Guild Wars 2

yes we can see them attacking and remaining stealthed. We experience permastealthed thieves attacking. I already explained the hypothesis that culling allows this without 20 in shadow arts.

Columba.9730:

yes we can see them attacking and remaining stealthed. We experience permastealthed thieves attacking. I already explained the hypothesis that culling allows this without 20 in shadow arts.

Wow your really hard headed arent you. I just explained it 3 times without 20 in shadow arts you can not maintain permastealth even with culling unless your using more than 1 utility skill that stealth you for example Blinding powder,SR. When most thieves run Signet of shadow, Shadow Step, and Shadow refugee.

If you think its possible enlighten me with 2 video perspective of one showing he has no shadow arts,permastealth with only SR, and hide in shadow for utility/heal stealth skills. and one showing culling permastealth you are always constantly arguing about

Jerks.3172:

Columba.9730:

understood, but other classes are just as squishy and face similar challenges.

Other classes have superior ranged skills (1200 range) while thieves are limited to (900 range) you might say this isnt huge difference but its pretty big the fact they only can use their shortbow and when you get damaged you forced to heal right? so you take more damage while healing isnt that counter productive?

Then they should set it so thieves are revealed at 900 range and then everything is even, yeah?

Sue.4361:

Jerks.3172:

Columba.9730:

understood, but other classes are just as squishy and face similar challenges.

Other classes have superior ranged skills (1200 range) while thieves are limited to (900 range) you might say this isnt huge difference but its pretty big the fact they only can use their shortbow and when you get damaged you forced to heal right? so you take more damage while healing isnt that counter productive?

Then they should set it so thieves are revealed at 900 range and then everything is even, yeah?

That takes the whole purpose of a surprise attack dont you think? if they can only stealth when only 900 range of you. Lets also look at it this way a enemy thief is 1200 range of you and dropped SR to cloak and all of a sudden he is revealed cause people are not in his 900 range.

Sue.4361:

Jerks.3172:

Columba.9730:

understood, but other classes are just as squishy and face similar challenges.

Other classes have superior ranged skills (1200 range) while thieves are limited to (900 range) you might say this isnt huge difference but its pretty big the fact they only can use their shortbow and when you get damaged you forced to heal right? so you take more damage while healing isnt that counter productive?

Then they should set it so thieves are revealed at 900 range and then everything is even, yeah?

No. Thieves would go down like a level 10s. No Protection boons, stability or aegis and low heals, weak armour and low vitality and toughness, dodge has it’s limits, blinds are ineffective against kiting and rapid attacks. In short, ineffective at everything and likely unable to PvE in anything above low level zones.

honestly, their vitality and toughness is no worse than half the classes. in addition, their mobility is better than most. so some losses in stealth aren’t breaking for thieves.

No worse than most? They’re base survivability is worse than everything but the Elementalist.

Lowest Health bracket.
Medium armor.
Only thing worse is Lowest health bracket + light armor. Which is the Ele…

I’m telling you roll that stealthless thief brah, do it and gain some perspective.
You’ll be surprised on both ends.

A minor change to stealth would be a major change and nerf to thieves. And actually only Guardians and Elementalists share the lowest health pool with the Thief. All other professions start out much higher, proof:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Health

Honestly, look at what Guardians and Elementalists bring to the table for defense. They are pretty solid. Thieves just have stealth, you change it, you might as well remove thief from the game

Also your solution for increasing the reveal timer wouldn’t have any impact on permastealth so please, don’t revert back to your only solution as it has no impact on your problem of permastealth. So many people have told you this, I think it goes in one ear and out the other with you because you cannot be debated, questioned, argued, or reasoned with.

Columba.9730:

honestly, their vitality and toughness is no worse than half the classes. in addition, their mobility is better than most. so some losses in stealth aren’t breaking for thieves.

Yeah but they’re on the low end. They share HP tiers with Guardian and Elementalist. However unlike Guardian and Elementalist, they don’t have Protection, Aegis, Invulerability, Stability, Knockdown and Blowout CCs, or massive amounts of heals. They have Regen, but it’s locked up in a stealth triggered trait, and it’s a weak short weak. They do have good access to condition removal, but their best condition removal they have is locked up in another on stealth trait.

ensoriki.5789:

No worse than most? They’re base survivability is worse than everything but the Elementalist.

Lowest Health bracket.
Medium armor.
Only thing worse is Lowest health bracket + light armor. Which is the Ele…

I’m telling you roll that stealthless thief brah, do it and gain some perspective.
You’ll be surprised on both ends.

who’s talking about stealthless thieves? I am talking about minor adjustments to thieves. It’s irrational to claim that thieves are untouchables and can never have their stealth adjusted. all classes get their skills adjusted. adapt and move on. you can’t handcuff the developers to fix badly broken stealth mechanics in wvw. it’s not reasonable and it’s melodramatic.

Columba.9730:

ensoriki.5789:

No worse than most? They’re base survivability is worse than everything but the Elementalist.

Lowest Health bracket.
Medium armor.
Only thing worse is Lowest health bracket + light armor. Which is the Ele…

I’m telling you roll that stealthless thief brah, do it and gain some perspective.
You’ll be surprised on both ends.

who’s talking about stealthless thieves? I am talking about minor adjustments to thieves. It’s irrational to claim that thieves are untouchables and can never have their stealth adjusted. all classes get their skills adjusted. adapt and move on. you can’t handcuff the developers to fix badly broken stealth mechanics in wvw. it’s not reasonable and it’s melodramatic.

Permastealth has been around since the first beta weekend.. They have had plenty of time to change it if they thought it necessary to do so. Guess what, they feel that it’s perfectly fine how it is and cater to the majority. You argue it’s unfair and many agree with you? Who are these “many” that agree with you. I think I’ve counted maybe a total of 5? On the contrary, many more agree that it’s fine, plenty of people (mostly other classes) defeat thieves each and every day, and the majority is not siding with you on this.

Columba.9730:

ensoriki.5789:

No worse than most? They’re base survivability is worse than everything but the Elementalist.

Lowest Health bracket.
Medium armor.
Only thing worse is Lowest health bracket + light armor. Which is the Ele…

I’m telling you roll that stealthless thief brah, do it and gain some perspective.
You’ll be surprised on both ends.

who’s talking about stealthless thieves? I am talking about minor adjustments to thieves. It’s irrational to claim that thieves are untouchables and can never have their stealth adjusted. all classes get their skills adjusted. adapt and move on. you can’t handcuff the developers to fix badly broken stealth mechanics in wvw. it’s not reasonable and it’s melodramatic.

Ok, since you keep continuing on ranting how stealth is broken name ways it can be “fixed” in your standard without tearing apart the whole stealth concept.

simple slightly increase the stealth debuff time.

Columba.9730:

simple slightly increase the stealth debuff time.

And by how much in your standard would be ok?

slowly until perma stealthing via culling is eliminated. hey there are thieves in my guild calling for automatic reveals anytime a thief attacks. I am not going that far at least. not yet.

So you think culling is always last the same amount of time? and it does reveal anytime a thief uses a blink/ lands a attack. Its nothing to do with stealth mechanic but culling.

I also want to say adding reveal timer does nothing to perma stealth.

Columba.9730:

ensoriki.5789:

No worse than most? They’re base survivability is worse than everything but the Elementalist.

Lowest Health bracket.
Medium armor.
Only thing worse is Lowest health bracket + light armor. Which is the Ele…

I’m telling you roll that stealthless thief brah, do it and gain some perspective.
You’ll be surprised on both ends.

who’s talking about stealthless thieves? I am talking about minor adjustments to thieves. It’s irrational to claim that thieves are untouchables and can never have their stealth adjusted. all classes get their skills adjusted. adapt and move on. you can’t handcuff the developers to fix badly broken stealth mechanics in wvw. it’s not reasonable and it’s melodramatic.

When I have I claimed untouchables?
You’re trying to toy with things without thinking repercussions because of a Wvw specific issues, which even if balanced for WvW would be subjective because Culling does not work on a specific timer.

He knows adding more to the reveal timer won’t affect or change permastealth. It’s been told to him countless times. He just wants thieves nerfed so he has an easier time in wvw.

If it won’t affect permastealth in your opinion, how is it a nerf? My point is that declaring that ANY change to stealth will wreck the class is irresponsible. Developers need the flexibility to take stealth down a notch in the interest of a balanced game.

Columba.9730:

If it won’t affect permastealth in your opinion, how is it a nerf? My point is that declaring that ANY change to stealth will wreck the class is irresponsible. Developers need the flexibility to take stealth down a notch in the interest of a balanced game.

It doesn’t do anything to perma stealth but it hurts regular stealth for people who doesnt chain it to get a longer effect (people who actually uses stealth for combat).

Devs have the flexibility to do that now. They choose not to touch stealth for a reason. They decided after three betas it was okay. They have not touched it since launch. They obviously feel that stealth is right where it should be. They have hit other aspects, just not stealth.

I wish you would make up your mind on what your problem is… Stealth in general, or Permastealth?

There’s a lot they haven’t touched since beta. that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t. Besides, they asked for feedback in this thread exactly so that they can do the right thing to improve this game.

This thread is also a 2 month of thread someone just dug it back up.

actually, this thread has been active every day for the last 2 months.

Here is a simple summary:

A thief class can:

-Teleport instantly multiple times and huge distances: range>1200 using a weapon ability and a slotted talent ability… Thieves are the ONLY class that does that at this frequency and ease. There is zero indication of where the thief will teleport back to as opposed to a mesmer who HAS to slot a TRAITED ability to do this ONCE on a long cooldown..sword ability number 2 breaks stun and removes a condition AND teleports back….no cooldown..can be used repeatedly.
I can use sword ability number 2 to create a safe spot , switch to my daggers and start a fight..goes bad? simply switch back to sword and hit sword number 2..breaks stun and teleports a huge distance back.
Hell..I can go into a zerg..kill someone..and get out scott free with zero penalty.

-Can disengage from combat to escape being hit and they can do this multiple times with multiple abilities that give stealth. Stealth is available at hand at any time. Thieves are the ONLY class that does this.

-Can use the same ability repeatedly. They can stun you repeatedly using the SAME ability. Every other class has a cool down on the majority of their abilities. Thieves are the ONLY class that does not.

-Can dish out major DPS. No degree of toughness will save you. If you don’t spec into some way to get a protection buff to combat this single broken class then you are out of luck. And since they are the only class you can’t see them coming or opening on you..using your dodge skills won’t help you. I can see a warrior coming or a mesmers clone running towards me but not a thief. You also can’t time your dodges since they restealth so many times and thus rendering an important mechanic in the game useless..Notice that this is ONLY with the thief class..No other class has this insane access to restealthing.

-Can disengage and engage from and into any fight with zero penalty. See the above.

-Can travel faster than any class.

-Can stealth-finish downed opponents avoiding the majority of downed abilities and minimizing interruption from other enemy players since they can stealth from several skills easily which are almost always up. they can stomp a downed player at any time using this. Other classes have to slot a stability trait, mist form, elixir abilities or quickness then blow those valuable traits to stomp as opposed to the thief class which can stealth from multiple abilities.

The steal ability -F1- has a cool down. However, you can use it on an enemy to steal an ability and not use that ability. In an upcoming fight you can unload this ability and quickly spam steal again to unload a 2nd ability..and no..the first stolen ability stays for a long time..no worries of it wiping. This is a way to go around the cooldown of the ability.

Anyone who tells you that initiative is what is balancing the thief class is ignorant or trying to protect his broken class. Initiate regenerates rapidly, regenerates in stealth and you can spec into abilities that replenish it as well as increasing the total reservoir of initiative.

If you have not played the thief class then you are missing on an insanely OP class. Compared to the thief class every other class is miles behind. I advise everyone to try and play this class as the learning curve is easier than all the other classes and the reward and gain is much higher.

Obviously there is a huge imbalance that has gone unattended for a long time.

Lets just hope that some developers in certain MMORPGs are not repeating past mistakes they did with their past games of exploiting broken and OP classes for their enjoyment on the expense of the majority of the paying customer base.

I am now very wary of any Anet future games as -as has been demonstrated in this game- issues of imbalance are left unattended for unacceptable prolonged periods of time for whatever reason. Why go through this with future Anet products? Better spend my hard earned money elsewhere.

It is just mind boggling that this broken class has gone so long unattended. Not even WoW or SWTOR was this slow at fixing a class. Let us hope this is fixed before people leave for other games with a sour taste in their mouth for Anet balance issues.

This thread is 55 pages long and has been running for months. I am not sure how much more feed back is needed..

Well said XII. My guild has dozens of pvp veterans and we just shake our heads at how poorly anet has handled stealth in this game. We’ve never seen anything remotely this overpowering in 15 years of pvp games. Perma stealth coupled with the best burst dps and high mobility all rolled into one class is bad design, and unfortunately it’s sullying anet’s reputation.

XII, your first point is not right. Infiltrator’s arrow is 900 yrd. Only shadowstep is 1200 yards.

Actually, you’re mixing up a lot of things. The survivability and highly stealthy and mobile thieves are considered your “bunker” thieves. The damage they dish out is comparable to other bunker builds. They can’t take hits like some other bunkers, so they rely on dodging and stealthing for damage migitation.
Now, your high damage, glass cannon thieves, they only got high damage. They’re extremely squishy and can die quite easily. They don’t have the same mobility and stealth as your “bunker” thieves. They can try, but if they do, they can’t attack and it leaves them vulnerable afterwards.

It’s mind boggling on how much… information you have wrong in your post. If you want changes to thieves, then you need to really know the class and know how to beat them.

Do you guys ask yourselves why there are people who have no problem with countering thieves? That’s a serious question for people here demanding some rather class breaking changes. Several times people who play different classes also have said they don’t have an issue with thieves, and yet people choose to ignore them and toss their advice aside as if you’re saying “I don’t need your advice. I’m good enough. It’s just the class is OP.”

I mean, come on!. Read up on what these past 55 pages are about… If there are people who can beat thieves, then that means thieves can be fought on an even foot by other classes.

why it always must be wvw cases, and the pve guys have to take the nerfs too !
we are already unwanted/kicked from dungeon/fractal parties !

is this all you wanted, isn’t it ?, but seems is just not enough…
let me tell you something, i won’t reroll another class because you guys always complain about wvw.
if i am still unwanted (my thief class) in fractals/dungeons parties i will simply leave the game. here you have a thief that only goes to wvw to do my daily events (killing dolyaks, guard points till i get to 5), underwater fish kills.
i avoid combat if possible (unless the guy is really asking for it)

I come here and columba and XII complain about Thieves. I go in game and my whole alliance says that Thieves are okay and say that if anything Ele and Mes are OP’d though they don’t rant about it. And it takes at least three people wailing on an ele to get them out of a camp. Seeing as they spend their time playing the game, I think they have more credibility.
Also XII. You forgot to mention why you have those escapes. If you play thief you know very well what happens when you stay engaged too long.
Why not post your build?
Also I’m sure the fact that most thief threads get directed to or merged into this thread has nothing to do with it size. Or the face that Columba probably accounts for a noticeable percent of it.

Just a screenshot of the first page of the wvw forum.

Notice that none of those threads were started by Columba. Nor by me for that matter.

Many people are complaining about thieves, specifically about stealth.

It not only breaks some other overall game mechanics like keep capture etc, but it provides the thief with the ability to make several mistakes and keep resetting the fight until it goes their way. D/D eles have this problem also, as do mesmers.

It’s too noob-friendly, and it makes other classes wonder why they don’t have such easy and uncounterable disengages at their disposal.

the only ideea i can think of is to cut 1 second from C&D to 2 seconds of stealth (3 if traited), hs/smoke field also 2 seconds of stealth (3 if traited)

in compensation, i want pve buffs !

Columba.9730:

Well said XII. My guild has dozens of pvp veterans and we just shake our heads at how poorly anet has handled stealth in this game. We’ve never seen anything remotely this overpowering in 15 years of pvp games. Perma stealth coupled with the best burst dps and high mobility all rolled into one class is bad design, and unfortunately it’s sullying anet’s reputation.

Sure you’ve seen more overpowering stuff… from what I recall of previous campaigns.. Left Axe, Animist Shrooms, DAoC stealth, shield stun and probably several 100 other things.

And you mean WvW. PvP is all about the elementalists and mesmers.

I play a thief and imo, something needs to be done about 1. stealth 2. the stupid burst. Stealth is a hard one, because its basically thieves main defense instead of stats/boons. I’ve tried to experiement with non stealth builds, never with much success compared to the defense stealth gives me. If major changes to stealth would occur, then something would need to be given to us. We’re simply cannon fodder without stealth. That said, I really hope they do something about it. I dislike stealth in this game.

Regarding burst. Being able to steal/cnd/bs/hs/hs for insane amounts of damage is just silly in my opinion. I hate insane bursts. Its simply not fun and takes no skill. It reduces the combat to a 4 or 5 click rotation. I’ve tried that build, its op imo. I dont play it. I get no enjoyment out of bursting people down in 2 seconds.

If anyone has advice on a non stealth/non cheesey 4 button burst spam build, let me know. I cant get it to work

Columba.9730:

slowly until perma stealthing via culling is eliminated. hey there are thieves in my guild calling for automatic reveals anytime a thief attacks. I am not going that far at least. not yet.

Except that revealed has 0 effect on the backstab burst build except make it slightly more difficult to get away.

How hard is it for a thief to get off a stomp in WvW? With cloak and dagger it’s trivial.

As far as stealth goes, I’m fine with thieves having stealth. What I’m not fine with is:

• Being downed without seeing a single animation, nor even the avatar of the player that downed me with melee attacks
• A player being able to continuously soft reset a fight
• A player able to not only constantly escape on their terms but continuously reinitiate the fight with a “cooldown advantage”. A good thief is patient. They wait for retaliation, etc. to be down, make you blow cooldowns, then disengage long enough to get full initiative and do it again until you don’t have enough to counter with. Then you get plinked down with stealth attacks.

Columba.9730:

slowly until perma stealthing via culling is eliminated. hey there are thieves in my guild calling for automatic reveals anytime a thief attacks. I am not going that far at least. not yet.

Columba, you talk so much about these thieves in your guild, will they be willing to show a video of how they would play in the case you outlined above? I’m quite sure this is all in your head.

I’m honestly asking for video proof of people claiming thieves are so OP playing a thief and being as lethal as they say they are. Unedited footage of WvW roaming, 2v1s on non-green^’s. Until then, I and just about everyone else will just chalk it up to bads being bad, and looking for the easy way out.

Is that really too much to ask?

Sebrent.3625:

How hard is it for a thief to get off a stomp in WvW? With cloak and dagger it’s trivial.

Yes, 1v1 it is easy. But in reality, ANY class that downs you 1v1 will stomp you, end of story. You can delay it for mere seconds, but it’s inevitable, and you know it.

How hard is it for a thief to get a stomp off 2v1 (or more)? It’s neigh impossible if you’re fighting someone who is competent. If you see a thief down someone and go into stealth over them, just an interrupt in the general area or straight up auto attacking will most likely down the thief in the process, or cause them to run away.

Stealth is a means of damage mitigation due to one of two factors: subterfuge and ignorance. If you stealth over a corpse, and your buddies sit there and do nothing about it, other than try and get you up, there was no subterfuge involved because it was blatantly obvious what was taking place. Ignorance prevails, and surprisingly more often than you think.

We have the lowest health pool, typically pretty low armor rating, and to attempt a stomp in the open is suicide; many thieves could be downed by downed state attacks due to damage sustained in the fight + low armor/health.

I agree, 1v1 downed state you’re pretty screwed, unless you’re a Thief near mobs as your #1 is good damage in most builds I’ve seen and #2 and #3 provide plenty of time to kill a random WvW mob.

Laika:
Not everyone has AOE/Cone interrupts. My Mesmer only has Focus and Greatsword and I don’t usually use Greatsword in WvW unless sieging. My Ranger’s stuns both require you to see the target.

Not everyone has a melee weapon that can hit a stealth target. Not an issue for me, but for others it is.

Not everyone has the direct damage to get a Thief off a downed teammate by blindly auto-attacking with a melee weapon. Many of us can’t kill someone in under a second with our class and decent power the way a Thief can or are simply running condition builds. Furthermore, the really tough stealth thieves are using Knight’s armor which makes them quite capable of eating these attacks. Furthermore, the Thief is stealthed, hence healing from traits while downing the player and then able to escape after downing.

This is not uncommon stuff. Again, there is a plethora of videos on YouTube featuring all of this, even against great players.

XII.9401:

Here is a simple summary:

It is just mind boggling that this broken class has gone so long unattended. Not even WoW or SWTOR was this slow at fixing a class. Let us hope this is fixed before people leave for other games with a sour taste in their mouth for Anet balance issues.

This thread is 55 pages long and has been running for months. I am not sure how much more feed back is needed..

Umm the problem with the Rogue class in swtor wasnt the stealth I mean it was there but it was the hybrid self heal tank/dps build. Yup Good Ol bioware they are definitely the pinnacle of MMO success rofl. They nerfed shadows basically killing the class.

You know why it was nerfed to the ground because lets see Hutball, The spaceship map(forgot the name) Yup no dueling that I see. The forums filled with whining about a spec that can’t be beat 1v1 so they nerfed. Thank my lucky stars Anet doesnt listen to people that about 1v1 balance when there isn’t any dueling in this game that matters for anything.

Sebrent.3625:

Not everyone has the direct damage to get a Thief off a downed teammate by blindly auto-attacking with a melee weapon. Many of us can’t kill someone in under a second with our class and decent power the way a Thief can or are simply running condition builds. Furthermore, the really tough stealth thieves are using Knight’s armor which makes them quite capable of eating these attacks. Furthermore, the Thief is stealthed, hence healing from traits while downing the player and then able to escape after downing.

Pretty much everything you can do will hit us, as long as the ability launches. That is what people fail to understand! If we’re attempting to down something, just because you can’t target us doesn’t mean we’re not there! Melee and ranged abilities alike will hit us, and there’s nothing blind about it: you know exactly where we are! Right over your buddy, getting a stomp off. I agree that ranged classes are slightly at a loss in that category, but ranged has so many advantages otherwise I think it’s a legitimate trade-off and by no means should it dictate how stealth should play out.

Furthermore, you’re diverging a little. You talk about “not having the ability to down someone in under a second” and then go on to talk about “tough stealth thieves using knights armor” and “healing in stealth.” Well, which is it? If you lost to a toughness specc’d thief, he didn’t have much damage to speak of, and you lost the fight by getting out played (especially in a Xv1 scenario like we are discussing.) If it was a burst thief, he would die half way through the stomp with ANY attack you repeatedly lay on him, and he WILL NOT heal during the stealth duration because they do not trait for that in any capacity.

X class cannot counter Y, even though Z,P,Q,V can does not an argument make.

LOCO.1785:

This whole thread has become people trying to reason with Columba.

Guys you’re arguing with a brick wall…

The guy is on a crusade, he can’t handle thieves in game, so he’s trying to ruin them out of game.

Its ok that columba keeps arguing it discredits him each time he responds as people have explained to him over and over. I am willing to bet he has the most posts in this thread.

Mesmer Greatsword, Ranger Shortbow, and Ranger Longbow (I’m most familiar with) don’t seem to do crap when I shoot facing where the stealth Thief is. I might as well be shooting at my feet from the look of things.

As far as the different Thieves:

The Burst Thief can down someone, cloak and dagger, and finish them and the finish is the longest part of that. They are stealthed the entire time except for a quick cloak and dagger so you see them for a split second if you’re already looking at that teammate.

The Knight’s Thief does wonderful damage. Again, please see the plethora of videos on YouTube of Thieves wearing plenty of Toughness gear. You can actually survive the initial burst from these thieves, but they are quite tougher to kill thanks to the wonderful things traits give them while stealthed. So while they aren’t doing 10k backstabs, let’s say they do half, so 5k. Multiple 5k backstabs is more than enough to kill any class and the Thief is more than capable of inflicting multiple backstabs in a short amount of time thanks to the ease by which they can stealth.

Thobek.1730:

xiv.7136:

It makes recovering from mistakes too easy, and makes bad players think they’re good.

^ totally this. Bad players love the stealth mechanic, running around during a fight being invisible, untargetable.

+1
the thief enables bad players to beat/compete_with higher skilled players

i always laugh at those thieves who do actually die in small skirmish fights
you always can get away and reset the fight, the only way you die as a thief is when you overextend yourself or are being caught tremendously offguard

considering permastealth, thief has perma stealth. (especially with culling) whenever i need it i have it, and its a joke to say you win the fight if the thief stealths
the thief is not dead, no loot, no badges, in BEST CASE its a draw
i can keep a larger group occupied, can ‘block’ and slow down a larger group by just being there as a thief (which is kinda something the thief is there for, putting some uncertainty some hidden possible pressure in the fight, but there is no risk, just reward)

there are so many thieves who think their own skill makes the class good to the extend that they think nerfs are unjustified
every non delusional thief or actual good thief knows how op the thief is and just enjoys their OPness with a smirk on his face
/edit well… an some with a wtf-anet?-expression on their face ^^

this is spoken of course out of an rvr point of view

Sebrent.3625:

The Burst Thief can down someone, cloak and dagger, and finish them and the finish is the longest part of that. They are stealthed the entire time except for a quick cloak and dagger so you see them for a split second if you’re already looking at that teammate.

Except the burst happens in stealth, putting them on a 3 second cooldown in which they are visible. So either they run around for 3 seconds and your team-mates are too dense to do anything, or they just attempt the stomp out of stealth and get squashed. That 3 seconds is plenty of time to KB, interrupt, dps down (11k health, very little armor, COME ON.) So no, I don’t buy it.

Sebrent.3625:

The Knight’s Thief does wonderful damage. Again, please see the plethora of videos on YouTube of Thieves wearing plenty of Toughness gear. You can actually survive the initial burst from these thieves, but they are quite tougher to kill thanks to the wonderful things traits give them while stealthed. So while they aren’t doing 10k backstabs, let’s say they do half, so 5k. Multiple 5k backstabs is more than enough to kill any class and the Thief is more than capable of inflicting multiple backstabs in a short amount of time thanks to the ease by which they can stealth.

You can survive the “initial burst” because there is no burst. If you let them stealth on you and get to your flank repeatedly, yes, they will keep backstabbing you. But 5k on a toughness build is maximum on a pretty glassy opponent, surprisingly like the one I can tell that you run… (Telling…) On a bunker build, you’d be lucky to get 3k, and that isn’t going to pan out in the end. Also, you over exaggerate the healing on stealth. It’s >400 every second, and every second you spend “healing” is gaining your opponent his CD’s while you’re blowing initiative. The constant stealth required for this attrition-style battle is extremely prohibitive (ESPECIALLY D/P which seems to be the new hot-button QQ) and if you take the effort to follow the rhythm and block that C&D or gain enough distance after they BP→HS into stealth, they’ve just wasted a huge chunk of their advantage.

Unstealthed for 3 seconds my butt. When I got dropped from that screenshot, the Thief showed up long enough to cast C&D which re-stealthed them so they could stomp me.

Additionally, the fact that there is a downed state doesn’t really help with the argument that a Thief can burst you in 1 sec without you even seeing them since in 1v1 you lose once downed like that. Must we bring friends just because we might run into a good Thief? That seems silly to me.

As far as the toughness stealth build, if they became visible when they initially backstabbed me, that’d be great. I could then block the Cloak and Dagger, but that doesn’t work. Additionally, even if I block it, they can simply do it again and reset the fight for their self and I’ve eaten a backstab since I was saving my block/dodge for C&D and there’s no visual indicator for backstab. Furthermore, 3k is lowballing it unless we’re suddenly talking about a Thief in Masterwork hitting a Warrior in exotics.

As far as “exaggerating on the healing in stealth”, >400 hp a sec is excellent health. Since every stealth lasts for 4+ seconds in the stealth build, that’s 1,600 health every time you stealth … on top of faster initiative regen (compensates for spending initiative on stealth) and condition removal. The initiative isn’t much of an issue since it’s only used for stealthing since backstab is more than good enough damage.

I’m amused that your answer for countering the stealth is to “gain distance” since that simply gives the Thief more time to regenerate initiative that is regenerating (more so thanks to on-stealth traits) faster than most cooldowns (particularly the ones for blocking, etc.). Most classes can’t outrun the Thief either.

kenshinakh.3672:

XII, your first point is not right. Infiltrator’s arrow is 900 yrd. Only shadowstep is 1200 yards.

Actually, you’re mixing up a lot of things. The survivability and highly stealthy and mobile thieves are considered your “bunker” thieves. The damage they dish out is comparable to other bunker builds. They can’t take hits like some other bunkers, so they rely on dodging and stealthing for damage migitation.
Now, your high damage, glass cannon thieves, they only got high damage. They’re extremely squishy and can die quite easily. They don’t have the same mobility and stealth as your “bunker” thieves. They can try, but if they do, they can’t attack and it leaves them vulnerable afterwards.

It’s mind boggling on how much… information you have wrong in your post. If you want changes to thieves, then you need to really know the class and know how to beat them.

Do you guys ask yourselves why there are people who have no problem with countering thieves? That’s a serious question for people here demanding some rather class breaking changes. Several times people who play different classes also have said they don’t have an issue with thieves, and yet people choose to ignore them and toss their advice aside as if you’re saying “I don’t need your advice. I’m good enough. It’s just the class is OP.”

I mean, come on!. Read up on what these past 55 pages are about… If there are people who can beat thieves, then that means thieves can be fought on an even foot by other classes.

Sword ability number 2. Did you check the range on it? I suggest everyone goes into sPvP , press number 2 on the sword, walk around a bit then press it again..notice the insane range.

As for the so called excuse for repeated stealth as a ‘bunker build’ -funny twist on a broken mechanic, btw!- well..you can’t hit what you can’t see..but you can hit other bunker classes and interrupt them.. it is like a walking into a ring with a boxer that goes invisible every 6 seconds or even more given some traits and abilities -remember..stealth has no cooldown! Crazy..i know!- Would you rather fight a boxer that you can see or someone that sucker punches you every time?

I love how thief players try and discredit logical and rational breakdown of their class by the usual L2P and your wrong! you must be wrong! and this great one: Your mixing things.. When someone puts a detailed reply I would expect a good reply in turn..not your mixing things up . Awesome argument to my post, btw.

As for people defeating thiefs..anyone ever played against a good player who exploits a broken class? Its not the same as the other 90% of thieves. You also will be pigeon holed into certain builds and gear to try and survive one class.

Why should ALL the players take certain builds and wear certain gear and ruin their enjoyment to try and survive against your broken class?

I think the obvious answer is balance a single broken class and not re-design all the other classes in the game to accommodate its broken mechanics. FOTM players will find something else to exploit..no worries. Not everyone believes in a fair challenge.

We keep seeing these constructive replies and feedback by non-broken class players and all we see from those playing it are

Here is a video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHOpACoX4ic

Take a look and listen. He has to “miss several cloak and daggers before [he] is in trouble”. He also has several ways to reset the fight. He takes a good amount of punishment several times even though he doesn’t have +toughness gear. His damage is quite good, capable of taking down some tanky targets.

I’m also not seeing him forced to be unstealthed for 3 seconds after stealth breaks.

Sebrent.3625:

Here is a video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHOpACoX4ic

Take a look and listen. He has to “miss several cloak and daggers before [he] is in trouble”. He also has several ways to reset the fight. He takes a good amount of punishment several times even though he doesn’t have +toughness gear. His damage is quite good, capable of taking down some tanky targets.

I’m also not seeing him forced to be unstealthed for 3 seconds after stealth breaks.

He is also fighting very horrible players, thieves get immensely stronger with each bad player hes fighting.

Some of the players he fights are good.

Also, I should not be screwed against you because I have a teammate that blows except in the case that he somehow gets finished while you’re downed. There isn’t another class out there where given two equally skilled players, one suddenly has an advantage because the other one has a noob join the fight on their side.

All the things mentioned about the thief class “not being OP” that people have brought up have been largely dispelled by that video. I’ll go through them again:

• Have to miss “several cloak and daggers before [you are] in trouble”
• Have several ways to reset the fight
• Can take a good amount of punishment without +toughness gear
• Damage for a stealthy, non-glass cannon can take down even tanky/evasive characters … even when they have friends nearby.
• The Thief does not have to wait 3 seconds to re-stealth.

Wait. The guy is explaining that he’s purposefully choosing the squishiest targets, including other thieves which he downs easily. Against what is considered the most underpowered by a lot of players (rangers) he actually has the most trouble. It shows him being interrupted while stealth stomping on a number of occasions which should be impossible if you believe a lot of the please-nerf posts on this thread. He always gets into the most trouble when someone CCs him which is what thieves have been saying all along on this thread. His best/farthest away escape by the way…..is when he’s turned into a moa….. People keep thinking that this is a base line of the thief , but this guy is a good thief with commentary on how to play the thief carefully. Thieves keep getting painted with a broad brush because there are a wide variety of viable builds so what works against one is the completely wrong way to play against another. This leads to the idea that thieves somehow have access to 30/30/30/30/30 builds that do everything. All their experiences against the thief have homogenized it in their minds into one super-class. Thieves on the otherhand know what their build is capable of and know that a nerf to a small part that wouldn’t seriously affect another build would be extremely limiting to theirs. It is partly a l2p issue. The people in my guild used to have a lot of trouble with thieves. After a couple of months of playing alongside them and sparring in sPvP with them, they eat most thieves alive now (using necros and guardians). Thieves already have conditional, positional, and time constraints on them and the majority of the nerf comments here want to tighten those constraints even further while reducing the payoff, meanwhile we literally bounce off of some classes right now which is why there have been small buffs to our mobility to replace what the damage nerfs have taken away.

Edit: spelling… Dyac