Guild Wars 2

@Binary Rain, tell me how many dodge you can make in this video? Tell me, tell me……. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f_K_BD9Opts .., and im just wondering even the short bow damage she can make it for 3k damage? Wow 3k damage for short bow nice., hope ranger have that damage wake up yow!

I was on a level 77 Elementalist the other day. Only green gear, built like wet tissue paper on fire.

Thief hit 7.5k on his steal, 2.5k from lightning strike, then hit me for 10.5k on his cloak and dagger. This was all effectively instant for me. Yes, yes I built out of sheer glass as an elementalist, but consider that damage. The backstab no doubt would have hit for 15k+. Even if you halved everything I’d be taking 17k+ damage and the thief still wouldn’t have to do anything but heartseeker spam to finish.

I understand a thief should eat my lunch if I’m glass cannon and they jump me, but the only build that would survive damage of this magnitude is a bunker build. I shouldn’t have to build bunker or insta-lose to a thief. Simple as that.

Not only that but if you turn the tables you can jump a glass cannon thief and he can hit blinding powder in and go stealth regardless of whether he is stunned or not. He can switch to shortbow use infiltraitor arrow, steal, or shadowstep to move even when immobilized. The thief does not have the same downsides inherent to the same build. You kill him in one single burst or he escapes.

The Thief is a perfect example of lack of counter-play options. I do not feel I can meaningfully threaten a thief without being incredibly vulnerable to a thief as any class. They have the ability to shake or mitigate most CC, avoid 90% of attacks, deal incredible amounts of damage, and are incredibly mobile.

90% of the time I die to a thief I feel powerless to have stopped it or avoiding it requires me to run like a ninny for excessive amounts of time. No other class even comes close to being as much of a threat. No other burst is as difficult to avoid or mitigate when used right. No other class is as difficult to kill for multiple people and yet is quite effective at killing (though the bunker ele comes close).

I’m going to reiterate this video: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/counter-play

It is painful to play against thieve’s, not fun. No other class makes me feel this way. Playing a thief only drove home the point on how incredibly good they are when used right.

Glass Cannon one-trick-pony backstab thieves like in the video provided by jan are beaten pretty easily with just one simple press on your keyboard…. your stunbreaker when he hits you.
The combo of that one trick consists out of basilisk venom which triggers when you get hit by steal+mug, then a cloak and dagger which got molded into the steal and covers its wind up time for the most part, reducing it to… lets say 0.1-0.25 sec and after that the backstab which has again a windup time of 0.25 seconds.
That leaves you at about 0.35-0.5 seconds to react while the normal human reactiontime is around 0.25 seconds.
So you just have to press your stunbreak/invul skill and you just have won the fight as the one-trick-pony thief cant do anything else but this one trick and dies fast. Now you just HAVE to put pressure up that thief and not run away like most do (OMG I get attacked from someone with high dmg who has a armor of wet paper and dies when I look evil at it, lets run away so my chaser can kill me more easily!!!)

Put now a slow on the thief so heartseeker will just be a puny little joke jump and try to stay on range. It should take long till the thief lost most of its health and with about 50% left they will tend to pop hide in shadows. Try to stay defensive and dodge back or do something to prevent a possible backstab (blindfield for instance works too there, or just try to run and stay mobile).
Now after 3 seconds the thief will be visible again, either he will bailed out, is bailing out or tries to attack you still. After he used his hide in shadows he has blown his last defense and you can unload heavy conditions into him as hide in shadows is the only cleanse they have. Now you can keep fighting on range, keep him in a control ability and try to keep conditions on him. Maybe he will run or use shadow refuge but due to the lack of condition cleanse they will just die.

To sum it up:
Get a stupid stunbreaker and/or use one of your invul abilities. A GC thief only has one chance and one trick to instagib you and if he has used that he is killed easily.

can’t do any of that when you can never see them.

Panacea.4927:

The combo of that one trick consists out of basilisk venom which triggers when you get hit by steal+mug, then a cloak and dagger which got molded into the steal and covers its wind up time for the most part, reducing it to… lets say 0.1-0.25 sec and after that the backstab which has again a windup time of 0.25 seconds.
That leaves you at about 0.35-0.5 seconds to react while the normal human reactiontime is around 0.25 seconds.

snip

To sum it up:
Get a stupid stunbreaker and/or use one of your invul abilities. A GC thief only has one chance and one trick to instagib you and if he has used that he is killed easily.

Horrible omission on your part. You are not accounting for network latency and you only have a “safe” window of 0.1 – 0.25 seconds by your own account. Thus to even stand a chance in a lag free environment I would have to have twitch reflexes. Even then I’ve only earned myself a fight, I could still easily lose.

Needing to have twitch reflexes on such a small window that can be eliminated by latency AND still having a large chance to lose even if everything goes your way initially only shows how bad the design is.

So, as a follow-up, Shadow refuge grants 3 seconds of stealth per pulse for 5 pulses for a possible total of 15 seconds of stealth (unaffected by the extra second of stealth trait). After the final pulse (5 elapsed seconds), the skill ends and allows the thief to move anywhere without breaking stealth. Now, 15 seconds of stealth is bad enough, considering you as the opponent have no idea which way he went after that five seconds, it’s further compounded by the fact that as long as you don’t damage anything, you can use skills while stealthed and remain stealthed! So now you have thiefs that can stack stealth from the refuge (10s anywhere time), stealth from the heal (3s normal, 4s traited), stealth from the blinding powder (3s normal, 5[!]s traited) for a total of 19 seconds of stealth movement, WITH short bow blinks. Fun fact, you can get from the PvP Lobby Waypoint to the other side of the bridge completely under stealth with the trait for increased initiative while stealthed, increased stealth time, and the movement speed signet. Culling only adds to the stealth time by not showing where the person is when the stealth ends.

In summary (because people are busy):
-Shadow Refuge gives too much stealth or should require you to stay in it for the whole duration if you want to remain stealthed (nobody cares about the combo field)
-If you use a skill while stealthed, stealth should be broken regardless of the skill used instead of relying on damage
-Culling sucks

Daecollo.9578:

Death Henk.7143:

mark.3160:

……. i don’t enjoy playing a class that only takes 2 buttons to put down any other class in the game that isn’t a full bunker build. So my feedback on the thief and it’s gameplay? Fix it fast because it’s no fun fighting something that presses the same button 5 times in a row for a guaranteed win…..

This is pretty much what I think of the current state of thieves. The only way to really survive (not even taking killing in account here) a thief’s burst is being fully focused on survivability. If you are not a guardian or warrior the fight is literally over within 5 seconds. With either you dead, or you succesfully repelling the jump and him resetting in stealth walking away.

If other professions cooldowns would match the thief’s stealth cooldowns I would have no problem with this. However the cooldowns of most classes for survivability are longer than restealthing. This makes it very easy for a thief to simply put the target on cooldowns and killing him the second time by resetting the fight. Again the killing part is not with alot of effort and I think this bothers alot of people. Also at some point or to the least to say, some professions might feel obliged to take certain utilities specifically to survive a thief and thats just wrong in my opinion when there are 8 professions in total. Moreover it destroys the whole concept of changeable utility skills.

No, you could just get toughness or vitality gear, you don’t need to fully bunker.

‘Just’ getting toughness or vitality gear to stand a chance against a thief isn’t a fix and thats why people are still complaining about it.

Ralathar.7236:

Panacea.4927:

The combo of that one trick consists out of basilisk venom which triggers when you get hit by steal+mug, then a cloak and dagger which got molded into the steal and covers its wind up time for the most part, reducing it to… lets say 0.1-0.25 sec and after that the backstab which has again a windup time of 0.25 seconds.
That leaves you at about 0.35-0.5 seconds to react while the normal human reactiontime is around 0.25 seconds.

snip

To sum it up:
Get a stupid stunbreaker and/or use one of your invul abilities. A GC thief only has one chance and one trick to instagib you and if he has used that he is killed easily.

Horrible omission on your part. You are not accounting for network latency and you only have a “safe” window of 0.1 – 0.25 seconds by your own account. Thus to even stand a chance in a lag free environment I would have to have twitch reflexes. Even then I’ve only earned myself a fight, I could still easily lose.

Needing to have twitch reflexes on such a small window that can be eliminated by latency AND still having a large chance to lose even if everything goes your way initially only shows how bad the design is.

Of course, I forgot that the thief gets a perfect clean connection to the server without any lag since he has choosen to play a thief and I also forgot that most ppl who whine about thieves have a reaction time of 1 second which is severely above the average of a normal human beeing and I also forgot that you want to watch TV while you pvp, so you dont watch your screen and see that your char is suddenly stone/stops moving and dont hear the obvious sound of a dagger hitting you.

Dear Anet,

I play a Dagger & Dagger Elementalist. I have a fully exotic gear. Thieves need a nerf in the stealth zone. Not being able to fight my enemy for 15 seconds is not fair. Other than that, I win 1 in 3 fights against a thief, solo now. It used to be a win 1 in 4 times. Perhaps you could also decrease Backstab damage.

The majority of issues that people complain about are actually due to culling and stealth rendering bugs. It has nothing to do with the class. It is a game mechanic that needs to be fixed.

Thieves do not do nearly the damage that many other classes in this game are able to do, and in order to do top end crit damage you end up running less than 12K hp most of the time, but Thieves have stealth! Ya that’s awesome till you realize that if anyone is in the middle of a channeled attack on you the entire attack finishes. I am fine with that.

What I am not OK with is that every other “Glass cannon” build in this game has 6-10K more HP AND does more damage.

Take Warrior and Thief traits.
Warriors get +10% damage to all weapon choices. Thieves get +5%. with the exception of pistols where we NOW get 10%.
Warriors get a passive Adrenaline which gives them between +3% and +12% damage and you can pick a trait that adds +3% – +9% cirt chance bonus. Adrenaline builds with each attack so the longer a warrior fights the stronger they get.
Warriors bonus to bleeds is based under their precision tree. So warriors can have high crit and better bleeds all rolled into one. In other words they do not have to sacrifice melee damage to increase bleed duration and get 33% chance to cause bleed on crit as a 5 point trait.
Warriors get a 5 point trait that gives them a 33% chance on crit to cause a bleed, and a 50% increase on bleed duration. That’s fine except that warrior bleeds last 15 seconds with that trait and their auto attack with long sword has 2 bleeds built into it.

We get something like that…. Oh DB was nerfed into the ground. My bad. DB had to be nerfed… I mean an ability that costs imitative that hits as hard as a warriors auto attack must be nerfed. So with warrior Auto attack I can hit several targets for up to 3K (per hit with 3 melee attacks in the chain) damage with crits and stack 2 bleeds every cycle that last for 15 seconds….. Yes DB sure needed to get nerfed. So Anet what you are saying is that A thief who uses DB was over powered, but a warrior using their AUTO ATTACK that does almost the EXACT SAME THING and who does not have to sacrifice precision or power to do this is not OP? Really?? Warriors can auto attack for ever.. I can get in maybe 3 DB’s before my Thief is out of initiative, but DB was over powered? That’s pure Kitten.

I will make you a trade Anet. Take my C&D leave me with refuge, blinding powder and hide in shadows. That’s about 20 (23 with trait) seconds of total stealth. In exchange You have to go through our weapon skills and make sure each attack does the equivalent of the closest warrior attack +15% BASE. You will also need to give thieves the equivalent of Adrenaline. Increase all our weapon damage bonuses from 5% to 10% and our auto attack with daggers will have to have 2 bleeds added to it. Add a 33% chance on crit to cause bleeding as a 5 point passive in our precision tree and move the 50% bleed duration to precision as a 10 point trait. and about a 2K base Hit point boost.

If warriors doing that much damage with their attacks and bleeds and have 22K hp as a glass cannon then Thieves with only 20 seconds of stealth doing at least the same if not about 10-15% more damage should also be balanced. Or is the thought of a class with 14K HP 20 seconds of stealth and a built in choke on their burst so feared that to do equal damage with other burst classes so scary?

The Initiative system and stealth are more of a detriment to the class than anything. It seems to be Anet and the QQers justification to nerf the class even more. Yet many other classes that do far more damage and are just as hard if not more so to kill have been buffed. This is a vicious cycle that is not only damaging a class, but making Anet look like they cannot manage their own game though out the net.

Try building a Warrior Shout healing build. They can stand in the middle of a group kill everyone and walk away full health, and they do not have a single stealth. The really funny thing about that build is that their 100 blades attack still hits harder than heart seeker, DB or unload on average and they are a full healing build.

/book

Not even going to watch the vids because I have seen them before and all they are is people killing mainly low level players or unsuspecting people. I see none of you are posting your own videos of your struggles, so i hardly find these as valid arguements. None the less…..

There you go. Engineer. Taking on more than 2 people sometimes. He even took on 3 people, one of which was the supposed OP Pistol Dagger thief. If you want more videos I can find some more. Thieves are not the only ones that can take on multiple people. As for his stealth, i hardly would count on that. It is an unreliable skill for the stealth.

@Laiboch….. Very well put. Didn’t even think of it that way. Also to add to this I want to mention that thief has NO means of nullifying damage. We do not have a shield to put up and block attacks, or a means of becoming immune, or just becoming immune to damage momentarily.

Lets review each class….

1. Warrior
-Defy Pain, Riposte, Shield Stance, Counter Blow, and vengence provides invulnerability for a while.
2. Guardian
-Protector’s Strike, Shelter, I would count Sanctuary, easy acess to the boon ‘Aegis’, renewed focus and many projectile blocks.
3. Engineer
-No clue how the shield works, but Elixer S, Gear Shield and access to stealth
4. Ranger
-Counterattack, signet of stone, and a pet to absorb damage.
5. Elementalist
-Obsidian Flesh, Magnetic Wave+swirling wins, Mist Form, Arcane Shield
6. Mesmer
-Distortion, Illusionary Counter, Blurred Frenzy, Illusionary Riptose, Phantasmal Warden, Mirror and other projectile absorbtions/reflections, Illusionary Warden for mitigating damage. All that with access to stealth.
7. Necromancer
-Gets the short end of the stick…..The only thing they have is access to multiple health pools (their elite + Shroud)
8. Thief
-Only reflection via Dagger Storm. And acess to stealth. Other than that, there is nothing else that thieves can do to mitigate damage in some way.

Binary Rain.4869:

9Thief
Only reflection via Dagger Storm. And acess to stealth. Other than that, there is nothing else that thieves can do to mitigate damage in some way.

Technically there’s still Death Blossom, Disabling Shot, Withdraw and Roll for Initiative allowing extra evades that they can use to mitigate damage.

Taril.8619:

Binary Rain.4869:

9Thief
Only reflection via Dagger Storm. And acess to stealth. Other than that, there is nothing else that thieves can do to mitigate damage in some way.

Technically there’s still Death Blossom, Disabling Shot, Withdraw and Roll for Initiative allowing extra evades that they can use to mitigate damage.

I was not including evades because lots of other classes have many of those too.

Binary Rain.4869:

Taril.8619:

Binary Rain.4869:

9Thief
Only reflection via Dagger Storm. And acess to stealth. Other than that, there is nothing else that thieves can do to mitigate damage in some way.

Technically there’s still Death Blossom, Disabling Shot, Withdraw and Roll for Initiative allowing extra evades that they can use to mitigate damage.

I was not including evades because lots of other classes have many of those too.

Funny thing about thief, is the thief has the lowest defense out of all classes against burst, which means another thief should be killing you more, but I never get one shot at all on my thief by another thief, even in wvwvw the most i’ve ever been hit for was 25% of my health, and then I know they are there, they try and leap me… then run out of initiative because I dodge them. (very easy to dodge heartseeker, I know the sound and animation and distance by heart.)

So, when another class complains about it, its actually kind of funny, since most classes have more traits that avoid damage mitigation and can actually soak up that damage or apply protection right after your burst, I guess they don’t bother to dodge the two heartseekers that follow after the backstab.

I don’t think my thief has ever been killed by a back-stab thief, ever… they are probably the most predictable class in the game.

Daecollo.9578:

Funny thing about thief, is the thief has the lowest defense out of all classes against burst, which means another thief should be killing you more, but I never get one shot at all on my thief by another thief, even in wvwvw the most i’ve ever been hit for was 25% of my health, and then I know they are there, they try and leap me… then run out of initiative because I dodge them. (very easy to dodge heartseeker, I know the sound and animation and distance by heart.)

So, when another class complains about it, its actually kind of funny, since most classes have more traits that avoid damage mitigation and can actually soak up that damage or apply protection right after your burst, I guess they don’t bother to dodge the two heartseekers that follow after the backstab.

I don’t think my thief has ever been killed by a back-stab thief, ever… they are probably the most predictable class in the game.

I am the same exact way, I read thieves like a book. I have dodged their steal numerous time in sPvP, if they actually hit i use blinding powder immediately, thus blinding them so their CnD will fail, or if I am unlucky/not quick enough of a reaction, their first backstab attempt.

OP you want my feedback? You create a class that aren’t supposed in this game. Just a flawed disorder that disorder the AI mobs and players to be disorders. That is all.

@Binary rain, ok how many times they can use that immune damage in 1 combat? espicially to ranger? Maybe 1,2 or if lucky 3? Ok let just say thief only have stealth how many times they can use it in 1 combat? Maybe 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9…………..and so on?

Taril.8619:

Binary Rain.4869:

9Thief
Only reflection via Dagger Storm. And acess to stealth. Other than that, there is nothing else that thieves can do to mitigate damage in some way.

Technically there’s still Death Blossom, Disabling Shot, Withdraw and Roll for Initiative allowing extra evades that they can use to mitigate damage.

Yes those are evasions, but the duration of DB and the duration of most attacks means you will only evade a portion of the attack… If say their attack has 3 strikes you will still get hit by the third attack.. Not Lets not mention how many classes have excellent condition removal skills.

A thief can build a haha you can’t catch me build, but they they are also a haha I can’t kill anything build.

I was also trying to show that the QQ about our condition damage is a joke when even a warrior can actually stack as many if not more bleeds than a thief, and have better survival traits, more HP and more damage.

I also forgot to mention the warrior ability flurry.
Immobilizes target with a flurry of strikes.
Damage (8x) 616
Bleeding 8 stacks @ 2.5 seconds
and also immobilizes target for up to 5 seconds.

If a Thief had that ability the forums would be up in arms and the Dev’s would be nerfing it instantly, but its ok for a warrior because they don’t have stealth. They just have condition removal, Hit harder, have better ranged abilities, harder hitting melee abilities and builds where they can out heal the best thief burst and walk away at full health laughing.

You justify many of these nerfes based on stealth, but 90% of the issues with stealth come down to bad coding in the form of rendering bugs and culling.

Thieves are not the only class with a stealth ability. Yet those classes have better sustained damage ( and in one case WAY better burst, and condition damage) which in the end of things is always more important than burst.

Pistol whip was nered so bad that the AUTO ATTACK with sword does better damage… What kind of kitten is that?

Thieves have really poor ranged damage and a very limited range at that. My best damage attack with a bow (cluster bomb) does maybe 4-6K damage, but by the time it hits the guy I was aiming for has time to drive down to the store grab a pack of smokes and a 2 liter of their favorite soft drink and then come back and dodge. The Auto attack is ok, but again its range is so limited half the time you can’t even hit the oil pot on a keep wall because you have to get in very close and you get “Target obstructed”.

Poison shot is worthless. Oh wait it gives you a combo field. Really? Poison doesn’t stack.

Thieves do not have a single ability that can instantly put someone into a downed state. Warriors do, and that ability can hit a mile away.

The only reason people die to a C&D Thief is simple they are not bright enough to just run around and dodge for those whole 4 seconds the thief is in stealth. The Range on C&D is pathetic. Even on my lvl 45 Ranger I can shut down a C&D thief by dodging dropping a spike trap using bow dodge. They go stealth again I just dodge away again its as simple as that.

If how ever you are going to Nerf Stealth some more by jacking C&D then you will have to increase our damage dramatically to compensate.

Please stop nerfing the Thief class because of people not understanding the mechanic behind our Stealth, and the rendering bugs and culling issues that are not an issue with the class, but an issue with the game.

How many thieves can hit a full group of players for almost 24K damage in less than 4 seconds? I have yet to see one, but Warrior with Great sword and Sword/Axe or Axe/Axe can do exactly that. How many thieves can stand in place fighting an entire group, Kill said group and walk away at full HP? I have never seen it, but I have seen a shout healing build warrior do exactly that.

I would challenge the Dev’s to actually go out into Spvp or WvW using any build but spam and C&D and see how long you last. I would love to watch you running along and get hit by a 100B warrior or a DD ele or Mesmer and watch you melt in 3 seconds. I would be rolling on the floor laughing when you tried to jump a bunker build guardian or warrior, or the first time you saw some ranger and went Ahhh Ha!! and fell over dead 6 seconds later after you got hit by all their traps tried to stealth to escape and died from the condition damage you have stacked on you.

After you do all that sit down here and try and tell the Thief players they are OP. Because if you did all that and then tried to say the class was OP then the players and you would both know you were telling a bold face lie.

jan.9745:

@Binary rain, ok how many times they can use that immune damage in 1 combat? espicially to ranger? Maybe 1,2 or if lucky 3? Ok let just say thief only have stealth how many times they can use it in 1 combat? Maybe 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9…………..and so on?

C&D build is based around 2 basic things.

1 Being able to wait till the last possible moment to use the skill again. Dragging out the full duration of the ability

2 your target not using anything that allows them to dodge, block, immune or AOE.

C&D gives a thief up to 4 seconds of stealth. This relies on the Thief being able to get in and out of melee range with their target. A Good C&D Thief can maintain stealth for quite some time, but will run out of Init because the amount they use is greater than the amount they regen even when taking the right traits.

Further because of a built in mechanic if they use it again to early they get an immune notice and do not actually go back into stealth. So they have to time it at almost exactly the 4 second mark to stay in stealth.

If you are getting jacked by a C&D thief its because you are not using one of the many many utilities that allow you to either go immune, dodge, knock down or block incoming attacks.

A Full C&D thief might hit you for a top end of 2.5K damage a hit.. Thats 2.5k damage once every 4 seconds. If they put 30 points into precision they can get a bit more, but not much.

Even when I run a glass cannon build on my thief I can easily stop a C&D thief just by making them pick between trying to chase me down and running out of Init or trying to find another target that is going to panic and not use basic skills to avoid their one attack. If I can do that running a toon with only 12K hp than anyone can.

Traps, AOE, dodge, Invuln and many other abilities completly negate a C&D thief. Every class in the game has built in utilities that can stop a C&D thief with out a hassle.

that bow damage is better than ranger bow damage. sorry, perma stealth, best dps and highest run speeds makes this class stupidly overpowered right now.

Columba.9730:

that bow damage is better than ranger bow damage. sorry, perma stealth, best dps and highest run speeds makes this class stupidly overpowered right now.

Try to use high level exotic bow

Columba.9730:

that bow damage is better than ranger bow damage. sorry, perma stealth, best dps and highest run speeds makes this class stupidly overpowered right now.

Yep, it would… If any of those things were actually true.

FYI, thieves don’t have the best DPS, nor permastealth, nor the highest run speed.

I’ve been rolling a venom support dungeon build (SB/DP) for about a week now, with about 30 dungeon runs I have to say…why is the radius so low? It is literally maybe 2 feet for the application to take effect. Is this in the process of being reviewed or am i SoL? If I am SoL, what other options are there for thief support builds in dungeons?

jan.9745:

Please watch this video from 5:14 -7:35 look how hard to kill thief and how long to kill thief., that is 2 vs 1 and the last sec it become 3 vs 1 from 5:14 -7:35, and remember it is x1 fast forward., imagine that how long you gonna kill the thief, while a thief can kill you in 2,3-4 sec? How bad is that? http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EprbnVM8FWc ., and how many times the ranger down?

Ok, still surprised that no one commented on this… He’s complaining that it took so long for a SB auto attack spamming thief and a ranger to take on a cheese-ridden p/d thief. If thief is so op, why didn’t the thief this ranger was grouped with insta-gib that other thief? P/d takes no skill and is boring, but I think this was just something we could chalk up to bad play.

Columba, get a new arguement, your arguement has already been proven false on multiple occasions. Ele has the best Mobility hands down, and Dps refers to sustained damage. Thieves have a good burst, but thier sustained damage isn’t the best. Also ranger short bow’s firing is roughly twice that off thief’s. Trick shot hits a little harder, but Crossfire hits way more.

Never fought a theif that used shortbow againt me… Only Dd or pd.. I have no idea what needs to be fixed since I have 8 character slots…. But I know I would rather have more thieves in the guild than any other profession … May be guardian.. good dd ele are hard to find and thieves in wvw aren’t really there to help fellow guildies… Since anet wants every type of build for every profession work on the culling … And tweek some support skills…. I want to see a support thief … Come to think of it people role thieves cause they want to kill other players not cause they want a good experience with other players .. ..should be renamed assasin … Aaaa do that since the f1 steals so are thieves supposed to be using stealth mechanic or the steal mechanic ?

Columba.9730:

that bow damage is better than ranger bow damage. sorry, perma stealth, best dps and highest run speeds makes this class stupidly overpowered right now.

No It really isn’t, but yes rangers do need their bow skills buffed up.

Few things you got wrong. Prema stealth does not exist in this game. A good C&D thief can stay in stealth a very long time, but each C&D lasts 4 seconds if they put the points into getting that extra 1 second of stealth. That means C&D gives them 4 seconds of stealth. Yes they can hit it over and over again, but to keep it up that means they can get in 1 maybe 2 hits every 4 seconds.

Thieves are not the highest DPS in the game. They have a good burst, but even their burst is not the highest in the game.

Ranger Short bow auto attack has a built in bleed.
Try using a 30/25/15/0/0 build. Weapons are short bow and axe and horn.
Traits are up to you, but make sure you pick shared anguish and traps are larger and use ground targeting. you can also go 30/30/10/0/0 and also pick condition duration from traps increased by 50%. I run the first with full power precision and the traps alone nearly level a thief. Worried about bask poison? no problem Shared anguish means your pet takes it for you.
Get rid of your stupid black widow and run jungle spider. Yes the widow looks cool, but jungle spider does the EXACT SAME ATTACKS and has double the hp.

You could also stop watching youtube for the next ranger uber build and figure out what the class can and cannot do on your own because I hate to break it to you any one that puts up a video that includes the black widow as a pet is an idiot.

Drop all traps on you. Thief comes in gets hit by all 3 traps dodge, Drop all three traps on you again, light up with short bow. Thief goes stealth pops up about 3 seconds later in a downed state. If there are 2 of them also pop Entangle. It does work I dropped 3 thieves by my self in a 3v1 fight in Spvp last night 1 running heart seeker spam and 2 P/D. Also remember your heal spring removes conditions. I drop it and fight in the area effect of the spring.

Long blow is also great in this situation if you do not like axes which hit as hard at thief short bow and have about the same range, but also get a chill, bleed, and that bird attack which will keep hitting a thief in stealth as long as you cast it before they pop stealth. Thief pops refuge? No problem toss your traps on that refuge bubble and use long bow to AOE them down. Inability to use the advantaged of your class do not mean that another class is OP.

Rangers do need some lovin, but if you are getting killed by a burst thief its because you are not running your traps which is one of the most powerful things a Ranger has going for it.

Now back to the real issue here that being the Thief class.

Incendom.6825:

Never fought a theif that used shortbow againt me… Only Dd or pd.. I have no idea what needs to be fixed since I have 8 character slots…. But I know I would rather have more thieves in the guild than any other profession … May be guardian.. good dd ele are hard to find and thieves in wvw aren’t really there to help fellow guildies… Since anet wants every type of build for every profession work on the culling … And tweek some support skills…. I want to see a support thief … Come to think of it people role thieves cause they want to kill other players not cause they want a good experience with other players .. ..should be renamed assasin … Aaaa do that since the f1 steals so are thieves supposed to be using stealth mechanic or the steal mechanic ?

Actually that’s not always the case. I roled thief more for utility and style then for stats. And I can and do lend a hand in the field, just many other thieves don’t use those abilities.

IMHO one change will balance thieves and reduce all the hate on them. Just make so that when a stealthed thief takes damage its puts them out of stealth, either by direct damage or aoe. They can keep all the damage and burst they have. WoW rogues have permanent stealth by default but are revealed when they are hit and WAR had the same mechanic. What were Anet devs thinking?

Hospis.4607:

IMHO one change will balance thieves and reduce all the hate on them. Just make so that when a stealthed thief takes damage its puts them out of stealth, either by direct damage or aoe. They can keep all the damage and burst they have. WoW rogues have permanent stealth by default but are revealed when they are hit and WAR had the same mechanic. What were Anet devs thinking?

This has been suggested far too often. It essentially gimp pretty much every thief build that isn’t BS glass cannon. And effectively banish them from high level pve zones with lots of aoe, large scale fights in wvw and dungeons.
Thieves don’t survive off of armour, or protective boons, the survive by not getting hit, and they have to do it actively. No throwing up aegis or defensive stances, it’s either they use an evade skill, dodge roll or throw up a blind if they have one, otherwise even tanky thieves are taking the full hit.

Yes, lets make all stealth break on damage like other games.

Dual.8953:

Hospis.4607:

IMHO one change will balance thieves and reduce all the hate on them. Just make so that when a stealthed thief takes damage its puts them out of stealth, either by direct damage or aoe. They can keep all the damage and burst they have. WoW rogues have permanent stealth by default but are revealed when they are hit and WAR had the same mechanic. What were Anet devs thinking?

This has been suggested far too often. It essentially gimp pretty much every thief build that isn’t BS glass cannon. And effectively banish them from high level pve zones with lots of aoe, large scale fights in wvw and dungeons.
Thieves don’t survive off of armour, or protective boons, the survive by not getting hit, and they have to do it actively. No throwing up aegis or defensive stances, it’s either they use an evade skill, dodge roll or throw up a blind if they have one, otherwise even tanky thieves are taking the full hit.

Other games seem to do just fine with stealth breaking on damage or on them doing damage. I don’t understand why Anet feels the need to make stealth far more powerful in this game vs other games who have years of pvp experience, particularly since this game already gives extra stealth from culling. It just isn’t logical. Since this is a thread about thieves and their game play, I hope this isn’t deleted too.

Columba.9730:

Dual.8953:

Hospis.4607:

IMHO one change will balance thieves and reduce all the hate on them. Just make so that when a stealthed thief takes damage its puts them out of stealth, either by direct damage or aoe. They can keep all the damage and burst they have. WoW rogues have permanent stealth by default but are revealed when they are hit and WAR had the same mechanic. What were Anet devs thinking?

This has been suggested far too often. It essentially gimp pretty much every thief build that isn’t BS glass cannon. And effectively banish them from high level pve zones with lots of aoe, large scale fights in wvw and dungeons.
Thieves don’t survive off of armour, or protective boons, the survive by not getting hit, and they have to do it actively. No throwing up aegis or defensive stances, it’s either they use an evade skill, dodge roll or throw up a blind if they have one, otherwise even tanky thieves are taking the full hit.

Other games seem to do just fine with stealth breaking on damage or on them doing damage. I don’t understand why Anet feels the need to make stealth far more powerful in this game vs other games who have years of pvp experience, particularly since this game already gives extra stealth from culling. It just isn’t logical. Since this is a thread about thieves and their game play, I hope this isn’t deleted too.

I agree, lets make all stealth break on damage.

My only 80 and main is a thief.

After some testing with a guild mate, I have come to the conclusion that the following skills are bugged or broken or need clarification in their tooltips.

Shadowshot

Infiltrator’s Arrow

Infiltrator’s Signet

My guild mate used a net turret on an engineer to immobilize me in sPvP.

These 3 skills allowed me to move (shadowstep) to another location. In my opinion, shadowstepping should not allow a thief to move from point A to point B, with the condition of immobilize applied. Even though said thief still has the immobilize condition on them when they reach point B, the shadowstep should not be allowed to occur in the first place. This just breaks my logical understanding of the word immobilize.

As others have stated before, I agree stealth should break on direct damage to the thief.

Columba.9730:

Dual.8953:

Hospis.4607:

IMHO one change will balance thieves and reduce all the hate on them. Just make so that when a stealthed thief takes damage its puts them out of stealth, either by direct damage or aoe. They can keep all the damage and burst they have. WoW rogues have permanent stealth by default but are revealed when they are hit and WAR had the same mechanic. What were Anet devs thinking?

This has been suggested far too often. It essentially gimp pretty much every thief build that isn’t BS glass cannon. And effectively banish them from high level pve zones with lots of aoe, large scale fights in wvw and dungeons.
Thieves don’t survive off of armour, or protective boons, the survive by not getting hit, and they have to do it actively. No throwing up aegis or defensive stances, it’s either they use an evade skill, dodge roll or throw up a blind if they have one, otherwise even tanky thieves are taking the full hit.

Other games seem to do just fine with stealth breaking on damage or on them doing damage. I don’t understand why Anet feels the need to make stealth far more powerful in this game vs other games who have years of pvp experience, particularly since this game already gives extra stealth from culling. It just isn’t logical. Since this is a thread about thieves and their game play, I hope this isn’t deleted too.

In other games evasion is a statistic, thieves usually have a high evasion statistic and skills that make them more likely to passively evade. A good example of one of these skills in GW1 would be the skill Shroud of Distress, for 54 seconds if your health is below 50%, you have 7 regeneration and a 75% chance to block.
In guild wars 2, if the sword or aoe hits you, you’re hit, unless you have something like block, aegis, distortion up, or the attacker is blinded or are evading. Few attack in the game require a target as well, making crossfire a common occurance.
So enter thief, only has evades and blinds to avoid damage, evades are only good for dodging and can’t be used passively, and blinds are only effective for one enemy attack and since it’s very hard to inflict everyone in the area with blind at once, it’s basically a weak version of aegis that’s no good against groups.
The reason thieves can survive with such weak defenses is stealth. Stealth has no statistical way to mitigate damage, it just makes is harder for thieves to be targetted precisely, they still have to dodge attacks in steath, they just aren’t the focus of the attack.

Columba.9730:

Dual.8953:

Hospis.4607:

IMHO one change will balance thieves and reduce all the hate on them. Just make so that when a stealthed thief takes damage its puts them out of stealth, either by direct damage or aoe. They can keep all the damage and burst they have. WoW rogues have permanent stealth by default but are revealed when they are hit and WAR had the same mechanic. What were Anet devs thinking?

This has been suggested far too often. It essentially gimp pretty much every thief build that isn’t BS glass cannon. And effectively banish them from high level pve zones with lots of aoe, large scale fights in wvw and dungeons.
Thieves don’t survive off of armour, or protective boons, the survive by not getting hit, and they have to do it actively. No throwing up aegis or defensive stances, it’s either they use an evade skill, dodge roll or throw up a blind if they have one, otherwise even tanky thieves are taking the full hit.

Other games seem to do just fine with stealth breaking on damage or on them doing damage. I don’t understand why Anet feels the need to make stealth far more powerful in this game vs other games who have years of pvp experience, particularly since this game already gives extra stealth from culling. It just isn’t logical. Since this is a thread about thieves and their game play, I hope this isn’t deleted too.

What part of Its a rendering and culling issue is so hard to grasp? What part of its a game programing issue is so hard to grasp? You are asking them to nerf a skill because of a game bug. Why not ask them to FIX THE BUG. I know that’s really asking a lot from the QQ bandwagon, but that one thing would resolve 90% of your QQ in one hit.

The other 10% are just going to QQ because they have nothing better to do and are not smart enough to use dodge.

If they keep nerfing the Thief its going to become almost unplayable. Once that happens they will have to fix it and that will probably come in the form of increased damage then the same people that are QQing about stealth will be here QQing about thief damage.

You do realize that Mesmer invis does exactly the same thing and has the exact same culling and rendering bugs don’t you? The difference being a Thief can stealth them self or up to 5 targets using refuge. A Mesmer can do much more than that. When 20+ people come out of Mass Invisibility the issues caused there are 10 times worse than any Thief can create.

So how about we get more QQ about the rendering bug and culling.

Thieves shouldn’t be able to move 50% faster in stealth as well as damage doesn’t break stealth, that just gives them a chance to run away miles down the road if things go bad for them.
They can’t have 50% speed in stealth combined with stealth that can’t be broken.

Dual.8953:

Columba.9730:

Dual.8953:

Hospis.4607:

IMHO one change will balance thieves and reduce all the hate on them. Just make so that when a stealthed thief takes damage its puts them out of stealth, either by direct damage or aoe. They can keep all the damage and burst they have. WoW rogues have permanent stealth by default but are revealed when they are hit and WAR had the same mechanic. What were Anet devs thinking?

This has been suggested far too often. It essentially gimp pretty much every thief build that isn’t BS glass cannon. And effectively banish them from high level pve zones with lots of aoe, large scale fights in wvw and dungeons.
Thieves don’t survive off of armour, or protective boons, the survive by not getting hit, and they have to do it actively. No throwing up aegis or defensive stances, it’s either they use an evade skill, dodge roll or throw up a blind if they have one, otherwise even tanky thieves are taking the full hit.

Other games seem to do just fine with stealth breaking on damage or on them doing damage. I don’t understand why Anet feels the need to make stealth far more powerful in this game vs other games who have years of pvp experience, particularly since this game already gives extra stealth from culling. It just isn’t logical. Since this is a thread about thieves and their game play, I hope this isn’t deleted too.

In other games evasion is a statistic, thieves usually have a high evasion statistic and skills that make them more likely to passively evade. A good example of one of these skills in GW1 would be the skill Shroud of Distress, for 54 seconds if your health is below 50%, you have 7 regeneration and a 75% chance to block.
In guild wars 2, if the sword or aoe hits you, you’re hit, unless you have something like block, aegis, distortion up, or the attacker is blinded or are evading. Few attack in the game require a target as well, making crossfire a common occurance.
So enter thief, only has evades and blinds to avoid damage, evades are only good for dodging and can’t be used passively, and blinds are only effective for one enemy attack and since it’s very hard to inflict everyone in the area with blind at once, it’s basically a weak version of aegis that’s no good against groups.
The reason thieves can survive with such weak defenses is stealth. Stealth has no statistical way to mitigate damage, it just makes is harder for thieves to be targetted precisely, they still have to dodge attacks in steath, they just aren’t the focus of the attack.

thieves have good dodge and evasion in this game too. and you aren’t supposed to survive against whole groups

Laiboch.4380:

Columba.9730:

Dual.8953:

Hospis.4607:

IMHO one change will balance thieves and reduce all the hate on them. Just make so that when a stealthed thief takes damage its puts them out of stealth, either by direct damage or aoe. They can keep all the damage and burst they have. WoW rogues have permanent stealth by default but are revealed when they are hit and WAR had the same mechanic. What were Anet devs thinking?

This has been suggested far too often. It essentially gimp pretty much every thief build that isn’t BS glass cannon. And effectively banish them from high level pve zones with lots of aoe, large scale fights in wvw and dungeons.
Thieves don’t survive off of armour, or protective boons, the survive by not getting hit, and they have to do it actively. No throwing up aegis or defensive stances, it’s either they use an evade skill, dodge roll or throw up a blind if they have one, otherwise even tanky thieves are taking the full hit.

Other games seem to do just fine with stealth breaking on damage or on them doing damage. I don’t understand why Anet feels the need to make stealth far more powerful in this game vs other games who have years of pvp experience, particularly since this game already gives extra stealth from culling. It just isn’t logical. Since this is a thread about thieves and their game play, I hope this isn’t deleted too.

What part of Its a rendering and culling issue is so hard to grasp? What part of its a game programing issue is so hard to grasp? You are asking them to nerf a skill because of a game bug. Why not ask them to FIX THE BUG. I know that’s really asking a lot from the QQ bandwagon, but that one thing would resolve 90% of your QQ in one hit.

The other 10% are just going to QQ because they have nothing better to do and are not smart enough to use dodge.

If they keep nerfing the Thief its going to become almost unplayable. Once that happens they will have to fix it and that will probably come in the form of increased damage then the same people that are QQing about stealth will be here QQing about thief damage.

You do realize that Mesmer invis does exactly the same thing and has the exact same culling and rendering bugs don’t you? The difference being a Thief can stealth them self or up to 5 targets using refuge. A Mesmer can do much more than that. When 20+ people come out of Mass Invisibility the issues caused there are 10 times worse than any Thief can create.

So how about we get more QQ about the rendering bug and culling.

thieves really haven’t been nerfed in a meaningful way though.

What we have learned so far in this thread.

Thieves can hit 1 button to go stealth for ever and kill 5000000000 people with the use of 1 other button while doing back hand springs and solving world hunger and poverty all at the same time…

OR

That Anet needs to resolve the culling and rendering issues involving stealth and Invisibility and learn the concept of class balance.

Again I am all for an alternative resolution to all of this.
Give thieves an out of combat stealth that does not drop till they take damage or enter combat. Then leave them with only Hide in shadows, Blinding powder and Refuge. A really good mechanic for this was from another game. If you take damage in stealth you had 5 seconds till it dropped. You could at that point chose to bug out or jump in the fight, but you couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. Of course that game also gave them an in combat stealth that gave them 3 seconds of invulnerability, and Thief like class in that game was definitely far from the most powerful class in the game.

Then to compensate give them about 2K more base hit points and increase their damage to match Warriors damage +15%…

No more perma stealth in combat: issue resolved.

Better sustained damage and burst on par with warriors and most other burst damage classes: Issue resolved

Less QQ on the forums? that issue will never be resolved.

Columba.9730:

Dual.8953:

Columba.9730:

Dual.8953:

Hospis.4607:

IMHO one change will balance thieves and reduce all the hate on them. Just make so that when a stealthed thief takes damage its puts them out of stealth, either by direct damage or aoe. They can keep all the damage and burst they have. WoW rogues have permanent stealth by default but are revealed when they are hit and WAR had the same mechanic. What were Anet devs thinking?

This has been suggested far too often. It essentially gimp pretty much every thief build that isn’t BS glass cannon. And effectively banish them from high level pve zones with lots of aoe, large scale fights in wvw and dungeons.
Thieves don’t survive off of armour, or protective boons, the survive by not getting hit, and they have to do it actively. No throwing up aegis or defensive stances, it’s either they use an evade skill, dodge roll or throw up a blind if they have one, otherwise even tanky thieves are taking the full hit.

Other games seem to do just fine with stealth breaking on damage or on them doing damage. I don’t understand why Anet feels the need to make stealth far more powerful in this game vs other games who have years of pvp experience, particularly since this game already gives extra stealth from culling. It just isn’t logical. Since this is a thread about thieves and their game play, I hope this isn’t deleted too.

In other games evasion is a statistic, thieves usually have a high evasion statistic and skills that make them more likely to passively evade. A good example of one of these skills in GW1 would be the skill Shroud of Distress, for 54 seconds if your health is below 50%, you have 7 regeneration and a 75% chance to block.
In guild wars 2, if the sword or aoe hits you, you’re hit, unless you have something like block, aegis, distortion up, or the attacker is blinded or are evading. Few attack in the game require a target as well, making crossfire a common occurance.
So enter thief, only has evades and blinds to avoid damage, evades are only good for dodging and can’t be used passively, and blinds are only effective for one enemy attack and since it’s very hard to inflict everyone in the area with blind at once, it’s basically a weak version of aegis that’s no good against groups.
The reason thieves can survive with such weak defenses is stealth. Stealth has no statistical way to mitigate damage, it just makes is harder for thieves to be targetted precisely, they still have to dodge attacks in steath, they just aren’t the focus of the attack.

thieves have good dodge and evasion in this game too. and you aren’t supposed to survive against whole groups

They have above average dodge, by GW2 standards, but it has its limits, because it’s all active evasion, and all subject to the limits of energy, initiative and cooldowns. They don’t have a stat that says 50% of all attacks miss for no explicable reason in GW2, so getting surviving attacks it all on the thief and his/her resources.

And sure making stealth drop on hit will make 1vXing as a thief impossible. The problem is it’ll make ZvZing, Dungeoning and high level PvE impossible too.

Columba.9730:

Other games seem to do just fine with stealth breaking on damage or on them doing damage.

That’s because they get either:

Insane burst damage to insta-kill anyone and therefore don’t have to worry about people trying to hit them. Which if implemented into this game would cause massive QQ.

Various cooldowns that enable them to take significantly reduced damage for short durations (For example WoW: 50% dodge chance for 20 seconds, up to 50% damage reduction for 20 seconds, immunity to spells for 5 seconds, an ability to regenerate 3% of your maximum health every 3 seconds) which if implemented into this game would probably also cause massive QQ (Since thieves would be harder to kill as they’d be reducing damage dealt to them rather than just not being visible)

Large amounts of crowd control, in order to survive outside of stealth a lot of games make it so the stealth class can keep someone controlled for long periods of time through stuns and various ways of incapacitating which leads to frustrating play of being permanently stunned for the duration of your life. If implemented into this game would cause massive QQ (It’s bad enough when people are getting killed “Without chance to react” because thieves are constantly invisible… Let alone no chance to react due to constant control)

Other games also tend to favour having stealth purely for the opening attack, either not allowing or severely limiting the ability to stealth in combat which often impacts the entire “Trait”-like system by causing the line focused around stealth to become overpowered (If it only affects the first hit then it can cause the first hit to be way to strong) or severely underpowered (Because it only affects the first hit and so there’s no point taking it)

As it stands now, the main reason people are complaining about stealth is not because of stealth (Since it’s easy to counter, just use one of many ways to avoid the attack that causes it or carry on hitting the guy after he stealthed) but because of culling preventing people from being able to see the attack that causes stealth.

However, thieves do get great burst and they get cc in this game. I think that their burst is among the best in the game.

Columba.9730:

Other games seem to do just fine with stealth breaking on damage or on them doing damage. I don’t understand why Anet feels the need to make stealth far more powerful in this game vs other games who have years of pvp experience, particularly since this game already gives extra stealth from culling. It just isn’t logical. Since this is a thread about thieves and their game play, I hope this isn’t deleted too.

Other games aren’t choke full of PBAoE, ground targeted AoE and basic autoattacks that can be used without target and hits anything in a huge cone in front of the player.

It would also make the Dagger 5 skill C&D practically non functional as it is since it’d be impossible to get a hit without getting booted out of stealth 0.2s latter by some random mashed attack button.

stof.9341:

Columba.9730:

Other games seem to do just fine with stealth breaking on damage or on them doing damage. I don’t understand why Anet feels the need to make stealth far more powerful in this game vs other games who have years of pvp experience, particularly since this game already gives extra stealth from culling. It just isn’t logical. Since this is a thread about thieves and their game play, I hope this isn’t deleted too.

Other games aren’t choke full of PBAoE, ground targeted AoE and basic autoattacks that can be used without target and hits anything in a huge cone in front of the player.

It would also make the Dagger 5 skill C&D practically non functional as it is since it’d be impossible to get a hit without getting booted out of stealth 0.2s latter by some random mashed attack button.

sure they are. dark age of camelot, aion and warhammer all had massive aoe. somehow thieves/sins did well.

Columba.9730:

stof.9341:

Columba.9730:

Other games seem to do just fine with stealth breaking on damage or on them doing damage. I don’t understand why Anet feels the need to make stealth far more powerful in this game vs other games who have years of pvp experience, particularly since this game already gives extra stealth from culling. It just isn’t logical. Since this is a thread about thieves and their game play, I hope this isn’t deleted too.

Other games aren’t choke full of PBAoE, ground targeted AoE and basic autoattacks that can be used without target and hits anything in a huge cone in front of the player.

It would also make the Dagger 5 skill C&D practically non functional as it is since it’d be impossible to get a hit without getting booted out of stealth 0.2s latter by some random mashed attack button.

sure they are. dark age of camelot, aion and warhammer all had massive aoe. somehow thieves/sins did well.

Those games had different combat mechanics and different skill sets on thier Sins. They were built to survive off statistical evasion, which doesn’t exist in GW2.

Columba.9730:

sure they are. dark age of camelot, aion and warhammer all had massive aoe. somehow thieves/sins did well.

I can’t tell for the others but for Aion you could hardly cast those AoEs without a target in the first place. Also, when the sins got Shadow Walk and were invisible 5 minutes every 3 minute, how could you even tell when to use those AoEs when? My spider senses are tingling, AoE! It was a sure way to get reported for radar hacking.

In GW2, most thieves do in combat stealth as the game designed it which would cause the stealth to get broken each time he does it. Ie, it’d nerf stealth into uselessness.

Columba.9730:

thieves have good dodge and evasion in this game too. and you aren’t supposed to survive against whole groups

Every profession has dodge (evasion) as defence, and some have at least as much, and some have more, of it then Thief.

I didnt read all of this ofc but for those that say stealth should brake on damage i can only say to eat a kitten lol. Do you realize how different is thief from other games rogues ( wow for example, where stealth drops on damage) and how different is game on itself, its aoe, auto attack mechanic ? While it works finr on wow, in gw2 it would completally destroy thief class. And that is not thieves defending, thats common sence.