Guild Wars 2

I consider myself an experienced Warrior, at 1900 toughness, and 24k hp I still have some issues with taking 10-15k damage in 1 second from a thief.

It takes incredible foresight in a pitched 2v2, 2v3 to anticipate a stealthed thief to completely unload on you.

I understand there was a nerf to the assassins signet, but to be frank – it wasn’t enough.

Just cant shake that feeling of it being a tacky aspect of this game.

First, thought you quit playing.

Second, your posts are typically well thought out. Don’t make a whine post.

The thief’s strongest opener is C&D, steal, backstab. Wasting that on a target and knocking them down to 60% of their health is a waste. If a team is doing that to you every game, you should win, because your glass cannon DPS aren’t instantly dying from that combo.

im sure anet will still get an earfull about this. the signet had nothing to do with the ridiculous amount of dmg you are taking, it was backstab + traits. backstab needs to have a cost as large as its dmg. and / or have a much larger cooldown. perhaps even a reduction in backstab dmg overall would work. also the mug trait is huge dmg too. then to top that off the stealth bug (which pisses me off more then anything about thieves) where they are “revealed” yet there is no visible sign of anything for a couple seconds. that needs to be fixed more in my opinion

1900 toughness is squish squish squish….

I can’t tell if this post is serious

As you very well know, you can destroy thieves just as fast, imo they are both very poweful and both have suvivability although though diferent ways.
Thief evades, dodges and stealthes
Warrior has Toughness, big HP pool, can block and can also dodge.

its just a mater of who opens on who and weather the utilities are on CD or not i believe…

@ defektive what about me i got 3000 armor and they hit me with HS 4 and 5 k still sooo.. i agree with you man and not to mention 6 and 7 k BS

Daays.4317:

First, thought you quit playing.

Second, your posts are typically well thought out. Don’t make a whine post.

The thief’s strongest opener is C&D, steal, backstab. Wasting that on a target and knocking them down to 60% of their health is a waste. If a team is doing that to you every game, you should win, because your glass cannon DPS aren’t instantly dying from that combo.

1) I stopped playing until they brought in Paid Tournaments. Seeing how the ‘meta’ develops until I throw in the towel until a later date. Been playing Planetside 2 in the mean time.

2) I know, sorry. It’s been a long day, coming home to this frustration didn’t make things any better.

Apophis.8561:

the signet had nothing to do with the ridiculous amount of dmg you are taking,

I strenuously disagree. The signet was a huge issue, being an additional 50% damage on top of the auto-crit. Now it’s just 15% for that hit. I still think being able to steal in the middle of C&D without interrupting the ability is silly, but they offloaded a large chunk of that front-loaded damage and spread the potential energy across multiple abilities, providing a larger window of opportunity to react.

Maybe it still needs a tweak, but I thought it was a creative first step.

Niptease.8971:

1900 toughness is squish squish squish….

You’re confusing toughness with armor.

Niptease.8971:

1900 toughness is squish squish squish….

I can’t tell if this post is serious

Armor and Toughness are different things. Just… at least learn the terminology before you butt in a conversation to behave like a smartass.

10-15k means he didn’t crit one of his 3 attacks. I was hit last night for 19k from the Steal, CD, Backstab combo, and I have 1800 toughness.

The worst part, all of this happened by a target that was still not visible and by the time he was visible, he had done another 1k in auto attack and restealthed almost instantly.

IMO, stealth needs the break before the first attack lands and you cannot restealth until you are out of combat. Without this fix, Thiefs are easy mode with the ability to pick and chose their kills while safely escaping from all combat situations. If they want to be glass cannons, that is fine, but once they drop your teamate, you should be able to drop them with some focus.

The backstab itself isn’t all THAT awful now that assassin’s is gone. Mug is still a ridiculously overpowered talent.

well you can assassins signet, and mug and backstab get it. not saying it’s overpowered just stating facts

“1900 toughness is squish squish squish….
I can’t tell if this post is serious”

Are you sure, the difference between 1900 toughness and 2200 toughness is not that much. 1900 is rather a tank already.

Go play an elementalist or condition dmg build with 1k toughness, this is squishy without the survival options like a glass cannon thief. And this is one of the bigger issues currently when it comes to balance.

I have no idea why people say mug’s damage is high given that it’s essentially a 32-45 second cooldown (depending on traits) hell a warriors burst skill has a 10 second cooldown and can hit for 2-5k (depending on weapon) but people aren’t asking for nerfs there.

Moxrox.2496:

Are you sure, the difference between 1900 toughness and 2200 toughness is not that much. 1900 is rather a tank already.

Sorry to randomly hop on this but… can you explain this, please? Do you have any proof?
Because as far as I know, there’s a considerable difference within additions of 100 toughness per chance. Something like, 5% damage reduction If I’m not mistaken.
All In all, please explain.

Coffeebot.3921:

I have no idea why people say mug’s damage is high given that it’s essentially a 32-45 second cooldown (depending on traits) hell a warriors burst skill has a 10 second cooldown and can hit for 2-5k (depending on weapon) but people aren’t asking for nerfs there.

I’m going to take a few guesses:

Warrior burst skills are often animation-based, and therefore much more easily dodged. In order to counter/dodge a Thief’s Steal, you basically just have to guess when they’re going to use it and pre-dodge. Also considering Steal shadowsteps you to the target and does damage instantly, this makes it basically free damage, and a free, guaranteed closer.

In order to use a Warrior burst skill, you either need to choose Berserker’s Stance (I don’t know of anyone who does this in sPvP, though I do for WvWvW), or hit something. To maximize the effectiveness of the burst, you need all 3 bars, which is 30 strikes of Adrenaline. Some traits give you strikes when you kill something, or take damage, or swap weapons, but it’s still time building up or the trade-off of a lesser effect. Mug is always just constant, strong Mug.

Coffeebot.3921:

I have no idea why people say mug’s damage is high given that it’s essentially a 32-45 second cooldown (depending on traits) hell a warriors burst skill has a 10 second cooldown and can hit for 2-5k (depending on weapon) but people aren’t asking for nerfs there.

Know of any other traits that give you a risk-free, effectively undodgeable 4-5k instant cast on an ability you already use as a gap closer? Didn’t think so.

GustavoM.7605:

Moxrox.2496:

Are you sure, the difference between 1900 toughness and 2200 toughness is not that much. 1900 is rather a tank already.

Sorry to randomly hop on this but… can you explain this, please? Do you have any proof?
Because as far as I know, there’s a considerable difference within additions of 100 toughness per chance. Something like, 5% damage reduction If I’m not mistaken.
All In all, please explain.

What proof do you want, play classes with 1900 toughness and with 2200 and compare the incomming damage.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

How much 1900 vs 2000 toughness reduces damage depends on your +armor from your gear. Going from 1900 to 2000 would be a 5% damage reduction if you had zero armor from your gear. Seeing as no one has that, it will be less than a 5% reduction even for light armor classes. Eyeballing it you’re probably looking at between about 3.5% and 2% depending on what kind of armor you wear.

edit: Going from 1900 to 2200 is probably between a 6-11%ish decrease in direct damage taken.

I would round that out to 8% dmg. And on a standard 1k dmg attack thats only 80 dmg. It’s very negligible.

Personally, once you hit that 1800/1850 mark in toughness, you want to invest in more damage traits otherwise your basically a bunker.

Yukishiro.8792:

Coffeebot.3921:

I have no idea why people say mug’s damage is high given that it’s essentially a 32-45 second cooldown (depending on traits) hell a warriors burst skill has a 10 second cooldown and can hit for 2-5k (depending on weapon) but people aren’t asking for nerfs there.

Know of any other traits that give you a risk-free, effectively undodgeable 4-5k instant cast on an ability you already use as a gap closer? Didn’t think so.

Warrior Greatsword: Rush (base 20 second CD, traited to 16) 1200 range, takes UP TO 2 seconds to close the gap, deals equivalent damage… oh sure it’s not instant travel, but you can dodge a steal just like you can dodge a rush, it’s just your fault if you can’t do it as often.

Know of any other usable ability that has to be TRAITED to do damage? Didn’t think so… we can play this game all day, the fact is steal is a 32-45 second CD and does damage accordingly, if the thief worked on CDs rather than initiative then most of our skills would be hitting that hard if not harder as they have to hit for less because they are able to be spammed.

Yukishiro.8792:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

How much 1900 vs 2000 toughness reduces damage depends on your +armor from your gear. Going from 1900 to 2000 would be a 5% damage reduction if you had zero armor from your gear. Seeing as no one has that, it will be less than a 5% reduction even for light armor classes. Eyeballing it you’re probably looking at between about 3.5% and 2% depending on what kind of armor you wear.

edit: Going from 1900 to 2200 is probably between a 6-11%ish decrease in direct damage taken.

Fair and precise enough. Thanks for enlighten me.

Coffeebot.3921:

Yukishiro.8792:

Coffeebot.3921:

I have no idea why people say mug’s damage is high given that it’s essentially a 32-45 second cooldown (depending on traits) hell a warriors burst skill has a 10 second cooldown and can hit for 2-5k (depending on weapon) but people aren’t asking for nerfs there.

Know of any other traits that give you a risk-free, effectively undodgeable 4-5k instant cast on an ability you already use as a gap closer? Didn’t think so.

Warrior Greatsword: Rush (base 20 second CD, traited to 16) 1200 range, takes UP TO 2 seconds to close the gap, deals equivalent damage… oh sure it’s not instant travel, but you can dodge a steal just like you can dodge a rush, it’s just your fault if you can’t do it as often.

/facepalm

Your example is so bad it is literally stunning. A totally non-equivalent ability that isn’t even a trait.

The point with mug is it’s a 10 point trait that gives you another 4-5k to your burst for no downside. Traits like that don’t exist on other classes. It is simply too good for a 10 point trait compared to other options out there.

P.S. There are several other traits out there that make things that didn’t do damage before do damage. For example the necro trait that makes fear do damage. It does about 700 damage/second. Nothing near the strength of mug.

TL:DR – Leave the damage where it is, but for the love of god adjust the stealth mechanic so it’s not a free pass.

The main problem with Thief is the current stealth mechanics. The fact that Thieves can re-stealth every 3 seconds and trait stealth to almost invulnerable status is ridiculous. Revieled debuff should minimum be increased to 5-6 seconds.

I’m OK with a thief being able to unload on you for 8-10K as their class is designed around burst capability. But the fact that they can unload on you, then re-stealth and if traited, regen health, lose conditions, etc while stealthed, then come in and smack you again for 2-4K with zero warning or ability to realistically dodge/counter without getting lucky is absurd.

I also think Stealth should be treated as a boon, and abilities that strip boons should strip stealth allowing other classes the ability to “reveal” hidden thieves with well timed utilities. This would cause thieves to actually use some tactics when approaching a group instead of downing 2-3 players in 10-15 seconds with little to no risk.

I have a guildy who used the typical thief/stealth build, he spent 10 minutes practicing and could down any one of us in 1V1 without issue or in some cases even taking any damage. A well played thief with the right build and practice can take out a whole team without breaking a sweat.

Yukishiro.8792

/facepalm

Your example is so bad it is literally stunning. A totally non-equivalent ability that isn’t even a trait.

The point with mug is it’s a 10 point trait that gives you another 4-5k to your burst for no downside. Traits like that don’t exist on other classes. It is simply too good for a 10 point trait compared to other options out there.

P.S. There are several other traits out there that make things that didn’t do damage before do damage. For example the necro trait that makes fear do damage. It does about 700 damage/second. Nothing near the strength of mug.

I’m impressed, you did come up with an ability that has to be traited to deal damage, now tell me… how is a ranged gap closer not equivalent to a ranged gap closer? One is “instant” and the other isn’t, one has a 900 range the other has a 1200 range, one has a base 45 second CD the other has a base 20 second CD, one has to be traited to deal damage the other doesn’t… seems pretty kitten similar from a game development standpoint.

Sure traiting into mug only costs 10 points but that also removes other options for doing so… but what you really want is for mug to do less damage because you don’t think a 45 second CD warrants 4-5k CRITICAL damage (hint it doesn’t always crit) for 10 trait points, so tell me, why don’t you advocate for thief deadly arts tier one traits being buffed to make them more appealing than mug? It does the same thing in the end, you get less mug damage (due to less people using it) and we get better tier one trait choices.

Well yes…. we could change almost every trait in the game to be as effective as mug, and rebalance the whole game accordingly.

Or we could just make mug as effective as almost every other trait.

I am not sure you thought that one out very carefully.

Mug is simply too good. Traits in this game arn’t supposed to give you 5k extra burst damage for a class that already is the master of burst damage. Mug simply doesn’t fit with the power of the vast majority of traits in this game. Mug should hit for about half as hard as it does to balance it with the basic trait model of this game.

Yukishiro.8792

Well yes…. we could change almost every trait in the game to be as effective as mug, and rebalance the whole game accordingly.

Or we could just make mug as effective as almost every other trait.

I am not sure you thought that one out very carefully.

Mug is simply too good. Traits in this game arn’t supposed to give you 5k extra burst damage for a class that already is the master of burst damage. Mug simply doesn’t fit with the power of the vast majority of traits in this game. Mug should hit for about half as hard as it does to balance it with the basic trait model of this game.

So you would rather turn gold into trash because it’s “too good” instead of turning trash into gold and increasing the trait variability… good game design there, what you are suggesting simply results in everything being nerfed into one homogenized mass of mediocrity.

Also define what is too powerful about steal traited with mug and use OTHER abilities as examples of “good” and “bad” instead of saying mug is just “too good” and leaving it at that, otherwise it just looks like you know nothing about development and are just annoyed at people because they can do something you can’t.

Hey, if the thief had other good traits and abilities I bet the class would be much better.
Currently the thief has 2 viable weapons.
D/D
Short Bow.

Coffeebot.3921:

Yukishiro.8792

Well yes…. we could change almost every trait in the game to be as effective as mug, and rebalance the whole game accordingly.

Or we could just make mug as effective as almost every other trait.

I am not sure you thought that one out very carefully.

Mug is simply too good. Traits in this game arn’t supposed to give you 5k extra burst damage for a class that already is the master of burst damage. Mug simply doesn’t fit with the power of the vast majority of traits in this game. Mug should hit for about half as hard as it does to balance it with the basic trait model of this game.

So you would rather turn gold into trash because it’s “too good” instead of turning trash into gold and increasing the trait variability… good game design there, what you are suggesting simply results in everything being nerfed into one homogenized mass of mediocrity.

Also define what is too powerful about steal traited with mug and use OTHER abilities as examples of “good” and “bad” instead of saying mug is just “too good” and leaving it at that, otherwise it just looks like you know nothing about development and are just annoyed at people because they can do something you can’t.

The exact thing is happening to every other class. But hey, what do you know, if everyone is crap, that’s actually balanced. No 10 point trait should do the damage mug does. Terror (10 point trait) on the necromancer, does 1000 damage tops, and that’s if you base your WHOLE build around it.

(oh, and if you are downed).

you can dodge a steal just like you can dodge a rush, it’s just your fault if you can’t do it as often.

I can’t even begin to believe anyone would defend this statement. Then again, Sarah Palin tried to defend herself after getting the midnight ride of Paul Revere all wrong, so I guess anything’s possible.

Either way, my biggest issue at the moment is just being able to Steal while in the middle of C&D. If you couldn’t, would Backstab still be an issue?

I have few problems with thieves when playing my Warrior. Only the really good Thieves are a challenge. Of course, I am speced a kind of hybrid Axe/Mace Hammer build. I kill many more of them than kill me. I also play a Thief, so maybe because I understand the class better also gives me an advantage.

Either way, my biggest issue at the moment is just being able to Steal while in the middle of C&D. If you couldn’t, would Backstab still be an issue?

No teleport skills should be able to do this. It even works mid stomp. I was on my Thief fighting 2 other players the other day, one being another Thief. They downed me and went to stomp and I teleported away at the last second. The other Thief just hit steal as he was about to hit and it teleported him right over and stomped me.

Yeah, you can do that with a guardian too though, it actually looks kinda cool

Thief’s C/D Backstab Combo vs Proper Warrior.

Daecollo.9578:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuL3-DlQPxg

Thief’s C/D Backstab Combo vs Proper Warrior.

That thief was beyond terrible. Thus making it a bad example.
Reason: He opens, and then just stands there. Plus his opening was incorrect.

Secondly, we all know that you can counter a thief as a hammer warrior. Consider I primarily play as a Hammer, I know this all to well.

The original post is in regards to already being in a fight, and having a CORRECT backstab build thief intercept you mid fight.

Only thing that bothers me about them is the free 5 extra seconds or so of stealth they get because of rendering issues, I find myself mashing tab all the time just to target them and even if I do I can’t see their animations. Other than that, I don’t have much problems with the profession. Not a major complaint though as I still kill them easily.

Also yeah you can use a teleport and finish the stomp on them. Such as steal without mug or infiltrator’s signet, also lightning flash on ele if you can land it I’m sure. Very effective.

Defektive.7283:

Daecollo.9578:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuL3-DlQPxg

Thief’s C/D Backstab Combo vs Proper Warrior.

That thief was beyond terrible. Thus making it a bad example.
Reason: He opens, and then just stands there. Plus his opening was incorrect.

Secondly, we all know that you can counter a thief as a hammer warrior. Consider I primarily play as a Hammer, I know this all to well.

The original post is in regards to already being in a fight, and having a CORRECT backstab build thief intercept you mid fight.

He used Steal, C/D, Backstab, and had full berserkers, the same thing that seems to kill everyone else.

In order for a thief to pull of the backstab combo they usually start with basilisk then cloak and dagger, then must immediately steal then after c/d hits pop their signet and then run around and backstab. If you counter any one of these moves you pretty much get a free kill. Glass cannon is a glass cannon for a reason…

Don’t even know what to say anymore. Warriors complaining about Thieves when you can build so you can KO Thieves in one Whirlwind attack. Its just mind boggling.

I consider myself an experienced rogue I have some issues with taking 10-15k damage in 1 second from a warrior’s Kill Shot. Better to discuss it

It takes no skill to be a Warrior vs. Thieves. I will simply leave it at that. I’ll let you figure out why you shouldn’t be complaining about Thieves if you’re a Warrior.

The burst that thieves can do with the CnD + steal + backstab combo is definitely troubling. The change to the signet is also much smaller than one may think, and in some ways helpful. Now the signet can be activated before the initial attack, and get the 15% boost on CnD, steal, and backstab.

Some people seem to misunderstand what combo is being talked about here. The thief casts CnD at large range, hits steal DURING the cast time, shadow steps to target, does 5k damage instantly from steal, 5k damage instantly from CnD, instantly stealths from CnD, and a moment later, does 10k damage from backstab. The fact that you’re able to use steal during the CnD cast time for a massive gap close instant stealth 10k-20k combo is overpowered.

The second problem is stealth. The current stealth lockout when coming out of stealth is 3(4?) seconds. Because the client lags so absurdly bad displaying things unstealthing, the actual unstealthed time the thief has is closer to 1 second. This means that instead of the intended mechanic of the thief being vulnerable for 3-4 seconds, theyre only truely vulnerable for about 1 second, making popping in and out of stealth endlessly extremely easy. The stealth lockout needs to be massively increased, to a minimum of 7-8 seconds for this to be effective, since fixing the client lag-unstealth issue would be extremely difficult.

To be honest I wouldn’t reduce the damage output from mug, instead I’ld increase their vulnerability to attacks and/or decrease their other defensive capabilities to make it less attractive.

Its funny its like the warrior dev and thief dev used a different math to calculate damage from every single other class in the game. Any other class a 4-5k hit is pretty big.

Nothing really changed too much regarding the total damage of the Backstab combo so there was no reason to expect much of a change in this regard.

I generally dislike this “hard-counter” balance approach that ANet seems to be taking but I’ll just say that 100 Blades is equally as capable at 1-shotting and that Chaining Hammer stuns can effectively stun-lock any Thief to death who doesn’t have a stun-breaker (aka. most glass-cannon thieves).

if they will reposition the trait ability of the “MUG” and put it in acrobatics grand master trait line,

i think thieves will think otherwise on how to build their skill,

why wouldn’t mug be a 30pt trickery trait instead? it reduces the cooldown on steal itself… it’s the STEAL TRAITLINE.
In fact placing it into trickery near mid/end would in fact help add a little balanced non condition damage into condition damage thieves… makes more sense doesn’t it?

This is just one of TONS of traits that are in the wrong place imho and horribly thought out and would serve better purposes in different placements

offering us better balanced grab bag utility builds would lead us to a LOT more varied play and would kill the need to run heartseeker spam noobmonger builds.
It won’t out and out stop “2 spam lolz” but at least we won’t feel like we should be spamming it with them -_-’

Dear ANet,

Please delete thief. No matter what changes you make it will never be enough. Just delete the class so we can move on to how absurd Warriors, Guardians and Mesmers are.

Thank you.

Hellkaiser.6025:

why wouldn’t mug be a 30pt trickery trait instead? it reduces the cooldown on steal itself… it’s the STEAL TRAITLINE.
In fact placing it into trickery near mid/end would in fact help add a little balanced non condition damage into condition damage thieves… makes more sense doesn’t it?

This is just one of TONS of traits that are in the wrong place imho and horribly thought out and would serve better purposes in different placements

offering us better balanced grab bag utility builds would lead us to a LOT more varied play and would kill the need to run heartseeker spam noobmonger builds.
It won’t out and out stop “2 spam lolz” but at least we won’t feel like we should be spamming it with them -_-’

That doesn’t fix the problem and nerfs Thieves who aren’t using Backstab builds, that is why. When I play my Thief I play Dual Pistol and guess what, I still use Mug to get that little bit of extra burst that is very much needed in my build.

Ele – 2050 toughness, 3k armor. BS for 8k, C&D for 6k, Steal for 4k, HS for 5k
Guardian – 2100 toughness, 3.3k armor with shield. BS for 7k, C&D for 5k, Steal for 3k, HS for 4-5k

Time window: 1-1.5 seconds.
Stun Breaks used: 2 on Ele, 2 on Guardian
Dodges made: None, coz you can’t keep track of a thief in a team fight.
Conclusion: No, thieves are not fine and no don’t go at me with “Dodge it”.

I would post screenshots, but I forgot to take them, will next time tho.