Guild Wars 2

kenshinakh.3672:

You can’t spam stealth. It costs 6 ini to do CnD, and missing just one right after you attack someone can really make you vulnerable. The key to beating thieves is timing your dodge, and timing their stealth. If you learn to count 3s without thinking about it, and FEEL the flow of the battle, thieves are easy to beat.

CnD only stealths you if your hitting the target, which you have to be in melee range to do, not very wise if your at low health and trying to get away, unless your fighting stupids.

I play a thief.

The risk/reward of stealth is out of whack. Too many ways to get into stealth if you miss a burst window.

The simplest solutions would be to:

a) increase revealed debuff from all stealth sources to 10 seconds, and compensate with better utilities for the group – more combo fields (adding them to things like blinding powder) and focusing on the way steal buffs allies.

b) redesign CnD to something that does not give stealth

The whole mechanic of burst/stealth/burst/stealth endlessly is not good for the overall meta, it gets dull at best and with culling it becomes very broken.

xiv.7136:

I play a thief.

The risk/reward of stealth is out of whack. Too many ways to get into stealth if you miss a burst window.

The simplest solutions would be to:

a) increase revealed debuff from all stealth sources to 10 seconds, and compensate with better utilities for the group – more combo fields (adding them to things like blinding powder) and focusing on the way steal buffs allies.

b) redesign CnD to something that does not give stealth

The whole mechanic of burst/stealth/burst/stealth endlessly is not good for the overall meta, it gets dull at best and with culling it becomes very broken.

If people can’t restealth, it would push people father into a front end burst rather than a sustainable combat situation like S/D which relies on restealth for daze control.

xiv.7136:

I play a thief.

The risk/reward of stealth is out of whack. Too many ways to get into stealth if you miss a burst window.

The simplest solutions would be to:

a) increase revealed debuff from all stealth sources to 10 seconds, and compensate with better utilities for the group – more combo fields (adding them to things like blinding powder) and focusing on the way steal buffs allies.

b) redesign CnD to something that does not give stealth

The whole mechanic of burst/stealth/burst/stealth endlessly is not good for the overall meta, it gets dull at best and with culling it becomes very broken.

10s is much too long though. I think it’s better to wait until there is a clearer picture on how thieves are after the culling issue is fixed in WvW.

Maugetarr.6823:

xiv.7136:

I play a thief.

The risk/reward of stealth is out of whack. Too many ways to get into stealth if you miss a burst window.

The simplest solutions would be to:

a) increase revealed debuff from all stealth sources to 10 seconds, and compensate with better utilities for the group – more combo fields (adding them to things like blinding powder) and focusing on the way steal buffs allies.

b) redesign CnD to something that does not give stealth

The whole mechanic of burst/stealth/burst/stealth endlessly is not good for the overall meta, it gets dull at best and with culling it becomes very broken.

If people can’t restealth, it would push people father into a front end burst rather than a sustainable combat situation like S/D which relies on restealth for daze control.

They need to compensate of course, but restealthing over and over is the problem.

Stealth should be a powerful mechanic (and it is) but it should not allow for mistakes like it does now; its use should be sparing and meaningful, not spammy.

Think about it like this: what if guardian/warrior could block for 5 seconds every 8 seconds. It would promote skill-less and safe spamming – that is the way stealth is used now, and it severely lowers the skill floor of the class.

xiv.7136:

Maugetarr.6823:

xiv.7136:

I play a thief.

The risk/reward of stealth is out of whack. Too many ways to get into stealth if you miss a burst window.

The simplest solutions would be to:

a) increase revealed debuff from all stealth sources to 10 seconds, and compensate with better utilities for the group – more combo fields (adding them to things like blinding powder) and focusing on the way steal buffs allies.

b) redesign CnD to something that does not give stealth

The whole mechanic of burst/stealth/burst/stealth endlessly is not good for the overall meta, it gets dull at best and with culling it becomes very broken.

If people can’t restealth, it would push people father into a front end burst rather than a sustainable combat situation like S/D which relies on restealth for daze control.

They need to compensate of course, but restealthing over and over is the problem.

Stealth should be a powerful mechanic (and it is) but it should not allow for mistakes like it does now; its use should be sparing and meaningful, not spammy.

Think about it like this: what if guardian/warrior could block for 5 seconds every 8 seconds. It would promote skill-less and safe spamming – that is the way stealth is used now, and it severely lowers the skill floor of the class.

The guardian has access to multiple boons that protect it though along with weapon skills that block and control without postional requirements. Also that wouldn’t deter the front end burst and I’m sure everyone who doesn’t play a thief would love to see a buff to the other weapons even with less availability to stealth. Also traits would gave to be entirely reworked. As it is, the thief’s only real defense lies within stealth in which they can still be hurt.

xiv.7136:

I play a thief.

The risk/reward of stealth is out of whack. Too many ways to get into stealth if you miss a burst window.

The simplest solutions would be to:

a) increase revealed debuff from all stealth sources to 10 seconds, and compensate with better utilities for the group – more combo fields (adding them to things like blinding powder) and focusing on the way steal buffs allies.

b) redesign CnD to something that does not give stealth

The whole mechanic of burst/stealth/burst/stealth endlessly is not good for the overall meta, it gets dull at best and with culling it becomes very broken.

I think 10 seconds is a little much, I was thinking along the lines of 6 or 7 seconds with the revealed buff. But I agree with all of this.

Thiefs work as intended.
Good at taking down people out of proper positioning and pretty weak at larger battles (2v2 etc…).

CC Charles.3675:

Hello everyone,

Due to the amount of threads about thief and its gameplay impact, we have decided to open this thread in which you can discuss your concerns about Thieves in PvE, sPvP and WvW.

This will allow us to collect your feedback with more efficiency and forward them to the appropriate teams.

You can articulate both, positive and negative feedback for it, but we ask you to stay constructive and polite when you want to express your opinion, all posts that break the forum code of conduct will be removed.

Thank you!

Hi Charles,

I have had a thief for a while and this is what I think about them:

Positive:
- They look cool.

Negative:
- They appear to be vastly underpowered in PVE and PVP.

I have had no difficulty playing any other class. Even the engineer (which is a support class) works a lot better for me. Anyhow, that’s just my 2 cents and the game in general is a lot of fun!

Zwipe.5419:

shochinhwa.1648:

Thief – a joke.

hence all the crying (hands you a tissue)

yeah from laughing too hard at this bad joke. LOL

xiv.7136:

I play a thief.

The risk/reward of stealth is out of whack. Too many ways to get into stealth if you miss a burst window.

The simplest solutions would be to:

a) increase revealed debuff from all stealth sources to 10 seconds, and compensate with better utilities for the group – more combo fields (adding them to things like blinding powder) and focusing on the way steal buffs allies.

b) redesign CnD to something that does not give stealth

The whole mechanic of burst/stealth/burst/stealth endlessly is not good for the overall meta, it gets dull at best and with culling it becomes very broken.

Destroys condition builds entirely forcing all thieves to go glass canon and all stealth based effects (like regen) would need enormous boosts. The class is based on having to stealth a lot… They lose to folks who don’t let them stealth. A simple extension of the stealth debuff would require by far the biggest rework of the class. Fix culling and done. Go play pvp to see how thieves wil be after that change.

jan.9745:

Hi arena net if you want to make the game balance please fucus on number 5 dagger skill of thief this is the only thing that make the thief over using there stealth and its unfair to all class., thief will say its unfair if this #5 dagger skill will have cool down but they over using this and make a lot of unfair to all class., im going to ask you arena net how come other class survive even w/out stealth? If you guys put some cool down for that #5 dagger skill the game for thief will become balance because they cant over use there stealth., only 1 skill can make the changes the #5 dagger skill., thats the only problem for thief! Hope you guys listen to this. I dont care if they have high damage the only concern here is what if put some cooldown for #5 dagger so that they cant stealth every 2 – 3 sec how anoyed is that? Thief is lethal on 1 vs 1 combat not in a group. But its always happen 1 thief vs party and theif can still kill a group how fair is that? Even guardin cant survive if guardian face a party of player but thief can do because of over using that #5 dagger skill.,

There is no need to make so big changes into the profession. First ANet should try to fix the rendering bug in wvw ( if it can’t be fixed then maybe add a new effect to stealth only in wvw i.e. one could be called “decaying stealth” or “decay” in simple. The last few seconds of stealth would be decay instead, only differing from stealth in a way that the thief would be visible, in reality not visible by rendering bug, but all the other mechanics would function like in stealth: traits, stealth skills, revealed effect if you break decay etc. That would kinda “fix” it in a cheap way maybe?)

The other fix could be to give better feed back on hit to a stealthed thief, in a way of playing different hitting sounds or even giving out damage numbers ( though numbers are too easy way to track the path of the thief making it unfair so I would stick with the sounds ).

Thief doesn’t need to be nerfed in my opinion ( though the buff on Fleet Shadow makes no sense ). You just need to fix the related bugs and people need to understand that you can hit a stealthed thief. Although it would be nice to have a cap for maximum stealth duration ( maybe 15s ) because if you kill a thief in shadow refuge after it has used hide in shadows, with the blinding powder trait, the stealth can easily stack over 20 seconds which will make it irritating to try finish a thief. Playing the hitting sound while hitting a stealthed player would fix this also though as you can search the area in a 600 radius circle with a melee weapon to find the thief.

In real life you would feel something if you hit an unvisible object ( thief in this case ).

After all, all this complaining are about the fact that people don’t know how to counter a thief or players are running builds that are easy meal for a backstab thief. Stun breakers and immunities ( through utilities, weapon skills or traits) can make the difference between life and death. Also keep in mind that initiative takes quite long to regenerate so after the burst thieves should be focused and not let to recover and burst again.

As someone who mains thief and has since launch, I can say that HS is the one thing I agree needs changing.

While it is a very counterable skill for someone with the means, often HS is just too easy to use successfully. It kills noobs who can’t play, players with everything on CD and good players who simply got caught off-guard. While I think that all these players deserve to die, HS is still just too darn effective for the skill, time and initiative it takes to use. The damage, utility and effectiveness that HS brings far outweighs the three ini points and a single button press (or mash).

Glass thieves do need an effective execute, but HS in it’s current implementation still isn’t quite what it needs to be.

Lvl80 thief (among other chars) here. The biggest problem IMO is the delay in thieves appearing from stealth. It’s not the only thing though, mug+BS(+HS) is also way too strong. It’a not unique to thieves that the burst is too high but with thieves it’s particularly bad since it can be done without the enemy player even seeing you first so there is no way to avoid it (especially with the problem of stealth not going away directly/model not loading).

I like the idea of a mobile thief who dodge around the enemy rather than just stealth+BS, making the d/d condition build more viable would be good since that’s the type of gameplay I’d like to see more of, agile combat over just using a bugged stealth system.

Watch this video, 100% to 0% hp in about 2-3 seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RvLnC6nSR4

That’s hardly a healthy Game Design. I cant say I am surprised anymore tho.
Spvp is not up to GW2 Pve standards, it needs a lot of work on balance, diversity of game modes not to mention the cosmetic gear progression that is linear and grindy as hell.

danikaix.4670:

Watch this video, 100% to 0% hp in about 2-3 seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RvLnC6nSR4

That’s hardly a healthy Game Design. I cant say I am surprised anymore tho.
Spvp is not up to GW2 Pve standards, it needs a lot of work on balance, diversity of game modes not to mention the cosmetic gear progression that is grindy as hell.

A video from october? Just…lol

Anyway
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpE2k3ZN1vU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tpWwTeyTRA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_MmGVabQVw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kaYsIR0kYg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v-4Onu8w5Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXi2EBfdAAo

so…?

Archaon.6245:

danikaix.4670:

Watch this video, 100% to 0% hp in about 2-3 seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RvLnC6nSR4

That’s hardly a healthy Game Design. I cant say I am surprised anymore tho.
Spvp is not up to GW2 Pve standards, it needs a lot of work on balance, diversity of game modes not to mention the cosmetic gear progression that is grindy as hell.

A video from october? Just…lol

Anyway
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpE2k3ZN1vU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tpWwTeyTRA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_MmGVabQVw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kaYsIR0kYg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v-4Onu8w5Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXi2EBfdAAo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC7ilVPbVvI

so…?

Yes October and that still happens even now.
As I said 100% to 0% in a matter of 2, 3 seconds is not a healthy Game design.
I’m not really sure what you are trying to prove by showing other classes doing the same thing.

Keep in mind I’m not trying to start a fight so let’s keep this on a constructive level.
A constructive feedback is key to improve anything.

who needs 2-3 seconds? i do it within 1 lol
i’ll make some thief videos around 8;00 and link it here… going show u guys how its done lol

ITT: Terribad thieves complain about being “UP” and beg for MOAR buffs. Meanwhile everyone else complains about good thieves that are extremely OP(in pvp) and beg for nerfs.

Protip: Make thieves more tanky, increase the internal CD timer on Stealth. Class fixed.

Archaon.6245:

danikaix.4670:

Watch this video, 100% to 0% hp in about 2-3 seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RvLnC6nSR4

That’s hardly a healthy Game Design. I cant say I am surprised anymore tho.
Spvp is not up to GW2 Pve standards, it needs a lot of work on balance, diversity of game modes not to mention the cosmetic gear progression that is grindy as hell.

A video from october? Just…lol

Anyway
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpE2k3ZN1vU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tpWwTeyTRA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_MmGVabQVw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kaYsIR0kYg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v-4Onu8w5Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXi2EBfdAAo

so…?

I don’t know how many times I’m going to say this but people need to really strart learning to play against thieves. As shown by Archaon ( thank you very much ) thieves aren’t only profession who are able to burst ( guardian burst builds can be found from you tube etc. ). In fact ANet did it so that with every profession you can burst, dps, support or control. Some professions have more options in these categories than others and i.e. a guardian will not have as big bang as engineer but instead is more durable even when building it for damage.

I just want to point out few parts from these clips:

Common mistake at 3:38 : 3 red ones see their ally pursued by a thief. They all start resurrecting the necromancer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RvLnC6nSR4

What they should do is using aoe knockbacks and then res the necro OR do as much damage as they can over the necromancer so they would drop the thief really fast, as shown on the next mistake, and then stomp the thief or res the necro.

Common mistake: running away ( not in this part of the clip, just showing how much damage these glass cannons will take )
From the same clip, notice how much damage the red thief does with just a few hits nearly dropping the backstabber from half hp at 2:55.

Common mistake: not knowing your weaknesses and not paying attention to them. ( many parts of the clip )
Again from the same clip, let me introduce you the importance of thoughness. at 4:18 a heavy armor wearing warrior with low thoughness is hit for 2600 damage while he is below 25% hp with heartseeker at 4:18 ( this would crit for 5 to 6k ) while an asuran guardian ( yes, there is an asuran guardian on top of the downed norn warrior ) gets hit by two criticals with heartseeker for only 1756 and 2289 below 25% hp at 5:30.

There is a reason why these montage videos rarely include clips where thieves take on tanky builds 1v1.

It is still possible to kill a burst thief with a glass cannon spec. Just dodge -> CC -> unload on their face as shown by our engineer who “does no dmg” at 3:17 on the clip below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kaYsIR0kYg

Notice that she won’t heal after the dodge as the thief would kill her. Instead she CCs the thief and bursts the thief down and then heals.

I just wonder when people will start to learn that it is possible to counter thieves with your build or really good playing. Just remember that the outcame of glass cannon vs glass cannon fights often depends on who sees who first. That’s why thieves counter other glass cannons so hard. If you are having a hard time build tanky.

Thanks again for Archaon for linking those great clips.

The hardest thing about posting my feedback is to look at things objectively. If you read the forums most of what you see either says ‘the thief is completely OP and should be removed from the game’ or ‘the thief is completely fine or even UP and it is just bad players complaining.’ I love my thief, he is my favorite character and my favorite mechanic is the initiative system. The thief weapon sets feel extremely fluid; a lot of the skills have a great mix of offense and defense, which is something not many other classes have. I like have to manage initiative instead of individual cool downs as it allows me to use my resource for the most valuable ability at any given time. Whether it is stalling for a little longer until my heal comes off cool down with SB 3 or using C&D to allow for easier repositioning on a target. Some of the burst that the thief has seems excessive especially combined with the out of site out of mind mentality that seems to be prevalent in all pvp situations.

With the prevalence of condition cleansing in non-pvp situations venoms seem to be a little lacking in usefulness, however venom sharing builds seem to be successful in dungeon runs as a decent support build so I am not sure if there is actually a problem. I find the trait lines for the thief extremely well designed, they seemed to flow well and we have some interesting minor and major traits. Stealth is a mechanic that is hard to comment on as depending on player skill its power level changes drastically, I believe that most of what people find most irritating about it is the complete lack of feedback. If I am swinging my sword and I hit someone invisible, I will notice. It is at least partially discouraging to see a shadow’s refuge and know that you have a completely random chance of hitting your enemy or completely missing. I know that the popular answer to this conundrum is to AoE, however most AoE abilities are not large enough to cover the entire area and I know that when I am using shadow’s refuge I am hiding around the corners of the circle.

I hope my feedback proves useful to the devs and to the community; I look forward to seeing you all in game.

danikaix.4670:

I’m not really sure what you are trying to prove by showing other classes doing the same thing.

Just showing that pretty much every class can run a glass cannon spec with high dmg/burst, and almost every other class is also more viable while running full dmg builds, a bs thief can just down (Blowing all his stuff for the combo) one squishy or low hp target every 45 secs, and sometimes can’t even stomp it because he’s going to die if focused with downed skills (Wars dealing 1.5 2k dmg just throwing rocks…seriously? Not talkin’ about vengeance or necros dealing dmg while healing self, channeling on stealth targets)….so i can’t get the point about raging only on thief’s section… You hate glass cannons? Hate them all…but without high dmg specs bunkers would rule the world, well they already rule pvp…i mean they’ll rule even more…

Coast.5162:

Thiefs work as intended.
Good at taking down people out of proper positioning and pretty weak at larger battles (2v2 etc…).

It’d be more correct to say “assassin-type ambush thieves working as intended”. Thieves are great in large battles, just not with the same builds used to jump people.

DarnDevil IV.2143:

Thanks again for Archaon for linking those great clips ( the last one was a bit odd though… Training dummies won’t tell if the build is working or not )

You’re welcome mate…yep forget golems, i’m going to remove last clip.

Archaon.6245:

Just showing that pretty much every class can run a glass cannon spec with high dmg/burst, and almost every other class is also more viable while running full dmg builds?

Try a burst build with a necro and you will understand what it is to play a glass canon which do no dmg compare to every profession.
At the moment more than 30% of players in BG plays thief it must certainly be because it is so hard to play it. I don’t count anymore the BG where half of the players were thief.

The sin in GW1 was a perfect burst class which need skill to be played with, why? Because its skills have CD, it need to do combo between skills and most of that skills have requirement.

Thief becomes invisible in fight too easily, have an insane burst and the result is most of thief players are unskill and just spam the same winning skill rotation.
Thief has too many advantages without any drowback but a low hp pool.

They nerfed GW1 Assasin though. The palm strike primairy as used to conjucted to 100-0 burst if there is no interrupt. Not to mention that build is certainly only for high execute players unlike currently thief who reboost better than unnerf Assasin and other classed being nerfed hard in Guild Wars 2 except Mesmer/Elementalist.

I’m not sure that using the late bad palm strike 1234 build trend which happened for a month or so, before PS got nerfed back, 5 years after Faction launched is really relevant…

If you really want to compare the current thief BS burst with GW1, although i find it useless since we are talking about a totally different gameplay, then talk about the early post nightfall BoA>SP bursts or dual SoS sins that got nerfed into oblivion later on.

Although once again, i’m not sure where the comparison between GW1 and GW2 brings anything on the table. I mean, one word as an exemple : monks.

Silverthorn.8576:

The sin in GW1 was a perfect burst class which need skill to be played with, why? Because its skills have CD, it need to do combo between skills and most of that skills have requirement.

Many of the cooldowns were 4 seconds, though. IIRC, the big compressed spike had a 10-second cooldown.
Also, executing the combo was 1-2-3 easy (sometimes with a 4). It involved some work when you were making the build, sure, but most players in GW1 weren’t designing their own builds.
Most of the skill in playing assassin, like thief, was with timing and positioning. GW1 just made that a bigger deal because of the monk’s power to stop spikes cold.

ASP.8093:

Many of the cooldowns were 4 seconds, though. IIRC, the big compressed spike had a 10-second cooldown.
Also, executing the combo was 1-2-3 easy (sometimes with a 4). It involved some work when you were making the build, sure, but most players in GW1 weren’t designing their own builds.
Most of the skill in playing assassin, like thief, was with timing and positioning. GW1 just made that a bigger deal because of the monk’s power to stop spikes cold.

QFT. Along with dshot, bbots, empathy pressure and so forth, teamwork
If people would also actually learn to play as a team and cover each others, no thief would be able to just jump in, harvest his kill and leave.

I see a thief jumping on a teammate he immediately eats a blinding powder shot in the face, almost always followed by a headshot since he will try to either hide in the shadow or 222. If he’s not clever enough to retreat he is the one who will get bursted down in a matter of 2 seconds.

If you aren’t built to be a roamer and act as one, please just don’t complain.

Archaon.6245:

danikaix.4670:

I’m not really sure what you are trying to prove by showing other classes doing the same thing.

Just showing that pretty much every class can run a glass cannon spec with high dmg/burst, and almost every other class is also more viable while running full dmg builds, a bs thief can just down (Blowing all his stuff for the combo) one squishy or low hp target every 45 secs, and sometimes can’t even stomp it because he’s going to die if focused with downed skills (Wars dealing 1.5 2k dmg just throwing rocks…seriously? Not talkin’ about vengeance or necros dealing dmg while healing self, channeling on stealth targets)….so i can’t get the point about raging only on thief’s section… You hate glass cannons? Hate them all…but without high dmg specs bunkers would rule the world, well they already rule pvp…i mean they’ll rule even more…

Good point, imo they need to tone down high burst and bunkers to allow balanced specs to stand out. Spamming 2 skills to kill someone isn’t what i would call a skill based combat system.

it is really funny to see a fight of thief, 2 second of insane burst. The first attacking is the winner.
Most of dishonest player says “learn to dodge” but there are so many way to immobilise a player and just kill him in 2sec in the game to leave a class like thief with that burst.

Atm haste is a really big problem in PvP, when i play my war in BG i kill a lot of player just using frenzy and spamming 1 and thief can do the same spamming heart strike.
Again if you do a comparison between GW1 and 2 frenzy was 33% attack speed for 100% more dmg received and now it’s 100% attack speed for 50% more dmg and profession in GW1 did less dmg than in GW2…

Unbalance classes and skills is just killing the game because a BG full of thief is not enjoyable.

Go for tournament play then?

Silverthorn.8576:

Again if you do a comparison between GW1 and 2 frenzy was 33% attack speed for 100% more dmg received and now it’s 100% attack speed for 50% more dmg and profession in GW1 did less dmg than in GW2…

Well, GW1 Frenzy also had 100% uptime and was easily cancelled by a second stance (which most warriors had, for chasing).
In GW2, Frenzy has a huge cooldown. And you have to burn some other ridiculous-cooldown skill like Endure Pain if someone counter-spikes you while you’re using it.

Which is not to say that quickness is a good idea — I don’t really like it very much as a mechanic myself. But, well, apples and oranges.

Don’t know if this belongs in suggestions or here but here is a suggestion that may solve many burst damage issues. Build in Critical hit damage resistance as a secondary attribute for toughness. Its far to easy to stack crit damage with gear and stats but no feasible way to counter it. Toughness builds mitigate some damage but when you have additional 70% crit damage modifiers (stats and gear attributes) it creates insane amounts of burst. When combined with stealth as a defense it becomes the problems we are seeing now. Glass cannon builds shouldn’t be feasible IMHO unless its with group play.

Removal of stealth upon initiating an attack is another method to tone down the offensive capability of stealther classes making it more of a defensive mechanism though the first suggestion would probably solve more problems.

Another suggestion would be to place a drawback on stealth like frenzy for the warrior…..double incoming damage while in stealth.

As to the culling issue perhaps making shadow stepping more of a leap allowing a visual feedback can help remove the model re-rendering issue as well as providing a possible defense response.

Now look at stealth trait line…..So many bonuses attached to one skill for thieves.

Condition removal (trait)
Increased movement speed (trait)
increased initiative regain (trait)
100% crit hit chance (trait)
regeneration while in stealth (trait)
2 initiative gain when using a stealth skill (trait)
Gain Might 15s (trait)

Look at how many ways to get stealth……

Stealth for 2 sec upon steal (this one should be removed because its a gap closing/attack in one keystoke when combined with mug) trait

cloak and dagger -weapon skill
hide in shadow (heal skill)
blinding powder (which can stack stealth) -utility
shadow refuge (stack stealth)- utility
shadow trap -utility

No negatives for a stealth build all positives from what i see.

All in all diversity is what should make this game more enjoyable and class balance is key to that. A zerg of thieves is not what the devs was planning but soon it maybe all that exists in GW2 given the OP-ness of Stealth+High DPS+Mobilty as a combination.

Jaytee.9513:

Don’t know if this belongs in suggestions or here but here is a suggestion that may solve many burst damage issues. Build in Critical hit damage resistance as a secondary attribute for toughness. Its far to easy to stack crit damage with gear and stats but no feasible way to counter it. Toughness builds mitigate some damage but when you have additional 70% crit damage modifiers (stats and gear attributes) it creates insane amounts of burst. When combined with stealth as a defense it becomes the problems we are seeing now. Glass cannon builds shouldn’t be feasible IMHO unless its with group play.

Removal of stealth upon initiating an attack is another method to tone down the offensive capability of stealther classes making it more of a defensive mechanism though the first suggestion would probably solve more problems.

Another suggestion would be to place a drawback on stealth like frenzy for the warrior…..double incoming damage while in stealth.

As to the culling issue perhaps making shadow stepping more of a leap allowing a visual feedback can help remove the model re-rendering issue as well as providing a possible defense response.

Now look at stealth trait line…..So many bonuses attached to one skill for thieves.

Condition removal (trait)
Increased movement speed (trait)
increased initiative regain (trait)
100% crit hit chance (trait)
regeneration while in stealth (trait)
2 initiative gain when using a stealth skill (trait)
Gain Might 15s (trait)

Look at how many ways to get stealth……

Stealth for 2 sec upon steal (this one should be removed because its a gap closing/attack in one keystoke when combined with mug) trait

cloak and dagger -weapon skill
hide in shadow (heal skill)
blinding powder (which can stack stealth) -utility
shadow refuge (stack stealth)- utility
shadow trap -utility

No negatives for a stealth build all positives from what i see.

All in all diversity is what should make this game more enjoyable and class balance is key to that. A zerg of thieves is not what the devs was planning but soon it maybe all that exists in GW2 given the OP-ness of Stealth+High DPS+Mobilty as a combination.

I can’t see a zerg of thieves being effective anywhere short of non-walled targets in WvW. Can’t defend themselves and hold points at the same time in sPvP, and rather poor at sieging.

Also those traits you picked just shows what stealth can give thieves when traited for it, they also sacrifice their direct damage if they trait into most of those. The only ones that fall in line with glass cannons are the 100% crit, and ‘one’ of the condition removal, speed boost, or the 2 initiative regen.

In other words, glass cannons can have 2 stealth traits max.

If they aren’t invested heavily into Deadly Arts, they don’t do anywhere near the high damage people complain about, leaving the benefits of stealths to the more balanced condition builds, which can be hard counted by condition removal.

You also need to look at what thieves have for them in terms of survivability when they don’t have stealth.

The main thing about stealth that I think most don’t seem to notice is that stealth is a psuedo-cease fire. Thieves stop attacking to focus solely on catching a breather, only if the opponent is clever and understands the thief’s way of thinking, they can interrupt this short break, the opponent can also use this short break to prepare for the thief’s next move.

Interacting with an object/chest should unstealth a stealthed Thief.

For example, me and my guildmate were fighting a champion in Orr. A Thief came running in (trailing a ton of mobs) went stealth and looted the chest (and left us to fight the extra mobs).

So next to the ability to troll other players and have a laugh, they can get free loot wherever there’s a chest. That last part is an exploit in my opinion and should be fixed as it is not intended to open chests that are guarded by powerful mobs and make off with the loot.

When you stealth and try to open a chest or something, your stealth should drop.

Aveneo.2068:

Interacting with an object/chest should unstealth a stealthed Thief.

For example, me and my guildmate were fighting a champion in Orr. A Thief came running in (trailing a ton of mobs) went stealth and looted the chest (and left us to fight the extra mobs).

So next to the ability to troll other players and have a laugh, they can get free loot wherever there’s a chest. That last part is an exploit in my opinion and should be fixed as it is not intended to open chests that are guarded by powerful mobs and make off with the loot.

When you stealth and try to open a chest or something, your stealth should drop.

If he was using Shadow Refuge, I’d join him. The refuge is open to all.

Aveneo.2068:

Interacting with an object/chest should unstealth a stealthed Thief.

For example, me and my guildmate were fighting a champion in Orr. A Thief came running in (trailing a ton of mobs) went stealth and looted the chest (and left us to fight the extra mobs).

So next to the ability to troll other players and have a laugh, they can get free loot wherever there’s a chest. That last part is an exploit in my opinion and should be fixed as it is not intended to open chests that are guarded by powerful mobs and make off with the loot.

When you stealth and try to open a chest or something, your stealth should drop.

I thought that was part of being a thief though was to steal a champion’s loot. Run with one in a group and they can drop shadow refuge on the chest an your whole group benefits. If it weren’t intended to work that way, I would have thought that the chests wouldn’t open/appear before you defeated a champion. It seems that it was done that way to promote cooperative play insted of the ‘sin lfg’ for an hour in town that it was in GW1.

Sarrow.2785:

As someone who mains thief and has since launch, I can say that HS is the one thing I agree needs changing.

While it is a very counterable skill for someone with the means, often HS is just too easy to use successfully. It kills noobs who can’t play, players with everything on CD and good players who simply got caught off-guard. While I think that all these players deserve to die, HS is still just too darn effective for the skill, time and initiative it takes to use. The damage, utility and effectiveness that HS brings far outweighs the three ini points and a single button press (or mash).

Glass thieves do need an effective execute, but HS in it’s current implementation still isn’t quite what it needs to be.

Well said,

I think even a small change to Heartseeker, like reducing the range and/or increasing the cost (to 4) would go a long way towards balancing Thieves a bit better.

Dee Jay.2460:

Sarrow.2785:

As someone who mains thief and has since launch, I can say that HS is the one thing I agree needs changing.

While it is a very counterable skill for someone with the means, often HS is just too easy to use successfully. It kills noobs who can’t play, players with everything on CD and good players who simply got caught off-guard. While I think that all these players deserve to die, HS is still just too darn effective for the skill, time and initiative it takes to use. The damage, utility and effectiveness that HS brings far outweighs the three ini points and a single button press (or mash).

Glass thieves do need an effective execute, but HS in it’s current implementation still isn’t quite what it needs to be.

Well said,

I think even a small change to Heartseeker, like reducing the range and/or increasing the cost (to 4) would go a long way towards balancing Thieves a bit better.

I wouldn’t mind this either as long as they decrease the cost of dancing dagger as well so gap closing could be done on the utility side (dagger offhand) rather than on just the damage side. Someone else made these points on a different thread as well though.

So High damage output+ high survivability are ok with class balance. You wonder why so many complaints arise from theives abilities. I always thought the two traits were trade offs.

Use your logic.

A single class of character should not dictate what other classes “have” to have in order to survive more than a few seconds. That is ridiculous in a game.

So everyone has to Max defensive abilities because they will die in 1 sec if not? Everyone has to place max toughness on every piece of gear to even have a chance against a thief?

What is the problem here……..

And don’t say L2P because that is insulting to people.

All those people who claim thieves are not a problem please post your gear build…….
Chances are you have stacked toughness and vitality to the point that you’ve limited your offensive capabilities….

Tell me again is it right for a single character class to dictate playable builds?

This is the question that developers must ask themselves when designing a competitive game where classes has different abilities.

Let me ask thieves this…..what if RTL caused instant 7-9k damage without being able to dodge? Would that be fair? Well that is what a steal/mug/backstab does. Then follow with a spammable skill doing 4-6k damage that is a gap closer.

All other class burst skills can be seen and dodged so why allow thieves the ability to do so without fear of missing. It is basically a free hit that places others at a serious disadvantage. Stealth should be a defensive ability not an offensive one.

The suggestions I made have pointed out viable fixes to this imbalance though i feel base skill damage reduction is in order. No one should get a free 9k hit……….

killing in 3sec is slow
here are some instant kills on the other hand
good gw1 times!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFWvdyCk1Uo

Jaytee.9513:

So High damage output+ high survivability are ok with class balance. You wonder why so many complaints arise from theives abilities. I always thought the two traits were trade offs.

Use your logic.

A single class of character should not dictate what other classes “have” to have in order to survive more than a few seconds. That is ridiculous in a game.

So everyone has to Max defensive abilities because they will die in 1 sec if not? Everyone has to place max toughness on every piece of gear to even have a chance against a thief?

What is the problem here……..

And don’t say L2P because that is insulting to people.

All those people who claim thieves are not a problem please post your gear build…….
Chances are you have stacked toughness and vitality to the point that you’ve limited your offensive capabilities….

Tell me again is it right for a single character class to dictate playable builds?

This is the question that developers must ask themselves when designing a competitive game where classes has different abilities.

Let me ask thieves this…..what if RTL caused instant 7-9k damage without being able to dodge? Would that be fair? Well that is what a steal/mug/backstab does. Then follow with a spammable skill doing 4-6k damage that is a gap closer.

All other class burst skills can be seen and dodged so why allow thieves the ability to do so without fear of missing. It is basically a free hit that places others at a serious disadvantage. Stealth should be a defensive ability not an offensive one.

The suggestions I made have pointed out viable fixes to this imbalance though i feel base skill damage reduction is in order. No one should get a free 9k hit……….

You didn’t see the thief before he got to 900 meters? If he bask you use a stun breaker. Keeping a stun breaker is not specing your character just for a thief a stun breaker works against all classes. I havent seen one utility skill or stun breaker in game that says keep this for thieves.

Why would you not have a stun breaker(guess thieves are only ones with stuns) you use a stun to set up burst or you use it to catch a fleeing target. So if you are going to be bursted or you are fleeing why wouldn’t you have a stun breaker?

That line of thinking is like I don’t need condi removal because only necro’s deal condi right?

A question out of line with the current state of this thread, but infusion of shadows seems to far outshine patience. What is the point of this ability since it seems like stacking both abilities would be redundant.

Chiming in again to say the balance on thief is looking good, glad to see devs are looking at real data for balance. Obviously as stated before the so called “culling” needs to be fixed (technically it’s not culling, it’s actually the time it takes for the information to go thief client – > server – > opponent client which has almost nothing to do with graphics culling).

Onto real issues:
- Traps area of effect isn’t as big as the visual field.
- Some traps trigger but seem to miss (intended?)
- Scorpion wire reliability

Thanks

Burst/stealth/burst/stealth to infinity is only fun for the thief player.

Actually playing a thief (3rd character to reach level cap) and I enjoy it a lot, due to its balance between effectivness and unforgiveness about any mistake.

But, I dropped the dual daggers weapon set pretty fast, as it, imo, is goes a bit too far in effectivness.
If I had to fix something, aside from culling who definitly needs to be adressed (hope is runnin’ for february patch), I’d swap the damages dealt between #2 and #3 of the dual daggers. #2 would still be a quick short range leap, but on a low damage+condition dealing type and #3 would be the high damage dealer on low life targets. Then the high damage amount dealt by the actual Heartseeker would be less spammable and a little bit harder to land.

Best regards.

Jaytee.9513:

So High damage output+ high survivability are ok with class balance. You wonder why so many complaints arise from theives abilities. I always thought the two traits were trade offs.

Use your logic.

A single class of character should not dictate what other classes “have” to have in order to survive more than a few seconds. That is ridiculous in a game.

So everyone has to Max defensive abilities because they will die in 1 sec if not? Everyone has to place max toughness on every piece of gear to even have a chance against a thief?

What is the problem here……..

And don’t say L2P because that is insulting to people.

All those people who claim thieves are not a problem please post your gear build…….
Chances are you have stacked toughness and vitality to the point that you’ve limited your offensive capabilities….

Tell me again is it right for a single character class to dictate playable builds?

This is the question that developers must ask themselves when designing a competitive game where classes has different abilities.

Let me ask thieves this…..what if RTL caused instant 7-9k damage without being able to dodge? Would that be fair? Well that is what a steal/mug/backstab does. Then follow with a spammable skill doing 4-6k damage that is a gap closer.

All other class burst skills can be seen and dodged so why allow thieves the ability to do so without fear of missing. It is basically a free hit that places others at a serious disadvantage. Stealth should be a defensive ability not an offensive one.

The suggestions I made have pointed out viable fixes to this imbalance though i feel base skill damage reduction is in order. No one should get a free 9k hit……….

The reason why ppl get blown by glass cannon thieves is that they tend to counter other glass cannons hard as it always depends on who gets the element of surprise in a 1v1 glass cannon fight. I don’t understand why glass cannon builds ( like warriors ) don’t have endure pain equipped as it will counter these thieves so hards. You will have about 5 secs of immunity to direct damage and it takes propably 1/2 seconds to react so you have 4 seconds time to give something back after you get out of basilisk. And as a glass cannon warrior you autoattack for the duration and do whirlwind attack just after endure pain ends ( as it is an evade ) and there you go. You are down to half healt and the thief is down on the ground. And for rifle warrior fear me combined with kill shot will instagib the thief. IMPORTANT: EVERY CHANNELED SPELL/SKILL IN THE GAME TRACKS THROUGH STEALTH IF STARTED WHILE THE THIEF IS VISIBLE ( this includes kill shot and other skills that take effect after a channel time)

Stun breakers and immunities are important to counter your weakness for heavy burst damage and even 1 weapon or utility skill can make the difference.

You should always have 1 with you if you are not playing tanky and you often get blown by thieves.

Why balanced builds don’t work is because the skill they require. For a balanced build to work you need to always know what the other is capable of doing. The reason ppl roll bunker or glass cannon is that it is just easier to surprise your opponent and blow him or her up in just a couple of seconds or just be able to take all those hits and out survive your opponent.

Solution for the problem with balanced builds: when you happen to face a certain build on a profession which just destroys you, google for the build and play it in sPvP for 10h. After that you should have easier time playing against it. It just requires more effort and understanding to play with a balanced build but when played correctly they can be effective in every situation. It is always easier to specialitze than try to be good at everything. Remeber to bring few defensive skills or you are not running a balanced build, just an offensive build with half defensive spec.

Endur Pain only lasts 3 seconds tooltip is wrong
Endure*

AlBundy.7851:

Endur Pain only lasts 3 seconds tooltip is wrong
Endure*

What kind of warrior are you using? Lasts 5 seconds for me unless those 0s after the 4 second mark were an illusion…Stop treating the wiki as doctrine. It doesn’t update itself quickly.