Guild Wars 2

From a tPvP perspective:

Passive stealth regen/condition removal, stealth stomping/ressing, and Thieves guild. That is all.

That’s the only reason I dislike Thieves (Mesmers as well), they pop into stealth with 20 conditions on them and dying with less than 10% health. 5 seconds later they come out clean, almost fully healed and with a bunch of highly-damaging AI around them. Honestly? Don’t get me started about Shadow Refuge ressing/stomping.

Oh, and the fact that every thief on the planet spams either Heartseeker, DeathBlossom, or Pistolwhip (This not so much after the nerf) as though they make a thousand dollars every click of the same overused worn out button. I kind of want to see how many Thief mainers have their ‘2’ key completely disintegrated.

Thanks for providing the most updated evidential video. As I mentioned before, the recent “stealth patch” was “a slap on the wrist” for this Profession,

One who can seamlessly enter a zerg and Assassinate many seamlessly in almost Perma-Stealth conditions, shouldn’t be considered OP?

Than again. who (“lesser” professions") would Dare question an Elitist class for being OP?

And another label given by this Elitist Profession to the “lesser” Professions is “clueless”, might as well label us as Worthless, than I can find a better reason to agree with you and be Satisfied.

Fritz.-

Just for an example watch this guys video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCWywAXmVP4

I’m pretty sure Yishis could pull off stuff like that with any profession. Notice how much attention he gives to choosing his target, knowing where the enemy is, and when he’s in over his head. He’s way better then an average player and in his vids he’s commonly picking the easiest targets he can and working his way up. Notice how knows he can’t pull the stunts he pulls against seasoned players.
It creates a very skewed image when you pit a pro like that against a bunch of lowbies and call that an accurate scale of balance.

That video does not show anything about balance.

It’s a skilled player vs. a bunch of bads mostly. The players he downs and stomps are usually bads even if there is a decent player around.

There really is no point trying to argue with them anymore, no matter how often you explain how the mechanic actually works and such people will take stuff like that video of a thief hunting down uplevels as evidence of imbalance or they’ll do massive exaggerations such as a thief cleansing 20 conditions off in 4 seconds of stealth, not like there IS 20 conditions and even if they where a thief would cleanse very few of them off in that period.

Stuff like complaining about skill spam (because using a skill upto 4-5 times in a row is clearly spam and no one else ever uses the same move repeatedly on cooldown) just adds to it.

All I can say is that if they truly believe thief to be that overpowered that they go ahead and roll one to stomp newbies in wvw and hotjoin, I won’t say no to more free kills.

Dasorine.1964:

There really is no point trying to argue with them anymore, no matter how often you explain how the mechanic actually works and such people will take stuff like that video of a thief hunting down uplevels as evidence of imbalance or they’ll do massive exaggerations such as a thief cleansing 20 conditions off in 4 seconds of stealth, not like there IS 20 conditions and even if they where a thief would cleanse very few of them off in that period.

And people like you will always be happy to point to something overblown, say it is so, and then think that somehow means that there’s no problem at all.

Thieves are not overpowered…

I kill thieves all the time, and Im thief.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

From a tPvP perspective:

Passive stealth regen/condition removal, stealth stomping/ressing, and Thieves guild. That is all.

That’s the only reason I dislike Thieves (Mesmers as well), they pop into stealth with 20 conditions on them and dying with less than 10% health. 5 seconds later they come out clean, almost fully healed and with a bunch of highly-damaging AI around them. Honestly? Don’t get me started about Shadow Refuge ressing/stomping.

Oh, and the fact that every thief on the planet spams either Heartseeker, DeathBlossom, or Pistolwhip (This not so much after the nerf) as though they make a thousand dollars every click of the same overused worn out button. I kind of want to see how many Thief mainers have their ‘2’ key completely disintegrated.

Please don’t lump thieves and mesmers together

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Don-t-Lump-Mesmers-with-Thieves-on-Stealth/first#post1813504

swinsk.6410:

That video does not show anything about balance.

It’s a skilled player vs. a bunch of bads mostly. The players he downs and stomps are usually bads even if there is a decent player around.

I guarantee you if you take the most skilled GW2 player in the world and pit them against the worst players who don’t even know what their skill bars do, they would still die to 4-5 of them on any profession other than the thief.

Show me another video of the same type utilizing another profession downing a group of five people. I’d like to see it.

You may not like it, but no one is that good. At the most one person can solo two or maybe three others. If they can reliably take on more than that, then there’s something seriously wrong with balance.

More people should always win provided the others are not just standing around doing nothing. There are limits to how far “skill” should take you.

7 Words. It’s not the Thief, It’s the User.

bhagwad.4281:

swinsk.6410:

That video does not show anything about balance.

It’s a skilled player vs. a bunch of bads mostly. The players he downs and stomps are usually bads even if there is a decent player around.

I guarantee you if you take the most skilled GW2 player in the world and pit them against the worst players who don’t even know what their skill bars do, they would still die to 4-5 of them on any profession other than the thief.

Show me another video of the same type utilizing another profession downing a group of five people. I’d like to see it.

You may not like it, but no one is that good. At the most one person can solo two or maybe three others. If they can reliably take on more than that, then there’s something seriously wrong with balance.

More people should always win provided the others are not just standing around doing nothing. There are limits to how far “skill” should take you.

Choose a random class, put in gw2 wvw solo you tube it = there you go:

Guardian takes out multiples with next to no difficulty, including 2 “OP” thieves before a full zerg kills him because he goes for stomps rather than flee’s like thieves would

Engineer dives zergs repeatedly without dieing while also spreading a lot of damage and defeating people

Necromancer getting many solo kills, at the 3 minute mark starts a fight that escalates constantly getting around 6 downs and 4 full defeats before fleeing sucessfully as more arrive/get rezzed by rest of the snowballing group

Warrior hunting elementalists, at one point fights near a full zerg before chasing through it taking out many kills as he is joined by world mates fighting others further back

Elementalist defends a camp against numerous enemies backed up only by npc’s (granted same npcs that in the thief video did more damage and cc to the thief than the entire little group of players) for a long period of time before escaping unharmed as the group begins to snowball

They aren’t proof of anything other than WvW is filled with uplevels and a good player can beat bad players

Certainly not proof that thief is OP or that thief is the only one that can escape zergs or take multiples with somewhat ease

For every video of others and thieves doing well theres several hundred of them dieing instantly as well.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Dasorine.1964:

There really is no point trying to argue with them anymore, no matter how often you explain how the mechanic actually works and such people will take stuff like that video of a thief hunting down uplevels as evidence of imbalance or they’ll do massive exaggerations such as a thief cleansing 20 conditions off in 4 seconds of stealth, not like there IS 20 conditions and even if they where a thief would cleanse very few of them off in that period.

And people like you will always be happy to point to something overblown, say it is so, and then think that somehow means that there’s no problem at all.

No I think theres no problem because the stuff is actually pretty balanced or borderline underpowered, it only becomes any where near overpowered when its over exaggerated.

Dasorine.1964:

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Dasorine.1964:

There really is no point trying to argue with them anymore, no matter how often you explain how the mechanic actually works and such people will take stuff like that video of a thief hunting down uplevels as evidence of imbalance or they’ll do massive exaggerations such as a thief cleansing 20 conditions off in 4 seconds of stealth, not like there IS 20 conditions and even if they where a thief would cleanse very few of them off in that period.

And people like you will always be happy to point to something overblown, say it is so, and then think that somehow means that there’s no problem at all.

No I think theres no problem because the stuff is actually pretty balanced or borderline underpowered, it only becomes any where near overpowered when its over exaggerated.

You’re calling a mechanic that gives you one of the most egregiously powerful aspects of combat, not being seen, “borderline underpowered”.
This is why no one takes thief apologists seriously.

The videos posted so far prove VERY convincingly that these players don’t have any clue how stealth works (or dagger storm either). When the Thief stealths they stop attacking. When he drops Shadow Refuge, they just stand around with their thumbs up their butts. When he pops Dagger Storm they blow their ranged cooldowns…
Videos like that aren’t evidence that Thief is overpowered, they’re evidence that bad players are bad.

……………………………………….

While I do not believe the current mechanics make thief “overpowered”, I really do wish they would have went through with their original nerf of stealth and just hit us with a couple seconds of “revealed” even if you didn’t attack to break stealth.
Getting rid of the zerg surfing and “perm”-stealth could open the door for some buffs that would finally help us in PvE.

Dasorine.1964:

bhagwad.4281:

swinsk.6410:

That video does not show anything about balance.

It’s a skilled player vs. a bunch of bads mostly. The players he downs and stomps are usually bads even if there is a decent player around.

I guarantee you if you take the most skilled GW2 player in the world and pit them against the worst players who don’t even know what their skill bars do, they would still die to 4-5 of them on any profession other than the thief.

Show me another video of the same type utilizing another profession downing a group of five people. I’d like to see it.

You may not like it, but no one is that good. At the most one person can solo two or maybe three others. If they can reliably take on more than that, then there’s something seriously wrong with balance.

More people should always win provided the others are not just standing around doing nothing. There are limits to how far “skill” should take you.

Choose a random class, put in gw2 wvw solo you tube it = there you go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuLki4fP648

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeD5yRL2i3Q

They aren’t proof of anything other than WvW is filled with uplevels and a good player can beat bad players

Nope:

First video: Guardian never solos more than 2 people. In fact, at one point there are five people and the video display says “Death inevitable”!

Because everyone knows that no one no matter how good can ever solo 4 people at the same time. I’m afraid this video merely proves my point. No profession other than the thief is arrogant enough to assume that they’re better than 5 people combined.

They’re not. It’s the class mechanic that allows it to happen.

Second video: Engineer at no point solos 4-5 people.

I’m sorry but nothing compared to the thief video shown here. No profession no matter how well played should ever be able to take down 4-5 people solo even against complete noobs.

Heroes don’t exist.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Dasorine.1964:

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Dasorine.1964:

There really is no point trying to argue with them anymore, no matter how often you explain how the mechanic actually works and such people will take stuff like that video of a thief hunting down uplevels as evidence of imbalance or they’ll do massive exaggerations such as a thief cleansing 20 conditions off in 4 seconds of stealth, not like there IS 20 conditions and even if they where a thief would cleanse very few of them off in that period.

And people like you will always be happy to point to something overblown, say it is so, and then think that somehow means that there’s no problem at all.

No I think theres no problem because the stuff is actually pretty balanced or borderline underpowered, it only becomes any where near overpowered when its over exaggerated.

You’re calling a mechanic that gives you one of the most egregiously powerful aspects of combat, not being seen, “borderline underpowered”.
This is why no one takes thief apologists seriously.

Did I specifically state stealth was what I thought borderline underpowered? no I did not.

Though now that you mention it, in high tier pvp yes, yes it is underpowered as in those tiers players know what the heck they are doing and in those cases stealth gives no damage reduction and no freedom of movement.

In WvW and hotjoin, its very powerful as you can just hit it and everyone stops attacking you and stands their waiting for you, some even turn around to face away from where you stealth.

Thief counters thief extremely well because a thief understands the thief process. ANet needs to stop kneejerking straight to nerfing thieves and read this thread to see why listening to the community is not the way to go.

This thread is adorable.

A note on the “OPness” of Thieves:

As a Thief, I have a lot of problems playing a Backstab build. Part of this is due to the fact that I’m one of the very few S/D Thieves in PvP, so I’m not as familiar with Backstab. But most of the reason is that other players—even in hotjoin—know how to react to a Backstab build. It really is, as someone previously commented, a “one-trick pony.” You burst and you gtfo, and there’s not a lot of wiggle room in between those two goals.

S/D, on the other hand, is a blast (and I do much better on it). Partly because S/D is more forgiving of my idiocy with all of the mobility, but it’s also because other players just don’t know how to react. I can evade and immobilize pretty much at will, and that takes most people (especially inexperienced ones) off-guard.

In my opinion, the only people who truly think Thieves are crazily overpowered are players that aren’t very familiar with the class or mechanics. If Thieves destroy you, try making one and try running a BS build in hotjoin. You’ll figure out the limitations of it pretty quick.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Oh, and the fact that every thief on the planet spams either Heartseeker, DeathBlossom, or Pistolwhip (This not so much after the nerf) as though they make a thousand dollars every click of the same overused worn out button. I kind of want to see how many Thief mainers have their ‘2’ key completely disintegrated.

Shouldn’t use absolutes like “every”, it just weakens your entire argument. S/D, for instance, is a very popular setup, as is P/D; neither of which even have those abilities you claim EVERY thief spams.

In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a single thief in high tier PvP that spams any ability as it’s purely a ticket to an kitten whooping vs opponents with IQ’s higher than that of a brick.

Adaneshade.2409:

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Oh, and the fact that every thief on the planet spams either Heartseeker, DeathBlossom, or Pistolwhip (This not so much after the nerf) as though they make a thousand dollars every click of the same overused worn out button. I kind of want to see how many Thief mainers have their ‘2’ key completely disintegrated.

Shouldn’t use absolutes like “every”, it just weakens your entire argument. S/D, for instance, is a very popular setup, as is P/D; neither of which even have those abilities you claim EVERY thief spams.

In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a single thief in high tier PvP that spams any ability as it’s purely a ticket to an kitten whooping vs opponents with IQ’s higher than that of a brick.

Hi, I play high tier PvP.

I see heartseeker. Alot.

I see Deathblossom. Alot.

I also see Thieves guild. Alot.

Does it mean that my team loses to it? Generally no, despite backstab → heartseeker being so strong. It’s just overused, and I wouldn’t mind seeing more diversity in Thief so that I might actually pick one up again and not have to rely on 2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2 or some other nonsensical skill.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Adaneshade.2409:

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Oh, and the fact that every thief on the planet spams either Heartseeker, DeathBlossom, or Pistolwhip (This not so much after the nerf) as though they make a thousand dollars every click of the same overused worn out button. I kind of want to see how many Thief mainers have their ‘2’ key completely disintegrated.

Shouldn’t use absolutes like “every”, it just weakens your entire argument. S/D, for instance, is a very popular setup, as is P/D; neither of which even have those abilities you claim EVERY thief spams.

In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a single thief in high tier PvP that spams any ability as it’s purely a ticket to an kitten whooping vs opponents with IQ’s higher than that of a brick.

Hi, I play high tier PvP.

I see heartseeker. Alot.

I see Deathblossom. Alot.

I also see Thieves guild. Alot.

Does it mean that my team loses to it? Generally no, despite backstab -> heartseeker being so strong. It’s just overused, and I wouldn’t mind seeing more diversity in Thief so that I might actually pick one up again and not have to rely on 2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2 or some other nonsensical skill.

Hence my statement that good thieves don’t use that. It’s a weak play-style as it’s too predictable. Predictability in ANY PvP game is a bad thing.

While I’m not denying that you and your team are of a good rank, the current ranking system is so royally kittened up that an absolute day1 noob can be put up against higher level opponents with just a bit of luck. The thieves you see doing that will not be at that level long, I can assure you.

I would rather see Stealth nerfed into the ground, and other skills the Thief has buffed to compensate to open up more diversity, so they don’t have to rely on such predictable gimmicky tricks. Honestly the best Thief I know plays S/P even after the nerf, it’s highly unexpected and he uses it extraordinarily well. He’s also probably one of the very few Thieves I actually respect for skill and diversity.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

I would rather see Stealth nerfed into the ground, and other skills the Thief has buffed to compensate to open up more diversity, so they don’t have to rely on such predictable gimmicky tricks. Honestly the best Thief I know plays S/P even after the nerf, it’s highly unexpected and he uses it extraordinarily well. He’s also probably one of the very few Thieves I actually respect for skill and diversity.

Wouldn’t bother me in the least. I do use dagger offhand, but not for stealth. I find the boon stripping and unblockable capability of S/D set to be a godsend vs bunkers.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

I would rather see Stealth nerfed into the ground, and other skills the Thief has buffed to compensate to open up more diversity, so they don’t have to rely on such predictable gimmicky tricks. Honestly the best Thief I know plays S/P even after the nerf, it’s highly unexpected and he uses it extraordinarily well. He’s also probably one of the very few Thieves I actually respect for skill and diversity.

Tried it. They hit the wall against things like Claw of Jormag. Not enough healing or condition removal to survive against things that are immune to their Black Powder. So yes they could use a buff, however, they don’t need to break builds like S/D to do it.

So what I’m seeing here, Dual, is you completely ignored my above post to essentially say “Sure we need a buff, but don’t nerf our already OP skill to do it.”

Really?

Just… really?

bhagwad.4281:

snip
I’m afraid this video merely proves my point. No profession other than the thief is arrogant enough to assume that they’re better than 5 people combined.

They’re not. It’s the class mechanic that allows it to happen.

But you basically admit that it’s only “overpowered” against bad players…
So are you seriously asking Anet to balance around bad players?

You’re asking the impossible.
Even Starcraft2 (whose balance team has worked for decades and only has 3 “classes” to deal with) can’t balance the races across every skill level. Nor should they.

Funny, 99% of all Thieves I know become really bad players in high tier tPvP because they have to rely on gimmicky nonsensical bullocks, and instead choose to rely on OP stealth to Res and Stomp. Perhaps we should… I don’t know… nerf the living christ out of Stealth and perhaps… uhh.. maybe…. buff other stuff to make them less heartseeky and more diverse?

Ah but we shouldn’t balance around bad players/broken classes…

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

So what I’m seeing here, Dual, is you completely ignored my above post to essentially say “Sure we need a buff, but don’t nerf our already OP skill to do it.”

Really?

Just… really?

I think what he’s saying is that everyone is crying “nerf” because of PvP but ignoring the effect that has on PvE.
The 1second added to Revealed affected PvE thieves MUCH harder than it affected PvP Thieves… yet the forums are still full of cries for even more nerfs without even a thought toward PvE.

I play Necromancer. Your cries about PvE do not have any impact upon me.

lol cleanse mobs

So because your class could use some PvE help, we should ignore the others that also do, right?

Has Necro gone through any PvP nerfs that ended up neutering multiple PvE builds that were already underpowered?
That’s the difference here.

Come back and talk when the necro forums are full of “nerf necro” threads with suggestions that ignore the fact that they will neuter PvE even further. And then just wait until one of those suggestions actually hits the game with 0 PvE compensation.

As has been proven time and time again, Thief is only “OP” in pvp against terrible players. Changing that is going to require MAJOR changes to the class including a ton of buffs and not simply nerfs. Yet everyone coming to the thief forums just crys “OP” and asks for nerfs.

And so far, that’s all we’ve gotten.

Possibly because we’re not OP in WvW/PvP (infact, we’re downright barely viable), and our PvE capability has ALWAYS been garbage? Where have you been? Oh right… Thief…

Well, maybe it’ll give you the chance to see what it is like to be begging for a badly needed buff in a gametype like Necromancer.

phor.7952:

bhagwad.4281:

snip
I’m afraid this video merely proves my point. No profession other than the thief is arrogant enough to assume that they’re better than 5 people combined.

They’re not. It’s the class mechanic that allows it to happen.

But you basically admit that it’s only “overpowered” against bad players…
So are you seriously asking Anet to balance around bad players?

You’re asking the impossible.
Even Starcraft2 (whose balance team has worked for decades and only has 3 “classes” to deal with) can’t balance the races across every skill level. Nor should they.

Huh what? I didn’t say anything of the sort.

What I said was that no matter what the class, no other profession can solo five people regardless of skill level on either side. No single person should be able to harass a group of 5 people no matter how unskilled they are.

Because it’s impossible to become five times more skilled than even the noobest character. I’ll take a team with 15 poor players against 5 of the top notch pros in the world any day.

Don’t know how many times it has to be said or proven with video after video, but you have even basically confirmed it yourself.

Thief is only “OP” in pvp against terrible players.

You can’t balance for that without a MAJOR overhaul of the class.
If you want to talk about what kinds of nerfs and buffs that would entail, more power to you. But just crying “Thief is OP”, “Nerf Thief” and even worse, trying to use that as evidence in an argument that your class should get more attention?
Ridiculous.

By the way, Phor, it’s the job of other classes to call for nerfs on other classes. Defend your own class and ask for your own buffs. I’m not going to sit here crying for your class to be buffed in PvE when it clearly needs to be nerfed in PvP and WvW. Fight your own battles bro, I don’t ask you to sit there posting in Necro forum asking for badly needed buffs on Necro.

Thieves and Mesmers are always in denial about their classes being OP. (Despite Mesmer being significantly more balanced than Ele or Thief.)

AikijinX.6258:

7 Words. It’s not the Thief, It’s the User.

This. So much this.

bhagwad.4281:

What I said was that no matter what the class, no other profession can solo five people regardless of skill level on either side. No single person should be able to harass a group of 5 people no matter how unskilled they are.

Because it’s impossible to become five times more skilled than even the noobest character. I’ll take a team with 15 poor players against 5 of the top notch pros in the world any day.

Whether you like it or not, including “no matter how skilled” in your argument is an admission that you’re referencing bad players because the only evidence presented showing a single person taking on 5 people has been a good thief against really bad players.

I would COMPLETELY agree that it would be OP if a thief were able to take out 5 good players. Hell, even 2 good players is a stretch as long as they’re not geared berserker and get caught off guard.

But the evidence presented only proves that a thief is “OP” against bad players.
And you simply can’t balance a game around bad players. It’s a waste of time.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Adaneshade.2409:

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Oh, and the fact that every thief on the planet spams either Heartseeker, DeathBlossom, or Pistolwhip (This not so much after the nerf) as though they make a thousand dollars every click of the same overused worn out button. I kind of want to see how many Thief mainers have their ‘2’ key completely disintegrated.

Shouldn’t use absolutes like “every”, it just weakens your entire argument. S/D, for instance, is a very popular setup, as is P/D; neither of which even have those abilities you claim EVERY thief spams.

In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a single thief in high tier PvP that spams any ability as it’s purely a ticket to an kitten whooping vs opponents with IQ’s higher than that of a brick.

Hi, I play high tier PvP.

I see heartseeker. Alot.

I see Deathblossom. Alot.

I also see Thieves guild. Alot.

Does it mean that my team loses to it? Generally no, despite backstab -> heartseeker being so strong. It’s just overused, and I wouldn’t mind seeing more diversity in Thief so that I might actually pick one up again and not have to rely on 2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2 or some other nonsensical skill.

I’d like to mention that you see HS a lot because it’s used as a key part of two different setups (D/D and D/P)—but, to be fair, HS spam is one of my pet peeves because it makes all Thief players look like idiots.

You see Thieves’ Guild because it’s pretty much the only viable elite in small-scale PvP. Dagger Storm is far more situational, and Basi Venom is pretty much laughable now.

When I see a Thief spamming DB, I laugh at them as they blow all of their initiative on my dodges…and then I kill them.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Thieves and Mesmers are always in denial about their classes being OP. (Despite Mesmer being significantly more balanced than Ele or Thief.)

Yet the only evidence to the contrary that we are presented with time and time again show bad player after bad player.

If it were denial, it would be easy to produce a Video of a thief 1vXing against good players.

I think you’re in denial that your whining is justified.

Hell, I even agree with you that the class could potentially be more fun and balanced if they were to make some sweeping changes to stealth and buffs to other builds/skills.

But calling something “OP” when it’s only effective against bad players and then thinking that’s the proper way a community should be communicating with the devs is juvenile.

also with the skill spam (which has next to nothing to do with stealth that you want nerfing) comes down to this: A thief can use 2 upto 4 skills back to back at base initiative regen out of the skills on his two weapon sets available.

In those 2 weapon sets (lets say d/d and sb as they where very common) they will have 2 large cost utility skills (say CnD and Infiltrators shot), 2 medium cost utility skills (dancing dagger and choking gas), 2 medium cost situational/dual wield (deathblossom and disabling shot), 2 low cost primary initiative use skills (heartseeker and clusterbomb) and their auto attacks.

Now…. out of those 8 skills a thief has to choose upto 4 to use and only 1 is not highly situational, that being on the 2 skill on the shortbow. Which basically means unless the situation calls for it utilizing anything other than those is a massive loss and any thief doing so (this includes heartseeker use on people at full health) is using up limited resources and doing very little

This is like complaining that a p/p engineer is using poison dart volley every time its off cooldown too much instead of using his heal kit skills and the calling for them to get nerfed until they are force to throw out stuff like “drop antidote” in the middle of fights with no condition users present.

So basically it comes down to if you want the thief to be utilizing all skills equally (unlike everyone else who will have certain skills they use way more for similiar reasons) you need to totally redo both the initiative system and the weapon skills (all of which are low skill coefficients to make up for the ability to utilize them more than once at the start of the fight and the lower cooldowns mid fight)

Throw into that stealth which gives the one singular advantage of 3-4 seconds of invisibility which combined with both the predictable nature of most thief attacks and escapes allows players who have learnt these predictable patterns to mostly ignore it or even be happy as it allows them to hit the thief while the thief cannot attack back without being penalized. Then the thief does not get boon access in return for the stealth defense, boons which are in many builds a very static and reliable defense that even if countered with a bit of boon stripping is reappliable and not penalized.

Then we have the thief burst that to get to the deadly levels people complains about the thief has to sacrifice yet more of its already very limited defense, burn multiple utilities and put them selves into a highly vulnerable position to achieve numbers others can get in lower gear in safer positions.

So yeah… I can see how people think thief is really overpowered and unfair and doesn’t contain any semblance of balance whats so ever because they can harrass new players and any other profession would instantly die to a single new player even with all the videos and peoples testimonys otherwise…

Small groups of good players can destroy large groups of bad players regardless of the profession, they do it in different ways and each has its own weaknesses and strengths but its perfectly possible and indeed there are many videos of such things.

So instead of actually proving that Thieves aren’t OP that stealth isn’t an OP mechanic, you just go “All those players are just bad, and need to l2p”

Sure. In WvW, I’ve seen entire parties of thieves separate and eliminate Zergs. Not possible on any other class. In PvP their only OPness comes from stealth stomps/ressing and incredibly high damage bow/pistol capability (Good thieves, anyway)

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

So instead of actually proving that Thieves aren’t OP that stealth isn’t an OP mechanic, you just go “All those players are just bad, and need to l2p”

Sure. In WvW, I’ve seen entire parties of thieves separate and eliminate Zergs. Not possible on any other class. In PvP their only OPness comes from stealth stomps/ressing and incredibly high damage bow/pistol capability (Good thieves, anyway)

That probably depends on the zerg. An “entire party” of Eles, Warriors, Engineers, or Guardians would be nothing to sneeze at, either.

In PvP, the shortbow certainly isn’t useless damage, but its main focus is utility/movement (or glory farming in hotjoin). “Incredibly high” damage is far more easily achieved with a dagger or even sword.

For “incredibly high” pistol damage, I’m not sure what you’re referring to. The damage of P/P Unload spam—really the only reason to use P/P—can be accomplished with pretty much any other spike. Mainhand pistol alone stacks damage through Vital Shot/Sneak Attack bleeds, which are easily shed by most heals. Offhand pistol is really just straight CC.

And a note on stealth stomps: I find Engineer invulnerability stomps far worse. If a Thief stealths over someone’s downed body, it’s pretty obvious what’s about to happen. However, ArenaNet needs to fix the fact that some professions require a target to use their downed skills, and some don’t. That’s ridiculously unfair.

Rusc.4978:

However, ArenaNet needs to fix the fact that some professions require a target to use their downed skills, and some don’t. That’s ridiculously unfair.

That and the fact that you can’t actually aim even the untargeted abilities unless you have a target since your character won’t turn otherwise.
Also it’s not exactly comparable to Elixir S since that requires burning a utility (a stunbreaker no less) while a thief can CnD for stealth which makes them immune to 2 profession’s downed interrupt (Necro/Ranger) and nearly immune due to no turning to 2 more (Engineer/Warrior).

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Rusc.4978:

However, ArenaNet needs to fix the fact that some professions require a target to use their downed skills, and some don’t. That’s ridiculously unfair.

That and the fact that you can’t actually aim even the untargeted abilities unless you have a target since your character won’t turn otherwise.
Also it’s not exactly comparable to Elixir S since that requires burning a utility (a stunbreaker no less) while a thief can CnD for stealth which makes them immune to 2 profession’s downed interrupt (Necro/Ranger) and nearly immune due to no turning to 2 more (Engineer/Warrior).

I was comparing the situations themselves more than ease of access to the stomps. The invulnerability stomp provides that player with an enormous advantage in a team environment—which is all PvP setups aside from duels. Even if you see your teammate about to get stomped, its nigh impossible to stop it.

If you see a Thief go into stealth above a downed teammate, you can oftentimes stop the Thief in question by walking over to the area and swinging your weapon around. This usually forces them to withdraw from the downed player and heal, if they don’t get downed themselves.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

So instead of actually proving that Thieves aren’t OP that stealth isn’t an OP mechanic, you just go “All those players are just bad, and need to l2p”

How would I prove they AREN’T if they actually aren’t? The evidence wouldn’t exist. Come on now, you’re smarter than that.

The only proof that exists to support my argument is in the form of the dozens of videos posted that show terrible player after terrible player getting trounced. Hell, even the thief in one of the linked videos says “I’m going after upleveled players because they’re squishy and usually bad”.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Sure. In WvW, I’ve seen entire parties of thieves separate and eliminate Zergs.

Yet you have no video for us? Link it and your argument will be made as long as we don’t see that the zerg was full of up-leveled players who don’t understand stealth.

phor.7952:

bhagwad.4281:

What I said was that no matter what the class, no other profession can solo five people regardless of skill level on either side. No single person should be able to harass a group of 5 people no matter how unskilled they are.

Because it’s impossible to become five times more skilled than even the noobest character. I’ll take a team with 15 poor players against 5 of the top notch pros in the world any day.

Whether you like it or not, including “no matter how skilled” in your argument is an admission that you’re referencing bad players because the only evidence presented showing a single person taking on 5 people has been a good thief against really bad players.

I would COMPLETELY agree that it would be OP if a thief were able to take out 5 good players. Hell, even 2 good players is a stretch as long as they’re not geared berserker and get caught off guard.

But the evidence presented only proves that a thief is “OP” against bad players.
And you simply can’t balance a game around bad players. It’s a waste of time.

You can certainly balance against bad players when there are enough of them. The fact remains that no class other than thief can kill 5 bad players solo. They can at most try and run or down one or two before dying themselves.

bhagwad.4281:

phor.7952:

bhagwad.4281:

What I said was that no matter what the class, no other profession can solo five people regardless of skill level on either side. No single person should be able to harass a group of 5 people no matter how unskilled they are.

Because it’s impossible to become five times more skilled than even the noobest character. I’ll take a team with 15 poor players against 5 of the top notch pros in the world any day.

Whether you like it or not, including “no matter how skilled” in your argument is an admission that you’re referencing bad players because the only evidence presented showing a single person taking on 5 people has been a good thief against really bad players.

I would COMPLETELY agree that it would be OP if a thief were able to take out 5 good players. Hell, even 2 good players is a stretch as long as they’re not geared berserker and get caught off guard.

But the evidence presented only proves that a thief is “OP” against bad players.
And you simply can’t balance a game around bad players. It’s a waste of time.

You can certainly balance against bad players when there are enough of them. The fact remains that no class other than thief can kill 5 bad players solo. They can at most try and run or down one or two before dying themselves.

Elementalist says hi. I recall one vid of an ele taking on 8 or so players, and killing all of them.

bhagwad.4281:

phor.7952:

bhagwad.4281:

What I said was that no matter what the class, no other profession can solo five people regardless of skill level on either side. No single person should be able to harass a group of 5 people no matter how unskilled they are.

Because it’s impossible to become five times more skilled than even the noobest character. I’ll take a team with 15 poor players against 5 of the top notch pros in the world any day.

Whether you like it or not, including “no matter how skilled” in your argument is an admission that you’re referencing bad players because the only evidence presented showing a single person taking on 5 people has been a good thief against really bad players.

I would COMPLETELY agree that it would be OP if a thief were able to take out 5 good players. Hell, even 2 good players is a stretch as long as they’re not geared berserker and get caught off guard.

But the evidence presented only proves that a thief is “OP” against bad players.
And you simply can’t balance a game around bad players. It’s a waste of time.

You can certainly balance against bad players when there are enough of them. The fact remains that no class other than thief can kill 5 bad players solo. They can at most try and run or down one or two before dying themselves.

Yeah, I also have to disagree. I’ve seen Elementalists, Rangers, Mesmers, Engineers, and Warriors accomplish that same feat.

When i started to play WvW i engaged an Ele with other 4/5 players. We chased him for a long and he has reached its tower and he is saved. But i say “Great Skill\Build” not “Ele is OP!!!!”.

It’s all about knowing what they do and do not immediately think that they are too strong.

Stealth it’s not invincibility. Use AOE and anticipates thief’s move.

Falassion.8031:

When i started to play WvW i engaged an Ele with other 4/5 players. We chased him for a long and he has reached its tower and he is saved. But i say “Great Skill\Build” not “Ele is OP!!!!”.

It’s all about knowing what they do and do not immediately think that they are too strong.

Stealth it’s not invincibility. Use AOE and anticipates thief’s move.

but D/D for eles really is op :P
(slightly op, that is. Also, the reg on cantrip trait is slightly op while the rest is blatantly underpowered, forcing eles into that one build, if they want to do anything besides group support/long range fireball spam)

I dont think so.

Maybe he is strong in many situation but not in all.

The thing that bothers is that the thieves appear and disappear, making it difficult to hit them. But i dead so many times when i was in stealth because player stunned\immobilized me and hitting the air they killed me.

I love so much when I see Shadow Refuge and i use my Reaper’s Mark and they lose Stealth.