Guild Wars 2

After finally breaking down and leveling a thief to 80, getting it geared, etc… I have to say thieves are balanced. There is a huge difference between people who know how to fight a thief and those who don’t.

And those who say OMG THIEF STEALTHS FOREVER AND DOES 15K damage! … you can’t spec to do massive damage and infinite stealth. Thieves that do 15K damage are shredded like tissue paper.

Let me put it this way. Those who whine about thief stealth simply doesn’t understand/know how a thief works. Once you do, they are much less of a threat.

I particularly have trouble against good shortbow/trap rangers, toolbelt engineers, well played staff mezmers, well played elementalists…

Its one of those classes that if you understand how to fight them, you beat them easily, but if you don’t you will die and rage.

Viridian.2357:

After finally breaking down and leveling a thief to 80, getting it geared, etc… I have to say thieves are balanced. There is a huge difference between people who know how to fight a thief and those who don’t.

And those who say OMG THIEF STEALTHS FOREVER AND DOES 15K damage! … you can’t spec to do massive damage and infinite stealth. Thieves that do 15K damage are shredded like tissue paper.

Yeah I get the feeling that arguement is losing it’s effectiveness, and shifting to “thieves shouldn’t stealth because it makes them harder to kill when they spec into it.”

Master of Timespace.2548:

A fact is that 95% wvw population are trash. All they do is zerg in huge blobs spamming skills. Then when they get owned by a single skilled roamer thief, they come here to cry how OP thief is.

exactly this.
the problem is, the whining scrubs don’t have a clue about game mechanics (as you can see in this thread) and making up numbers to feel better.

i’m quite happy that anet ignores them and only does small adjustments to balance.

the usual whiner (and therefore terrible at playing, adapting and understanding game mechanics) would leave after all (‘lol this game is kitten!!1’) or start crying about another class he gets stomped by.

imho anet should delete such whinethreads and give whiners an infraction. this way this forum could be usefull again.

Viridian.2357:

After finally breaking down and leveling a thief to 80, getting it geared, etc… I have to say thieves are balanced. There is a huge difference between people who know how to fight a thief and those who don’t.

There is a huge difference between people who know how to play a thief and those who don’t.

Viridian.2357:

And those who say OMG THIEF STEALTHS FOREVER AND DOES 15K damage! … you can’t spec to do massive damage and infinite stealth. Thieves that do 15K damage are shredded like tissue paper.

That’s not the point. Your argument there is quite true. However the problem here is a thief can abuse stealth a still be able to do dmg. In wvw even when glass cannon specced a well played thief can be much harder to kill than other classes (glasscannon specced as well ofc). A glasscannon warrior can do tons of dmg but it’s really predictable and has no way to reset a fight.
I’m tired of seeing thieves using c&d on mobs in wvw and being able to stealth again and again. A p/d thief has no need to risk his life in melee range, he can just hide in a group of stupid useless mobs and press button 5 when needed. Why to risk initiative using c&d on a player while you could stab a mosquito?
But tbh this whole thread is just useless. I believe the devs already know the stealth issue in wvw (after all at least one person reminds to them the problem by opening a new thread every day) but it seems it’s working as intended. Remember their goal is to balance the game for a capture-the-flag 5v5 mode (funny thing they are not even close to that goal).

Ah, the L2P and “all thieves are just better people” arguments. What would a thief discussion be without these?

More likely – bad players are getting held up by an overpowered class.

The L2P and “people are garbage” observations go both ways. Just so happens thieves are the exception to the rule and are solely populated by good players? LOL

buttski.6135:

the problem is, the whining scrubs don’t have a clue about game mechanics (as you can see in this thread) and making up numbers to feel better.

i’m quite happy that anet ignores them and only does small adjustments to balance.

the usual whiner (and therefore terrible at playing, adapting and understanding game mechanics) would leave after all (‘lol this game is kitten!!1’) or start crying about another class he gets stomped by.

imho anet should delete such whinethreads and give whiners an infraction. this way this forum could be usefull again.

You know your effort to defend your class is comprehensible. It really is. I myself defend the bm bunker ranger but deep inside i know how op it can be. But i like this game (not that much anymore but still a bit) and i want everyone to enjoy it.
Your “usual whiner” argument is so false it made me laugh. There are well known players around here who actually care about the game and try to improve it:

Xeph.4513:

The problem with thief is apparent in both low and high level play; a lot of people have been claiming its an l2 kitten ue, but its not.

Thief is currently on the same pedestal as Mesmer, which is broken.

I really feel for someone who wants to start learning this game, constantly getting one shotted or shattered down without a chance to react; its in my opinion absolutely ridiculous that Arena net have decided not to address this issue and keep things as they are. A simple solution to this would’ve been to slightly nerf the damage on backstab and give it an initiative cost of around (5-6), largely nerfing the thieves damage output after landing a backstab.

Its sad that people are trying to defend this class or claim that its balanced or inline with other classes.

I could write a whole essay about why I think thief and mesmer are both broken classes and their damage ratios really need to be looked at, because you cant provide classes with invul invis and shadowstep/blinks and also give them a high damage output, this pretty much makes the way they will be played very one dimensional.

Anyways, if you really think thief is balanced or in anyway in no need of nerfs I would be happy to show you otherwise in game.

The thief is balanced in spvp (even weak) cos you cannot cap points while stealthed. Also the thief got nerfed in spvp (c&d dmg for ex). In wvw is a whole different story.

Well it is possible that thieves are not overpowered, assuming you take the best players and no lag/culling.etc

Thieves are extremely good at preying on people who have low to decent skill level. While the very best players can counter a thief (which may or may not be true, but that’s a different issue from the one below), most can’t.

Is this a problem? Many thieves like to argue that “L2P n00b, if the best players can counter thieves, why can’t you do the same?”

Let’s take a different scenario. I’m a dungeon master – would it be appropriate to raise ALL dungeons to the difficulty of, say, Arah P4? Of course not; just because I can complete a difficult dungeon doesn’t mean that all dungeons should be made equally demanding – the average player needs something to do or they will quickly leave the game. What I’m saying is that the game cannot be balanced around the bestest estest players, same as the way that monsters in fractal lv 1 don’t instantly 100-0 you

WELL JEEZ SINCE PEOPLE CAN DO FRACTALS LV 40 AND NOT DIE I DON’T SEE WHY IT SHOULDN’T BE THAT WAY FROM LV 1. What a valid argument.

Now back to the thief-L2P argument. Is it easy to Steal + CnD + Backstab? Yeah you’d have to be pretty dumb to not pull it off. How about spamming heartseeker? Even easier!

Now how do you counter this thief? Oh you just have to stun him, hope he doesn’t press blinding powder or shadowstep to get out, then do a lot of damage. Of course you need to dodge backstabs from someone you can’t even see. Hit the air and be a mind reader, predicting where the thief went. If they shadow refuge you’d better have some way to forcibly remove them from the circle or they will reset the fight.

Yes, the best players can do that. But can an average player? No. So why should thieves be able to destroy people who suck, even though the thief sucks as bad?

Sure you can argue that the game is balanced around the highest skill levels since it is a competitive PvP game that they are aiming for, and I’d have to agree with you on that point.

However when you see mostly thieves and bunker builds (to survive the thieves) in WvW, it might be a sign that balancing should be done around the masses, preferably in a way that doesn’t affect the top-end viability of thieves (should Anet decide that at the very highest levels of play, thieves are not OP).

TLDR: L2P is not a valid argument – thieves can suck and still dominate.

Sunflowers.1729:

Well it is possible that thieves are not overpowered, assuming you take the best players and no lag/culling.etc

Thieves are extremely good at preying on people who have low to decent skill level. While the very best players can counter a thief (which may or may not be true, but that’s a different issue from the one below), most can’t.

Is this a problem? Many thieves like to argue that “L2P n00b, if the best players can counter thieves, why can’t you do the same?”

Let’s take a different scenario. I’m a dungeon master – would it be appropriate to raise ALL dungeons to the difficulty of, say, Arah P4? Of course not; just because I can complete a difficult dungeon doesn’t mean that all dungeons should be made equally demanding – the average player needs something to do or they will quickly leave the game. What I’m saying is that the game cannot be balanced around the bestest estest players, same as the way that monsters in fractal lv 1 don’t instantly 100-0 you

WELL JEEZ SINCE PEOPLE CAN DO FRACTALS LV 40 AND NOT DIE I DON’T SEE WHY IT SHOULDN’T BE THAT WAY FROM LV 1. What a valid argument.

Now back to the thief-L2P argument. Is it easy to Steal + CnD + Backstab? Yeah you’d have to be pretty dumb to not pull it off. How about spamming heartseeker? Even easier!

Now how do you counter this thief? Oh you just have to stun him, hope he doesn’t press blinding powder or shadowstep to get out, then do a lot of damage. Of course you need to dodge backstabs from someone you can’t even see. Hit the air and be a mind reader, predicting where the thief went. If they shadow refuge you’d better have some way to forcibly remove them from the circle or they will reset the fight.

Yes, the best players can do that. But can an average player? No. So why should thieves be able to destroy people who suck, even though the thief sucks as bad?

Sure you can argue that the game is balanced around the highest skill levels since it is a competitive PvP game that they are aiming for, and I’d have to agree with you on that point.

However when you see mostly thieves and bunker builds (to survive the thieves) in WvW, it might be a sign that balancing should be done around the masses, preferably in a way that doesn’t affect the top-end viability of thieves (should Anet decide that at the very highest levels of play, thieves are not OP).

TLDR: L2P is not a valid argument – thieves can suck and still dominate.

My problem is where people aim to bring the OP specs in line. They want them down and they don’t care if the more balanced specs and are screwed over or changed into something completely different to do it.

Apparently a lot of crazy thief players out there! Its amazing so many must think their opponents are just border line handicapped choosing never to fight back?

At best a gear/skilled player can only hope to mitigate the damage of a WvW thief. Unless the thief is terrible, all it takes is forcing the other player to blow long cooldowns while relying on short stealth/teleport timers to reset the fight, over and over and over.

For what its worth, not hating out of spite or anything either. My first 10k+ WvW kills were on my thief but it has gotten boring, and its bad for the game.

i think these l2p arguments are starting to get old , i dont even know if you are trolling or just lacking serious amount of logic anymore

apparently, everyone in wvw is a l2p noob except thieves, no just no.

Dual.8953:

My problem is where people aim to bring the OP specs in line. They want them down and they don’t care if the more balanced specs and are screwed over or changed into something completely different to do it.

This is the same with all classes though – for example when they nerfed evasive arcana way back when it always gave a blast finisher, that affected S/D as well, a weapon set that nobody has ever argued is overpowered.

I’m all for balancing only the OP specs, but this happens to everyone, not just thieves.

The main problem with thieves and stealth to most players is not whether they are OP or not. Its the fact that fighting a heavy stealthing thief is NOT FUN. I rarely loose to any thief because I’m lucky I chose the right profession. But although I win many fights against thieves, I really get bored fighting them over and over again. Thats due to the fact that its extremely frustrating to fight targets you cannot see most of the time.

I’m playing PVP based MMORPGs since 2001. But I never had this feeling ever before that fighting a certain profession is frustrating and not fun at all.

To me this is a major issue of WvW because from my observation the total number of thieves in WvW raises from day to day. It might be the one reason to quit this game for me.

Again: this is not a l2 kitten ue to me, this is not about thieves being op, Im not angry because I loose all day long against thieves. Its just because fighting thieves is not fun due to massive stealth uptime + no real counter to it.

I would trade GW2 stealth for DAOC stealth (perma stealth but only out of combat) immediately if I could.

Sunflowers.1729:

Dual.8953:

My problem is where people aim to bring the OP specs in line. They want them down and they don’t care if the more balanced specs and are screwed over or changed into something completely different to do it.

This is the same with all classes though – for example when they nerfed evasive arcana way back when it always gave a blast finisher, that affected S/D as well, a weapon set that nobody has ever argued is overpowered.

I’m all for balancing only the OP specs, but this happens to everyone, not just thieves.

Actually S/D is argued to have too good sustain, if you frequent spvp forums. Often S/D eles run more aggressive specs because of the slightly better range, so they’re slightly different from D/D but still share quite a lot of the abilities, especially the healing.

As for balanced thief builds that would be hit by collateral damage. That’s just baseless fear-mongering at this point. I’ll acknowledge it when I see it.

teg.1340:

I would trade GW2 stealth for DAOC stealth (perma stealth but only out of combat) immediately if I could.

along with that you should also give thieves a better opening chain (easier to do and with more dmg output) and the ability to 1shot low lvl ppl without leaving stealth.
That should be really funny for the receiver of PA to be dead and not even see his killer because of ONE shot.
That was really a 1 shot, uncounterable skill; not the c&d-steal-bs combo.

Stealth is strong, thieves are strong and aware of that and you should use it to make ‘em expose theirselves.
Don’t run after a thief, let him come to you…

Maybe a viable nerf would be making stealth a boon (instead of a “status”), meaning that it can be removed via “Null Field” or whatever. Consider that pretty much all abilities in the other classes have this limitation (I can’t actually think of any applied buff that isn’t a boon APART from stealth, but I am a little tired, so…). Thoughts?

The thief would need to be more thoughtful about when she uses stealth abilities (as well as Mesmers).

To be honest though, I am currently levelling an ele, and even when the character was at level 27 I had very few problems with thiefs. Sure I might not have been able to kill them, but I could sure waste their time and deal quite a hefty amount of damage against them – and then safely retreat. I could see it being a bit unfair for classes like Guardians which don’t really have any escape apart from “tank the hell up and run”.

Maybe just a timer when the thief can activate stealth again. Perhaps not even stealth while in combat would be my 1st choice but many arguments against that I’m sure.
My issue with watching thief videos is that it’s just so easy to break out of combat and get all your cool downs back up and then go stealth again and re-engage. tralala, damage, damage, tralala, ooo close to death, stealth, tralalala, heal up, get cool downs off, tralala, kill this guy, kill that guy, stealth.
If my guardian enters combat most of the time it’s a fight to the death. If my skills are all on cool down then that’s basically it for me. I can’t run from a thief since he’s spec’d to be as fast as me for my full duration of “save yourselves” and all the while #2, #2, #2… So I have to stand there and wait to be attacked to be able to counter. Wait for my cool downs in clear sight of an approaching mob. A thief can just tralala run off when the goin get’s tough.
Vids with comments highlights that “oh I missed this skill”, or “hit the pet by accident”, or “I’m going to have to wait just a sec and then smack him with this”…. etc…
As a guardian I don’t have that advantage. If I miss one attack, it’s a fail and I have to wait for cool down in plain sight of many other attackers. I can’t afford to wait a sec, if I miss my initiating attack the whole thing fails and I’m basically just fighting for my life other than controlling the fight. Thieves, through stealth, can basically always control the fight unless they slip up bad and get hit by a decent AoE.

Scleameth.6809:

Maybe just a timer when the thief can activate stealth again. Perhaps not even stealth while in combat would be my 1st choice but many arguments against that I’m sure.
My issue with watching thief videos is that it’s just so easy to break out of combat and get all your cool downs back up and then go stealth again and re-engage. tralala, damage, damage, tralala, ooo close to death, stealth, tralalala, heal up, get cool downs off, tralala, kill this guy, kill that guy, stealth.
If my guardian enters combat most of the time it’s a fight to the death. If my skills are all on cool down then that’s basically it for me. I can’t run from a thief since he’s spec’d to be as fast as me for my full duration of “save yourselves” and all the while #2, #2, #2… So I have to stand there and wait to be attacked to be able to counter. Wait for my cool downs in clear sight of an approaching mob. A thief can just tralala run off when the goin get’s tough.
Vids with comments highlights that “oh I missed this skill”, or “hit the pet by accident”, or “I’m going to have to wait just a sec and then smack him with this”…. etc…
As a guardian I don’t have that advantage. If I miss one attack, it’s a fail and I have to wait for cool down in plain sight of many other attackers. I can’t afford to wait a sec, if I miss my initiating attack the whole thing fails and I’m basically just fighting for my life other than controlling the fight. Thieves, through stealth, can basically always control the fight unless they slip up bad and get hit by a decent AoE.

There are a lot of guardians that have no problems with thieves.
So if thief can do damage damage tralala stealth I guess a guardian has something else to compensate his lack of stealth.
Thief can stealth and run away ? Ok, no kill so? I have a lvl 2 necro and you will never be able to kill him because I don’t play with my necro… is necro OP because he doesn’t die ?

Daendur.2357:

I have a lvl 2 necro and you will never be able to kill him because I don’t play with my necro… is necro OP because he doesn’t die ?

Heh, had to smile at that.

But my argument is not that thief is OP, just that stealth allows them to run away when the going gets tough. I’ve killed a number of thieves and a number have killed me… I’m just saying that once I’m committed to battle there’s very little I can do when the tide shifts except die. A thief can just tralala pop stealth and run away.
If a thief gets kills or not is not my concern, but he lives to fight again after all health and cool downs are nicely restored. Guardian has to spawn and pay the repair costs.
Theives also, through stealth, have the luxury of “browsing the menu” for their kills. They don’t need to get the 15K hits to get a kill. A 5K hit is good enough to prey on that retreating ranger with 3K health left, or that unsuspecting low lvl character off to the left. 2x 5K hits = 10K and is good enough to get that warrior down who just got all the focus of your team. The tralala stealth – spike, back to the menu. Wanna see my guardian run through the enemy group to kill the almost dead retreating ranger? It will take all my shields to get there if I’m not stun locked. OK so I’m there, right on top of the ranger got him down, but can’t get the spike and lie dead at his feet soon after.

Oh and as for lack of stealth… yeah there are on average about 4 shields I can pop, but then it’s soooo over. I can’t get away! when the damage mitigation is all over and done, that’s it – I’m exposed, no gettin’ out of this fight.

sostronk.8167:

Eliyahu.1467:

sostronk.8167:

Thieves can’t cap points in WvW whilst in stealth either.

The ability of a class to cap points has near zero importance in WvW compared to sPvP since there’s almost always going to be someone else with you to do that job when you’re capping a point. The only reason it was removed from WvW was that perma-stealth thieves could perma-contest supply camps because you couldn’t kittening kill them. You still can’t kill them but at least you can capture the camp.

I solo cap points all the time with every class I play.

And how important was the fact you can’t cap in stealth? Not at all.

Tell me how many times you’ve defended a point solo for several minutes without killing your opponents because that’s the reason why stealth capping was nerfed.

thief is not the only profession that can run away from the battle but it’s the only one blamed for doing that.

if it’s about die and repair cost they can put a tax on stealth …
Stealth: requires 10 coppers.

Sunflowers.1729:

Well it is possible that thieves are not overpowered, assuming you take the best players and no lag/culling.etc

Thieves are extremely good at preying on people who have low to decent skill level. While the very best players can counter a thief (which may or may not be true, but that’s a different issue from the one below), most can’t.

Is this a problem? Many thieves like to argue that “L2P n00b, if the best players can counter thieves, why can’t you do the same?”

Let’s take a different scenario. I’m a dungeon master – would it be appropriate to raise ALL dungeons to the difficulty of, say, Arah P4? Of course not; just because I can complete a difficult dungeon doesn’t mean that all dungeons should be made equally demanding – the average player needs something to do or they will quickly leave the game. What I’m saying is that the game cannot be balanced around the bestest estest players, same as the way that monsters in fractal lv 1 don’t instantly 100-0 you

WELL JEEZ SINCE PEOPLE CAN DO FRACTALS LV 40 AND NOT DIE I DON’T SEE WHY IT SHOULDN’T BE THAT WAY FROM LV 1. What a valid argument.

Now back to the thief-L2P argument. Is it easy to Steal + CnD + Backstab? Yeah you’d have to be pretty dumb to not pull it off. How about spamming heartseeker? Even easier!

Now how do you counter this thief? Oh you just have to stun him, hope he doesn’t press blinding powder or shadowstep to get out, then do a lot of damage. Of course you need to dodge backstabs from someone you can’t even see. Hit the air and be a mind reader, predicting where the thief went. If they shadow refuge you’d better have some way to forcibly remove them from the circle or they will reset the fight.

Yes, the best players can do that. But can an average player? No. So why should thieves be able to destroy people who suck, even though the thief sucks as bad?

Sure you can argue that the game is balanced around the highest skill levels since it is a competitive PvP game that they are aiming for, and I’d have to agree with you on that point.

However when you see mostly thieves and bunker builds (to survive the thieves) in WvW, it might be a sign that balancing should be done around the masses, preferably in a way that doesn’t affect the top-end viability of thieves (should Anet decide that at the very highest levels of play, thieves are not OP).

TLDR: L2P is not a valid argument – thieves can suck and still dominate.

well said. i’ll add that some thieves say “use aoe” well what about the classes that on’t even have aoe? i play ranger and my aoe is barrage. that’ll be really handy vs a cloaked thief trying to get behind me and pew pew with a 6k backstab 4k heart 4k heart 3k basic.

afaik thief is the only DPS profession that can easily get away…..
And the best profession to do that also.

You can see where other profession are running towards so you don t risk running in the wrong direction.

You almost ever find thieves roaming in midst of opponent territories…..even really bad ones….you don t find bad players doing the same with other classes because they simply cannot.

Want a proof?
Ele mobility was nerfed quite a lot last patch (rtl CD increased 33%, vigor nerfed 2 times, and swiftness nerfed….along with healing nerfs).

Thief is more mobile and ALSO has stealth yet is fair ._.

I fail to see that reasoning…..

thieves stealth way too much. add that to the targeting system and they have a huge advantage.

they can’t have huge dmg and stealth. they need a straight dmg nerf along with the stealth nerf. this also applies to mesmers with stealth and clones and eles with.. well everything they have.

66% is balanced for spvp but not wvwvw? you can’t treat wvwvw like pve because it has enemies. it is a pvp zone for all that it has random pve stuffed in. it needs to be balanced around pvping.

Master of Timespace.2548:

A fact is that 95% wvw population are trash. All they do is zerg in huge blobs spamming skills. Then when they get owned by a single roamer thief, they come here to cry how OP thief is.

I removed some redundant language from your post. No need to be verbose.

That’s the issue with thief as a whole. Low effort to be effective, free resets, insane regen/condition removal while stealthed, insane speed while stealthed, improved damage while stealthed……..

It’s pathetic how easy it is to play. It allows an average player to take on much more skilled players. That is probably by design. However, this issue is there are no diminishing returns on player ability with this class. There is not class to gradutate to from a thief. A thief set up is the optimal strategy for roaming. So you have a newbie class that is almost unkillable in the hands of a pro.

That’s the issue and the reason for my perspective. (All of this is from the perspective of roaming in WvW as well.)

vespers.1759:

66% is balanced for spvp but not wvwvw? you can’t treat wvwvw like pve because it has enemies. it is a pvp zone for all that it has random pve stuffed in. it needs to be balanced around pvping.

The e-sports arena is spvp thats where their main focus of balancing is. w3 was intended to be one gigantic chaotic zergfest its a pve zone. You cannot even talk to the invaders.

vespers.1759:

Sunflowers.1729:

Well it is possible that thieves are not overpowered, assuming you take the best players and no lag/culling.etc

Thieves are extremely good at preying on people who have low to decent skill level. While the very best players can counter a thief (which may or may not be true, but that’s a different issue from the one below), most can’t.

Is this a problem? Many thieves like to argue that “L2P n00b, if the best players can counter thieves, why can’t you do the same?”

Let’s take a different scenario. I’m a dungeon master – would it be appropriate to raise ALL dungeons to the difficulty of, say, Arah P4? Of course not; just because I can complete a difficult dungeon doesn’t mean that all dungeons should be made equally demanding – the average player needs something to do or they will quickly leave the game. What I’m saying is that the game cannot be balanced around the bestest estest players, same as the way that monsters in fractal lv 1 don’t instantly 100-0 you

WELL JEEZ SINCE PEOPLE CAN DO FRACTALS LV 40 AND NOT DIE I DON’T SEE WHY IT SHOULDN’T BE THAT WAY FROM LV 1. What a valid argument.

Now back to the thief-L2P argument. Is it easy to Steal + CnD + Backstab? Yeah you’d have to be pretty dumb to not pull it off. How about spamming heartseeker? Even easier!

Now how do you counter this thief? Oh you just have to stun him, hope he doesn’t press blinding powder or shadowstep to get out, then do a lot of damage. Of course you need to dodge backstabs from someone you can’t even see. Hit the air and be a mind reader, predicting where the thief went. If they shadow refuge you’d better have some way to forcibly remove them from the circle or they will reset the fight.

Yes, the best players can do that. But can an average player? No. So why should thieves be able to destroy people who suck, even though the thief sucks as bad?

Sure you can argue that the game is balanced around the highest skill levels since it is a competitive PvP game that they are aiming for, and I’d have to agree with you on that point.

However when you see mostly thieves and bunker builds (to survive the thieves) in WvW, it might be a sign that balancing should be done around the masses, preferably in a way that doesn’t affect the top-end viability of thieves (should Anet decide that at the very highest levels of play, thieves are not OP).

TLDR: L2P is not a valid argument – thieves can suck and still dominate.

well said. i’ll add that some thieves say “use aoe” well what about the classes that on’t even have aoe? i play ranger and my aoe is barrage. that’ll be really handy vs a cloaked thief trying to get behind me and pew pew with a 6k backstab 4k heart 4k heart 3k basic.

Funny because a Ranger with good Vigor and endurance recovery can be a real pain to fight for thieves. Horn 4 is good for keeping a thief marked. Same with Longbow 2. You’ve also got Cone AoEs, circle AoE traps, a lot of evades, good healing, a block counter and some other AoEs.

Per the wiki fleet shadow is bugged and thieves do not get a 50% speed buff: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fleet_Shadow. Can we clear up this misconception?

I agree that thieves using CnD on mobs end up being very annoying. However, there is nothing wrong with using class mechanics and the environment to one’s advantage. Should we nerf Fear in WvW because fighting a necro near a cliff means getting feared off?

People also need to learn to interrupt the thief stealth heal. Hide in Shadows has a one-second channel and the thief glows blue. It’s very obvious. Mesmer pistol 5, shatter 3, GS 5, Focus 4 will interrupt it. Warrior hammer F1 and physical utilities will also interrupt it. Thief pistol 4 will interrupt it. I can’t comment on any other class because these are the ones that I play. You can also interrupt the heartseeker combo that D/P thieves use (obvious because once you see the black powder circle, the next move will be a heartseeker for stealth).

Yams.6082:

People also need to learn to interrupt the thief stealth heal. Hide in Shadows has a one-second channel.

are you suggesting that 1 second channel is reactable in an online mmorpg?

Could we sticky any document explaining ununformed players how reaction works in online games so we stop reading these things.

Just easily..

Latency +
Recognition time to see what s happening (its not easy as reaction test in wich u see a dot changing colour)+
Time to think the correct answer +
Execution +
(possibly latency AGAIN depending on netcode)+
CHANNELING of countermove (i’ll take pistol 5 for example that requires HALF A SECOND).

Now its matematically IMPOSSIBLE to react a 1 second channeling in an online game….

I really hate all those L2P posts by players ignoring basic stuff…

P.S. consider that a mmorpg latency would be considered UNPLAYABLE for any fighting game player….so all those discussions about reaction and balance are flawed by definition.

And that in the case everything works fine.
Add the state of www with huge server side HARDWARE/overload latency…..

Sunflowers.1729:

Well it is possible that thieves are not overpowered, assuming you take the best players and no lag/culling.etc

Thieves are extremely good at preying on people who have low to decent skill level. While the very best players can counter a thief (which may or may not be true, but that’s a different issue from the one below), most can’t.

Is this a problem? Many thieves like to argue that “L2P n00b, if the best players can counter thieves, why can’t you do the same?”

Let’s take a different scenario. I’m a dungeon master – would it be appropriate to raise ALL dungeons to the difficulty of, say, Arah P4? Of course not; just because I can complete a difficult dungeon doesn’t mean that all dungeons should be made equally demanding – the average player needs something to do or they will quickly leave the game. What I’m saying is that the game cannot be balanced around the bestest estest players, same as the way that monsters in fractal lv 1 don’t instantly 100-0 you

WELL JEEZ SINCE PEOPLE CAN DO FRACTALS LV 40 AND NOT DIE I DON’T SEE WHY IT SHOULDN’T BE THAT WAY FROM LV 1. What a valid argument.

Now back to the thief-L2P argument. Is it easy to Steal + CnD + Backstab? Yeah you’d have to be pretty dumb to not pull it off. How about spamming heartseeker? Even easier!

Now how do you counter this thief? Oh you just have to stun him, hope he doesn’t press blinding powder or shadowstep to get out, then do a lot of damage. Of course you need to dodge backstabs from someone you can’t even see. Hit the air and be a mind reader, predicting where the thief went. If they shadow refuge you’d better have some way to forcibly remove them from the circle or they will reset the fight.

Yes, the best players can do that. But can an average player? No. So why should thieves be able to destroy people who suck, even though the thief sucks as bad?

Sure you can argue that the game is balanced around the highest skill levels since it is a competitive PvP game that they are aiming for, and I’d have to agree with you on that point.

However when you see mostly thieves and bunker builds (to survive the thieves) in WvW, it might be a sign that balancing should be done around the masses, preferably in a way that doesn’t affect the top-end viability of thieves (should Anet decide that at the very highest levels of play, thieves are not OP).

TLDR: L2P is not a valid argument – thieves can suck and still dominate.

The elephant in the corner of the room that you’re ignoring with your reasoning is that the WvW gamemode is not a deathmatch. There’s not even a kill board. Even if the best player in the world plays a thief and runs around a borderland all day long ganking people in 1v1 and never dies, it doesn’t contribute to winning. All he would get is meager loot that a gold farmer would scoff at. “Dominate?” There’s no domination. It’s just ego stroking at best.

Classes are balanced around their ability to contribute to winning the gamemodes that the game actually has. There is no 1v1 arena game mode. Thieves’ real ability as a class to contribute to winning WvW is middle tier at best, and they aren’t near the top of any other gamemode that exists either.

LordByron.8369:

Yams.6082:

People also need to learn to interrupt the thief stealth heal. Hide in Shadows has a one-second channel.

are you suggesting that 1 second channel is reactable in an online mmorpg?

Could we sticky any document explaining ununformed players how reaction works in online games so we stop reading these things.

Just easily..

Latency +
Recognition time to see what s happening (its not easy as reaction test in wich u see a dot changing colour)+
Time to think the correct answer +
Execution +
(possibly latency AGAIN depending on netcode)+
CHANNELING of countermove (i’ll take pistol 5 for example that requires HALF A SECOND).

Now its matematically IMPOSSIBLE to react a 1 second channeling in an online game….

I really hate all those L2P posts by players ignoring basic stuff…

P.S. consider that a mmorpg latency would be considered UNPLAYABLE for any fighting game player….so all those discussions about reaction and balance are flawed by definition.

And that in the case everything works fine.
Add the state of www with huge server side HARDWARE/overload latency…..

You never played Guild Wars 1. Top mesmers and rangers of gw1 could control the whole enemy team by placing interrupts on their key skills, some of which had 3/4 or even 1/2 second cast time. Not to mention that some players faked their casts to avoid being interrupted.

You all have good reason to moan about thieves stealth. But that is only due to culling. In spvp they are balanced ok because you can see them when you should be able to see them.

CUlling gives thieves extra stealth basically so its completely OP.

So killing Dolyaks, soloing camps, harassing supply runners, killing zerg reinforcements and previously back flipping towers all alone endlessly with nobody to stop you doesn’t contribute to WvW? Wow, could have fooled me.

Thieves are the literal troll class. Mess up? No problem, reset the fight at your whim. Enemy zerg coming? No problem, stab a rabbit and invis away. Downed a player around too many people? Go zerg diving, stab his corpse, get your kill and leave. You know, just like all those other classes that can go high damage, overextend into the enemy team and escape without repair costs. Oh wait.

RTL lets Eles do the same? UNACEPPTABLE NERF NERF NERF NERF

At least you could see whether the Ele was going to flee or keep fighting vs having to guess if the Thief is just trolling away or applying Basilisk and precasting CnD for you.

The real problem here is that thieves actually believe that being able to do whatever they want against anybody else without any risk involved isn’t the very definition of being an overpowered class, just like the rogue archetype has been in basically any other game.

TainoFuerte.8136:

So killing Dolyaks, soloing camps, harassing supply runners, killing zerg reinforcements and previously back flipping towers all alone endlessly with nobody to stop you doesn’t contribute to WvW? Wow, could have fooled me.

You’ve been playing during low population hours too much, especially if you think a thief can flip towers alone. That’s not WvW, that’s PvDoor. When playing PvDoor, you can do all of those things with ANY class.

Thieves could solo towers just fine:

And how is killing supply runners and zerg reinforcements PvDoor? lol

Thieves really like to pretend that killing people EZ PZ doesn’t matter, I see.

Master of Timespace.2548:

You never played Guild Wars 1. Top mesmers and rangers of gw1 could control the whole enemy team by placing interrupts on their key skills, some of which had 3/4 or even 1/2 second cast time. Not to mention that some players faked their casts to avoid being interrupted.

And the difference on prediction and reaction is another basic concepts players hould learn before posting anything about balance…..

Read again when i explained and said mathematically impossible to react ….
(before you try, the poster clearly says how the thief glows that implies a reaction…)

LordByron.8369:

Yams.6082:

People also need to learn to interrupt the thief stealth heal. Hide in Shadows has a one-second channel.

are you suggesting that 1 second channel is reactable in an online mmorpg?

Well, I try to interrupt any heals that I see, especially in a small-scale fight. 1 second is actually a long time. Unless I’m rolling in a sizeable group I don’t even bother with the Warrior’s hammer 5 skill because the cast time is so long.

I agree that latency is an issue. But if your connection speed isn’t as strong then that should affect all of your skills – not just the interrupts – and consequently your overall performance.

Reaction time is something like

250 milliseconds offline…for most fighting game 1VS1
And its easier because you EXPECT the action and control are way faster…..

add time to recognize the move
Add geographical latency X2

Add 500 msec channeling the answer….

I ll tell you again its IMPOSSIBLE…..expecially in www expecially in a mmorpg and moreover with gw2 www servers

Note that i m just talking of GEOGRAPHICAL latency…..and its quite relevant for most players…even more for US players.

I have quite an experience on the matter……due to past fighting game competitive experience paired with networking/netcode knowledge (work).

I gave even numbers what more do you want?

TainoFuerte.8136:

So killing Dolyaks, soloing camps, harassing supply runners, killing zerg reinforcements and previously back flipping towers all alone endlessly with nobody to stop you doesn’t contribute to WvW? Wow, could have fooled me.

Thieves are the literal troll class. Mess up? No problem, reset the fight at your whim. Enemy zerg coming? No problem, stab a rabbit and invis away. Downed a player around too many people? Go zerg diving, stab his corpse, get your kill and leave. You know, just like all those other classes that can go high damage, overextend into the enemy team and escape without repair costs. Oh wait.

RTL lets Eles do the same? UNACEPPTABLE NERF NERF NERF NERF

At least you could see whether the Ele was going to flee or keep fighting vs having to guess if the Thief is just trolling away or applying Basilisk and precasting CnD for you.

The real problem here is that thieves actually believe that being able to do whatever they want against anybody else without any risk involved isn’t the very definition of being an overpowered class, just like the rogue archetype has been in basically any other game.

Yes. List everything that any class can do with enough skill.

For the zerg thing, you realize that thief is the successor to they class whose job was to, shadowstep to key targets in the enemy party, burst them down then shadowstep back right? Also Assassins where tankier then Thieves, sporting things like sustainable enchantments that gave them a 75% chance to dodge attacks.

Thieves are supposed to be sneaky, sneaking around the enemy territory is sneaky, so excuse them for not running around like a drunken norn warrior looking for a brawl.

P.S. (cannot edit it seems.

Its quite common btw that players think to react thing they instead predict……
But its a mistake and a good opponent (read unpredictable) can actually prove that..

In most games unREACTABLE skills are weak due to their unpredictability and thus are just pokes to force players in committing mistakes.

In GW2 it seems you have an unreactbale class that can kill you unless you build against it and if it misses you have to PREDICT to punish it….
That is how things are …

As i said if KILLs counted in overall score, would be Crystal clear how horribly OP they are…..but anet decided to just bypass the problem balancing around dancing on a spot(pvp)……or random zergs (www) thing i do not agree and that is ruining PVE (the most unbalanced atm) for most players

Master of Timespace.2548:

A fact is that 95% wvw population are more socially adept than I . All they do is play in huge groups spamming skills, the way Anet wanted the game to be played. Then when they get insta gibbed by a single abusing culling thief, they describe how unfair it is to be abused by a game mechanic that is being exploited. However, I need to declare that I am socially inept and I do not want my class balanced because I like to compare game superiority to my social standing.

There you go buddy, I fixed your post for you. You do not need to thank me.

Dual.8953:

Yes. List everything that any class can do with enough skill.

Ah, the “everyone just needs skill” argument. It just so happens that those people in the woods hacking at dolyaks are thieves for lore reasons? It’s not that, for example, a random Necro caught in the middle of nowhere by 2 or 3 guys is completely fubared vs a thief who just stabs a deer and runs away?

For the zerg thing, you realize that thief is the successor to they class whose job was to, shadowstep to key targets in the enemy party, burst them down then shadowstep back right? Also Assassins where tankier then Thieves, sporting things like sustainable enchantments that gave them a 75% chance to dodge attacks.

Thieves are supposed to be sneaky, sneaking around the enemy territory is sneaky, so excuse them for not running around like a drunken norn warrior looking for a brawl.

I didn’t realize “sneaky” meant literally zerg diving and doing whatever. Fascinating.

It’s like thieves don’t tire of using the same arguments. Right here it’s “thieves are supposed to be broken”.

Sorry, not buying.

TainoFuerte.8136:

Thieves could solo towers just fine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gBpX2iN4M0

And how is killing supply runners and zerg reinforcements PvDoor? lol

Thieves really like to pretend that killing people EZ PZ doesn’t matter, I see.

I didn’t watch your video, but when I play in WvW there’s these things called “enemy players” that defend towers. If the enemy knows your coming, there’s at least 20 of them. If you catch them completely off guard, there’s generally 5 to 10 of them that are either already in the tower or in the neighborhood or show up trying to get in by the time 3 rams can melt a door or a few catapults ninja a less visible wall or something.

All it takes is one similarly skilled defender opposing a solo attacker to make solo killing a lord impossible.

It makes no sense for Arenanet to try to balance the game for a condition in which no one is actually playing.

Fred Fargone.3127:

The way I see it,
we have conditions, and we have condition removals,
we got buffs, and we got debuffs,
we got stealth, and we got… Apples?
How about some stealth removing mechanism? For example, if you burn a thief, well, a human torch shouldn’t even be able to stealth. If you lodge your sword between his ribs, how can you not tell he is there? If you’re a mesmer… stealth is a type of illusion (right?) so surely a mesmer needs some counter skill for that, they’re the masters of illusion after all!

We got immune and we got Grapes?

We got invulnerable and we got Watermelon.

You can’t apply real world logic about burning and bleeding I am sure you can see why.

TainoFuerte.8136:

Dual.8953:

Yes. List everything that any class can do with enough skill.

Ah, the “everyone just needs skill” argument. It just so happens that those people in the woods hacking at dolyaks are thieves for lore reasons? It’s not that, for example, a random Necro caught in the middle of nowhere by 2 or 3 guys is completely fubared vs a thief who just stabs a deer and runs away?

For the zerg thing, you realize that thief is the successor to they class whose job was to, shadowstep to key targets in the enemy party, burst them down then shadowstep back right? Also Assassins where tankier then Thieves, sporting things like sustainable enchantments that gave them a 75% chance to dodge attacks.

Thieves are supposed to be sneaky, sneaking around the enemy territory is sneaky, so excuse them for not running around like a drunken norn warrior looking for a brawl.

I didn’t realize “sneaky” meant literally zerg diving and doing whatever. Fascinating.

It’s like thieves don’t tire of using the same arguments. Right here it’s “thieves are supposed to be broken”.

Sorry, not buying.

Anyone can solo a dolyak. I do it on my underleveled alts. The skill thing was more pretaining to the soloing camps and keeps. Anyone can do that with enough skill.

I’m guessing you never seen what a good necro can do.

They’re doing what they’ve always done. Hunting squishies in the enemy party, just like the GW1 Assassin. You’re saying they aren’t sneaking to do that? They aren’t marching around for all to see, they’d die instantly if they did that, so yes they’re sneaking.

It’s not reasonable to have any expectation for reactively interrupting a 1s in a MMOG. It can absolutely be interrupted, but when it does it’s either a lucky accident or a lucky prediction/anticipation. Just basic logical analysis of the numbers involved rules out 1s as too short of a window. 2s is pretty much the shortest reasonable window, assuming the interrupting player is actively watching for their cue and reacting to it – not guessing with anticipation.

An ability with a 1s cast time just isn’t designed to be reactively interrupted.

I think if they fixed the culling effect it would be acceptable as is. One second of visibility is total bs. If you say its a skill thing then at this point you need a reassessment of your own skill..

It is hard to make a call one way or the other until they fix culling, but even with that being said it would be more constructive if the other side simply didn’t say l2p.

Dralor.3701:

It is hard to make a call one way or the other until they fix culling, but even with that being said it would be more constructive if the other side simply didn’t say l2p.

The other side has tried giving specific advice, and it was thrown back in thier faces.

Learn to fight invisible players who can reset at will is not specific advice, there is in fact no advice you can give. The only two tactics that work are stalling while you run to safety, being a full bunker spec who they can never kill or running with a mob.

Dralor.3701:

Learn to fight invisible players who can reset at will is not specific advice, there is in fact no advice you can give. The only two tactics that work are stalling while you run to safety, being a full bunker spec who they can never kill or running with a mob.

See that there is the attitude. We’ve tried explaining coming tactics, weaknesses, tendancies. Other players try to ignore it or talk it down. They don’t want to improve, they want free kills.