Guild Wars 2

While I know this game gives the player a lot of wiggle room to play as they wish, and that the notion of a hard counter is a bit silly, I still am left wondering if there are certain classes that have natural effectiveness to thieves.

I ask cause, personally, I feel that given WvW or sPvP, I more or less have the hardest time against mesmers, and the mass amount of illusions they spawn with the con damage they can do.

Any thoughts on that?

i have the hardest time against guardians that spec defensive +AoE CC.
i pop out of stealth and get smacked to the floor for my trouble, even with shadowstep by the time iv got back to him and im upright he’ll have another one to use and he will just run away to the nearest tower

its not that he can kill me its usually that help will arrive and finish me off while im eating dirt.

Mesmers and guardians for me mostly.

Well if they cant kill you and you cant kill them its a bit of a stalemate. Buying time is not a bad thing and I find it an effective strategy in sPvP when needed.

But mesmers for me punch me to kitten hard and dont die.

Mesmers seem to have an excessive and disproportionate amount of utility and tools compared to other classes. Their Portal especially, but also their Clones, Invisibility and teleports just give the class so much more potential than others.

Nothing comes close.

Guardians are a support based class and thus are very beneficial in PvE. In PvP they’re just OP because somehow every designers seems to muck up the Paladin class. Then again I guess you could say the same about the “Rogue” class.

name me a game where the thief class has not been overpowered at one point the best class hands down in the game.
name me a game where the bottom tier class has EVER at any point been the rogue class ?

2001- DAOC, remember when nightblades could backstab with a 2handed axe and not lose stealth if they killed you in 1 shot…. but since it was with a TWO HANDED AXE… they could kill anyone that wasnt a tank or healer outright. Remember IWINfiltrators?

2004- World of warcraft – Rogues

2006- Warhammer online Witch elves, pbaoe 4 sec knockdown on a 10 sec timer for a class that can 2 shot you is fair right?
How about burnawayLOLs? a finisher that put a dot on the target that ticked for 15% of your life per tic..

2009- Rift: planes of telara Launch: Sabotours.. 1 shot ANY CLASS, with 8 sec of prep time bombs on them, no counter.
Marksman Hey lets give a ranged class the ability to aoe life leach+ heal debuff … thus making a perma heal debuff on everyone and turning the rogue IMMORTAL because they leach 40% of alll healing of everyone in the scenario
Nightblades in general

i can name you MANY games that got the melee healer and didnt make it overpowered. you only remember wow
I remember DAOC monk (LOL) daoc warden daoc aug healer daoc valewalker, daoc valkery were FAR from op.

BishopX.6453:

name me a game where the thief class has not been overpowered at one point the best class hands down in the game.
name me a game where the bottom tier class has EVER at any point been the rogue class ?

I can do this!
Everquest Rogues say hi!

BishopX.6453:

name me a game where the thief class has not been overpowered at one point the best class hands down in the game.
name me a game where the bottom tier class has EVER at any point been the rogue class ?

2001- DAOC, remember when nightblades could backstab with a 2handed axe and not lose stealth if they killed you in 1 shot…. but since it was with a TWO HANDED AXE… they could kill anyone that wasnt a tank or healer outright. Remember IWINfiltrators?

2004- World of warcraft – Rogues

2006- Warhammer online Witch elves, pbaoe 4 sec knockdown on a 10 sec timer for a class that can 2 shot you is fair right?
How about burnawayLOLs? a finisher that put a dot on the target that ticked for 15% of your life per tic..

2009- Rift: planes of telara Launch: Sabotours.. 1 shot ANY CLASS, with 8 sec of prep time bombs on them, no counter.
Marksman Hey lets give a ranged class the ability to aoe life leach+ heal debuff … thus making a perma heal debuff on everyone and turning the rogue IMMORTAL because they leach 40% of alll healing of everyone in the scenario
Nightblades in general

i can name you MANY games that got the melee healer and didnt make it overpowered. you only remember wow
I remember DAOC monk (LOL) daoc warden daoc aug healer daoc valewalker, daoc valkery were FAR from op.

This sounds like the rant of a madman, but I agree 110%!!

Everquest and DDO

BishopX.6453:

name me a game where the thief class has not been overpowered at one point the best class hands down in the game.
name me a game where the bottom tier class has EVER at any point been the rogue class ?

Age of Conan. Awesome game. Played the assassin for two years and a large chunk of that we were on the bottom of the food chain by far. Lotus spec was the only way to go, and even then we had trouble killing anything. You heard me, a rogue having trouble killing. In mini-games and pvp, aside from good movement/poor opponents, knockback+your big 3 min ability was the only way to kill a squishy. Often even this wasn’t enough.

Definitely Mesmers and Guardians. Sometimes I get lucky though. In WvW, Mesmers aren’t that hard.
Guardians however have an easy time against my spec since they can remove conditions and heal full health as well. This usually ends in me stealthing my way out of the situation to avoid death or pointless attacking.

Iron Wolf.5973:

While I know this game gives the player a lot of wiggle room to play as they wish, and that the notion of a hard counter is a bit silly, I still am left wondering if there are certain classes that have natural effectiveness to thieves.

I ask cause, personally, I feel that given WvW or sPvP, I more or less have the hardest time against mesmers, and the mass amount of illusions they spawn with the con damage they can do.

Any thoughts on that?

definitely guardians. Those bubbles will stop a thief dead in their tracks. And if a thief is stopped, they’re dead.

Any class with a large amount of CC. Thief lacks break stuns that fit well with DPS builds. Haste can get you killed if you use it to break stun.

BishopX.6453:

name me a game where the thief class has not been overpowered at one point the best class hands down in the game.
name me a game where the bottom tier class has EVER at any point been the rogue class ?

2001- DAOC, remember when nightblades could backstab with a 2handed axe and not lose stealth if they killed you in 1 shot…. but since it was with a TWO HANDED AXE… they could kill anyone that wasnt a tank or healer outright. Remember IWINfiltrators?

2004- World of warcraft – Rogues

2006- Warhammer online Witch elves, pbaoe 4 sec knockdown on a 10 sec timer for a class that can 2 shot you is fair right?
How about burnawayLOLs? a finisher that put a dot on the target that ticked for 15% of your life per tic..

2009- Rift: planes of telara Launch: Sabotours.. 1 shot ANY CLASS, with 8 sec of prep time bombs on them, no counter.
Marksman Hey lets give a ranged class the ability to aoe life leach+ heal debuff … thus making a perma heal debuff on everyone and turning the rogue IMMORTAL because they leach 40% of alll healing of everyone in the scenario
Nightblades in general

i can name you MANY games that got the melee healer and didnt make it overpowered. you only remember wow
I remember DAOC monk (LOL) daoc warden daoc aug healer daoc valewalker, daoc valkery were FAR from op.

I can’t believe how ignorant this post is. Just because a class is “overpowered” or “not at the bottom of the tier list” in other, completely irrelvant games doesn’t mean it’s all of a sudden overpowered in Guild Wars 2.

Separate games, separate skills, separate systems, separate classes, etc. You must have put in a lot of effort without realizing how idiotic you’d seem.

Krathalos.3461:

Any class with a large amount of CC. Thief lacks break stuns that fit well with DPS builds. Haste can get you killed if you use it to break stun.

I can’t believe how ignorant this post is. Just because a class is “overpowered” or “not at the bottom of the tier list” in other, completely irrelvant games doesn’t mean it’s all of a sudden overpowered in Guild Wars 2.

Separate games, separate skills, separate systems, separate classes, etc. You must have put in a lot of effort without realizing how idiotic you’d seem.

Ignorant and idiotic eh? Not my post but I agree with it 100%. Sadly, the typical rogue player from those previous games actually BELIEVED they had the right to win 100% of the time should they get the drop on you. With 100% uptime invis, that was pretty much every time :P

GW2 thief was actually worse than those examples during that horrible culling patch last week, as they’d stay stealthed while beating down people. It’s much better now luckily. That was pretty unplayable.

You agree that since classes are overpowered in another game, that makes them overpowered in every game?

That’s interesting.

What changed last week to make it “playable”?

Iron Wolf.5973:

While I know this game gives the player a lot of wiggle room to play as they wish, and that the notion of a hard counter is a bit silly, I still am left wondering if there are certain classes that have natural effectiveness to thieves.

I ask cause, personally, I feel that given WvW or sPvP, I more or less have the hardest time against mesmers, and the mass amount of illusions they spawn with the con damage they can do.

Any thoughts on that?

Right, I play a P/D survival/support thief and when I encounter a good mesmer I have a hard time being offensive while avoiding.
Don’t want to imply that the illusions are OP or anything, I clearly need more practice when it comes to that because I have beaten good mesmers 1v1 before.

I think having an AoE ish weapon handy could help with all the illusions (sbow)
…I think personally I need more practice against good mesmers.

BishopX.6453:

name me a game where the thief class has not been overpowered at one point the best class hands down in the game.
name me a game where the bottom tier class has EVER at any point been the rogue class ?

2001- DAOC, remember when nightblades could backstab with a 2handed axe and not lose stealth if they killed you in 1 shot…. but since it was with a TWO HANDED AXE… they could kill anyone that wasnt a tank or healer outright. Remember IWINfiltrators?

2004- World of warcraft – Rogues

2006- Warhammer online Witch elves, pbaoe 4 sec knockdown on a 10 sec timer for a class that can 2 shot you is fair right?
How about burnawayLOLs? a finisher that put a dot on the target that ticked for 15% of your life per tic..

2009- Rift: planes of telara Launch: Sabotours.. 1 shot ANY CLASS, with 8 sec of prep time bombs on them, no counter.
Marksman Hey lets give a ranged class the ability to aoe life leach+ heal debuff … thus making a perma heal debuff on everyone and turning the rogue IMMORTAL because they leach 40% of alll healing of everyone in the scenario
Nightblades in general

i can name you MANY games that got the melee healer and didnt make it overpowered. you only remember wow
I remember DAOC monk (LOL) daoc warden daoc aug healer daoc valewalker, daoc valkery were FAR from op.

+1.

I’ve been playing tank build classes since 1997 starting with UO. I’ve played pretty much every major MMORPG that had a strong PvP element. UO, DAOC, WAR, Lineage, Lineage 2, GW, AION, TERA, Ragnarok, TSW, WOW, and more…

I can honestly say that 90% of these games have catered to the DPS crowd. Whether that is ranged or stealth DPS. Every prepubescent child and kitten with an kitten complex want nothing than to simply “zomg wtf BBQ pwn ju pew pew n00b” faceroll people and feel entitled to it. These are the same idiots who think they’re cool if they have a katana or think they’re some uber kittening ninja or sniper. They’re probably the same kiddies who spawn camp and play snipers in FPS’. lol

Anyways… Pretty much anyone who didnt roll a stealther or glass cannon was crap back in the day. Support classes such as tanks and healers were utterly useless in PvP 9/10 times. Games have finally started making these play styles useful in PvP. First with healers and now in recent years tanks have become useful.

With this change now all the entitled kiddies are crying fowl. Personally the only game I thought had good PvP tanks was DAOC, but it also had some of the most OP stealthers with the Infiltrator and pretty much all the ranged DPS could 2 shot you. WAR also had pretty good tanks, but once again the assassin classes would literally kitten you in seconds. In WOW rogues would stun lock you into oblivion and you might as well go make dinner while you get your salad tossed. In L2 a rogue could drop you to 1 HP instantly via one of their stupid kitten class mechanics if they were lucky.

I can sit here and run down pretty much any rogue/assassin class from all the games I’ve played and explain why having them in a game is usually a bad idea… Stealth is a lame kitten cheap mechanic. Someone being 100% invis right next to you in the open during the day is kitten Being able to pop stealth while in combat = kitten Being able to 2 shot someone while invis = kitten You catch my drift.

Trap rangers, mark necros. The AoE condition damage they can lay down completely ruins stealth. It doesn’t matter if they can see you, they can still prevent you from ever getting close while burning you down with bleeding/poison/burning.

Also, clone-heavy mesmers. But those hard-counter everything.

Dacromir, was wondering when someone was going to mention mark/well necros. I play a thief and such a necro and tbh, my necro can take down all classes, but ironically, a spamseeker is my hardest match up as a necro. oO

For my thief, I do not run from any class, but hate mesmers, not because they are hard to kill, but they are just lame as can be. It is the only class I will shamelessly spam heartseeker on and laugh at them after I kill them.

@Iron Wolf – the hardest fights I ever have are against other thieves, without any doubt at all. And that should tell us all we need to know about whether our class is OP.

Of the non-thief classes, I have had trouble with defensive guardians, although “trouble” here means it could go either way, not that they roll me easily. There are other classes like necros and engis who have strong situational builds and have taken me apart without trying, but that’s only when the situation favours them.

I’m not sure GW2 has hard counters, and I’ll be very glad if it stays that way. Knowing who you can and can’t beat before the fight has even begun belongs in other, less sophisticated PvP (e.g. WoW).

@Valador I agree that stealth classes and to a lesser extent DPS classes have always been the strongest, but I’m not sure it’s always been “catering” to them. One thing that’s hard to get around in fights is that the best defence is a strong offence. And the best form of CC is killing someone :P

GW2 has counters. All classes and builds do. The fact that you think thief vs. thief is a hard match up makes me think you haven’t PvPed very often. High defense, condition or healing builds are the most difficult match ups for thief. Thief is the second squishiest class in the game. High burst doesn’t matter much if your burst becomes insignificant.

Warriors - twice my (burst) dmg, twice my hp, twice my toughness, no in depth needed on that one
Guardians – CC, durable as hell, insane with spirit weapons, and immortal otherwise
Mesmers - if they play well, it’s quite easy to get fooled in the heat of the battle, and if you don’t have 100% control over a fight as Thief, you are dead
Necros - durable, death shroud to eat burst, conditions, marks (to dmg, CC, and track the Thief in stealth
Rangers - Traps, heavy dmg target lock channel attacks which don’t care about stealth (continue to be locked and fire on the Thief in stealth, damaging and revealing the position)
Elementalists - a crap load of mobilty which no Thief can keeep up with, tons of AoE which turns stealth into a backstab tool only, heals to compensate the whole initial burst, conditions, heavy burst, CC
Engeneers - twice my (burst) dmg, -while on a range of 1200 instead of my melee, durable, heals, AoE’s, CC.. oh well, just everything on a good engeneer can ruin my day

What I’m saying is, a good Thief is countered by a better X.
Every profession has the tools to shut down every profession and the Thief is by far no exception of that.

Agreed Asum, though you can do well with a thief on your first outing whereas to be good it takes time to learn it vs others. Other classes have a much higher learning curve.

Krathalos.3461:

GW2 has counters. All classes and builds do. The fact that you think thief vs. thief is a hard match up makes me think you haven’t PvPed very often. High defense, condition or healing builds are the most difficult match ups for thief. Thief is the second squishiest class in the game. High burst doesn’t matter much if your burst becomes insignificant.

Then you are wrong twice. Once for thinking I have not PvP often, I have, and again for thinking low HP is not relevant when burst is in question. On high HP classes, you will be finished by the thief’s HS spam, and it may well take a few applications. On a thief, you will be finished by at most one HS, and often the mug, CnD and BS will kill you outright.

Not to mention that a thief’s defences are almost entirely active. Both stealth and evasion, which are amazing defensive tools against opponents you are aware of and have the option of using, are much less useful when a thief opens up on you from stealth.

On top of all that, if you survive a thief’s initial strike, you are fighting someone who has as much evasion and stealth as you, high DPS, plus a shortbow for aoe/cond damage. That’s as tough a fight as you ever get against any other class.

It may well be that a lot of thieves don’t realise this, maybe because they are themselves just applying by rote the BS one-trick-pony and not really playing their thief’s capabilities beyond that. More likely, this forum is just filled with people desperate to validate their own performance in PvP by refusing to acknowledge the obvious truth that thieves are currently slightly OP on BS builds.

Cribbage.2056:

Then you are wrong twice. Once for thinking I have not PvP often, I have, and again for thinking low HP is not relevant when burst is in question. On high HP classes, you will be finished by the thief’s HS spam, and it may well take a few applications. On a thief, you will be finished by at most one HS, and often the mug, CnD and BS will kill you outright.

Not to mention that a thief’s defences are almost entirely active. Both stealth and evasion, which are amazing defensive tools against opponents you are aware of and have the option of using, are much less useful when a thief opens up on you from stealth.

On top of all that, if you survive a thief’s initial strike, you are fighting someone who has as much evasion and stealth as you, high DPS, plus a shortbow for aoe/cond damage. That’s as tough a fight as you ever get against any other class.

It may well be that a lot of thieves don’t realise this, maybe because they are themselves just applying by rote the BS one-trick-pony and not really playing their thief’s capabilities beyond that. More likely, this forum is just filled with people desperate to validate their own performance in PvP by refusing to acknowledge the obvious truth that thieves are currently slightly OP on BS builds.

First part was mostly a joke. I didn’t really think you hadn’t PvPed often. I also never said low HP is not relevant when burst is in question (I don’t even know what you mean by this or where you pulled it out of).

If you are dying to Heartseeker spam, you are bad. I’m sorry, but after the nerf, Heartseeker is pretty terrible if the target isn’t at <25% health. There’s so many better options you can use other than it. If you’re claiming Haste + Heartseeker is overpowered, get some CC abilities, learn to use your dodge, or use one of the many invulnerability skills that other classes have. Also, don’t bring up cooldowns since Haste also has a CD.

I’ve played against thieves with thief and with other classes. Never have I ever had an issue with one, nor have the people I play with. It’s very easy to counter thief if you know how to play one. I have yet to play against a thief who actually learns his class and knows how to play it.

D/D lacks utility. All it has is single target burst damage. People claim this is overpowered because they’re too busy building glass cannon with nothing but damage utilities on. I’ll admit Assassin’s Signet and Basilisk Venom combo is overpowered. Backstab itself, however, is not.

Well firstly, if you did not mean “low HP/low armour” by squishiest, what did you mean?

Secondly, most thieves will often either be dead or under 25% HP after an opposing thief applies the BS chain. So yes, dying to a HS is quite likely at that point.

Thirdly, if you are not having trouble with opposition thieves, that means all those thieves are having trouble with you – a thief. If it is so easy to counter a thief, why are THEY not countering you? Clearly, the answer can only be in skill level. Against an equally skilled theif, they should have all the same advantages and disadvantages that you have, which means it should at the very least be an even fight and not an easy fight. Arguing anything else is just plain irrational.

I meant what I said. Thief is the second squishiest class in the game. This is an indisputable fact. They are tied for the lowest health while having the second lowest armor. I don’t care if people claim thief isn’t because of stealth, because that is completely irrelevant. That doesn’t mean I said “low HP doesn’t matter when burst is in question.” I still don’t see what you meant by that.

I’m saying I haven’t seen another thief that actually cared enough to learn their class. I’m sorry if this sounds arrogant or what, but I’ve never come against another thief and thought it was a hard match up. If they do something, I know how to counter it. When I do something, they don’t bother to counter it or they aren’t built for it.

I’ve also never been killed by the CnD → Steal → Backstab combo, even though I’m built pure glass cannon.

In which case you are making a point about the players you’ve faced and not the class itself.

Unless we can expect Iron Wolf to similarly never meet a decent thief, it’s hard to see how your comments can be applied to his question about classes.

Then what I understand from what you’re saying is that a better thief counters thief.

Which is exactly how it’s supposed to be and working as intended. In a clone battle, the better player wins. It doesn’t mean your class is OP if your hardest match up is a thief played better.

Actually, that’s not what I was saying. I was saying that all things being equal (the starting point for any comparison, I would have thought), thieves are the most difficult class I encounter.

That’s because other classes can rarely give me an even run, whereas an equally skilled theif will inevitably do so.

I must suck at playing a thief because for all the times I’ve supposedly 1 shot a target I have died three or four times attempting it. What many people fail to see (or they do see it but fail to add it to their QQ) is that thieves rarely one shot somebody from full health, but instead target those with 50% health or below to get the bonus damage. Thieves and Rogues in general are an opportunistic profession, the aim is to capitalise on your opponents weakness and eliminate the threat.

Best counter I have come across has been Bunker Guardian and D/D elementalists. A good D/D ele that plays their attunements can pop static shield when CC’d, AE knockback with earth attunement, switch back to air for another static shield and Dps.

I must admit I’ve been struggling with my Backstab build these past few days.

Maybe it was pure chance but it seemed like everyone and their mother was running some kind of defensive build and were constantly dodging just as I Stole. And once that window is closed, the Venoms blown…then all it takes is 2 stuns and you’re out.

Again, it might have been bad luck or maybe people have started to adapt. Then again, so have I. I’ve switched to a Pistol/Dagger – D/D Bleed build using lots of Stealth. And it’s really lots of fun. No big Crits, but lots of constant Bleeds and you die a lot less, you can actually join in Brawls and even pull off one or the other 2v1s without too much hassle.

So to those avid Backstabbers out there. As fun as it can be, Backstabbing isn’t the only viable build out there.. Give others a try and see if you can’t enjoy them.

It’s come to my attention that almost no guardians realize they can use their bubbles for anything other than personal shields. Shame. No wonder people think thieves are unstoppable.

As a condition Thief Necro’s with anti-condition skills are tough.

BishopX.6453:

2001- DAOC, remember when nightblades could backstab with a 2handed axe and not lose stealth if they killed you in 1 shot…. but since it was with a TWO HANDED AXE… they could kill anyone that wasnt a tank or healer outright. Remember IWINfiltrators?

And yet I never had any problem in particular with those two while playing nightshade unless they had buffs and I did not. Besides, the impact on group and large scale RvR was about nil.

BishopX.6453:

i can name you MANY games that got the melee healer and didnt make it overpowered. you only remember wow
I remember DAOC monk (LOL) daoc warden daoc aug healer daoc valewalker, daoc valkery were FAR from op.

Aug Healer was NEVER EVER intended to do 1 vs 1 RvR… and aug healer was quite overpowered in a melee dps group… and Valkyries got a buff that made them pretty insane for one patch – even being able to win a 1 vs 4+ if it were melee classes…

Besides, I’ve played most of these op stealther classes, I’ve played them before the nerf bat hit and afterwards. I had to change tactics and equipment, but in the end i definitely ALWAYS was an a positive W/L ratio if you count 1vs1 fights.
Btw. you missed SW:TOR operatives / scoundrels. 10k opener with 3 second stun against non-50 chars while they were all in one pvp zone with about 12k HP by then. THAT actually was op, got nerfed three times I think, but you could still play the class and it still worked although the initial damage wasn’t even 50% in the end. You just had to be a little more picky.

Here are the hard counters to Thieves:

Warrior: Endure Pain, Defy Pain, Shield block.
Guardian: Renewed Focus, Retailation, Shelter, Sanctuary, Ring of Ward, CC.
Mesmer: P.Defender, Chaos Armor, Decoy, Veil.
Ranger: Guard, Signet of Stone, Quick Shot.
Necromancer: Spectral Armor, Well of Corruption, Well of Darkness, Death Shroud.
Elementalist: Arcane Shield, Final Shielding, Earth Armor, Mist Form.
All classes: Toughness.

2001- DAOC uhh.. smite clerics at launch. Remember those?

2004- World of warcraft – unkillable palladins at launch, druids. Stunlock rogues are OP, but GW2 doesnt have stunlocking

2006- Warhammer online – Warrior Priest/ Disciple of Khaine… ridiculously overpowered. Witch Elves were nerfed into uselessness.

2009- Rift: planes of telara Clerics that could outheal all damage AND kill you at the same time Actual thief classes in Rift were never all that good. Sab/Marksmen were OP at one point but the stealth classes were always crappy.

Those are all healers and they were/are all overpowered