Guild Wars 2

I just dont get it, mesmers are the best in 1v1 pvp or can wreck havoc in aoe support damage, same with necromancers (in my personal opinion they can stand on their own as well as provide great support), ele can dish out serious seige damage, rangers have protection as well as added dps from their pets, warriors and gaurdians are living meat shields (both can wear plate and warriors have access to an impressive array of weapons), and well in honest opinion engineers need a buff LOL (too little weapon choice as well as medium armor doesnt make them the strongest bunch).
Why should we nerf the thief? i admit some abilities are spammable, but they cost a price (initiative). Stealth u say? well its only for 1 second or 2 before we back stab, and yes it does do burst, which is what were known for. But it doesnt clear the fact that were not the best in anything… were not the best supporters, or the best in 1v1. In fact best supports have to be necros or ele, and best 1v1 has to be mesmers. There is a reason why were not the best. Its cause in my personal opinion, were pretty balanced as it is now.

People hate thieves because it is very easy to own a terrible player while you are playing a thief, and there are quite a few terrible players out there. Additionally, terrible players are the most likely demographic to come bellyaching on the forums demanding a nerf.

You’re kidding right?

…

On the off chance you aren’t we’ll go with the simplest answer which completely ignores any and all balance/power hierarchy between the classes (even though you’re really delusional about thieves place in the power hierarchy).

Are you ready for this?

• Stealth/invisibility gankers are kitten annoying and completely unfun for the majority of players NOT playing them. They’re fun for the ganker kid getting off on constantly trolling people by stealthing in and out with their huge numbarz yo! But many many many people just find the whole thing absurd and silly, annoying and completely stupid and would be more than happy to have those abilities/classes deleted.

Mind blown right?

Consequently it’s also the reason the annoying factor of mesmers completely pisses people off before they even get to what really makes mesmers so friggin’ powerful.

Thief like Mesmer revolves around mind games. A lot of players don’t understand or appreciate mind games, writing anything off anything that isn’t obvious and straight forward as cheap. Thieves confound them, and it’s frustrating for them to face things they don’t understand.
A lot of them also have rather inflated egos that are easy to bruise. But that’s almost a given in PvP.

Dual.8953:

Thieves confound them, and it’s frustrating for them to face things they don’t understand.

You make it sound like popping invisible mode and dropping bombs for damage from said invisibility is something hard to ‘understand’.

It’s only frustrating because it’s annoying. It’s like the sniper kids that just hang out in some random wallbugged spot on a map far far away and pick people off who are engaged with something else on another part of the map. Doesn’t matter if they really affect the win/loss or match at all. They’re still annoying and unfun. Thieves/rogues/assassins and whatever other name MMO devs have used for this playstyle falls into that exact same scenario.

Thief isn’t new or revolutionary, it’s just the same hated playstyle that’s been reviled since friggin invisimonks in AC:DT back in 99. Were they supremely OP? Nope, that would be the tank-mages. But they were annoying little prats that were pretty much like the guy that crashes a really good party and kills it with his annoying personality within minutes.

Can’t put all the thieves detractors in the same bag, some of them are clueless, actually it seems they are the majority it’s true, but some of them are making valid points.
We can’t be happy with a stagnant class can we ?
We need tweaks, for balance’s sake, and also because tweaks are kinda appetizing considering you have to spend some time thinking about your build everytime a new balance comes into play.

Don’t you like spending some time reffining a build and the way you use it ?
I think it’s positive.

On our side, and it seems like most people react the same way when it comes to tweaking their favorite class/build, i think we are over defensive when it comes to the nerf thieves subjects, and it’s probably because we fear an overzealous nerf hammer.

Braxxus.2904:

Dual.8953:

Thieves confound them, and it’s frustrating for them to face things they don’t understand.

You make it sound like popping invisible mode and dropping bombs for damage from said invisibility is something hard to ‘understand’.

I don’t think he’s talking about the mechanics of the profession. I think he’s talking about the impact it has & the rest of your post is prime example. It’s affecting you on a personal level making it more difficult for you & people like Roughneck’s post to overcome them.

I played for maybe a total of 15 minutes in spvp with an engineer and for someone who doesn’t know jack squat about the class, I survived for a REALLY long time with all the regen and support from turrets and whatnot, so Engies imo aren’t hurting as bad as you seem to believe.

Also thieves are advertised as being THE best in 1v1 encounters. In open environments, if you don’t screw yourself over, you will either win the fight or just simply walk away if you feel like it. You even said we are known for burst, meaning we are so good at it, we are labeled as the bursters, therefore the “best”, no? You also describe Warriors as meat shields, implying they can take loads of damage due to armor, and this is completely untrue. A Warrior who goes for survivability sacrifices a lot of damage output(as it should be i suppose) to be as tough as any other class who does the same without equal repurcussions.
—-
Just saying by the way, I play both thief and warrior with my thief being my first class, never tried anything else during the BWEs, and my first 80, love the profession, and even I believe its a much easier class to play than most of the others, with many mechanics which I myself consider “cheap”. Maybe I’m just a self-loathing thief, idk.
——
Also, direct answer to thread title,

We da best meng, we deed it.

Sinic.3926:

It’s affecting you on a personal level making it more difficult for you & people like Roughneck’s post to overcome them.

I don’t have an issue overcoming them. I didn’t have an issue overcoming them in AoC either which had 3 of these types btw, barbs, rangers and sins along with full FFA open world PvP whilst levelling. Ganker paradise. I had one of each levelled up specifically for trolling people and griefing people trying to level in the mid-zones. Wasn’t an issue in WoW either as a prot warrior, hell most of them just killed themselves attacking me or got counter-stunlocked. You missed the whole point of what I was saying. It wouldn’t matter if the class only did 1 point of damage with every attack. The playstyle and mechanics of the stealthy trololo class annoys the kitten out of players.

Which is why in any game with full open world pvp and the ability to gank people trying to level, without their consent, you roll the stealth class and see how many hate messages you can get.

• For the record I also have a thief for WvW trolling.

Thieves are hated because generally they’re played in very cheesy, spamable, annoying ways (pop some cooldowns and spam one or 2 moves as fast as you can to do as much as you can then either vanish and wait for CD’s again if alive or teabag corpse if dead). Thieves like to think they play their class like “ninjas” but actually they play them more like kids ding-dong ditching your house over and over again.

In other words thieves people are just sick of one class having the best resource system in the game, the highest burst, the most mobility and the most “oh kitten” buttons in the game and constantly playing the martyr card and acting victimized because people (rightfully so) have issue with this.

Thieves are hated because…

a) Stealth – Stealth is never fun to fight against. It allows the Thief to decide when to engage and disengage the fight. The other player is forced to react. Culling makes Stealth also twice as powerful as it should be.

b) Abundant Shadowsteps and mobility – Thieves can be hard to track and even harder to pursue. Stealth combined with lots of Shadowsteps make it feels like they can be anywhere at any time. Catching one is nigh impossible too.

c) Ability spam – Dying to a Thief spaming Heartseeker just feels really cheap. If a Warrior misses his 100% Blades he’ll have to wait for a few moments before using it again. A Thief can just press Heartseeker again….and again…and again. The fact that it’s a homing ability dealing well over 5000 damage at times…..yeah…it’s cheap.

I promise you people would QQ less if you couldn’t just chain one Heartseeker into another.

The reason thieves are on of the most hated professions in the game is the same reason that rogues/assassins etc. in ALL games (and their FPS counterpart the sniper) are hated, it’s the element of surprise.

From my thread “Surprise and why you hate it.”

What I mean by this is in relation to how people deal with surprise versus lack of surprise, I can use two common builds from GW2 as an example, but it also works in other games that have a surprise element.
From GW2 there is the BS build vs the bull rush -> HB build (with quickness), the BR-BH build works by charging a player, stunning them and then killing them however it’s all completely visual in its execution, you can see the warrior, see the bull rush and see the HB and the only surprise felt by the victim is when they initially saw the warrior.
However this is different for the thief, as a BS build will optimally never let the victim see them until the damage has been done, but the greatest difference between BR-HB and BS is the time at which the player is surprised (which leads to a moment of indecision), BR-BH only has surprise when the player sees the warrior giving them plenty of time to react, but for the BS build the player only sees the thief when they are almost dead or in a downed state which causes a greater delay in the time the brain sends out a reaction than in the warriors case.

An example from another game is a sniper vs an assault guy (BF3), an assault guy can just run’n’gun like a warrior, with the same effect from the brains perspective, but a sniper produces the same result as the thief, one moment you are running between points and the next you are dead because someone shot you from 700 meters away.

The damage isn’t what’s killing most people so much as the indecision created when the brain gets surprised which leads to a greater period of inaction for the average human, and that period of inaction is what surprise builds/classes/weapons in games take advantage of… it’s also why they are the most hated/nerfed/changed/complained about items/builds in most games.

In summary, people are fine with 100b warriors killing them in 1.5 seconds for the same reason that they aren’t fine with BS thieves killing them in 1.5 seconds, it all has to do with how the human brain processes a surprising event and kicks into action.

I recorded this fight vs a thief the other day, I was watching the replay to see how much he was hitting me for.

Now as I was adding the numbers up and watching the video at slow speeds. I found there was 9k worth of damage missing from my screen. I lol and rewatched over and over. It worked out to be he was dealing the extra damage to me while he was in stealth. It was like 2 seconds of stealth where my life bar dropped but not one bit of damage showed on my screen.

So mean while the thief’s screen shows he just did 9k worth damage to me while my screen shows nothing but my life bar dropping.

And this is why people hate thief’s, your stealth is broken you can deal massive amounts of damage while in stealth

The best part about all the Heartseeker QQ is how bad you have to be to actually die to someone spamming it. Yea, I understand it can be annoying to be at 4K heath and have someone heartseeker you out of nowhere but that’s the nature of getting Arsjammed. It happens all the time and any prof can do it. Any burst build from any profession makes them stand out when you are outnumbered and requires the majority of your focus.

Now assuming you are talking about a semi 1 on 1 situation. If you are dying to heartseeker spam then you really need to evaluate your decision making, utilities and your dodge key.

People hate thieves because they don’t want to have to think to hard when fighting them. They are only concerned with how their profession performs. Normally a decently executed dodge will mitigate all of that BS damage, HS spam and PW Spam. Here in lies the problem, people don’t want to actually learn how to deal with a thief. Instead it is easier to complain about them. When I had issues with Warrior in the beginning, and so what I did was start dueling Warriors and I made a Warrior to understand their weaknesses. Same with Mesmer and Elementalist. Once I did that… I never have had an issue with Warriors, Elementalists and Mesmers, also on those professions. I NEVER have a problem with ANY Thief build. Why? Because I know how to counter them from my experience as a Thief.

I would like people to play a Thief and see how easy it is to avoid our damage, if you use basic common sense. You see a thief stealth near you, make a educated guess and dodge roll, throw an AOE slow, AOE stun or make yourself hard to hit (be in a crowd of players or pets or make yourself invisible). I can almost guarantee that the Thief will miss his BS on you, if he is Pow/Pre he has only 3 secs to hit you and if he has Shadow Arts focused. The BS isn’t going to do a whole lot.

Stealth is always the bogey-man in MMOs. It is always what people kitten about. Why? Mainly because it is easy to kitten and most visible (no pun intended). Mesmers can be just as annoying with their clones and do the exact same hit and run tactics as Thief, along with being able to stealth. The reason that Mesmers aren’t number 1 on the kitten list, is because stealth isn’t the central feature of the profession.

When I see people complaining about how OP a Thief is, first thing I note is the profession (usually Warrior or Elementalist, not sure why but they seem to complain the most when other professions are weaker) and then the actual complaint. Most of the time it is always about our stealth and burst from stealth. I always gives tips on how to help mitigate that damage and it is always met with STFU OP THIEF!

I know that my advice helps and works, because I give the same to my friends and now they don’t have issues with thieves. From my observations, the people doing the bulk of complaining on the forums are the lazy players that don’t want to work on getting better. They would rather have ANet bring everyone else down to their level of play instead of learning what they could be doing better.

Stiv.1820:

The best part about all the Heartseeker QQ is how bad you have to be to actually die to someone spamming it. Yea, I understand it can be annoying to be at 4K heath and have someone heartseeker you out of nowhere but that’s the nature of getting Arsjammed. It happens all the time and any prof can do it. Any burst build from any profession makes them stand out when you are outnumbered and requires the majority of your focus.

Now assuming you are talking about a semi 1 on 1 situation. If you are dying to heartseeker spam then you really need to evaluate your decision making, utilities and your dodge key.

When people talk about “Heartseeker spam” today they rarely refer to the Heartseeker spaming builds of the early days where players would spam it from 100% to 0%.

Spaming is chaining >2 Heartseekers after each other which isn’t all that ineffective if a target is below 50% HP.

Heartseeker puts a target under a lot of pressure considering how easy it is to use.

In a 1v1, a backstab thief or similar glass cannon build is easily countered. They are not OP, it’s simply a L2P issue imo. A build like a dagger/dagger elementalist has lots of abilities to counter attacks like backstab.

Backstab thieves can be frustrating if you’re already in a fight and you’ve used your counter abilities already, in which case getting turned to stone and being helpless to a backstab can be very annoying. I wouldn’t say it makes the build OP though. Any profession joining a fight midway could finish you off quite easily, glass cannon thieves are just very effective at this.

Dee Jay.2460:

Stiv.1820:

The best part about all the Heartseeker QQ is how bad you have to be to actually die to someone spamming it. Yea, I understand it can be annoying to be at 4K heath and have someone heartseeker you out of nowhere but that’s the nature of getting Arsjammed. It happens all the time and any prof can do it. Any burst build from any profession makes them stand out when you are outnumbered and requires the majority of your focus.

Now assuming you are talking about a semi 1 on 1 situation. If you are dying to heartseeker spam then you really need to evaluate your decision making, utilities and your dodge key.

When people talk about “Heartseeker spam” today they rarely refer to the Heartseeker spaming builds of the early days where players would spam it from 100% to 0%.

Spaming is chaining >2 Heartseekers after each other which isn’t all that ineffective if a target is below 50% HP.

Heartseeker puts a target under a lot of pressure considering how easy it is to use.

It doesn’t matter what is in the past for HS, and even still. What he says had merit to the past incidents too. Dodging will always make it a bad time for a HS Spammer.

Dee Jay.2460:

Stiv.1820:

The best part about all the Heartseeker QQ is how bad you have to be to actually die to someone spamming it. Yea, I understand it can be annoying to be at 4K heath and have someone heartseeker you out of nowhere but that’s the nature of getting Arsjammed. It happens all the time and any prof can do it. Any burst build from any profession makes them stand out when you are outnumbered and requires the majority of your focus.

Now assuming you are talking about a semi 1 on 1 situation. If you are dying to heartseeker spam then you really need to evaluate your decision making, utilities and your dodge key.

When people talk about “Heartseeker spam” today they rarely refer to the Heartseeker spaming builds of the early days where players would spam it from 100% to 0%.

Spaming is chaining >2 Heartseekers after each other which isn’t all that ineffective if a target is below 50% HP.

Heartseeker puts a target under a lot of pressure considering how easy it is to use.

That’s how I see it too. Thief will hit you a few times then spam it 3x or so in a row. Usually 2 evades will avoid 3 heartseekers. Or if you root them, they blow them all while rooted. I’m not sure what class you are but if heartseeker is a threat they have ~14K HP or so. It doesn’t take much to down them.

I have an 80 thief (among other classes). They’re hated because stealth is a broken mechanic. Simple as that. No other class can walk into a group of 3-5 people with the possibility of downing and stealth dunking one of them, and then walk away. Culling makes this worse.

Thieves have:
1) The best mobility in the game
2) The best opening attacks in the game
3) The best burst damage in the game
4 The best kiting ablity in the game
5) The best escapability in the game (Elementalists come close)
6) The best hit and run, or engage and disengage abilities in the game
7) Very good, but not the best wall defense
8) Very good, but not the best wall clearing abilities.

This adds up to a class that effectively has few, if any, weaknesses and even average/poor players can be incredibly effective.

It boils down to a very very low risk class with very very high rewards. They can contribute in almost every situation, and can escape from almost every situation that doesn’t suit them. Culling lets them stay in combat, deliver huge amounts of damage from a position where other players have an incredibly difficult time defending or responding. Honestly stealth should work differently than it does right now. It should either drop when the thief takes X damage or gets hit X number of times, or revealed should be significantly longer than it is now.

Only bad/tunnelvisioned thieves will ever die in wvw, but bad thieves can still get lots of kills. No other class can boast this.

Coffeebot.3921:

In summary, people are fine with 100b warriors killing them in 1.5 seconds for the same reason that they aren’t fine with BS thieves killing them in 1.5 seconds, it all has to do with how the human brain processes a surprising event and kicks into action.

I absolutely agree. However, I think there is an extra level of hate in this particular game because Thieves can reset that surprise state nearly at will.

If you dodge the Warrior’s Bull Charge, you can limit the amount of damage and retaliate, putting pressure on the Warrior. Or even if you were surprised by it, you can still stun break and not eat the entirety of 100B, and you are then able to retaliate and put pressure on the Warrior.

If you time it perfectly and dodge the invisible Backstab, and avoid most of the Heartseekers, the Thief then just hits 5, or 6, or whatever SR or BP are bound to, and resets. You are able to retaliate only in a very limited fashion, if you have an attack that will fire without a target or some AE.

Archonis.7249:

Dee Jay.2460:

Stiv.1820:

The best part about all the Heartseeker QQ is how bad you have to be to actually die to someone spamming it. Yea, I understand it can be annoying to be at 4K heath and have someone heartseeker you out of nowhere but that’s the nature of getting Arsjammed. It happens all the time and any prof can do it. Any burst build from any profession makes them stand out when you are outnumbered and requires the majority of your focus.

Now assuming you are talking about a semi 1 on 1 situation. If you are dying to heartseeker spam then you really need to evaluate your decision making, utilities and your dodge key.

When people talk about “Heartseeker spam” today they rarely refer to the Heartseeker spaming builds of the early days where players would spam it from 100% to 0%.

Spaming is chaining >2 Heartseekers after each other which isn’t all that ineffective if a target is below 50% HP.

Heartseeker puts a target under a lot of pressure considering how easy it is to use.

It doesn’t matter what is in the past for HS, and even still. What he says had merit to the past incidents too. Dodging will always make it a bad time for a HS Spammer.

But you can’t use “Dodge” to justify every imbalance in this game.

Dodge is brief immunity to everything. So everything can be dodged.

Thus everything is balanced?

You can’t argue like that.

The cost vs. effectiveness ratio is off when it comes to Heartseeker.

Dodge is justified when talking about Thieves spamming HS and PW. You dodge 2 or more of them, the thief has nothing else in the gas tank to beat you with.

So it is very balanced considering that you avoided all that damage that you say is OP.

I main a Thief, you will never hear me talk about the equal damage that Eviscerate and 100 Blades does compared to a BS or HS and PW. Why? Because I am aware that there is a dodge button. So that is fairly balanced.

I am simply astonished at how many people never dodge or read their opponent.

Some professions are more forgiving with it, because they have innately more health and armor. As a Thief, you have the lowest and you have to learn how to read your opponent. Otherwise Thieves will come into the forums crying about how OP Warriors etc are because you got one shot with full endurance.

Dual.8953:

Thief like Mesmer revolves around mind games. A lot of players don’t understand or appreciate mind games, writing anything off anything that isn’t obvious and straight forward as cheap. Thieves confound them, and it’s frustrating for them to face things they don’t understand.
A lot of them also have rather inflated egos that are easy to bruise. But that’s almost a given in PvP.

I think this is the best description. When you make people think/panic in the chaos of a fight and they see themselves getting killed quickly their natural reaction is to get kitten come write angry posts on the forums to try and get a little revenge trolling in.

I get kitten seeing Warriors and Guards tank whole groups in WvW and manage to live through the massive onslaught of damage dealt to them but you don’t see me crying nerf, cause there’s Warriors and Guards on our side as well.

Try learning to combat a thief at his own game. If he stealths, dodge backwards and back pedal till s/he pops out of stealth. If it’s a group of thieves then run, you can’t expect to fight 3-4 thieves by yourself and come out the victor. If your still complaining after that I’d hate to see you discover campers in FPS games.

Archonis.7249:

People hate thieves because they don’t want to have to think to hard when fighting them. They are only concerned with how their profession performs. [] Here in lies the problem, people don’t want to actually learn how to deal with a thief. Instead it is easier to complain about them.

Archonis.7249:

I am simply astonished at how many people never dodge or read their opponent.

Some professions are more forgiving with it, because they have innately more health and armor. As a Thief, you have the lowest and you have to learn how to read your opponent. Otherwise Thieves will come into the forums crying about how OP Warriors etc are because you got one shot with full endurance.

Again with this argument.

All the fast-twitch, super skilled, genius ninjas who play blindfolded in yoga positions and anticipate your every move, ALL ROLLED THIEF. Meanwhile, every other class is populated by the mouth-breathing idiots of the general populous. AMAZING HOW THAT HAPPENED, WHAT ARE THE CHANCES??!?

Mister Mustard.7203:

Archonis.7249:

People hate thieves because they don’t want to have to think to hard when fighting them. They are only concerned with how their profession performs. [] Here in lies the problem, people don’t want to actually learn how to deal with a thief. Instead it is easier to complain about them.

Archonis.7249:

I am simply astonished at how many people never dodge or read their opponent.

Some professions are more forgiving with it, because they have innately more health and armor. As a Thief, you have the lowest and you have to learn how to read your opponent. Otherwise Thieves will come into the forums crying about how OP Warriors etc are because you got one shot with full endurance.

Again with this argument.

All the fast-twitch, super skilled, genius ninjas who play blindfolded in yoga positions and anticipate your every move, ALL ROLLED THIEF. Meanwhile, every other class is populated by the mouth-breathing idiots of the general populous. AMAZING HOW THAT HAPPENED, WHAT ARE THE CHANCES??!?

I play Warrior, Engineer, Elementalist and Ranger too. Guess what. I have no issues against Thieves or any other professions, so your point is stillborn.

I anticipate, dodge and use my utilities and elite. I would suggest that others do the same.

People don’t like being deceived.
People don’t like things they can’t see or touch.
People don’t like being mad a fool of.

Thus, all the hate for mesmers and thieves. As long as thieves and mesmers exist in this game people will complain about them because these classes make them look like fools sometimes.

Its really funny how thief’s try there hardest to justify there broken class, stop telling everyone how to play and face facts.

@Manos.5486 Hit the nail on the head.

The only real players who stand chance against thief’s are geared lvl 80’s with a solid build, low-lvls are more less doomed they stand no chance as there is 99% chance they are dead in 2 hits. Thief’s are only class who can pull this off using 1 key over and over.

What I would like to see is Anet break your stealth to work in our favour for few weeks while they try to fix it and then maybe thief’s will finally see how broken there class really is.

Sol.4310:

Its really funny how thief’s try there hardest to justify there broken class, stop telling everyone how to play and face facts.

@Manos.5486 Hit the nail on the head.

The only real players who stand chance against thief’s are geared lvl 80’s with a solid build, low-lvls are more less doomed they stand no chance as there is 99% chance they are dead in 2 hits. Thief’s are only class who can pull this off using 1 key over and over.

What I would like to see is Anet break your stealth to work in our favour for few weeks while they try to fix it and then maybe thief’s will finally see how broken there class really is.

Just an FYI, don’t base any balance changes off of WvW because there are too many disparities to properly account for balance.

Use SPvP and Tourneys.

Also, stop being a kitten Ranger.

Sol.4310:

The only real players who stand chance against thief’s are geared lvl 80’s with a solid build, low-lvls are more less doomed they stand no chance as there is 99% chance they are dead in 2 hits. Thief’s are only class who can pull this off using 1 key over and over.

I could say that about every class in the game. Just because you are boosted in WvW, it does not make up for the fact that your gear is worse and you don’t have all your traits. Oh, and newsflash: not every thief plays D/X (to which you obviously refer) so that’s a wee bit of hyperbole on your part, but I’ll let that slide since your argument is so strong…

Sol.4310:

What I would like to see is Anet break your stealth to work in our favour for few weeks while they try to fix it and then maybe thief’s will finally see how broken there class really is.

What a revelation, thieves would be bad if you take away the only advantage they have in the game. ANet, I think I found a 3rd member to your stressed and thin-spread balance team.

Sol.4310:

Its really funny how thief’s try there hardest to justify there broken class, stop telling everyone how to play and face facts.

@Manos.5486 Hit the nail on the head.

The only real players who stand chance against thief’s are geared lvl 80’s with a solid build, low-lvls are more less doomed they stand no chance as there is 99% chance they are dead in 2 hits. Thief’s are only class who can pull this off using 1 key over and over.

What I would like to see is Anet break your stealth to work in our favour for few weeks while they try to fix it and then maybe thief’s will finally see how broken there class really is.

An up-leved player doesn’t stand a chance vs any skill player of any profession. At this point your post just reeks of being a bad. Rangers are much stronger since last patch. Go learn more about your class and spam more Shortbow#1 instead of QQing here on the forums. You might find yourself able to improve.

Archonis.7249:

I play Warrior, Engineer, Elementalist and Ranger too. Guess what. I have no issues against Thieves or any other professions, so your point is stillborn.

I anticipate, dodge and use my utilities and elite. I would suggest that others do the same.

Right, I’m sure you’re an amazing player who will be successful with any class. Blindfolded. No one is suggesting that Thieves are godmode and never die (well I imagine someone has, but any reasonable person will dismiss that).

What we’re suggesting is that there are glaring advantages Thieves enjoy, which are magnified in a contest between average skilled players. Look, I’m all for folks learning and getting better. Kudos to those who take the time to study and work hard to achieve their goals, be it irl or in a video game. But I don’t think a video game should have one class that is comparatively powerful at moderate to lower ability, defended by saying it’s balanced at the top.

You keep saying, in essence, “l2p.” If it were that simple, wouldn’t there be a hundred QQ posts about your Warrior, Elementalist, Engineer, and Ranger as well? When all of you keyboard ninjas get on your alts, wouldn’t that make the rest of us idiots start crying about those classes as well?

Mister Mustard.7203:

[paraphrased: it is easy for a low skill thief to defeat anther low skilled player]

And any low skill player can get easy kills with a Noob-tube in any FPS. It doesn’t mean that an underslung grenade launcher is the best weapon in the game.

Any time low skilled players get together, the glass cannon has a huge advantage.

Should classes be balanced around the worst skill players? No, that would be dumbing down the game. There are plenty of other games that are dumbed down that would be more suitable for people who refuse to L2P.

A thief going invisible for a backstab is usually fairly predictable. Personally I enjoy fighting BS thieves because watching them go invisible, then swinging my weapons progressing my auto attack chain, then have the thief become visible laying on the ground is great fun.

Archonis.7249:

Mister Mustard.7203:

Archonis.7249:

People hate thieves because they don’t want to have to think to hard when fighting them. They are only concerned with how their profession performs. [] Here in lies the problem, people don’t want to actually learn how to deal with a thief. Instead it is easier to complain about them.

Archonis.7249:

I am simply astonished at how many people never dodge or read their opponent.

Some professions are more forgiving with it, because they have innately more health and armor. As a Thief, you have the lowest and you have to learn how to read your opponent. Otherwise Thieves will come into the forums crying about how OP Warriors etc are because you got one shot with full endurance.

Again with this argument.

All the fast-twitch, super skilled, genius ninjas who play blindfolded in yoga positions and anticipate your every move, ALL ROLLED THIEF. Meanwhile, every other class is populated by the mouth-breathing idiots of the general populous. AMAZING HOW THAT HAPPENED, WHAT ARE THE CHANCES??!?

I play Warrior, Engineer, Elementalist and Ranger too. Guess what. I have no issues against Thieves or any other professions, so your point is stillborn.

I anticipate, dodge and use my utilities and elite. I would suggest that others do the same.

Please don’t be that guy… don’t be the guy that tells us all we just need to l2p and that since you are apparently Jesus and have no problem killing thieves with a butter knife and turning water to wine we are all doing something wrong. No really believes you’re that amazing (especially when you just mention you CAN counter thieves on any profession at any time under any circumstances and not HOW you accomplish this) and even if you were no one likes that guy so just stop…

Like I said before thieves are hated because they can be incredibly cheesy, have too much control in combat and the margin for error in either getting killed or getting a kill to a relatively low skill thief is way WAY higher than any other class, so yea people have issue with thieves and rightfully so.

Also people don’t like that they have the best resource system, the highest burst, the easiest combos, the most oh kitten buttons and the most mobility in the game and they like to pretend they’re some sort of martyr because people have a problem with them having all of that and a bar of soap too.

Atticus.7194:

Please don’t be that guy… don’t be the guy that tells us all we just need to l2p and that since you are apparently Jesus and have no problem killing thieves with a butter knife and turning water to wine we are all doing something wrong. No really believes you’re that amazing (especially when you just mention you CAN counter thieves on any profession at any time under any circumstances and not HOW you accomplish this) and even if you were no one likes that guy so just stop…

Like I said before thieves are hated because they can be incredibly cheesy, have too much control in combat and the margin for error in either getting killed or getting A kill to a relatively low skill thief is way WAY higher than any other class, so yea people have issue with thieves and rightfully so.

Also people don’t like that they have the best resource system, the highest burst, the easiest combos, the most oh kitten buttons and the most mobility in the game and they like to pretend they’re some sort of martyr because other players call for them to lose some of that and have to come down to earth with the rest of us.

then please dont be the guy that cries on the forums because you got beat 1v1 in the game.

FourTwenty.4268:

Atticus.7194:

Please don’t be that guy… don’t be the guy that tells us all we just need to l2p and that since you are apparently Jesus and have no problem killing thieves with a butter knife and turning water to wine we are all doing something wrong. No really believes you’re that amazing (especially when you just mention you CAN counter thieves on any profession at any time under any circumstances and not HOW you accomplish this) and even if you were no one likes that guy so just stop…

Like I said before thieves are hated because they can be incredibly cheesy, have too much control in combat and the margin for error in either getting killed or getting A kill to a relatively low skill thief is way WAY higher than any other class, so yea people have issue with thieves and rightfully so.

Also people don’t like that they have the best resource system, the highest burst, the easiest combos, the most oh kitten buttons and the most mobility in the game and they like to pretend they’re some sort of martyr because other players call for them to lose some of that and have to come down to earth with the rest of us.

then please dont be the guy that cries on the forums because you got beat 1v1 in the game.

then please don’t be the guy who thinks that telling everyone they need to l2p will hide the fact that there is an actual reason people are complaining about something no matter what their supposed skill level is.

“You’re prius got stuck accelerating no matter what you did? Noob l2drive and you wouldn’t have that problem!”

My 2 cents : I find thieves extremely frustrating to fight because stealth has no hard counter. Thieves that build for stealth pull out from engagement with disheartening ease, or even harass an entire group with relative impunity.

In other games with stealth mechanism, there are usually counters. For example the stealth class also has a detect stealth skill (on a significant cooldown). Or stealth is temporarily disrupted by damage. Or conditions show their visual effect when applied on a stealthed target. Or stealth is not perfect invisibility, rather a not quite transparency effect.

In short : whatever helps reduce cheesy behaviour and promote skillful use of stealth.

Atticus.7194:

then please don’t be the guy who thinks that telling everyone they need to l2p will hide the fact that there is an actual reason people are complaining about something no matter what their supposed skill level is.

“You’re prius got stuck accelerating no matter what you did? Noob l2drive and you wouldn’t have that problem!”

I agree, there is a reason people are complaining. they’re getting stomped by people that play the game better than they do and they can’t take it. they can’t face the fact that they suck at a game they spent 60+ dollars and potentially hundreds of hours of their time playing.

Go in the Warrior forums, there’s complaints that they’re OP. Go in the Elementalist forums there’s complaints that they’re OP.

Guess what? This game gives an advantage to people who know how to play their class, know how to counter their opponents, and have faster twitch skills. And it will happen no matter what class they play /thread

NeryK.5301:

My 2 cents : I find thieves extremely frustrating to fight because stealth has no hard counter

and THIS is why people think they’re so OP lolol

they honestly feel there’s no way to counter the class/mechanic. it makes me laugh so hard when people say this.

pssst, you know you can kite people in the game right? you know you cant facetank everyone and mash 1, 2, 3, 4 in order to win right?

there’s dozens and dozens of tips on how to counter each and every class in the game. it’s not my fault, or the developers fault that you refuse to learn how to counter the mechanic

FourTwenty.4268:

NeryK.5301:

My 2 cents : I find thieves extremely frustrating to fight because stealth has no hard counter

and THIS is why people think they’re so OP lolol

they honestly feel there’s no way to counter the class/mechanic. it makes me laugh so hard when people say this.

pssst, you know you can kite people in the game right? you know you cant facetank everyone and mash 1, 2, 3, 4 in order to win right?

there’s dozens and dozens of tips on how to counter each and every class in the game. it’s not my fault, or the developers fault that you refuse to learn how to counter the mechanic

You misunderstand my point, in your haste to go “lol l2p noob”.

My problem is not getting killed by a stealthy thief. If I do not counter his burst and get killed, OK fair enough, that is my fault. My problem is that once the surprise is over, and my counter-attack ongoing, he can choose to leave at his own leisure (and come back later for another shot of course). I don’t think it is fair, and so find the class frustrating to fight against.

Note : this is for a WvW type situation.

FourTwenty.4268:

Atticus.7194:

then please don’t be the guy who thinks that telling everyone they need to l2p will hide the fact that there is an actual reason people are complaining about something no matter what their supposed skill level is.

“You’re prius got stuck accelerating no matter what you did? Noob l2drive and you wouldn’t have that problem!”

I agree, there is a reason people are complaining. they’re getting stomped by people that play the game better than they do and they can’t take it. they can’t face the fact that they suck at a game they spent 60+ dollars and potentially hundreds of hours of their time playing.

Go in the Warrior forums, there’s complaints that they’re OP. Go in the Elementalist forums there’s complaints that they’re OP.

Guess what? This game gives an advantage to people who know how to play their class, know how to counter their opponents, and have faster twitch skills. And it will happen no matter what class they play /thread

Okay.

So I went over to the warrior and elementalist forums and I couldn’t seem to find a 24 page thread on either one of those started by a mod for the specific purpose of collecting all the complaints about the class in one location. But I guess that’s all just baseless QQers who need “faster twitch skills” amirite?

Oh and just because you type /thread doesn’t mean the thread is over it just means you got bored or lazy or both and left to maintain a sense of deluded superiority. So once again, don’t be that guy

pssst, you know you can kite people in the game right? you know you cant facetank everyone and mash 1, 2, 3, 4 in order to win right?

there’s dozens and dozens of tips on how to counter each and every class in the game. it’s not my fault, or the developers fault that you refuse to learn how to counter the mechanic

Can you please tell us all what some of these counters are? Please, I’d love to know what we’re all doing wrong, so please come down off your mountain and share your divine knowledge oh wise one with us unenlightened masses

They are disliked because:

1 – Many people find stealth an unfun mechanic to play against (in much the same way many find CC annoying), this is made worse in GW2 as unlike most games you can in-combat stealth multiple times and damage does not break stealth.

2 – The ratio of risk vs reward is completely out of line, my thief can initiate combat on my terms better than every class (joint best with D/D Ele) and can then reset the encounter or just get away better than any other class if I muck up or am outplayed, thanks to the combination of multiple stealths plus super mobility, too little risk.

3 -They are pretty faceroll to play and get results with.

4 – The illogical excuses put forward such as “I am a glass cannon, I die easy”, the fact that a thief glass cannon (along with mesmers) have far more survivabilty than other classes if specced glass cannon seems to be ignored. Or “get some toughness / spec defensively”, yes that is right “balance” is the meta being based around other classes (mesmers excepted) having to build around thieves, the only class allowed to freely go glass cannon, again risk vs reward.

5 – The persecution complex, guess what thieves are not the only class to recieve nerfs nor even the most nerfed class , my engineer has been nerfed more (yes engineer probably the least played class in the game), including the biggest nerf in the game (removal of stability on flamethrower trait).

Much of this goes far more for WvW (and to a lesser extent hot join PvP) rather than tPvP, in tPvP if a thief has to run off from a point holder, then the point holder has won, kept the points ticking over for their team, in WvW if a thief has to run off, you get no badges, plus you were just slowed down on the way to defending that keep, the thief won.

It is also compounded by culling issues (again more in WvW) and guess what, they may never solve those issues…

The class is designed on a flawed premise (stealth->huge burst->abilty to escape) that has been unbalanceable in many games, and in some ways is even worse in GW2, multiple in-combat stealths + best mobility + damage does not break stealth, really?

It doesn’t matter how good the class actually is, two things that always kitten people off are high burst classes and stealth classes. Thank god we don’t have lots of CC because that’s the third thing sure to kitten off other players.

Tremain.4623:

It doesn’t matter how good the class actually is, two things that always kitten people off are high burst classes and stealth classes. Thank god we don’t have lots of CC because that’s the third thing sure to kitten off other players.

We need annoying sound effects every time we hit someone in pvp/wvw.
It’d synergise well with the annoyingess we already have.

Coffeebot dead on.

You can nerf stealth all you want, but if stealth is in the game people will complain.

That being said, I play a thief and I honestly wouldn’t mind at all if HS got a heavy nerf, or alternatively require more initiative. I used it briefly when I started and haven’t touched it since.

ekleenex.1654:

I play a thief and I honestly wouldn’t mind at all if HS got a heavy nerf, or alternatively require more initiative. I used it briefly when I started and haven’t touched it since.

I play a thief as well, no main-hand dagger. A nerf would have no effect me at all. The main reason i don’t want to get rid of it is I love LOLing at “hertseeker noobs” and killing them shortly after. It’s only an issue when you are greatly outnumbered and at that point any burst build is a problem.

Thief’ stealth is the same thing as a mesmer’s clones. It confuses people.

And confusion makes certain players heads hurt. Therefore the headache has got to be nerfed.

“TOO MANY THOUGHTS!!!! HULK SMASH”

Seriously, stop expecting logging in spvp and to be able to faceroll everyone by your 3rd or 5th match . Some things have to be learnt with practice. Period.

How many times have thieves been nerfed already ? 4,5 times?Maybe more ? Some of these nerfs were perfectly justified and any honest thieves( lol ) will admit to that.

But from reading this page, it sounds like every single thing a thief can do should be nerfed ?

I’m willing to make you all a bet : when the thief has been nerfed another 4,5 times…you will still see threads in the forums crying “ZOMG THEIF OP NERFFFFF PLZ”.

This isn’t Guild Wars, this is Forum Wars.

Stiv.1820:

ekleenex.1654:

I play a thief and I honestly wouldn’t mind at all if HS got a heavy nerf, or alternatively require more initiative. I used it briefly when I started and haven’t touched it since.

I play a thief as well, no main-hand dagger. A nerf would have no effect me at all. The main reason i don’t want to get rid of it is I love LOLing at “hertseeker noobs” and killing them shortly after. It’s only an issue when you are greatly outnumbered and at that point any burst build is a problem.

I run D/D so it would directly affect me, but any thief worth anything knows there are numerous ways to kill more effectively then HS. I understand why people would complain about it, but it’s easily evaded and counter attacked.

People also complain a lot about perma-stealth thieves, what? It’s not like they spawn and can instantly have permanent stealth, it requires setup and is not easily reset during combat (if you are playing against someone who knows how to play).

On a side note, if you are not level 80 and fully geared with a good understanding of game mechanics, you shouldn’t even be allowed to post a complaint about something being OP, in my opinion.

ekleenex.1654:

Stiv.1820:

ekleenex.1654:

I play a thief and I honestly wouldn’t mind at all if HS got a heavy nerf, or alternatively require more initiative. I used it briefly when I started and haven’t touched it since.

I play a thief as well, no main-hand dagger. A nerf would have no effect me at all. The main reason i don’t want to get rid of it is I love LOLing at “hertseeker noobs” and killing them shortly after. It’s only an issue when you are greatly outnumbered and at that point any burst build is a problem.

I run D/D so it would directly affect me, but any thief worth anything knows there are numerous ways to kill more effectively then HS. I understand why people would complain about it, but it’s easily evaded and counter attacked.

People also complain a lot about perma-stealth thieves, what? It’s not like they spawn and can instantly have permanent stealth, it requires setup and is not easily reset during combat (if you are playing against someone who knows how to play).

On a side note, if you are not level 80 and fully geared with a good understanding of game mechanics, you shouldn’t even be allowed to post a complaint about something being OP, in my opinion.

100% agree with that post.

Most players chose to play thief not to simply spam 2 on and on and on again…
The class has so much more to offer and despite the constant nerfs remains extremely versatile.

Being a bouncing gerbil of (mediocre) death is not my idea of fun.

Groovy.6749:

ekleenex.1654:

Stiv.1820:

ekleenex.1654:

I play a thief and I honestly wouldn’t mind at all if HS got a heavy nerf, or alternatively require more initiative. I used it briefly when I started and haven’t touched it since.

I play a thief as well, no main-hand dagger. A nerf would have no effect me at all. The main reason i don’t want to get rid of it is I love LOLing at “hertseeker noobs” and killing them shortly after. It’s only an issue when you are greatly outnumbered and at that point any burst build is a problem.

I run D/D so it would directly affect me, but any thief worth anything knows there are numerous ways to kill more effectively then HS. I understand why people would complain about it, but it’s easily evaded and counter attacked.

People also complain a lot about perma-stealth thieves, what? It’s not like they spawn and can instantly have permanent stealth, it requires setup and is not easily reset during combat (if you are playing against someone who knows how to play).

On a side note, if you are not level 80 and fully geared with a good understanding of game mechanics, you shouldn’t even be allowed to post a complaint about something being OP, in my opinion.

Being a bouncing gerbil of (mediocre) death is not my idea of fun.

This.

What a lot of people don’t understand (I still think HS could use a decent nerf for above 50% hp, I think it still should be a viable finisher) is that HS can put a thief at a disadvantage during a fight. You burn through initiative, and get yourself within melee range fully visible. Any decent player could easily immobilize and kill the thief in seconds, seconds.

Sure your other classes don’t have equal burst damage, but it doesn’t take good burst to burn through a thieves 11k vitality.