When people moan about the Thief, can we at least get some consistency. I hear things such as you have no time to react as you don’t see the Thief etc. So here is how it really works and the problems with the current thief regarding weapon sets.
You cannot do the steal-cnd-backstab combo from stealth. Therefore you can see the Thief coming, and therefore if you don’t see them coming that is your own fault for not being aware of your surroundings. If you do it from stealth, steal unstealths you and gives you the 3.3 second revealed debuff, at which point CnD does not stealth you and you simple auto attack after steal+cnd.
The combo still takes a good time to pull off. Verses someone who doesn’t move, you’ll steal with a pre-loaded cnd and then backstab. The backstab animation is actually quite slow, plenty long enough for a dodge. So even if you didn’t see the Thief you have time to dodge if you’re any good. I know because I’ve done it, and I’m not even particularly good.
Then there’s the damages people keep spewing out. Verses actual level 80’s, I do not believe my backstab has hit over 9k before. Which is a crit, and in the back and I believe on a glassy cloth wearer. Most reports of really high damage I hear are from WvW players who haven’t got level 80 and therefore are lacking a lot in gear to survive. Any class will destroy a lowbie in WvW if they themselves are level 80.
Also, it’s not as if the Thief is the highest damage burst in the game. There’s accounts of warriors adrenaline skill on the rifle out damaging backstab, at 1500 range and not requiring the positioning to hit them in the back (a front hit backstab is weak). The rangers have some insane damage on grenade power builds, and so on. The damage isn’t unheard of across most classes (sorry Ele and Necro, but I do not believe even with your power/crit builds that you put out the damage of the other classes sadly).
Finally the other complaint if ‘omg perma stealth’.
The way it works, is the Thief uses a stealth skill which, aside from shadow refuge, lasts 3 seconds. After they unstealth, from using an attack, they are revealed for 3.3 seconds. Therefore a thief, in combat, who attacks from stealth for optimal damage/utility will not be stealthed for more than roughly 45% of the fight. And that is assuming that they can finish the fight fast. Backstab builds, believe it or not, do NOT have multiple stealth abilities. They just have CnD and the heal stealth. That’s 2, of which one has too long a cool-down to be used multiple times in a fight, and the other has too high an initiative cost to be used too much also.
The issue is the rendering bug or problem. It benefits Thieves the most as stealth buggers the rendering up more, but that is not a class imbalance. That is just a game fault. Working as intended, as said, a Thief will not stealth that much really.
Finally I’d like to point out some serious issues with the current Thief weapon sets.
Sword-dagger seems quite pointless. With flanking strike hardly ever striking properly it’s nothing more than a waste of initiative, or a desperate hope of dodging something. Whilst some of the other skills are fine, cnd, throwing the dagger and sword 2 are fine, without a proper damage skill it’s all a bit in vain. Yes you can daze, cripple and immobilize the opponent, but on one of the squishiest classes in the game it’s all rather pointless without being able to finish them. Give sword-dagger a real skill 3 please.