Guild Wars 2

Daecollo.9578:

Thats a good idea, if they remove “Revealed” and make Initiative Recharge rate 0.33 seconds per Initiative.

Yeah because PvE as Thief wasn’t boring enough already due to spending 95% of the fights using autoattack by lack of initiative.

]

you mean you don’t think this is balanced? HOW DARE YOU?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7OYniHrGqE

OMG rofl the title is there for attention that is why its called zerg slaying.

That first fight he downed maybe 2 people all he did was troll and eventually he died. Do people even watch the videos they submit. He didnt even do anything effective there accept make somebody have to pay repair bill.

That first group was taking the camp anyway all they basically did was defend the camp. They could have left 2 people there and they could have held that thief off.

Look people you can’t put theif skills on a cooldown not weapon skills they suck. Thieves skills are good with the initiative system. If you made them regular with cooldowns nobody would ever touch a thief. Those skills are in no way good enough to be cooldown skills period.

Most skills from classes allow sometime of burst to happen, or allow the entire attack to hit etc it gives some kind of advantage since it is on cooldown. Take a mesmer for example the only skill that is semi lackluster on Greatsword is mind stab but its still good.

Assume a mesmer doesn’t have access to clones and is just the skills they have on greatsword and lets say sword pistol. You put them on the initiative resource system. That class becomes the best class in the entire game with the skills they already have with out access to clones. Lets say GS 5 is 6 ini like cloak and dagger and lets say the mesmer wields 2 pistols and does an unload type attack. that costs 6 ini.

So a mesmer would have initiative to manage ileap, blurred frenzy, unload, Mind stab, a really good ranged auto attack on greatsword, a sword throw granting might when it bounces back and applying vulnerability, ranged attack that strips boons, and a interrupt that is a knock back and a 900-1200 range 2 sec stun that bounces to 3 targets 4 if traited for another stun. You gotta be kidding me that class becomes the strongest in the game because those are really really good abilities. Thats without clones and we didn’t even talk utilities. We didn’t talk staff, scepter, torch.

Imagine a staff mesmer/scepter+pistol confusion mesmer(without access to clones) 12 stacks of confusion No Problem! Let me hit this skill 3 twice. Let me give myself retaliation and stack some more confusion on you.

Oh you wanna attack let me spam this chaos armor, and this chaos storm. Uh oh rooted. Let me press phase retreat 2 times in a row come get me noob. Lol.

Rofl yes please I’ll take that over anything else out there. So I just reversed it you gotta be kidding me. You can’t just say give thief cooldown !! It doesnt work like that.

Its also a weak suggestion and argument

What are you talking about, our skills have crazy deeps. Like, on shortbow, I can put not one but THREE (count ‘em) three poison fields for 4 seconds. And I can spam cluster bomb all day, although it’s travel time is a cooldown unto itself…

But wait, I can also toss a dagger that was nerfed by 50% damage and is only effective vs. more than one person for paltry damage and a fleeting snare, for a bargain 4 initiative.

Pretty much every ability that isn’t a stealth skill is pure utility (and even some stealth skills are pure utility, but actually worthwhile, like Tactical Strike.) And not even good utility, in that it’s almost a waste to use unless you’re desperate.

Most people don’t understand the thief, XII seems to take that to the extreme…

I want thieves to have cool downs, that means our skills would actually be made to do damage and our traits will be buffed greatly to the traits other classes have.

I want to be able to create a thieves guild thief pet every time I dodge, and cleanse a condition every time I fart.

Laika.8795:

I want to be able to create a thieves guild thief pet every time I dodge, and cleanse a condition every time I fart.

this !

Don’t forget about near perma-vigor. That would be something nice to have on a tier 1 trait like my ele (renewing stamina, not to mention zephyr’s focus) or on guardians (vigorous precision minor trait). I would gladly throw 5-10 points into a traitline to keep up instead of the minimum of 15 into acrobatics. They could have easily given us vigor on a crit trait called it flashing blades and thrown it in the crit strikes or acrobatics line.

Like i thought all pro thief yep threads dead in the water now was a good debate while we had a lot of other people put in their 2 cents, its like a bunch of Romney supporters going to an Obama campaign he will just never win.

Shrilly.7184:

Like i thought all pro thief yep threads dead in the water now was a good debate while we had a lot of other people put in their 2 cents, its like a bunch of Romney supporters going to an Obama campaign he will just never win.

Sooo I just looked at your post history and you don’t really make any good arguments to be honest. You posted videos and then said see look at this look what he did in this zerg. Then people refute it by saying he didnt kill a zerg cause he didn’t. He always picked people he thinks are squishy most people usually can tell what classes tend to roll squishy.

Is your point that they go invis and you can’t kill them 1v1? They can jump in a zerg and pick people off (I guess you don’t like a thief dropping your man power during siege time I suppose)

Then you pick another video about a thief staying in a keep and soloing a tower. What does that have to do with a thief killing people in a zerg? 9/10 its a down not a stomp since people rez. Anyway a thief soloing a keep is different than a thief killing people in zergs.

I totally lost what your point is after looking at your post your all over the place, you mention damage in a post to prove your point, culling in another, able to kill multiple people in another, taking a tower solo which is totally different than the above.

I am sure the keep lord and guards in the tower don’t have a issue with culling, the damage a thief does, they have alot of channeled spells that follow the thief anyway. Try to Cloak and dagger when a vet guard is healing or vet archer they will spin in circles as they heal.

The Thief skill Caltrops is severly bugged making it extremely over powered.

Bug #1. When cast from stealth this skill does NOT reveal the thief. They remain stealthed.

Bug #2. When cast from stealth there is no red circle indicating the AOE.

Bug #3 The skill actually applies 2 stacks of bleed per second instead of the 1 stack per second like it should…. thus making this skill do DOUBLE the damage it was intended to do.

So when you take that it all into perspective a thief can cast Caltrops from stealth without revealing themselves, his victim(s) cannot get out of the area because they have no idea where the AOE is and the skill does double damage.

This skill is routinely abused by Cloak and Dagger spamming, condition focused theives. It is severly overpowered.

Please fix this immediately.

Also there is no conspiracy by Anet they use data, graphs etc. They aren’t trying to sweep anything under the rug. You felt your thread needed attention you don’t think this feedback thread is enough? Did you actually look at the thief forums first before posting? My guess is you did and chose a place to make your point surrounded by people you felt would agree with you.

A simple glance at the feedback forum and a little effort would have totally showed you that people who share your opinions have stated the same arguments. Cloak and Dagger on keep wals is old like 3 months ago. Search on reddit would have pulled that up for you. Thief standing out side bl keep CnDing on the outside of the wall stacking stealth. Seen it debated already.

Turbofan.4569:

The Thief skill Caltrops is severly bugged making it extremely over powered.

Bug #1. When cast from stealth this skill does NOT reveal the thief. They remain stealthed.

Bug #2. When cast from stealth there is no red circle indicating the AOE.

Bug #3 The skill actually applies 2 stacks of bleed per second instead of the 1 stack per second like it should…. thus making this skill do DOUBLE the damage it was intended to do.

So when you take that it all into perspective a thief can cast Caltrops from stealth without revealing themselves, his victim(s) cannot get out of the area because they have no idea where the AOE is and the skill does double damage.

This skill is routinely abused by Cloak and Dagger spamming, condition focused theives. It is severly overpowered.

Please fix this immediately.

Huh? Im gonna have to go check this out I know when I fight Condition thieves I see the red circle when they drop it in stealth.

When I roll condi just the other day I was stealth dropped it on the bridge and everyone was on the outside avoiding it.

so, in conclusion:
caltrops is op, backstab is still op,C&D is op, our agility is op, stealth is op, even our healing is op
what are you guys smoking ??? because i want some too ^^

Shrilly.7184:

Like i thought all pro thief yep threads dead in the water now was a good debate while we had a lot of other people put in their 2 cents, its like a bunch of Romney supporters going to an Obama campaign he will just never win.

When you actually start debating something instead of crying in the corner, maybe we can have a proper discussion.

Turbofan.4569:

The Thief skill Caltrops is severly bugged making it extremely over powered.

Bug #1. When cast from stealth this skill does NOT reveal the thief. They remain stealthed.

Bug #2. When cast from stealth there is no red circle indicating the AOE.

Bug #3 The skill actually applies 2 stacks of bleed per second instead of the 1 stack per second like it should…. thus making this skill do DOUBLE the damage it was intended to do.

So when you take that it all into perspective a thief can cast Caltrops from stealth without revealing themselves, his victim(s) cannot get out of the area because they have no idea where the AOE is and the skill does double damage.

This skill is routinely abused by Cloak and Dagger spamming, condition focused theives. It is severly overpowered.

Please fix this immediately.

Ok I don’t know if thats a bug or not but yes it doesn’t break on stealth but in essence it isn’t a direct attack like choking gas which doesn’t break on stealth. I could see possibly a change to make it drop stealth if it connects I guess but I don’t its so easily avoidable and unless you stand in it your maybe getting 4 stacks if you get out of it as soon as its dropped.

It does show when casted from stealth just tested it 2 minutes ago. Maybe you are confused if they drop it from shadow refuge and drop caltrops then the redlines could overlap but they would have to be dead center of the refuge.

It does apply 2 stacks of bleeds per tick.

Thoughts easily avoidable damage. Its really only good if you get 1 person down in a group and drop it on rezzers or cluttered people other than that. Its just good to keep spacing against melee.

LOCO.1785:

It’s funny how opinions vary isn’t it?

Every time I face a thief, I think:

Is the damage too high?

No, it’s just right. The main meta I come across is the gimmicky glass cannon/burst build. They sacrifice all their defense to hit you with that one burst. Most people expect this when facing thieves, it’s also one reason I always carry a stun break (bulls rush+frenzy+100 blades combo is the other reason). I never lose to this fotm cookie cutter build, the result is usually a dead thief or if they get lucky they escape my grasp and run for their life. If they miss their burst, they’re toast, plain & simple.

Is the mobility too high?

Nope. Thief is squishy and needs abilites to get away. Jumping up walls, ledges is lame if it were possible and it sounds like you haven’t had much experience using this yourself. You can only get to elevated areas that your toon is capable of running up ie. you can’t run up walls.

Is the stealth ok?

Absolutely. It’s the thieves main source of offense/defense. Without stealth, thieves are sitting targets. They can trait for dodging, but that will only get you so far and would cut down even more on viable builds. Thieves already have the 3 sec revealed debuff after stealthing, so it’s not something they can keep spamming straight away. They’re also not unkillable gods when they enter stealth, they’re still just as weak as when they’re unstealthed, you just cannot see them. Either spam the area with AoE or do what I do and auto attack where you think they are, I can tell I’m hitting the thief when my auto attack combo registers. It really is not rocket science… If a thief pops shadow refuge, guess where you will find him, that’s right within the refuge radius. If a thief hits you with C&D it’s a safe bet he will also go for a backstab.

Culling is an issue currently, but this is no cause to nerf the thief unjustly.

In most cases, these complaints are just L2P issues. Sorry if that hurts anyones egos, but that’s what it comes down to.

Let me guess, you play a thief? Of course nothing seems op to you. Perhaps you can explain me one thing: Why are there always 50% or more thieves in every spvp match? Is it because they are so hard to play? Is it because they are so underpowered and everyone loves a real challenge? Is it because 50% of all players always play stealth classes (don’t think so). I guess the real reason is, that thieves are the most stupid class in the game. Today I got 10000 dam with the bs combo on 3300 armor in 1 sec. Thats just silly.

DanH.5879:

so, in conclusion:
caltrops is op, backstab is still op,C&D is op, our agility is op, stealth is op, even our healing is op
what are you guys smoking ??? because i want some too ^^

IKR that healing Shadow refuge thread was really funny lol.

Despina.6970:

LOCO.1785:

It’s funny how opinions vary isn’t it?

Every time I face a thief, I think:

Is the damage too high?

No, it’s just right. The main meta I come across is the gimmicky glass cannon/burst build. They sacrifice all their defense to hit you with that one burst. Most people expect this when facing thieves, it’s also one reason I always carry a stun break (bulls rush+frenzy+100 blades combo is the other reason). I never lose to this fotm cookie cutter build, the result is usually a dead thief or if they get lucky they escape my grasp and run for their life. If they miss their burst, they’re toast, plain & simple.

Is the mobility too high?

Nope. Thief is squishy and needs abilites to get away. Jumping up walls, ledges is lame if it were possible and it sounds like you haven’t had much experience using this yourself. You can only get to elevated areas that your toon is capable of running up ie. you can’t run up walls.

Is the stealth ok?

Absolutely. It’s the thieves main source of offense/defense. Without stealth, thieves are sitting targets. They can trait for dodging, but that will only get you so far and would cut down even more on viable builds. Thieves already have the 3 sec revealed debuff after stealthing, so it’s not something they can keep spamming straight away. They’re also not unkillable gods when they enter stealth, they’re still just as weak as when they’re unstealthed, you just cannot see them. Either spam the area with AoE or do what I do and auto attack where you think they are, I can tell I’m hitting the thief when my auto attack combo registers. It really is not rocket science… If a thief pops shadow refuge, guess where you will find him, that’s right within the refuge radius. If a thief hits you with C&D it’s a safe bet he will also go for a backstab.

Culling is an issue currently, but this is no cause to nerf the thief unjustly.

In most cases, these complaints are just L2P issues. Sorry if that hurts anyones egos, but that’s what it comes down to.

Let me guess, you play a thief? Of course nothing seems op to you. Perhaps you can explain me one thing: Why are there always 50% or more thieves in every spvp match? Is it because they are so hard to play? Is it because they are so underpowered and everyone loves a real challenge? Is it because 50% of all players always play stealth classes (don’t think so). I guess the real reason is, that thieves are the most stupid class in the game. Today I got 10000 dam with the bs combo on 3300 armor in 1 sec. Thats just silly.

What level sPvP is this? Thieves are scarce at higher level sPvP. Hot join yea ok thats just some free for all half the time. Can’t balance thieves based on Rabbit sPvP.

oZii.2864:

What level sPvP is this? Thieves are scarce at higher level sPvP. Hot join yea ok thats just some free for all half the time. Can’t balance thieves based on Rabbit sPvP.

Why not? I thought the aim of good class design should be balance overall. So in your opinion its ok for new players to be killed in 1 sec. Lets see how long this game will survive without new players.

Despina.6970:

oZii.2864:

What level sPvP is this? Thieves are scarce at higher level sPvP. Hot join yea ok thats just some free for all half the time. Can’t balance thieves based on Rabbit sPvP.

Why not? I thought the aim of good class design should be balance overall. So in your opinion its ok for new players to be killed in 1 sec. Lets see how long this game will survive without new players.

Uhhh no if a new player doesn’t know his class and those of his opponents how do you balance for that guy? Except make is super easy for him to land attacks, big markers over thieves head with words that say baslisk venom is up dodge this!!. Or a option for auto roll or auto stun break when you take 10% damage.

You can’t balance for that guy. People need to do some kind of research on their own. Why wouldn’t you obviously there are people that can’t even use the search function which is why there are countless threads in all the class forums asking the same questions over and over again i.e. what gear should I use for condition damage, whats best damage gear, whats a good damage build.

GW2 doesn’t spoon feed and I am glad it doesn’t it leaves things up to discovery, trying traits on your own experimentation. I don’t want it to be X player makes a build with some fancy name like “Here is my guerrila build its BOSS” and that build becomes the standard its supreme optimal nothing else can beat it. Then everyone runs it exactly the same.

Go look in the PvE forums when there was this big uproar about ORR and 1 of the things Anet put out about the mobs in ORR was dodging the easily telegraphed Purifiers axe pull. People complained saying that they don’t dodge on their character why should they be forced to dodge lol. I don’t want it balanced for that guy no thanks.

At the highest level of sPvP is what you want to balance. If thieves are scarce at the highest level of sPvP then that means most of the opponents up at that level know how thieves work and really render them almost useless. Thieves at the highest level exist to take out bunkers for the most part. If thieves couldn’t take out bunkers why would you bring them? Your sure not holding a point with stealth.

Despina.6970:

oZii.2864:

What level sPvP is this? Thieves are scarce at higher level sPvP. Hot join yea ok thats just some free for all half the time. Can’t balance thieves based on Rabbit sPvP.

Why not? I thought the aim of good class design should be balance overall. So in your opinion its ok for new players to be killed in 1 sec. Lets see how long this game will survive without new players.

because greater number of players are in wvw, and playing thieves on wvw maps is a whole lot different from playing them in spvp.
Like he said, there are significant differences in spvp as well. Thieves are down right weak in higher level spvp. How many thieves you see in paids?

thief is an easier class to start, due to its excellent escapes, but the real advantage is it has a higher APM cap, thanks to the no-cd mechanism. Eles and engi are similar in this sense, and they feel more OP when played right.

End game balancing meant excluding newbie opinions. Take only from those having over 1000 hours on one class, results usually come out more coherent.

Despina.6970:

Let me guess, you play a thief? Of course nothing seems op to you. Perhaps you can explain me one thing: Why are there always 50% or more thieves in every spvp match? Is it because they are so hard to play? Is it because they are so underpowered and everyone loves a real challenge? Is it because 50% of all players always play stealth classes (don’t think so). I guess the real reason is, that thieves are the most stupid class in the game. Today I got 10000 dam with the bs combo on 3300 armor in 1 sec. Thats just silly.

Yes I do main a thief and actually I find bunker eles to be OP at the moment, but you won’t find me in their sub forum demanding nerfs. So far there’s a hard counter to every class I’ve found.

Since I don’t really play sPvP, I can’t really answer your question. All I can say it’s probably because in every PvP game, people will flock to the class they deem the most powerful. With the amount of whining in the thief forum, I wouldn’t be surprised if band wagoners were jumping on the thief train. From what I’ve heard, the class balance levels off in the higher level sPvP matches. What does that tell you?

Your opinion that the thieves are the most stupid class in the game is just that, your opinion. You say you got bursted with 10k damage by a thief combo? That’s great, that’s what thieves are meant to do. High burst on single targets, that’s their role, read the ANet blog on professions. Working as intended.

I’m not sure what class you play, but GC thieves are easily countered by either dodging the initial burst or doing what I do using which is utilising my stun break and countering resulting in either a dead or fleeing thief. I haven’t been bursted down by another thief in a long time. GC thieves I have no problem with whatsoever, they’re so predictable. Most people have worked out how to counter this gimmicky build by now.

Despina.6970:

Why not? I thought the aim of good class design should be balance overall. So in your opinion its ok for new players to be killed in 1 sec. Lets see how long this game will survive without new players.

So you think the game should be balanced around new players?

I love how they balanced everything out all professions are equal unlike wow

Here’s an idea, but keep in mind that I’ve only played this game for about 200 hours, so I’m by no means an expert.

Separation of PvP and PvE
Us thief players know very well that thieves can do very well in PvP but get kicked around in PvE. I personally know this all too well. I always find myself thinking in dungeons, “Why am I the only one getting downed? It’s not like I don’t dodge, and I do spec for some Vitality/Toughness.” I look around and all the other classes never get downed once. In PvP, we are some of the toughest players to beat if you don’t know how to counter thieves. That’s a huge issue: the huge gap between PvP and PvE is extremely hard to balance. When you buff in PvE, you end up buffing PvP, and next thing you know, thieves are mediocre in PvE and completely trash the other classes in PvP. So I suggest having different stats for PvP and PvE. That way, ANet has a much easier time of balancing the two. From what I’ve read, this was implemented in GW1 and things didn’t go too well. However, I trust that ANet learned a lesson or two and try this again.

Let me know if there’s something that would make this idea not work. I’d like to hear what the community has to say about this.

i want you pro nerf guys explain to me, why in higher spvp (paids), thieves are almost non-existant, are they so OP that ppl use weaker classes to play there ?

theoretical.9862:

Here’s an idea, but keep in mind that I’ve only played this game for about 200 hours, so I’m by no means an expert.

Separation of PvP and PvE
Us thief players know very well that thieves can do very well in PvP but get kicked around in PvE. I personally know this all too well. I always find myself thinking in dungeons, “Why am I the only one getting downed? It’s not like I don’t dodge, and I do spec for some Vitality/Toughness.” I look around and all the other classes never get downed once. In PvP, we are some of the toughest players to beat if you don’t know how to counter thieves. That’s a huge issue: the huge gap between PvP and PvE is extremely hard to balance. When you buff in PvE, you end up buffing PvP, and next thing you know, thieves are mediocre in PvE and completely trash the other classes in PvP. So I suggest having different stats for PvP and PvE. That way, ANet has a much easier time of balancing the two. From what I’ve read, this was implemented in GW1 and things didn’t go too well. However, I trust that ANet learned a lesson or two and try this again.

Let me know if there’s something that would make this idea not work. I’d like to hear what the community has to say about this.

If you do this for thief then you have to do it for all classes. Honestly thief is probably the only class that ever talks about how weak we are in pve. At the same token I don’t see a ton of threads popping up saying (insert class) is OP in PvE. Though it isn’t as bad as people make it out to be if it was everyone and there parents would roll thieves. I see more d/d eles than I see thieves probably more rangers too. Thief was already nerfed in sPvP but they didn’t touch thief really in WvW my guess is that they didn’t think it was necessary from whatever metric they use.

Seriously d/d ele is king in sPvP and WvW right now. I am not complaining about the class I just know after I tap it a few times and I can tell its full bunker I troll a bit and then leave cause its a waste of time. If its full bunker ele I would “have” to run SoS to stay on top of it and Bow so they cant run and heal. I don’t run either of those in my damage set as I would rather run s/d as my other set and a diff utility than SoS. If I run those I have no problem killing them but I choose not to run those just for D/D eles. I have no problem with that I am referring to WvW since the landscape is so large they have tons of room to leave and heal. The problem is people think if they see it they should kill it. A thief, d/d ele, and warrior specced for mobility are just going to get away if they want people just have to accept it.

LOCO.1785:

Every time I face a thief, I think:

Is the damage too high?

No, it’s just right. The main meta I come across is the gimmicky glass cannon/burst build. They sacrifice all their defense to hit you with that one burst. Most people expect this when facing thieves, it’s also one reason I always carry a stun break (bulls rush+frenzy+100 blades combo is the other reason). I never lose to this fotm cookie cutter build, the result is usually a dead thief or if they get lucky they escape my grasp and run for their life. If they miss their burst, they’re toast, plain & simple.

Is the mobility too high?

Nope. Thief is squishy and needs abilites to get away. Jumping up walls, ledges is lame if it were possible and it sounds like you haven’t had much experience using this yourself. You can only get to elevated areas that your toon is capable of running up ie. you can’t run up walls.

Is the stealth ok?

Absolutely. It’s the thieves main source of offense/defense. Without stealth, thieves are sitting targets. They can trait for dodging, but that will only get you so far and would cut down even more on viable builds. Thieves already have the 3 sec revealed debuff after stealthing, so it’s not something they can keep spamming straight away. They’re also not unkillable gods when they enter stealth, they’re still just as weak as when they’re unstealthed, you just cannot see them. Either spam the area with AoE or do what I do and auto attack where you think they are, I can tell I’m hitting the thief when my auto attack combo registers. It really is not rocket science… If a thief pops shadow refuge, guess where you will find him, that’s right within the refuge radius. If a thief hits you with C&D it’s a safe bet he will also go for a backstab.

Culling is an issue currently, but this is no cause to nerf the thief unjustly.

In most cases, these complaints are just L2P issues. Sorry if that hurts anyones egos, but that’s what it comes down to.

If they miss their burst they stealth and reset the fight.

Also they can leap on to ledges, Not all of them because you need to see the face of the ledge. But it can be done. The fact you don’t know that makes me wonder about your entire post.

Finally the way you say auto attack where they are or spam AoE, do you know the cooldown of most AoE in this game? It’s not something you can spam, they are on long cd’s. Do you also know they a lot of classes can’t auto attack without a target selected. Guess what – you can’t target stealthed classes.

Your entire post just shows a lack of knowledge of classes, especially the thief.

I think the thieves that are saying “AOE where you think they are!” are thinking about the times they fought against an Engineer with bomb/grenade/flamethrower, Necro with staff, or a trap Ranger.

They are ignoring that most other people don’t have the AOEs for that tactic to be effective. For example, a non-trap Ranger has only Longbow (lol) with 1 long CD AOE (#5) and Torch’s small AOE at your feet. A Mesmer has Mind Stab on the Greatsword and Chaos Storm on the Staff. A Necro without Staff could possibly have wells.

There are plenty who don’t have massive amounts of AOE to throw at where they think a class is. Sure, they could try to melee, if they have a melee weapon equipped, and even then they are simply swiping at air trying to get the animation to go to the 2nd auto-attack. Even when it does, a good thief simply moves.

Lastly, when the tactic to beat a build is “blindly attack where you think they might be”, there is an obvious problem.

Rangers got rapid fire and that bird summon that tracks the thief through stealth and shows the world where he is. That’s harsh enough of a stealth counter as it is.

Despina.6970:

LOCO.1785:

It’s funny how opinions vary isn’t it?

Every time I face a thief, I think:

Is the damage too high?

No, it’s just right. The main meta I come across is the gimmicky glass cannon/burst build. They sacrifice all their defense to hit you with that one burst. Most people expect this when facing thieves, it’s also one reason I always carry a stun break (bulls rush+frenzy+100 blades combo is the other reason). I never lose to this fotm cookie cutter build, the result is usually a dead thief or if they get lucky they escape my grasp and run for their life. If they miss their burst, they’re toast, plain & simple.

Is the mobility too high?

Nope. Thief is squishy and needs abilites to get away. Jumping up walls, ledges is lame if it were possible and it sounds like you haven’t had much experience using this yourself. You can only get to elevated areas that your toon is capable of running up ie. you can’t run up walls.

Is the stealth ok?

Absolutely. It’s the thieves main source of offense/defense. Without stealth, thieves are sitting targets. They can trait for dodging, but that will only get you so far and would cut down even more on viable builds. Thieves already have the 3 sec revealed debuff after stealthing, so it’s not something they can keep spamming straight away. They’re also not unkillable gods when they enter stealth, they’re still just as weak as when they’re unstealthed, you just cannot see them. Either spam the area with AoE or do what I do and auto attack where you think they are, I can tell I’m hitting the thief when my auto attack combo registers. It really is not rocket science… If a thief pops shadow refuge, guess where you will find him, that’s right within the refuge radius. If a thief hits you with C&D it’s a safe bet he will also go for a backstab.

Culling is an issue currently, but this is no cause to nerf the thief unjustly.

In most cases, these complaints are just L2P issues. Sorry if that hurts anyones egos, but that’s what it comes down to.

Let me guess, you play a thief? Of course nothing seems op to you. Perhaps you can explain me one thing: Why are there always 50% or more thieves in every spvp match? Is it because they are so hard to play? Is it because they are so underpowered and everyone loves a real challenge? Is it because 50% of all players always play stealth classes (don’t think so). I guess the real reason is, that thieves are the most stupid class in the game. Today I got 10000 dam with the bs combo on 3300 armor in 1 sec. Thats just silly.

That’s a big BS against that armor. To ensure I get to land something like that I have to run a terrible set of skills and traits and runes (all geared to badly hurting someone with less than 50% health) and then hit Bas venom → Signet 1 → signet 2 → signet 3 (for 15 stacks of might total) → C&D → Steal → Backstab.

It’s a 7 key combo. Then you can imagine what happens if you had hit the block or dodge key. Not much left in the bank.

Faeyd.5094:

That’s a big BS against that armor. To ensure I get to land something like that I have to run a terrible set of skills and traits and runes (all geared to badly hurting someone with less than 50% health) and then hit Bas venom -> Signet 1 -> signet 2 -> signet 3 (for 15 stacks of might total) -> C&D -> Steal -> Backstab.

It’s a 7 key combo. Then you can imagine what happens if you had hit the block or dodge key. Not much left in the bank.

So what? It remains just stupid to do this much dam on 3300 armor. And really good advice to block or dodge, when you get hit almost instant and are in a fight. And if he really misses, no problem just stealth run away and try again.

Continueing with the theme:-

1)Trade off stealth with speed, quickness, high dps attacks/burst.

2)Compensating the theif class with multi dodges per endurance and enhance endurance.

Reveal activates only after a high dps has been dumped. This means thief can attack from stealth and only after the attack has happened when the victim is down or close to death does the thief reveal him or herself. I think reveal can be kept.

Stealth is 100% invisibility. I like to see a transparancy feature. Transparancy should be roughly around 90% invisibility. Higher or lower percentage of invisibility could be dependent on satisfactory out come.

Transparancy should activate just prior to speed, quickness, and high dps attacks/burst. Transparancy duration time before activation of speed, quickness, high dps attacks/burst for thief could be a substitute for activation time for normal skills of other class/profession.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

snip

Why did you copy and paste the same comment you posted here ?

Because I to late realized I had more chance of Anet reading here then in wvw topic. (this is the only topic they won’t close for sure).

stof.9341:

Rangers got rapid fire and that bird summon that tracks the thief through stealth and shows the world where he is. That’s harsh enough of a stealth counter as it is.

Yea I hate that bird move OMG.

Despina.6970:

Faeyd.5094:

That’s a big BS against that armor. To ensure I get to land something like that I have to run a terrible set of skills and traits and runes (all geared to badly hurting someone with less than 50% health) and then hit Bas venom -> Signet 1 -> signet 2 -> signet 3 (for 15 stacks of might total) -> C&D -> Steal -> Backstab.

It’s a 7 key combo. Then you can imagine what happens if you had hit the block or dodge key. Not much left in the bank.

So what? It remains just stupid to do this much dam on 3300 armor. And really good advice to block or dodge, when you get hit almost instant and are in a fight. And if he really misses, no problem just stealth run away and try again.

Its not like you get hit for that much all the time!! Its a crit he got lucky its not like every time he strikes you he is going to do that much damage every single time. You know he can NOT crit. It happens its crits dude omg. Also a thief running what he said is so gimmicky the only thing they have to stealth is CnD or the heal. They can heal and by time they come out of stealth their will not be recharged rofl. Do some research man. If they leave the area to get out of combat you do the same your both replenishing health jeez.

Despina.6970:

… Perhaps you can explain me one thing: Why are there always 50% or more thieves in every spvp match?

You just have to love how people still try to use arguments based around statistical facts they made up while typing.

Despina.6970:

Why not? I thought the aim of good class design should be balance overall. So in your opinion its ok for new players to be killed in 1 sec. Lets see how long this game will survive without new players.

Do they change chess’ rules to accommodate new players? No, new players practice the rules, then they play, they loose games, learn from their mistakes and get better. If you want to help new players, be their mentor rather then give them another game.

As to Crits, it’s not uncommon to see a Thief with 30 in Critical Strikes have 100% crit chance out of stealth (i.e. 100% crit chance on backstab) along with 20+ in Shadow Arts.

As such, arguing “that was a crit, they won’t always crit” is not a strong argument; especially since the Critical Strikes tree also contributes to crit chance and crit damage so fits well into burst builds.

Honestly, as I stated in my post about Thieves in WvW vs PvE vs sPvP, I think the current incarnation of Thieves is bad. Thieves are dependent on stealth to a degree where they are often not enjoyable to fight against in WvW (arg! @ culling), they aren’t that effective (comparatively) to other classes in dungeons, and they aren’t good at contesting points (can’t contest while stealthed).

Aside from my points where fixing culling and allow thieves to compete with elementalists as viable roamers in sPvP (i.e. nerf the ele that arenanet has admitted is “too much”), I think it would be good to move the Thief away from relying so much on stealth and give them more active defenses. The Mesmer and Ranger are good examples of classes with active defenses so I’ll elaborate on how they work for them:

For Mesmer, you have distortion shatter evading all attacks as well as blocks, blinds, and skills like blurred frenzy that also evade all attacks.

For Ranger, you have weapons with evades built into some of the attacks. The 1h sword has 3 evades from it’s #2, #2 2nd activation, and #3. Dagger has 1 evade on its #4, Greatsword evades every 3rd auto-attack and blocks on #4, and Shortbow evades on #3.

The thief already has some of this with #3 on Dual Dagger having a built in evade and Thieves can trait such that they can dodge roll 3 times on a full bar of stamina whereas everyone else can only do so twice on that same full bar of stamina.

The one issue with this route could be that by giving less stealth but more evasion, you now see the Thief but he’s using attacks that evade the whole time before stealthing again … though maybe initiative and/or the revealed timer could prevent that.

Ultimately, there should be at least 3 full seconds seeing the Thief come out of stealth and the next time they are able to stealth … maybe 5 full seconds, though I can bring quite a bit of pain in that amount of time on all my 80s.

Executioner trait > Hidden Assassin in most cases people take executioner instead of hidden.

You can’t compare classes like that this class has this and this doesn’t

As someone else said can I get a thief everytime I dodge?

oZii.2864:

As someone else said can I get a thief everytime I dodge?

Don’t forget condition removal every time I fart.

Laika.8795:

oZii.2864:

As someone else said can I get a thief everytime I dodge?

Don’t forget condition removal every time I fart.

Thats pretty unreliable condition removal.

Daecollo.9578:

Laika.8795:

oZii.2864:

As someone else said can I get a thief everytime I dodge?

Don’t forget condition removal every time I fart.

Thats pretty unreliable condition removal.

I’m a vegetarian, I eat a lot of broccoli.

Laika.8795:

Daecollo.9578:

Laika.8795:

oZii.2864:

As someone else said can I get a thief everytime I dodge?

Don’t forget condition removal every time I fart.

Thats pretty unreliable condition removal.

I’m a vegetarian, I eat a lot of broccoli.

Should be a ranger trait then, deals with animals and stuff, that way whenever you OR your pet fart it cures a condition.

Daecollo.9578:

Should be a ranger trait then, deals with animals and stuff, that way whenever you OR your pet fart it cures a condition.

No way, Rangers are totally OP already. They can use birds to track thieves in stealth, and continue hitting them throughout stealth for big numbers… If they can do that, and stealth is OP and ANet has to rework the entire class.

Laika.8795:

Daecollo.9578:

Should be a ranger trait then, deals with animals and stuff, that way whenever you OR your pet fart it cures a condition.

No way, Rangers are totally OP already. They can use birds to track thieves in stealth, and continue hitting them throughout stealth for big numbers… If they can do that, and stealth is OP and ANet has to rework the entire class.

Nah man Rangers are the worse class in the game absolutely terrible. Ask any thief that has fought a competent trap ranger how easy they are to kill o.O.

Sebrent.3625:

As to Crits, it’s not uncommon to see a Thief with 30 in Critical Strikes have 100% crit chance out of stealth (i.e. 100% crit chance on backstab) along with 20+ in Shadow Arts.

Shadow Arts don’t change it. The trait isn’t that good, one guaranteed crit? If they spec DPS they’d likely have 40-50% without buffs, so effectively the trait only has effect every other hit. Might work with low precision high crit damage gear?

Evasion alone doesn’t cut it in it’s current incarnation as a replacement, the 15% refund trait is poor compared to the 50% regenration traits of other classes and thief has little access to vigor.

hell fellow thieves, did we dodge a bullet?
oo snap, new build again….

The trait makes backstab burst more reliable. The last think a BS burst needs it to not burst kill his target. Besides, a correctly done BS burst doesn’t really hit a target under 50% at any time.

The 15% refund trait makes vigor more powerful on a thief than any other classes since we get more dodges out of the two than any other class can. Besides with the withdraw buff, thief got a better reason to use it with the vigor on heal trait which has a nice uptime.