OP thiefs are. Thief is glass cannon which mean that he need to do most damage on first seconds or he is dead. Only point of this topic is make thief UP and useless and you can easily kill thiefs like pigs on slaughterhouse. This is only one thing you really want. I know nice number of player which has no problem with fighting against stealthed thieves. I was defeated many times by thieves and you see me cry here? No. Only problem with ppl is that ppl dont know how to play against thieves and these one, who know how to play against thieves has no problem with them.

Mesmer has clones and phantoms, necromancer can call army of minions to help him on fight and thiefs ability is stealth. Thief without stealth is same like mesmer without clones = useless character and practise target for other players and this is exactly what you want by writting this foolish novel. Instead of crying over forum, go play thief and go play against experienced players and you will see how easy is kill thief if you know how play against him.

Runcore.5107:

Mesmer has clones and phantoms, necromancer can call army of minions to help him on fight and thiefs ability is stealth. Thief without stealth is same like mesmer without clones = useless character and practise target for other players and this is exactly what you want by writting this foolish novel. Instead of crying over forum, go play thief and go play against experienced players and you will see how easy is kill thief if you know how play against him.

Agreed in general, besides that necroes with their minions aren’t the scary necroes .. :P

oZii.2864:

Thats from 2011 March thats a long time ago obviously design changed since then because your really only getting recharge if you trait with stealth. Then if they did do it like this it wouldn’t change the damage it would make everyone play it straight glass. If I have a limited window to get in and do damage or I am forced to retreat because of how my class is designed then I am going max damage. That is probably why that was changed.

Sounds like thats working as stated

Masters of mobility, and stealth sounds like its working to me don’t see any contradiction to it all. Highest single target dps? Yup. Mobility to flank? Yup there are even traits that give you more damage if you trait even the thief runes give you more damage if you flank.

Seriously though this should go in the feedback thread

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/The-thief-and-its-gameplay-Your-feedback/page/42#post1239162

your not saying anything that isn’t posted there

Yes, that’s the problem, the design has changed from what stealth was suppose to be, into something that’s not countable in any realistic way.

But it does not. The way you can string together stealth skills, means that stealth doesn’t last for “a short duration”, but more closely to a permanent duration.

The point about the last quote is that they are suppose to be “very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects”, which is completely not true, as you can avoid AoE effects very easily with the Thief. I have three AoE attacks with my Mesmer (Chaos Storm, Whirling Defense, and Feedback), all of which the Thief can easily avoid with stealth, which means I have to guess where to place them, or should I say; waste them. But even if I manage to hit with all three AoE skills, the Thief will still be able to stealth and run away to heal back up again.

Lofat.2406:

Kasama, I’m sorry you keep getting stomped by us thieves because you’re bad at dealing with us on the bgs… So what do you recommend happens with stealth? Get rid of stealth? Make it shadow form? Only allow it outside of combat? Have it put pretty pink dresses with large flowers on us so you can see us?

If that’s the case, what’s next? Rangers shouldn’t be allowed to use bows and warriors should only fight drunken bare knuckle style? ANET doesn’t have a problem with how thieves are. So why do you? I believe that you have no idea how to counter or play against a thief. Yeah, it’s not fun. So revisit your build, see how other people do it, learn, play, have some fun, and quit whining about it…. It’s a L2P issue, face it!

Don’t be ridiculous. I simply want stealth to be what it is suppose to be from a design perspective, nothing ells. I use to play a Thief myself, but it has lost all my interests because stealth is just too much of an advantage. It makes me feel too powerful, and I like to be challenge when I play a game.

A simply way to balance stealth is to remove it completely from weapon (Cloak and Dagger) and healing (Hide in Shadows) skills. Thereby only making stealth a utility and elite based skill effect. This would mean the Thief would actually have to think about when to use stealth, and when to save it.

Thieves do not keep stomping me, they are not an overpowered profession in themselves. I don’t even think that their damage is imbalanced, as many others do. Usually when I fight a Thief, the fights lasts forever because they mostly can’t kill me, and every time I get them low on health, they can just stealth and run away. Just like in the sPvP video with the Ranger and Thief, it goes back and forth for 10+ minutes, until one of us gives up, makes a mistake, or an ally shows up. When I play against a great Thief, I don’t stand a chance because I become completely disoriented by the amount of stealth they can keep up. I simply can’t see where they are. And that is the problem; the amount of time the Thief can keep stealth up, which gives a too high advantage to the profession. It allows bad Thief players to get out of situations that should otherwise defeat them. And it makes great Thief players fell overpowered to play against. And the worst thing is, that it doesn’t even require any noteworthy skill to pull of.

ZLE.8293:

@Kasama,what you see from 2:50 to 3:21 is the old “Hide in Shadows”. Originally it was designed as long Stealth skill and later changed to what is now:Heal+short Stealth.Also there was an elite skill,that was basically ability that allow you to attack for several seconds w/o being revealed.So if you think now Thief is more powerful that was originally intended,you are terribly wrong.You took time and put a lot of effort to write this topic…I suggest invest this time in practice of avoiding particular melee skill with cast time(^%$#cough Compact Disc cough%^$#) and you will laugh at the P/D and S/D thieves in no time.Furthermore you can equip reliable Stunbreaker and you will laugh D/D and S/P burst thieves as well.

Yeah, I know. I’ve been following Guild Wars 2 since before the first profession was revealed, so I know the process the Thief has been trough. That is why I made this topic, because I can remember how the Thief played in beta weekends, and when the game was first released. Back then, the Thief relied on movement, while using stealth as a tool to make movement more effective. It was actually a lot of fun to play against back then, and that’s how I wish the Thief would play today as well.

It is a lot more powerful now then it was back then. The design was originally to have stealth last around 30 seconds, but then give the Thief less stealth skills. But that design was change in order to spread stealth out over more abilities.The problem is that players have taken advantage of this, and are now able to string stealth together into an almost endless chain. So we went from two or three long lasting stealth skills, to well…basically Cloak and Dagger says it all.

I do avoid Thieves all the time, the problem is that they are next to impossible to kill. Don’t assume that I wrote this topic because I die to Thieves all the time. I wrote this topic because I recognize that stealth for the Thief is currently imbalanced, and I think it’s important to speak up about it, because everyone in the game seem to be complaining, yet no one really writes about it on the forums where ArenaNet can read it. The stealth design for the Thief needs to be pulled back to what it use to be, back when it was actually fun to play against.

Hepan.2709:

Ever played d/d ele? Much better mobility the thief, without sacrificing their class mech to cover distance (HS, IA, IS), playing thief without stealth is pretty much a death sentence, even bunker built we have no means to block, go invoul or other ways to completely negate damage. Hell we dont even do that in stealth, so spamming random 1 attacks on melee actually nets results more often then you think you just dont see it.

Escaping combat is not an issue, class design is. Some classes have mobility, some classes have OP heals, some have both, some have nothing. So stop crying nerf this, nerf that cause you rolled a badly designed class and ask for bug fixes/buffs for your class.
I have a necro, engi and thief currently 80 full gear. Thief in WvWvW is better in 90% of the situations atm because those other classed lack what thiefs have. Namely gap closers and/or escape mechanichs.

TL,DR: hate the game, not the players

Here’s a Thief playing without stealth. I think he’s doing pretty well, and the fights actually looks fair and fun. Also notice how he actually have to use all his skills to be effective.

Kasama: Did you try all the weapon sets before the change? I’m curious how S/D and P/D operated back then, because now they require frequent access to stealth to be effective. Especially since the dagger OH nerf.

Kasama.8941:

So we went from two or three long lasting stealth skills, to well…basically Cloak and Dagger says it all.

@Kasama,you are beginning to net yourself in your own inability to justify your point.

Look at your own video(that you presented for example). Isn’t that Cloak&Dagger?
Right there at #5……PLUS the other Stealths.You are embarrassing yourself.

Kasama.8941:

ZLE.8293:

@Kasama,what you see from 2:50 to 3:21 is the old “Hide in Shadows”. Originally it was designed as long Stealth skill and later changed to what is now:Heal+short Stealth.Also there was an elite skill,that was basically ability that allow you to attack for several seconds w/o being revealed.So if you think now Thief is more powerful that was originally intended,you are terribly wrong.You took time and put a lot of effort to write this topic…I suggest invest this time in practice of avoiding particular melee skill with cast time(^%$#cough Compact Disc cough%^$#) and you will laugh at the P/D and S/D thieves in no time.Furthermore you can equip reliable Stunbreaker and you will laugh D/D and S/P burst thieves as well.

Yeah, I know. I’ve been following Guild Wars 2 since before the first profession was revealed, so I know the process the Thief has been trough. That is why I made this topic, because I can remember how the Thief played in beta weekends, and when the game was first released. Back then, the Thief relied on movement, while using stealth as a tool to make movement more effective. It was actually a lot of fun to play against back then, and that’s how I wish the Thief would play today as well.

It is a lot more powerful now then it was back then. The design was originally to have stealth last around 30 seconds, but then give the Thief less stealth skills. But that design was change in order to spread stealth out over more abilities.The problem is that players have taken advantage of this, and are now able to string stealth together into an almost endless chain. So we went from two or three long lasting stealth skills, to well…basically Cloak and Dagger says it all.

I do avoid Thieves all the time, the problem is that they are next to impossible to kill. Don’t assume that I wrote this topic because I die to Thieves all the time. I wrote this topic because I recognize that stealth for the Thief is currently imbalanced, and I think it’s important to speak up about it, because everyone in the game seem to be complaining, yet no one really writes about it on the forums where ArenaNet can read it. The stealth design for the Thief needs to be pulled back to what it use to be, back when it was actually fun to play against.

Hepan.2709:

Ever played d/d ele? Much better mobility the thief, without sacrificing their class mech to cover distance (HS, IA, IS), playing thief without stealth is pretty much a death sentence, even bunker built we have no means to block, go invoul or other ways to completely negate damage. Hell we dont even do that in stealth, so spamming random 1 attacks on melee actually nets results more often then you think you just dont see it.

Escaping combat is not an issue, class design is. Some classes have mobility, some classes have OP heals, some have both, some have nothing. So stop crying nerf this, nerf that cause you rolled a badly designed class and ask for bug fixes/buffs for your class.
I have a necro, engi and thief currently 80 full gear. Thief in WvWvW is better in 90% of the situations atm because those other classed lack what thiefs have. Namely gap closers and/or escape mechanichs.

TL,DR: hate the game, not the players

Here’s a Thief playing without stealth. I think he’s doing pretty well, and the fights actually looks fair and fun. Also notice how he actually have to use all his skills to be effective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F9E54gxN6Y

Spaming auto attack and #3 isn’t using all skills….

Kasama.8941:

Here’s a Thief playing without stealth. I think he’s doing pretty well, and the fights actually looks fair and fun. Also notice how he actually have to use all his skills to be effective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F9E54gxN6Y

Seriously? The first 3 minutes of the video in all but 1 engagement he pops thieves guild everytime.

I will define thieves stealth for you OP:
Stealth is the ability that allow to an class with 10k hp and 2000 armor to win vs an shatter mesmer that do 20k damage in an single combo.
Stealth is the ability that allow to an class with 10k hp and 2000 armor to win vs an warrior that can do over 25k damage with 1 combo, while they CC you.
However i do not belive A-net intended to make from stealth the most powerfull survaivability mechanism, that became in wvwvw, mostly caused by constant C&D on monsters, and on pets / low lvl players that do not know how to counter it.

Kasama.8941:

…
Usually when I fight a Thief, the fights lasts forever because they mostly can’t kill me, and every time I get them low on health, they can just stealth and run away….

Here’s the clue revealed, you want them nerfed because you can’t win from them now. End of story, go troll elsewhere.

Rayya.2591:

players that do not know how to counter it.

That’s all I gathered from that post.