Guild Wars 2

can we has more nerfs plz ? people is still not happy

Dual.8953:

Guardians, Thieves and Elemenalists do have the lowest HP pool, but despite thier HP pool, Guardians and Elementalists are widely considered the tankiest classes in the game, because of their access to sustained defensive boons and buffs. Thieves only have access to a weak version of Regen.

Ele is per default squishy as hell. Look at all those GC staff eles. they die in seconds. Because of that many eles go for bunker builds. That means traiting for 30 water + 30 arcana (no damage traits) and equipping full PVT armor with clerics trinkets (no damage stats besides power). As runes most choose water + monk (again no damage stats).

Got it? Ele sacrifies all damage to become tanky. Its not the profession itself which is tanky. Compare this to thieves. Most thieves go full GC with a bit of valkyrie because stealth mechanics is so strong compared to the other professions mechanics.

Ele cant go full GC just because they have access to protection and regen. Thats entirely unique to thieves. Stealth is both a superior offensive and defensive game mechanic which totally negates the necessity to trade damage stats for more defense.

teg.1340:

Chrysaliss.8720:

Thief is the most squishy class in the game. Lowest HP and lowest toughness in the game. Not speaking about the fact that thief does NOT have an ability to grand himself stability.

Ehm, no. Thief has the same base HP pool than ele and guardian, so its not the lowest. And thief has access to medium armor which results in ~7% more damage reduction compared to light armor classes.

Stability is granted by dagger storm, an extremely OP AOE damage skill granted to a single target damage profession (lol). Not only does it deal extremely high AOE damage in a huge area, ignoring the 5 target cap, it also cripples + reflects projectiles + grants stability.

Thieves are NOT squishy per default. Thieves are squishy because you decide to go (mostly) full glass canon. All the other professions explode on damage spikes when running full GC builds in WvW. Thieves just deal massive damage in a few seconds then vanish in stealth.

Sure, you can hit a thief in stealth. But due to missing hit feedback, thats just pathetic. Looking at the chain animations is not an option because (i) not every profession has access to anytimer chains and (ii) you have to wait for the second hit to actually see if you first hit has landed – at this time the thief may be miles away.

yeah, I don’t get the drama about thieves having low defense other than stealth. It’s nonsense. they have decent armor, they evade like crazy, their health isn’t the lowest and they can beef up toughness.

Faeyd.5094:

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

oZii.2864:

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

Rayya.2591:

Shrilly.7184:

Rayya.2591:

vespers.1759:

you mean you don’t think this is balanced?

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

An thief killing other thieves and low lvls.
Hi , do i miss any point ?
did he even atempted to kill an lvl 80 guardian /elementarist /engenier /warrior /necro /mesmer … with double food buff, like he used ?
would he even had an chance?
How dare you

get off my thrwead unless you are going to see other evidence

I am sorry that not everybody share same point with you.
And please stay on topic, is related to thieves issues.
Stealth is an defence mechanism

Defense mechanism!? Umm… Let’s see, yes, but a good defense only contributes to a good offense. Considering stealth is OP and a GREAT defense, it is easily turned into and used as a GREAT offense. One in which most all other players/classes have little defense against…

The thief is encouraged to flank based on traits or weapon skills. Even the thief rune gives 10% more damage from the side or back.

I’d like to see how someone gets around the side or back of a player not invisible. My backstab hits for like 2.4k from the side on a crit and I have 75 crit damage 2.3k power.

Im in all pvt gear and only 3 zerker trinkets and runes of divinity with like 65 crit damage and iZerker on my mesmer easily clears 4k. Duelist is on average 3k.

Speaking WvW in particular:

Sure, the thief needs to be able to ‘get around’ and have the ability to attack from the rear and from the side. Though they can go in and out of stealth pretty easily. Just because a thief puts on SR doesn’t mean he’ll stay there to be hit by some luckily places AoE. That’s what it is when the thief goes stealth for most classes, it comes down to lucky AoE. Even then, Thieves can get away pretty easily.
If an opposing class is playing a bunker type build and has a high amount of toughness/hp, the thief has a lot of freedom to give up on the fight, stealth, and go for someone else.

The issue(and it’s not completely culling), is the fact that opposing classes against the thief lose target and have little if any reliable tracking of the thief when he goes into stealth. Rightly so, because it’s stealth. However, it’s very hard and almost impossible to fight something you can’t see.

Players have no clue that a 6k+ damage assault from a thief is coming, can’t defend against it, and little to no time to react to prevent the thief from going back into stealth. Defending player may be able to get a heal and get back to close full health, but then the cooldown to heal again is typically longer than the thief’s cooldown to for stealth abilities. So even after the initial strike, opposing players are forced to try to predict where the thief is, acquire target, try to land some damage and possibly dodge(depending on health at this point) all within a very short window of time before the thief goes stealth again. Stringing stealth, average to good thieves can whittle down an opponent rather quickly in a 1-1 encounter in WvW. Sure WvW isn’t 1-1, but there are many cases it happens. Besides, I’ve seen a thief take down more than 2-3 players in WvW several times who were trying to fight against the thief. They all died. They’re not terrible players either, but against a good thief, they couldn’t be very effective. It took another thief to come and kill the thief that killed them…

If you don’t take down a thief in the very small window of opportunity you typically hardly have, the thief can easily get away, recoup, and come at you again at his leisure.

I certainly don’t want the class to be nerfed to any major degree. Though, there needs to be some adjustment.

Yes they do have to stay in SR.. For 3 seconds or so.

no they don’t. thieves have reported that they use sr as a way to divert attention away from where they are. thieves have plenty of other ways to stay stealthed outside of sr. culling for one.

Columba.9730:

Faeyd.5094:

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

oZii.2864:

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

Rayya.2591:

Shrilly.7184:

Rayya.2591:

vespers.1759:

you mean you don’t think this is balanced?

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

An thief killing other thieves and low lvls.
Hi , do i miss any point ?
did he even atempted to kill an lvl 80 guardian /elementarist /engenier /warrior /necro /mesmer … with double food buff, like he used ?
would he even had an chance?
How dare you

get off my thrwead unless you are going to see other evidence

I am sorry that not everybody share same point with you.
And please stay on topic, is related to thieves issues.
Stealth is an defence mechanism

Defense mechanism!? Umm… Let’s see, yes, but a good defense only contributes to a good offense. Considering stealth is OP and a GREAT defense, it is easily turned into and used as a GREAT offense. One in which most all other players/classes have little defense against…

The thief is encouraged to flank based on traits or weapon skills. Even the thief rune gives 10% more damage from the side or back.

I’d like to see how someone gets around the side or back of a player not invisible. My backstab hits for like 2.4k from the side on a crit and I have 75 crit damage 2.3k power.

Im in all pvt gear and only 3 zerker trinkets and runes of divinity with like 65 crit damage and iZerker on my mesmer easily clears 4k. Duelist is on average 3k.

Speaking WvW in particular:

Sure, the thief needs to be able to ‘get around’ and have the ability to attack from the rear and from the side. Though they can go in and out of stealth pretty easily. Just because a thief puts on SR doesn’t mean he’ll stay there to be hit by some luckily places AoE. That’s what it is when the thief goes stealth for most classes, it comes down to lucky AoE. Even then, Thieves can get away pretty easily.
If an opposing class is playing a bunker type build and has a high amount of toughness/hp, the thief has a lot of freedom to give up on the fight, stealth, and go for someone else.

The issue(and it’s not completely culling), is the fact that opposing classes against the thief lose target and have little if any reliable tracking of the thief when he goes into stealth. Rightly so, because it’s stealth. However, it’s very hard and almost impossible to fight something you can’t see.

Players have no clue that a 6k+ damage assault from a thief is coming, can’t defend against it, and little to no time to react to prevent the thief from going back into stealth. Defending player may be able to get a heal and get back to close full health, but then the cooldown to heal again is typically longer than the thief’s cooldown to for stealth abilities. So even after the initial strike, opposing players are forced to try to predict where the thief is, acquire target, try to land some damage and possibly dodge(depending on health at this point) all within a very short window of time before the thief goes stealth again. Stringing stealth, average to good thieves can whittle down an opponent rather quickly in a 1-1 encounter in WvW. Sure WvW isn’t 1-1, but there are many cases it happens. Besides, I’ve seen a thief take down more than 2-3 players in WvW several times who were trying to fight against the thief. They all died. They’re not terrible players either, but against a good thief, they couldn’t be very effective. It took another thief to come and kill the thief that killed them…

If you don’t take down a thief in the very small window of opportunity you typically hardly have, the thief can easily get away, recoup, and come at you again at his leisure.

I certainly don’t want the class to be nerfed to any major degree. Though, there needs to be some adjustment.

Yes they do have to stay in SR.. For 3 seconds or so.

no they don’t. thieves have reported that they use sr as a way to divert attention away from where they are. thieves have plenty of other ways to stay stealthed outside of sr. culling for one.

If a thief wants to take advantage of the stealth from SR yes he does have to stay in it. Also, culling affects everyone, not just thieves and is much more noticeable in groups from what most people have been reporting. Can we please drop the culling issue? There’s a fix coming and it’s something that is out of the players control to begin with.

oZii.2864:

Lightsbane.9012:

coming from someone who’s played every class, i can say the skill thief requires to play is significantly lower than most of the others. the things thief can do that the others can’t can be insufferable at times. i understand that thief is the stealth class, and that it is a burst class, but there is no way to reveal stealth’d enemies nor is there really a way(no matter how much armor you get, i’ve had 3200 armor and still been 50%‘d by a backstab) i’ve tried matching that damage on other classes and i just can’t. if classes like Thief’s role is damage, i recommend clearly defining in the character creation that this is their role. if other classes exceed at support, make them called support classes in their description. as well as difficulty levels in star-rating form at character creation.

I mained mesmer for when the game came out I didn’t make a thief until after the last nerf (dancing dagger damage). I found thief to be alot more difficult than my mesmer.

Mesmer is like don’t get your hands dirty except to blurred frenzy gameplay. I didn’t feel I needed to know other classes abilities on my mesmer, 100b, eviserate etc. When I made my thief and I started dying to stuff I didn’t on my mesmer thats when I began to learn more about other classes etc.

So you have my story and your story showing total opposites. I feel like mesmer is so faceroll its not funny compared to thief. When it comes time to fight I hardly ever really had to think about how I was going to engage the rotation was pretty much the same everytime because it worked. I can’t do that on my thief unless I am running p/d, or full gc blow my load build.

sorry i left mesmer out. that isn’t exactly a difficult class either.

Maugetarr.6823:

Columba.9730:

Masters of defense too with perma stealth

engineer: master of control, able to easily run around in areas 6+ levels above themselves and contribute enough to events 10 levels above themselves to receive gold. My engineer feels OP to me. It’s a matter of perception. Try playing a class before suggesting “fixes.”

Engineer is the most underplayed class, which means it has the least amount of attention from arenanet. which means it’s underpowered.

Lightsbane.9012:

Maugetarr.6823:

Columba.9730:

Masters of defense too with perma stealth

engineer: master of control, able to easily run around in areas 6+ levels above themselves and contribute enough to events 10 levels above themselves to receive gold. My engineer feels OP to me. It’s a matter of perception. Try playing a class before suggesting “fixes.”

Engineer is the most underplayed class, which means it has the least amount of attention from arenanet. which means it’s underpowered.

Which is why I included a picture of my level 55 running around in a 65 area completing 65 events, surviving better than many of downleveled players. OP vs UP is a matter of perspective. My engineer is capable of accomplishing things my thief couldn’t think of doing.

Edit: Also when it’s not being changed, that doesn’t mean it’s underpowered or overpowered, it means they think its fine where it is or are currently deciding what small change they could make which wouldn’t create an OP/UP class.

Lightsbane.9012:

oZii.2864:

Lightsbane.9012:

coming from someone who’s played every class, i can say the skill thief requires to play is significantly lower than most of the others. the things thief can do that the others can’t can be insufferable at times. i understand that thief is the stealth class, and that it is a burst class, but there is no way to reveal stealth’d enemies nor is there really a way(no matter how much armor you get, i’ve had 3200 armor and still been 50%‘d by a backstab) i’ve tried matching that damage on other classes and i just can’t. if classes like Thief’s role is damage, i recommend clearly defining in the character creation that this is their role. if other classes exceed at support, make them called support classes in their description. as well as difficulty levels in star-rating form at character creation.

I mained mesmer for when the game came out I didn’t make a thief until after the last nerf (dancing dagger damage). I found thief to be alot more difficult than my mesmer.

Mesmer is like don’t get your hands dirty except to blurred frenzy gameplay. I didn’t feel I needed to know other classes abilities on my mesmer, 100b, eviserate etc. When I made my thief and I started dying to stuff I didn’t on my mesmer thats when I began to learn more about other classes etc.

So you have my story and your story showing total opposites. I feel like mesmer is so faceroll its not funny compared to thief. When it comes time to fight I hardly ever really had to think about how I was going to engage the rotation was pretty much the same everytime because it worked. I can’t do that on my thief unless I am running p/d, or full gc blow my load build.

sorry i left mesmer out. that isn’t exactly a difficult class either.

I don’t find any of the classes in this game to be all that difficult to play and kill the vast majority of players in WvW/sPvP… I’m not saying I’m an amazing top tier player… just that I’m used to games with much higher learning curves and shorter reaction times required than GW2. GW2 also has a lot of casuals. And that’s ok… but the game shouldn’t be balanced based off of the casuals.

Thanks to friends, I’ve plaid every one at 80 and none of them were really much of a challenge to play decently… at least decently enough to kill a thief… it’s very much a skill issue vs a class issue.

Once you’re decent enough as a player you really shouldn’t have any more issues with thieves than any other class. After they open (which you should see coming if you’re paying attention) they are very predictable and easy to counter. Warrior is set up in a similar way. They have some devastating attacks that take the least amount of skill to pull of (foos class). At the same time they are very predictable. At the same time you won’t catch them killing a vet player with it very often.

As far as taking 50% with a backstab while having high toughness… is your hp low? Toughness works best as anti-sustained damage, vit works as anti burst/anti condition. Tbh… 50%… that’s not that hard to recover from and at the very least cause the fight to a standstill or be able to escape enough to run to allies… worse than that happens to me all day long when I get jumped by multiple people… and I’m usually able to recover… and get away… on any of my toons…

teg.1340:

Dual.8953:

Guardians, Thieves and Elemenalists do have the lowest HP pool, but despite thier HP pool, Guardians and Elementalists are widely considered the tankiest classes in the game, because of their access to sustained defensive boons and buffs. Thieves only have access to a weak version of Regen.

Ele is per default squishy as hell. Look at all those GC staff eles. they die in seconds. Because of that many eles go for bunker builds. That means traiting for 30 water + 30 arcana (no damage traits) and equipping full PVT armor with clerics trinkets (no damage stats besides power). As runes most choose water + monk (again no damage stats).

Got it? Ele sacrifies all damage to become tanky. Its not the profession itself which is tanky. Compare this to thieves. Most thieves go full GC with a bit of valkyrie because stealth mechanics is so strong compared to the other professions mechanics.

Ele cant go full GC just because they have access to protection and regen. Thats entirely unique to thieves. Stealth is both a superior offensive and defensive game mechanic which totally negates the necessity to trade damage stats for more defense.

This superior defense doesn’t count for kitten in a room full of Embers spouting Lava Fonts. It certainly didn’t save me for one of Malrona’s stray shots. (And I run balanced)
Also there are plenty of Eles that will tell you can get defense and damage if they go balanced. Sure there’s little spike, but there’s sustained AoE, with superior CC, Mobility, Heals and Stunbreaks to boot.

Aberrant.6749:

Lightsbane.9012:

oZii.2864:

Lightsbane.9012:

coming from someone who’s played every class, i can say the skill thief requires to play is significantly lower than most of the others. the things thief can do that the others can’t can be insufferable at times. i understand that thief is the stealth class, and that it is a burst class, but there is no way to reveal stealth’d enemies nor is there really a way(no matter how much armor you get, i’ve had 3200 armor and still been 50%‘d by a backstab) i’ve tried matching that damage on other classes and i just can’t. if classes like Thief’s role is damage, i recommend clearly defining in the character creation that this is their role. if other classes exceed at support, make them called support classes in their description. as well as difficulty levels in star-rating form at character creation.

I mained mesmer for when the game came out I didn’t make a thief until after the last nerf (dancing dagger damage). I found thief to be alot more difficult than my mesmer.

Mesmer is like don’t get your hands dirty except to blurred frenzy gameplay. I didn’t feel I needed to know other classes abilities on my mesmer, 100b, eviserate etc. When I made my thief and I started dying to stuff I didn’t on my mesmer thats when I began to learn more about other classes etc.

So you have my story and your story showing total opposites. I feel like mesmer is so faceroll its not funny compared to thief. When it comes time to fight I hardly ever really had to think about how I was going to engage the rotation was pretty much the same everytime because it worked. I can’t do that on my thief unless I am running p/d, or full gc blow my load build.

sorry i left mesmer out. that isn’t exactly a difficult class either.

I don’t find any of the classes in this game to be all that difficult to play and kill the vast majority of players in WvW/sPvP… I’m not saying I’m an amazing top tier player… just that I’m used to games with much higher learning curves and shorter reaction times required than GW2. GW2 also has a lot of casuals. And that’s ok… but the game shouldn’t be balanced based off of the casuals.

Thanks to friends, I’ve plaid every one at 80 and none of them were really much of a challenge to play decently… at least decently enough to kill a thief… it’s very much a skill issue vs a class issue.

Once you’re decent enough as a player you really shouldn’t have any more issues with thieves than any other class. After they open (which you should see coming if you’re paying attention) they are very predictable and easy to counter. Warrior is set up in a similar way. They have some devastating attacks that take the least amount of skill to pull of (foos class). At the same time they are very predictable. At the same time you won’t catch them killing a vet player with it very often.

As far as taking 50% with a backstab while having high toughness… is your hp low? Toughness works best as anti-sustained damage, vit works as anti burst/anti condition. Tbh… 50%… that’s not that hard to recover from and at the very least cause the fight to a standstill or be able to escape enough to run to allies… worse than that happens to me all day long when I get jumped by multiple people… and I’m usually able to recover… and get away… on any of my toons…

point in case: almost all major mmo developers favor the rogue, warrior, and mage. how powerful are those classes? does the engineer have the same damage capabilities as any of those three?

Lightsbane.9012:

point in case: almost all major mmo developers favor the rogue, warrior, and mage. how powerful are those classes? does the engineer have the same damage capabilities as any of those three?

Yes (to the second question)

Yes they do have to stay in SR.. For 3 seconds or so.

“no they don’t. thieves have reported that they use sr as a way to divert attention away from where they are. thieves have plenty of other ways to stay stealthed outside of sr. culling for one.”

The poster I was responding to clearly did not know that in order to gain the stealth benefit from SR the thief needs to stay in it for a while. I was correcting the assumption.

Throwing an SR over your shoulder to confuse people has nothing to do with what is required to gain stealth benefit from an SR.

I amused that Thieves complain about things like well-played trap Rangers. Yes, one of these can kill a good Thief, but only if the Thief decides to not simply disengage.

See what happens here? If the Thief is winning, the Ranger dies. If the Ranger is winning, the Thief simply escapes. The Thief may even try again and again after resetting the fight each time.

Columba.9730:

yeah, I don’t get the drama about thieves having low defense other than stealth. It’s nonsense. they have decent armor, they evade like crazy, their health isn’t the lowest and they can beef up toughness.

Which class in the game got lower HP than the thief? Cause if the thief health isn’t the lowest, it has to be because someone else has less HP. If not, then yeah, thieves got the lowest HP pool in the game.

Sebrent.3625:

I amused that Thieves complain about things like well-played trap Rangers. Yes, one of these can kill a good Thief, but only if the Thief decides to not simply disengage.

See what happens here? If the Thief is winning, the Ranger dies. If the Ranger is winning, the Thief simply escapes. The Thief may even try again and again after resetting the fight each time.

If the Ranger is winning then the thief should die. What is exactly winning anyway. More health? Who use their heal first? Who popped elite first? I’d like to know what your winning gauge is exactly.

A ranger can get away if he doesn’t think he will win the fight, he has fear from pet interrupt traps, the thief is going to be coming from the back. If the ranger stayed in the fight to long to escape then that was on him.

Also with this winning criteria let me throw a wrench in there. What if the fight is happening near water? Rofl. If a thief chases a ranger into water he is going to need the power of Grenth and Balthazaar to win that. So many variables this isn’t arena why can’t people get that.

Ozii / Sintacs / Sinnacle (same person) …

Winning is that point when it’s all but 100% certain that player X is going to down player Y.

If a Thief feels like he’s losing the fight, he can stealth and get out of their. High mobility + stealth = easy escape. If the Ranger is losing, he has to get away from a high mobility class. If he has sword and greatsword he has a chance, otherwise that thief is much more maneuverable than him and he’s dead.

I know you like your Thief now more than your Mesmer, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t issues with the Thief class, Sinnacle. I don’t want to see thieves “weaker” as then they’ll suck even more in dungeons (though I think that’s largely due to the abundance of bad thieves). Instead, I want to see Thieves a little more on-par with the other classes as far as their risks to rewards.

… it’d also be nice if this culling garbage was fixed … though even in sPvP Thief has an abundance of stealth. I Jumped on my lowbie thief and went in there and in the first 5 minutes I was tearing people up and topping scorecharts. What would kill me the few times I died? Other thieves … unless I killed them first, of course.

Sebrent.3625:

Ozii / Sintacs / Sinnacle (same person) …

Winning is that point when it’s all but 100% certain that player X is going to down player Y.

If a Thief feels like he’s losing the fight, he can stealth and get out of their. High mobility + stealth = easy escape. If the Ranger is losing, he has to get away from a high mobility class. If he has sword and greatsword he has a chance, otherwise that thief is much more maneuverable than him and he’s dead.

I know you like your Thief now more than your Mesmer, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t issues with the Thief class, Sinnacle. I don’t want to see thieves “weaker” as then they’ll suck even more in dungeons (though I think that’s largely due to the abundance of bad thieves). Instead, I want to see Thieves a little more on-par with the other classes as far as their risks to rewards.

… it’d also be nice if this culling garbage was fixed … though even in sPvP Thief has an abundance of stealth. I Jumped on my lowbie thief and went in there and in the first 5 minutes I was tearing people up and topping scorecharts. What would kill me the few times I died? Other thieves … unless I killed them first, of course.

Its not 100% certain that a thief is going to kill a ranger if he wants to. Its about Cooldown management at that point. If the ranger has the right cooldowns up he is going to get away and if the thief doesn’t there is nothing he can do to stop him. The same goes both ways. Also like I have said that there is so many variables that there is no way to change this as people want when that isn’t what WvW is about.

Right now in WvW I have 4% Maximum health increase bonus(17,335 hp vs 16,995 with no bonus), 4% healing effective bonus, and 5% endurance regen bonus. If you are ever trying to balance something or even make a argument for balance between X class vs Y class then your going to assume equal skill of both players. Tell me how in the world do you balance given those advantages which are huge if you have 2 players of equal skill? That is why all these arguments are so moot because WvW has so many variables its impossible.

If it was about deathmatch style gamplay arguments would be valid but it just isn’t about that. I get people don’t like dying etc and people have fun killing. That just isn’t what WvW is about. Nobody knows what gear the other person is wearing, who has ascended who doesn’t. Does the ranger have enough money for food buffs? Did his 100 precision and +10 critical damage(same critical damge as 2 1h valk or zerk weapons) and master maintence oils run out before the fight.

I know for myself master maintenance oils and curry butternut squash is 12% critical chance thats almost as much as 25 stacks on a Sigil of Perception(14% critical chance give or take depending on your amount of precision). What your asking for is balance if WvW was about killing people and when it isn’t. If culling is fixed that means as soon as damage is applied by the thief you will see him immediately.

I know fighting Jenson from SM in duels when we fought magumma it was bad. He run P/D and when he would attack with sneak attack all 5 shots would come out but he still wouldn’t render. Many times I had to attack where I saw the bullets coming from even though I didn’t see him. He said the same for me. If I saw him render as soon as the first shot landed from sneak attack that is so much time I have to attack him instead of eating all 5 sneak attack bullets and 2 vital shots. Thats 7 stacks of bleeds. If he rendered immediately I probably would eat 3 at most if my endurance is up.

Thieves are fine just fix culling.

Sebrent.3625:

… it’d also be nice if this culling garbage was fixed … though even in sPvP Thief has an abundance of stealth. I Jumped on my lowbie thief and went in there and in the first 5 minutes I was tearing people up and topping scorecharts. What would kill me the few times I died? Other thieves … unless I killed them first, of course.

sPvP doesn’t equal WvW most people that make the arguement about thieves in sPvP are rabbit and doing hotjoin. When at the top of the leader boards most teams if they have a thief even roll in their squad he is there to help take out bunkers. Just watch a stream of the top QP players running tournaments. You also can’t reach the critical damage numbers in sPvP that you can in WvW. If you where on your mesmer and your running a confusion build and you take that into sPvP your confusion would be doing 200% less damage. That is why you can’t bring sPvP up into a WvW balance discussion its not the same.

I know you play mesmer look at Moa for example. If you where in a group of 5 mesmers all running Moa and came across a group of 5 any class. You could easily destroy all of them with some half way decent voip coordination. 1 CC’s another morphs burst rinse and repeat on all 5 people game set match. I know Moa isn’t as popular anymore since mass invis provides better group utility but I am sure you see how the example plays out.

I’m aware of the differences in sPvP and WvW, that’s why I mentioned it though. We don’t have the culling issue (usually) in sPvP, but the Thief still has a ridiculous amount of stealth there.

The Moa is a good example of the other thing I’ve been saying about fighting Thieves versus fighting other classes … seeing attack animations.

You can see a Mesmer casting Moa Morph so you have a chance to dodge roll, etc.

You can see a X class cast Y ability, so you have a chance to dodge roll, etc..

You can not see a Thief cast backstab so you have to guess when to dodge roll, etc.

Sebrent.3625:

I’m aware of the differences in sPvP and WvW, that’s why I mentioned it though. We don’t have the culling issue (usually) in sPvP, but the Thief still has a ridiculous amount of stealth there.

The Moa is a good example of the other thing I’ve been saying about fighting Thieves versus fighting other classes … seeing attack animations.

You can see a Mesmer casting Moa Morph so you have a chance to dodge roll, etc.

You can see a X class cast Y ability, so you have a chance to dodge roll, etc..

You can not see a Thief cast backstab so you have to guess when to dodge roll, etc.

Thats why you cast Moa right after you pop decoy, the attack animation for moa is different depending on the weapon you are holding gs vs s/p. You also don’t blow a major attack like moa on a person that hasn’t blown dodge rolls. You also cast it after magic bullet 2 sec stun with Moa 1 sec cast time.

I think Anet should wait to assess the Thief until after culling is taken care of instead of jumping the gun. I’m not blaming culling entirely but clearly it’s an issue and I think it would be premature to “nerf” a stealth based class before the culling is handled.

Also, no class will ever be balanced in any game mode when each mode uses the same pool of abilities. It’s just not possible. I’m not insinuating that each mode needs different abilities; but rather that each mode can have changes made to the same pool of abilities that don’t affect the other game modes.

Quells.2498:

I think Anet should wait to assess the Thief until after culling is taken care of instead of jumping the gun. I’m not blaming culling entirely but clearly it’s an issue and I think it would be premature to “nerf” a stealth based class before the culling is handled.

I half agree because the culling is a large issue and it could be exaggerating the problem in WvW and that an iterative approach is better than “whack-a-mole”. I half disagree because of how easy it was for me to simply pick up a thief and in a few minutes already be doing similar things in sPvP where culling is not an issue.

Quells.2498:

Also, no class will ever be balanced in any game mode when each mode uses the same pool of abilities. It’s just not possible. I’m not insinuating that each mode needs different abilities; but rather that each mode can have changes made to the same pool of abilities that don’t affect the other game modes.

I agree that we will likely never have perfect balance. That, however, does not mean a best effort should not be made to make things as balanced as we can. I’d say the Thief is currently an outlier when it comes to class balance due to all the shenanigans they can pull off in PvP.

Sadly, as I’ve said before, I think this comes down to bad class design as the Thief seems to be largely dependent on stealth (someone have a good build that isn’t?) which is extremely powerful in PvP but much less powerful in PvE.

Sebrent.3625:

Quells.2498:

I think Anet should wait to assess the Thief until after culling is taken care of instead of jumping the gun. I’m not blaming culling entirely but clearly it’s an issue and I think it would be premature to “nerf” a stealth based class before the culling is handled.

I half agree because the culling is a large issue and it could be exaggerating the problem in WvW and that an iterative approach is better than “whack-a-mole”. I half disagree because of how easy it was for me to simply pick up a thief and in a few minutes already be doing similar things in sPvP where culling is not an issue.

Quells.2498:

Also, no class will ever be balanced in any game mode when each mode uses the same pool of abilities. It’s just not possible. I’m not insinuating that each mode needs different abilities; but rather that each mode can have changes made to the same pool of abilities that don’t affect the other game modes.

I agree that we will likely never have perfect balance. That, however, does not mean a best effort should not be made to make things as balanced as we can. I’d say the Thief is currently an outlier when it comes to class balance due to all the shenanigans they can pull off in PvP.

---

Sadly, as I’ve said before, I think this comes down to bad class design as the Thief seems to be largely dependent on stealth (someone have a good build that isn’t?) which is extremely powerful in PvP but much less powerful in PvE.

What? Stealth is still powerful for us even in pve, its just that the differnce is, mobs dont come here to complain, and thank god they dont

imo the ability to go invisible for any length of time in a competetive mmo just reeks of failure. you knew it was a bad idea to have stealth at launch yet you added it anyway and now you have spvp and wvw riddled with invising thieves everywhere. videos of a thief vs 2-5+ ppl hitting and going invis constantly trivialize anets claims to want this game to be an esport…i can’t believe stealthing hasn’t been taken out yet.

gw1 assassins were on the right track with shadow step type abilitys, and gw2 would be wise to adjust the stealth skills to a similar coefficient.

Stealth is not that powerful in PvE. Can it be useful? Sure. Is it as powerful there as it is in PvP? Heck no. When some thieves (and others when not playing tanky) can be one-shot, that stealth is not nearly as useful.

Assassins also had to chain abilities. They weren’t told “here’s 5 skills, 3 are only useful 2% of the time but you can spam the other one or two skills”.

azmodeus.3409:

gw1 assassins were on the right track with shadow step type abilitys, and gw2 would be wise to adjust the stealth skills to a similar coefficient.

Sure! Assassins in GW1 also had 75% perma-block againts attacks… Can thieves get that too while you are at it, Anet?

Kyrion.2749:

azmodeus.3409:

gw1 assassins were on the right track with shadow step type abilitys, and gw2 would be wise to adjust the stealth skills to a similar coefficient.

Sure! Assassins in GW1 also had 75% perma-block againts attacks… Can thieves get that too while you are at it, Anet?

I have no problems with this

RedSpectrum.1975:

Kyrion.2749:

azmodeus.3409:

gw1 assassins were on the right track with shadow step type abilitys, and gw2 would be wise to adjust the stealth skills to a similar coefficient.

Sure! Assassins in GW1 also had 75% perma-block againts attacks… Can thieves get that too while you are at it, Anet?

I have no problems with this

Can you imagine the outcry if C&D were changed to give the equivalent of critical defenses or flashing blades?

Maugetarr.6823:

RedSpectrum.1975:

Kyrion.2749:

azmodeus.3409:

gw1 assassins were on the right track with shadow step type abilitys, and gw2 would be wise to adjust the stealth skills to a similar coefficient.

Sure! Assassins in GW1 also had 75% perma-block againts attacks… Can thieves get that too while you are at it, Anet?

I have no problems with this

Can you imagine the outcry if C&D were changed to give the equivalent of critical defenses or flashing blades?

honestly, i personally think we would still get the same amount of hate regardless :p

Kyrion.2749:

azmodeus.3409:

gw1 assassins were on the right track with shadow step type abilitys, and gw2 would be wise to adjust the stealth skills to a similar coefficient.

Sure! Assassins in GW1 also had 75% perma-block againts attacks… Can thieves get that too while you are at it, Anet?

Ah, I miss those from GW1 so much :/ In GW1, an Assassin wasn’t THAT squishy like a Thief in GW2 is thanks to those great defensive tools. Blind was a real pain though.

Columba.9730:

Faeyd.5094:

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

oZii.2864:

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

Rayya.2591:

Shrilly.7184:

Rayya.2591:

vespers.1759:

you mean you don’t think this is balanced?

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

An thief killing other thieves and low lvls.
Hi , do i miss any point ?
did he even atempted to kill an lvl 80 guardian /elementarist /engenier /warrior /necro /mesmer … with double food buff, like he used ?
would he even had an chance?
How dare you

get off my thrwead unless you are going to see other evidence

I am sorry that not everybody share same point with you.
And please stay on topic, is related to thieves issues.
Stealth is an defence mechanism

Defense mechanism!? Umm… Let’s see, yes, but a good defense only contributes to a good offense. Considering stealth is OP and a GREAT defense, it is easily turned into and used as a GREAT offense. One in which most all other players/classes have little defense against…

The thief is encouraged to flank based on traits or weapon skills. Even the thief rune gives 10% more damage from the side or back.

I’d like to see how someone gets around the side or back of a player not invisible. My backstab hits for like 2.4k from the side on a crit and I have 75 crit damage 2.3k power.

Im in all pvt gear and only 3 zerker trinkets and runes of divinity with like 65 crit damage and iZerker on my mesmer easily clears 4k. Duelist is on average 3k.

Speaking WvW in particular:

Sure, the thief needs to be able to ‘get around’ and have the ability to attack from the rear and from the side. Though they can go in and out of stealth pretty easily. Just because a thief puts on SR doesn’t mean he’ll stay there to be hit by some luckily places AoE. That’s what it is when the thief goes stealth for most classes, it comes down to lucky AoE. Even then, Thieves can get away pretty easily.
If an opposing class is playing a bunker type build and has a high amount of toughness/hp, the thief has a lot of freedom to give up on the fight, stealth, and go for someone else.

The issue(and it’s not completely culling), is the fact that opposing classes against the thief lose target and have little if any reliable tracking of the thief when he goes into stealth. Rightly so, because it’s stealth. However, it’s very hard and almost impossible to fight something you can’t see.

Players have no clue that a 6k+ damage assault from a thief is coming, can’t defend against it, and little to no time to react to prevent the thief from going back into stealth. Defending player may be able to get a heal and get back to close full health, but then the cooldown to heal again is typically longer than the thief’s cooldown to for stealth abilities. So even after the initial strike, opposing players are forced to try to predict where the thief is, acquire target, try to land some damage and possibly dodge(depending on health at this point) all within a very short window of time before the thief goes stealth again. Stringing stealth, average to good thieves can whittle down an opponent rather quickly in a 1-1 encounter in WvW. Sure WvW isn’t 1-1, but there are many cases it happens. Besides, I’ve seen a thief take down more than 2-3 players in WvW several times who were trying to fight against the thief. They all died. They’re not terrible players either, but against a good thief, they couldn’t be very effective. It took another thief to come and kill the thief that killed them…

If you don’t take down a thief in the very small window of opportunity you typically hardly have, the thief can easily get away, recoup, and come at you again at his leisure.

I certainly don’t want the class to be nerfed to any major degree. Though, there needs to be some adjustment.

Yes they do have to stay in SR.. For 3 seconds or so.

no they don’t. thieves have reported that they use sr as a way to divert attention away from where they are. thieves have plenty of other ways to stay stealthed outside of sr. culling for one.

FOR THE LAST TIME… CULLING IS NOT… REPEAT… IS NOT… A THIEF SKILL OR TRAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THERE IS NO BOUND KEY TO THE THIEF SKILL BAR THAT SAYS CULLING, 2 SECOND COOLDOWN, PERMASTEALTH!

Ruggan.4102:

FOR THE LAST TIME… CULLING IS NOT… REPEAT… IS NOT… A THIEF SKILL OR TRAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THERE IS NO BOUND KEY TO THE THIEF SKILL BAR THAT SAYS CULLING, 2 SECOND COOLDOWN, PERMASTEALTH!

Thats Columba man pay no attention

Back to actual issues.
Acrobatics could use some work

Master Trapper- With all of our traits now functioning, this trait is still rather underwhelming. This could just be the current state of certain traps, and whether they’re made more enticing to trait for.

Assassin’s retreat. Should consider merging this with something or changing the kill clause or the duration of swiftness you get. It’s quite pve centric even considering WvW atm. If this was part of Fleet of Foot, man it might look more appealing.

Assassin’s Reward. It’s a weak trait, that is fairly niche as a result.
Pain Response – Wonky/clunky, whatever the word is.

Hard to Catch – I don’t want to say it’s terrible, but it can be fairly unintuitive. You stay stunned. So if it’s a ranged based attack on you? This does nothing really but give you swiftness while you stay stunned. Shoddy. To be more precise, the trait often does not fulfill what it should do, when it’s off-recharge, which is make you harder to catch, because it does not stunbreak, and because giving Swiftness itself is not a remedy for escape. This is rivaling every other acrobatics trait, and Quick Pockets. The other’s are generally a more consistent effect and relatively stronger the majority of the time.

You should also have attacks able to know whether they were sent out when stealthed or not. This would remedy last Refuge by recognizing that the attack was not made in stealth.

Not that I think anet will read this…just venting.

ensoriki.5789:

Back to actual issues.
Acrobatics could use some work

Master Trapper- With all of our traits now functioning, this trait is still rather underwhelming. This could just be the current state of certain traps, and whether they’re made more enticing to trait for.

Assassin’s retreat. Should consider merging this with something or changing the kill clause or the duration of swiftness you get. It’s quite pve centric even considering WvW atm. If this was part of Fleet of Foot, man it might look more appealing.

Assassin’s Reward. It’s a weak trait, that is fairly niche as a result.
Pain Response – Wonky/clunky, whatever the word is.

Hard to Catch – I don’t want to say it’s terrible, but it can be fairly unintuitive. You stay stunned. So if it’s a ranged based attack on you? This does nothing really but give you swiftness while you stay stunned. Shoddy. To be more precise, the trait often does not fulfill what it should do, when it’s off-recharge, which is make you harder to catch, because it does not stunbreak, and because giving Swiftness itself is not a remedy for escape. This is rivaling every other acrobatics trait, and Quick Pockets. The other’s are generally a more consistent effect and relatively stronger the majority of the time.

You should also have attacks able to know whether they were sent out when stealthed or not. This would remedy last Refuge by recognizing that the attack was not made in stealth.

Not that I think anet will read this…just venting.

I think traps could use some love maybe effect 2 targets instead of 1. I played around with them but only 1 I really like is shadow trap

Half the traps are fine. The rest (the knockdown an the root+poison one) only need to be able to affect more than one target per usage.

Say, like the trap doesn’t get removed when it triggers but instead recharges one second later ready to trip or immobilize the next player that comes through them again.

stof.9341:

Half the traps are fine. The rest (the knockdown an the root+poison one) only need to be able to affect more than one target per usage.

Say, like the trap doesn’t get removed when it triggers but instead recharges one second later ready to trip or immobilize the next player that comes through them again.

Yea something like residual venom type of trait but mixed in with master trapper. I agree those are the only traps that should affect an extra person.

Another fun idea would be to greatly increase the immobilize duration on needle trap and replace the knockdown on tripwire by a different trap name that acts as a blowout in the direction the thief was facing when he laid the trap. Now THAT would be great Well, great in PvP at least.

traps for PvE suck bad … especially vs bosses
the stealth one does not even work properly (detonate and gain 5 sec stealth)
not influenced by the +1 second stealth duration trait either

remember, the effects are not “on demand” like other skills …

If you want traps to be able to activate multiple times, I’m all ears on my Ranger ;-)

As far as the blocking, GW1 also had plenty of unblockable skills as well and became a sort of “build wars” in its PvP. I’d prefer we simply had things decently balanced and based large on player skill. We’ll see how things are when culling is finally fixed for real. Perhaps seeing the thief for the entire duration of “revealed” will be enough.

As it currently is, we have an abundance of average thieves putting out videos where they kill loads of people. I don’t see average players of other classes able to do this.

Yes because Ranger traps aren’t AoE skills on lower cooldowns than thieves. And what about the traits? Let’s compare :

Thief : trap skills cooldown reduced by 20%
Ranger : trap skills cooldown reduced by 20% AND conditions applied last twice as long

What about :
Thief : trap skills apply 5 stacks of vulnerability when triggered
vs
Ranger : Trap skills use ground targeting and are 50% larger

Seems perfectly balanced and that’s why The Tripwire and the Needle Trap thief skills are such worthy utilities to equip.

No, the “buff” would be applied only to those two skills to compensate their long cooldown and lack of AoE ability.

The ground targeting isn’t that great since the range is only 600. I’d take +5% more damage to a target per trap they triggered as that’s 10% to 15% more damage to the target every ~20 sec in common trap builds (2 to 3 traps). The larger AOE is largely why that trait that is taken and I’d be more than fine with the Thief being given the same.

I think this actually highlights one of my largest annoyances with class balance overall (not just Thief) in the game.

Compare Warrior to Ranger … to get Rifle to pierce and have lower cooldowns a Warrior invests 20 trait points into Arms and takes a single major trait. For a Ranger to get Arrows to pierce and lower cooldowns they have to invest 20 points in Marksmanship, 20 points in Skirmishing, and take two major traits. Twice the investment for the same thing. Oversight much by ArenaNet. Throw Engineer in there and they need 30 points in Firearms and 2 major traits to make pistols pierce and have lower cooldowns.

We were talking about Thieves a good bit last night in the Ehmry Bay TS and it got brought up how easy heartseeker is to use. It’s actually easier to use than most (if not all) auto-attacks because:
(1) It doesn’t matter what direction you’re facing
(2) If you’re in range it will jump you to the target to hit them
(3) If you’re not in range it will jump you towards the target (possibly putting you in range for the next heartseeker)
(4) It’s spammable

The annoying aspect of this is the fact that heartseeker spam is that easy to use while, depending on your spec, is non-trivial to avoid. You have to time your dodge rolls, blocks, etc. to mitigate the damage. This takes a larger amount of skill than is required of the thief simply hitting 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2.

and ppl wonder why we have only 2-3 viable builds…
yes, we spam the same skill due to the initiative system
are you still jealous after the HS was nerfed a lot ?
remember, it was <33% and <66%, what? you want it to be <5% and <10% to be effective?

Sebrent.3625:

The annoying aspect of this is the fact that heartseeker spam is that easy to use while, depending on your spec, is non-trivial to avoid. You have to time your dodge rolls, blocks, etc. to mitigate the damage. This takes a larger amount of skill than is required of the thief simply hitting 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2.

Sebrent, are you getting killed by heart seeker spammers? Awww, it all makes sense now.

Really, the damage of heart seeker is paltry above 50%. BUT. I do think there is something wrong with heart seeker. Think it’s initiative cost needs to be upped by one. This will discourage both spamming and the notorious D/P leap combo, calling for a much more reserved use of initiative.

I also think it needs its range reduced, there is no excuse for the distance you can get with it, considering it’s potential for damage.

But really, complaining about spammers is pretty sad. It’s only going to get you an empty initiative bar, and a repair cost in the end.

Sebrent.3625:

We were talking about Thieves a good bit last night in the Ehmry Bay TS and it got brought up how easy heartseeker is to use. It’s actually easier to use than most (if not all) auto-attacks because:
(1) It doesn’t matter what direction you’re facing
(2) If you’re in range it will jump you to the target to hit them
(3) If you’re not in range it will jump you towards the target (possibly putting you in range for the next heartseeker)
(4) It’s spammable

The annoying aspect of this is the fact that heartseeker spam is that easy to use while, depending on your spec, is non-trivial to avoid. You have to time your dodge rolls, blocks, etc. to mitigate the damage. This takes a larger amount of skill than is required of the thief simply hitting 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2.

What is wrong with using up cooldowns/initiative to do the same or less damage than autoattacks which are free?

Sebrent.3625:

We were talking about Thieves a good bit last night in the Ehmry Bay TS and it got brought up how easy heartseeker is to use. It’s actually easier to use than most (if not all) auto-attacks because:
(1) It doesn’t matter what direction you’re facing
(2) If you’re in range it will jump you to the target to hit them
(3) If you’re not in range it will jump you towards the target (possibly putting you in range for the next heartseeker)
(4) It’s spammable

The annoying aspect of this is the fact that heartseeker spam is that easy to use while, depending on your spec, is non-trivial to avoid. You have to time your dodge rolls, blocks, etc. to mitigate the damage. This takes a larger amount of skill than is required of the thief simply hitting 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2.

I don’t know why people complain about Heartseeker its not that great of a move honestly. I only use it occasionally because I know it does damage when the target is at about 45% above that its not that great. Mine hits for 1.6k on crit above 50% health. My Sword auto crits for more than that.

I don’t know heartseeker just isnt that great its situational if you die to someone spamming it then that is l2p all you need is a stun breaker and you throw their whole rotation off.

Heartseeker spammers mindset is

Bursting I expect everything to crit and the opponent to be below 50% everytime using my burst opener.

That is just a rotation and alot of people in WvW have that mindset and stick to their normal comfortable rotations because it works for them and they get away with it.

I am sure the majority of mesmers with a Sword/Pistol and decoy on util bar Open pretty much. Decoy, 4,5,3,3,2 switch weapons to greatsword or staff. I see it all the time since I played mesmer alot I know after I get stunned with Pistol 5 that iLeap and Phantasmal duelist is coming so I stun break immediately. I know after blurred frenzy is finished the mesmer is going to dodge roll backwards. Alot of people just play with a set rotation and when you throw that off they don’t know what to do.

So heartseeker spammers just have a rotation that is probably glassy, cloak and dagger, mugged, backstab, heartseeker because they been using it and getting away with it. I am pretty sure every class has a pretty standard type rotation that is used and abused by pretty much every class and they get away with because they aren’t forced to adapt.

Also if a person presses 2,2,2, in succession they just commited to all those heartseekers because of ability que a simple dodge roll screws them over.

Laika.8795:

Sebrent.3625:

The annoying aspect of this is the fact that heartseeker spam is that easy to use while, depending on your spec, is non-trivial to avoid. You have to time your dodge rolls, blocks, etc. to mitigate the damage. This takes a larger amount of skill than is required of the thief simply hitting 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2.

Sebrent, are you getting killed by heart seeker spammers? Awww, it all makes sense now.

1v1? No. Against a group of thieves? Yes, unless they they didn’t have culling and were glassy enough for my burst shatter to kill them before my distortion goes off. When some noob comes across me fighting a good player such that my endurance and cooldowns aren’t ready? Yes.

Laika.8795:

Really, the damage of heart seeker is paltry above 50%. BUT. I do think there is something wrong with heart seeker. Think it’s initiative cost needs to be upped by one. This will discourage both spamming and the notorious D/P leap combo, calling for a much more reserved use of initiative.

I also think it needs its range reduced, there is no excuse for the distance you can get with it, considering it’s potential for damage.

I’m amused that you do admit there is something wrong with it after the flak you just tried to give me :-p

I disagree on the “paltry damage”. If that was true, you wouldn’t see noob thieves beating noob non-thieves by spamming heartseeker as it wouldn’t get the non-thieves low enough for heartseeker to do it’s good damage to a lower hp target.

My issue with heartseeker is more that the thief doesn’t even have to know where I am on screen and it hits me. I could get behind them and it’ll turn them around and leap them at me up to 450 range. If i’m 900 range they just do it twice to turn their butt around and jump to me. Heartseeker is used as a closer, an escape, burst, etc. and it’s a crutch used by poor players to compete with the average players to great effect.\

You know what happens to most skills when the enemy is behind you or out of range? They go on cooldown and do nothing or refuse to activate.

I think it’s ridiculous that I have to be good in order to not die to someone who sucks simply because their class lets them spam 2 2 2 2 2, stealth with hide in shadows and/or refuge, spam 2 2 2 2 2 2 again. How much skill do I have to show to win the fight? A decent amount to evade the spam, else I die or am maimed a bit for someone to just come by and sneeze on. How much skill does the thief have to show to win the fight? None. The ability closes gaps for them and orients them towards their target. It does it all for the player.

Laika.8795:

But really, complaining about spammers is pretty sad. It’s only going to get you an empty initiative bar, and a repair cost in the end.

I disagree. If they do it against someone who isn’t good, then they can, by playing very poorly, win the fight. In a game that is supposed to be esport-quality and rely largely on player skill instead of gear-grind, that is horribly out of place.

stof.9341:

What is wrong with using up cooldowns/initiative to do the same or less damage than autoattacks which are free?

First, as stated, the idea that it doesn’t do much damage is bull.

Second, as I previously stated, it does more for the player than auto-attacks do. Would you be okay with Axe warriors automatically leaping at you constantly if they didn’t gain adrenaline? Sure, they aren’t going to get eviscerate now but now creating a gap and moving around them does nothing.

oZii.2864:

I don’t know why people complain about Heartseeker its not that great of a move honestly. I only use it occasionally because I know it does damage when the target is at about 45% above that its not that great. Mine hits for 1.6k on crit above 50% health. My Sword auto crits for more than that.

Again, first, this damage estimate of yours is bull.
http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2012/36/1346693783-gw142.jpg
http://i1120.photobucket.com/albums/l481/markobg1/gw012.jpg

Second, your sword auto-attack doesn’t automatically close gaps and reorient you to face your target.

oZii.2864:

I don’t know heartseeker just isnt that great its situational if you die to someone spamming it then that is l2p all you need is a stun breaker and you throw their whole rotation off.

Yeah, so for me to throw off someone’s “rotation” on my Mesmer I need to dodge roll twice, blurred frenzy, block, and/or distortion shatter.

So now I’ve expended my endurance, expended some illusions, and/or expended some cooldowns and I had to do multiple things to counter someone pressing a single button continuously? Lol. That is the problem I have with it.

As far as people being out of initiative from heartseeker, oh no, now they hide in shadows or shadow refuge and gain back initiative and possibly even gain might, remove conditions, heal, etc.. They can even reset the fight and come back now that my distortion is still on cooldown along with my stunbreaker.

oZii.2864:

Heartseeker spammers mindset is

Bursting I expect everything to crit and the opponent to be below 50% everytime using my burst opener.

That is just a rotation and alot of people in WvW have that mindset and stick to their normal comfortable rotations because it works for them and they get away with it.

I am sure the majority of mesmers with a Sword/Pistol and decoy on util bar Open pretty much. Decoy, 4,5,3,3,2 switch weapons to greatsword or staff. I see it all the time since I played mesmer alot I know after I get stunned with Pistol 5 that iLeap and Phantasmal duelist is coming so I stun break immediately. I know after blurred frenzy is finished the mesmer is going to dodge roll backwards. Alot of people just play with a set rotation and when you throw that off they don’t know what to do.

So heartseeker spammers just have a rotation that is probably glassy, cloak and dagger, mugged, backstab, heartseeker because they been using it and getting away with it. I am pretty sure every class has a pretty standard type rotation that is used and abused by pretty much every class and they get away with because they aren’t forced to adapt.

How can you compare a Mesmer using a utility (Decoy), and 3 separate weapon skills to someone spamming heartseeker. Also, do you know what happens when you hit sword #3 on Mesmer when the target is out of range? It goes on cooldown and does nothing. Same for the pistol stun. You gain nothing. You have several abilities chained together there and the chain can be ruined by dodging, blocking, etc. a single one of them.

oZii.2864:

Also if a person presses 2,2,2, in succession they just commited to all those heartseekers because of ability que a simple dodge roll screws them over.

A single dodge roll dodges one heartseeker. Let’s not exaggerate dodge roll duration.

We must be seeing this because Thieves are so hard to play, lol:
http://i.imgur.com/JHGFE.jpg

What are you talking about did you even read what I wrote? I said a Mesmer using decoy’s rotation is …. The rotation is pretty much the same with or without decoy. I compared rotation not skill on skill.

I don’t understand your argument that average player vs noob player. If you are saying that you die to thieves that just press 2 and no other buttons then that shows your skill level.

I mean seriously you are dying to thieves that open with 2222 and finish with 2222 like why lol? If you can sit here and type to us the rotation of a thief that kills you with just 2 why not counter it? If you know HIS is coming after 3 hs why not interrupt the hide in shadows?

Heart seeker doesn’t go far unless they have swiftness otherwise the travel distance isn’t that great. You dodge toward the thief if the queued up 3 heart seekers it keeps going that direction it doesn’t auto 360 and go the opposite direction.

Why not pop distortion and just blurred frenzy them? Or put confusion on them and let them kill themselves since your a burst shatter Mesmer?

I don’t know Serb if you dying to thieves that open and finish with heartseeker then you gotta switch something up. Heartseeker is so easy to counter I find it funny that you die to someone only using heartseeker and you play a Mesmer. There are so many ways to kill a heartseeker spam thief as a mesmer I just can’t believe this lol.

Your making it sound like you find heartseeker difficult to stop I just don’t know why you think that. I’m gonna try this later for lulz find a person, record I few fight of me just spamming 2 and nothing else rofl. This should make for some good laughs.

Give me some parameters can I dodge roll too? If I kill a lot of people with this I will concede that most of the WvW players are indeed terrible.