Guild Wars 2

A thief who is stealthed is doing no damage to you. A thief who isn’t stealthed with “obscene damage” is about as durable as wet tissue paper.

There are a vast amount of skills with which to hit a stealthed Thief. All ground targetable AoEs, many cleaving auto-attacks, channeled attacks that are cast before the thief enters stealth.

Is stealth strong? Yes.
Is Death Shroud strong? Yes.
Are Eviscerate, clones, and (properly managed) pets strong? Yes.

Is there a counterplay mechanic to all of these strong things that make classes different?

I think you’ll find the answer is yes.

Also, my boss would like me to provide the information that you are approximately the 160,647th person to make a “[Class] is [Overpowered for some reason]” thread, and the 23,195th one to make one specific to thieves.

Stealth is MORE then strong. It should NOT be spammable, it should NOT be perma. Sure they cant damage you in stealth, except that is countered by the traits that buff them and there damage from attacking in stealth. Getting hit for nearly 16,000 damage in a blink of an eye is simply unacceptable.

NOTHING in the game is as strong as Thief stealth and only Thief will say otherwise.

100% critical chance from stealth…really!?

Lets not forget they remove conditions, regain health, regain initiative and move faster in stealth as well…

kittened by a bad thief, eh?

:D
:D

:D

i love pistol thieves. i got 3 reflect on my mes. they go invis and attack while i have my block up(=5 stacks of torment), then cast my warden and stand next to it.then they start attacking again, my warden reflects all shots back and i cast the second warden and stand in the middle of them. put up my block (torment again) and the wardens both refelct . boom thief killed himself. XD

Yes, but its not a mistake because its overpowered.

It’s a mistake because its only fun for one side to fight in a combat where one of the combatants is invisible half the fight.

wiki? i havent even mentioned the wiki.
Not quite sure where you are getting that from.

If thief hits you for 16 k, then you should wear something else than just your underpants^^

Warriors can hit that hard, they can’t stealth. But only cause they don’t need too. Thieves have been nerfed multiple times already. Each time we just learn to play differently. I find it funny that you think thieves are so op. Considering they are probably one of the least wanted class in terms of team play. Which in WvW most people play as. But if you are talking about your solo roaming experience in full seekers gear, and you think there should be no reason for you to change your spec or armor so that you can have a “fair” chance against every class/spec/gear and abet should dumb everything down to your level of play. Then sure, you are right.

I play a thief. But I also play a guardian, engineer and a warrior. Thieves are pretty much at the bottom of my worry list.

hihey.1075:

I guess you are a zerker ele going around in blues – maybe greens. Using S/D and a build of the likes of 30/30/0/0/10.

Haha no i am an Engineer. My ele would be 1 shot by that attack :/
My Engineer has just over 22,000 health, 1,500 Toughness

Opc.4718:

Engineer – drop a supply crate on them and stay inside, and just spam nades on top of yourself, the conditions absolutely melts thieves

My Mesmer laughs at Thieves
My ele cries at about everything

So the way to kill a Thief is to spam attacks :/

The fundamental problem is that it takes far more skill to kill a good thief than it does to play one. The windows of opportunity to kill one are narrow, while their margin for error is substantial.

Oozo.7856:

The fundamental problem is that it takes far more skill to kill a good thief than it does to play one. The windows of opportunity to kill one are narrow, while their margin for error is substantial.

Yep. The amount of thieves i have seen just go around spamming the same attack and still kill people is very high. What other class can kill a class just using the same attack over and over and over.

Stealth is WAY to much reward and no risk, if you are losing you can just stealth, run and reset…

Last time I was in WvW (admittedly awhile back) Mesmers scared me far more than thieves and they have some stealth and mobility, too.

Corvindi.5734:

Last time I was in WvW (admittedly awhile back) Mesmers scared me far more than thieves and they have some stealth and mobility, too.

Mesmer is quite slow really, in combat you can easily out run them. Focus being the main swiftness skill. They have blinks and such but they arent that great.

I actually like Mesmer stealth – its not to much and its not to little. Even better its more of a “use at right time” type of stealth rather then spamming it.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Opc.4718:

Engineer – drop a supply crate on them and stay inside, and just spam nades on top of yourself, the conditions absolutely melts thieves

My Mesmer laughs at Thieves
My ele cries at about everything

So the way to kill a Thief is to spam attacks :/

For an engi that’s playing condi nades that’s really the best way. I’m not experienced with other kits so I can’t say anything about them. Otherwise, you’re carefully timing blocks and evades. To actually kill a thief, you need to be able to time your ccs and either immobilize or knockback long enough (in which case you just hit the same spot even after they’ve gone stealth), interrupt their stealth skills (mainly their telegraphed heal) and pull/push out of shadow refuge. The trolly pistol/dagger thieves and the stealth chaining thieves have to be specially traited into it and they do crap damage.

Breaking down the problem it’s clear that there are issues with stealth.

But Stealth in itself is not broken or overpowered although I agree it is poorly implemented.

Stealth does not make Thieves disappear. In fact they will die in Stealth fairly often especially given how excessive CC and AoE is in GW2. With very few abilities actually needing targets and AI reacting instantly to stealth-mechanics it’s not nearly as powerful as it could be.

The problem is two-fold.

1. Stealth does too much.
-Stealth makes Thieves invisible.
-Stealth increases their movement-speed
-Stealth heals Thieves.
-Stealth can increase their Initiative regeneration.
-Stealth blinds people nearby.
-Stealth sets-up Backstabs, the biggest burst-attack in game.
-Stealth cleanses Conditions every 3 seconds.

Now depending on the build, most Thieves will have a number of these abilities tied to Stealth. It just makes Stealth incredibly powerful and stealthing as frequently as possible becomes necessary for success.

2. Thieves rely on Stealth.

Given all the benefits of Stealth it is no surprise most popular Thief-builds somehow involve the frequent use of Stealth. Evade-spam being one of the few exceptions to the rule. That’s because Thieves are completely nonviable without.

Take Adrenaline from a Warrior and he can still function reasonably well. But take Stealth from a Thief and you are left with a squishy melee-class with no redeemable qualities.

I’d actually like to see a good and more well-rounded Thief build that didn’t just rely on a single-gimmick or synergy-abuse. But given the mechanics ANet has put in place I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

PS: I also don’t believe the currently popular Dagger/Pistol build was ever purposefully designed with the current play-style in mind. It just evolved as players were forced to adapt to an increasingly CC- and AoE spaming environment.

Because let’s face it, creating a combo field and leaping through it 2-3 times is and extremely convoluted stealth mechanic.

If they are dying to thieves spamming the same skill. They probably would’ve died to another one doing the same thing. Last I checked spamming cloak and dagger kills no one.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Stealth is MORE then strong. It should NOT be spammable, it should NOT be perma. Sure they cant damage you in stealth, except that is countered by the traits that buff them and there damage from attacking in stealth. Getting hit for nearly 16,000 damage in a blink of an eye is simply unacceptable.

NOTHING in the game is as strong as Thief stealth and only Thief will say otherwise.

100% critical chance from stealth…really!?

Lets not forget they remove conditions, regain health, regain initiative and move faster in stealth as well…

wait I can trait all if these? I’m not going to tell you to learn to play but do me a favor and learn the class enough to make a reasonable argument. Btw stealth is strong in small fights, the ability to completely become immune to all sources of incoming damage is better.

OMG this guy is an Eng, who right now is one of the most dominate classes out there. Not to be kitteny here but I run a p/d build cond damage, toughness, vit max. I have 1900 tough and 21500 health. I very rarely die against any amount of numbers and maybe once or twice daily in a 1v1.
I fought a Eng today that threw a grenade at me once and i was put to 10k health from full health and then immobilized me and hit me again with grenade til I was at 3k. I stealthed and ran like a little girl!
You’re doing something wrong if you’re not facerolling with an Eng right now. Take a look on Eng forums everyone says grenades are op, so i’d suggest you trying them out.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Corvindi.5734:

Last time I was in WvW (admittedly awhile back) Mesmers scared me far more than thieves and they have some stealth and mobility, too.

Mesmer is quite slow really, in combat you can easily out run them. Focus being the main swiftness skill. They have blinks and such but they arent that great.

I actually like Mesmer stealth – its not to much and its not to little. Even better its more of a “use at right time” type of stealth rather then spamming it.

They are too darn slow, that’s true. Really annoying in PVE, actually, which is why Mesmer never does get leveled. Well, that and I keep rerolling different races.

There is a hysterical youtube video of one Mesmer that has a dozen players chasing him all over because he’s using portals, though.

Also – thieves are suppose to do high single target damage because that’s what the class is good for. They are absolutely terrible in any largish fights because they die after accidentally running into a few AoE fields.

Oozo.7856:

The fundamental problem is that it takes far more skill to kill a good thief than it does to play one. The windows of opportunity to kill one are narrow, while their margin for error is substantial.

Well put! My build is based on getting into stealth via cloak and dagger….I miss that and am drained 6 int and happen to be stunned or immobilized…..its nite nite!

I agree grenade can be OP if built right, however a mouse clicker eng like me can’t make the best use of them. So I use rifle/Supply Crate/Toolkit, which actually makes it easier for a thief. As slow as I am, I’ve managed to beat or chase off thieves, which says a good bit about how eng works I guess.

Trueshots.9456:

OMG this guy is an Eng, who right now is one of the most dominate classes out there. Not to be kitteny here but I run a p/d build cond damage, toughness, vit max. I have 1900 tough and 21500 health. I very rarely die against any amount of numbers and maybe once or twice daily in a 1v1.
I fought a Eng today that threw a grenade at me once and i was put to 10k health from full health and then immobilized me and hit me again with grenade til I was at 3k. I stealthed and ran like a little girl!
You’re doing something wrong if you’re not facerolling with an Eng right now. Take a look on Eng forums everyone says grenades are op, so i’d suggest you trying them out.

I just hate the “spam AoE” type of gameplay, its not fun and its why i stopped playing Necro. I am by far from a great engineer and likely do have things that i could learn.

I will give nades a try if its really my only option. I currently run with Flamethrower, Rocket Boots and Elixir B i think, the one that gives you the boons

clint.5681:

Warriors can stunlock you and hit your for an high amount of dmg and kill you without you being able to do anything about it.

Exactly, a well played warrior scares me a lot more than a well played thief! Immobilize plus hundred blades can take my entire health pool in one go…..far more than any thief can do to me.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I just hate the “spam AoE” type of gameplay, its not fun and its why i stopped playing Necro. I am by far from a great engineer and likely do have things that i could learn.

I will give nades a try if its really my only option. I currently run with Flamethrower, Rocket Boots and Elixir B i think, the one that gives you the boons

Im not trying to tell you how to play, but in WvW all I personally care about is winning, so I do what I’m best at not what i’d like to be best at. The 3 skills you noted are all worthless against a thief and most other classes. My first toon was a Eng and I loved it, I took him out the other day and got murdered in the most intense way. Needless To Say I was very rusty. I like to compete and I can’t compete on something that i haven’t played a lot. I think where MMOers get in trouble is having one of every toon and never being very good at even one. It has always been my achilles heel in games, ive tried to limit it in GW2.

I’d take the advice the other guy gave about beating thieves. Drop your elite, maybe net turret as well, then spam grenades on top of yourself. A thief can hurt you if he cant get to ya!

The “problem” with thieves is only really in wvw roaming encounters (attempts of 1v1 ganking) and them running full stealth build (regen, init, speed, cond remove etc).
I can see why this is kind of frustrating for the op, you can’t kill them unless they stay to fight and don’t tactically retreat. A good thief that doesn’t want to die won’t die in that situation.
Thief is the only class that can reset a fight completely at any moment they wish (minus time of revealed buff), but that’s non-factor in spvp, so no change will happen.

@Opc.4718
You realise that most of your solutions are kinda picked from the whole kitten nal a class has, noone will have all of them at once, unless you want to be free kill to other classes. Also some require to stun break/no-ct ability first before you can use them to counter the thief burst. While a stealth/regen-build’s only limitation is the revealed buff.

Bloodbeast.8942:

If thief hits you for 16 k, then you should wear something else than just your underpants^^

steal, c’n’d, backstab + zerker gear is actually that kind of damage to builds with low armor, but could be worse, the thief could use a sword and have a brain. Larcenous strike (or crippling strike) is not that much less dmg, but the thief will also daze on top.

decent thieves don’t need perma stealth to win. i don’t rely on that garbage because only horrible players need that exploit to win. I am a thief and I agree with the OP. stealth in this game is a horrible mechanic. anet should be ashamed of it. It makes this game a laughingstock. thieves are laughably easy with permastealth.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Corvindi.5734:

Last time I was in WvW (admittedly awhile back) Mesmers scared me far more than thieves and they have some stealth and mobility, too.

Mesmer is quite slow really, in combat you can easily out run them. Focus being the main swiftness skill. They have blinks and such but they arent that great.

I actually like Mesmer stealth – its not to much and its not to little. Even better its more of a “use at right time” type of stealth rather then spamming it.

The moment you said blinks arent great, I just stopped reading, since it was very laughable.

On an engi, there is A LOT you can do against thieves. And as an ele well…you have PLENTY of survival abilities…great mobility and heals in combat! Thief stealth, while annoying, isn’t OP. It’s just a pain in the butt. However, most thieves Ive faced run off the moment you hit them hard a few times.

Unfortunately, thieves are pretty weak at every part of the game right now except for killing noobs. It’s sad actually.

style.6173:

Unfortunately, thieves are pretty weak at every part of the game right now except for killing noobs. It’s sad actually.

They get around fast (most important in spvp for free cap) and they deal sick damage when free casting (important in pve). What should anet change if all they care about is looking fine from thief perspective.

The real problem is that initiative is way too easy to come by. It recharges so fast that a thief can continuously cycle: fight, stealth, retreat, return — until all your skills are on recharge. But none of his will be because initiative recharge rate is so broken. Then he comes in for the kill.

Empyre.2531:

style.6173:

Unfortunately, thieves are pretty weak at every part of the game right now except for killing noobs. It’s sad actually.

They get around fast (most important in spvp for free cap) and they deal sick damage when free casting (important in pve). What should anet change if all they care about is looking fine from thief perspective.

Lol @ Style, so true, you can waste a noob in just seconds but against a moderately good player, everything must go right, and against someone as talented as you or better you have 2 options….be ready to be facerolled or run.
@Empyre, thief can’t cap in spvp in stealth. they must be in the open.

Oozo.7856:

The fundamental problem is that it takes far more skill to kill a good thief than it does to play one. The windows of opportunity to kill one are narrow, while their margin for error is substantial.

Thief has a lower skill ceiling as well. You obviously don’t understand game design if you think that this pairing is a bad thing. It gives new players something they can pick up and feel strong/competitive with… but at the same time there are more powerful classes to have with you in a fight (but take more pratice/skill to use).

If people still don’t understand… here is a very good video on the subject:

Lord Kuru.3685:

The real problem is that initiative is way too easy to come by. It recharges so fast that a thief can continuously cycle: fight, stealth, retreat, return — until all your skills are on recharge. But none of his will be because initiative recharge rate is so broken. Then he comes in for the kill.

Its not broken by a long shot. You have to spec heavy to get a decent pool of INT.

Shadow Arts #5 (gain 2 INT when you stealth),
Shadow Arts #10 if you want INT regen in stealth(i don’t use),
Acrobatics #9 2 int every 10 secs (worthless imo),
Acrobatics #12 3 INT on weapon switch (im not using 30 point to get this crappy skill), 15 points in Trickery will get you 3 INT on steal and 3 max INT,
Trickery #11 4 INT on heal (no way im spending 30 points on this)

Please note that all these are the bottom 3 lines, all of which have nothing to do with damage, to get these you sacrifice damage and crit chance. So someone that has infinite INT pool (or so it seems) isn’t gonna hit you very hard.

Plus as I said the cost of a few of those is way to high, you would have to give up stuff 10x better to get those. TBH SA #5 is the best thing up there, 2nd by 15 points in Trickery to get 3 max INT.

Thats just mu humble opinion though.

Aberrant.6749:

If people still don’t understand… here is a very good video on the subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w

Loved that video, great example gonna need to tuck that away for future use!

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

So other then Thieves that rely on the games most broken mechanic anyone else think that it is LONG over due that Anet pull the finger out and fix Stealth? Is it not bad enough they have obscene damage and movement they have to have the most broken mechanic in the game.

Sure i know the Thieves will come screaming “L2P” and such but anyone else think this mechanic is seriously in need of being fixed. Why is it that Stealth in other MMO is a “Use at right time” mechanic but here its “lol spam, spam, spam” mechanic…

Another one of these threads…….really? It’s not a broken mechanic FYI, just a strong ability if traited, which most thieves do trait for in WvW for the survivability it provides. Also FYI, other than the better players, you do need to L2P, you can’t just log in and expect to be able to beat someone who is outsmarting/outmaneuvering you. Thieves who spam, spam, spam as you suggest should be easy to kill, because they are easy to kill. Stop whining and start practicing whatever class/es you use. Stop using the word mechanic, your doing it wrong…..

Aberrant.6749:

Oozo.7856:

The fundamental problem is that it takes far more skill to kill a good thief than it does to play one. The windows of opportunity to kill one are narrow, while their margin for error is substantial.

Thief has a lower skill ceiling as well. You obviously don’t understand game design if you think that this pairing is a bad thing. It gives new players something they can pick up and feel strong/competitive with… but at the same time there are more powerful classes to have with you in a fight (but take more pratice/skill to use).

If people still don’t understand… here is a very good video on the subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w

It has a low floor, not a low ceiling. A noob can make one, copy the flavour of the month and kill people.

However, thieves will get wrecked or flee from decent/experienced players. The reason here is because thieves raw power stops progressing earlier than most professions and continues on in the realm of utility as a thief’s skill level increases. The utility side of our skills is what makes the thief devastating in knowledgeable hands.

In addition to this, thieves have to manage a universal resource to these utility-heavy skills so just spamming 1 skill will again only do so much.

EDIT: Another thing that contributes to the thief’s high skill ceiling is the fact that they are squishy, have almost no damage/CC mitigation and below average healing/cleansing (unless using s/x).

Thieves do have evades up the wazoo but since evasion periods blink in and out they can fail. They also require timing unlike mitigations which are mostly fire before and forget until off cooldown.

Empyre.2531:

@Opc.4718
You realise that most of your solutions are kinda picked from the whole kitten nal a class has, noone will have all of them at once, unless you want to be free kill to other classes. Also some require to stun break/no-ct ability first before you can use them to counter the thief burst. While a stealth/regen-build’s only limitation is the revealed buff.

A thief only has one chance to set up a burst that I’m not expecting. I can counter it every time with my engi/mesmer/guardian provided I’m not on cd at the beginning of the engagement and I run general roaming builds on all of them when I’m not in a group. If the thief doesn’t kill me immediately or bring me down low enough to finish me off with a few spam attacks, my counter attack in whatever form (ccs+burst) will either kill the thief or bring him down low enough to make him run away. Rarely do I get into a protracted battle with a thief in WvW (except when it is a bunkerish thief vs my clerics guardian) and rarely does it last long enough for the thief to set up a second cc/backstab burst. More often the thief runs away and tries again later, in which case I’ll be back on full health will no cds.

In a protracted battle, it is fairly easy to predict when a thief is about to land a backstab and use any number of evades you have with you. I don’t run specialized thief killing builds and I usually have no problems avoiding backstabs with whatever abilities I have with me. And like I said, it takes a while for a thief to land another cc’d backstab, which is when I’ll be forced to pop stun breakers.

EDIT: Also like Zacchary said, thieves have a fairly high skill ceiling and I’ve met thieves before who can make we waste my stun breakers and evades before landing a killer when I can’t counter it. Unfortunately, it’s actually pretty rare to encounter a skilful thief who doesn’t die in a panic when his carefully worked out skill rotation falls apart.

Zacchary.6183:

Aberrant.6749:

Oozo.7856:

The fundamental problem is that it takes far more skill to kill a good thief than it does to play one. The windows of opportunity to kill one are narrow, while their margin for error is substantial.

Thief has a lower skill ceiling as well. You obviously don’t understand game design if you think that this pairing is a bad thing. It gives new players something they can pick up and feel strong/competitive with… but at the same time there are more powerful classes to have with you in a fight (but take more pratice/skill to use).

If people still don’t understand… here is a very good video on the subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w

It has a low floor, not a low ceiling. A noob can make one, copy the flavour of the month and kill people.

However, thieves will get wrecked or flee from decent/experienced players. The reason here is because thieves raw power stops progressing earlier than most professions and continues on in the realm of utility as a thief’s skill level increases. The utility side of our skills is what makes the thief devastating in knowledgeable hands.

In addition to this, thieves have to manage a universal resource to these utility-heavy skills so just spamming 1 skill will again only do so much.

EDIT: Another thing that contributes to the thief’s high skill ceiling is the fact that they are squishy, have almost no damage/CC mitigation and below average healing/cleansing (unless using s/x).

Thieves do have evades up the wazoo but since evasion periods blink in and out they can fail. They also require timing unlike mitigations which are mostly fire before and forget until off cooldown.

I would argue that it has both a low floor and ceeling.

Once another player gets above a certain skill level it becomes very hard to beat them even if the thief is equally skilled. That’s when the thief has hit the ceiling.

It would be like saying E-Honda has a high ceiling because you would need a lot of skill to beat other characters with him… and I disagree with that. Instead I see it as you’ve reached that character’s limit and are trying to push beyond that with little success (because you’ve hit the ceiling). That’s just semantics though.

Opc.4718:

Guardian – use any of your million blocks when you see a thief drop into stealth, or drop wards and run in and out of them.
Mesmer – blink around randomly, drop into stealth yourself, or time your invuln shatters and #2 sword evade.
Engineer – drop a supply crate on them and stay inside, and just spam nades on top of yourself, the conditions absolutely melts thieves. There are also a number of block abilities, not to mention many other kit utilities which I’ve never explored.
Warrior – regen beasts anyway, you can eat the damage when you’re not busy running away with GS mobility.
Necro – chill fields/fear marks/death shroud.
Ranger – don’t play this class, but I’m sure you can do something with traps, stealth and GS evades.
Ele – don’t play this class either but any decent ele will be able to give you a huge list of survivability moves.
Thief – out stealth them or drop blind fields.

Guardian-block is useless against backstab, the thief can spam it until all your block is gone (Max kitten I think) from stealth, then crt you for 15k dmg
Mesmer- While Mesmer has their method, yours is wrong. Most drop staff AOE and wait. However, the thief can wait for his AOE aka CD to disappear as well. Shatter is rubbish as a thief can avoid them easily. Mesmer can’t blink all the time., it has longer CD with its blink. The only useful attack is a successful Moar.
Engineer-in WvW, if you see a thief, normally you can avoid him . However a thief who really want to kill u will wait for all your buff to disappear or you walk out of it.
Warrior-Totally rubbish, I play a warrior and get hit like 10k BS,5k CnD and 3k lottus strike from a armor of 2.9k while I hit him like 300~400 per hit. The funny part is I hit him way more time than he do and yet I still loses. While it is possible for warrior to ‘win’ a thief(meaning he run off), regen is NOT THE KEY since that thief will hit harder than the regen.
Necro-Necro will win if he see him coming and the thief is stupid enough to jump into the well and marks. Funny thing is I see a lot of these .
Ranger-same as Necro
Ele-if ele get hit by BS, he dies, if thief miss that, that a different story entirely
thief- same as ele
Funny thing is that all these “counters” need you to see the thief ,setup a visible trap and need the thief to be stupid enough to jump inside.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Thief-apology-thread/first#post2885574

Weeeee!!!!! also L2P!

As an engineer I find thieves to be the most annoying class present on the eternal battlegrounds. Sure, you can call me a noob and shout l2p to my face but the fact is I have 10 000 wvw kills with my engineer and I still think that stealth mechanic is a little bit broken. It saves the thief from dying way too many times and this is the reason it tends to frustrate you and cry OP. Stealth is the perfect mechanic to reset a bad fight and helps thieves get a free get out of jail card. This I find to be the only real problem. With other classes I do not encounter this issue. But thieves are something else.

nihasa.5067:

As an engineer I find thieves to be the most annoying class present on the eternal battlegrounds. Sure, you can call me a noob and shout l2p to my face but the fact is I have 10 000 wvw kills with my engineer and I still think that stealth mechanic is a little bit broken. It saves the thief from dying way too many times and this is the reason it tends to frustrate you and cry OP. Stealth is the perfect mechanic to reset a bad fight and helps thieves get a free get out of jail card. This I find to be the only real problem. With other classes I do not encounter this issue. But thieves are something else.

Eng’s have many… MANY great tools against thieves. I don’t know what your build/gear are, but it sounds like you’re doing something wrong. If you’re built for group play and are trying to fight Vs a roaming thief… which most are since they suck in groups… that’s a big problem right there. Heck you shouldn’t beat any class 1v1 with a group build.

If you are built for 1v1 and are still having problems then you might want to play a thief for a day or two. You just gotta know what typical thieves do in a typical situation and then counter it… and eng is FULL of thief counters.

Maybe this video will help you a bit

If you want more help, toss up a buildcraft of your build into the eng forums and tell us what exactly you’re having problems with and we can certainly help you.

As some one that mainly roams eng in WvW thieves are the least of my worries. Decent necros on the other hand… are a huge pain in the rear (they pretty much hard counter eng).

Easy, just kill them.

Just take a look at the first fight or switch to the right minute for a fight against thieves.
Than come back into game and try yourself to improve your skill.
Dont’ be ashamed, everyone need to do that. But please, next time don’t open another silly thread like that, it’s really boring

D/P is the only broken thief build but also the only real “reliable” one.
The others lack a bit of everything to be any good, you are stuck between the choice of blinding your target when going stealth (almost 100% needed when playing X/D) or condition removal. With no condition removal even the worst of necros will tear you apart.

Nerf D/P and fix every x/d build (starting by removing 5 in SA: Last Refuge Use Blinding Powder when your health reaches 25% (60-second cooldown). Killing you at 25% health)

Thief IMO should be actively fighting to be able to stealth, not gather 10s of stealth to flee the opposite direction after ganking a single upscaled target. So in that aspect, yes thief is broken and I so much wish it would require more skill to play. It hurts my eyes seeing so many bad thief players, but it’s definitely not THE best class ingame by far. Only the most annoying one. While every class is being buffed thief is staying the same, the only good buff we received in the last couple of months is Torment on Shadow Strike (which I rarely ever use, except when I’m rooted and have no stunbreaker left)

Other than the things summed up above thief is really not OP and perhaps you should study the class a bit closer and learn about it’s many weaknesses, especially if they’re not using the only OP build available for thief (D/P).

Oh and I forgot Shadow Refuge, shouldn’t stack stealth imo. It’s already a powerful tool as it is to res people etc. Right now it’s every kitten s perfect mechanic to get away, you got to be fast with pulls to be able to pull them out and not everyone has pulls or knockbacks. But this is just my eternal hatred for Shadow Refuge. :P

mrmadhaze.8706:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQd53qlCvo8

Just take a look at the first fight or switch to the right minute for a fight against thieves.
Than come back into game and try yourself to improve your skill.
Dont’ be ashamed, everyone need to do that. But please, next time don’t open another silly thread like that, it’s really boring

He uses perplexity cheeze in that video… there are plenty of outnumbered eng videos out there that don’t though. Zane and Mask both use HgH outnumbered roaming builds for example. But I definitely agree that thief isn’t usually much of a threat to a well plaid eng.

Trueshots.9456:

@Empyre, thief can’t cap in spvp in stealth. they must be in the open.

That was exactly my point, if thief you want the high mobile builds. Perma stealth thieves are useless (more or less) in spvp, that’s why the problem/annoyance we face in wvw isn’t gonna be addressed by ANet.