Guild Wars 2

I just find really hard to understand why people complain about this, culling is a different issue where thief benefits I totally agree on that, but saying that being able to kill X number of ppl and run away, at least to me… it’s nonsense, ppl who is not lvl80 shouldn’t be able to join WvW then…. I’m pretty sure a lot here have killed more than 5 ppl 80^ w/o a problem

Straegen.2938:

Xsorus.2507:

GC thieves are a problem when you’re fighting someone else..

1v1 they’re less of a problem.

They’re like GC Warriors in that regard, I can stomp a GC Great Sword Warriors kitten in all day long on my Thief or Ranger… and there is nothing he can do about it.

However if i’m fighting someone else, and he runs and jumps me..There is a good chance i’m boned.

A GC thief is always a threat 1v1 when properly built and played. They pick when a fight starts and ends most of the time. Most good ones also run full bloodlust, pop signets, mug, backstab, HS and kill most players outright. They frequently bas-venom them if they resist. Might only be able to do that ever couple minutes but that still makes them really dangerous in 1v1 combatc. GS/Hammer/Rifle GC warriors walk around with 20k+ health deserve respect as well. Sounds like you are one of those “I can beat every build ever imagined” players but most players learn to respect those classes 1v1 quickly when they are played well.

Nope, I can’t beat every build imagined…The builds i run though crap on glass cannons.

I can tell you what kills me on my thief and ranger.

On my thief, D/P Thieves will absolutely destroy my P/D thief..There is no way for me to win that fight.

On my ranger, its P/D thieves…

The Glass Cannon D/D Thieves and GS warriors are the least of my worries because they’re highly predictable.

I’m also thinking a good Condition Necro might give me a run for my money on my Ranger now.

I’ve not fought one since the patch, but I suspect they’ll be far better vs my Ranger

To Jportel

Then we agree about stealth and culling, which is what the topic was all about. About myu observation of the other thieves, yes. There are a fair few thieves on this specific topic who insists on naming players losing to thieves in all situations and conditions to be bad players. They also love to comment on how the othet classes SHOULD have played (eg make a bunker build, makes it a draw, the thief has to run, you win..(lol), or, you need a power build to take a thief, or, you need a warrior with 100k blades jumping from a tower with death from above skill active…..hell, I stood upside down with Swiss folk music (the youudledoodle thingy) on max volum, made my dog wear a pink raincoat and my wife cook smoked half sheephead for dinner, tantraing the teletubby intro, still, I lost to a thief on my ranger….Good thing is, I have a max level thief myself. So obviously im pro

Eliyahu.1467:

Straegen.2938:

This has been said before several times, but stealth is not an issue at all in sPvP. The only reason it is a significant issue in WvW is culling (soon to be removed) and Power/Crit stacking. Put a soft cap on Power/Crit and suddenly super builds that have insane damage out of nowhere no longer exist.

The reason why it’s not an issue in sPvP is because you can’t cap points while stealthed, which leads to poor objective control with a roaming class — not exactly the best combo.

In WvW, the ability to cap points is not important as there’s almost always going to be other people with you when you’re taking an objective. Killing and disruption is a lot more important in WvW and you are free to stealth as often as you like.

As to Power/crit stacking, thief damage is not and has never been the problem. Thief damage is fine as is. The problem is stealth granting ridiculous survivability and sustain.

Aye, the problem is not that they are paper thieves that blow people up. The problem is that they are paper thieves that blow people up and stealth gives them moderate to good survivability. PLUS they have really good mobility.

It really as a risk vs reward thing as has been mentioned many times.

Daeqar.8965:

When it comes to thieves in WvW, they are what is likely the best class at executing a losing strategy. That strategy being lonewolf PvP in a large scale gametype.

If you want to move around the field alone, quickly, and potentially pick off stragglers, I can’t think of anything better than a thief. This does have some niche value in WvW for things like murdering dolyaks at low personnel costs, but if even a disproportionate fraction of a server is running these lonewolf spec thieves, they will get absolutely destroyed in WvW by the server running a tight, unstoppable ball of team specs like hammer warriors, guardians, eles, necros, etc. that support each other and play together. If folks ditch the narcissistic attitudes, they would realize that thieves are actually a very limited value class when it comes to winning WvW. The game is called Guild Wars for a reason.

Pretty much the only opportunity a thief has for a useful role in that winning, tightly-knit teamplay is just for on-demand blast finishers with shortbow. (No permastealth or burst combos here.) Bring two shortbow thieves: role filled. Everyone else re-roll a more useful class or be a scout/dolyak-killer (better yet, let pugs do it) and miss out on all mega-bag drops.

Actually no, small groups of thieves can dominate the supply game. The supply game has a major impact on the overall war effort. A properly coordinated force of about 12 thieves that are working in duo’s can completely shut down the supply in an entire map while still causing chaos. They can also potentially ninja supply camps at will if people do not guard them

These same thieves can also take out solos and small groups of players who would be reinforcing objectives or retaking said supply camps.

Thieves are actually one of the most effective classes in the overall war effort used properly. But most people just use them as LAWL kill machines due to their current low risk high reward design. Thus they are ironically seen as near worthless because people don’t use them to achieve the right goals.

You folks need to learn how to think objectively. In a reasonably balanced match such a coordinated thief team would cause a landslide victory. Not by vaping players, or towers, or keeps, but by controlling supplies by playing to the classes strengths of mobility, zerg avoidance, and high damage. Supplies control how easy and hard it is to keep all other objectives.

This is why most players travel around in a zergball and blindly follow. They look for kills and keeps. This is why it’s up to the commanders to look for objective play and strategy. This is why most thieves are ineffective at WvW. The average players thinks about WvW in all the wrong ways.

killimandros.5087:

The thieves who doesnt think so, blame it on lack of skill for all who cant cope with thieves, which is, it seems the majority of the playerbase, which leads me to conclude the essence of the discussion is indeed, if you dont roll a thief, you need to L2P…basically

The reason it’s a L2P issue is new players in both WvW and sPvP hotjoin get rickrolled by GC thieves left and right. They come here to vent with suggestions like “dots shouldn’t allow stelath” and “Damage should break stealth”. Things that show a complete lack of understanding of this game’s stealth mechanics.

In all honestly, if you don’t at least try every class in sPvP or level it to 40 in PvE or so for more gated learning of the profession (so you can read every utility and trait and fully understand them) you are nerfing yourself in any form of PvP in this game. Most people who have thieves and play them regularly also play other professions. This game is very alt friendly (at least until every ascended item is out). The reason players who have 80 Thieves don’t have trouble beating thieves is because they know the mechanics. It’s the same with every other prof it’s just that the Thief is the most different (resource based instead of CD, stealth and steal) relative to other profs and very noob vs noob friendly. It’s not until higher skill levels that the Thief is more balanced.

Daeqar.8965:

Eliyahu.1467:

You’re being pretty thick. You have to balance WvW around all engagements, large and small.

You say people who are advocating for a stealth nerf are only pushing for balancing around a small scale. That is false. Nerfing stealth will only serve to help balance small engagements and will do nothing to unbalance large engagements. There is absolutely no con to nerfing stealth other then you and yours won’t be able to endlessly troll other players anymore.

You have all but acknowledged that stealth is overpowered in small engagements, but you have yet to present one legitimate reason why it should not be changed. The argument that WvW should be balanced exclusively around zerg v zerg with no consideration for small engagements is absolutely absurd. If one does not affect the other you can balance them separately, making your argument completely and utterly irrelevant.

The thief class is weak/limited with large engagements. It specializes in small engagements, and only because of stealth. If you make it even just mediocre in small engagements (which are largely inconsequential towards winning,) the entire class is weak and pointless for WvW.

They aren’t weak in large engagements. They just have to work as hard as other classes.

Stiv.1820:

killimandros.5087:

The thieves who doesnt think so, blame it on lack of skill for all who cant cope with thieves, which is, it seems the majority of the playerbase, which leads me to conclude the essence of the discussion is indeed, if you dont roll a thief, you need to L2P…basically

The reason it’s a L2P issue is new players in both WvW and sPvP hotjoin get rickrolled by GC thieves left and right. They come here to vent with suggestions like “dots shouldn’t allow stelath” and “Damage should break stealth”. Things that show a complete lack of understanding of this game’s stealth mechanics.

In all honestly, if you don’t at least try every class in sPvP or level it to 40 in PvE or so for more gated learning of the profession (so you can read every utility and trait and fully understand them) you are nerfing yourself in any form of PvP in this game. Most people who have thieves and play them regularly also play other professions. This game is very alt friendly (at least until every ascended item is out). The reason players who have 80 Thieves don’t have trouble beating thieves is because they know the mechanics. It’s the same with every other prof it’s just that the Thief is the most different (resource based instead of CD, stealth and steal) relative to other profs and very noob vs noob friendly. It’s not until higher skill levels that the Thief is more balanced.

We’ve tried thieves in Spvp. It’s obvious how opd the class is. Thieves don’t have trouble beating thieves because both are opd, and someone has to win. Lol, circular argument.

Me and my friend (both thieves) can destroy a group of 5 when they saw us coming lololol. they got backups too, but too bad,just more people for us to destroy

Lighter.5631:

Me and my friend (both thieves) can destroy a group of 5 when they saw us coming lololol. they got backups too, but too bad,just more people for us to destroy

So what is your opinion on the topic of this thread trying to address the issue of stealth/culling/thief OPness in WvW… its cool you can destroy people with two thieves… But what does this contribute to this topic?

jportell.2197:

Lighter.5631:

Me and my friend (both thieves) can destroy a group of 5 when they saw us coming lololol. they got backups too, but too bad,just more people for us to destroy

So what is your opinion on the topic of this thread trying to address the issue of stealth/culling/thief OPness in WvW… its cool you can destroy people with two thieves… But what does this contribute to this topic?

So what is your opinion on the topic of this thread trying to address the issue of stealth/culling/thief OPness in WvW… it’s cool you can comment about how my comment didn’t contribute to this topic(which is not true), but what does this contribute to this topic?

Stiv.1820:

killimandros.5087:

The thieves who doesnt think so, blame it on lack of skill for all who cant cope with thieves, which is, it seems the majority of the playerbase, which leads me to conclude the essence of the discussion is indeed, if you dont roll a thief, you need to L2P…basically

The reason it’s a L2P issue is new players in both WvW and sPvP hotjoin get rickrolled by GC thieves left and right. They come here to vent with suggestions like “dots shouldn’t allow stelath” and “Damage should break stealth”. Things that show a complete lack of understanding of this game’s stealth mechanics.

In all honestly, if you don’t at least try every class in sPvP or level it to 40 in PvE or so for more gated learning of the profession (so you can read every utility and trait and fully understand them) you are nerfing yourself in any form of PvP in this game. Most people who have thieves and play them regularly also play other professions. This game is very alt friendly (at least until every ascended item is out). The reason players who have 80 Thieves don’t have trouble beating thieves is because they know the mechanics. It’s the same with every other prof it’s just that the Thief is the most different (resource based instead of CD, stealth and steal) relative to other profs and very noob vs noob friendly. It’s not until higher skill levels that the Thief is more balanced.

I have a level 80 thief, guardian, ranger and warrior. I have problems against thieves, and so do other thieves have with their alts. Kinda funny I turn into a total noob every time i shelf my thief isnt it, as I am godmode on my thief. I cant remember last time I died in WvW with my thief, and taking out other classes isnt even fun anymore. Its like the big fat kid with hjis hands in the cookie jar saying to all the small kids “if your hand cant get into the jar, theyre all mine” logic thing right now

Columba.9730:

Stiv.1820:

killimandros.5087:

The thieves who doesnt think so, blame it on lack of skill for all who cant cope with thieves, which is, it seems the majority of the playerbase, which leads me to conclude the essence of the discussion is indeed, if you dont roll a thief, you need to L2P…basically

The reason it’s a L2P issue is new players in both WvW and sPvP hotjoin get rickrolled by GC thieves left and right. They come here to vent with suggestions like “dots shouldn’t allow stelath” and “Damage should break stealth”. Things that show a complete lack of understanding of this game’s stealth mechanics.

In all honestly, if you don’t at least try every class in sPvP or level it to 40 in PvE or so for more gated learning of the profession (so you can read every utility and trait and fully understand them) you are nerfing yourself in any form of PvP in this game. Most people who have thieves and play them regularly also play other professions. This game is very alt friendly (at least until every ascended item is out). The reason players who have 80 Thieves don’t have trouble beating thieves is because they know the mechanics. It’s the same with every other prof it’s just that the Thief is the most different (resource based instead of CD, stealth and steal) relative to other profs and very noob vs noob friendly. It’s not until higher skill levels that the Thief is more balanced.

We’ve tried thieves in Spvp. It’s obvious how opd the class is. Thieves don’t have trouble being thieves because both are opd, and someone has to win. Lol, circular argument.

Not sure I entirely follow you, but I think you are echoing the op in saying that thieves require no skill because they are op.
I have tried to suggest that this doesn’t match my experience of playing one, particularly as the playerbase get better and better at countering thieves. In spvp it might feel like they are op and easy but as you hit higher levels of skilled oponents it suddenly turns out they aren’t.

To what someone else was saying about the ltp comments. Its worth remembering that the op starts by saying stealth is overpowered and requires no skill. This is supported by videos.
It is perfectly legitimate to say that the opposition in those videos play poorly if this is what is being used to support the original suggestion. Also it is legitimate to analyse the play style and build the op is using if it is designed to minimise risk and maximise survival. This type of thief play might require low skill and be hard to kill, but it isn’t very good at getting kills. The types of thief that is going out getting player kills are nothing like this. The experience of playing or facing one of these builds is nothing like this.
Is what the op achieves by harassing and slowing groups legitimate or broken. I say its legitimate.
There have been some solid suggestions about changes to stealth but they will probably get drowned out in the call of op, or perma, or other equally common but misinformed comments.

oZii.2864:

Daeqar.8965:

When it comes to thieves in WvW, they are what is likely the best class at executing a losing strategy. That strategy being lonewolf PvP in a large scale gametype.

If you want to move around the field alone, quickly, and potentially pick off stragglers, I can’t think of anything better than a thief. This does have some niche value in WvW for things like murdering dolyaks at low personnel costs, but if even a disproportionate fraction of a server is running these lonewolf spec thieves, they will get absolutely destroyed in WvW by the server running a tight, unstoppable ball of team specs like hammer warriors, guardians, eles, necros, etc. that support each other and play together. If folks ditch the narcissistic attitudes, they would realize that thieves are actually a very limited value class when it comes to winning WvW. The game is called Guild Wars for a reason.

Pretty much the only opportunity a thief has for a useful role in that winning, tightly-knit teamplay is just for on-demand blast finishers with shortbow. (No permastealth or burst combos here.) Bring two shortbow thieves: role filled. Everyone else re-roll a more useful class or be a scout/dolyak-killer (better yet, let pugs do it) and miss out on all mega-bag drops.

Hit the nail on the head but people will come with a counter argument that nobody cares about the objectives in WvW and everyone is just looking for small team fights/1vX.

We need to balance WvW around 1vX and 5v5’s and solo roamers that is what matters in WvW according to this thread.

You both miss the point ENTIRELY. WvW itself and killing people isn’t the issue here and never has been. No one here is TALKING about that. WvW only gets brought into this because of the culling issue (hopefully soon to be fixed) and the fact that Thieves there can perma-stealth. Anything else is beside the point.

Roysten.3456:

Columba.9730:

Stiv.1820:

killimandros.5087:

The thieves who doesnt think so, blame it on lack of skill for all who cant cope with thieves, which is, it seems the majority of the playerbase, which leads me to conclude the essence of the discussion is indeed, if you dont roll a thief, you need to L2P…basically

The reason it’s a L2P issue is new players in both WvW and sPvP hotjoin get rickrolled by GC thieves left and right. They come here to vent with suggestions like “dots shouldn’t allow stelath” and “Damage should break stealth”. Things that show a complete lack of understanding of this game’s stealth mechanics.

In all honestly, if you don’t at least try every class in sPvP or level it to 40 in PvE or so for more gated learning of the profession (so you can read every utility and trait and fully understand them) you are nerfing yourself in any form of PvP in this game. Most people who have thieves and play them regularly also play other professions. This game is very alt friendly (at least until every ascended item is out). The reason players who have 80 Thieves don’t have trouble beating thieves is because they know the mechanics. It’s the same with every other prof it’s just that the Thief is the most different (resource based instead of CD, stealth and steal) relative to other profs and very noob vs noob friendly. It’s not until higher skill levels that the Thief is more balanced.

We’ve tried thieves in Spvp. It’s obvious how opd the class is. Thieves don’t have trouble being thieves because both are opd, and someone has to win. Lol, circular argument.

Not sure I entirely follow you, but I think you are echoing the op in saying that thieves require no skill because they are op.
I have tried to suggest that this doesn’t match my experience of playing one, particularly as the playerbase get better and better at countering thieves. In spvp it might feel like they are op and easy but as you hit higher levels of skilled oponents it suddenly turns out they aren’t.

To what someone else was saying about the ltp comments. Its worth remembering that the op starts by saying stealth is overpowered and requires no skill. This is supported by videos.
It is perfectly legitimate to say that the opposition in those videos play poorly if this is what is being used to support the original suggestion. Also it is legitimate to analyse the play style and build the op is using if it is designed to minimise risk and maximise survival. This type of thief play might require low skill and be hard to kill, but it isn’t very good at getting kills. The types of thief that is going out getting player kills are nothing like this. The experience of playing or facing one of these builds is nothing like this.
Is what the op achieves by harassing and slowing groups legitimate or broken. I say its legitimate.
There have been some solid suggestions about changes to stealth but they will probably get drowned out in the call of op, or perma, or other equally common but misinformed comments.

Sorry, but that match my experience. with a newly made thief, without the knowledge of most of it’s skills, i managed to do as good as with my lv80 warrior and some times i do better.

Daeqar.8965:

Xsorus.2507:

This kind of post annoys me, The reason it annoys me is because this person seems to think that Class balance is playing a part in winning the Matchups “well thieves blow for zerging around in groups with team specs, No one ever does that…You want these classes if you want to win” While completely ignoring the fact that Your team of Guardians/Elementalist/Necro’s ect ect aren’t what is winning the match up for you.

Coverage…..that is what wins the Matchup’s, not classes, not your amazing skill in a group, Coverage does… The Team with the greatest population for the longest period of time wins..

It doesn’t matter if you can kick the opposing sides kitten all day long, if you don’t have Coverage for the 2nd half of the day, You’re going to lose the matchup….

Every Server you seen that’s Green Right now is winning not by some sort of magical skill on their part, But because they have more people then the Red and Blue team.

So…skill, communication, coordination, ability, tactics… none of it matters. It’s just coverage. Coverage is the only thing that matters. By the same logic, why are we even talking about stealth and thieves at all since it matters even less regarding WvW outcome?

Because we AREN’T ARGUING WvW OUTCOME. Seriously….

From personal experience:
sPVP thief: somewhat weak on paper as well as in practice.
-condition damage sucks when compared to other classes and can easily be cleansed
-burst damage can be easily negated in high level pvp with various invul, dodge, cc, etc.
-glass canon build would need to drop out of a fight way too early to be of any use in a team fight
-bunker thieves do too little damage to contribute anything in a fight while not being able to capture while stealth

WvW: troll class
-bunker can harass without fear of getting killed even with cc
-glass canon good for picking off underleveled players or weaken players
-good at chasing, one of the most mobile class in the game along with the elementalist

Anet needs to fix thieves while not doing a broad nerf of the class. Thieves are okay but not ideal for sPVP while in WvW the thief is one of the best if not best 1v1 roamer in the game. Anet needs to have a serious look at this and think of a fix, and not a nerf.

What is stopping us from simply running away from a Thief? Why waste time trying to kill a thief only for him to run away or reset a fight? The reward you get from capping a camp and/or contributing in Zerg v. Zerg fights far outweigh trying to kill that one annoying thief.

Lighter.5631:

Roysten.3456:

Columba.9730:

Stiv.1820:

killimandros.5087:

The thieves who doesnt think so, blame it on lack of skill for all who cant cope with thieves, which is, it seems the majority of the playerbase, which leads me to conclude the essence of the discussion is indeed, if you dont roll a thief, you need to L2P…basically

The reason it’s a L2P issue is new players in both WvW and sPvP hotjoin get rickrolled by GC thieves left and right. They come here to vent with suggestions like “dots shouldn’t allow stelath” and “Damage should break stealth”. Things that show a complete lack of understanding of this game’s stealth mechanics.

In all honestly, if you don’t at least try every class in sPvP or level it to 40 in PvE or so for more gated learning of the profession (so you can read every utility and trait and fully understand them) you are nerfing yourself in any form of PvP in this game. Most people who have thieves and play them regularly also play other professions. This game is very alt friendly (at least until every ascended item is out). The reason players who have 80 Thieves don’t have trouble beating thieves is because they know the mechanics. It’s the same with every other prof it’s just that the Thief is the most different (resource based instead of CD, stealth and steal) relative to other profs and very noob vs noob friendly. It’s not until higher skill levels that the Thief is more balanced.

We’ve tried thieves in Spvp. It’s obvious how opd the class is. Thieves don’t have trouble being thieves because both are opd, and someone has to win. Lol, circular argument.

Not sure I entirely follow you, but I think you are echoing the op in saying that thieves require no skill because they are op.
I have tried to suggest that this doesn’t match my experience of playing one, particularly as the playerbase get better and better at countering thieves. In spvp it might feel like they are op and easy but as you hit higher levels of skilled oponents it suddenly turns out they aren’t.

To what someone else was saying about the ltp comments. Its worth remembering that the op starts by saying stealth is overpowered and requires no skill. This is supported by videos.
It is perfectly legitimate to say that the opposition in those videos play poorly if this is what is being used to support the original suggestion. Also it is legitimate to analyse the play style and build the op is using if it is designed to minimise risk and maximise survival. This type of thief play might require low skill and be hard to kill, but it isn’t very good at getting kills. The types of thief that is going out getting player kills are nothing like this. The experience of playing or facing one of these builds is nothing like this.
Is what the op achieves by harassing and slowing groups legitimate or broken. I say its legitimate.
There have been some solid suggestions about changes to stealth but they will probably get drowned out in the call of op, or perma, or other equally common but misinformed comments.

Sorry, but that match my experience. with a newly made thief, without the knowledge of most of it’s skills, i managed to do as good as with my lv80 warrior and some times i do better.

In spvp? hotjoining and h/s spamming works up to a point but after that point you actualy do need to learn what to do.

In www if you are owning the field on an upleveled thief not understanding your skills then I humbly bow to your innate ability and pity your opposing servers.

Roysten.3456:

Lighter.5631:

Roysten.3456:

Columba.9730:

Stiv.1820:

killimandros.5087:

The thieves who doesnt think so, blame it on lack of skill for all who cant cope with thieves, which is, it seems the majority of the playerbase, which leads me to conclude the essence of the discussion is indeed, if you dont roll a thief, you need to L2P…basically

The reason it’s a L2P issue is new players in both WvW and sPvP hotjoin get rickrolled by GC thieves left and right. They come here to vent with suggestions like “dots shouldn’t allow stelath” and “Damage should break stealth”. Things that show a complete lack of understanding of this game’s stealth mechanics.

In all honestly, if you don’t at least try every class in sPvP or level it to 40 in PvE or so for more gated learning of the profession (so you can read every utility and trait and fully understand them) you are nerfing yourself in any form of PvP in this game. Most people who have thieves and play them regularly also play other professions. This game is very alt friendly (at least until every ascended item is out). The reason players who have 80 Thieves don’t have trouble beating thieves is because they know the mechanics. It’s the same with every other prof it’s just that the Thief is the most different (resource based instead of CD, stealth and steal) relative to other profs and very noob vs noob friendly. It’s not until higher skill levels that the Thief is more balanced.

We’ve tried thieves in Spvp. It’s obvious how opd the class is. Thieves don’t have trouble being thieves because both are opd, and someone has to win. Lol, circular argument.

Not sure I entirely follow you, but I think you are echoing the op in saying that thieves require no skill because they are op.
I have tried to suggest that this doesn’t match my experience of playing one, particularly as the playerbase get better and better at countering thieves. In spvp it might feel like they are op and easy but as you hit higher levels of skilled oponents it suddenly turns out they aren’t.

To what someone else was saying about the ltp comments. Its worth remembering that the op starts by saying stealth is overpowered and requires no skill. This is supported by videos.
It is perfectly legitimate to say that the opposition in those videos play poorly if this is what is being used to support the original suggestion. Also it is legitimate to analyse the play style and build the op is using if it is designed to minimise risk and maximise survival. This type of thief play might require low skill and be hard to kill, but it isn’t very good at getting kills. The types of thief that is going out getting player kills are nothing like this. The experience of playing or facing one of these builds is nothing like this.
Is what the op achieves by harassing and slowing groups legitimate or broken. I say its legitimate.
There have been some solid suggestions about changes to stealth but they will probably get drowned out in the call of op, or perma, or other equally common but misinformed comments.

Sorry, but that match my experience. with a newly made thief, without the knowledge of most of it’s skills, i managed to do as good as with my lv80 warrior and some times i do better.

In spvp? hotjoining and h/s spamming works up to a point but after that point you actualy do need to learn what to do.

In www if you are owning the field on an upleveled thief not understanding your skills then I humbly bow to your innate ability and pity your opposing servers.

Because that “learn what to do” for thief is so easy. no more excuse. spvp wvw both. my opposing servers? you mean that server with almost double of our points?

Lighter.5631:

Roysten.3456:

Lighter.5631:

Sorry, but that match my experience. with a newly made thief, without the knowledge of most of it’s skills, i managed to do as good as with my lv80 warrior and some times i do better.

In spvp? hotjoining and h/s spamming works up to a point but after that point you actualy do need to learn what to do.

In www if you are owning the field on an upleveled thief not understanding your skills then I humbly bow to your innate ability and pity your opposing servers.

Because that “learn what to do” for thief is so easy. no more excuse. spvp wvw both. my opposing servers? you mean that server with almost double of our points?

O.k. I might have been unfair to you.
As an exercise though ask yourself how you would counter your thief on your warrior? Its a question that has been asked many times before and a lot of players have come up with answers.
After this assume the next warrior you attack will use this same counter that you have thought through for your thief. So its time to think of a way to attack a warrior in a way that gets round this counter. This might involve an entirely different way of playing your thief.
Repeat until your head spins a bit.

With the trite example of H/s spamming it will work on players that have never worked out the counter to it. In www there are a lot more than spvp. If you want to have more success though you need to assume that the opponant you face will counter it. This means throwing that whole easy play style away and learning how to do something different.
This is what I meant by learning what to do.

The debate about stealth is more about whether there is a level of play with it that simply can’t be countered.
I personally don’t think there is but I do accept that it might be a pain to counter and that it can end up bending builds a bit out of shape to do it.
For me this needs small changes not hyperbole or claims that a class is easy requiring no skill.

Roysten.3456:

Lighter.5631:

Roysten.3456:

Lighter.5631:

Sorry, but that match my experience. with a newly made thief, without the knowledge of most of it’s skills, i managed to do as good as with my lv80 warrior and some times i do better.

In spvp? hotjoining and h/s spamming works up to a point but after that point you actualy do need to learn what to do.

In www if you are owning the field on an upleveled thief not understanding your skills then I humbly bow to your innate ability and pity your opposing servers.

Because that “learn what to do” for thief is so easy. no more excuse. spvp wvw both. my opposing servers? you mean that server with almost double of our points?

O.k. I might have been unfair to you.
As an exercise though ask yourself how you would counter your thief on your warrior? Its a question that has been asked many times before and a lot of players have come up with answers.
After this assume the next warrior you attack will use this same counter that you have thought through for your thief. So its time to think of a way to attack a warrior in a way that gets round this counter. This might involve an entirely different way of playing your thief.
Repeat until your head spins a bit.

With the trite example of H/s spamming it will work on players that have never worked out the counter to it. In www there are a lot more than spvp. If you want to have more success though you need to assume that the opponant you face will counter it. This means throwing that whole easy play style away and learning how to do something different.
This is what I meant by learning what to do.

The debate about stealth is more about whether there is a level of play with it that simply can’t be countered.
I personally don’t think there is but I do accept that it might be a pain to counter and that it can end up bending builds a bit out of shape to do it.
For me this needs small changes not hyperbole or claims that a class is easy requiring no skill.

Yes. i would have no problem dealing thieves in PvP atleast not as much as dealing necros rangers, but this is WvW section, i have to say that stealth need a nerf

The thing I love about these kinds of threads are the large number of people who decide to play a class even though “it’s only good at killing noobs.”

Wouldn’t you rather play a class that is good at killing good players?

I guess there are just a lot of people out there willing to put themselves at a disadvantage in this game. Here’s to all the mesmers and thieves out there fighting that uphill battle.

This one’s for you. /tips the glass

TLDR: Thieves are very strong 1vN classes, but are actually pretty balanced in group fights.

Oozo.7856:

The thing I love about these kinds of threads are the large number of people who decide to play a class even though “it’s only good at killing noobs.”

Wouldn’t you rather play a class that is good at killing good players?

I guess there are just a lot of people out there willing to put themselves at a disadvantage in this game. Here’s to all the mesmers and thieves out there fighting that uphill battle.

This one’s for you. /tips the glass

TLDR: Thieves are very strong 1vN classes, but are actually pretty balanced in group fights.

The thing I dislike about these threads are self-appointed experts who basically rehash l2p when even players of their own class admit that the class is overpowered.

Columba.9730:

Oozo.7856:

The thing I love about these kinds of threads are the large number of people who decide to play a class even though “it’s only good at killing noobs.”

Wouldn’t you rather play a class that is good at killing good players?

I guess there are just a lot of people out there willing to put themselves at a disadvantage in this game. Here’s to all the mesmers and thieves out there fighting that uphill battle.

This one’s for you. /tips the glass

TLDR: Thieves are very strong 1vN classes, but are actually pretty balanced in group fights.

The thing I dislike about these threads are self-appointed experts who basically rehash l2p when even players of their own class admit that the class is overpowered.

The thing I don’t like it ignorant players who know little about other classes slandering them and trying to ruin them so they’ll be brought down to thier level. I don’t complain about other classes or challenges. I analyse them and figure out how to deal with them. I have no respect for those who don’t do the same.

I love people who make assumptions about what analyses have already been done, lool.

Dual.8953:

Columba.9730:

Oozo.7856:

The thing I love about these kinds of threads are the large number of people who decide to play a class even though “it’s only good at killing noobs.”

Wouldn’t you rather play a class that is good at killing good players?

I guess there are just a lot of people out there willing to put themselves at a disadvantage in this game. Here’s to all the mesmers and thieves out there fighting that uphill battle.

This one’s for you. /tips the glass

TLDR: Thieves are very strong 1vN classes, but are actually pretty balanced in group fights.

The thing I dislike about these threads are self-appointed experts who basically rehash l2p when even players of their own class admit that the class is overpowered.

The thing I don’t like it ignorant players who know little about other classes slandering them and trying to ruin them so they’ll be brought down to thier level. I don’t complain about other classes or challenges. I analyse them and figure out how to deal with them. I have no respect for those who don’t do the same.

What about those of us who actually play the class extremely well, and don’t understand how others are having issues playing the class???

Anyone who defends a class by saying it’s only good at killing newbs is admitting that they always lose to good players. And if that’s the case then the problem is you, not the class.

“L2P, thief is only good at killing noobs!” is cognitive dissonance at it’s best.

That said, the only thing I don’t like about thief is how easily they can reset or run away from a fight they are losing. But, they aren’t the only class that can do that.

jkctmc.8754:

Dual.8953:

Columba.9730:

Oozo.7856:

The thing I love about these kinds of threads are the large number of people who decide to play a class even though “it’s only good at killing noobs.”

Wouldn’t you rather play a class that is good at killing good players?

I guess there are just a lot of people out there willing to put themselves at a disadvantage in this game. Here’s to all the mesmers and thieves out there fighting that uphill battle.

This one’s for you. /tips the glass

TLDR: Thieves are very strong 1vN classes, but are actually pretty balanced in group fights.

The thing I dislike about these threads are self-appointed experts who basically rehash l2p when even players of their own class admit that the class is overpowered.

The thing I don’t like it ignorant players who know little about other classes slandering them and trying to ruin them so they’ll be brought down to thier level. I don’t complain about other classes or challenges. I analyse them and figure out how to deal with them. I have no respect for those who don’t do the same.

What about those of us who actually play the class extremely well, and don’t understand how others are having issues playing the class???

I have no interest in playing anyone’s style but my own. I know the strengths and weaknesses of my build and will defend it when I feel it is needlessly threatened. As I have stated before I have no interest in playing an a burst set. I have no desire to equip Berzerker gear or stack 30 into Deadly Arts.
I like the feel of Sword/Dagger. How well it plays in tune with the shadow arts tree. It isn’t an OP’d set. It lacks burst, conditions and relies on its auto attack as its sole damage dealer. The set would be underpowered if not for Cloak and Dagger, granting it access to tactical strike. So why should it be ruined just to make a petty attempt to weaken Dagger/Dagger? If you want to nerf Backstab, Mug and Heartseeker, then nerf them specifically and not something other sets make more use off.

Our guild has lost about 70% of its WvW players due to the Thief/Culling issue.

I usually do tournaments, but tried some WvW a couple times in the past week. Thieves are rightly considered middle-of-the-road in tourneys; they have good gank power but they’re generally bad at 1v1s against decent players and tend to get killed fast or pressured out in teamfights. They’re viable but not dominant.

I ran with 2700 armor and 20000 hp in WvW, so I wasn’t getting insta-ganked by thieves. It just took a lot of the excitement out. Sometimes I was successful at AoE blanketing, sometimes not. Look, it’s another thief/tank duo. Drop aoe…drop aoe…stunbreak…drop aoe…drop aoe…win/lose. Thief fights in tournaments are much more exciting, trying to catch the thief with cc between stealths or baiting him into overextending.

Lemortia.4019:

Our guild has lost about 70% of its WvW players due to the Thief/Culling issue.

Well Culling’s gone next patch.

jportell.2197:

1) Anet should remove one of these perks from being stealthed
a) Condi removal for every three seconds while stealth (combined
with heals it competes with ele’s condi removal)
b) Regen while stealthed… yeah w/o healing power it isn’t all that great…
But it is still one of the little things that is causing big problems
c) 50% faster while stealthed… Seriously aside from stealth bombers when was the
last time sneaky=fast? How many sneaky fast navy seals are there? I know its
a game and all but seriously this is just a ridiculous trait that costs too little
d) stealth SHOULD break on a block… Invuln/evades yeah i’ll give that to you
but you are still hitting something when its blocked whether it be that shield/
off hand sword its basically guaranteeing a free HUGE hit to thieves when they
stay stealthed and their first attack was blocked… Not really fair to someone
that was not being a baddie/noob and could predict the attack change.
If someone blocks my shatters on my Mesmer I don’t get an immediate free
redo on the burst and no other class does when their attacks are blocked
except thieves
e) finally Caltrops and choking gas should break stealth… I don’t care how you want
to justify it, these skills do damage and therefore should suffer the revealed debuff…
If a Mesmer pops a shatter from stealth they get revealed… Why? The clones blew up
not the Mesmer they shouldn’t be revealed! But they are, same concept applies to
thieves. This would also make thieves consider things like taking the trait that drops
caltrops on a dodge… It would make them choose something either/stealth heavy or
mobility…

A and B and C: Condition removal every 3 seconds. 1 condition and every three seconds and that is fine as it is. Backstab lasts 4 seconds traited. That thief isn’t going to be doing much damage either if they want that healing to work well and they will be in stealth most of the time.
D: I disagree. It is fine as it is.
E: I can agree that caltrops and choaking gas tossed from stealth should probably break stealth but if they are already there and you stealth then you should not be revealed just because someone took damage.

That trait that drops caltrops doesn’t drop caltrops like the skill. The skill caltrops will stay for a short duration but the trait does not. The trait is kind of like the warrior doing damage on a dodge, you have to be pretty close to your target to hit it. If it isn’t breaking stealth, then I think that would be a bug because it is an attack. I would still rather have something other than caltrops on dodge though, better mileage with other options in my opinion.

Stealth is OP in it’s current implementation because it’s what allows thieves to be the only class capable of doing this sort of shennanigans.
It doesn’t matter which other class the best player ever plays, anything but a thief dies against these numbers, so that is pretty unbalanced.

If I were anet the only thing I would change is skills that can grant long duration stealth and cap the stealth they can give. Personally I think 3 seconds of stealth is the longest you should be able to stay in stealth and stealth should not be duration stackable.

No ‘perma’-stealth, no long duration stealth which can make it impossible to chase you.

i have only problem with P/D thief, they have mostly high survivability an insane stacking of bleed + still they have c&d from dagger, this is "meta"in wvw atm i think, i see more and more thiefs with this
anet forcing ppl to play thieves, when they want small scale pvp in wvw

The OP understood alot of things, I’m pretty sure he might have played another class before going on Thief, where suddenly the gameplay becomes much easier, synergistic, with a Stealth feature that is way too forgiving.

As an Engineer switching between alot of different builds, it requires me some inhuman efforts in order to handle 1vs2+, and feel pretty epic when managing to triumph. I’ve dealt with my share of Thieves when solo roaming in WvW, something that I can’t really complain about because we’re unpredictable and amongst the most equipped to fighting one. Not all the classes got that privilege though.

Then you get to see Thieves handling 1vX blindfolded with the hands bound, there are 700 sup3r0wn4g3 WvW ninja-wannabe-assassin videos showing how Stealth is too forgiving. How can people be so blind about it? Or maybe it isn’t blindness…

Its obvious something has to be done with stealth. I mean if it was fine, NO ONE WOULD TALK ABOUT IT.

Rationalise it anyway you want, but 14+ pages and counting……. come thieves surely a light bulb moment is triggering…..

Jasra.3627:

i have only problem with P/D thief, they have mostly high survivability an insane stacking of bleed + still they have c&d from dagger, this is "meta"in wvw atm i think, i see more and more thiefs with this
anet forcing ppl to play thieves, when they want small scale pvp in wvw

It might be meta. But I do notice most seem to be running P/P – D/D. I run PP-DD because I find it has a better contribution overall. As a full GC you can do 12-13k damge burst off the PP and you can do it twice in a row before CD (out of initiative). Just got to be careful as reflect skills from Guardian and a few other things and you will basically instantly kill yourself as you only have 10k health. The bleed stacks are only good if they don’t have condition removal or worse condition transfer.

But there is just one thing I don’t like about this thread. Its all QQ about thiefs. But the most OP thing in the game right now is stealth and it is Veil. The amount of times Ive seen this wipe 50 player zergs just because it was landed at the right time. This contributes more to a server than any thief could ever dream to. There are alot of players who know how to deal with thiefs and its brutally obvious who they are when I am facing them. But alot of people dont. And rather than actually work out there mechanics by playing them for a period of time they just want to complain about them without knowing how they really work.

Jasra.3627:

i have only problem with P/D thief, they have mostly high survivability an insane stacking of bleed + still they have c&d from dagger, this is "meta"in wvw atm i think, i see more and more thiefs with this
anet forcing ppl to play thieves, when they want small scale pvp in wvw

I wouldn’t go so far as to call CnD “Meta” in WvW. So far only certain classes are asked for by name (eg. Mesmer for Portal or TW or Eles for Swirling Winds). Though I will admit CnD does make what would be otherwise weak sets, effective. On P/D Sneak Attack and CnD are the only skills worth using. S/D doesn’t have it quite as bad, but CnD to Tactical Strike is certainly was keeps that set from being underpowered.

A few high damage hits… Stealth… damage a couple times… stealth.

You lose target, Thief heals while stealthed (typical trait), and you can’t do damage because you lose target constantly and by the time you cast a skill Thief is stealthing.

Such a broken mechanic when I can’t kill what I can’t see or target, and can’t get away with so many gap closers.

I’m not even going to bother to read this:

Yes, Stealth is busted and shouldn’t have been included in PvP/WvW play.
But since they royally kittened that up, there’s no way of fixing it without serious game overhaul.

It would literally BREAK the Thief class. No, not make it so people wouldn’t play it because we wouldn’t be gimmicky backstabbers. Most good players have moved on from those builds. It would break it because Stealth is our only means of defense, some of our offense, and pretty much overall gameplay. You take Stealth from the game and Thieves are little more than giant paper targets.

Esprit Dumort.3109:

A few high damage hits… Stealth… damage a couple times… stealth.

You lose target, Thief heals while stealthed (typical trait), and you can’t do damage because you lose target constantly and by the time you cast a skill Thief is stealthing.

Such a broken mechanic when I can’t kill what I can’t see or target, and can’t get away with so many gap closers.

The heal stealth sounds more like Hide in Shadows. None of the trait heals are particularly strong, and Thieves going for high damage usually don’t go far into Shadow Arts.

Even if it can be annoying fighting against those 2xthief,1xMesmer squads.
I kinda feel stealth in itself isnt that OP. Culling can make it imba, though.

Some can use stealth extremly well and are hard to get…others you can easily down even while being invisible by “shooting in cirlces” and anticipating movement of the invisible foe.

Problematic are burst+stealth in combo.
The surprise of being attacked, takes away time to react, while the attacke can safely burst his target without any “defense” from the attacked.
…some seem to like it for being able to play some sort of “sniper”…

BUT imho, BURST should be about DOWING WEAKENED targets fast (<50% HP) and not be that harmful on “healthy targets” (>50%HP). Therefore i would scale backstab extra dps and other burst skills.
(Similiar like rangers/mesmers have to stack weakness condi to push dps further up…)

STEALTH should be about surprise mostly and evading/getting away.
Instead of extra dps on backstab from stealth, I would kinda go for cripples/slows/conditions.

Or in short, thieves should slowly wear you down…and finish you off fast in the end.

sostronk.8167:

Jasra.3627:

i have only problem with P/D thief, they have mostly high survivability an insane stacking of bleed + still they have c&d from dagger, this is "meta"in wvw atm i think, i see more and more thiefs with this
anet forcing ppl to play thieves, when they want small scale pvp in wvw

It might be meta. But I do notice most seem to be running P/P – D/D. I run PP-DD because I find it has a better contribution overall. As a full GC you can do 12-13k damge burst off the PP and you can do it twice in a row before CD (out of initiative). Just got to be careful as reflect skills from Guardian and a few other things and you will basically instantly kill yourself as you only have 10k health. The bleed stacks are only good if they don’t have condition removal or worse condition transfer.

But there is just one thing I don’t like about this thread. Its all QQ about thiefs. But the most OP thing in the game right now is stealth and it is Veil. The amount of times Ive seen this wipe 50 player zergs just because it was landed at the right time. This contributes more to a server than any thief could ever dream to. There are alot of players who know how to deal with thiefs and its brutally obvious who they are when I am facing them. But alot of people dont. And rather than actually work out there mechanics by playing them for a period of time they just want to complain about them without knowing how they really work.

You kiddin me right? If a Mesmer does run veil the duration is not long enough for 50 people to run through and if that be the case by the time all 50 people get through it the ones that popped in it first are already coming out… Then lets talk about the kittenedly long 90 second cooldown on a freaking utility slot (genius!) and the fact that the Mesmer is then losing out on another useful utility slot… Mesmer stealth is not spammable like a thieves… By the time a Mesmer spams all their stealth skills they are SOL and have no more access to it if a Mesmer is running veil then you have roughly 90 seconds to deal with them after… And in all honesty if they were to make veil to have a X person limit… I highly doubt anyone would care… The only people trying to deflect this conversation about the highest stealth class in the game away from it are said players that play this class… And the only people that would get any ADDED BONUS from going through a veil would be thieves especially in damage…

Moot point until the culling problem is removed (which I wont believe until I see it).
Currently Thiefs+WvW is a joke. All because of culling ? TBD

Fizzlepip.5218:

I’m not even going to bother to read this:

Yes, Stealth is busted and shouldn’t have been included in PvP/WvW play.
But since they royally kittened that up, there’s no way of fixing it without serious game overhaul.

It would literally BREAK the Thief class. No, not make it so people wouldn’t play it because we wouldn’t be gimmicky backstabbers. Most good players have moved on from those builds. It would break it because Stealth is our only means of defense, some of our offense, and pretty much overall gameplay. You take Stealth from the game and Thieves are little more than giant paper targets.

Wrong. They can make a small stealth change. No need to be dramatic. You have other defense, like skill sum dodge, food, armor.

Dual.8953:

None of the trait heals are particularly strong.

Lies, the regeneration and removal of conditions I specced into on my thief keep me alive and are enough to keep fighting or escape easily.

Edragor.9164:

Culling can make it imba, though.

My whole issue with that statement if its true is weve had 6+MONTHS of an OP skill……………………..

This issue will never go away because gamers as a whole will not unite behind an idea that they should. That being, that Invisibility should not be a mechanic of any video Game.

Ideally it should not be present in the form of culling.

and it certainly should not be present on purpose as a game mechanic.

If you can not wrap your head around why invisibility is bad in a video game, i do not know what to tell you really. Please get a new hobby?

Columba.9730:

Fizzlepip.5218:

I’m not even going to bother to read this:

Yes, Stealth is busted and shouldn’t have been included in PvP/WvW play.
But since they royally kittened that up, there’s no way of fixing it without serious game overhaul.

It would literally BREAK the Thief class. No, not make it so people wouldn’t play it because we wouldn’t be gimmicky backstabbers. Most good players have moved on from those builds. It would break it because Stealth is our only means of defense, some of our offense, and pretty much overall gameplay. You take Stealth from the game and Thieves are little more than giant paper targets.

Wrong. They can make a small stealth change. No need to be dramatic. You have other defense, like skill sum dodge, food, armor.

All other classes have those defenses, and then some.