Guild Wars 2

Sebrent.3625:

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.

Yeah no. Just because they were playing on the same server doesn’t make them a team. They were paying minimal attention to each other. You’ll notice that the thief was going for what he perceived as easy targets. Take a look at the sPvP boards. Thief’s been steadily dropping down most player’s tier lists.
And don’t try to punch up numbers with terminology. In that vid, the thief would take 2 misses before being out of initiative.
Also as stated above, this is an example of a good thief, displaying excellent knowledge of his limits and a generally good understanding of his opponents. Most thieves I can avoid with a level 20 character. And no thief I’ve seen can be a royal pain on a point to the degree I’ve seen other classes do.

The reason Thieves have been dropped down on the sPvP boards is because you can no longer capture/contest a point while stealth and this form of combat requires you to largely be in stealth. That much should be obvious.

The other reason is because D+D Elementalist and Guardian are so powerful at their respective roles in sPvP that many teams are taking 2 of each. This is something that was actually mentioned by 2 ArenaNet devs in an interview this month … also mentioned by the well-known, top-tier sPvP players in that same interview.

As far as “they weren’t on the same team”. Those guys were trying to kill him while he constantly stealthed and plinked away at that Ranger. I’m sorry, but I don’t know any other class that can constantly harass one player in the middle of a zerg like that without eventually dying from the damage from 10 players. If he had been able to do that for a few seconds or simply downed a squishy I wouldn’t care, but he was able to consistently keep pressure on a tanky player with an entire group trying to kill the one stealth thief picking them off one-by-one.

There’s only 2 devs working on the class balance and class bugfixes , so they don’t have the manpower to make drastic changes to the balance so it’s not likely the professions are gonna be altered heavily.

So the balance is what it is, live with it or move on to games with an actual qa people.

i wonder how many of the complainers are those who see a thief running toward them, see the basilisk venom buff by their health, do nothing to avoid being petrified, get bursted and complain about how op we are. i shake my head at those who are so quick to say how op thieves are or how stealth is so op. you want to know what i think is op? coming from a thief? Crowd control like crippled chilled immo’d you name it. If im immo’d in a zerg, thats game right there. You want to know why i disengage? because what you guys were doing to try and kill me, it was working. so, keep doing it. want to know why i reengage? because after i dissapeared you guys thought that i was gone and cleverly turned your backs and proceeded to run away. honestly when people do this they should have a consumable item that when double clicked puts giant bold lettering over your head saying Please Backstab Me!

and if youre roaming and you get killed be a roaming thief, honestly what else do you expect? at this point youre in their territory which is most likely a wide open area. people throw the term “fair” around like nothing. what is fair? if you consider fair to be when both sides have an equal chance of winning and losing, then from my experiences, a lot of fights were fair. if you get killed in 1v1 by a thief approaching you head on then in my eyes, thats a fair fight. its not about being fair people just want to win. none of the thief haters want a fair fight, they want a fight that gives them a high chance of winning. i will admit being bursted from behind with BV can be rough, but other than that, there hasnt been a fight that when i lost i havent looked back and thought of something i couldve done differently.

Sebrent.3625:

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.

Use your greatsword 5 and res your teammate no? isnt that easy enough? lol if he trys to jump on you. You should have your stunbreak/blinks up and ready at all time when you know a thief is near by.
Not everyone runs shadow arts traits, There is alot of GC thieves who don’t even touch shadow arts.

Well put Red. Anytime I lose I look back and see what I could have done differently to win. Although the argument we will get here is “you’re permastealthed, we can’t see you”. I feel that’s complete bs… I’ve never engaged a thief that was 100% stealthed throughout the fight and I spend most of my time in wvw. I’d like to see video from the people like Columba and others who are posting in this thread of their own encounters with thieves so we all have a better idea of what’s happening.

Sebrent.3625:

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.

You miss 2 cloak and daggers your are already in trouble and lost of dps if not dead already.
Several ways of reset how? only hide in shadows and shadow steps assuming you have no iniatiave from missing your CnD
Take a good amount of punishment? you serious right here? if a butterfly lands on a thief they just go downed.
Just cause they are non glass cannon doesnt mean they are hard to kill, at most they have 20k hp with damage reduction of at least 2-3k of a GC thief for swapping for vit and they still have no toughness.
They do not have to wait 3 second to restealth. Yes, thief can chain stealth but if they screw up and stealth wears off before chaining they dont get stealthed at all and get revealed..

Lofat.2406:

Well put Red. Anytime I lose I look back and see what I could have done differently to win. Although the argument we will get here is “you’re permastealthed, we can’t see you”. I feel that’s complete bs… I’ve never engaged a thief that was 100% stealthed throughout the fight and I spend most of my time in wvw. I’d like to see video from the people like Columba and others who are posting in this thread of their own encounters with thieves so we all have a better idea of what’s happening.

I really wish that the people would bring up these thieves in pvp or even wvw if they go the lengths to use the report tool to figure out their names because kitten I want to know what THAT guy was doing because I don’t have that luck. Personally I think it’s a pride thing. People associate the weakest class defense with being incredibly easy to beat, so when we beat say a warrior then oh snap something isn’t right here. I think its inherently believed that if you see a thief that= a free kill (we have rangers for that : p). Like I said, people will only say something is fair if they are the victor. If they lost then the enemy clearly had some unbalanced class mechanic.

You know what I’ve even seen people do and complain about? Once in spvp I was immo’d and when someone ran up to me I CnD’d and he stopped, waited, I broke free killed him and called me a noob. Stealth does not mean I warped or entered a realm of gods in which I can spawn anywhere on the map and reign hell. Chances are, now everyone get close this is a big secret i want everyone to hear this….chances are, if you hit a thief with a crowd control and he doesn’t shadow step but instead goes into stealth
<.<
>.>
v.v
^.^
chances are, he’s still there gasp surely you cant just keep attacking that area no.
I cant tell you how many times people have downed me after ive went in stealth from like a shadow refuge and walked away letting me rez myself. Then they get angry and wonder wth I just did ….
one time i had a gs ranger almost kill me, I shad ref’d and he was literally staring me in the face! I was almost angry he didnt just swing and get me.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Lofat.2406:

Well put Red. Anytime I lose I look back and see what I could have done differently to win. Although the argument we will get here is “you’re permastealthed, we can’t see you”. I feel that’s complete bs… I’ve never engaged a thief that was 100% stealthed throughout the fight and I spend most of my time in wvw. I’d like to see video from the people like Columba and others who are posting in this thread of their own encounters with thieves so we all have a better idea of what’s happening.

I really wish that the people would bring up these thieves in pvp or even wvw if they go the lengths to use the report tool to figure out their names because kitten I want to know what THAT guy was doing because I don’t have that luck. Personally I think it’s a pride thing. People associate the weakest class defense with being incredibly easy to beat, so when we beat say a warrior then oh snap something isn’t right here. I think its inherently believed that if you see a thief that= a free kill (we have rangers for that : p). Like I said, people will only say something is fair if they are the victor. If they lost then the enemy clearly had some unbalanced class mechanic.

You know what I’ve even seen people do and complain about? Once in spvp I was immo’d and when someone ran up to me I CnD’d and he stopped, waited, I broke free killed him and called me a noob. Stealth does not mean I warped or entered a realm of gods in which I can spawn anywhere on the map and reign hell. Chances are, now everyone get close this is a big secret i want everyone to hear this….chances are, if you hit a thief with a crowd control and he doesn’t shadow step but instead goes into stealth
<.<
>.>
v.v
^.^
chances are, he’s still there gasp surely you cant just keep attacking that area no.
I cant tell you how many times people have downed me after ive went in stealth from like a shadow refuge and walked away letting me rez myself. Then they get angry and wonder wth I just did ….
one time i had a gs ranger almost kill me, I shad ref’d and he was literally staring me in the face! I was almost angry he didnt just swing and get me.

Cause shadow refugee makes you immune to all damage doesnt it? lol

^Yup, im a freaking ghost >:D

Well thousands have done exactly what you claim and get different results. they don’t play thieves though.

I admire you guys/Gals who have played thieves and really understand your class. I have a lvl80 thief that I could not or did not enjoy Pve or Spvp with. However in WVW with food and other buffs I found it too boring to play. However that is where I leveled him.

So any comments I am about to make are based purely on my expeience/observations from the other side of the fence.

I posted on the wvw forum my experience last night which to me is the core of the issue that most non thieves have with the class. Not for one second do I want to see the nerf bat thrown at any class. My ele Aoe after 3 seconds may hit someone or more likely I am dead before it goes off. Since the reduction to 5 targets nerfed me i am better to use single target for better results. The AoE is only used to take seige down

So that being said we took a tower last night In the mop up I found a thief who every so briefly appeared. Now 8 players plus arrow carts could not flush him out. We saw him gone puff of grey smoke gone. Now for those who know this was the sw tower on home map not a large space. He avoided all attemps to hit him. Arrows rained everywhere AoE spammed. We did not leave the tower as he is capable of taking it back solo. Eventually we sat down and out of thin air he joined us. Was a nice jesture and if we could we would of shared a beer with him. WvW is not always about badges

This is just one example I am used to being killed in 3 shots from a thief in less than 2 seconds and I just say too bad so sad and get back to the fight. When10plus players cannot stop one thief something is broken. I cannot blame culling as there was only 1 enemy and 8 players all in one static place.

I am sure from the thieves perspective there are many things broken not working as intended but the above is a partial reason why there is so much QQ.

Stealth is great so long as you can be unstealthed——not possible
There is no class for example ranger that can use a pet to find you
You are at the other side of the map where your house is.
Aoe does not work because by the time its cast you are gone

I am not here to winge or complain I hope like all classes there is an even balance and hope any bat swinging is a considered approach and increases the balance for all bearing in mind all 3 aspects of the game

Columba.9730:

Well thousands have done exactly what you claim and get different results. they don’t play thieves though.

Different results = player skill of doing that. Not the class.

yeah yeah. everyone other than thieves have to l2p. ok.

Columba.9730:

yeah yeah. everyone other than thieves have to l2p. ok.

Why do you think i rarely have any problem vsing thieves when using my warrior? why? because i know how to fight them. Just cause some people like yourself have a problem and don’t get it yet doesn’t mean its over powering you just have to learn and adapt on how to fight thieves.

Stealth has always been a problem in any MMO. Any damage that you output upfront without time to setup, gives no warning to the victim. It’s too easy. Any noob can do it. Luckly, the Thief doesn’t have much control skills or else it would be a lot worse.

When you design a class that insta kills another player without giving enough time for that player to react; its a problem with the class not the player. It’s not fun for the person getting killed and it’s not fun for the person doing the killing either.

It’s completely stupid.

Calae.1738:

Stealth has always been a problem in any MMO. Any damage that you output upfront without time to setup, gives no warning to the victim. It’s too easy. Any noob can do it. Luckly, the Thief doesn’t have much control skills or else it would be a lot worse.

When you design a class that insta kills another player without giving enough time for that player to react; its a problem with the class not the player. It’s not fun for the person getting killed and it’s not fun for the person doing the killing either.

It’s completely stupid.

No time to react? Since when did Steal CnD BS Combo time to execute become less than 1 second? it takes at least a good 2-3 seconds to execute and if you dont react after getting hit by the steal you shouldnt even be alive.

when thieves get permastealth and massive dps, there is no time to react.

Columba.9730:

when thieves get permastealth and massive dps, there is no time to react.

/Facepalm there goes your pointless rant again resetting yourself. how many times do you reset yourself when you cant even counter a argument in a day?
I’ve told you many flaws and ways to kill an thieve yet you keep going back to the same argument.

we all see the permastealthing before our eyes. first it was “permastealth is impossible.” then when proven wrong it was “well it’s useless.” then when proven wrong it was “well no one does it but noob thieves.” Now it’s “well you can counter it..”

Columba.9730:

we all see the permastealthing before our eyes. first it was “permastealth is impossible.” then when proven wrong it was “well it’s useless.” then when proven wrong it was “well no one does it but noob thieves.” Now it’s “well you can counter it..”

You base this off other players. Not me Lol when did i ever say it was impossible, permastealth thief trades damage for hp,and longer cloak/iniatiave gain. Idk what you want… you say its overly OP yet someone with the right skill can kill thieves? So if i die to any class must be OP right and they should nerf.

Its like telling anet “i want to faceroll my keyboard and win all fights with any character” is it not?

There’s time to react or else it would be unanimous by everyone who plays (other professions) that thieves can’t be killed, thieves are OP, thieves can’t be targeted, or thieves cannot be countered. Unfortunately for your argument, a lot of players at all skill levels don’t have the problems that you do and can handle thieves of all builds without issues.

While I’m sure people do have issues with thieves, I’m sure just as many, if not more, do not have those problems or ANet would have resolved them by now in one of the many patches they have put out.

well look at the thousands of posts in this thread alone. look to the posts in the wvwvw forum. all saying that perma stealth in wvwvw is broken. it’s not just me.

Columba.9730:

we all see the permastealthing before our eyes. first it was “permastealth is impossible.” then when proven wrong it was “well it’s useless.” then when proven wrong it was “well no one does it but noob thieves.” Now it’s “well you can counter it..”

That’s because you have many different ideas and definitions for “permastealth” based on what argument suits your purpose at the time.

Columba.9730:

well look at the thousands of posts in this thread alone. look to the posts in the wvwvw forum. all saying that perma stealth in wvwvw is broken. it’s not just me.

Of course it’s not just you, you only account for 90% of them…

Sebrent.3625:

The reason Thieves have been dropped down on the sPvP boards is because you can no longer capture/contest a point while stealth and this form of combat requires you to largely be in stealth. That much should be obvious.

You never could capture points in Stealth. Not since game release and many betas before that too.

Calae.1738:

Stealth has always been a problem in any MMO. Any damage that you output upfront without time to setup, gives no warning to the victim. It’s too easy. Any noob can do it. Luckly, the Thief doesn’t have much control skills or else it would be a lot worse.

When you design a class that insta kills another player without giving enough time for that player to react; its a problem with the class not the player. It’s not fun for the person getting killed and it’s not fun for the person doing the killing either.

It’s completely stupid.

Instagibbing is cheap and annoying but isn’t a thief only thing… plenty of classes can do the instagib.

The problem is not the instagib. That’s just glass cannon, and lots of specs can glass cannon.

The problem is the stealth, it gives too much survivability, and too many outs for bad players who make mistakes.

Most glass cannons blow their load and then are in trouble because they are vulnerable and lack survivability.

Thieves go stealth, eles RTL away and mesmers evade/clone out. These 3 classes have too easy access to escapes, and this is the problem.

xiv.7136:

The problem is not the instagib. That’s just glass cannon, and lots of specs can glass cannon.

The problem is the stealth, it gives too much survivability, and too many outs for bad players who make mistakes.

Most glass cannons blow their load and then are in trouble because they are vulnerable and lack survivability.

Thieves go stealth, eles RTL away and mesmers evade/clone out. These 3 classes have too easy access to escapes, and this is the problem.

There are more classes than that with outs. Warhorn GS warriors?

Wait don’t you play a asuran guardian who posted the video getting hit by a thief with all your cooldowns down then complaining you got killed after you went to gank a underleveled in the middle of a zerg?

Here’s the thing, I’m not talking about all Thief specs, I’m talking about two.

Burst Thieves are able to kill a person within a second of initiating on them and without that person ever seeing the Thief’s avatar before being downed. This doesn’t happen to tanky builds, but it is an issue that people have to be tanky to avoid a situation where they are downed by someone before even seeing that someone. That’s not fun. If it was, give engineer back their normal mine kit, make mines invis, and let a 5 mine stack insta-gib people. We’ll see how “fun” that gets.

Stealth Thieves, as illustrated in the video I posted (and there are so many online, just look) is able to stealth so much that unless the player decides to fight with several abilities on cooldown (which they have a choice in), they are fine. In fact, they are able to hunt down people within a group. If the group wisens up, the Thief gets away. Other classes would die when the group wisens up. The thief merely has to bide their time or find a new target … and the Thief is fast enough that that isn’t a problem.

RedSpectrum.1975:

you want to know what i think is op? coming from a thief? Crowd control like crippled chilled immo’d you name it. If im immo’d in a zerg, thats game right there. You want to know why i disengage? because what you guys were doing to try and kill me, it was working. so, keep doing it. want to know why i reengage? because after i dissapeared you guys thought that i was gone and cleverly turned your backs and proceeded to run away. honestly when people do this they should have a consumable item that when double clicked puts giant bold lettering over your head saying Please Backstab Me!

Thanks for highlighting this. You know what happens to non-thief classes when they get crowd controlled in a zerg? They die. The thief disengages and waits for a better chance.

You know what happens if a warrior escapes from a zerg and runs off and that zerg turns their backs to the warrior? They live and if the warrior comes back they again see him and react to him.

Jerks.3172:

Several ways of reset how? only hide in shadows and shadow steps assuming you have no iniatiave from missing your CnD

You’re not mentioning Shadow Refuge, Blinding Powder nor the trait, Last Refuge, that gives you Blinding Powder when 25% hp. That’s a ton of stealth.

Jerks.3172:

Take a good amount of punishment? you serious right here? if a butterfly lands on a thief they just go downed.

Watch the video. There are plenty of times he gets CC’d and takes quite a good number of hits and lives. There’s my evidence and he had ZERO +toughness on his gear, just a few pieces w/ Valk stats.

Jerks.3172:

They do not have to wait 3 second to restealth. Yes, thief can chain stealth but if they screw up and stealth wears off before chaining they dont get stealthed at all and get revealed..

<sarcasm>It must be so hard to chain stealth when you can hit clones, phantasms, ranger pets, random critters, and neutral NPCs in order to continue stealthing.

It must also be difficult to hit people who can’t see you so don’t know when to block/dodge to prevent you hitting them. </sarcasm>

As far as the advice to “blindly swing at the area you think the Thief is stealthed at” … how is that fun?! Against non-Thief classes, we get to see our opponent, react to each other’s skills, etc.. Against the Thief we have to guess that the thief was dumb enough not to dodge roll while stealthed and blindly swing? That’s “awesome” and it works if the thief is low on health and too dumb to take advantage of the dodge roll mechanics and their high movespeed. Dumb thieves are not the problem.

I have provided a video and a screenshot illustrating what people are talking about. What have you thieves been illustrating? That you don’t want any nerfs.

Let’s be honest. There is a reason for the massive influx of Thieves we’re seeing in World vs World. About 1/4 of my server’s WvWers last night were Thieves and it was the class I kept constantly running into from other servers as well.

There are obvious reasons Thieves are so prominent in WvW while other specific classes are not.

I’ll put it this way.

When I face a good player playing any other class, I am fine with losing the fight and I reflect on their likely build, how my build pairs up to it, possible weaknesses exposed in mine, and how the flow of the fight went as far as mistakes made and things done “perfectly” by both sides. I am able to do this because non-Thief classes offer good fights.

However, I do not have this feeling when it comes to Thieves playing those 2 builds as forcing people to blindly swipe at air constantly throughout a fight or forcing them to play a tanky build or be insta-gibbed by an invisible enemy are not good fights.

Jerks.3172:

Calae.1738:

Stealth has always been a problem in any MMO. Any damage that you output upfront without time to setup, gives no warning to the victim. It’s too easy. Any noob can do it. Luckly, the Thief doesn’t have much control skills or else it would be a lot worse.

When you design a class that insta kills another player without giving enough time for that player to react; its a problem with the class not the player. It’s not fun for the person getting killed and it’s not fun for the person doing the killing either.

It’s completely stupid.

No time to react? Since when did Steal CnD BS Combo time to execute become less than 1 second? it takes at least a good 2-3 seconds to execute and if you dont react after getting hit by the steal you shouldnt even be alive.

Wrong.

I have a Thief buddy. All you need are the venoms that stun or immoblize and you’re toast. We can argue all day about this. If you think 2 seconds of reaction time is enough, you’re delusional. That’s not even taking lag into account either.

Calae.1738:

Jerks.3172:

No time to react? Since when did Steal CnD BS Combo time to execute become less than 1 second? it takes at least a good 2-3 seconds to execute and if you dont react after getting hit by the steal you shouldnt even be alive.

Wrong.

I have a Thief buddy. All you need are the venoms that stun or immoblize and you’re toast. We can argue all day about this. If you think 2 seconds of reaction time is enough, you’re delusional. That’s not even taking lag into account either.

I also have a thief buddy. Me.

And guess what? I avoid the backstab in a Mug>Immo>C&D>BS chain at least 80% of the time.

Guess that means it’s a l2p thing, huh?

“However, I do not have this feeling when it comes to Thieves playing those 2 builds as forcing people to blindly swipe at air constantly throughout a fight or forcing them to play a tanky build or be insta-gibbed by an invisible enemy are not good fights.”

Seb, isn’t this really a case of you having problems on your Ranger and Mesmer with these two thief builds?

Every rock build has a paper build to fight in this game somewhere. That’s actually a good thing.. there should be no uber build or uber class. You should get smashed by stuff that exploits your weakness… your Mesmer needs time or a visible target to do it’s stuff.. the thief fulfills the roles of fast killer or heavy stealthier, ergo, it’s not fun for you to fight these two builds because you can’t make your toon do what allows you to win.

Sebrent.3625:

Burst Thieves are able to kill a person within a second of initiating on them and without that person ever seeing the Thief’s avatar before being downed. This doesn’t happen to tanky builds, but it is an issue that people have to be tanky to avoid a situation where they are downed by someone before even seeing that someone. That’s not fun. If it was, give engineer back their normal mine kit, make mines invis, and let a 5 mine stack insta-gib people. We’ll see how “fun” that gets.

If you get caught not paying attention to your surroundings, that’s on you. Stupid burst happens on many classes, not just thief. You can react and avoid the BS, I’ve done so SEVERAL times before. It might require a little more reaction speed than some people seem to be capable, which is more of a l2p thing, which is why we see so much QQ. And for your Engie reference, you’ve apparently never seen a 100nades GC do their work. I PROMISE you their burst is 10x worse than a GC thief.

Sebrent.3625:

Stealth Thieves, as illustrated in the video I posted (and there are so many online, just look) is able to stealth so much that unless the player decides to fight with several abilities on cooldown (which they have a choice in), they are fine. In fact, they are able to hunt down people within a group. If the group wisens up, the Thief gets away. Other classes would die when the group wisens up. The thief merely has to bide their time or find a new target … and the Thief is fast enough that that isn’t a problem.

What you saw in that video is a group of randoms running around like chickens with their heads cut off. No communication, no cohesion, and clearly a lack of skill. Hell, he even got Moa’d and still managed to get away. F’ing ridiculous.

Sebrent.3625:

Thanks for highlighting this. You know what happens to non-thief classes when they get crowd controlled in a zerg? They die. The thief disengages and waits for a better chance.

Ok, this is just ludicrous. Apparently the thief is the only class that has means for escape. Sensationalizing your argument just makes it sound more desperate. As for disengaging and waiting for a better chance, anyone that escapes can also do that. You make it seem like they can stealth from miles away and just waltz back into the heart of the zerg. 4 seconds max on that stealth, and if the zerg is so unaware that they don’t notice his approach, they deserve it.

Sebrent.3625:

You’re not mentioning Shadow Refuge, Blinding Powder nor the trait, Last Refuge, that gives you Blinding Powder when 25% hp. That’s a ton of stealth.

If you SR in a zerg, you’ll be downed in a second if anyone has ANY common sense, but you operate on a “everyone is minimally exceptional” protocol, I see. Furthermore, Last Refuge is more of a liability that it is a gift, you’ll see many thieves (including myself) wishing they could opt out of it’s effects. When you’re in a situation that your health is dropping to 25%, you’ll be desperately trying to land C&D. You’ll more often than not land that critical C&D when blinding powder procs, and thus enter revealed. Do some research, you’ll find just how unpopular that trait really is.

Sebrent.3625:

Watch the video. There are plenty of times he gets CC’d and takes quite a good number of hits and lives. There’s my evidence and he had ZERO +toughness on his gear, just a few pieces w/ Valk stats.

He had +300 in Shadow Arts trait line, and +100 from food. +400 toughness is nothing to sneeze at. So yeah, there’s my evidence you’re wrong.

Sebrent.3625:

As far as the advice to “blindly swing at the area you think the Thief is stealthed at” … how is that fun?! Against non-Thief classes, we get to see our opponent, react to each other’s skills, etc.. Against the Thief we have to guess that the thief was dumb enough not to dodge roll while stealthed and blindly swing? That’s “awesome” and it works if the thief is low on health and too dumb to take advantage of the dodge roll mechanics and their high movespeed. Dumb thieves are not the problem.

So what’s your excuse when you see us and fail to “react” to our C&D? This insane notion that we are invisible 100% of the time is going way too far, and you and Columba are sensationalizing a problem that is non-existent, other than a documented culling bug that is being addressed. Should you have that extra second, however, I promise you you’d still be crying, so it’s a moot point anyway. I feel like I’m arguing with a brick wall.

Sebrent, really, I don’t mind you, you seem like a rational guy (unlike some people in this thread, who remain nameless), but you’re accusing the thief of being easymode when it is abundantly obvious that you’ve never tried playing one before. Please, I implore you, roll one and check out WvW and you’ll realize it’s in no way as easy as you make it out to be. I dare you to play a thief without stealthing, or minimally stealthing, and see what that gets you, besides a one-way ticket to getting the hell out of Dodge.

Laika.8795:

Calae.1738:

Jerks.3172:

No time to react? Since when did Steal CnD BS Combo time to execute become less than 1 second? it takes at least a good 2-3 seconds to execute and if you dont react after getting hit by the steal you shouldnt even be alive.

Wrong.

I have a Thief buddy. All you need are the venoms that stun or immoblize and you’re toast. We can argue all day about this. If you think 2 seconds of reaction time is enough, you’re delusional. That’s not even taking lag into account either.

I also have a thief buddy. Me.

And guess what? I avoid the backstab in a Mug>Immo>C&D>BS chain at least 80% of the time.

Guess that means it’s a l2p thing, huh?

That’s because you can anticipate it. That’s also assuming you can spot the Thief BEFORE he initiates the steal. If you’re both standing in front of each other like in the wild west waiting for the first guy to make a move; then I can understand your point.

If you don’t know where the Thief is and he has the jump on you; the combo will execute 99% of the time. Even if you survive the combo; I’d have already forced your defensive cooldowns placing me at an advantage. Now I can just roam around you like a predator in stealth and strike again when you least expect it.

Calae.1738:

That’s because you can anticipate it. That’s also assuming you can spot the Thief BEFORE he initiates the steal. If you’re both standing in front of each other like in the wild west waiting for the first guy to make a move; then I can understand your point.

If you don’t know where the Thief is and he has the jump on you; the combo will execute 99% of the time. Even if you survive the combo; I’d have already forced your defensive cooldowns placing me at an advantage. Now I can just roam around you like a predator in stealth and strike again when you least expect it.

I’ve been hit by thieves I was unaware of before, and still broke out. I actually find it MORE helpful when they use BV because I get a more telling visual cue as to what’s happening. It’s more tricky when it comes from behind because there’s no positioning required, but face it, EVERY burst build that takes you from behind is going to affect you in a similar way. It’s just something you have to deal with, and is not unique to thieves.

Furthermore, you may have wasted your defensive CD’s, but pretty much all of these burst builds don’t even HAVE defensive CD’s, so you’re on equal footing.

Laika.8795:

Calae.1738:

That’s because you can anticipate it. That’s also assuming you can spot the Thief BEFORE he initiates the steal. If you’re both standing in front of each other like in the wild west waiting for the first guy to make a move; then I can understand your point.

If you don’t know where the Thief is and he has the jump on you; the combo will execute 99% of the time. Even if you survive the combo; I’d have already forced your defensive cooldowns placing me at an advantage. Now I can just roam around you like a predator in stealth and strike again when you least expect it.

I’ve been hit by thieves I was unaware of before, and still broke out. I actually find it MORE helpful when they use BV because I get a more telling visual cue as to what’s happening. It’s more tricky when it comes from behind because there’s no positioning required, but face it, EVERY burst build that takes you from behind is going to affect you in a similar way. It’s just something you have to deal with, and is not unique to thieves.

Furthermore, you may have wasted your defensive CD’s, but pretty much all of these burst builds don’t even HAVE defensive CD’s, so you’re on equal footing.

On my Elementalist, you can see me coming because it`s a big glowing white ball charging at you. Further more, the updraft knock down is a clear visual indicator that I will switch to Fire, Burning Speed / Fire Grab you for 10k. You have plenty of time to use your stun breaker and avoid it.

Classes that front load thier damage without setup are badly designed.

Columba.9730:

we all see the permastealthing before our eyes. first it was “permastealth is impossible.” then when proven wrong it was “well it’s useless.” then when proven wrong it was “well no one does it but noob thieves.” Now it’s “well you can counter it..”

I can’t believe after like 1 week you’re still crying about the same thing, can’t you realise that perma-stealth thieves can’t burst? And if you’re smart enough, it’s easy to break their “perma-stealth”, I already told you how but seems like your mind keeps resetting each time you lose an argument.

Calae.1738:

On my Elementalist, you can see me coming because it`s a big glowing white ball charging at you. Further more, the updraft knock down is a clear visual indicator that I will switch to Fire, Burning Speed / Fire Grab you for 10k. You have plenty of time to use your stun breaker and avoid it.

Classes that front load thier damage without setup are badly designed.

I’ll be concede: I agree that much. I think Mug>C&D>BS is cheesy, and I wish mug was changed tbh, as it does way too much damage for a T1 trait. This is not how I play anyway, however, so it doesn’t really affect me…

Nevertheless, I’m just disputing the fact that it is unavoidable as I’ve done it several times because I have awareness of my surroundings, not to mention enough toughness to not get insta-gibbed…

I find that Pistol/Dagger + Pistol/Pistol thief has a really unfair advantage in wvw/pvp situations, where an open field for battle exists and the class you are playing has not got many gap closers. The mechanics around the thief’s success involve to stay in range and to try to stay in stealth for as long as possible. I’ve found that it’s really easy to bring down classes with little gap closers, as staying in stealth is the most efficient way to keep your target under control.

Does anyone agree that in such situations, playing thief is exploiting an unfair advantage, or is it simply down to advantages between combat mechanics for you? Have other classes brought you down easily when playing this type of build? Cause for me so far it’s been a breeze.

rylark.3418:

Columba.9730:

we all see the permastealthing before our eyes. first it was “permastealth is impossible.” then when proven wrong it was “well it’s useless.” then when proven wrong it was “well no one does it but noob thieves.” Now it’s “well you can counter it..”

I can’t believe after like 1 week you’re still crying about the same thing, can’t you realise that perma-stealth thieves can’t burst? And if you’re smart enough, it’s easy to break their “perma-stealth”, I already told you how but seems like your mind keeps resetting each time you lose an argument.

I don’t see how “perma-stealth thieves can’t burst” is a cogent counterpoint. Lots of builds can’t burst — that doesn’t mean they can’t kill.

Eliyahu.1467:

I don’t see how “perma-stealth thieves can’t burst” is a cogent counterpoint. Lots of builds can’t burst — that doesn’t mean they can’t kill.

They can kill. They can also be killed. Fancy that.

Laika.8795:

If you get caught not paying attention to your surroundings, that’s on you. Stupid burst happens on many classes, not just thief. You can react and avoid the BS, I’ve done so SEVERAL times before. It might require a little more reaction speed than some people seem to be capable, which is more of a l2p thing, which is why we see so much QQ. And for your Engie reference, you’ve apparently never seen a 100nades GC do their work. I PROMISE you their burst is 10x worse than a GC thief.

My issue with this is that you don’t see the Thief at all until a second or two after you’re downed. With the 100nades engineer, you see the engineer and you see the AOE circle. That’s the defining difference that bothers me. I’m well aware that a 100nades engineer, quickness 100blades warrior, etc. can burst you down just as quickly. The difference is that you see their character performing the action(s). With the thief you do not see them performing the action.

Laika.8795:

Sebrent.3625:

Thanks for highlighting this. You know what happens to non-thief classes when they get crowd controlled in a zerg? They die. The thief disengages and waits for a better chance.

Ok, this is just ludicrous. Apparently the thief is the only class that has means for escape. Sensationalizing your argument just makes it sound more desperate. As for disengaging and waiting for a better chance, anyone that escapes can also do that. You make it seem like they can stealth from miles away and just waltz back into the heart of the zerg. 4 seconds max on that stealth, and if the zerg is so unaware that they don’t notice his approach, they deserve it.

No, there is a massive difference between a Thief stealthing and escaping and my Mesmer stealthing and escaping.
(1) My mesmer is MUCH slower than your thief
(2) To continue stealthing like the thief I have to have multiple skills (decoy, veil, prestige [torch], mass invis [an elite]) … and even with all 4 I am less able to stealth than the Thief.
(3) With traits, all thief stealths removes conditions, heals, and regens initiative … Mesmer stealth, at best, can give you aegis, protection, or regen … and it’s random and requires 30 pts in Chaos for this one trait.

Now, I’ll concede that Mesmer has distortion and clones confuse noobs, but Thief also has several movement abilities that are also evades.

When it comes to other classes escaping, they break the stun and/or remove the chill/cripple/immobilize only to be hit by another one by the zerg. It is much more difficult for non-Thief classes to escape from the middle of a zerg the way the Thief does.

Laika.8795:

If you SR in a zerg, you’ll be downed in a second if anyone has ANY common sense, but you operate on a “everyone is minimally exceptional” protocol, I see. Furthermore, Last Refuge is more of a liability that it is a gift, you’ll see many thieves (including myself) wishing they could opt out of it’s effects. When you’re in a situation that your health is dropping to 25%, you’ll be desperately trying to land C&D. You’ll more often than not land that critical C&D when blinding powder procs, and thus enter revealed. Do some research, you’ll find just how unpopular that trait really is.

Plenty of thieves use Shadow Refuge as just another quick stealth. There is no rule that says you have to stand in there. Furthermore, you can dodge roll around in it. Furthermore, I’m not talking about zerg vs zerg in all my examples. When I’m roaming, the fact that a zerg can chase a thief out of their refuge is not helpful.

As far as Blinding Powder at 25% hp, that’s a corner case for that trait that people complain about. Many times it saves thieves butts. Mesmer has a similar trait that gives decoy at 25% so I’m aware of the issues.

Laika.8795:

He had +300 in Shadow Arts trait line, and +100 from food. +400 toughness is nothing to sneeze at. So yeah, there’s my evidence you’re wrong.

It’s nowhere close to what a tanky build has. Simply stating numbers doesn’t mean a thing. That video shows that people are quite wrong when they say things like “Thief dies to a slight breeze” or “Thief can’t be both tough and do good damage”. The video shows both those types of statements to be wrong.

Laika.8795:

So what’s your excuse when you see us and fail to “react” to our C&D? This insane notion that we are invisible 100% of the time is going way too far, and you and Columba are sensationalizing a problem that is non-existent, other than a documented culling bug that is being addressed. Should you have that extra second, however, I promise you you’d still be crying, so it’s a moot point anyway. I feel like I’m arguing with a brick wall.

You have admitted in other posts that clipping is an issue. It does make the Thief invis almost 100% in WvW if they so wish it. The abundance of NPCs, etc. that I’ve listed multiple times as well make it trivial as well to land a C&D.

There are so many videos that show thieves popping out of stealth for only a second and then restealthing. It isn’t “sensationalized”. It is something that there is a pile of video evidence for.

Heck, when looking for the ways people counter stealth thieves, you have to be tanky enough to handle their burst, have CC to keep them from stealthing, and have enough burst to kill them during that CC.

If you don’t have all three, then they are going to burst you down for not being tanky enough, continue stealthing, or simply survive your damage while CC’d.

Eliyahu.1467:

rylark.3418:

Columba.9730:

we all see the permastealthing before our eyes. first it was “permastealth is impossible.” then when proven wrong it was “well it’s useless.” then when proven wrong it was “well no one does it but noob thieves.” Now it’s “well you can counter it..”

I can’t believe after like 1 week you’re still crying about the same thing, can’t you realise that perma-stealth thieves can’t burst? And if you’re smart enough, it’s easy to break their “perma-stealth”, I already told you how but seems like your mind keeps resetting each time you lose an argument.

I don’t see how “perma-stealth thieves can’t burst” is a cogent counterpoint. Lots of builds can’t burst — that doesn’t mean they can’t kill.

Well when they get out of stealth just CC them down, it’s not that hard. Since he can’t burst you down, is takes pretty much time for him to kill a guy.

Sebrent.3625:

Plenty of thieves use Shadow Refuge as just another quick stealth. There is no rule that says you have to stand in there. Furthermore, you can dodge roll around in it. Furthermore, I’m not talking about zerg vs zerg in all my examples. When I’m roaming, the fact that a zerg can chase a thief out of their refuge is not helpful.

Except that there is a rule that says you have to stand in there. That rule is: if you leave the circle, you are unstealthed and revealed for 3 seconds. You can dodge roll around in it, but should you accidentally pop out, you’re guaranteed dead. You can also get pulled out like, by a Mesmer, KB’d out by say a warrior… many other things too (CC’d inside to keep you from dodging) It’s an extremely risky proposition, but luckily it seems our enemies have a hard time realizing that in SR we don’t enter GODMODE REALM like Columba makes it out to be.

Sebrent.3625:

As far as Blinding Powder at 25% hp, that’s a corner case for that trait that people complain about. Many times it saves thieves butts. Mesmer has a similar trait that gives decoy at 25% so I’m aware of the issues.

I fail to see how gaining a decoy at 25% is a disadvantage for you, whereas blinding powder proccing as you C&D (or attack in general) puts you on revealed for 3 seconds and completely negates all mitigation you may have gained. I promise you, it is a curse more than it is a blessing a vast majority of the time.

Sebrent.3625:

It’s nowhere close to what a tanky build has. Simply stating numbers doesn’t mean a thing. That video shows that people are quite wrong when they say things like “Thief dies to a slight breeze” or “Thief can’t be both tough and do good damage”. The video shows both those types of statements to be wrong.

You’re right, it’s not a tanky build, but enough to mitigate damage. He’s selectively thinning the heard of weak targets, and the groups he is fighting are too stupid to understand how to counter him. If your teammate gets downed by a thief, rain aoe or autoattack over their body and it’s over. You rarely saw that in the video, and when you did, you also saw the thief run away and abandon the stomp.

Sebrent.3625:

You have admitted in other posts that clipping is an issue. It does make the Thief invis almost 100% in WvW if they so wish it. The abundance of NPCs, etc. that I’ve listed multiple times as well make it trivial as well to land a C&D.

There are so many videos that show thieves popping out of stealth for only a second and then restealthing. It isn’t “sensationalized”. It is something that there is a pile of video evidence for.

Yes, it’s also wasting 6 (4 w/ trait) initiative just to stay stealthed, procing it off things like random white con fauna that is not hurting you. Do you think it’s something you can do forever if you want to eventually engage your enemy?? Yes, you can get trolled by a thief C&D stacking on you. Gain distance and move on, or force him to engage at reduced initiative.

Laika.8795:

Sebrent.3625:

As far as Blinding Powder at 25% hp, that’s a corner case for that trait that people complain about. Many times it saves thieves butts. Mesmer has a similar trait that gives decoy at 25% so I’m aware of the issues.

I fail to see how gaining a decoy at 25% is a disadvantage for you, whereas blinding powder proccing as you C&D (or attack in general) puts you on revealed for 3 seconds and completely negates all mitigation you may have gained. I promise you, it is a curse more than it is a blessing a vast majority of the time.

Decoy also puts the mesmer into stealth. Functionally the two traits are remarkably similar.

Softspoken.2410:

Decoy also puts the mesmer into stealth. Functionally the two traits are remarkably similar.

I see. However, it seems it’s a T1 selected trait, whereas ours is forced upon us, with no way to opt out if you want to run Shadow Arts. If I could pick something over Last Refuge, I promise you I would.