Guild Wars 2

eithinan.9841:

GameRex.8735:

Stealth is a broken mechanism.
Arena Net give nothing against it, it is a HUGE mistake. Thief and Menser can’t lose a one vs one, if they are losing -> Stealth -> They are no more losing.

Running from a fight is losing the fight. The only difference with this is the winner does not get the bag at the end.

Yeah, this is one part of the problem with Stealth in WvW; if the thief is smart with their stealth, it’s a get-out-of-fail-free card that they can play at pretty much any time, as much as they like. Now, the situation above is not, in itself, that big of a problem (some loot denial, but otherwise the thief is just losing fights and running away.) Hell I had a thief the other night on a dead borderlands that engaged me alone 6 times (was running my Guardian,) and fled with stealth each time.

The bigger problem is when a thief runs around in perma-stealth keeping objectives contested; and there’s no real counter to it aside from a mob of players big enough to kill it quickly (if they can find it and be in range.)

Take my example above with my Guardian, I was running GS + Hammer.

Problem: There is absolutely no way to tell if I am actually hitting the thief, or if they evaded a critical skill., and of course it immediately breaks targeting.

The best I can do is immobilize + ring of warding, or pull with GS —> swap for Ring of Warding then start blindly swinging in the ring area. I have a good chance of putting all my skills on cool down and it being a total waste; most of the time the stealth outlasts a ring of warding and they just pick a random direction to flee when it goes down, and there’s just no way for me to tell.

In PvP, getting hit needs to reveal, or at the very least display combat messages at their location (damage, evade, block, etc.) With the later, you can at least AoE in areas you suspect the thief is in and track them down.

What nerfs to the Thief was the OP referring to? I think the only thing Anet mentioned recently was reducing the damage of Mug to bring it in line with other traits available for such a small point cost. Although personally, I don’t think reducing the damage is what’s needed so much as simply changing how mug works with the steal mechanic.

I think generally, d/d Eles, shatter Mesmers and d/d Thieves are on Anets radar for rebalancing. Not necessarily nerfing, but definitely rebalancing.

They added a second on reveal. Personally I’d have just kept the 3 seconds, but made it so any action (meaning attack, skill, finishers) in stealth throws you out of it with the reveal debuff on.

Lyndis.2584:

thayes.4851:

The thief is perfectly fine. Our burst damage is completely in line with other classes. Survivability isn’t an issue for us because of stealth, we are supposed to rinse light armor classes and one shot them. Without perma stealth it has got a bit more difficult so they should probably fix that so that no one can see us ever.

10k backstabs from a 18k HP pool
1.5k toughness

Are you high?

I’ve hit similarly speced guardians for about as high on Kill Shot out of a Valkyrie+Cavalier warrior build and about 10-13k out of a full round of shatters + Blurred Frenzy at the same time.

lol to most of this thread. U want op? Play daoc or ask any daoc player about infiltrators…. My inf along with any geared high RR inf make thieves look like kittens in this game :P

silverfire.2547:

Lyndis.2584:

thayes.4851:

The thief is perfectly fine. Our burst damage is completely in line with other classes. Survivability isn’t an issue for us because of stealth, we are supposed to rinse light armor classes and one shot them. Without perma stealth it has got a bit more difficult so they should probably fix that so that no one can see us ever.

10k backstabs from a 18k HP pool
1.5k toughness

Are you high?

I’ve hit similarly speced guardians for about as high on Kill Shot out of a Valkyrie+Cavalier warrior build and about 10-13k out of a full round of shatters + Blurred Frenzy at the same time.

I would also point out if built right the shatter mesmer can easily drop a second round of shatters on the opponent as fast or faster than a backstabber can pull off a 2nd backstab. And all those shatters can drop conditions on top of you too.

As to the guardian above. It sounds like you and a thief had a solid stalemate. Well done. How does it feel to be the wall the thief was bashing his face against with no good outcome?

Henrik.7560:

@OP, thieves are not weak. They have over 8 different ways to stealth. They have instant burst: Steal
and spammable burst: heartseeker, C&D.
they have the ultimately broken healing skill that removes conditions, heals, grants regen, and stealth.
and the shadow refuge is the most rediculous thing ever. only have to stay in it for 4s, you get 12s of stealth. And don’t say LTP, i know that I can knock them back or out of it, but those skills normally get blown during the fight.
OP, YOU are the one who needs to LTP an overpowered class.

Are you kittening serious right now?

The instant you said “Heartseeker/CnD as spammable burst” I leapt out of my chair and rolled around so hard on the floor while bursting with laughter that I knocked over my fan which landed on my computer which then blew up, caused the house to catch fire, me to burn to death, and for me to have to post this from the grave on a supercomputer.

You have absolutely no kittening idea what you’re talking about, and quite frankly, it’s HIGHLARIOUS in every way. It’s people like YOU who need to L2P because you’re clearly terrible.

Roll a Thief and try even half of the kitten you just pulled out of your butt, lmao.

eithinan.9841:

As to the guardian above. It sounds like you and a thief had a solid stalemate. Well done. How does it feel to be the wall the thief was bashing his face against with no good outcome?

While I was annoyed that he could get away without much effort, I still /laughed that he had no chance of beating me, and it did have a purpose:

Was on TC Borderlands (I’m on TC) and it was pretty empty. A guildie and I were taking the southern most camp and this thief kept running over with perma-stealth to prevent us from capping. So I ran him off then stood at the entrance and he could never get passed me while my guildie took the camp.

Lyndis.2584:

thayes.4851:

The thief is perfectly fine. Our burst damage is completely in line with other classes. Survivability isn’t an issue for us because of stealth, we are supposed to rinse light armor classes and one shot them. Without perma stealth it has got a bit more difficult so they should probably fix that so that no one can see us ever.

10k backstabs from a 18k HP pool
1.5k toughness

Are you high?

4.6k backstab damage from a 17k HP pool (if you don’t include wvw HP gain it’s 16000).
1.4k Toughness.

10k backstab damage from a 14k HP pool (if you don’t include wvw HP gain, it’s 13500 HP).
1k toughness.
Only one true usable stealth for full glass cannon.

Burst damage counters thieves, counters elementalists, counters bunker guardians at 75% hp (if he doesn’t activate in time). That’s the truth.

Elementalist has mobility and high sustained heals.
Guardians have high armor, high uptime boons.
Thieves has stealth.
Mesmers have clones and mass invisibility.

Sigh.

Pretty sure the Thief hate comes mostly from inexperienced players in WvW. The typical roaming thief (not all) in WvW is a walking opener, an opportunist, who chooses and tests his targets carefully. If you are plagued by thieves you are likely either a ranger, an up-leveled character, or observably inexperienced (definitely unbind the back-peddle key and turn left/right, and learn to navigate with the mouse with strafing only—you don’t need to paint a target on your back). Again, the thieves that cause these people grief are largely walking openers and all you need to do is to choose not to participate in the opener, problem solved. Stay alive, cause some damage and the opportunist will leave. It’s no different, really, than surviving a greatsword warriors stun/frenzy/100b. If you choose to sit through it you’ll likely end up dead. But, why sit through it? It’s the same with the thief. The thief has a stealth mechanic and absolutely needs it and the mobility to even stay alive on the battlefield. But who really cares if you can’t catch them? It’s WvW afterall. It’s not about 1v1 (though the videos are entertaining). It’s about taking objectives, earning points, and actually winning—kinda like real war. If your head’s in 1v1’s and roaming for pleasure kills then you aren’t contributing to your server’s effort. You don’t need to always zerg it, but attach yourself to a group that seems to know what they are doing and contribute. When you have a few good players around, the typical d/d ele/thief roamer is usually not going to be interested.

I have all the professions at 80 and play them all. I don’t play my thief in WvW. I’ve played a s/d build in PvE and really enjoyed the flow of the playstyle with an off-hand dagger. The latest round of nerfs destroyed the flow. I was playing a bit tonight and it’s just not the same. It’s not that I lost anything OP. If I want to plow through mobs largely unconcerned, I can play my Guardian or Warrior. My mesmer’s theme song is U Can’t Touch This. There’s no reason to extend reveal to 4s. It doesn’t solve any problem and it destroys a natural flowing playstyle. Just another unfortunate decision.

IsilZha.3608:

eithinan.9841:

As to the guardian above. It sounds like you and a thief had a solid stalemate. Well done. How does it feel to be the wall the thief was bashing his face against with no good outcome?

While I was annoyed that he could get away without much effort, I still /laughed that he had no chance of beating me, and it did have a purpose:

Was on TC Borderlands (I’m on TC) and it was pretty empty. A guildie and I were taking the southern most camp and this thief kept running over with perma-stealth to prevent us from capping. So I ran him off then stood at the entrance and he could never get passed me while my guildie took the camp.

so you were literally a wall he bashed his face on :P

eithinan.9841:

IsilZha.3608:

eithinan.9841:

As to the guardian above. It sounds like you and a thief had a solid stalemate. Well done. How does it feel to be the wall the thief was bashing his face against with no good outcome?

While I was annoyed that he could get away without much effort, I still /laughed that he had no chance of beating me, and it did have a purpose:

Was on TC Borderlands (I’m on TC) and it was pretty empty. A guildie and I were taking the southern most camp and this thief kept running over with perma-stealth to prevent us from capping. So I ran him off then stood at the entrance and he could never get passed me while my guildie took the camp.

so you were literally a wall he bashed his face on :P

You’re kitten right!

Well, I hope thief doesn’t get too botched before mine hits 80 "-.-

eithinan.9841:

Kim.5640:

eithinan.9841:

Almostfaceman.1804:

eithinan.9841:

Almostfaceman.1804:

A thief just solo’d a champion and his crew at a tower. That, my friends, is broken. No class and no one person should be able to take that down, it should be designed to take a team of folks to do it.

What about the Elemental who can ride the lightning into the lords room in a tower without breaking down the wall or door and solo the champ and his minions. They should reduce the distance of RTL by half and nerf ele’s dps.

Your point? That Anet is even more broken? Okay, fine. It’s even more broken. Not that I’ve ever done any of that on my elementalist.

I don’t care what anyone says, if you can’t see it and it can hit me first for huge damage, it’s OP. There’s no way I can counter something I can’t see. I won’t even play the class, ‘cause that’s too much of an advantage over someone else.

HAHAHAHAHA. So a thief backstabs you on your tank for lets say 1/3 of your HP’s. you still have more life than him(probably close to half again as much as he has). Learn to dodge roll. The only time a thief has ever landed a second hit on me after coming out of stealth is if he was using basilisk venom.
If you dont have heavy armor then invest in some toughness and you can get the same effect.

You got to understand that endurance regenerates pretty slowly and you can at most dodgeroll a couple of times, while the thieves can conserve their initiative while in stealth, then back stabbing for no initiative. Having played warriors for a long time, alot of thieves i encounter, the only thing i could do was, wildy slash and hack the air, while the thieves appear again only to backstab and disappear. 2 dodgerolls aint enough for the backstabbing from thieves, which bring down tanks easily. the time between backstabs are too short for warriors to recover endurance, not to mention, healing skill cooldown, which is much longer like 25 seconds to 30, whereas thieves initiative go back up quickly from CnD in like 5 seconds.

HAHAHAHAHA, Ill take this one a point by point.
1. Do you really think I dont understand the endurance and dodge roll mechanics?
2. " the only thing i could do was, wildy slash and hack the air, while the thieves appear again only to backstab and disappear." L2P, seriously.
3. Backstabs have at least a 5 second cooldown, without any repositioning due to revealed debuff. That CD should get you at least untraited 3 dodge rolls.
4.If you dodge roll or cc a C&D you have wasted half the thiefs initiative pool on most builds.
5.l2p,l2p,l2p…..

I have been 1 shotted by zerker 100B warriors even after I popped stealth. Stealth is not invulnerability.

OK let me put this straight, i was referring to a dagger pistol thief build, whom traited for stealth and initiative regeneration, can still deal 4k backstabs on tankier classes and 7k on less tanky ones. these dagger pistol thieves have very good stealthing abilities, and considering they can deal damage AND go invisible at the same time, it IS quite OP ( black powder then heart seeker to the guy). And im not very pleased with that L2P comment over there, you dont justify these kinda stuff by saying L2P, there are so many different playstyles for thieves. for instance, i roll alot when im near warriors, somtimes to the side, sometimes to their back through them, all done while invisible, so when i play my warrior i generally “wildly hack and slash the air” because i have no idea where they are. But if you were that thief, i would be much happier as it seems you stay in the same spot when you enter invisibilty, so i could frenzy and hundred blade the last spot i saw you at, since you mentioned that you get 1 shotted by 100b, which means you were staying put there letting him slash you, which i have no idea why, when you have stealth you could have moved? And you mentioned that backstab requires 5 seconds considering revealed debuff, yeah i know that backstab is strong, but dont tell me the thief does nothing even when the debuff is on? he can still use shadow shot and heartseeker and other skills to put constant pressure on the guy to make sure he doesnt heal back. to the number 4 point, yeah, thats only possible if he was playing CnD build, if he was playing dagger pistol its a whole new story. “l2pl2pl2p” Please dont use these terms if you yourself mentioned that you get 1 shotted by warriors 100B even when u pop stealth. I mean, cmon, who the hell stands in the middle of 100b? even if my endurance aint full i would walk away, WALK AWAY from it. Lastly, i have never once mentioned that stealth IS invulnerabilty, so dont put words in my post.

Stealth never needed a nerf. Culling definitely needed to be removed/fixed.

Theives should the 3s reverted because it screwed up a lot of play styles.

D/P is the only “smooth” feeling play style, second is S/D.

swinsk.6410:

Stealth never needed a nerf. Culling definitely needed to be removed/fixed.

Theives should the 3s reverted because it screwed up a lot of play styles.

D/P is the only “smooth” feeling play style, second is S/D.

In my opinion S/d now feels clunky as well, I switched to S/P.