Guild Wars 2

Just thought I’d like to share my personal thoughts as someone who has a thief main 1000+ hours and a low level guardian.

Personally, I think the thief does exactly what it was meant to do: master of escape and mobility. I do NOT, however, think all aspects of the thief are balanced. Just a quick list

Body Shot: This skill is absolutely worthless. It needs serious consideration for a buff, because as it stands now, all it does is waste my initiative in the heat of combat when I accidentally press 2

Revealed: I never saw the 4s revealed as a nerf, but the thief fields weird and clunky now. As many others have said, everything about the thief revolves around 3s, why change revealed? It didn’t nerf thieves as much as people would like to do. Culling was the real nerf here.

Removing a condition every 3s in stealth: In all honesty, this trait is overpowered. Reason being is that it turns certain thief builds(D/P, for example) invincible against condition builds. A D/P build I used to use was absolutely ridiculous in this. I would run healing in stealth and condition cure in stealth, and not once did I lose to a condition build. That says alot. The trait renders so many condition classes useless against the thief. Doesn’t help that it removes one condition the second you enter stealth. This needs serious consideration.

Black Powder + Heartseeker: Another thing I truely think was overpowered. With a X/D build, it’s easy to deny stealth(essentially one of the only waves to kill a proper thief) by dodging cloak and dagger. The BP+HS combo totally defies this.. On demand perma stealth, at any time, with zero counter. On top of that add a ranged blind attack and blind field makes it absolutely ridiculous in certain scenarios. This ignores that fact that running with a fellow D/P friend, you can essentially share stealth if one person lays down a BP. I do believe there needs to be more initiative cost to B/P, while buffing the condition blind itself to balance out other Pistol offhand builds while adjusting D/P.

P/P: This weapon set needs some love. As it stands, P/P is useless without a blind buff or access to stealth.

D/P Black powder Heartseeker, yes is soo OP!

i can perma stealth, and on top of that i can blind the enemy then do HS damage and THEN stealth for extra damage

i believe i can also (never tried)… BP > HS+ Steal with mug and then BS

i read somewhere i can HS and steal together and get the mug damage and HS damage but never tried

andyMak.6985:

D/P Black powder Heartseeker, yes is soo OP!

i can perma stealth, and on top of that i can blind the enemy then do HS damage and THEN stealth for extra damage

i believe i can also (never tried)… BP > HS+ Steal with mug and then BS

i read somewhere i can HS and steal together and get the mug damage and HS damage but never tried

Agreed we BADLY need to be nerfed. Thief is so op ….

not

^ I don’t think their real sentiment is that the thief is OP in reality but they probably noticed the lenience the set gives and think it shouldn’t happen under it’s own power.
Though unless they a) remove the leap from HS or change the skill
or b) change BP or switch the field to a dark field.
it’s not going to happen. Hell they’ll probably buff 3-5 and throw boon removal on backstab.

As well D/P doesn’t have any evades it relies on the single hit blinds and its stealth.

just a few points from my experience, as far as stealth condition removal, without traiting into shadow arts for it, our condition removal isn’t that great without a sword main hand. that means defensive thieves can often deal with condition when the GC thieves cant. also there are professions even better at handling conditions, such as necros who can fling conditions back at people, use them to heal, or convert them to boons. they may not be able to cleanse as often, but they can have a much greater effect when they do.

as far as bp/hs stealthing having no counter, immobilizes can stop HS from reaching the field, and I have seen people who are starting to learn to knock back/immobilize thieves when they see BP go off, making the thief blow 6 initiative with no gain. it is harder to counter than CnD certainly, but it does cost more initiative and doesn’t posses the same burst capability as off hand dagger.

lastly, your proposed initiative cost increase for BP would be horrible for s/p builds. they use it for defensive purposes (mostly in PvE I admit, but ever see a haste HS spam thief try and kill someone through BP?) and stomping. it is a common problem when balancing the thief though. almost everything meant to counter a build perceived as OP so far has hurt builds that use the same ability in a different way far worse.

and yeah, P/P needs some love, though that is all in the pistol main hands court. pistol off hand is great as is.

not saying it’s op just it’s ridiculous that i can stealth across the map

i’ve followed Zergs around in stealth and watched groups and followed them around the map in stealth

sure if they were paying attention they would see the BP ring but still i can get from one end of the map to the other in stealth

Guess I never met the OP in the field I have never lost to a D/P thief as P/D. They could never touch me and my build FORCED them into stealth constantly, if they messed up they where toast.

Edit: You know what, I’m gonna get verbally attacked again.

So…basically I agree with the OP.

A stealthing thief fighting against a heavy condition build needs to stay in stealth all the time to cleanse. This mostly shuts-down the thief if there is constant conditions being applied.
I dont think its OP…

As to boom hate. Not sure about this.
I think I would like to see more something like “venons remove boons on application” and “traps change x boons into conditions on trigger” to give this utilities more use…
Imagine a boom-removing-life-stealing-venon-sharring build… hummm

Condition removal while in stealth is strong, but i’m not sure it’s op. There are lots of builds with so much condition removal they are virtually impossible to kill by it and i’m not sure thieves fall into this group either. The reliance on being in stealth poses a significant liability. Applying a lot of conditions followed by an interrupt when going into to stealth, or stuns/fears to give the conditions time to deal damage can work, especially with the thief’s small hp pool.

You can also counter the heart seeker through black powder combo. A well timed stun, fear, knock-back or immobilise before the heartseeker lands will prevent stealth and waste the thief a lot of initiative. It’s not as simple to prevent as just dodging CnD, but it can be countered and places the thief at a significant disadvantage if achieved.

lLobo.7960:

A stealthing thief fighting against a heavy condition build needs to stay in stealth all the time to cleanse. This mostly shuts-down the thief if there is constant conditions being applied.
I dont think its OP…

I don’t agree with this at all. A large part of a dagger/x thief’s rotation will be stealth, burst, stealth burst, stealth burst, etc. Forcing the thief to stealth is hardly shutting us down; it’s allowing for the next backstab and a natural part of dagger/x gameplay..

As to shadow’s embrace being op – 2 conditions cleared every stealth is pretty strong. I don’t feel as though dagger/x takes too much advantage of this though as it’s very easy to shutdown cloak and dagger, however dagger/pistol pushes this trait into the realm of overpowered. I don’t believe that this is the fault of shadow’s embrace – it’s the d/p that needs tweaking. This is a pattern that sheds light on d/p’s need for change. With the right build, the AoE blind shuts down melee classes, shadow’s embrace cleansing conditions ‘on call’ shuts cond. classes down hard, easy access to stealth and having the ability to stay in stealth for longer durations if you choose – all this without sacrificing a tremendous deal of damage.

Everytime I see a fellow thief heartseeking through blackpowder over and over I admit I roll my eyes. It’s unarguably effective but it’s just so lame.

andyMak.6985:

not saying it’s op just it’s ridiculous that i can stealth across the map

i’ve followed Zergs around in stealth and watched groups and followed them around the map in stealth

sure if they were paying attention they would see the BP ring but still i can get from one end of the map to the other in stealth

What a dreadful waste of your time.

The way I see it is that we need another way of removing conditions outside of sword/x or stealth. The sword route forces us into that weapon set. The stealth route forces us to put 20 in shadow arts and a viable way of entering stealth. I would rather see the revealed debuff be changed to increase the damage taken for that duration instead of not allowing them to stealth and the condition removal on stealth be removed or changed to do something else. This would allow for a boost in overall Thief defense and condition removal.

Currently you can build for stealth to heal you, remove conditions, apply might, and be applied for when stealing. We don’t really have anything that rewards dodging or really playing with a focus on other mechanics that we have.

Sarrow.2785:

lLobo.7960:

A stealthing thief fighting against a heavy condition build needs to stay in stealth all the time to cleanse. This mostly shuts-down the thief if there is constant conditions being applied.
I dont think its OP…

I don’t agree with this at all. A large part of a dagger/x thief’s rotation will be stealth, burst, stealth burst, stealth burst, etc. Forcing the thief to stealth is hardly shutting us down; it’s allowing for the next backstab and a natural part of dagger/x gameplay..

As to shadow’s embrace being op – 2 conditions cleared every stealth is pretty strong. I don’t feel as though dagger/x takes too much advantage of this though as it’s very easy to shutdown cloak and dagger, however dagger/pistol pushes this trait into the realm of overpowered. I don’t believe that this is the fault of shadow’s embrace – it’s the d/p that needs tweaking. This is a pattern that sheds light on d/p’s need for change. With the right build, the AoE blind shuts down melee classes, shadow’s embrace cleansing conditions ‘on call’ shuts cond. classes down hard, easy access to stealth and having the ability to stay in stealth for longer durations if you choose – all this without sacrificing a tremendous deal of damage.

Everytime I see a fellow thief heartseeking through blackpowder over and over I admit I roll my eyes. It’s unarguably effective but it’s just so lame.

Problem is if they are utilizing stealth as their attack rotation they either wont be getting the 2 conditions cleared per stealth or they are attacking really slowly.

Then you have to factor in thieves low health pool that already makes them more vulnerable to conditions without the healing support the other 2 lowest health tier professions have access to.

In all it can be powerful to a degree but I don’t think its overly powerful when you bring in all the different factors to it.

As for BP+HS combo… well thats another debatably powerful move, yes it allows them to get upto 6 seconds stealth at range but it costs basically all of their initiative its also counterable with anything that prevents the heartseeker going off/reaching far enough granted it does bring in some defensive aspect to the thief with the ranged blind (melee blind technically as well because there is always going to be someone stupid enough to stand in the field) however again this is a defensive effect on someone with little to no other defenses at that point

Let me get this out of the way first… I’m new to thief and I’m certainly no master at this class. But I can’t agree with a lot of what’s said here.

For condition removal, without traiting into it, it is not much better than what most other classes are capable of. This class also has an insanely small amount of health where we’d be killed if only a few conditions remained on the class. I think if you changed the way conditions were removed, you’d have to increase the class’ base health.

I’d also add that the class’ strength against condition is offset by its almost total lack of stability. If you want to make the class weaker against conditions, you’d have t make it stronger against other things.

Now as for HS+BP, I don’t see the real concern here. While it can be abused like everything else, you sacrifice a fair amount of burst by using this combo over d/d. You benefit from having the blind field and the ability to restealth at range at a higher cost than CnD. So when all is said and done you lose almost all of the burst CnD provided in exchange for more defense. It really doesn’t seem that bad. I’d argue that if your goal was to nerf HS+BP, the target shouldn’t be HS or BP, but rather initiative regen as the regen is what gives the spec its power and compensates it for the loss of DPS in CnD and D/D.

Now as for revealed, I honestly never played the thief before the patch (look, I said in my first sentence I’m new to this class!) so I honestly haven’t had a problem coping with a 4s revealed. I’m a bit concerned that they would change it back to 3s but leave it at 4s for sPvP though as that’s a dramatic shift in abilities between systems.

Now my opinion of the class doesn’t stand for much, but I can tell you the areas I feel most concerned with are with stability, longevity after the initial burst fails, cooldown use when trying to execute someone once downed, and the class’ shortcomings in the current WvW meta.

I’ve come to terms that stability is the limiting factor for this class and it’s intended for us to struggle with it. I’m trying to convince myself that even though I can kill someone, my inability to down them without the use of skills/abilities is just my lack of understanding of the class. WvW though, especially since the whole game revolves around nothing but Zerg v. Zerg? That area I feel is something this class will never be able to compete in without drastic class changes.

Doomdesire.9365:

Removing a condition every 3s in stealth: In all honesty, this trait is overpowered. Reason being is that it turns certain thief builds(D/P, for example) invincible against condition builds. A D/P build I used to use was absolutely ridiculous in this. I would run healing in stealth and condition cure in stealth, and not once did I lose to a condition build. That says alot. The trait renders so many condition classes useless against the thief. Doesn’t help that it removes one condition the second you enter stealth. This needs serious consideration.

I also think that healing is OP. I mean, come on, a guardian traited can tank me for hours! It’s cleary OP. It turns power based build useless against him.

Doomdesire.9365:

P/P: This weapon set needs some love. As it stands, P/P is useless without a blind buff or access to stealth.

I was thinking today why doesn’t Black Powder have the same ability as Blinding powder? Where it causes Stealth and blinds as a field but costs initiative.

But then I guess that would make D/P builds even more stupid powerful so I wouldn’t even know where to begin balance on that one which I guess is why A-net didn’t do it that way.

Sunflowers.1729:

Edit: You know what, I’m gonna get verbally attacked again.

So…basically I agree with the OP.

me and sunflowers USUALLY do battle in here alot buuuuuuuuut. i have to agree here. i dont think the d/p way was what thieves were meant to be and i think it should be change just a lil. probably in skill 5 black powder so you can only enter invis once. i think that will force people to really leave invis a lil more bc going in and out is what we are meant to do…..that said we shoudl still be able to go invis for longer time incase we wanna escape! i do think even if this doesnt happen….we need blind to be buffed…or our defense etc. we cant play in wvw right now as is……and if u say we can its bc u do small skirmishes which mean nothing

Doomdesire.9365:

Removing a condition every 3s in stealth: In all honesty, this trait is overpowered. Reason being is that it turns certain thief builds(D/P, for example) invincible against condition builds. A D/P build I used to use was absolutely ridiculous in this. I would run healing in stealth and condition cure in stealth, and not once did I lose to a condition build. That says alot. The trait renders so many condition classes useless against the thief. Doesn’t help that it removes one condition the second you enter stealth. This needs serious consideration.

Black Powder + Heartseeker: Another thing I truely think was overpowered. With a X/D build, it’s easy to deny stealth(essentially one of the only waves to kill a proper thief) by dodging cloak and dagger. The BP+HS combo totally defies this.. On demand perma stealth, at any time, with zero counter. On top of that add a ranged blind attack and blind field makes it absolutely ridiculous in certain scenarios. This ignores that fact that running with a fellow D/P friend, you can essentially share stealth if one person lays down a BP. I do believe there needs to be more initiative cost to B/P, while buffing the condition blind itself to balance out other Pistol offhand builds while adjusting D/P.

P/P: This weapon set needs some love. As it stands, P/P is useless without a blind buff or access to stealth.

Oh yes, remove a condition for 9 Initiative is clearly OP ..

Also you forget that you have to
a) run D/P
b) spend points in SA traitline which will lower dmg quite a lot.

And no, it does not render condition builds useless, if thiefs would not have this trait we would just be freekills for those
mega hard to play condition spammers !

Basic thief trait setup + weaponsets when running shadow’s embrace is

10/30/30/0/0 D+P .

This setup does more then 50% less DMG with standard burst combo then 25/30/0/0/15 with D+D.

So this is absolute fine !

Infact, D+P with 30pkt in SA is finally another way to play thief instead of the mainstream burst specc, you can even “outplay”
other classes using this setup.

Of course not as good as our beloved elementalists or ng’s but its a start.

d/p lacks AoE damage, and is vulnerable to AoE damage that ignores blind, is highly vulnerable to ranged attacks, and as the rest of the thief builds besides S/P and S/D it’s vulnerable to knockdowns, stuns & daze, it’s vulnerable to retaliation builds and other anti direct dmg builds.

In return to this, it has strong single target damage while being able to evade other close range targets, it is/can be anti condition like what every other profession can be
built for. It can be permanently in stealth but a thief running around permanently
in stealth is harmless, blackpowder>heartseeker can be interrupted by any build
with a ranged interrupt and heartseeker can be knocked down.
Backstab can easily be countered by dodging or jumping and turning around a lot
to make it hard for the thief to successfully attack you from behind.

Just because thieves aren’t facerollable by every build in the game doesn’t make them
imbalanced. And blackpowder doesn’t help you against GS warriors, d/d elementalists and shatter mesmers.

Edit: forgot to add, that using stealth through Blackpowder>Heartseeker is very clunky, and wont allow you to stack stealth more than 1 time with many enemies, critters and neutral/unfriendly npcs around. which gives you a total of 2½ seconds of active stealth. In situations like these Dagger offhand is supperior, since it allows you to re-enter stealth smoothly with cloak&dagger as soon as your stealth ends.
While with D/P you’ll end up with 0 initiative unless you are able to get 3 heartseekers through your smoke field.

lvis.3824:

Doomdesire.9365:

Removing a condition every 3s in stealth: In all honesty, this trait is overpowered. Reason being is that it turns certain thief builds(D/P, for example) invincible against condition builds. A D/P build I used to use was absolutely ridiculous in this. I would run healing in stealth and condition cure in stealth, and not once did I lose to a condition build. That says alot. The trait renders so many condition classes useless against the thief. Doesn’t help that it removes one condition the second you enter stealth. This needs serious consideration.

Black Powder + Heartseeker: Another thing I truely think was overpowered. With a X/D build, it’s easy to deny stealth(essentially one of the only waves to kill a proper thief) by dodging cloak and dagger. The BP+HS combo totally defies this.. On demand perma stealth, at any time, with zero counter. On top of that add a ranged blind attack and blind field makes it absolutely ridiculous in certain scenarios. This ignores that fact that running with a fellow D/P friend, you can essentially share stealth if one person lays down a BP. I do believe there needs to be more initiative cost to B/P, while buffing the condition blind itself to balance out other Pistol offhand builds while adjusting D/P.

P/P: This weapon set needs some love. As it stands, P/P is useless without a blind buff or access to stealth.

Oh yes, remove a condition for 9 Initiative is clearly OP ..

Also you forget that you have to
a) run D/P
b) spend points in SA traitline which will lower dmg quite a lot.

And no, it does not render condition builds useless, if thiefs would not have this trait we would just be freekills for those
mega hard to play condition spammers !

Basic thief trait setup + weaponsets when running shadow’s embrace is

10/30/30/0/0 D+P .

This setup does more then 50% less DMG with standard burst combo then 25/30/0/0/15 with D+D.

So this is absolute fine !

Infact, D+P with 30pkt in SA is finally another way to play thief instead of the mainstream burst specc, you can even “outplay”
other classes using this setup.

Of course not as good as our beloved elementalists or ng’s but its a start.

actually most thieves with d/p use 20 points in acro. :P those 2 or 3 extra intiative per 10 secs really help in a fight. plus doulbe the dodges with extra refil plus vigor. its half your defense right there.

Ghostwolf.9863:

d/p lacks AoE damage, and is vulnerable to AoE damage that ignores blind, is highly vulnerable to ranged attacks, and as the rest of the thief builds besides S/P and S/D it’s vulnerable to knockdowns, stuns & daze, it’s vulnerable to retaliation builds and other anti direct dmg builds.

In return to this, it has strong single target damage while being able to evade other close range targets, it is/can be anti condition like what every other profession can be
built for. It can be permanently in stealth but a thief running around permanently
in stealth is harmless, blackpowder>heartseeker can be interrupted by any build
with a ranged interrupt and heartseeker can be knocked down.
Backstab can easily be countered by dodging or jumping and turning around a lot
to make it hard for the thief to successfully attack you from behind.

Just because thieves aren’t facerollable by every build in the game doesn’t make them
imbalanced. And blackpowder doesn’t help you against GS warriors, d/d elementalists and shatter mesmers.

Edit: forgot to add, that using stealth through Blackpowder>Heartseeker is very clunky, and wont allow you to stack stealth more than 1 time with many enemies, critters and neutral/unfriendly npcs around. which gives you a total of 2½ seconds of active stealth. In situations like these Dagger offhand is supperior, since it allows you to re-enter stealth smoothly with cloak&dagger as soon as your stealth ends.
While with D/P you’ll end up with 0 initiative unless you are able to get 3 heartseekers through your smoke field.

i have to agree. d/p is my backup when dueling however…. it is very prone to being owned by ranged and AOE skills. that said its really like the 2nd/3rd best build available for thieves. p/d bleed invis 5 0 30 30 5 is the best ….2nd being sword build and 3rd D/P. many wont agree with this. that is bc they think that skirmishes are everything even though the prove/do/change nothing. zerg play is the most important. surviving skirmishes to help get to or cap for the zerg is 2nd most important. avoiding 1 v 1s / winning 1 v 1s is the 3rd most IMO. add in capping camps with number 2. D/P gets owned in zerg play. VERY low survivability! dont care what anyone says. blah blah blah pick and choose battles. well picking 1 person and doing 20k dmg to him isnt that impressive in z v z …….an ele/ranger does more even tho they spread the dmg out. bleed thief too with cluster bombs /bleeds and caltrops. area blinds …….what!? d/p can dot hat too? not really…u go intot he middle of a zerg with that build and ur dead most often. then ur putting out 0 dmg. so to recap….

d/p = best dueling build
p/d = best all around WVW build
s/d = best suvivability/dmg build
d/d= best burst build against a non thief/mesmer/guardian

The thief shortbow Trickshot (default 1) , says 0.25 activation time, when it’s actually 0.95 (its the only viable ranged weapon). That’s messed. Flanking strike (Skill 3 on Sword) is very gimmicky. P/P is just a garbage set, 0 mobility and the 2 skill is terrible/useless. Pistol whip deserves its -15% damage loss back, hopefully they add a bit more mobility as I don’t think its fair an elementalist has as much/more mobility than a thief and can self heal and apply 100 boons within changing a few attunements..
underwater elite is garbage as it’s only balisk venom. But my worst thing that negs me to no end, is how channeled skills continue.. even when you stealth. What is the logic behind this?! When you go stealth, you go INVISIBLE, how on earth does someone who cast a Volley (Warrior Rifle 3) hit you once, I go stealth and the next 4 hits magically hit me while I’m invisible. Not only that but it trails me in stealth giving my location.. I find that completely borken to no extent. oh and daggerstorm at times doesn’t even hit anyone until it renders people and by then 1/2 of my casting is already used up lol. /rant.

Actually any kind of AoE CC or AoE damage will be good counters to D/P stealth stacking since you know exactly where the Thief is when he tries to stack stealth.

You can also easily interrupt the initial Heartseeker after the Thief sets up a smoke field, which will result in the Thief being down 9 initiative and still not stealthed.

In fact, the best counter is simply walking into the smoke field, which gives the Thief 4s revealed if he doesn’t cancel the Heartseeker immediately…

Experienced players who understand how the stacking works tend to perform the latter two counters on me pretty often.

lvis.3824:

Doomdesire.9365:

Removing a condition every 3s in stealth: In all honesty, this trait is overpowered. Reason being is that it turns certain thief builds(D/P, for example) invincible against condition builds. A D/P build I used to use was absolutely ridiculous in this. I would run healing in stealth and condition cure in stealth, and not once did I lose to a condition build. That says alot. The trait renders so many condition classes useless against the thief. Doesn’t help that it removes one condition the second you enter stealth. This needs serious consideration.

Black Powder + Heartseeker: Another thing I truely think was overpowered. With a X/D build, it’s easy to deny stealth(essentially one of the only waves to kill a proper thief) by dodging cloak and dagger. The BP+HS combo totally defies this.. On demand perma stealth, at any time, with zero counter. On top of that add a ranged blind attack and blind field makes it absolutely ridiculous in certain scenarios. This ignores that fact that running with a fellow D/P friend, you can essentially share stealth if one person lays down a BP. I do believe there needs to be more initiative cost to B/P, while buffing the condition blind itself to balance out other Pistol offhand builds while adjusting D/P.

P/P: This weapon set needs some love. As it stands, P/P is useless without a blind buff or access to stealth.

Oh yes, remove a condition for 9 Initiative is clearly OP ..

Also you forget that you have to
a) run D/P
b) spend points in SA traitline which will lower dmg quite a lot.

And no, it does not render condition builds useless, if thiefs would not have this trait we would just be freekills for those
mega hard to play condition spammers !

Basic thief trait setup + weaponsets when running shadow’s embrace is

10/30/30/0/0 D+P .

This setup does more then 50% less DMG with standard burst combo then 25/30/0/0/15 with D+D.

So this is absolute fine !

Infact, D+P with 30pkt in SA is finally another way to play thief instead of the mainstream burst specc, you can even “outplay”
other classes using this setup.

Of course not as good as our beloved elementalists or ng’s but its a start.

What build did you use?
I ran a full valk D/P thief with 100% crit damage in stealth.

7K Backstab average + full healing in stealth + Cure conditions + two initiative everytime I stealth. It more or less becomes a CnD in terms of initiative cost.
10/30/30.

18K HP, 2250+ armor, 104% crit damage, 100% crit chance on backstabs.

All of you guys are getting defensive in this thread for no reason. Read my post history if you want. I’m all for defending thieves and against baseless QQs. This is what I believe, however. I don’t think any class should not have a viable counter.

Also like to note

Immobilize does not work in preventing stealth, it just keeps them in place over the blind field. They can still combo leap and get stealth

Stuns/Daze/Knockback/knockdown/pull

Only work at range. The blind field at the feet of the thief negates the ability to do a melee CC. Most classes that have this have the skill with a large cooldown, not nearly enough to shutdown a properly built D/P thief.

Also, please unnerf pistol whip. It’s horrible in WvW.

I’m still wondering whether Infusion of Shadow is working as intended.

“Gain 2 initiative when using a skill that stealths you.”

It’s true that using a skill (Leap, Blast) in a Smoke field results in you going in to stealth, so the trait description might just be ambiguous. However, I was initially under the impression that it only applied on using skills that actually had a stealth effect attached ie. HiS, C+D, BP, SR. I think that perhaps this wasn’t supposed to extend to combo fields, because the stealth/initiative sustainability of D/P is just so far ahead and beyond everything else due to this one trait that it’s almost nonsensical.

Doomdesire.9365:

What build did you use?
I ran a full valk D/P thief with 100% crit damage in stealth.

7K Backstab average + full healing in stealth + Cure conditions + two initiative everytime I stealth. It more or less becomes a CnD in terms of initiative cost.
10/30/30.

18K HP, 2250+ armor, 104% crit damage, 100% crit chance on backstabs.

All of you guys are getting defensive in this thread for no reason. Read my post history if you want. I’m all for defending thieves and against baseless QQs. This is what I believe, however. I don’t think any class should not have a viable counter.

Also like to note

Immobilize does not work in preventing stealth, it just keeps them in place over the blind field. They can still combo leap and get stealth

Stuns/Daze/Knockback/knockdown/pull

Only work at range. The blind field at the feet of the thief negates the ability to do a melee CC. Most classes that have this have the skill with a large cooldown, not nearly enough to shutdown a properly built D/P thief.

Also, please unnerf pistol whip. It’s horrible in WvW.

You don’t need to shut down a D/P thief. The heartseeker through black powder combo can be countered and this can be all you need to finish the thief off. How well you time it and how effectively you use this interrupt is a matter of skill, just as it is when dealing with any other profession, and i don’t see why it is op tbh.

It is certainly more difficult to counter than a D/D thief, but you also place the thief at a much greater disadvantage if you do. The attack range of most melee skills will allow you to hit a thief standing in the centre of a black powder field also.

Why does almost nobody notice or mention the awkwardly slow cast times on Vital Shot and Trick Shot relative to the activation speeds? That’s mostly what is mucking up P/P and P/D, and why the Shortbow, while it can be great circumstantially, isn’t as usable in general as it should be.

Hint: this isn’t universal, the rifle’s fire rate is very close to its activation speed and it consequently is much stronger.

i have to agree. d/p is my backup when dueling however…. it is very prone to being owned by ranged and AOE skills. that said its really like the 2nd/3rd best build available for thieves. p/d bleed invis 5 0 30 30 5 is the best ….2nd being sword build and 3rd D/P. many wont agree with this. that is bc they think that skirmishes are everything even though the prove/do/change nothing. zerg play is the most important. surviving skirmishes to help get to or cap for the zerg is 2nd most important. avoiding 1 v 1s / winning 1 v 1s is the 3rd most IMO. add in capping camps with number 2. D/P gets owned in zerg play. VERY low survivability! dont care what anyone says. blah blah blah pick and choose battles. well picking 1 person and doing 20k dmg to him isnt that impressive in z v z …….an ele/ranger does more even tho they spread the dmg out. bleed thief too with cluster bombs /bleeds and caltrops. area blinds …….what!? d/p can dot hat too? not really…u go intot he middle of a zerg with that build and ur dead most often. then ur putting out 0 dmg. so to recap….

d/p = best dueling build
p/d = best all around WVW build
s/d = best suvivability/dmg build
d/d= best burst build against a non thief/mesmer/guardian

Now, while I agree to most of the things you said, the following line is what I call bullkitten:
" that is bc they think that skirmishes are everything even though the prove/do/change nothing. zerg play is the most important.
"
Sure, zerg play is what wins the weekly match up . But, why in the nine hells should I give a flying kitten about that? Hell, why should anyone? Winning the match up proves/does/changes absolutely nothing in this game. The only thing those abstract numbers at the top of your screen truly indicate, is the WvW population count of your server.
There is no meaningful* world pvp in this game. All we have is a shallow, made-up point-cap crap. This is why people shouldn’t worry about who actually wins it, and instead, just have fun in the type of fights they like – be that blobbing or dueling.

*The term is a little vague, but you know, in WvW everything is flipped 10 times a day, there are no consequences lasting more than 15 minutes, no change of power, and only a little online-drama. Now, compare this to the politics, plots and drama they have in Eve Online.

Kaon.7192:

Actually any kind of AoE CC or AoE damage will be good counters to D/P stealth stacking since you know exactly where the Thief is when he tries to stack stealth.

You can also easily interrupt the initial Heartseeker after the Thief sets up a smoke field, which will result in the Thief being down 9 initiative and still not stealthed.

In fact, the best counter is simply walking into the smoke field, which gives the Thief 4s revealed if he doesn’t cancel the Heartseeker immediately…

Experienced players who understand how the stacking works tend to perform the latter two counters on me pretty often.

allt he d/p ers are going to be so mad at you now lol good thing im s/d …i do like d/p as a backup but i never invis stack more than once. too risky

Travlane.5948:

Kaon.7192:

Actually any kind of AoE CC or AoE damage will be good counters to D/P stealth stacking since you know exactly where the Thief is when he tries to stack stealth.

You can also easily interrupt the initial Heartseeker after the Thief sets up a smoke field, which will result in the Thief being down 9 initiative and still not stealthed.

In fact, the best counter is simply walking into the smoke field, which gives the Thief 4s revealed if he doesn’t cancel the Heartseeker immediately…

Experienced players who understand how the stacking works tend to perform the latter two counters on me pretty often.

allt he d/p ers are going to be so mad at you now lol good thing im s/d …i do like d/p as a backup but i never invis stack more than once. too risky

Just trying to bring attention to the fact that d/p stealth stacking is a tactic that’s only OP against people who have no idea how Thieves work.

Against any good player, the reward of higher stealth duration is justified against the risk you’re taking by performing it.

Doomdesire.9365:

Removing a condition every 3s in stealth: In all honesty, this trait is overpowered. Reason being is that it turns certain thief builds(D/P, for example) invincible against condition builds. A D/P build I used to use was absolutely ridiculous in this. I would run healing in stealth and condition cure in stealth, and not once did I lose to a condition build. That says alot. The trait renders so many condition classes useless against the thief. Doesn’t help that it removes one condition the second you enter stealth. This needs serious consideration.

Honestly this makes it sound like you just don’t have a lot of experience in higher tier sPvP.

Try running this trait as your sole condition removal against a good P/P + Grenade HGH Engy or Axe/Torch + SB Trap Ranger and see how long you last.

Walking into their smoke and you will be dead before you knew it. HS+BP won’t get revealed on hit, instead you deal damage and then stealth and that is where the true strength of this set lies.

D/P is the hardest Thief to kill followed by S/D. To tweak these they need to rework Shadow’s Embrace and cap the stealth duration at 6sec. But what is the point of doing this when they left Ele/Mesmer/Guardian/Engie/Necro/Ranger sitting at the top of everything?

IMO, brings down all the OP builds to the same level of everyone else and then they can sit down and take their kitten sweet time and improve everything from there. Instead of keeping the Kings as a king while making the Slaves look a little richer while hoping that everyone will be using the Slaves instead of Kings. It is not going to happened anytime soon if this keep up.

Siva Mira.3546:

Walking into their smoke and you will be dead before you knew it. HS+BP won’t get revealed on hit, instead you deal damage and then stealth and that is where the true strength of this set lies.

The walking into smoke field tactic is the counter against stealth STACKING, not the regular BP + single HS + BS routine. This is where a Thief uses heartseeker multiple times on a single smoke field.

The first smoke HS will stealth even if it hits something, but afterwards, any HS that does damage will result in revealed.

Siva Mira.3546:

Walking into their smoke and you will be dead before you knew it. HS+BP won’t get revealed on hit, instead you deal damage and then stealth and that is where the true strength of this set lies.

D/P is the hardest Thief to kill followed by S/D. To tweak these they need to rework Shadow’s Embrace and cap the stealth duration at 6sec. But what is the point of doing this when they left Ele/Mesmer/Guardian/Engie/Necro/Ranger sitting at the top of everything?

IMO, brings down all the OP builds to the same level of everyone else and then they can sit down and take their kitten sweet time and improve everything from there. Instead of keeping the Kings as a king while making the Slaves look a little richer while hoping that everyone will be using the Slaves instead of Kings. It is not going to happened anytime soon if this keep up.

Well HS would only hit and stealth if it was the first HS if they are going for the second application the hit would reveal them.

Throw in the fact that using BP+HS to stack stealth in middle of combat, well you get 4 seconds to do it, you at base have enough initiative for 2 jumps for a total of 6 seconds of stealth (if the first isn’t prevented and the second isn’t interrupted by jumping into them) with a bit of init regain you can squeeze off a third however the third one generally will come about 3 seconds after the first one… which means you use up more or less the entire first application of stealth to get the third one, giving no real net gain (sure technically you’d have been stealthed for 9 seconds but you’d still only have about 4 seconds of “usable” stealth either way as you’d still be in the same rough area which is a bad thing to be)

A good Thief never stacked stealth in front of you and if he want to run away he would use SR.

Siva Mira.3546:

A good Thief never stacked stealth in front of you and if he want to run away he would use SR.

Exactly why the complaint about thieves stacking stealth mid combat using BP+HS being “OP” is silly

Doomdesire.9365:

Removing a condition every 3s in stealth: In all honesty, this trait is overpowered. Reason being is that it turns certain thief builds(D/P, for example) invincible against condition builds. A D/P build I used to use was absolutely ridiculous in this. I would run healing in stealth and condition cure in stealth, and not once did I lose to a condition build. That says alot. The trait renders so many condition classes useless against the thief. Doesn’t help that it removes one condition the second you enter stealth. This needs serious consideration.

Why? Sitting in stealth for long doesn’t help you win and it’s part of being able to escape/survive using stealth. Not like guardians or necro’s can die to condition builds.

I agree with everything almost completely, excluding the IV SA trait and the BP+HS combo. More of an issue that I think adding the Revealed on the end of any stealth fix is going to solve.

Kaon.7192:

Travlane.5948:

Kaon.7192:

Actually any kind of AoE CC or AoE damage will be good counters to D/P stealth stacking since you know exactly where the Thief is when he tries to stack stealth.

You can also easily interrupt the initial Heartseeker after the Thief sets up a smoke field, which will result in the Thief being down 9 initiative and still not stealthed.

In fact, the best counter is simply walking into the smoke field, which gives the Thief 4s revealed if he doesn’t cancel the Heartseeker immediately…

Experienced players who understand how the stacking works tend to perform the latter two counters on me pretty often.

allt he d/p ers are going to be so mad at you now lol good thing im s/d …i do like d/p as a backup but i never invis stack more than once. too risky

Just trying to bring attention to the fact that d/p stealth stacking is a tactic that’s only OP against people who have no idea how Thieves work.

Against any good player, the reward of higher stealth duration is justified against the risk you’re taking by performing it.

Doomdesire.9365:

Removing a condition every 3s in stealth: In all honesty, this trait is overpowered. Reason being is that it turns certain thief builds(D/P, for example) invincible against condition builds. A D/P build I used to use was absolutely ridiculous in this. I would run healing in stealth and condition cure in stealth, and not once did I lose to a condition build. That says alot. The trait renders so many condition classes useless against the thief. Doesn’t help that it removes one condition the second you enter stealth. This needs serious consideration.

Honestly this makes it sound like you just don’t have a lot of experience in higher tier sPvP.

Try running this trait as your sole condition removal against a good P/P + Grenade HGH Engy or Axe/Torch + SB Trap Ranger and see how long you last.

A) I don’t play Spvp
B) Not everyone plays “high tier”
C) Majority of WvW condition players melt to D/P

I agree with pretty much everything you said here.

Something else to note: Traps and Venoms (with the exception of basilisk or devourer’s) are absolutely rubbish, and as it stands deception pretty much pwns everything else in terms of utility.

Steal abilities need to be balanced. Some are really good, like bladestorm, others really suck, like throw gunk.

D/P Heartseeker. stealth should NOT proc if the heartseeker hits me. It should instead reveal you. Ideally, have the stealth be applied at the moment you use the finisher on the field. This would, imo, balance D/P.

I have a D/P thief and it’s troll in terms of survivability.

Teamkiller.4315:

I have a D/P thief and it’s troll in terms of survivability.

Then why would you suggest hitting with Heartseeker through a Smoke Field cause Revealed?
Combos are supposed to be helpful; if they did that then 99% of the time you’d only get Revealed. Smoke Fields would become massive liability.
You’d only bring it down from the top by completely negating any viability of it.
The set itself is far from overpowered anyway; the other options are just that much more terrible.

Grimwolf.7163:

Teamkiller.4315:

I have a D/P thief and it’s troll in terms of survivability.

Then why would you suggest hitting with Heartseeker through a Smoke Field cause Revealed?
Combos are supposed to be helpful; if they did that then 99% of the time you’d only get Revealed. Smoke Fields would become massive liability.

Pretty much this.

“Oh, let’s use our Combo Field to debuff ourselves! LOL!!!” Although maybe Team didn’t realize that this would be what happened. Or maybe he did, and that was his point. /shrugs

Grimwolf.7163:

Teamkiller.4315:

I have a D/P thief and it’s troll in terms of survivability.

Then why would you suggest hitting with Heartseeker through a Smoke Field cause Revealed?
Combos are supposed to be helpful; if they did that then 99% of the time you’d only get Revealed. Smoke Fields would become massive liability.
You’d only bring it down from the top by completely negating any viability of it.
The set itself is far from overpowered anyway; the other options are just that much more terrible.

Because you hit someone “after” stealthing, plain and simple? There should be a way to counter D/P stealth, and allowing yourself to be hit by that heartseeker skill should be one way to counter. Of course, the thief can “counter” that by turning off autotargeting, he wouldn’t hit the other player unless the other player was in his black powder field or something. Wouldn’t you say it’s fair? He would still get off his stealth the vast majority of the time, unless the other player put himself at risk by going into melee with pulsing blinds on him.

When I said troll in terms of survivability, I meant it’s REALLY survivable. And this is coming from someone who isn’t even good at D/P.

Teamkiller.4315:

Grimwolf.7163:

Teamkiller.4315:

I have a D/P thief and it’s troll in terms of survivability.

Then why would you suggest hitting with Heartseeker through a Smoke Field cause Revealed?
Combos are supposed to be helpful; if they did that then 99% of the time you’d only get Revealed. Smoke Fields would become massive liability.
You’d only bring it down from the top by completely negating any viability of it.
The set itself is far from overpowered anyway; the other options are just that much more terrible.

Because you hit someone “after” stealthing, plain and simple? There should be a way to counter D/P stealth, and allowing yourself to be hit by that heartseeker skill should be one way to counter. Of course, the thief can “counter” that by turning off autotargeting, he wouldn’t hit the other player unless the other player was in his black powder field or something. Wouldn’t you say it’s fair? He would still get off his stealth the vast majority of the time, unless the other player put himself at risk by going into melee with pulsing blinds on him.

When I said troll in terms of survivability, I meant it’s REALLY survivable. And this is coming from someone who isn’t even good at D/P.

So then should CnD give you revealed every time also?

It wouldn’t be a combination attack if you didn’t get the combo effect when you attacked, the first time you do it you finish the attack before getting the stealth, if you happened to try it again and still hit someone you do already get revealed same as if you hit someone with CnD while stealthed already.

What your suggesting basically means this one singular combination attack would only work if you didn’t attack.

Grimwolf.7163:

Teamkiller.4315:

I have a D/P thief and it’s troll in terms of survivability.

Then why would you suggest hitting with Heartseeker through a Smoke Field cause Revealed?
Combos are supposed to be helpful; if they did that then 99% of the time you’d only get Revealed. Smoke Fields would become massive liability.
You’d only bring it down from the top by completely negating any viability of it.
The set itself is far from overpowered anyway; the other options are just that much more terrible.

Nah, having constant access to a smoke field and leap finisher is broken. With c&d you at least need to hit and come up close – quite difficult to achieve against people who know how to dodge. Yet any monkey can just press #5 and then #2. This also can’t be countered by just dodging, you need some sort of ranged interrupt to land right on time – quite difficult for most professions to achieve that.
D/P is by FAR the most gimmicky and noob friendliest build in the game. It may not be the most powerful one, but it’s cheesiness is just beyond belief. Sorta like the backbreaker or caster sin from gw1.

So then should CnD give you revealed every time also?

No? I don’t get the analogy at all and its relevance?

It wouldn’t be a combination attack if you didn’t get the combo effect when you attacked, the first time you do it you finish the attack before getting the stealth, if you happened to try it again and still hit someone you do already get revealed same as if you hit someone with CnD while stealthed already.

Seriously, what? Do you even understand what I’m suggesting? You sound like you don’t

What your suggesting basically means this one singular combination attack would only work if you didn’t attack.

yeah you don’t.

Your asking that the combination attack of a heartseeker leap finisher through a smoke field that gives stealth to give the stealth before the damage calculation thus causing it to give revealed on every use unless your not hitting someone (thus it not actually being a combo attack)

Currently how it works is as you heartseeker through the smoke field the damage calculation comes first then you stealth in the same way when you attack someone with cloak and dagger the damage comes first then the stealth.

If you try to do a second heartseeker through that field to get another stack of stealth and you hit the person you become revealed because the attack breaks the first stealth in the same way if you Cloak and Dagger while stealthed you get revealed.

If you did it how you seem to be suggesting aka make it so that it stealths you first so if you land the damage with the heartseeker you get revealed instantly from that combo the combination would but utterly useless in a combat situation in the same way if cloak and dagger calculated stealth before the damage it would never trigger stealth only ever revealed.

So not only would it be unusable in a combat situation (the situation a combination attack should be used in) but it also makes it a liability, if a friendly thief or engineer throws down a smoke field in your way as your attacking with a leap finisher/blast finisher BAM you got revealed etc.

Yep ^

Also what about this being a combo “attack”. They’re not actually combo attacks, they’re just combos. Nothing about an attack. It takes a combo field and a combo finisher. I don’t need to attack someone to actually proc the effect from any combo.

That having been said, have you ever considered turning off auto targeting? I guarantee you that if you do you are never liable to hit someone with the HS.

And yes, exactly. Currently there is no counter to DP stealth except ranged interrupts, which a LOT of classes do not possess. This would add another risky way for melee classes to interrupt a thief’s stealth. In order to stop you from stealthing, I am placing myself in melee inside your blind field so I can’t hit you, but you can still hit me. And I am doing this to stop you from stealthing. That’s it, that’s all.

or a melee interupt works just as well unless your humping the thief in his own circle

What you basically outline is the removal of the entire leap finisher/smoke combo, if you have to be out of combat or purposefully missing with attacks to get it off then theres little point of it existing specially as no other combo or even skill requires this.

There is only one or two moves that count as leap (or blast) finishers that aren’t attacks etc. Heck removal of the entire combo would be more preferable than setting up a thief hating troll move (roll engi/thief and just run with any thieves you want so you can give them revealed when ever they do a leap or blast finisher)

Or it’s just the removal of the ability to stealth from a blind field while still hitting your opponent and immediately following with a backstab?

YES I’m suggesting that you not be able to stealth if you hit someone with a heartseeker out of a combo field.

Also, it’s not a combo attack, it’s just a combo. Combo field + finisher. Stop likening to that you are obligated to hit the opponent in order to get the effect.