Guild Wars 2

Imperator totius Sylvari.9164:

Rayya.2591:

Since moderator say is thief related i will coppy // past it here
Even In my oppinion i belive is some kind of bug
Ok , i will not complain about it , i am an thief as well.
I assume is was some kind of bug, because in over 1000 hours of wvw this is the first time it happens to me,i normaly eat max 6000 backstab at my defence, but i would also accept an logical explanation if it wasn’t an bug.
I eat an backstab of 12000 Damage, but more interestion is the cloack and dagger who hit me for 6500 damage
In 1’st attached screen are my stats downed ( traits off, with traits my defence is with 300 more ), in second screen my “normal” stats
The thief who bursted me had no nourishment bonuses but it had 25 stacks of bloodlust

Some of us in desolation have been running with staff guardians for empower thats 12 stacks of might or 24 if there were 2, was it a 1v1 situation, but I personally have never hit 12k with backstab on a level 80, but I usually am solo.

well we play vs eachother since 9 days already max damage i received before today was somewhere arround 6000-6500 from an backstab. Not sure if 12 stacks of might can make such an huge diference, i had 2800 armor, wich is above average.

Yha 24 stacks of might + 25 blood lust is is + 1100 =4500 attack if he’s full Berk with 254% crit damage so 4500*1100*2.4(Backstab skill mod /2900)=10400 (approx after 2.54 crit modifier) then he could potentially have up to about another 72% damage mod from traits so he could hit alot harder. with that many stacks of Might and bloodlust.

condiments.8043:

Ralathar.7236:

All of this in a single character. It’s obviously not balanced. It’s a situation of too many advantages all at once. Their one weak point is supposed to be they are easy to squish, but they are actually harder to kill than other glass cannons while providing competitive or higher damage and possessing many other advantages over others.

Thieves need all those ability options in a competitive situation when deadly coordinated burst can annihilate a GC thief in a second or less. Stealth and the mobility are fantastic, but people fail to mention that thieves don’t have access to absolutely integral boons like stability(leaving them open to CC unless stun breakers are up, which can be instant death if they aren’t), and protection(a big reason why thieves are so squishy overall). These inherent benefits also invalidate them as an adequate point holder, because either a thief is in stealth(no point cap), or on the move dancing on and off the point which can lead to a de-cap. Other boons can be applied through some ability usage(steal mainly), or stealth might stacking, but thieves to have to rely on their key active defense mechanisms to stay alive. Even in stealth, a thief is still vulnerable, except he can’t be actively targeted.

Conditions are also a sore spot against thieves with their low HP totals, and no reliable form of removal besides traits and certain utilities. Which again, lends to their overall un-sustainability in longer encounters like in team fights over a point.

So what does these options imply to thieves? Roam. This post isn’t to state thieves are weak, far from it, but weaken their mobility, damage, and stealth will keep them from performing competitively in their only viable position atm.

Other classes are just as squishy without having those advantages and die much more because of it when built glass cannon. Also, you only die in under a second if you are built sheer glass and go against someone else built sheer glass. There are only a few exceptions to this and some involve quickness. But with the exception of another thief those big hits are easy to see coming and quite avoidable.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather see thief have a little more innate durability, a little less “haha I escape everything” and a little less sheer damage. I’d also like to see some of their lesser builds be made more viable. But their current state is beyond broken in WvW. Which is difficult because in sPVP and PVE their relative scale of power is different.

Kind of Overkill, Tanks that have a powerful cannon still need some armor, otherwise a random bomb will blow them up before they are effective at all.

Taldren.7523:

1. Everyone else non-Thief was dead … so only a thief can survive a thief? Apply Darwin’s theory to its end result.

Practice. Evolution gave us brains with which we can learn and adapt faster then evolution itself could. Darwin is not involved in practice and improving your skills.
The best, or luckiest, two players survived. There isn’t much more to it.

2. Sneak Attack + Unload fits in the 5-6 seconds between stealth and grants the most number of hits in that amount of time.

But there is no Repeat because you’d be stuck with dual pistols for another 9 second, during which you can not use C&D

3. You use Cloak and Dagger in the stealth rotation in which the weapon swap cool-down is not a factor.

It means the rotation is on a 20 second cool-down, 10 to switch back to DD after the unload, then you have another 10 seconds before the unload.

4. You don’t get how this build works … This is not a burst “your dead” build … its a “I can out survive up to 5 of you and kill you all because you can’t do a kitten thing about my sustainable damage output” build.

There’s plenty of players who do know how to handle a P/D thief. It means the 5 of you have something to learn still. You’d rather learn and improve?

5. You also greatly under estimate blind …

No I don’t, I’ve used /P for a while in PvE, I though it was strong. And boring. I use it now and then (traits can be switched in between combat) against AI, you have to love how they bunch up, unlike human players. AI would waste precious attacks blinded, while humans would be smarter and auto-attack once to get rid of the blind.

Uh, yeah … saying you can’t swap weapons in combat is a “WTF” moment.

Except that he understands that you can not swap between weaponsets as frequently as your rotation suggests. To be honest, I think you haven’t watched your video too well.

Plaxy.4617:

Yha 24 stacks of might + 25 blood lust is is + 1100 =4500 attack if he’s full Berk with 254% crit damage so 4500*1100*2.4(Backstab skill mod /2900)=10400 (approx after 2.54 crit modifier) then he could potentially have up to about another 72% damage mod from traits so he could hit alot harder. with that many stacks of Might and bloodlust.

how can he have 72% mod from trait? 10% expose weakness + 10% first strikes + 5% Dagger trainning +5% flanking strikes= 30% and 24 stacks of might, weren’t there

Ralathar.7236:

Bardes.1870:

Ralathar.7236:

[snip]

Well, all you said require 150 trait points, 0s CD weapon switching, infinite initiative points and also 4+ weapon skill sets.

Like I said it can be tested. I’m swimming in the river of reality. Get your feet wet sometime. Hyperbole is not always your friend and this is a step beyond that. Hyperbole requires a grain of truth.

You should really try testing it and reporting the results, rather then posting unsubstantiated claims, belittling others who question you and then telling everyone who points out that what you claim doesn’t add up that it’s not possible to ‘test it themselves’. Comon Ralathar, we’ve had this discussion before when you claimed a thief can totally do 30 thousand damage in under a second, you can’t just claim stuff and then go ‘Well it’s testable, I’m not gonna test it but you totally could’ and expect people to take you seriously. Then again, you might just be trolling the thread.

Rayya.2591:

Plaxy.4617:

Yha 24 stacks of might + 25 blood lust is is + 1100 =4500 attack if he’s full Berk with 254% crit damage so 4500*1100*2.4(Backstab skill mod /2900)=10400 (approx after 2.54 crit modifier) then he could potentially have up to about another 72% damage mod from traits so he could hit alot harder. with that many stacks of Might and bloodlust.

how can he have 72% mod from trait? 10% expose weakness + 10% first strikes + 5% Dagger trainning +5% flanking strikes= 30% and 24 stacks of might, weren’t there

There is also a assassin signet that he could of used, that or it was some wierd bug

ensoriki.5789:

Do you even Context?
Im talking re-equipping, in the middle of combat.

Elementalists can do just fine from PE.
A thief can’t “out survive” 5 players, lettuce be cereal unless the culling was so bad that he just isn’t visible but in reality, especially a build like that, he only targets one person with non-burst damage, and there are 5 bodies of which to interrupt any of that. Not to mention switching from P/D to PP is 10s cd before using cnd again, and even if you time it so that
Cnd-Weapon swap -wait-Sneak attack -Unload, Stealth last 4s at most, and sneak attack ends at 1st hit, and puts reveal on him. So with reveal he can;t immediately restealth and because he switched to PP he’s extended his inability to stealth (unless he burns Blinding Powder or Shadow Refuge). You’ve got 6s, to Imm/stun/daze/kd/launch/pull/push and screw him up even further. Should not be hard for a group. Blinding him also makes landing the CnD harder. If 5 people die from one thief “out surviving” them, they’re bad.
You said you play thief so you should know your own limitations.

You have 6 seconds (max) to reacquire the ranged target (if you ignore culling) who will then stealth, clear most (if not all) conditions and heal for ~1000 without actually used a condition removing utility or heal skill. The only time this build should lose is in confined locations like sPvP.

frans.8092:

Practice. Evolution gave us brains with which we can learn and adapt faster then evolution itself could. Darwin is not involved in practice and improving your skills.
The best, or luckiest, two players survived. There isn’t much more to it.

Says the spider to the fly. Except who wins that vast majority of those fights? Skill is a modifier only … you have to factor in the base.

But there is no Repeat because you’d be stuck with dual pistols for another 9 second, during which you can not use C&D

Why on earth would you require C&D to stealth? Stealing, Hide In Shadows, Shadow Refuge, Blinding Powder, and most of the time another Stealth from Stealing. If that can’t get your through 9s of weapon cooldown I don’t know what to say.

You can’t tell me the build doesn’t do what I say it does as I play it everyday. Either actually build it and try it yourself or stop arguing about something you don’t understand.

Taldren, try the same build in the Mist. Doing sPVP with a thief is probably the most balanced result you’ll get. In there, you’ll see that thief is pretty balanced when faced with other professions.

You’re saying you’re so great at thief but that’s in WvW. There in WvW, there are SO many things that factors in. There’s terrain, trash NPC mobs, buffs from WvW things, and conditions to abuse. A thief can get 20 stacks of might in under a second if they burn all their signets. With 25 stacks of blood lust too, and omnom berries, any glass cannon specced person can hit pretty hard.

You keep saying that thieves can get in and out… You do realize that other classes can do just that too and sometimes better? An elementalist can go into mist form, and that’s their escape after bursting. A warrior can also go immune to damage with a utility skill… Thieves have no immune defense utility. They only got their stealth.

You’re just blowing it out of proportions and asking for a “nerf” just because you can’t kill thief on one class, and then think you’re strong when you play as thief. Take some hints… when you can’t play a class well, that doesn’t mean the other classes are OP >.>.

Btw, P/P doesn’t have that much stealth when used practically. You’re burning all your stealth cooldowns/getaways just to stealth. Doing that is like asking the enemies to just kill you (if the enemy is skilled, and in WvW, they’re average usually).

Taldren.7523:

frans.8092:

Practice. Evolution gave us brains with which we can learn and adapt faster then evolution itself could. Darwin is not involved in practice and improving your skills.
The best, or luckiest, two players survived. There isn’t much more to it.

Says the spider to the fly. Except who wins that vast majority of those fights? Skill is a modifier only … you have to factor in the base.

But there is no Repeat because you’d be stuck with dual pistols for another 9 second, during which you can not use C&D

Why on earth would you require C&D to stealth? Stealing, Hide In Shadows, Shadow Refuge, Blinding Powder, and most of the time another Stealth from Stealing. If that can’t get your through 9s of weapon cooldown I don’t know what to say.

You can’t tell me the build doesn’t do what I say it does as I play it everyday. Either actually build it and try it yourself or stop arguing about something you don’t understand.

People don’t understand a thief’s capabilities because they are too pigeonholed in the current popular specs. They also don’t read or listen. This is blindingly apparent by the fact that they think sPVP balance, PVE balance, and WvW balance relate to each other more than casually.

Thus they don’t understand simple things like being ranged and occasionally stealthing making you extremely hard to kill in mass WvW even though it wouldn’t matter much in sPVP

I would say range on daggers could be slightly better.. Anyhow
A good Ele will always beat a good thief
A good Mesmer will also beat a good thief
and well Rangers are very good in teams not 1v1

Why? cuz face it they willl kite us to death if they dont die in the first 5sec.. All you need to beat a thief is to dodge and roll for 6 sec intil the int runs out and then you can just take him on easly.. And at that point all thief can do is run..!
In the end every Thief will be P/D and no longer be a High DPS classs but rather annoying lil kitten who sings cant touch this..
Fix culling and get Higher slow reduction on DD or make it with less int.. That is all

Cornholio.1567:

Why? cuz face it they willl kite us to death if they dont die in the first 5sec.. All you need to beat a thief is to dodge and roll for 6 sec intil the int runs out and then you can just take him on easly.. And at that point all thief can do is run..!

Bad thief is bad if he’s burning all his initiative in 6 seconds, especially in a mobility fight. Acting like an NPC (following a preplanned rotation regardless of what your opponent is doing) in PvP isn’t going to produce good results against someone unless they’re also acting like an NPC.

Taldren.7523:

You have 6 seconds (max) to reacquire the ranged target (if you ignore culling) who will then stealth, clear most (if not all) conditions and heal for ~1000 without actually used a condition removing utility or heal skill. The only time this build should lose is in confined locations like sPvP.

With two traits for it (longer stealth and condition removal) you can stealth and loose 2 conditions in the 4 second of stealth. Without the trait to increase stealth duration it’s one condition, or stealth wears off and you loose the stealth attack. Stuns, blind, blocking, even cripple can prevent a thief from going into stealth with Cloak and Dagger.

You are quietly moving away from the rotation you came up with?

Taldren.7523:

frans.8092:

Practice. Evolution gave us brains with which we can learn and adapt faster then evolution itself could. Darwin is not involved in practice and improving your skills.
The best, or luckiest, two players survived. There isn’t much more to it.

Says the spider to the fly. Except who wins that vast majority of those fights? Skill is a modifier only … you have to factor in the base.

Skill is the most important factor, not just a modifier. There’s an equal base, necromancer, wariors, mesmers, members of all classes report being successful in 1v1 against thieves. They’re either really skilled or thief i quite balanced. If you loose you look at your own part in that event first. It’ll make you a better player.

frans.8092:

But there is no Repeat because you’d be stuck with dual pistols for another 9 second, during which you can not use C&D

Why on earth would you require C&D to stealth? Stealing, Hide In Shadows, Shadow Refuge, Blinding Powder, and most of the time another Stealth from Stealing. If that can’t get your through 9s of weapon cooldown I don’t know what to say.

We’ve been very specific about those, you can use them offensively, but they have their own cool-downs and, more importantly, they offer utility you’d typically not want to waste for offence. Unless your opponent has a really bad day and you know you will not need Hide in Shadows for healing, Blinding Powder for defence etc…. .

There’s a trait that gives two second of stealth on Steal. There are traits for Condition Removal under stealth, Regeneration, traits that make stealth last longer. And you can pick three of them, not four.

You can’t tell me the build doesn’t do what I say it does as I play it everyday. Either actually build it and try it yourself or stop arguing about something you don’t understand.

Well, show us this build, and we can try it out, or at least give it an evaluation. Better yet, post a video showing you using this build. I’d like to see how this rotation plays out.

The thing is there isnt that many eles or mesmers that is good.. very few jsut like thiefs.. Which why any thief goes for the burst first.. Then they dodge.. mesmers invis.. Ele ports.. giving them enuf timet to spawn elusions or apply chill on you.. And at the point when you dont kill him and he dodges you wont have steal.. and that will pretty much give him advantage

I see more mesmers/eles/guardians then I ever see thieves, even in spvp/wvw….

Yes that build may be powerfull in WvW but it does not work in Spvp at that level at all.

Snare/chill/criple forces us to use heal/utility stealth, as we cant stealth of weapeon.

That weapeon set has weak gap closer HS which is also ruined by snare/chill/criple.

That build is very strong against classes with pets/illiusions/adds, as he can additionaly stealth of them, also NPC’s in WvW giving it additional strenght. It does not have such strenght in Spvp.

Conditions…. well they are basicaly useless against that type of thief. He is weak however to cc and another burst, expecialy ranged one that he cant near to go invis.

The whole builds damage output too is on stealth attack. If you dont allow him to stealth he will not have his damage output even at 50% strenght.

I agree with you Stin but I was mostly talking about WvW.. sPvP is a total difrent matter.. I run a bleed build there, rather than crit build like in WvW. Cuz I got more awerness where everyone is..
But my point stands, any good Ele/Mesmer can kill a good Thief in WvW.. unless thief just runs away.

Forzani.2584:

Zunhar.4079:

Forzani.2584:

ensoriki.5789:

When a thief attacks to lose stealth there is a timer… It’s a buff called reveal that makes all stealth attempts fail until it reduces. Play a thief and you’ll realize that.
In WvW the culling is a problem, in Spvp/tpvp

To clarify. A timer that won’t let you restealth until a certain amount of time has happened after the last time you hit someone…or was hit by someone else.
Stealthing multiple times in the middle of a fight is the problem most people have issues with….culling aside, which I know is a problem.

There IS a timer on it. When a Thief uses an attack skill while in stealth, and the attack connects and deals damage, the Thief is removed from stealth and given a 3 second “revealed” debuff, where any skill that grants stealth that is used in that time period will fail.
Comprende?

Oh I comprende.

If a Thief is in combat, delivering damage and/or receiving damage, he shouldn’t be able to stealth. The timer to restealth should begin after he both stops attacking and stops taking damage.

Your idea of a timer(and Anet) is the Thief unstealths to wack someone. For 3 seconds he is hitting someone and likely being hit by others. During those 3 seconds he cant stealth. Timer is up, he can now restealth smack dab in the middle of a bunch of people hitting him. Correct ?

As it has been stated many many times before, if you want to remove restealthing in combat, you need to give thieves more survivability skills. Many of our utility skills revolve around stealthing. Many of our traits revolve around stealthing. Our most damaging skills revolve around stealthing. Your changes would REQUIRE all thieves to go d/d, as every other weapon (except short bow) has no damaging abilities outside auto attack. Then we would all be here complaining about heartseeker thieves. In the other game you were using as a comparison that we shall not name, the stealth class is built around an opener, with a lot of skills focused on ccing the target while you damage him. Give thieves a stun-like ability that they can use after a combo and I can GUARANTEE it will become an even bigger problem in your eyes then the current state of stealth (also, those other games grant perma-stealth inherently…which is something many others think is broken/borderline game-breaking/exploiting).

Taldren.7523:

Tulisin.6945:

Taldren.7523:

The Thief PP/PD build needs to be majorly toned down. They never spend more than 50% of the time out of stealth and every time they enter stealth they remove conditions and heal.

That seems…unlikely, considering that P/P doesn’t have organic stealth.

Ok … so I made a quick movie to prove exactly how wrong you are …

http://youtu.be/v9gjTEFOg0s

Wish all arguments were as easy to win.

You quoted him saying P/P doesn’t have organic stealth, you show a video of 2 P/D thieves trying to kill each other and failing, and claim you have won your argument. I too wish winning an argument was as easy as showing an irreverent video.

Claiming his other weapon set was P/P doesn’t win you the argument, as in the video where you are proving how wrong he is, P/P never appears. Also, those other players in the video (except the 2 thieves still alive at the end) deserved to die. Not moving in PvP is one of the worse things you can do.

Cornholio.1567:

I agree with you Stin but I was mostly talking about WvW.. sPvP is a total difrent matter.. I run a bleed build there, rather than crit build like in WvW. Cuz I got more awerness where everyone is..
But my point stands, any good Ele/Mesmer can kill a good Thief in WvW.. unless thief just runs away.

Pretty much true that good ele kills thiefs pretty much always, also most mesmers, but with mesmers we do have a greater chance as we can stealth from illiusions and such allowing greater survival.

this is funny
most of arguments are about:
1. Thief can run away whenever they want to
sure.. cry all you want.. that’s a thief for you.. don’t expect everyone will just stay and fight a boring fight till opponent die…
2. this that so op
we gotta lose other stuffs in exchange for it (high dmg = low health)
3. stealth is breaking the game
fix the culling first then argue later
4. best mobility
quit it.. it made me laugh… totally ignored warriors and elementalists
5. high survival chance
quit it… most thieves are glass cannon.. if they spec’d out for survival.. they’ll lose dmg in exchange

I’d say the most worrysome problem thieves bring to pvp is how much they can abuse stealth and stealth mechanics. As the way the game is now, the thief can go to stealth several times and due to how many skills/traits they have they can just reset the fight everytime things are going bad for them. Also finishing people in stealth is another very cheap way to render some downed states completely useless. At the point the game is now it is very very frustrating fighting a thief because everytime i know i am gonna get them they simply easily escape and i can’t pretty much do anything about it. It’s probably the easiest class to focus burst damage in pvp and still don’t get penalized that much due to how stealth is. It’s so safe to play thief due to how stealth is atm in pvp that most of the community are just rolling one for almost every pvp activity that there is. Burst damage could be tweaked a little bit, but it is better than it was before.

Sethorus.9231:

I’d say the most worrysome problem thieves bring to pvp is how much they can abuse stealth and stealth mechanics. As the way the game is now, the thief can go to stealth several times and due to how many skills/traits they have they can just reset the fight everytime things are going bad for them. Also finishing people in stealth is another very cheap way to render some downed states completely useless. At the point the game is now it is very very frustrating fighting a thief because everytime i know i am gonna get them they simply easily escape and i can’t pretty much do anything about it. It’s probably the easiest class to focus burst damage in pvp and still don’t get penalized that much due to how stealth is. It’s so safe to play thief due to how stealth is atm in pvp that most of the community are just rolling one for almost every pvp activity that there is. Burst damage could be tweaked a little bit, but it is better than it was before.

Stealth isn’t an immune to damage button…

Nate.5109:

Daecollo.9578:

Stealth isn’t an immune to damage button…

Oh, pshaw. You and your facts… best get on board with the “zomg I gotz gib’d… nerf Thiefz naonaonao!” crowd in this thread.

Wait, isn’t this the thread where constructive thoughts on thieves are?

I don’t mind the damage thieves actually do, the problem is the safe layer stealth can provide to them while other classes cant get that layer. Being able to basically reset the fight whenever the fight will not go right for someone is not actually a good mechanic and it doesn’t work well in a lot of games, i don’t blame thieves actually for it. I for once liked how Assassins on gw1 worked, they did fine damage and didn’t need stealth, there were nice ways to counter them. But’s is just that stealth is really a hard skill to balance it doesn’t matter which game it is. I am trying to be constructive here.
ArenaNet could improve thieves in some areas so they wouldn’t need to be so stealth reliant.

Sethorus.9231:

I don’t mind the damage thieves actually do, the problem is the safe layer stealth can provide to them while other classes cant get that layer. Being able to basically reset the fight whenever the fight will not go right for someone is not actually a good mechanic and it doesn’t work well in a lot of games, i don’t blame thieves actually for it. I for once liked how Assassins on gw1 worked, they did fine damage and didn’t need stealth, there were nice ways to counter them. But’s is just that stealth is really a hard skill to balance it doesn’t matter which game it is. I am trying to be constructive here.
ArenaNet could improve thieves in some areas so they wouldn’t need to be so stealth reliant.

Mesmer has Portal + Stealth.
Elementalist has Invulnerability + Perma Swiftness + Lots of “Rush Away instantly!”
Warriors with Greatsword can get Perma Swiftness + Lots of “Rush Away instantly!”

Hmm u say that thief cures conditions with stealth and yes it does. You say that a thief cand deal a huge ammount of damage condition or burst. You say that the thief’s got a nice survivability and it does. Yet he can’t have them all. As a thief i have to admit that the damage is cool and yet I need to sacrifice some heal/condition removal in order to do “the insane damage”you all QQ about. On the other way,I can heal and remove conditions and stuff but what is the point since the damage would be severely weakend. So,try to understand that the thief is not OP,every class is OP when is played right. Try to learn how to play/counter it before u play it.
PS: Even tough i did almost 13k backstab with a full burst build,the lack of everything else does not worth it if you play without a zerg(like Desolation( )

Sethorus.9231:

I don’t mind the damage thieves actually do, the problem is the safe layer stealth can provide to them while other classes cant get that layer. Being able to basically reset the fight whenever the fight will not go right for someone is not actually a good mechanic and it doesn’t work well in a lot of games, i don’t blame thieves actually for it. I for once liked how Assassins on gw1 worked, they did fine damage and didn’t need stealth, there were nice ways to counter them. But’s is just that stealth is really a hard skill to balance it doesn’t matter which game it is. I am trying to be constructive here.
ArenaNet could improve thieves in some areas so they wouldn’t need to be so stealth reliant.

YEA!!!!!

I agree! Bring back gw1 assassins so I can 1 chain everyone day in and day out…and be a master of all weapon sets.

No, seriously though…do you even know what you’re talking about? Stealth is not a “safe layer”…especially in sPvP. It’s a “I’m hindering myself and my DPS to try land a backstab that I shouldn’t be able to land on a good player that knows how to dodge and put distance, while constantly being bombarded with skills and AoEs for 3 seconds”.

Imho, you weren’t being constructive…you were just being another complainer, who’s complaining about something that annoys them. I honestly believe more than 85% of the complainers here have never played any of the old video games. You know…the ones that used to take skill and was hard. The ones where the company didn’t just update a “patch” to make things easier for your sake. Ah…good ol’ days!!!

I’m trying not to run the classic backstab build, beacuse I think it is kind of boring.

As far as I tested, Condition Damage Builds are good in PvE, but they lack of damage in PvP. The Death Blossom damage is too weak and it is really difficult not to die trying to stack bleeding in other players (that most of the time will just remove it).

I believe this build has a good synergy between traits and skills, but should be buffed in PvP, possible by increasing the Death Blossom output damage.

Forzani.2584:

Zunhar.4079:

Forzani.2584:

ensoriki.5789:

When a thief attacks to lose stealth there is a timer… It’s a buff called reveal that makes all stealth attempts fail until it reduces. Play a thief and you’ll realize that.
In WvW the culling is a problem, in Spvp/tpvp

To clarify. A timer that won’t let you restealth until a certain amount of time has happened after the last time you hit someone…or was hit by someone else.
Stealthing multiple times in the middle of a fight is the problem most people have issues with….culling aside, which I know is a problem.

There IS a timer on it. When a Thief uses an attack skill while in stealth, and the attack connects and deals damage, the Thief is removed from stealth and given a 3 second “revealed” debuff, where any skill that grants stealth that is used in that time period will fail.
Comprende?

Oh I comprende.

If a Thief is in combat, delivering damage and/or receiving damage, he shouldn’t be able to stealth. The timer to restealth should begin after he both stops attacking and stops taking damage.

Your idea of a timer(and Anet) is the Thief unstealths to wack someone. For 3 seconds he is hitting someone and likely being hit by others. During those 3 seconds he cant stealth. Timer is up, he can now restealth smack dab in the middle of a bunch of people hitting him. Correct ?

So, then, if Thieves can’t stealth while taking damage or dealing damage, how would a Thief EVER stealth?
Blow our heal or a utility skill? Just for a 3 second stealth?
Do you even play a Thief?

On second thought, just remove a Thief’s ability to stealth in combat, and replace it with a permanent stealth that only breaks when we deal damage.
Sound fair?

My feedback is for WvWvW the only change I would like to see is rendering fix or make the re-stealth timer longer. 10 seconds to re-stealth would be fair if rendering can’t be fixed. It is very frustrating to have a thief get away almost every fight because of rendering/stealthing mechanics of the game. I take advantage of it on my 80 thief doesn’t make it right

Tynee.9427:

My feedback is for WvWvW the only change I would like to see is rendering fix or make the re-stealth timer longer. 10 seconds to re-stealth would be fair if rendering can’t be fixed. It is very frustrating to have a thief get away almost every fight because of rendering/stealthing mechanics of the game. I take advantage of it on my 80 thief doesn’t make it right

We have traits that stealth us that are our mandatory 5 point traits, as long as other classes suffer the same kind of penalty to there traits.

For example, every time a Elementalist gets protection or invulnerability, he should have to wait 10 seconds before being able to get protection again, and if he activates another thing that gives him protection or invulnerability, it should just say “Sorry, Immune” and put that ability on cooldown timer.

Revealed can break our own saves and utility slots….

Shadow Refuge, it reveals you if you leave it to early, you don’t even have to attack!

I don’t see why they built a class around in combat stealth, even freaking wow figured it out that combat stealth is annoying, broken, and not fun to deal with. Besides the fact that Anet gave thief double the mobility of the next class, and a mindlessly skill less mechanic all combine’s to a class that continues to give players an effectiveness that they don’t actually have because all they have to do is mash a few buttons and run away if anything looks at them…

Fixes’, increase the cool downs of their stealth and remove the capabilities to use stealth off initiative, the only other class to be able to stealth off a weapon skill is Mesmer, and the torch is horrible… Stealth as it is isn’t broken in this game, but when thiefs are able to access it every 2 seconds with it lasting 4… needless to say it’s annoying, especially when not every class has access to good cleaving auto attacks to be able to deal with them.

Zoke.2147:

I don’t see why they built a class around in combat stealth, even freaking wow figured it out that combat stealth is annoying, broken, and not fun to deal with. Besides the fact that Anet gave thief double the mobility of the next class, and a mindlessly skill less mechanic all combine’s to a class that continues to give players an effectiveness that they don’t actually have because all they have to do is mash a few buttons and run away if anything looks at them…

Fixes’, increase the cool downs of their stealth and remove the capabilities to use stealth off initiative, the only other class to be able to stealth off a weapon skill is Mesmer, and the torch is horrible… Stealth as it is isn’t broken in this game, but when thieves are able to access it every 2 seconds with it lasting 4… needless to say it’s annoying, especially when not every class has access to good cleaving auto attacks to be able to deal with them.

Wow, you have no idea how this class works do you?

Zunhar.4079:

Forzani.2584:

Zunhar.4079:

Forzani.2584:

ensoriki.5789:

When a thief attacks to lose stealth there is a timer… It’s a buff called reveal that makes all stealth attempts fail until it reduces. Play a thief and you’ll realize that.
In WvW the culling is a problem, in Spvp/tpvp

To clarify. A timer that won’t let you restealth until a certain amount of time has happened after the last time you hit someone…or was hit by someone else.
Stealthing multiple times in the middle of a fight is the problem most people have issues with….culling aside, which I know is a problem.

There IS a timer on it. When a Thief uses an attack skill while in stealth, and the attack connects and deals damage, the Thief is removed from stealth and given a 3 second “revealed” debuff, where any skill that grants stealth that is used in that time period will fail.
Comprende?

Oh I comprende.

If a Thief is in combat, delivering damage and/or receiving damage, he shouldn’t be able to stealth. The timer to restealth should begin after he both stops attacking and stops taking damage.

Your idea of a timer(and Anet) is the Thief unstealths to wack someone. For 3 seconds he is hitting someone and likely being hit by others. During those 3 seconds he cant stealth. Timer is up, he can now restealth smack dab in the middle of a bunch of people hitting him. Correct ?

So, then, if Thieves can’t stealth while taking damage or dealing damage, how would a Thief EVER stealth?
Blow our heal or a utility skill? Just for a 3 second stealth?
Do you even play a Thief?

On second thought, just remove a Thief’s ability to stealth in combat, and replace it with a permanent stealth that only breaks when we deal damage.
Sound fair?

As long as no restealth until clear of combat for say 5 seconds then yes, it does sound fair.

As far as I see it:

Most of the changes requested here are because of sPvP/WvW people crying about how a thief is OP because it has stealth and burst damage.

The REAL problem is that this game incorporates a (huge) PVE world aswell, and implementing a lot of the changes outlined above (especially the no re-stealth in combat) would destroy PVE for thief completely, reasoning:

Stealth doesn’t make you immune to any form of damage (AoE, cleave, etc…), be it WvW or PVE I got downed a lot of times while in stealth, just due to a slow reaction.

Even if not a complete glass cannon (14895 HP / 2080 Armor here) while in PVE a thief can not soak many hits (especially not while in some harder dungeons or higher level fractals).

Thing is, the changes that got implemented already (dancing dagger damage nerf, CnD damage nerf, pistol whip nerf) already hurt thieves a lot in PVE simply because we lost some of our DPS and didn’t get any survivability back for it, on top of that thief has kitten options from other weapon sets, so if these nerfs continue thief will be rendered useless for PVE.

So, if ANet plans to implement more nerfs to the class, please consider making them only for sPvP/WvW OR rework the skills completely for PvP areas OR rework the whole class to be viable in both areas, but for gods sake don’t remake squishy, yet high DPS PVE class into a squishy kitten PVE class, since that seems to be the way its going.

Another thing that comes to my mind, since a lot of people (regardless of class) tend to go full glass canon into WvW/sPvP simply for the quick kill posibilities, instead of nerfing/reworking any class skills, add a flat 10000 HP + 1000 Armor bonus to all classes while in WvW/sPvP while not boosting damage any further, that would effectively remove all instagib builds and stop this PvP crybaby nonsense that’s going on in every classes related subforum…

Cloud.7613:

Rukia.4802:

Thieves are being removed from the game, calling it now.

I hope they just totally change the profession into the assassin from GW1 like they should have done in the first place. Honestly, stealth is never a good idea in an MMO even though it’s far more balanced in GW2 than any other.

Stealth is far more balanced in GW2 then any other? Are you serious? WoW vs GW2, a class that can only stealth with skills for a limited time, can be broken out with DoTs or AoE. Vs a class that can invis whenever the thief pleases.

Please….

You kinda missed the fact that Rogue had Permastealth if he wanted and can literally choose his target, stop him (sap) and then fully prepared for the encounter, kill the victim…
There is much more differencies between Thief and Rogue, any comparison is nonsense….

PVE: playing the thief every which way i can i only found one viable build. (where even in Exotics I wasn’t dieing to some op team of mobs in Orr)

Link is here

The way it’s setup now is for sword pistol combos. I ignore using #2 and #4 abilities as they tend to be useless. I time between the traited quickness boon, the sigil of rage on my sword, and if both are down and I need a boost for larger beasts I use Haste. Everything tends to die very quickly with this build.

When needing to be ranged I switch to pistols with similar results. My second pistol (that replaces the sword when i switch) also has a sigil of rage on it for speed. If I have time before a battle I switch out two things for the pistols. I change Trickster to Ricochet and I change my Tripwire to Blinding Powder or Smoke Screen depending on the type of mobs I will be fighting.

It makes for smooth sailing now.

It however makes me sad that the other trait builds and weapon combos for this profession are not as harmonious or well thought out as this one is.

@ the perma stealth idea
That’s a very imbalanced and horrible thing to do. With this, an small group of thief could strategically place themselves at key points on the map, and appear and then restealth. And perma stealth means Anet will have to make thief burst EVEN more powerful… It’ll make thieves like rogues on WoW. Bursty opening from stealth.

The current thief right now isn’t imbalanced. If you go glass thief, you’re not going to be able to take hits and get away. The thieves that you keep talking about, the ones that restealth over and over, they’re a defensive type. They’re not going to burst you down as fast, and fighting those is like fighting any bunker class. So you’re basically asking to nerf a bunker build… which makes no sense because that’s what bunker builds are. They use conditions usually and burn you down. In the case of the thief, they stealth, and they have just enough traits/talents to heal while stealth, remove condition while stealth, just enough to survive. But if they miss their stealth, they’re dead. It sounds hardly like a bunker, but it definitely takes some skills to play a bunker stealth thief.

Thief doesn’t need anymore adjustments to stealth, initiative, or any more nerfs. If anything, they need adjustments in several of their weapon specs to make them more viable than what most thieves run currently. It’s just natural that any class with stealth will get the most amount of complains. People tend to call it out and say it’s cheap because most people don’t like dying to something that disappears and stuff. Like it’s against the “Warrior” code… Maybe people associate it with Ninjas or something lol.

Most professions can counter thief if you got the right build and skills. That’s my 2 cents… wait no. $100 because I’m so sure of it. With that said, I got a Warrior, and an Elementalist that I play and even have counters for thieves and other classes. Next up… Ranger, Mesmer, Necro, and guardian… I just like to make counters to every single class with every single class I use… It’s just the challenge of figuring things out.

tigirius.9014:

PVE: playing the thief every which way i can i only found one viable build. (where even in Exotics I wasn’t dieing to some op team of mobs in Orr)

Link is here

The way it’s setup now is for sword pistol combos. I ignore using #2 and #4 abilities as they tend to be useless. I time between the traited quickness boon, the sigil of rage on my sword, and if both are down and I need a boost for larger beasts I use Haste. Everything tends to die very quickly with this build.

When needing to be ranged I switch to pistols with similar results. My second pistol (that replaces the sword when i switch) also has a sigil of rage on it for speed. If I have time before a battle I switch out two things for the pistols. I change Trickster to Ricochet and I change my Tripwire to Blinding Powder or Smoke Screen depending on the type of mobs I will be fighting.

It makes for smooth sailing now.

It however makes me sad that the other trait builds and weapon combos for this profession are not as harmonious or well thought out as this one is.

I agree with this to an extent. The thief lacks the versatility in PVE that other classes have just because the DPS isn’t as good as other classes like ele and warrior or we don’t have the survivability of a guardian unless we are constantly dodging or at range.

I get on quite well with my thief I run 0/30/20/20/0 but without stealth we are just a weak warrior. All I ever use stealth for in dungeons is ressing people or skipping something/running away.

- Poisons should become passive and moved to condition trait line
- Traps are kitten and I never use them in dungeons
- Someone made an excellent point that pistols don’t fire fast enough to stack bleeds and just don’t work well as a combo

I can’t speak for pvp.

Zunhar.4079:

On second thought, just remove a Thief’s ability to stealth in combat, and replace it with a permanent stealth that only breaks when we deal damage.
Sound fair?

Only if:
1.) Stealthing only requires the Thief to stop attacking for 3-4 seconds.
2.) Channeled abilities / Pet+NPC AI will automically interrupt the instant the target Thief gains Stealth.
3.) Recieving damage while Stealthed does not break Stealth.
4.) Shadow Refuge and Blind Powder mechanics remain unchanged.
5.) Cloak and Dagger is restored to pre-nerf damage but is changed to a Riposte/Protector’s Strike “Parry” mechanic, dealing it’s damage in an AoE.
2.5 – 3s Channel, if no attack is blocked, the Thief gains 10s of Swiftness and Fury.
6.) Heartseeker is restored to it’s pre-nerfed-into-oblivion state, +66%/-66%/33%
and restored to it’s original damage scale.
7.) Dancing Dagger has it’s pre-nerf damage restored AND initiative cost reduced to 3.
8.) Pistol Whip restored to pre-nerf damage and the stun is increased to match the duration of the evade window (w/o the use of Haste).
9.) Pistol Auto-Attack build time is reduced to 1/8s.
10.) Flanking Strike’s damage is consolidated into 1 hit, causing 10x Vulnerability to the target. Animation of Flanking Strike changed to a Shadowstep-based positioning shift, not some agonizingly long eliptical dodge roll.
11.) Unload changed to “Double Tap”, dealing the consolidated damage of the current P/P dual skill, but reducing the number of shots fired to 2. First shot causes weakness, second shot causes 1/2s daze. 5 Initiave cost. 3/4s channel time.

If those conditions are met I’d sign the permastealth petition, if not- forget it.

tigirius.9014:

I time between the traited quickness boon, the sigil of rage on my sword,

These are random procs, so you can’t do that. Furthermore, Sigil of Rage is pretty bad overall. Also really surprised you took sword mainhand without using Signet of Malice in PvE. Going that deep into Shadow Arts for PvE is also odd, especially since you don’t have organic stealth (no dagger offhand).

If it works for you, great, I guess, but you’d probably get more mileage out of Acrobatics.

People need to stop whining about thieves in my opinion. Yes the culling issue with stealth does need to be fixed. Thieves are very far from OP. A warrior’s hundred blades does just as much or more dmg than a backstab when specced the same way. Thieves are designed to be a burst dps class. They need stealth because they are squishy otherwise. Learn to counter the backstab (simple properly timed roll) and stop complaining about how they are OP because they are far from it.

I only play PvE so my feedback is from that pov. My main is a thief with full exotics. I have an 80 warrior in all yellows, a mid-level elementalist and guardian. I like doing dungeons, fractals and event chains. I find it depressing to say that I feel like my thief is the weakest of the bunch.

Survivability in PvE is just bad. Every piece of gear I have has vitality on it, more than half has toughness on it, and I sit around 15k hp and 1400 toughness. I still get floored far more often than I feel I should in group settings. I seem to be more wet and noodlie than my robe wearing teammates. Our survivability is supposed to come from stealth and blinds but it just doesn’t work that well vs. bosses, large groups of enemies, even a couple veterans. I’ve done fractals on my warrior with far worse gear and I feel measurably more durable while doing more damage. Yes, doing more damage. And doing more damage more easily and more straightforwardly.

Thief damage is very odd, there’s pretty much one direct damage ability and then a bunch of situational, weak stuff. D/D for example. In PvE, skill #1 is fine, skill #2 does terrible damage unless the mob is close to dead, #3 does very low direct dmg and a relatively mild dot, #4 was nerfed to oblivion and is terrible now in PvE, #5 is obviously the stealth initiater, which turns into Backstab, which IMO doesn’t do enough damage in PvE. Backstab critting for 2-3kish is kind of disappointing.

P/P is the same thing. #1 is just bad, it’s too slow, it’s too weak and the bleed is weak. #2 is a terrible cost vs. gain. #3 feels way too expensive for the damage it does. #4 is good in theory, but again it costs too much, doesn’t work when you need it to sometimes (on bosses or veterans) and doesn’t feel like it really does much of anything to merit it’s spot. #5 is ok, but to make use of it you are now stuck on that spot, still doing mediocre damage, applying a blind for a couple seconds.

S/P is just frustrating. The damage nerf to pistol whip in PvE made the whole set not worth using. #2 is ok but still situational.

Traps: very, very lackluster in PvE.
Venoms: Even with venom sharing in explorables/fractals, venoms are weak and unexciting.

One of the big differences I noticed between warrior and thief pve is this. On my warrior I can charge in with dual axes, hit #4, do damage and buffs me to do more dmg, hit #2, does aoe melee dmg, hit #5, does a massive amount of aoe dmg. When all these are on cooldown, I can swap out to greatsword, hit ANY of the keys again and do damage, swap back and repeat. I’m also in full plate. I am also buffing my mates with banners and/or shouts. Let’s look at thief. I’m going in D/D, open with steal and port to target, use the stolen item (which can be anything, it’s random and messy), …and then what? I can hit #2 which is terrible because it has high health, I can hit #3 but I’m built for combat and not conditions so it does very little dmg, I can hit #4 but the damage is bad, very much so against 1 target, so I hit #5 to do a backstab. 3k crit. Now what. I auto attack waiting for CnD to work again. Or I just drop initiative hitting #4, waiting for a good time to use #2. It’s clunky and the lulls in combat have bored me, and now I’ve been hit a couple times and almost dead so I roll heal backwards and switch to P/P. I don’t hit #2 because… it’s awful. I hit #5 so I can apply a blind to help out the person taking hits. I hit #3 to do some damage. I’m out of initiative. I stand there, staring at my character firing his crazy slow pistol waiting to able to hit #3 again.

It’s just clunky. It’s unrewarding. It feels, off. I know we work off initiative, not cooldowns, but when the goal is to hammer on bosses or clear groups of mobs to progress, being so limited by abilities that just don’t do that much damage is frustrating.

Almost everything about the thief needs buffed in PvE. I have a much better time solo, in event groups, and doing dungeons on any of my other characters.

I understand theives shine in PvP due to all the bursty mcstabby op crap, so fix the steal-mug-cnd-backstab thing, but for love of cheesus don’t nerf PvE any more. Revert the nerfs you already put in for PvE, rework some of the weapon abilities, do something with traps and venoms to make them worthy of use in end-game pve content, buff the baseline hp and/or armor just a tad and give us a better underwater elite.

Also, slightly off-topic, but I would love some friggin enemy casting bar of some sort. Some of these bosses don’t animate well, sometimes their model isn’t very big, sometimes they are so glowie I can’t see them at all, but getting downed by something I could have avoided if only I knew it was coming is forehead rubbingly frustrating.

Hundred Blades deals 1224 more damage then backstab does.

Kill Shot also does more damage then backstab does if you add in the 3% damage from burst tree, even more if you take into account burst traits… Kill Shot can also pierce and hit an infinite number of targets.

For PvE only, my feedback would be that my thief is the least durable of all the characters I have. I have one of every class. I don’t have much ability to deal with groups or hard-hitting single targets. Which basically just means dealing with small groups of regular enemies.

Since thief has so few support abilities, my options for not dying pretty much just involve stealthing and running away, or spamming dodge skills. I don’t feel that the damage they do offsets their squishyness. Pretty much the safest and most viable build I found was to just go D/D and spam Death Blossom and do nothing else. It’s boring, and even then not as safe as basically any of my other characters.

No opinion on PvP..

Dispari.3980:

For PvE only, my feedback would be that my thief is the least durable of all the characters I have. I have one of every class. I don’t have much ability to deal with groups or hard-hitting single targets. Which basically just means dealing with small groups of regular enemies.

Since thief has so few support abilities, my options for not dying pretty much just involve stealthing and running away, or spamming dodge skills. I don’t feel that the damage they do offsets their squishyness. Pretty much the safest and most viable build I found was to just go D/D and spam Death Blossom and do nothing else. It’s boring, and even then not as safe as basically any of my other characters.

No opinion on PvP..

Pretty much this. Stealth is not as reliable as it should be and their defense is way more bad than their offense and utility are good. They just happen to cause a lot of fits in PvP because of some of the gimmicks baked into their class.

Daecollo.9578:

Hundred Blades deals 1224 more damage then backstab does.

Kill Shot also does more damage then backstab does if you add in the 3% damage from burst tree, even more if you take into account burst traits… Kill Shot can also pierce and hit an infinite number of targets.

You want to know what kill shot and hundred blades don’t have?

Stealth and teleports…

be happy we thieves can escape the damage.

Aervius.2016:

Zunhar.4079:

On second thought, just remove a Thief’s ability to stealth in combat, and replace it with a permanent stealth that only breaks when we deal damage.
Sound fair?

Only if:
1.) Stealthing only requires the Thief to stop attacking for 3-4 seconds.
2.) Channeled abilities / Pet+NPC AI will automically interrupt the instant the target Thief gains Stealth.
3.) Recieving damage while Stealthed does not break Stealth.
4.) Shadow Refuge and Blind Powder mechanics remain unchanged.
5.) Cloak and Dagger is restored to pre-nerf damage but is changed to a Riposte/Protector’s Strike “Parry” mechanic, dealing it’s damage in an AoE.
2.5 – 3s Channel, if no attack is blocked, the Thief gains 10s of Swiftness and Fury.
6.) Heartseeker is restored to it’s pre-nerfed-into-oblivion state, +66%/-66%/33%
and restored to it’s original damage scale.
7.) Dancing Dagger has it’s pre-nerf damage restored AND initiative cost reduced to 3.
8.) Pistol Whip restored to pre-nerf damage and the stun is increased to match the duration of the evade window (w/o the use of Haste).
9.) Pistol Auto-Attack build time is reduced to 1/8s.
10.) Flanking Strike’s damage is consolidated into 1 hit, causing 10x Vulnerability to the target. Animation of Flanking Strike changed to a Shadowstep-based positioning shift, not some agonizingly long eliptical dodge roll.
11.) Unload changed to “Double Tap”, dealing the consolidated damage of the current P/P dual skill, but reducing the number of shots fired to 2. First shot causes weakness, second shot causes 1/2s daze. 5 Initiave cost. 3/4s channel time.

If those conditions are met I’d sign the permastealth petition, if not- forget it.

It was a joke man, chill. I much prefer the active- short duration- stealth then the be invisible forever kind of stealth.

I am, however, all in favor of buffing underplayed builds, like P/P and S/D.