Guild Wars 2

Rastaman.9015:

Reading the posts as follows it all comes down to how much knowledge the thief has. And imo thats the same for every class so to all the complainers, I humbly say just really l2p. Not only your own class but all others as well for the best results. Each profession can do amazing things just have to know how.

I play all classes and study all classes. The top 3 survivable classes in WvW are Thief, Mesmer, and Elementalist. Because in WvW without the point capture limitations of sPVP mobility plays a much larger role in survivability. Of those 3 classes in sPVP mesmer is top tier and elementalist/thief is at least mid tier. In any sort of PVP conflict those classes are plainly not lacking.

But in WvW specifically Thief and Mesmer are more survivable than all other classes due to the usefulness of stealth mechanics when used by a smart player who is not forced into a set area.

Also….

Side Note: Warriors have the most mobility if done right even a thief cant catch one.

This is only true out of combat in open field. In combat thief is much more mobile and far less vulnerable to CC. Not only does thief have better options for condition management but the bulk of thief maneuverability teleports, which is not affected by chilled, cripples, lack of swiftness, or immobilize.

Thief is far far more maneuverable more consistently when in combat. Warrior can cover a greater distance when unharrassed out of combat. Also, with initiative regen and the option for higher initiative recovery the cooldown on thief mobility moves is far lower.

Bacon Please.8407:

So after a long time of hating hardcore on thieves I have come to a conclusion. But lets get some background info first. My first class to 80 was Guardian, I play it as a tank. My second was Warrior set up for Solo Roaming in WvW. Warrior Has been my main ever since and have invested ~510g into gear, weapons, foods, buffs, etc. Warrior has been my favorite class after playing it and I do fairly well with the class. I rolled an engineer for farming and sPvP and it is amazing. Necro for wvw zerging. Mesmer for a little bit of everything. Then I rolled a thief.

For the longest time when I was playing a warrior I would complain “Oh these thieves are so kitten OP they give nothing up and get everything” “Stealth is OP” “Invisibiltiy>invulnerabilty” So after months of complaining I rolled a thief and now after getting decent at it I can say the following

1: Anyone who thinks Stealth is OP is a fool. You can still hit a thief and as most thieves are set up, it is probably going to do significant damage

2: Thieves are really good at killing players new to pvp and wvw who have no idea about stun breakers and dodging. Anyone with a decent level of experience can see what a thief is doing and can either run/counter.

3: Some builds you just can’t kill 1v1. Same goes for my warrior. I can run in very quickly . Sword/Shield +Gs and run out popping stunbreakers, endure pain and shield stance and get away with barely a dent in my 32k Health

4: A thief that drops you fast, drops even faster. What do most GC thieves have for health? 11k Health? With maybe 2100 armor. Can’t get more glassy.

5: Playing a thief really changes your outlook on how they operate. When everyone says Play one to Learn one, They really mean it. When I got to 80 on my thief and spent a hundred or so hours in WvW with it, I was able to get back to my warrior and I could SEE WITH MY OWN EYES exactly what the thief was going to do before they could. It was so predictable “Okay he is using D/D and just used Cloak and dagger, probably going for a backstab in 3,2,1… EVADE” What do you know, He missed and i stun locked him with a hammer.

I honestly feel silly for ever complaining about thieves. They are an annoyance at best for experiences players and really only kill people learning to get around WvW. So if you keep getting killed by thieves play one at level 80 for a few hours in WvW and see how hard it really is.

I love you so much right now you honestly have no idea

Ralathar.7236:

Wryscher.1432:

Ralathar.7236:

To sum up yes, I’m stalking him.

Thieves never really bothered me much. Sure they kill me, all the time actually,, but not really ever when I’m doing anything. Maybe strolling across a field, running down a road or just goofing around. I can’t remember the last time I was I any sort of important battle with more then 3 people and was like oh wow that stealth thief on their side is an unstoppable beast!

And really from my experience with stealth classes people have problems with them because they don’t think like them. They are just busy running down the middle of roads and assuming if you can no longer see it, it must not be there.

Thieves don’t appear to be a big force in large fight because most thieves suck and the good ones don’t really give you much to see. In battles more than 3 people the thief just blends in more and more with their incredible battle mobility unless doing extremely basic, and thus less effective, tactics.

Kind of proves my point right here. Thieves don’t appear to be in big fights. It is almost like if people can’t see them they choose to pretend they aren’t there. Tends to get them killed a bunch.

And really I wasn’t saying thieves aren’t in big battles. I normally run a staff ele when I’m not thieving the day away, standing at the back I am always looking for thieves. the ever popular heartseeker is one of the most obvious animations in the game, as is the thief shortbow shot, unload seems to be making a comeback, saw 2 today wtf?? What I was saying is that in those big fights the thief normally isn’t I huge threat, killing one person at a time and then hiding for awhile before killing another just isn’t that big a deal in large fights when there are classes downing 3-4 people at a time.

And before anyone wants to chime in with,we’ll that is just Zerg v Zerg it doesn’t matter, this is wvw after all, it is Zerg v Zerg.

Now what I will agree is way annoying is organized groups with a thief or 2 a Mesmer or 2 and an d/d ele. They make me want to kick a kitten.

Wryscher.1432:

Ralathar.7236:

Wryscher.1432:

Ralathar.7236:

To sum up yes, I’m stalking him.

Thieves never really bothered me much. Sure they kill me, all the time actually,, but not really ever when I’m doing anything. Maybe strolling across a field, running down a road or just goofing around. I can’t remember the last time I was I any sort of important battle with more then 3 people and was like oh wow that stealth thief on their side is an unstoppable beast!

And really from my experience with stealth classes people have problems with them because they don’t think like them. They are just busy running down the middle of roads and assuming if you can no longer see it, it must not be there.

Thieves don’t appear to be a big force in large fight because most thieves suck and the good ones don’t really give you much to see. In battles more than 3 people the thief just blends in more and more with their incredible battle mobility unless doing extremely basic, and thus less effective, tactics.

Kind of proves my point right here. Thieves don’t appear to be in big fights. It is almost like if people can’t see them they choose to pretend they aren’t there. Tends to get them killed a bunch.

And really I wasn’t saying thieves aren’t in big battles. I normally run a staff ele when I’m not thieving the day away, standing at the back I am always looking for thieves. the ever popular heartseeker is one of the most obvious animations in the game, as is the thief shortbow shot, unload seems to be making a comeback, saw 2 today wtf?? What I was saying is that in those big fights the thief normally isn’t I huge threat, killing one person at a time and then hiding for awhile before killing another just isn’t that big a deal in large fights when there are classes downing 3-4 people at a time.

And before anyone wants to chime in with,we’ll that is just Zerg v Zerg it doesn’t matter, this is wvw after all, it is Zerg v Zerg.

Now what I will agree is way annoying is organized groups with a thief or 2 a Mesmer or 2 and an d/d ele. They make me want to kick a kitten.

When will people realize that more damage only helps so much? It’s all about where you place the damage you have. This is why there are threads in the ele forums complaining about AOE damage, because they don’t know how to properly leverage their damage in group fights.

AOE damage without people dying just ends up in rallies, single target contributors help make sure that people damage by area damage get downed and more importantly die. Because nothing is worse and more detrimental than downing 10 people and having them all rally, basically invalidating all damage down to them while downed.

I have a 80 thief too, granted it’s not my main, but I never really considered thieves as a whole OP. But(two ’but’s! yay) I also have always believed that thieves need some serious design work.

They are really good at killing an unaware target in seconds, forcing a fight, running away when they are losing, trolling people with chain stealth, and other things generally involving being annoying, gimmicky, cheesy but not really useful in the end. (Not that all thieves play this way, but these are the things that generate so much hate towards thieves) Thieves are way too limited in the ways they can contribute, and the opponents are encouraged to ignore them however annoying they try to be.

That just doesn’t sound like a fun and deep game design to me.

I think in general thieves need less cheese and more options, and also an engaging counter-play to their opponents. (As vague and irresponsible as that sounds :P)

Also I have been chasing this elusive and mythical concept of ‘counter to stealth’, but nothing i found so far was reliable enough to be called a ‘counter’.(not to mention most of them are not the best examples of what designers call ‘elegant design’ feature) Sure, some things mildly works, but that generally involves either a thief being very low on health and on fire, or that thief not being that good to begin with.

I think thieves suffer from the same problem rangers do… and that is there are so so many people who play them badly that they have built up a terrible reputation.

There are huge numbers of inexperience D/D thieves who to other inexperienced players seem OP and to more experience players make all theives look bad, but its a mistake to judge the class on these people, just as its a mistake to judge rangers by the fact that the majority of people play the class so badly it makes me cry at night.

I honestly think 90% of thiefes are not playing correctly including myself. I mean sure i know what traits and abilities and what to do and not to do. And i can hold my own in sPvP with a thief, but im not playing them correctly. I have a hard time staying in stealth and get killed quite easily.

But that said, there are some thiefes out there that can make your world end in a heartbeat. Those who manages to stay in stealth and pop in and out of battle (as they should do).

Most thiefes usually just go for the backstab and then spam heartseeker. Thats about it. Thiefes are so much more than this with its tools and survivability. They are not meant to stay in melee as so many thiefes are doing right now.

My main is a warrior, but i had to say this. Its quite rare to encounter a good thief, but when i do encounter them, i love them hehe. Seriously out of all mmo’s ive played, Thiefes must be the hardest to play in a game like this.

Avean.7694:

My main is a warrior, but i had to say this. Its quite rare to encounter a good thief, but when i do encounter them, i love them hehe. Seriously out of all mmo’s ive played, Thiefes must be the hardest to play in a game like this.

i agree. I have so many problem testing my warrior build because I keep meeting bad thieves. The one that run up to ME are always the easiest kill.

I learn that good thieves use blind, bad thieves spam heartseeker, backstab or other skills

I don’t understand some of the posts here and elsewhere. Thieves have the best mobility?…They’re good and all but most thief mobility is offensive not defensive. I mean, you have the SB 5 skill which can be used twice at most and infiltrator’s strike → shadow return was useful but even that was nerfed to a 1200 range showing that Anet wants to keep it an offensive skill. The other weapon skills: shadow shot and shadow strike are mostly offensive although shadow strike has defensive applications(you still need to hit a target…and few use p/d anyway). Then you’ve got the 2 utility skills, infiltrator’s strike and shadowstep as well as steal. Steal and infil. strike are both offensive while the shadowstep skill can be used either way. Heartseeker can be used to run away but so what? You know thieves run away with stealth not mobility skills.

People dislike the thief so much because stealth frustrates them, that’s all. I’ve watched eles escape full groups like houdini but there’s far less anger towards eles. It’s simply because you can see the ele as he runs away.

It’s nice to see for a change a player who doesn’t main a thief that actually appreciates we don’t have it all that easy. I’m slowly getting into more WvWvW, and it is NOT easy, especially when you’ve got the full on invasion going down and you’re side is the one defending a tower, keep, or whatever.

I typically play D/P-P/D, while sometimes going with a S/P – P/P loadout, and through playing PvP, I’m getting better (I think) at taking on other players. However, I find that teamwork is DEFINITELY a key when fighting as a thief. I’ve occasionally taken down opponents in a one on one fight, but it’s not easy. Building yourself to take damage as a thief seems to necessitate sacrificing your ability to cause damage, and you really do have more abilities for the latter than you do the former. Some strategies to thief PvP and WvWvW that work (at least for me) seem to be the following:

1. Always keep moving. This isn’t a stand-your-ground class.
2. Back up your team mates. You’ll have longer to dish out more damage and debilitating conditions if the enemy isn’t focused on you.
3. Keep your distance as much as possible. Going toe to toe is a really fast way to die against warriors, guardians and mesmers.
4. Don’t wait until you’re almost dead to heal yourself. You take a lot of damage from just a few hits; if you’re close to 50 percent health, go ahead and heal before you take a one-two shot and get put on the ground.
5. Have at least one or two skills loaded that can cripple or stun opponents. It might help you get away if the fight turns ugly and sets them up for a smack down if you play it right.
6. When in a group, don’t move in first. You don’t want to attract attention, let someone else lead the charge.
7. Know how to use Shadow Refuge. It’s the best way for you to help your team mates, especially if they’re downed. Throwing a refuge on the both of you will let you revive them, particularly if there are other members of your team still keeping the rest of your opponents too busy to worry about the players they can’t see anymore.
8. Know when to retreat. If you see one enemy coming your way, you might be able to lead him into a trap or do the battlefield dance with them, depending on their class. But if you’ve got two or more coming at you, or even one with NPC support (a necro with minions, a ranger with their pet, etc.) then you’re likely outmatched.
9. Finish them off. This is actually a good rule of them for any class; if your team puts someone down, try to pull off a finisher on them. Thieves can be in a particularly good position for this, though, if you can go unnoticed. Once the downed player uses up whatever evasive maneuver they have to avoid one of your team mate’s attempts at a finisher, you can jump on them with your own while they’re still in cool down.
10. Specing yourself for condition damage can make you a real threat to players. Longer poison times and stun durations can help you keep the enemy on the run from you instead of towards you. It might make you a bit of a glass cannon, but if you can dodge and stealth skillfully, you can avoid or recover from most of the damage coming your way, while landing enough blows to grind down your opponent with DoT and weakening conditions that screw up his/her strategy.

Blankverse.4927:

Funny, but from rangers perspective on Thief i have exact opposite impressions.
I ran a thief just to learn how to counter them on ranger. Playing a thief only confirmed how op they are in ANY 1vs1.
(i play p/p //shortbow so hitting the air doesn’t help much. Stealthed or not, i always try to keep the 800-900 distance). Also i don’t even try to come closer, cause i simply don’t use any backstabs or other melee tricks, just pure range.

See the difference between you and the OP is that you know how to play a thief. The OP doesn’t. If you’re going up against a Steal+CnD+BS thief and he loses, bravo, you’ve found a noob.

Thieves have an unrivaled ability to mulligan the fight and start from scratch. If they miss you on the first go-round, and they’re not a noob, they’ll leave and try again later (in a few seconds).

Sorry OP, but your “objective” view on thieves is overshadowed by your subjective skill ceiling.

Avean.7694:

Avean.7694:

My main is a warrior, but i had to say this. Its quite rare to encounter a good thief, but when i do encounter them, i love them hehe. Seriously out of all mmo’s ive played, Thiefes must be the hardest to play in a game like this.

i agree. I have so many problem testing my warrior build because I keep meeting bad thieves. The one that run up to ME are always the easiest kill.

I learn that good thieves use blind, bad thieves spam heartseeker, backstab or other skills

Gotta love those. I can’t tell you how much fun it is to let thieves give chase like I’m running away and then just turn around and melt their face off.

Oh, the best is when they’re out of initiative because they SB IA’d their way to me. The definition of “L2P”.

Redscope.6215:

Blankverse.4927:

Funny, but from rangers perspective on Thief i have exact opposite impressions.
I ran a thief just to learn how to counter them on ranger. Playing a thief only confirmed how op they are in ANY 1vs1.
(i play p/p //shortbow so hitting the air doesn’t help much. Stealthed or not, i always try to keep the 800-900 distance). Also i don’t even try to come closer, cause i simply don’t use any backstabs or other melee tricks, just pure range.

See the difference between you and the OP is that you know how to play a thief. The OP doesn’t. If you’re going up against a Steal+CnD+BS thief and he loses, bravo, you’ve found a noob.

Thieves have an unrivaled ability to mulligan the fight and start from scratch. If they miss you on the first go-round, and they’re not a noob, they’ll leave and try again later (in a few seconds).

Sorry OP, but your “objective” view on thieves is overshadowed by your subjective skill ceiling.

What are you even talking about? I Don’t use steal+cnd+bs lol. I run P/D + shortbow?

sometimes D/P for perma stealth

d/p is real easy to use and can be very good but I find it’s just so boring. I prefer just plain d/d with smoke screen as my blind. So much more fun and a lot higher spike. If you run into a player better than you, well you’re sol. Not even going to share it b/c it’s not a good build, it’s just a fun build.

Yesterday I was trolling this guardian and necro all day. They HATED me so much. All I did was run up to them (not invis) and use choking gas over and over. If they tried to attack me, I’d be just out of range (obv I’d have to cleanse the imo) and keep choking gasing them. Did that for about 10 minutes… then the guardian caught me. He hated me even more after I killed him a few times :P such a bad guardian. The necro was a cool guy though.

Btw, what’s with the necroing?

I’m both a Warrior and a Thief. I don’t take WvW seriously, so it’s just sPvP impressions from me.

Thief is so much stronger than a Warrior it’s not even funny. Thief has better burst that is also unpredictable with D/P or even D/D builds. Thief has much better survivability, due to Stealth and greater sustain: with 300 HP from 30 SA I heal for 375 HP/s from Shadow Rejuvenation and have perma Regeneration, which heals me for 175 HP/s. I can Stealth for 4 seconds and simply wait, giving me an instant 2k+ HP lead on the enemy, without him being able to do anything about it.

Thief has unending Blinds, which greatly reduce the effectiveness of any melee opponent, up to the point when I can defeat one and still have 100% HP due to all my regeneration.

Thief has much greater stomping/rezzing potential with stealth and Shadow Refuge.

Thief has a unique power of casting group stealth on the whole party.

Thief has en edge in vertical mobility due to Inf. Arrow.

Thief has an easy access to Poison and AoE Weakness, which has become a much more powerful tool after the latest patch.

Warrior provides better AoE pressure on points with the Longbow. That’s arguable due to Poison and Weakness that Thief brings.

Warrior has better horizontal mobility with Savage Leap and easy perma-Swiftness.

Warrior can rez and stomp against CC-heavy enemies with Stability and Endure Pain.

Warrior can remove conditions a bit better if specced for Cleansing Ire and having the Longbow equipped, but Thief can elude most condition applications instead.

Warrior has a potential of being a better peeler, but melee is severely underpowered and it’s difficult to land those stuns reliably, especially in a team fight.

I play a thief and a mesmer. Just dueled a few thieves today as mesmer, won one, left the other as a draw (perma-stealth – kept going into stealth and running away from my slow self). I really love when thieves attack me, so lately I’ve been trying to bait them by running by them as if unaware. Or standing still when they go into stealth. As others have mentioned, they are not nearly as OP’d as people claim. even with my one ground targetted aoe in my current build, I really don’t feel like I have much to fear from them…then again my build is fairly tanky. Still…

When I’m playing thief, I have a few sets of armor, but find that zerker armor is really helpful. I can even run in zergs with it, with the right build (30 in shadow arts). The trick is quick reflexes and not getting caught for long in enemy aoes. I like using shortbow in initial zerg vs zerg approaches for the aoe conditions/damage. Then I swap to p/p or d/p and tab around for low health guys that I can help get down and out. I’m certainly less survivable in a zerg than my mesmer, but it’s honestly not bad. Thieves do play a role in zergs for their spammable blast finishers and direct damage…it just requires care that you don’t end up a free rally for the opponents.

I personally know that thiefs arent OP at all, since I run a bunker ele with alot of AoE. the problem with thiefs, is that the stealth should be replaced, they were saying from the start that stealth should be a ability that would be harder to use, problem is that i would rather compete with a thief in the other mmos, since stealth is a max 3 times use in all. Which makes it a bit more compeling than annoying to play against a thief.

Its sad that every time you see a thief in WvW its mostly like, “ignore him, even if your about to win, he most likely will use stealth heal and run off.” I personally want Thiefs to get a upgrade, but stealth should be somehow nerfed/used alot better.
I like playing every other profession from mesmer to engineer, since they do have atleast do stay there, even if they are switching clones, its pretty awesome to guess which one is the right one. Thiefs are pretty annoying to play against atm, I would like somekind of a better stealth system, where Arena Net Nerf the stealth but increase the dmg done into stealth.

This thread is a thief’s perspective not a warrior one on the thief class. The OP plays a thief. This thread is indeed funny..

I dunno what’s funnier..the OP having never run into good sword thieves,playing a thief himself and giving his entertaining thief opinion on the thief class and selling it off as a warrior community one. Btw, stop hiding in your group..I remember I couldn’t kill your warrior because you kept calling them in/running towards them across the bridge-

It’s funny how the OP didn’t post this thread in the WvW forums or warrior forums to avoid getting laughed at. The OP guild recruitment standards are low, I guess.

All the thieves on this thread would get rolled hard if they ran as a war in WvW.

Some thieves are so desperate for sympathy that they would put this thread in their signature..Zacchary.6183? Very sad.

Keep entertaining us guys.

I suggest for the OP to post this thread in WvW where it belongs.

thief vs stealth is an old joke.
Main weapon of thieves now are blinds. I have long thought that an era where people were playing for or getting killed by gc thieves in any pvp are long gone really.
The best counter to any thief?
Stay in your group. And actually be USEFUL. Unlike that thief looking at you with hungry eyes from a place you don’t see.
Even the tankiest D/P thieves which can be considered the strongest sPvP thieves won’t do sheep to you if you just stand in your own aoe’s.

I have seen insanely great gamers in the following classes:

Engineers
Guardians
Warriors
Elementalists
Mesmers
Necromancers
Thief
Rangers

All great, all very experienced.

I’m pretty sure they win some and lose some just like everyone else. I don’t know how anything could be overpowered, and from reading a variety of posts on this forum, it would seem that there is always a way to outclass another class.

Does it matter? It would probably be best to just play and enjoy the game. Complaints should be about something that no one has a solution to.

I’m not very good with any of my characters, but I do my best to adjust. There doesn’t seem to be a need to complain if I can’t take out a D/P Thief, if I’ve seen others handle them easily, then I should learn from that and adjust accordingly.

The topic just pointed out an understanding, and that is great.

Play On!!

Play a D/P thief and You will learn all it’s strengths and weakness. I still main my warrior while playing my thief 30% of time and let me tell you, Thieves are no problem at all for me anymore ( aside from headshot spammers, Still figuring those ones out :P). But I stand by what I said from the first post.

XII.9401:

This thread is a thief’s perspective not a warrior one on the thief class. The OP plays a thief. This thread is indeed funny..

I dunno what’s funnier..the OP having never run into good sword thieves,playing a thief himself and giving his entertaining thief opinion on the thief class and selling it off as a warrior community one. Btw, stop hiding in your group..I remember I couldn’t kill your warrior because you kept calling them in/running towards them across the bridge-

It’s funny how the OP didn’t post this thread in the WvW forums or warrior forums to avoid getting laughed at. The OP guild recruitment standards are low, I guess.

All the thieves on this thread would get rolled hard if they ran as a war in WvW.

Some thieves are so desperate for sympathy that they would put this thread in their signature..Zacchary.6183? Very sad.

Keep entertaining us guys.

I suggest for the OP to post this thread in WvW where it belongs.

LaoShin.2986:

I have seen insanely great gamers in the following classes:

Engineers
Guardians
Warriors
Elementalists
Mesmers
Necromancers
Thief
Rangers

All great, all very experienced.

I’m pretty sure they win some and lose some just like everyone else. I don’t know how anything could be overpowered, and from reading a variety of posts on this forum, it would seem that there is always a way to outclass another class.

Does it matter? It would probably be best to just play and enjoy the game. Complaints should be about something that no one has a solution to.

I’m not very good with any of my characters, but I do my best to adjust. There doesn’t seem to be a need to complain if I can’t take out a D/P Thief, if I’ve seen others handle them easily, then I should learn from that and adjust accordingly.

The topic just pointed out an understanding, and that is great.

Play On!!

http://forum.gamerage.com/pangya/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Discussions.Components.Files/10/6332.387e003f_5F00_HolyNecroPost_5F00_759032.jpeg