Guild Wars 2

There are a number of thief-specific issues I’d like to point out that range from somewhat annoying to borderline frustrating.

1. Ability responsiveness

For some reason some abilities, like Infiltrator’s Strike (and return) and Cloak and Dagger can be very unresponsive in sPvP. With unresponsive I mean they simply don’t trigger when you activate them or only with a slight delay.

Oddly enough this seems to affect the Sword + Dagger combo more than for example, Dagger + Dagger where the responsiveness seem fine. I don’t generally have ability lag with any other skills except for Shadowsteps/Teleport skills.

Infiltrator’s Arrow is equally unresponsive at times at it sometimes feels “laggy” despite no other abilities showing lag-symptoms.

On that note, Infiltrator’s Arrow seems to feel “snappier” in sPvP with a regular bow compared to The Dreamer I use in regular content. Could it be that The Dreamer has slower projectiles?

2. Shadowstep reliability

Quite frequently I’ll use a Shadowstep like Infiltrator’s Arrow, see the animation and pay the Initiative cost, but no Shadowstep occurs. This is really annoying as Infiltrator’s Arrow is a very costly ability. I’d like to see a change in that if an ability won’t work, it shouldn’t trigger. Similar things happen with Shadowstep occasionally, as in it will trigger but your character won’t move. In today’s world of constant AoE CC spam this is most often a death sentence.

So please improve the reliability and pathing of Shadowsteps.

3. Stealth vs. Channeled abilities

This is one of the most frustrating things to have to deal with as a Thief. I understand that all MMOs have had a certain delay when it comes to de-targeting stealthed enemies. But GW2 certainly takes the cake. I can accept being hit by the odd ability up to a second after entering stealth. But in this game I’ve been hit for up to 10.000 damage by a single channeled barrage of arrows that started AFTER dropping Shadowrefuge. I’m talking about being hit by channeled skills 4-5 seconds after entering stealth. That’s not cool.

With virtually all abilities being either channeled or AoE I really wonder just how useful stealth really is in straight-up fights.

4. Auto attack behavior in stealth

I’ve come to accept that PvP combat and auto-attack don’t go well together. Especially not with a Stealth class. But it’s a shame really because it doesn’t have to be that way. Then again I can’t count how many times my momentum was ruined because the game insisted I should Backstab a wall….constantly. It got so bad that I couldn’t stealth on a wall with Daggers because it would automatically auto-attack the wall and thus break stealth. I mean we can’t even damage walls with regular attacks so why this anomaly?

But Backstabbing walls isn’t the only issue. I’ve had it in other situations as well, especially when using Shadowrefuge while wielding a bow. Often my character will decide to fire another shot, even after initiating stealth and thus ruining it in the process. Very frustrating. Given how spammy GW2s PvE content and zerging is I’d actually like to play with auto-attack on, but the lack of “attack suppression” when entering stealth is a deal-breaker.

5. Getting stuck in combat for ages due to stealth bugs

This is really annoying, especially in jumping puzzles where many jumps are downright impossible while in combat. The pinnacle is that there seems to be no internal reset timer. I can literally stand in the same place for an hour and still be “in combat”. This has been an issue since launch and still hasn’t changed.

If you insist on filling Jumping Puzzles with mobs then at least make stealth “de-combat” reliably.

6. Last Refuge

Much has been written and complained about this trait and all with good reason. For every time it has saved me it has killed me at least twice. This really needs to be made an optional trait or changed.

Thanks for reading.

To add to the auto-attack behavior in Stealth… this is exactly why I need to rotate to face 180 degrees away from the enemy, before I Steal with Hidden Thief traited when using Pistol main hand. :(

2. Shadowstep reliability

Also the pathing is messed up sometimes, you’ll shadowstep much shorter distance / won’t shadowtep at all, because the path is obstructed by something. This is a bigger problem on return parts (shadowstep/infi strike/shadow trap). I can understand it being obstructed by cliffs, trees, large rocks or any other large objects, but sometimes there’s nothing apparent in the way and still you won’t shadow return the full distance. Fortunately, on even terrain at least, it works as it should most of the time.

As many of you know, around Tyria there are many places, where you can use “trick shots” to get yourself up a cliff, siege tower or whatever, which comes in handy sometimes. However it doesn’t work in every place, and you just have to know the places where to get up/down with a well placed infi arrow or shadowstep. This is a good and bad thing.

Good about it is that player experience or knowledge plays a big role in this. Once you know the places and how to get up, the knowledge can save you a lot of time or even save your life in wvw or pvp.

Bad thing about it is that there’s a lot of inconsistencies in many of the “trick shot” places. For example in wvw borderlands maps, above astralhome/stargrove/foghaven, there’s cliff and on a certain spot you

can get down with a shadowtep, but if you shadow return, you wont get back up
cannot use infiltrators strike to get down
cannot use infiltrators arrow to get down

Same place, but starting down the cliff, you
can shadowstep up, and if you use shadow return, you will get back down
can use infi arrow to get up

And that’s just one measly spot in the large world. Same rules won’t necessarily apply to the spot 2 meters next to the one used in the example.

6. Dancing dagger

It looks good on paper, but oh god. Out of range, miss, miss, obstructed, out of range, not enough initiative. If not the most, then one of the most unreliable skills in the game (in wvw and pvp). Although the tooltip says the range says 900, it feels like 600.

7. Steal reliability
Steal is an awesome utility which works most of the time as well. However sometimes it can be a little bit buggy. I split the situations into 4 groups:

1. You’re out of range and the steal goes on 5 second cooldown. While I would love for steal to be a gap closer, at least this way you know you probably were out of range.
2. You’re in range and steal works as it should, you shadowstep to your foe and steal a skill.
3. You’re in range and you somehow get obstructed by something (tree stump, rock, butterfly, a flea, electron, w/e) and wont shadowstep the full distance, but you still get the stolen skill.
4. You’re definitely in range, sometimes the foe is almost next to you and yet somehow the steal goes into that 5 second cooldown. It’s rare, but it sucks when it happens.

I’ll prolly list more when I get the chance.

Sneek

Sneek.6504:

7. Steal reliability
Steal is an awesome utility which works most of the time as well. However sometimes it can be a little bit buggy. I split the situations into 4 groups:

1. You’re out of range and the steal goes on 5 second cooldown. While I would love for steal to be a gap closer, at least this way you know you probably were out of range.
2. You’re in range and steal works as it should, you shadowstep to your foe and steal a skill.
3. You’re in range and you somehow get obstructed by something (tree stump, rock, butterfly, a flea, electron, w/e) and wont shadowstep the full distance, but you still get the stolen skill.
4. You’re definitely in range, sometimes the foe is almost next to you and yet somehow the steal goes into that 5 second cooldown. It’s rare, but it sucks when it happens.

I’ll prolly list more when I get the chance.

Sneek

On a steal i find quite frequently “obstructed” miss: steal goes on CD, i got buffs from thrill of the crime, but other aspects haven’t triggered – boon steal, heal, stolen skill, vigor, daze.
It is kittened because steal cannot be “obstructed”

I think the main issue with the ability responsiveness is that skills won’t cancel 1 attack animation, I understand why from balancing stand-point, but not going to lie I would be incredibly happy if they allowed you to cancel out of 1 attack with other skills (like you currently can with some utilities, dodge and heal skills). That being said, some skills are worse offenders than others, namely the ones you listed. To add on to it I feel Cluster Bomb also has the tendency to feel unresponsive.

EDIT: Though I’d like to mention that you can cancel out 1 attack with Black Powder and Cloak and Dagger, Head Shot and Disabling Shot, those are the only ones I can think of though.