Guild Wars 2

You folks are absolutely hilarious, you denigrate an entire group of people who play a class you don’t like because… what? You die to them? you find them annoying? Thieves aren’t trolls, no more then bunker Guardians, D/D Elementalists or anyone else are. Just because you find something frustrating doesn’t mean that the folks on the other side of the screen are out to cause you frustration and grief. They are playing a class, the same as you and believe me, most of them aren’t doing it just to ‘troll’ you.
Moreover, you should be happy that ANET isn’t listening to the weepy players, it isn’t just thieves that get the criers. It’s the Guardians, the Warriors, the Mesmers and the Elementalists, pretty much every class has people crying about something about it all the time. Do you think that there is some special love of Thieves that they don’t get nerfed like people want. Nope, it’s simply that ANET knows that in any game with any kind of competition, there are going to those who can’t deal and complain. Those that will refuse to alter their playstyle even one iota because they fully believe they should be the best and that everyone else can get screwed. I’m happy for it, I’d hate to see any of my characters become less then viable because a small group of people can’t deal.

Stopped reading three sentences in. Please reread my posts. I’m not saying that all thieves only want to troll, what I’m saying is that trolling is a core component of MP gameplay and stealth classes usually make it too easy.

Dr Acula.3496:

Let’s be real here. Hearing a D/D ele complain about anything is quite laughable….

This is kind of my thought.

Aratoa.7398:

You folks are absolutely hilarious, you denigrate an entire group of people who play a class you don’t like because… what? You die to them? you find them annoying? Thieves aren’t trolls, no more then bunker Guardians, D/D Elementalists or anyone else are. Just because you find something frustrating doesn’t mean that the folks on the other side of the screen are out to cause you frustration and grief. They are playing a class, the same as you and believe me, most of them aren’t doing it just to ‘troll’ you.
Moreover, you should be happy that ANET isn’t listening to the weepy players, it isn’t just thieves that get the criers. It’s the Guardians, the Warriors, the Mesmers and the Elementalists, pretty much every class has people crying about something about it all the time. Do you think that there is some special love of Thieves that they don’t get nerfed like people want. Nope, it’s simply that ANET knows that in any game with any kind of competition, there are going to those who can’t deal and complain. Those that will refuse to alter their playstyle even one iota because they fully believe they should be the best and that everyone else can get screwed. I’m happy for it, I’d hate to see any of my characters become less then viable because a small group of people can’t deal.

In this thread other people feel the same way I do.

That’s it I’m rolling a Thief!

Aratoa.7398:

Nope, it’s simply that ANET knows that in any game with any kind of competition, there are going to those who can’t deal and complain.

Not really, ANET have already stated WvW is “for fun”, the competition is in tPvP, which is where of course they balance PvP for, which results in unblanced classes in WvW, which causes people to complain that mainly play WvW.

The reason the thief is the biggest cause for complaint (in regard to classes) in WvW is because in terms of risk vs reward, there is simply far less risk than any other class, because on my thief I can inititate combat better than any other class (joint best with D/D Ele), I can reset a fight if I muck up better than any other class, then I can escape the fight completely better than any other class, which is why you will see so many glass cannon thieves, lack of risk.

People will rightly complain about this, the only people who “can’t deal with it” are those that are too fragile to accept the classes are not playing on a level playing field in WvW.

Oh great!

Waste all my AoE cooldowns on a .05% chance the Thief is even in the place I put the AoE! Then when they see I’ve wasted my stupid useless crap on nothing they pop back to re-do the massive damage my long-cooldown heal skill sort of healed from the first burst!

Genius! They don’t even play this game, I am convinced.

Seriously? People haven’t figured out how to get rid of a thief? AOE the house! I’m constantly amazed at how few people do this. 1v1 you’ll probably just chase him away, bet get two or three people to to do it, and in 9 sec you’ll see a downed thief with very little health left. If you see a thief disappear near you, count about 2 sec then dodge. Keep moving, if you just stand there waiting to be stabbed you are going to die to more than just thieves. I make no claims about being a good PvPer, but as a thief with only about 15k health i probably only lose 1 out of every 4 fights with a BS thief. I’ll admit my mobility helps me counter theirs, but beyond that i don’t think I have any huge advantage over other classes. I just have all those skills and have learned from other people killing me when I tried to use that build. If I can manage to survive that often, most of you can learn to also.

Thieves will continue to have a monopoly on open world roaming, and this is somewhat unfortunate. They will also continue to, for all intents and purposes, to monopolize high burst damage, since there’s very little risk in doing so for them and other classes that choose to go high burst have easier to read and slower to perform combos and typically are easily bested by the thief glass cannon builds.

So much for “bring the player, not the class”.

Phillipidies.3204:

AOE the house! I’m constantly amazed at how few people do this. 1v1 you’ll probably just chase him away,

I believe that’s party of the problem people have. AOE’ing the house will almost rarely result in the Thief leaving it before it dissipates. Even if he is downed he still gains 10 seconds in stealth for this friends to come help him.

It also effectively allows him to do whatever he wants. He can leave or try to setup another backstab, you have little way of knowing which because even a Thief at 10% hp deals the same damage as a Thief with 90% hp, so another backstab could easily finish the fight in his favor.

The Thief suffers little risk for his attacks and for losing a 1v1. Other classes die and suffer repairs. The Thief leaves and /laugh. I imagine this contributes greatly for the frustration plaguing the other classes.

I’m going to continue leveling my Thief.

My response to all complains about thieves
To make it clear : thief got base hp near 11.000 , base thoug -under 1000
Tanky spec Thief : armor – 2700 defence -17000 Hp -you can see i got extreme low power for an thief -critical buffed only by double food
got near downed by an shield warrior in less then 1 second !!! after stealth i took 2- 3 more hits and escaped with an double dodge roll- wich is available for any class to escape burst
So where exactly you guys see, the high burst and high survaivability ? any backstab thief would be downed by 1 single skill -Eviscerate -wich hit 10.000 damage in 2700 defence . The backstab build got 1950 -2000 defence and max 14.000 hp.
I really apreciate that A-net make own tests before they change classes , and watch the situation do not make changes based on forum complains

Fiction.6418:

Dr Acula.3496:

Let’s be real here. Hearing a D/D ele complain about anything is quite laughable….

This is kind of my thought.

The difference is in the skill and effort involved to achieve a win. A d/d ele takes much, much more effort/skill to accomplish what a thief can.

I still say most just get scared when they see the flashing lights and colors of an ele and freeze up.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

From the post below, just reminded me of “roll for initiative”. Kind of an inferior skill in all honesty, but apparently some thieves are using it. So guess the snares part in some cases won’t work as a solution.

To be perfectly honest the only reason why I use Roll for Initiative on my thief is because of the skill’s name/function. It is the ultimate blatant call-out to table top roleplaying games. That makes it instantly superior to every other skill we have access to.

I too am glad that Anet doesn’t listen to the loud cries of baddies who don’t even TRY to learn how to beat thieves. They just come here to complain, not to learn how to play.

Also, this game was NOT, i repeat, N O T designed to be balanced on a 1v1 basis. A thief should be able to kill you alone. We’re assassins, that’s what we do. Though I will admit the healing in stealth trait is a bit op, it’s only cause the rest of our self heals are pathetically underpowered.

Almost every class has a way to counter us thieves, (except poor rangers, they need help). Necros are masters of attrition fights, we don’t attack guardians we tickle them, warriors can easily use a knockdown and own us, mesmers have as many tricks as we have, engineers can lock us down if they stay still and don’t chase us, and eles……don’t even get me started.

Also I have noticed this, NO ONE AOES THE DAMN HOUSE! It is the easiest way to get a kill, and a knockback there will devastate us. We usually use the house (Shadow refuge) as our last “oh kitten” button. So the thief in it will have lot health. Learn your class guys, become a better player, and learn to accept it when you get beaten. Learn from it.

The offer that I made Bunzy applies to the rest of the people who are having trouble w/ thieves.

PM me or post here what your problems are….I will help you out and make you see only tears from thieves.

“A thief should be able to kill you alone. We’re assassins, that’s what we do.”

Your class is called Thief, not Assassin, or Rogue, or Mutilator. You are basically saying your class needs to destroy the other seven in duels or otherwise thieves are not working as intended?

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Real question is, why are you so determined to kill the thieves? If you have a stun break on your bar coupled with semi-decent reactions, and some cleave and/or AoE attacks, the thief won’t be able to kill you. Let them run away and try again later, when his steal+basilisk comes off of cooldown. Those cooldowns are roughly 45 seconds, so by which time the skills you need to not die should be off CD as well.

Thieves will kill you if you let them, don’t chase them. It’s been established many times over that thieves are not easy to catch, so stop trying: continue doing whatever you were doing and be on the look out for little puffs of black w/e it is, or see if a thief is following you at a distance.

Mesmer’s and warriors are two classes which are exceptional at combating thieves. A mesmer running Sword/Pistol has 2 stuns and should be running a stun break a long with distortion, you have a good chance to not die. Warriors have shield stance and then the usual bulls strike+frenzy+100b combo, can also use endure pain. The problem here lies with the fact that many players using these classes don’t use these weapon sets.

A good Mesmer should have a good chance to beat a good thief, as should a good warrior. The counters are out there, the problem lies with people being far too determined to try and hunt down the most mobile class in the game. I can’t offer much in terms of advice for other classes, sadly. All this comes from my personal experience in both s/tPvP, WvW, and PvE, roughly 800 hours on my thief.

Hope this helps some – though I suspect I’ll probably just get flamed for trying to defend thieves.

TL;DR Equip a stun break at all times, don’t chase.

Why are we trying to kill thieves in the first place? Because they are supposed to die if they lost the fight, but they can just run away.

Thieves can invisible 24/7, so you are never sure if they actually ran away. Often times you think they ran away, but a few seconds later they come back to finish the job.

So only Mesmers and Warriors, which are 2 of the relatively overpowered classes, can kill thieves? Good to know.

You can’t offer any advice for other professions on how to kill thieves, after playing as a thief for 800 hours, because other professions simply cannot kill thieves.

So all in all, yes thieves should be nerfed.

electricblues.1059:

Also, this game was NOT, i repeat, N O T designed to be balanced on a 1v1 basis. A thief should be able to kill you alone. We’re assassins, that’s what we do. Though I will admit the healing in stealth trait is a bit op, it’s only cause the rest of our self heals are pathetically underpowered.

Well I don’t know about the others, but that’s not really my issue with the thief. It’s not the 1v1 killing that is a problem (on my ele, for example, I often die to warriors 1v1 as well but I don’t really have any complaints with them on account), rather it’s their ability to initiate combat as they please and retreat if they are defeated. Every other class suffers immediate consequences for biting off more than they can chew. Most stealth classes—not just in GW but any MMO—don’t have to worry about this. Their damage and 1v1 power is fine, in my opinion. What irritates me from a balance standpoint the absurd risk:reward ratio presented to virtually any stealth class imaginable. I don’t think I’ve ever played a game where I said to myself “you know, the cloaking is really well balanced in this game.” I’m starting to doubt it’s feasible.

All of the QQ here is hilarious.

I kill thieves all day long, once in a while one gets away. If I see a house pop (shadow refuge) AE and boom, 9 out of 10 times thief dead. 1 out of 10 times thief says o kitten and runs out losing stealth.

The complaints about perma stealth builds is really a culling issue, ANET needs to fix that.

Are you a warrior and see thief house pop up? Whirling axe = thief dead.

There’s just so many ways to kill, but people just continue to QQ.

Thank you ANET for being methodical and cautious in balancing approaches so far, but please keep working on fixing culling!!

Sylosi.6503:

Aratoa.7398:

Nope, it’s simply that ANET knows that in any game with any kind of competition, there are going to those who can’t deal and complain.

Not really, ANET have already stated WvW is “for fun”, the competition is in tPvP, which is where of course they balance PvP for, which results in unblanced classes in WvW, which causes people to complain that mainly play WvW.
.

Except they can balance for tPVP separately if they want they just choose not to with most balance changes, which is a mistake because balance in tPVP in vastly different to WvW and PVE.

Did you know ride the lightning resets all attunement cooldowns? Why aren’t the d/d eles talking about that and just complaining about thieves?

80 d/d ele
80 thief

Brizlyn.8945:

ePeen

I’m going to guess that you either massaged those numbers/examples a bit, or are mostly fighting bad or <80 thieves.

Also, not everyone is an axe warrior. Thought I’d throw that out there.

skupuz.6940:

“Thief

Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters."

The answer is AoE and conditions (not just 1 or 2 but large stacks of it). There you go guys, now stop QQing and start AoEing! Remember to put as much conditions as you can on the thief. It’s not like they can remove bleeding, burning, and poison by just stealthing or remove conditions while in stealth. Oh wait…wtf…. /facepalm

OMG i’ve been thinking about this too.

As a mesmer you have like 2 AoEs, both of which require you to target a player.

Problem is good luck targeting a thief that can constantly stealth alongside rendering issues!

And what is the supposed counter for Cloak and Dagger spamming condition thieves?

I am happy to now be playing in T1 where people know how to counter my thief

Webley.1295:

I am happy to now be playing in T1 where people know how to counter my thief

Ok, so when people transfer to top tier they get the ability to kill thiefs. And when they transfer to lower tiers they lose it. Makes sense.

I don’t know how to counter thief. Shoking aura is good, but it can’t be on whole time. It’s kind of late use it when you are already downed.

Please consider editing your posts and removing the vitriol and replacing it with considered statements rather than slander and emotion.

I play all 8 classes, which one is strongest varies with the situation. I enjoy my ranger but he is unable to escape if noticed while soloing supply camps, Meh comes with the class. He ( and bears) does very easily solo an undefended supply camp though.

Shadow refuge isn’t an issue. Just pull them out. That way you don’t have to waste any AoEs if it turns out they’re not in there.

In a perfect world ;P

I play a staff ele, support def build and im not easy to take down… im not sure what wvw some here are refering to, maybe if its 1 on 1, you can calculate and got time to count to two, and dodge etc… but when your in the middle of a 20 vs 20 fight, effects ging off people needing to get revived, missiles flying, siege blasts etc, and to this we have the marvels of anets culling, iwe been hit several times and have my health drop to about 20% from mulitple strikes, and no enemy around, usually i flash roll with heal and and since i usually have a triggered regenration, with my 1.7k healing power, im usually full health in any case, but as noted, its just beyond me how people can even compare a d/d ele and a thief, i fought a d/d ele and a damn good one, and they dont have the burst to drop me, and you see them all the time so you can flash out, you can mist out, you can get stability from earth armour… but a thief. its rinse repeat a burst with a stealth, that is only enforced ewen more by the culling, i can get out one, two times, then my skillis is on timer, then the thief hits me again, sure i have my mist, but oooh wait, the thief can hit me again… and of course if he drops me after this im dying, i can mist through a gate if that is near, for this survivability, im extrmely capped in my damage, i cant kill things one on one, thats a trade off in my eyes, and ewen i get down if i stumble on to many and cant run… my question is what do other classes do ?

Now as mentioned i play one class staff ele a boring as many say, and my knowledge is fairly limited to pew pew, but aplying conditions, hmmm dont you need to see your targe to do this ?, oooh wait, you cant see a thief ;P

And as for trying to stop, stun root a thief, iwe tried it all, and what iwe seen they just vanish out of it, and do their normal rince and repeat act

and yes, AoE… and i point back to wvw 20 vs 20, if designers really think you got time or are going to waste spells out in the blue at the edges of the battle, that might with abit of luck hit the thief, thats just beyond me

I ask you designers, step into a big battle and open your eyes, d/d eles might be good, but they die, and people see them and can fight them, thieves are just la di da, you know their there at the sides ripping people apart with spammable attacks that dont miss, people bascially have no chanse to react to them couse of its a battle and culling… so again i ask you, is this as you intended ?

PS, if Thiefs had lower health then a ele say 3/4 of a ele, yes then it would be a trade off, but as it is, thieves dont need health or the fact that your squisy, ightly played no one sees you in any case, so cuts thieves health by half, thats a trade off

I wouldn’t mind if the cooldown between the stealths would increase with every single stealth and cools down if they are out of combat. This would be fair enough. The longer the fight, the greater is the risk for the thief. Just like any other class. If he’s in for a long fight, then he should have packed for a long fight.

Boomstin.3460:

Webley.1295:

I am happy to now be playing in T1 where people know how to counter my thief

Ok, so when people transfer to top tier they get the ability to kill thiefs. And when they transfer to lower tiers they lose it. Makes sense.

It means im playing with people who know what they are doing

Respawn.6802:
“This is only the action of one player but my time in EVE Online has shown that the customer can choose their gameplay style against the indifference of developers and force change.”

So you were one of those miners I’d gank with covops/blops?

Webley.1295:

Boomstin.3460:

Webley.1295:

I am happy to now be playing in T1 where people know how to counter my thief

Ok, so when people transfer to top tier they get the ability to kill thiefs. And when they transfer to lower tiers they lose it. Makes sense.

It means im playing with people who know what they are doing

So they didn’t know what they were doing before SfR climbed to tier1 ? Very confusing…

Everyone suggesting that AOE’ing “the house” is the solution is wrong, btw.

You don’t AOE; you push or pull the thief out of “the house” before the stealth boon can stack any higher than 3 seconds.

That said, they can still immediately restealth and run away. I always try to cripple or immobilize them when they’re visible, but as a mesmer I have a very limited number of ways to do this. I have to rely on one or two other people to assist, otherwise the thief is long gone before I can deal any more than 2k on average to 6k at best.

“Oh well,” for now. Maybe in the next patch, Thief will be “looked at.”

I hate it when people complain about things they don’t fully understand. So many posts about how this is OP and that is OP. And how if they could no longer do this or that then we would be balanced.

If people would take the time to play a thief, level it up and really play it they would not only figure out how limited our playing style as a thief can be but also how to counter a thief.

You know in group play thieves are one of the lowest desired classes for group makeup. We offer next to nothing to help our group and our AoE is sad unless we are standing right on top of them. We are a low HP squishy class that relys on stealth to keep us alive. Hell if we were to go into full soldiers gear (power tough vit) We would have 20k hp, and about 3k armor. We have no block mechanic like the other melee characters do and our only source of damage mitigation is through dodge.

Israel.7056:

And what is the supposed counter for Cloak and Dagger spamming condition thieves?

You got two dodges. Two C&D and the thief is all out of initiative. Seems obvious to me.

Aneirin Cadwall.9126:

“Oh well,” for now. Maybe in the next patch, Thief will be “looked at.”

Yep. They’ll see that he’s still too squishy and give him heavy armor or a larger health pool.

Aneirin Cadwall.9126:

Everyone suggesting that AOE’ing “the house” is the solution is wrong, btw.

You don’t AOE; you push or pull the thief out of “the house” before the stealth boon can stack any higher than 3 seconds.

That said, they can still immediately restealth and run away. I always try to cripple or immobilize them when they’re visible, but as a mesmer I have a very limited number of ways to do this. I have to rely on one or two other people to assist, otherwise the thief is long gone before I can deal any more than 2k on average to 6k at best.

“Oh well,” for now. Maybe in the next patch, Thief will be “looked at.”

Actually, leaving Shadow Refuge early incurs “Revealed” Status.

Fixeon.5076:

If people would take the time to play a thief, level it up and really play it they would not only figure out how limited our playing style as a thief can be but also how to counter a thief.

I actually took this advice and made a thief and leveled it. I learned how powerful they are and how easy they are to play. I can better counter them, but if I am fighting a decent thief, I still am only hoping for a best case scenario of a draw where they run (and usually attack again and again until I am out of cool downs, in a bad spot or make a single mistake). A bad thief I admit isn’t too bad to counter.

Drago.1634:

If thf’s are being annoying, then they are doing their job. Time to stop looking at thief as a “Punching Bag” cause you cant kill one. Look at your own class and figure out whats great about it. Anet just basically handed you the way to kill a thief on a silver platter.
Conditions and Aoe’s. Also, Stun/Root bam bam bam dead….

Ahhh phew! now I can go out and kill thieves all day, didn’t realise it was conditions and AoE. Of course!! its so clear now! I’m wondering why people haven’t tried this before?!

now thieves are going to be hunted down since we all now know how to counter them!!

Aneirin Cadwall.9126:

That said, they can still immediately restealth and run away.
but as a mesmer

So let me get this straight
or not , please be kind and explain. Thief can imediatly restealth after you kick them from the house" shadow refuge" with 3 seconds reveal debuff – however as an mesmer :
you cannot stealth to run away
you cannot cast moa on the area they stealth
You cannot portal to run away
So what exactly got the thief, and mesmer don’t cause i saw glass cannon mesmer kill players in 2 seconds. They got the burst ,they got the stealth , they got disable (special mention MOA), they got knockback on area, and as an bonus they got clones as well

Comical…..

I guess I need to roll a thief. It’s sure to get nerfed then…

Rayya.2591:

Aneirin Cadwall.9126:

That said, they can still immediately restealth and run away.
but as a mesmer

So let me get this straight
or not , please be kind and explain. Thief can imediatly restealth after you kick them from the house" shadow refuge" with 3 seconds reveal debuff – however as an mesmer :
you cannot stealth to run away
you cannot cast moa on the area they stealth
You cannot portal to run away
So what exactly got the thief, and mesmer don’t cause i saw glass cannon mesmer kill players in 2 seconds. They got the burst ,they got the stealth , they got disable (special mention MOA), they got knockback on area, and as an bonus they got clones as well

No, you cannot moa the stealthed area, as moa is a player-targeted spell, not ground-targeted. Plus, it takes about 1 second to recognize the real mesmer. Whereas it’s almost impossible to tell where the stealthed thief is. Yes, Mesmers can stealth, but a) not that long, and b) not permanent and not without loooong cooldowns.

krinaman.2490:

Comical…..

I guess I need to roll a thief. It’s sure to get nerfed then…

If that’d be the case, I’d give you the money needed to level it p to 80 via crafting right away ^^

Phillipidies.3204:

I make no claims about being a good PvPer, but as a thief with only about 15k health i probably only lose 1 out of every 4 fights with a BS thief. I’ll admit my mobility helps me counter theirs, but beyond that i don’t think I have any huge advantage over other classes.

Thanks for the laugh.

The extremely sexy people from ANET need to play WvW – hey just for fun – to see what’s up with their game:

- Thieves (just have a few 1v1s as any class – hey have fun!)
- Mesmer portals (get 20 people on your set siege, or through your keeps doors, fun stuff)
- Have your towers or keeps taken in 20 seconds with a few golems, and switch right back inbetween 5 minutes. Yo, whats’s the point of anything in Wvw?
- Run with the zerg like a headless chicken – You ALL know how you expected WvW to be and how it ended up!?What a let down!! There needs to be cooldowns on how often a objective can be taken, which is much easier to balance then how many players run through the map together.

Make the game EPIC, Anet – we trust in you!!! Discuss details anytime with the commanders making the lackluster Maps and gameplay fun for the players on ALL Servers!

danlarusso.2790:

The extremely sexy people from ANET need to play WvW – hey just for fun – to see what’s up with their game:

- Thieves (just have a few 1v1s as any class – hey have fun!)

I saw one Anet guy in WvW and he was part of the zerg hiding behind a wall of players protecting him, my mate thief keep stealthing through them and blowing up the Anet guy. It was funny to watch and my mate doesn’t even spec glass cannon and he still dropped the Anet guy in seconds.

they know. (or at least one of them does)

Fixeon.5076:

You know in group play thieves are one of the lowest desired classes for group makeup. We offer next to nothing to help our group and our AoE is sad unless we are standing right on top of them. We are a low HP squishy class that relys on stealth to keep us alive. Hell if we were to go into full soldiers gear (power tough vit) We would have 20k hp, and about 3k armor. We have no block mechanic like the other melee characters do and our only source of damage mitigation is through dodge.

This is true…I have a guardian / engi / thief and have played them all quite a bit in WvW.

This is also the big problem with the thief in WvW. Most pug players want to be the gank boss / big damage machine / badge collector, because it’s a lot more “fun” to that than be a team player with valuable support functions. I like playing my thief, but half the time I’m thinking…gee, if I had my guardian, there would be fewer friendly bodies around here, this siege would be going faster, maybe we could have held that tower, etc.

Rolled up a thief. By lvl 24 (all in wvw) it is clear this class is broken. The only times i have been downed is when i stop for a teammate who over extended. Otherwise the fight ends when i say it ends. I get away clean, even if i try a fight i can’t win. There is no risk at all. The wild swings at nothing are quite amusing but stealth is a hard counter to everything. It is not hard to dodge enemy attacks in the first place. It is even easier to dodge when the enemy can not see which way you are moving.

Every other class has to risk being downed when they initiate combat. Thieves can just reset the fight. That i think is the source of the problem. Stealth done wrong yet again. When will companies stop adding a stealth class? Anet didn’t even bother to add a counter to it at all.

Kneel and wave. Then open map and spam way point.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/Count_von_Count_kneeling.png