Guild Wars 2

This is amazing, all I see is:

Thief is fine, really. Don’t get why people cry.

Very well, and based off of your other posts I think you and I both agree that in general… the thieves ability to off someone as fast as they do needs ot be addressed… and we can both agree that a blanket nerf (such as backstab needs reduction or all thief abilities need reduced) is unacceptable.

agreed entirely, whether the spec is truly competitive or not its silly and unfun.

However, I do disagree that pressing x repeatedly is easier than pressing yzx (cuz how do you know yzx will work in this situation?). Does it do all the things that pressing x does? no? does it take more time between x pressing then pressing yzx? no? That to me does indicate a problem.

it doesnt take more time to press 3 different buttons then it does to press the same button because of animation times.

ive not played a class where doing there damage “rotation” wouldnt work in a certain situation, you just press it, get the damage, press other buttons as needed.

However, contrary to what hte OP stated, there are things that are not really overpowered about the thief. I down and kill plenty of em. In fact, you could say I’ve grown a hatred of anyone with a thief’s signet in their buff window. They get targeted and dropped first, just cuz I can. And yes, my perspective isn’t tPvP. Frankly, I don’t care about tPvP and if game balance was all about tPvP, I wouldn’t play this game. Keep that in mind when you counter-point that balance in tPvP is the important factor.

the game is primarily balanced around tpvp, somewhat spvp, and hardly at all for WvWvW. so what you feel and what you care about, when in conflict with how it is…is pretty much a tough luck kinda situation. or as a more …insidious person would say, a QQ moar situation.

With all of that said, there is a very apparent issue when the easiest class to “master” is also the hardest hitting class. And I think that is what most players consider unbalanced. Why play anything else when you can win just as easily (or easier) with a 1 button class? But the OP did mention a huge issue… the thief does not have to sacrifice damage potential to gain a defensive edge. This gives the thief advantage.

so because thieves are easy to pick up and play they should be crap and high tier gameplay? now you may not see your comments pointing in that direction but thats where it would lead to. thief is easy to play, make its performance reflect the easy nature of the class…you wind up with a class that is “balanced” vs bad playres and is absolutly destroyed in high level gameplay, literally there would be no tthieves in real tournies anymore, lest some kind of niche gimmick build were to show up..and thats not fun.

And finally to relate back to “as advertised” which I know you don’t put much stock in… and frankly no one should. But the thief does fit the agile defensive style… the stealth mechanics and such. But because that style is so different than everything else in the game, should they also have the highest damage potential?

i dont deal in absolutes, highest, most, least, worst, best…i dont deal in them.

a thieves damage is supposed to be high, according to anet, what that means is largely up to there own interpretation, and with us not having access to there information and mindsets on it, we cannot accurately assess where the damage should be. you can argue you think its too high, and needs tuning, thats fine. I for one will simply maintain that anet said thieves are supposed to be hihgh damage….whethere there damage at this time is too high i also leave to anet, tho i do think backstab glass cannon is stupid.

Panties officially unbunched. But don’t tell my wife I wore em.

well played sir!

No… not crap at high tier. Definitely not. But then, where do they fit in the high tier? Where should they fit? And how far are they from that position? Is the differential what is causing the perceived imbalance?

dang, I wrote like 5 pages of stuff and I editted it all out. I don’t know how to fix the thief while keeping it true to what it is. I hope ANet does.

havent read the full replies to thread but your post is promising in that i’ve lost a bit of my morale recently in spvp and my thief main there.. maybe all you say is true and I just need to pay attention to these fundamentals a little more.

saurus.8290:

brickforlife.1364:

Thieves aren’t overpowered, if you can dodge a thief’s attacks (highly unlikely), mitigate their damage or stun them, they’re pretty much kittened. Well if they survive that then it probably means their damage to you wasn’t that high to being with.

how you dodge something you dont see?

rly stop with L2P comments its getting old

Thiefs are broken class, even with power, thougnes, vit set thiefs hit like truck becouse of 100% crit chance in stealth (most op skill ever dont need precision gear)

and yes thiefs can be in stealth all the time

You know what else is getting old?

The QQing, backed with exaggeration to try and validate points. Throw in a load of biased opinions, with no facts to back them up whatsoever.

L2P may be overused, but generally it’s the right answer.

The only thing possibly OP about the thief currently is the Assassins Signet.

ANet should IMO revert the PW nerf and take a serious look at Quickness.

Or they could just listen to all the whiners here and just destroy the class altogether. That should be good for the game!

Sounds to me like your describing what every rogue career does in every mmo, we must be right on target. Like in every mmo, people will whine the hardest when they get gibbed in the back by one.

First of all, in my entire career of gw2 and playing mainly wvw and spvp I have only been hit for 10k backstab once if not twice, literally. You guys realize the 150% damage boost can only be used once and is on 60 second cooldown? A typical backstab usually crits me for 4-7k, I have been hit by a good ele fire grab for that much so these numbers are not entitled to thief alone.

In every mmo I have played, people fear the rogue class, for if your eyes are not peeled or you forget they are there, they will backstab you to death.

About you complaining over the elites, you can’t knock them simply because they are effective when others arnt, those are separate issues. Secondly, theives guild and dagger storm are cercumstantial, if your stuck with dagger storm in a 1v1 against any one with a melee weapon equipped its wasted because dagger storm usually misses against a single target, you can’t cancel it with abilities and only reflects projectiles. On the other hand, if your stuck in a group situation with theives guild, again it’s wasted as they will die quickly to aoe and not focus fire intended targets.

The only problem i see is the latency issue in some instances where they appear to be attacking many times while still stealthed.

today, i noticed, its not the backstab issue anymore,

the community whines about the existence of thieves

i shun away from overpowered backstab, and tried the underwhelming p/p build,

and guess what, they still clamour that thief is OP, sigh so sad, just so sad

I played mesmer for 15 minuts and almost vomited at how easy and strong they are, phantasm up 1 knockback from great sword = dead

Our power demands sacrifice, one can kill another in merely 3 seconds, but so can the other kill us in mere seconds.

What is not overpowered about a thief?

A: Anything that isnt dagger/dagger.

P/D here (what OP never sees) and surprisingly his biggest griefs don’t apply to me (meh). As far as L2P no one should be able to one shot that being said a Heatseeker or Backstab thief is usually on the easy side to handle because their builds are utterly predictable. That being said glass vs glass just about any other glass is at a disadvantage. Balanced builds with a decent stun break or port will usually win and bunker is bunker.

As far as thieves being able to run. The vast majority of thieves carry next to no utility skills to run away. The problem is most players refuse to carry a range weapons and don’t spam 1 unless they have a target. Lets remind most of you of something stealth does not provide invulnerability. If you spam skills in a thief’s direction they will hit. Most glass cannon thieves can only take a few hits and dots will surely burn them down. The thieves you cant catch usually wont burn you down fast and if you cant catch a glass thief who’s low on hp that is something many of you will have to learn on your own. There are thieves who carry 2 ports another invis and a sb and watch their init but you don’t see them often.

The reason I know all this works is because after my first day of PvP on a thief as P/D I got wrecked often by Backstab heatseeker and pistol whip. 1 month later I could care less if I have to deal with those builds as they are old news and easy to handle.

TBH you don’t have to be some pro PvP player. If players took the time to learn the weaknesses of each class and the most popular builds they would have a much easier time in PvP. Granted you wont always win however you will see your overall game increase and you will learn to stop following the cookie cutter builds and run one that works for you and your team in PvP. The advantage of running something off the beaten path is that it is hard to counter.

Whether you run cookie cutter or not as long as you know your build and utilize your skills wisely you will beat most twitch players by simply killing their rotations with easy counters.

Their HP.

A thief has the second-lowest amount of HP in the game. If they fail to kill you or escape, they will die. Period.

I also used to play Thief and gave up. I was dying inside with so much easy wins. It wouldn’t be so bad if NOT EVERYONE was playing the same class. When I’m fighting a team with 5 thieves, it means something’s wrong with this game.

Shooopa.5632:

Their HP.

A thief has the second-lowest amount of HP in the game. If they fail to kill you or escape, they will die. Period.

Thief is on the lowest tier of health(out of 3) and on par with elementalists, around 14k with little to no vitality stats.

Draw.7529:

I also used to play Thief and gave up. I was dying inside with so much easy wins. It wouldn’t be so bad if NOT EVERYONE was playing the same class. When I’m fighting a team with 5 thieves, it means something’s wrong with this game.

Or it means that everyone has been spouting so much “THIEF IS OP” nonsense propaganda that new players are more inclined to roll thief.

just curious has anyone ever tried to put there back against a wall? Does backstab consider a 180 degree arch to be the “back” i never actually bothered to check I know in wow that for a rogue to ambush he only had like 110 degree window or less. On a side note as a P/P zerker build thief backstab thieves are not something i worry about you would be suprised how many times blackpower has messed a thieves plan up. Zerker Gs warriors catch me more than thieves do it’s weird.

ColdSpyder.9082:

OP states that thieves kill based on what class we’re targetting. Clearly a newbie.
Not every elementalist (Or other dps-y seeming class) rolls glass cannon. Good players know they need to stack a lot of defensive stats. I have 20k hp on my thief while still outputting hilarious damage because I know that my instantaneous dps went down, but my effective dps went up.
You do more damage when you’re alive. Try stacking some vit.
Maybe put a stunbreaker on your hotbar. Mezzies can TP, eles can mistform/obby armor, warrs can endure pain, and although I’m not sure about other class specific counter mechanisms, I DO know that all classes can dodge. Please try stunbreaking and dodging that backstab thief next time. It’s far from an instantaneous process.

Defensive Elementalist is OP, no wonder you’re feeling good. Well, that is if you were playing an Ele, sneaky boy. It doesn’t matter if you can shield yourself for a few seconds when the Thief can disengage and come back with full HP/Resources whenever he wishes. I don’t know if you can stunbreak and dodge in 1/5th of a second, I sure don’t. You WILL eat Steal, CnD and Backstab. That will either kill you outright or put you in the HS/BS spam zone. Dodging won’t help.

I hope A-net won’t buy into bullkitten and nerf you guys. The game only suffers because of this class.

Edelweiss.9815:

ColdSpyder.9082:

OP states that thieves kill based on what class we’re targetting. Clearly a newbie.
Not every elementalist (Or other dps-y seeming class) rolls glass cannon. Good players know they need to stack a lot of defensive stats. I have 20k hp on my thief while still outputting hilarious damage because I know that my instantaneous dps went down, but my effective dps went up.
You do more damage when you’re alive. Try stacking some vit.
Maybe put a stunbreaker on your hotbar. Mezzies can TP, eles can mistform/obby armor, warrs can endure pain, and although I’m not sure about other class specific counter mechanisms, I DO know that all classes can dodge. Please try stunbreaking and dodging that backstab thief next time. It’s far from an instantaneous process.

Defensive Elementalist is OP, no wonder you’re feeling good. Well, that is if you were playing an Ele, sneaky boy. It doesn’t matter if you can shield yourself for a few seconds when the Thief can disengage and come back with full HP/Resources whenever he wishes. I don’t know if you can stunbreak and dodge in 1/5th of a second, I sure don’t. You WILL eat Steal, CnD and Backstab. That will either kill you outright or put you in the HS/BS spam zone. Dodging won’t help.

I hope A-net won’t buy into bullkitten and nerf you guys. The game only suffers because of this class.

1) You can NOT have extraordinary healing in stealth on a glass cannon build, and combined with CDs for the BS combo (Steal on 45 sec, Assassin’s Signet on 45 sec), you will NEVER be able to execute the combo in quick succession when running full glass cannon. The only reason the Thief could ever return to attack you with the same combo is in a complete fight reset, where you will also have all your HP and cooldowns back. If a glass Thief runs back in after healing, and combat is still in session, he will not be fully restored in any way, shape or form, and his cooldowns will limit his choices severely and increase his predictability further (more on this in a second). A Thief healing spec is entirely separate from a damage spec. You CANNOT have both. This is just a blatant lie and/or over-exaggeration, and always has been.
2) Have you ever heard of CC? Use it. I run Guardian and Elementalist alts, and glass cannon thieves are completely predictable and laughable. You know the range for Steal is 900 (at maximum 1200 with a trait, but no GC build would ever get to this trait), you can see the appropriate GC signets on his target, and you can see a distinct absence of bulky equipment that immediately suggests daggers. After his burst combo, he might possibly have 2 CC breaks. That’s it. Dodge/break initial combo and CC = easy win. If not, he runs for his life with the shortbow and all is well. It’s pretty clear in most situations that just out-damaging a Thief will not work. I’m surprised 90% of people don’t think to use their brains against these guys. It’s really not complex to fight these Thieves – totally and utter predictable and easily, systematically counter-able. Do you even try against them, or you do just lose all cognition and wait for your death (that is obviously coming if you just give up)?

Shooopa.5632:

Their HP.

A thief has the second-lowest amount of HP in the game. If they fail to kill you or escape, they will die. Period.

Not period. You are quite mistaken. In my experience, they just run away and escape. So… all the massive quick strike ability with little risk.

As for the people that say to continue casting and such, a good thief doesn’t run in a straight line. Point invalid.

Edenwolf.6328:

snip A typical backstab usually crits me for 4-7k, I have been hit by a good ele fire grab for that much so these numbers are not entitled to thief alone. snip

Except that backstab hits each time you are invisible and behind your target.

Fire grab only does that kind of damage if you are burning (which requires more effort to ensure and can be cancelled by condition removal). Further, if you (the target) move, fire grab will likely miss. Regardless, you will be waiting 45 seconds to use it again. Point invalid.

Warriors have INVULNERABILITY buffs, Mesmers have clones, Warriors can GET UP from downed state and can still survive..

You calling us OP?

Kaizer.7135:

Warriors have INVULNERABILITY buffs, Mesmers have clones, Warriors can GET UP from downed state and can still survive..

You calling us OP?

Yes.

Warriors I can evade. I can dodge a warrior. I can react to a warrior. I can see a warrior. I can joust and outplay or be outplayed a warrior. Same goes for Mesmer. Warriors and Mesmers, I do not have to cater my entire build just to be able to survive or fight against them.

These things are not true for a burst thief.

EnochDagor.6185:

Kaizer.7135:

Warriors have INVULNERABILITY buffs, Mesmers have clones, Warriors can GET UP from downed state and can still survive..

You calling us OP?

Yes.

Warriors I can evade. I can dodge a warrior. I can react to a warrior. I can see a warrior. I can joust and outplay or be outplayed a warrior. Same goes for Mesmer. Warriors and Mesmers, I do not have to cater my entire build just to be able to survive or fight against them.

These things are not true for a burst thief.

What about a frenzied warrior using hundred blades on said glass cannon thief? That attack kills a thief before the attack is even finished.

EDIT: And I also see you copied & pasted the description of the thief, in it it says: Experts at stealth and surprise, thieves can move through the shadows, vanish into thin air, or steal items from their opponents and use them as weapons. Thieves practice an agile, acrobatic fighting style, which can make them very hard to hit.

STEALTH AND SURPRISE, even after posting it yourself, you complain you can’t see us coming? Okay

EnochDagor.6185:

Kaizer.7135:

Warriors have INVULNERABILITY buffs, Mesmers have clones, Warriors can GET UP from downed state and can still survive..

You calling us OP?

I can see a warrior. I can joust and outplay or be outplayed a warrior

That one little bit right there is what’s the difference between any other glass cannons. This is the rule to ANY MMO, I don’t care who are you in this game.

I have countered warriors and even died to them. THE only reason is simply because I can SEE them. The ONLY way a warrior has killed me is if I’ve been careless and didn’t pay attention to all his attacks.

There is no build that protects you from stealth. My stealth protects from getting targeted. I got no damage+ or def + being in it. Hell the only skill I got that actually does damage on range is my great sword on mesmer and even still that really isn’t much more damage.

I wouldn’t even worry about a thief. If Anet made my clones move around like I PLAYED. *Clones were able to run around in circles or actually dodge on their own too and use weapons that I’m actually holding. I would say GG because not a single person would be able to touch me or any other good mesmer.

TRUE I can stealth almost as much as a thief, but I can’t burst no one down like they do. The ONLY shatter I use when fighting a thief is my F4. Simply because I can’t take damage during those 2-3 seconds. That gives me just enough for a window to move away or attack back. (After he/she has been able to get free 2-3 hits off me)

Kaizer.7135:

Warriors have INVULNERABILITY buffs, Mesmers have clones, Warriors can GET UP from downed state and can still survive..

You calling us OP?

If you actually can’t tell a real mesmer from the clones…You sir deserve to die.
Warriors can get up after a down states but there is a cd before they can even use it. (ALL I had to do to counter a warrior getting back up was kite for a few seconds then they just fall right back on the ground. I got a similar skill on my mesmer that works on my party.)

Like I said, give me clones that can dodge and move around like I do. I wouldn’t have a single worry in this game, except maybe other mesmers.

EnochDagor.6185:

Shooopa.5632:

Their HP.

A thief has the second-lowest amount of HP in the game. If they fail to kill you or escape, they will die. Period.

Not period. You are quite mistaken. In my experience, they just run away and escape. So… all the massive quick strike ability with little risk.

Escaping is not as easy as you think. We have to either have traits which are specifically made for escaping combat or utilities which have cooldowns.

A glass cannon thief who can kill as fast as you say will not have nearly as many skills to escape a fight because they’ve picked traits only for damage. They may not even have shadow step equipped.

If you immobilized them or used any other CC attack on them you’d kill them in seconds because they’ve probably sacrificed all their escape routes for power.

“Basilisc venom can be annoying, but it’s good as an elite.”

Sorry, i couldn’t read further than this…Oh deary me, My sides huuuuuurrrrrrttttt xDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Soooo, You think it’s all cool and balanced if a thief casts for 2 seconds in order to stun you for 1.5 second? Don’t you think you’re being…Like…Very generous to us?

BTW, Ever tried getting hit by “blazing speed” while you’re close to a wall? it nearly 1-hits a glasscannon thief so…

EnochDagor.6185:

Shooopa.5632:

Their HP.

A thief has the second-lowest amount of HP in the game. If they fail to kill you or escape, they will die. Period.

Not period. You are quite mistaken. In my experience, they just run away and escape. So… all the massive quick strike ability with little risk.

As for the people that say to continue casting and such, a good thief doesn’t run in a straight line. Point invalid.

Edenwolf.6328:

snip A typical backstab usually crits me for 4-7k, I have been hit by a good ele fire grab for that much so these numbers are not entitled to thief alone. snip

Except that backstab hits each time you are invisible and behind your target.

Fire grab only does that kind of damage if you are burning (which requires more effort to ensure and can be cancelled by condition removal). Further, if you (the target) move, fire grab will likely miss. Regardless, you will be waiting 45 seconds to use it again. Point invalid.

Have you ever tried checking how many condition removers are in the game? Have you also ever tried removing burning condition while fighting a power/condition elementalist?

@Kaizer – u remind me of the liberal media. Taking things out of context to make it fit what you want it to. So… I’ll come back at ya. Using those words, thieves can no longer do damage (their damage should be below most other classes) when specced for stealth and surprise. Deal? Thought so.

@Shooopa – it may not be as easy as I think, but I see thieves do massive amounts of burst damage and still be able to easily get away, not just from me but from 3 or 4 others… all using closers and such. Now, with that being said, I think of all of the classes in the game, Thief should be the one that can stealth and get away. It makes sense. That’s not what is in question. What is in question is that they get their cake and get to eat it too in that they can do massive amounts of burst damage. I have had many discussions on these forums regarding thieves and in almost every discussion EVEN the thieves agree on this fact. If you want to hear my thoughts or theirs, click my name do a search on my recent posts and read them. I do not intend to fight the same fight over and over again.

@Mirtis – there are a ridiculous amount of condition removal in this game. You should do a search for them and enjoy the read.

To all, please do a little more research before posting. The same issue Americans have with politics, I’m afraid. (sigh)

“@Mirtis – there are a ridiculous amount of condition removal in this game. You should do a search for them and enjoy the read.”

Thanks, So tell me now, How many stunbreakers do we have in this game? isn’t there way more stunbreakers? so why did they nerf the pistolwhip?

also, just mentioning that, putting a burning condition on a player as an ele is much much easier than doing backstab, how so? Try and see.(not vs stupid enemies whom just bend over when you go invise tho.)

What’s not overpowered about Thieves?

Simple: Anything PvE related.

So i was just making sure but here’s something interesting about the numbers of Condition removers per profession(These are meant to be for removing the Burning condition, not immobilize and such)
Thief: 4
Elementalist: 4
Mesmer: 4(1 is a phantasm, 1 is ground-targeted, 1 is mantra lol)
Guardian: 5(or 6, Not sure if ray of judgement can hit self aswell)
Warrior: 3
Ranger: 1(or maybe 3…i have no knowledge about rangers, so i keep my whining mouth shut.)
Necromancer: 4(3 of them are ground-targeted.)
Engineer: 2

Ok…that’s a reasonable amount…But let’s see how many abilities does an elementalist have to put a burning condition on enemy(in total ofc, just the way it was for condition removers)
14 !
and if you consider conjured weapons aswell, it’ll be 18.

sooo…how is it harder to put burning on enemies and click on your ability than going invise, getting behind the enemy in 3seconds and successfully hitting them?

Mirtis.6847:

So i was just making sure but here’s something interesting about the numbers of Condition removers per profession
Thief: 2

Weapon skills – Shadow Return from Infiltrator’s Strike
Heal Skills – Hide in Shadows cures damage-based conditions, Withdraw cures movement-based conditions
Utility skills – Shadow Return from shadow step, Signet of Agility, Roll for Iniative for movement-based conditions.

More like six condition removal skills, three of which are general, two of which only cure movement-based conditions, and the last of which only cures damage-based conditions. Plus whatever is available from traits.

Furthermore, the reason elementalists have so many methods of burning is that burning stacks in duration and is meant to be applied repeatedly to build up burning time. The proper response is to blow condition removal when several burning skills have been stacked, instead of immediately following a short-term burn.

flowcyto.5671:

What’s not overpowered about Thieves?

Simple: Anything PvE related.

While this statement is true I don’t think any of the professions could really be considered “overpowered” in PvE. I hope the subtle intent of your statement wasn’t to point out some kind of thief PvE weakness though, because thieves are quite powerful in the majority of PvE situations.

EnochDagor.6185:

@Kaizer – u remind me of the liberal media. Taking things out of context to make it fit what you want it to. So… I’ll come back at ya. Using those words, thieves can no longer do damage (their damage should be below most other classes) when specced for stealth and surprise. Deal? Thought so.

@Shooopa – it may not be as easy as I think, but I see thieves do massive amounts of burst damage and still be able to easily get away, not just from me but from 3 or 4 others… all using closers and such. Now, with that being said, I think of all of the classes in the game, Thief should be the one that can stealth and get away. It makes sense. That’s not what is in question. What is in question is that they get their cake and get to eat it too in that they can do massive amounts of burst damage. I have had many discussions on these forums regarding thieves and in almost every discussion EVEN the thieves agree on this fact. If you want to hear my thoughts or theirs, click my name do a search on my recent posts and read them. I do not intend to fight the same fight over and over again.

@Mirtis – there are a ridiculous amount of condition removal in this game. You should do a search for them and enjoy the read.

To all, please do a little more research before posting. The same issue Americans have with politics, I’m afraid. (sigh)

No wonder. Obvious troll.

We’re done here folks. See you all tomorrow, same time!

Tulisin.6945:

Mirtis.6847:

So i was just making sure but here’s something interesting about the numbers of Condition removers per profession
Thief: 2

Weapon skills – Shadow Return from Infiltrator’s Strike
Heal Skills – Hide in Shadows cures damage-based conditions, Withdraw cures movement-based conditions
Utility skills – Shadow Return from shadow step, Signet of Agility, Roll for Iniative for movement-based conditions.

More like six condition removal skills, three of which are general, two of which only cure movement-based conditions, and the last of which only cures damage-based conditions. Plus whatever is available from traits.

Furthermore, the reason elementalists have so many methods of burning is that burning stacks in duration and is meant to be applied repeatedly to build up burning time. The proper response is to blow condition removal when several burning skills have been stacked, instead of immediately following a short-term burn.

My apologies, i forgot about the shadow return. i’ll Edit my post right away.
but about the burning condition, i was just pointing out that it’s absolutely easy to put a burning condition on enemies and click on fire grab than hitting enemies with backstab.
Here’s another reason:
Fire Grab
Damage foes in a cone in front of you. Deal more damage to burning foes.

Damage: 588
Damage vs. Burning: 941
Range: 300

Backstab
Attack your foe from the shadows, striking for double damage if you hit from behind.

Front damage: 403
Back damage: 806
Range: 130

Trait-less/gear-less damage numbers, taken from GW2Wiki.
Are we allowed to storm the elementalist sub-forums and have half of the first page filled with Nerf-bat topics?

Wow, I like how you named alot of our utility skills, you realize if we USED all those condition removals we could no longer kill you with back stab..right?

You need assassin’s signet so backstab does damage.
You need Signet of Shadows so when you go into stealth you arn’t moving like your snared. (STEALTH SLOWS YOU.)
You need atleast Shadowstep to get away if you miss, which you do, ALOT.

Theres no way to have that AND condition removal, its impossible.

Tulisin.6945:

Mirtis.6847:

So i was just making sure but here’s something interesting about the numbers of Condition removers per profession
Thief: 2

Weapon skills – Shadow Return from Infiltrator’s Strike
Heal Skills – Hide in Shadows cures damage-based conditions, Withdraw cures movement-based conditions
Utility skills – Shadow Return from shadow step, Signet of Agility, Roll for Iniative for movement-based conditions.

More like six condition removal skills, three of which are general, two of which only cure movement-based conditions, and the last of which only cures damage-based conditions. Plus whatever is available from traits.

Furthermore, the reason elementalists have so many methods of burning is that burning stacks in duration and is meant to be applied repeatedly to build up burning time. The proper response is to blow condition removal when several burning skills have been stacked, instead of immediately following a short-term burn.

Backstab users use Assasins signet(dont remove stuff) Signet of shadows(+ movespeed so we can position ourselfes for backstab and mostly shadowstep(removes 1 condition on returning to previous place… means when we are running using it while on offence is kitten as you make a gap yourself, instead of closing it, gl going for backstab in range if u doint have steal or some way to go invis to clear distance.

Daecollo.9578:

Wow, I like how you named alot of our utility skills, you realize if we USED all those condition removals we could no longer kill you with back stab..right?

You need assassin’s signet so backstab does damage.
You need Signet of Shadows so when you go into stealth you arn’t moving like your snared. (STEALTH SLOWS YOU.)
You need atleast Shadowstep to get away if you miss, which you do, ALOT.

Theres no way to have that AND condition removal, its impossible.

You’re right. If a Thief was bursting with backstab he won’t have condition removal or really any other utilities besides maybe a signet or a stun break.
However, S/D has pretty decent burst (C&D→Steal→Pommel Strike is easily 6-7k damage, plus a 2 second daze) as well as having options to choose condtion removal, stun breaks, and stuff like Signet of Shadows. Try it out sometime. Its quite fun.

Nobody complains about S/D, and never did.

Mirtis, I am shaking my head at the fact that you really are trying to defend Backstab with Fire Grab. You do realize they are 45 seconds apart right? Your argument would hold water if you could use Fire Grab repeatedly. So, based on your logic, Backstab should have a 45 second cooldown. I think I’m ok with that. (rolls eyes)

And if you’ve ever played an ele and used Fire Grab, you’ll realize it misses more than it hits. Jez sayin.

EDIT: and just to reiterate, if you miss with Fire Grab, you still wait 45 seconds. No redo.

EnochDagor.6185:

Mirtis, I am shaking my head at the fact that you really are trying to defend Backstab with Fire Grab. You do realize they are 45 seconds apart right? Your argument would hold water if you could use Fire Grab repeatedly. So, based on your logic, Backstab should have a 45 second cooldown. I think I’m ok with that. (rolls eyes)

And if you’ve ever played an ele and used Fire Grab, you’ll realize it misses more than it hits. Jez sayin.

EDIT: and just to reiterate, if you miss with Fire Grab, you still wait 45 seconds. No redo.

Backstab doesn’t need any sort of defending really. I’ve mentioned twice i was just pointing out how stupid it was to say it takes more skill to hit with fire grab compared to backstab.
furthermore, if you’re getting hit by backstab, you’re doing it wrong, if you’re getting hit by backstab twice in a row, you should probably try re-enabling gameclient hints, and if it’s more than 2 by any chance…well…i feel sorry for A.Net.
btw, Fire grab misses more than it hits? Maybe there’s a hidden hit rating and hit chance thing in this game…my oh my. 300 frontal cone and you still miss it? then you say it’s easier to do backstab with 160 as range and 3sec limit of being invisible?

Backstab is nothing without the LONG cooldown skill that makes it do 150% more damage.

Does the OP need some cheese with their whine? Seriously, roll a thief and play it to 80 in PvE, PvP, WvW, etc THEN come back and yap about it….HONESTLY.

You know its f’d up when a thieve don’t even bother stealthing, just runs up and goes toe to toe with a warrior, destroys him then walks away, in pvp. Seen it happen a lot. Pvp matches are getting flooded with theives. Anyway its the current flavor I guess.

While this statement is true I don’t think any of the professions could really be considered “overpowered” in PvE. I hope the subtle intent of your statement wasn’t to point out some kind of thief PvE weakness though, because thieves are quite powerful in the majority of PvE situations.

Well, if you want me to be less facetious, I do think there are some UP and OP things about thieves in pvp, and some UP things in pve, but you could prob say the same of every class in one way or another. All the nerf talk just tends to get amped here more cause, well, the rogue archetype always draws controversy if its doing what it does best, and moreso in a pvp-tilted game like this.

I am worried of nerfs aimed at pvp that actually affect pve more, like the PW one. If they can isolate pvp burst issues like the 50% signet and haste, fine by me. But any such tuning down of a rogue’s main asset (burst) should come w/ some compensation elsewhere, imo.

Daecollo.9578:

You need Signet of Shadows so when you go into stealth you arn’t moving like your snared. (STEALTH SLOWS YOU.)
You need atleast Shadowstep to get away if you miss, which you do, ALOT.

Theres no way to have that AND condition removal, its impossible.

SoS is absolutely not required to effectively backstab. SoS is a convenience utility in the vast majority of situations. Assuming you’re taking a bit of acrobatics a signet of agility will offer better runspeed and far more damage for your backstab. Shadowstep is, incidentally, the most powerful condition removal available to thieves, so taking it is a pretty great way to have condition removal.

If we’re going to talk about backstab thieves, lets at least assume they’re good hypothetical backstab thieves.

johnnycosmic.9130:

You know its f’d up when a thieve don’t even bother stealthing, just runs up and goes toe to toe with a warrior, destroys him then walks away, in pvp. Seen it happen a lot. Pvp matches are getting flooded with theives. Anyway its the current flavor I guess.

While this happens, these aren’t the same builds that are jumping in to backstab people in <3 seconds. The fact that the thief can be built so differently is a good thing and something GW2 has strived for in all professions. There are brawler thieves and assassin thieves just like there are brawler warriors and one-hit-wonder warriors, as well as every other profession.

johnnycosmic.9130:

You know its f’d up when a thieve don’t even bother stealthing, just runs up and goes toe to toe with a warrior, destroys him then walks away, in pvp. Seen it happen a lot. Pvp matches are getting flooded with theives. Anyway its the current flavor I guess.

So because you’ve seen some bad warriors get destroyed by good thieves, that justifies a nerf to the thief class?

facepalm

My thief is ridiculously overpowered.

I can kill in basically 1 round of combat, any class.

I can stay in stealth, essentially forever.

I can out run, any class.

I can escape, any class.

People defending this profession as not OP are trolling.